World of Warships: Mogador and Kléber Initial Testing and coming nerf to Kléber

As the French destroyers are slowly approaching (quite ironic since they are some of the fastest ships in the game), the testing of these ships began with the top of the tree. Let’s talk about the French tier IX destroyer Mogador and the tier X Kléber.

These ships are of course still a work in progress so just to be sure that nobody forgets it:

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If you want to know more about the 2 ships, here are their detailed stats:

Mogador

Kléber

French Tier IX Destroyer Mogador: Speed Demon

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The conditions of testing

During the testing of the Mogador, I used the following captain build and upgrades:

Captain build:

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Priority Target
Preventive Maintenance
Last Stand
Adrenaline Rush
Survivability Expert
Basic Firing Training
Superintendent
Concealment Expert

Upgrades:

Main Armaments Modification 1
Engine Boost Modification 1
AA Guns Modification 1
Steering Gears Modification 2
Concealment System Modification 1
Gun Fire Control System Modification 1

The Good and the Bad

The Good

Fantastic ballistic
Great AP performances
Main battery reload booster
Very fast torpedoes that hit hard
Base maximum speed 43.5 knots
Good handling
+20% engine boost
Saturable middle section
Large HP pool

The Bad

Slow base reload
Extra thicc (It’s a big target)
Meh anti-air
No smoke or repair party
Higher than average spotting range by sea and by air
Limiting firing angles

My opinion

The Mogador is an amazingly fun ship to play. It is hard to master due to the lack of defensive tool but when you get past that, it is simply great!

The firepower is the main thing of the Mogador. With her 8 139 mm guns, she packs a massive punch no matter the target. What I noticed is that a lot of people underestimate the AP penetration of her guns but it is a very big mistake.

Here is a little comparison with the Minotaur:

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Above 9.8 km, the Mogador has a slightly better penetration but on top of that, she has a much better ballistic making it easier for the shells to penetrate. The shell travel times makes it also quite easy to hit ships at long range.

A drawback of the Mogador is, however, the slow reload of 7 seconds. With my build, I could bring it down to 6.3 seconds but in a gunfight with things like Kitakaze, she will be at a disadvantage. HOWEVER, she has that little made in France consumable that makes her hold her ground quite easily and it’s the Main Battery Reload Booster. When that consumable is active, it cuts down her reload to 3.15 seconds (with my build) for a duration of 15 seconds. This gives her a serious DPM burst that will help her in gunfights, to punish cruisers giving her broadside or to set a fire on a ship that freshly used its damage control party.

The torpedoes on the ship are also a very strong tool. They only have 8 km range but they race at 75 knots and each torpedo deals at max 18 400 damage. On top of that, they have a very fast reload meaning that even with an Engine boost active, by the time you reach the capture point, they are loaded and you can enjoy First blood devastating strikes on enemy destroyers (and trust me, that happens a lot).

The other key point of that ship is her agility. She is tailor-made for open water gunboating. With a speed that can reach almost 54 knots and overall good maneuverability, after the first few minutes, her main role will be as a damage dealer, always harassing the enemy ships and when possible, punishing hard enemy destroyers. Also, with your speed, a lot of ships will struggle to land hits on the ship.

The concealment is quite decent on this ship. Once fully specced for it, you only get a 6.4 km detection by sea and 3.2 km detection by air. This is especially a problem if an enemy CV has a hard one for you because, with rockets, he will have the time to line them up right after spotting you.

Finally, the Mogador, just like the rest of the French destroyers has a saturable middle section. This means that you will quickly take much less damage from hits scored on it. This gives her a surprising survivability bonus.

Conclusion

As of right, now, the ship is really great to play with a both comfortable yet relatively hard to master playstyle due to her lack of defense. I don’t think that she needs any specific nerf except for her spotting range by sea. However, I wouldn’t mind having her getting an improved air spotting range so that CVs have 0 issues to striker her. Maybe, and that’s a big maybe giving her a repair party so that she isn’t completely defenseless but that’s about it.