Elbing

Fans of German Destroyers have long known the joy of combining enhanced armor piercing shells with large, 150mm guns. Elbing, and her tech tree companions, capitalize on these guns and shells to provide a unique, and in my opinion very fun, gunboat experience. Let’s dig in.

Offensive Tools

Guns

It should come as no surprise that Elbing’s primary offensive weapon is its guns. What may be surprising, however, is just how good these guns really are. 150mm guns that can be set up to reach out to 18.6km, have a maximum dispersion of 74m, and have a 960m/s shell velocity are even more fun than you may imagine at first. These guns can citadel cruisers at 18km routinely, and even deal consistent, meaningful damage to battleships. When used skillfully, its guns make Elbing a fantastic and fun offensive ship.

Defensive Tools

Range, Smoke, & Decent AA

Avoiding damage in Elbing is different than other destroyers. It can’t hide very well (it’s lowest detectability is 6.5km), and as a big ship, it’s not fast or quick enough to dodge incoming fire reliably. What it does have is range, a smoke consumable, and a Defensive AA Fire consumable that makes its anti-aircraft fire just good enough to discourage enemy carriers. If you use these tools to become the least attractive target, Elbing becomes a competent defensive ship, which in turn makes it an even better offensive ship.

Support Tools

Psychological Warfare & Area Denial Torpedoes

Gunboats are generally best played a bit selfishly, and Elbing is no different. Its guns can make any enemy ship turn and give up positions and angles. The torpedoes, which are slow but have great range, are good for dropping into chokepoints and contested areas, again making enemies turn to avoid them or risk flooding. On the support side, Elbing is all about creating these disadvantaged angles for enemies, which lead to large damage salvos from both Elbing and other friendly ships.

What To Do

Stay calm and keep shooting.

So what do you do with these tools? My opinion is that you should try to play the ship at range (greater than 15km) and use the accurate guns to harass anything that is spotted. Use the AP shells primarily, as the HE shells offer far less predictable damage. Even on enemy destroyers, the AP is often the better choice as the overpenetration damage can stack quickly.

Position in the mid-to-back of your team, let someone else spot, and offer them gun support. Be relentless in your offense and you can create great opportunities for friendly battleships to land high-alpha-damage salvos.

What To Avoid

Knife Fights

This ship struggles when it gets too close to anything. Of course, great players can make even bad ships do good things, so don’t think that Elbing is helpless when enemies get close, it’s just far weaker in that situation.

How To Fight It

Keep It Detected

If Elbing is allowed to move in and out of detection as it pleases, damage will start to stack up quickly. Because the ship is large and slow, anyone playing it has to be very aware of incoming fire. Keeping the ship spotted doesn’t always mean your teammates will take the opportunity to shoot at it, but it does mean that Elbing will have to constantly (re)consider its positioning. This may lead to Elbing only having its rear guns in the fight, but that’s a 33% reduction in damage output and is probably worth it. The best case scenarios are that Elbing is under fire and having to stop shooting altogether; or uses uses smoke to break detection making torpedoes a viable weapon against it.

Overall Opinion

FUN

During testing and early access, Elbing and other ships in its tech tree went through a lot of changes. I love gunboats, so I was excited for the line and spent a good amount of time testing all of the ships. During that time, a LOT of people complained about the line in general, calling the ships “useless” and criticizing WG for even including them in the game. While they complained, I giggled maniacally every time I played Elbing, delighted that the negative feedback meant it wasn’t getting nerfed into oblivion.

The result is one of my favorite ships in the game. I love playing Elbing. Situationally, it is incredibly powerful, bordering on overpowered. But overall it is balanced by the fact that so few people invest the time to get good at gunboats. Along with Khabarovsk and Kléber, Elbing creates some of the most entertaining moments in the game by landing multiple citadels against light cruisers. The opportunity to punish Smolensk and Worcester alone makes the ship worth having.

Takeaway: It’s a decent-to-good tech tree line and Elbing is a great gunboat that is more than worth the grind.