World of Warships Final Review: Tier X Japanese Cruiser Yodo

With Update 0.11.10, the Japanese light cruisers are entering the early access phase. As such, it’s time to see if they are anything worth grinding.

When it comes to the early access, Takahashi will be available in random bundles, most likely costing 1 000 doubloons each. Agano, Gokase, Shimanto, and Yodo will be part of consecutive bundles available for tokens with Yodo being available for 20 000 doubloons as the last bundle. By now, I think you know the drill.

Historical background

Just like Shimanto and Takahashi, Yodo is a fictional design using the 150 mm anti-aircraft guns from the Imperial Japanese Army. While the first two are upscaled versions of Mogami and Ibuki, Yodo is somewhat similar to Atago but with a 6th turret. As such, Yodo gets the record of the highest number of shells in one salvo with 18 shells compared to the previous record that was of “only” 16 shells.

Ship’s preview

The camouflages

The permanent camouflage of Yodo comes with the standard permanent tier X economic bonuses:

• +50% Credits
• +100% XP
• +100% Commander XP
• +100% Free XP

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Heaviest broadside in the game with 18 guns
• High alpha damage per salvo
• Very fast turret traverse
• Turrets able to turn at 360° except for one
• Good firing range
• Torpedoes with high damage and flooding chances
• Decent torpedo reload time
• Fairly strong anti-air
• Good concealment

The Bad

• Long main battery reload time for a light cruiser
• Only able to penetrate 30 mm armor
• Poor ballistics
• Low AP penetration
• Torpedoes with low speed
• Torpedoes with poor spotting distance
• Large turning radius
• Long rudder shift time
• Very large ship for a light cruiser
• Turrets getting disabled easily

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Yodo	Propulsion: 190 000 HP	‎Type10 mod. 1	150 mm/60 5th Year Type in a triple turret	Type 93

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3	Slot 4
Damage Control Party Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s	Defensive AA Fire Number of charges: 3 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 80 s Continuous Damage: +50% Damage from shell explosions: +300%	Fighter Number of charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of planes in a squadron: 3 Patrol radius: 3.0 km	Repair Party Number of charges: 3 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration: 0.5%/s Casemate damage regeneration: 50% Citadel damage regeneration: 33%
	Hydroacoustic Search Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km Ship spotting range: 5.0 km

Good Lord… Where do I even start with that God-forsaken line?

So… Yodo, alongside the rest of the IJN light cruisers, is supposed to be somewhat of a middle ground between roaming DPS cruisers and torpedo cruisers. The problem is that… they suck at both of these jobs.

When it comes to being DPS cruisers, while they have the alpha damage advantage (some of them at least), the continuous DPS is just not there. For whatever reason, Wargaming just kept on gutting their damage output with the exception being Yodo herself. Even in her case, she is all the way down the food chain. This is not helped by the short firing range of the low/mid-tier ships that forces them to operate at close/medium range at which point, it’s their lack of armor that also cripples them a lot. For the high-tier ships, they also have to suffer from poor ballistics as, for whatever reason, only Omono gets access to the 155 mm guns. Starting from Shimanto, you get 150 mm guns with shells that lose a ton of speed over the distance. As if it wasn’t enough, they are particularly big ships with poor turning radius and rudder shift time.

When it comes to the torpedo cruisers part… Well, it’s not looking good either. If you want your ships to be partially focused on their torpedo, said torpedoes need to be reliable. The torpedoes of the IJN light cruisers aren’t. They suffer from a combined low speed and poor detection range. This means that anyone with a working brain and keyboard will not have much problem dodging the torpedoes.

If you want the ship in action, here is a commented replay of one of my games:

Main Armament

6 x 3 150 mm/60 5th Year Type in a triple turret All turrets except n°6 can rotate at 360°
Maximum Firing Range	18.000 km
Reloading Time	12.5 s
180 Degree Turn Time	6.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	37°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	36°
Sigma	2.05 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	150 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 150 mm HE Type 0
Alpha Damage	2 500
Penetration capacity	30 mm
Explosion size	0.52
Fire chance	10 %
Projectile Speed	930 m/s
Air Drag	0.278
Projectile Mass	41.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 150 mm AP Type 0
Alpha Damage	2 850
Projectile Speed	930 m/s
Air Drag	0.278
Projectile Mass	41.0 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 400
Projectile Detonator	0.025 s
Detonator threshold	25 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

The main battery of Yodo is… depressing. You would expect that having an eighteen-guns broadside would grant her great damage output. Well, think again.

Let’s get something clear first. Yes, she gets a high alpha damage per salvo. There is no denying it, if you are able to catch a destroyer, you will be able to clap the guy quite hard. Too bad that Venezia does that a lot better with her SAP and far superior ballistics.

Once you get passed the high alpha damage per salvo, there sadly is not much left to praise. Firstly, The reload for a light cruiser is atrocious at 12.5 seconds. If we start talking theoretical DPM, this brings Yodo’s HE DPM down to 216 000. in comparison, Worcester pumps out a whooping 344 348 HE DPM. Now you might think “Well yes but Alexander Nevsky only has a 200 000 HE DPM.” and you would be right. HOWEVER, Nevsky also has amazing ballistics, allowing her to get her shots on target far more easily. Unlike Yodo, she also has proper AP shells to punish broadside and to compensate for the HE, Nevsky is also much better at starting fires. Also, keep in mind that unlike the other two, dealing damage is the only form of impact of Yodo. So yeah… high alpha damage per salvo but at what cost?

Another problem of Yodo is her ballistics. It sounds nice to have an 18.0 km firing range but when the ballistics will barely allow you to hit battleships, not really sure what’s the point. The ballistics is especially painful as it is combined with a long main battery reload time. Unlike a Worcester or a Minotaur that both have worse fight time, you can’t just dump tons of shells down range to quickly find the proper lead. With that 12.5 seconds reload time (11.0 seconds with reload mod), you will struggle to get the lead right on cruisers and destroyers actively maneuvering unlike with a Zao or Venezia that have amazing ballistics to make each salvo count.

When it comes to the AP, it really will be limited to close-range engagement on broadside light cruisers or on the upper belt of battleships. The penetration is just too low to get meaningful damage out of it beyond that.

Secondary Armament

4 x 2 100 mm/65 Type 98 on a twin mount
Maximum Firing Range	7.300 km
Reloading Time	2.86 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 100 mm HE Type98
Alpha Damage	1 700
HE penetration	30 mm
Explosion Size	0.28
Chance to Cause Fire	6 %
Projectile Speed	1 000 m/s
Air Drag	0.331
Projectile Mass	13.0 kg

Decoration/10.

Torpedo Armament

4 x 4 610 mm Quad Type93 Torpedoes can be fired beyond their normal firing angles
Reloading Time	100 s
Maximum Distance	15.000 km
Optimal firing angles at the front	38°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	39°
Damage	23 767
Flooding Chance	406%
Speed	60 knots
Surface Detectability	1.7 km

The torpedoes of Yodo are a bit of a joke honestly. Sure, the reload time is nice and the damage is high but if Wargaming really wanted the IJN light cruisers to be partially torpedo-focused… might have been better to give them reliable torpedoes…
With the last buff of speed, the torpedo reaction time for Yodo went down to “only” 10.5 seconds which is… still far from good. For the sake of comparison, Gearing’s 16.5 km torpedoes have a reaction time of 7.9 seconds and for Halland’s torpedoes, it’s 7.79 seconds. The difference wouldn’t seem like much but it really is. With the combined low torpedo speed and poor detection range, you will heavily rely on enemy ships being extra dumb to eat these torpedoes and get you big damage.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air on Yodo might look nice on paper but it really isn’t. Sure, she gets eight flak and a very high long-range DPS on a 6.9 km anti-air but the medium and close-range aura DPS are quite terrible. Unless the enemy carrier is bad and takes a lot of flak damage, the continuous DPS won’t be able to shoot down the planes fast enough.

The Armor

Remember when people were complaining about the armor protection of Yoshino combined with her large size? Hold my sake.

The armor protection of Yodo is just terrible. She is covered with 25/30 mm plating on the outside, meaning that most cruisers will have an easy time getting penetration hits on her, and let’s not talk about battleships overmatch.
I also need to mention the turrets. These turrets are just rage-inducing as they are enormous and only protected by 25 to 32 mm armor. Due to the larger target they represent and with how many there are on the ship, you genuinely can expect them to get knockout constantly.

As a last nail in the coffin, the citadel is also thinly protected which is far from great considering how huge the ship is.

So long story short, as a whole, avoid getting shot at.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Citadel armor protection:

Final Opinion

Do I really need to state it? Well. I guess I do.

This whole line SUCKS. I had so much hope for them to be a proper line of roaming DPS light cruisers but instead, we get that wacky line of DPS/torpedo cruisers hybrid that are terrible at both tasks. On top of that, we are getting a tier X that basically takes all the characteristics one doesn’t want on a DPS cruiser and packs it all in one ship. Bad ballistics, bad armor, large size, bad maneuverability, low DPM.

I’m not going to go as far as saying that the line is dead on arrival but… I’m honestly at the edge of saying it.

So yeah… Yodo, more like “Why though?”.

Recommended Build

For the Yodo, I recommend the following commander build and upgrades:

If you have the Suzuki brothers, their improved Survivability Expert will be much needed.

This concludes my review of Yodo. Thank you for reading this article!

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Have a good one and see you soon!

Also if you are new to the game or want to get back to it, feel free to use my Recruiting Station code for free goodies such as Premium ships, premium time, and more: https://warships.net/yuzorah

Have a good one and see you soon!

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Yuzorah

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