So what the hell is going on, how can smaller guns be better? It gets a lot of them, and they fire bloody fast. Oh, I'm not kidding, in fact its guns are smaller than the Furutaka, the tier 5 Japanese cruiser. Why? Well, the Cleveland seems to gain much of its love from one fact, which is that its guns are smaller than it contemporaries. Hell, I actually felt like the Pensacola was a downgrade when I first captained it (more on that later). Topping it all off is the fact that the tier 7 cruiser, the Pensacola class cruiser, feels less competitive for its tier, and sometimes gets beaten up by the Cleveland, makes the Cleveland leave a better impression on the player. Its Japanese counterpart, the Aoba, is an excellent ship, but somehow just doesn't earn the same appreciation that the Cleveland does.

Something about the way that the Cleveland looks, or perhaps its all turreted armament (the t5 Omaha still had some of its guns in casemate barbettes, which is so WW1), make the Cleveland just feel more modern than its predecessors. For those who have never heard of it, and are perhaps following this blog to get an introduction to the game, the Cleveland class American cruiser, unlocked at tier 6, is a ship that stands out from the crowd because of its outstanding armament, its superb anti-aircraft capabilities, and the fact that it is the first of the truly high-tech feeling ships in the American cruiser line.

The meta of the game has changed a bit since the closed beta test, but the Cleveland really hasn't changed much at all. No matter how hard I tried, though, I really couldn't find much fault in returning to this thing after a few months of separation. As a former fat kid with no social skills, I find myself wanting to find something negative to say about the Cleveland, especially since it never used to speak to me, or even make eye contact. In a lot of respects the Cleveland is one of the poster-girls for the game, and is kind of like that one popular girl that everyone knew a story about, and all the popular guys bragged about. Famous commentators, such as Jingles, QB, iChaseGaming etc, have all given this thing sparkling reviews and praised it as the messiah with a keel. The Cleveland is one of those ships that needs little introduction to anyone even remotely familiar with WoWs. So the other day I teased an image of the Cleveland class cruiser, and while I've had barely any time to play it, I can say that it is like riding a bike, and getting behind the rudder felt just as good as it did in the closed beta version of WoWs.

How to play cleveland world of warships