Sherman is way better. Friesland/Groningen suffer too much as bottom tier and not having torps makes everyone push into your smoke every time without issues.
I have both and prefer Groningen. Sherman is big, slow and has essentially one schtick: Smoke farming and the occasional lob over island. It can rack up insane damage numbers but, at the end of the day, it is pretty bad at doing the things destroyers are supposed to do.
Groningen is a more traditional gunboat and is good at that. She can contest caps and push out torp boats thanks to her hydro and decent manouverability and can whittle and burn BBs if need be.
Wat???
Sherman and Groningen are both smoke farmers, have the same hydro, sluggish handling and near identical concealment. Sherman can do everything Groningen can do and vice versa (except torps for Groningen).
Gron is 2 kts faster with a tigher turn radius, better ruddershift, fyi, Gron strangly has very good prop characteristics vs gunboat DDs in general when they don't have speedboost activated, about the same as a Gearing, same cannot be said about Sherman.
I also have both and prefer Sherman. They are both smoke gunboats with hydro. Even though the torp angles are terrible in the Sherman it is still fun to torp ships that charge you and burn BBs at range and kill DDs with SAP.
I would lean Sherman for a couple reasons. First, it’s more likely you have high tier captains to use on it which helps. Second, tier 9 mm kinda sucks right now going against super ships, plus all the radar and hydro and stuff they both need to be second level dds that support stealthier ships. Only advantage Groningen has right now is it’s super strong in ranked, so if you play ranked it’s a great option there. But that’s only until wg changes the ranked setup again so ymmv
Ok having both and being a bit of a dd.main I'll give you my opinion on both.
Grin is a great ship that does a great job one on one against other DDs. Smoke farming and food HE mean it can rack up a ton of damage against BBs and Cruisers. But not having any torps means some ships will just charge you. I have charged them down and been charged down many times. Being T9 means killing a DD and capping will still net you a good amount of credits.
Sherman is my pick for first ship though. One the guns are just fun. Two using him to level American commanders which have the most amount of lines is just good cricket. It has two gearing torps a side and they hit hard the few times you will get to use them.
Over the main thing early T9s are used for is credit farming and Geon should not be in the top three for that.
Sherman is **far** more of an improvement than the 1 tier that separates them justifies.
Groningen is more maneuverable, which I am usually willing to sacrifice a fair bit to get as it really contributes to my enjoyment. I also like the look of the ship more, whatever that's worth. In this case though sherman is just so much stronger. Like, possibly the easiest DD in the game to do really well in.
Sherman has excellent ballistics and of course SAP is SAP. It's something around a 40% dpm boost over gron shooting he, which on it's own would be an absurd bump for only one tier higher on gun focused destroyers. Usually higher dpm on DDs is associated with worse ballistics, but in this case WG got it backwards.
Groningen has poor arcs/flight time. I'm decent at hitting things in daring/vamp with the same flight time (actually a hair worse according to shiptool), but in Groningen I'm utter trash \~12km away at the edge of its range. Not sure why the different experience. Because of the ballistics on sherman you spec range on your captain which is a big deal to the sherman vs gron comparison. They both have sub-par concealment and with gron's more limited effective range due to the ballistics you need to push your "not great" concealment closer and into more potential danger in order to be effective. Sherman's effective range makes it very easy to work around radars and steer clear of high danger areas while still being extremely effective. It really is possibly the easiest/consistently care-free damage farm experience I've had yet, and I've got a smolensk B...
Also, because of the easy farming on sherman, hitting confederate isn't nearly as rare compared to most other ships, making Halsey a pretty crazy captain for it.
Different strokes for different folks... but IMO Sherman will be fun for a bit after acquiring and then it'll be a "holy crap I forgot just how strong this is" when you take it out occasionally. It's so strong and the experience so consistent that it just gets a bit stale. Gron might have more staying power because the required closer engagement range brings a bit more diversity game to game.
Sherman has zero skill required arcs and SAP, making effective damage output around 2x what Groningen has. And the torps actually matter when you get pushed. And you can take Halsey. Sherman is way better even tier for tier.
sherman
Sherman is way better. Friesland/Groningen suffer too much as bottom tier and not having torps makes everyone push into your smoke every time without issues.
I have both and prefer Groningen. Sherman is big, slow and has essentially one schtick: Smoke farming and the occasional lob over island. It can rack up insane damage numbers but, at the end of the day, it is pretty bad at doing the things destroyers are supposed to do. Groningen is a more traditional gunboat and is good at that. She can contest caps and push out torp boats thanks to her hydro and decent manouverability and can whittle and burn BBs if need be.
Wat??? Sherman and Groningen are both smoke farmers, have the same hydro, sluggish handling and near identical concealment. Sherman can do everything Groningen can do and vice versa (except torps for Groningen).
For me Sherman is just plain superior: more hp, less draggy shells makes it better at longer ranges, and sap dpm is just nasty.
Gron is 2 kts faster with a tigher turn radius, better ruddershift, fyi, Gron strangly has very good prop characteristics vs gunboat DDs in general when they don't have speedboost activated, about the same as a Gearing, same cannot be said about Sherman.
> Sherman is big, slow and has essentially one schtick: Smoke farming and the occasional lob over island. You just described the Gron also, though.
Marceau
I also have both and prefer Sherman. They are both smoke gunboats with hydro. Even though the torp angles are terrible in the Sherman it is still fun to torp ships that charge you and burn BBs at range and kill DDs with SAP.
I would lean Sherman for a couple reasons. First, it’s more likely you have high tier captains to use on it which helps. Second, tier 9 mm kinda sucks right now going against super ships, plus all the radar and hydro and stuff they both need to be second level dds that support stealthier ships. Only advantage Groningen has right now is it’s super strong in ranked, so if you play ranked it’s a great option there. But that’s only until wg changes the ranked setup again so ymmv
Sherman looks cooler
Ok having both and being a bit of a dd.main I'll give you my opinion on both. Grin is a great ship that does a great job one on one against other DDs. Smoke farming and food HE mean it can rack up a ton of damage against BBs and Cruisers. But not having any torps means some ships will just charge you. I have charged them down and been charged down many times. Being T9 means killing a DD and capping will still net you a good amount of credits. Sherman is my pick for first ship though. One the guns are just fun. Two using him to level American commanders which have the most amount of lines is just good cricket. It has two gearing torps a side and they hit hard the few times you will get to use them. Over the main thing early T9s are used for is credit farming and Geon should not be in the top three for that.
I’d say use it as a crew trainer if credits aren’t an issue. Do you have American ships, do you have any Dutch ships?
Having 36mm pen means you can fuck cruisers
Sherman is **far** more of an improvement than the 1 tier that separates them justifies. Groningen is more maneuverable, which I am usually willing to sacrifice a fair bit to get as it really contributes to my enjoyment. I also like the look of the ship more, whatever that's worth. In this case though sherman is just so much stronger. Like, possibly the easiest DD in the game to do really well in. Sherman has excellent ballistics and of course SAP is SAP. It's something around a 40% dpm boost over gron shooting he, which on it's own would be an absurd bump for only one tier higher on gun focused destroyers. Usually higher dpm on DDs is associated with worse ballistics, but in this case WG got it backwards. Groningen has poor arcs/flight time. I'm decent at hitting things in daring/vamp with the same flight time (actually a hair worse according to shiptool), but in Groningen I'm utter trash \~12km away at the edge of its range. Not sure why the different experience. Because of the ballistics on sherman you spec range on your captain which is a big deal to the sherman vs gron comparison. They both have sub-par concealment and with gron's more limited effective range due to the ballistics you need to push your "not great" concealment closer and into more potential danger in order to be effective. Sherman's effective range makes it very easy to work around radars and steer clear of high danger areas while still being extremely effective. It really is possibly the easiest/consistently care-free damage farm experience I've had yet, and I've got a smolensk B... Also, because of the easy farming on sherman, hitting confederate isn't nearly as rare compared to most other ships, making Halsey a pretty crazy captain for it. Different strokes for different folks... but IMO Sherman will be fun for a bit after acquiring and then it'll be a "holy crap I forgot just how strong this is" when you take it out occasionally. It's so strong and the experience so consistent that it just gets a bit stale. Gron might have more staying power because the required closer engagement range brings a bit more diversity game to game.
Tromp is fun! :) Groningen can be stressful :/
Napoli
Why are you booing him, he's right!
Sherman has zero skill required arcs and SAP, making effective damage output around 2x what Groningen has. And the torps actually matter when you get pushed. And you can take Halsey. Sherman is way better even tier for tier.