World of Warships has many premium ships that are blatantly superior to the tech tree ships. The game developer, Wargaming, has a policy of not nerfing premium ships after they are released, to avoid causing fights with players who have spent money on those ships. Instead they are removed from sale, the ultimate confirmation that a ship was too powerful to allow to keep being acquired.
- It's generally considered that the Russian tech tree lines don't have a single bad line, unlike say, the Germans, who have a mediocre Destroyer line and a terrible Battleship line.
- The Russian Battleship line is ship after ship of extremely tanky ships with large health pools, good maneuverability, turret traverses and good weaponry. The two standouts however are the Tier 7 Sinop and Tier 10 Kremlin. Sinop is tier for tier one of the strongest ships in the entire game and a dominant force in the 16th Ranked Season, while Kremlin is at a minimum in the top 3 best non-Carrier ships in the entire game.
- Aircraft Carriers in general have been a long hated element of the game for those who just want to fight surface battles between gun warships. Even after Wargaming rebuilt the CV element of the game from scratch, replacing the Real Time Strategy model of the player controlling multiple squadrons in a top down map mod to a Third Person perspective where the player controls one squadron directly, it has done absolutely nothing to tamp down the desire from the much larger non-CV portion of the fanbase who want CV's completely removed from the game. They break the game for the same reason they did in World War 2, with fast aircraft that can decide when to engage, vs surface battleships that can do nothing but try in vain to shoot down the planes.
- Wargaming giving CV's rocket planes is a huge reason for the massive abandonment of the Destroyer class, as the rocket planes can continually harass and kill destroyers who have very little counterplay, and make it nearly impossible to do their job of scouting & point capturing when a CV is stalking them.
- The issue came to a head when CVs were introduced into Clan Battles, which led many clans to complain that at the highest levels of play, every game turned into massively unfun camp contests due to the ease that carriers could spot enemy ships, thus ruining any ability for either team to make any sort of risky play. This has led many clans to outright boycott future Clan Battles seasons until CVs are removed or changed.
- At Tier 8 the "899 Division" can obliterate enemy CV's. It requires a Tier 8 Carrier with fast planes like the Graf Zeppelin in a division with 2 Tier-9 battleships (Most notably the Tier-9 Musashi.) The CV flies to the enemy carrier to spot them, and the two Musashi ships uses their long range guns + spotter plane to shoot and kill the enemy carrier, which can't shoot down the enemy planes quickly enough to stop it getting stomped. This tactic has a limitation however, in that it doesn't work at Tier 6 because ships that match with a Tier 6 Carrier don't have the long range, and it doesn't work at Tier 10 because the Tier 10 carriers have armoured decks that prevent them getting massively penetrated.
- It does, however, work in Tier IV. Any carrier can be used, since the planes are all basically the same, with two Kongos in the same division.
- Wargaming has been testing the addition of Submarines to the game, which during this testing make Battleships a sitting duck with no counterplay.
- And with their addition to the game... Let's just say MOST PEOPLE hate them. Equipped with homing torpedoes and moving at speeds so fast that their counters (ships with depth charges) can barely even hurt them due to their speed being far beyond what is historical (which was a factor of how depth charges were used against submarines IRL, since diesel subs were slow), and finally, requiring teamwork in the hectic and unreliable environment of random battles, there have been multiple calls for their removal.
- Imperator Nikolai I, an attempt to create a Tier 4 battleship that can fight in Tier 6 matches, which ended up being so overpowered that Wargaming decided that the ship will never be on sale again. It's only major weakness is it's awful AA suite. It could keep 9 of it's 12 guns aimed at a target even if the ship was angling to prevent damage and it's bow plating was very strong. It was also buffed by a matchmaking patch that saw it end up never fighting against the higher tiered ships it was intended to fight.
- Flint, a Tier 7 premium American cruiser, modified from the Atlanta class by removing the wing turrets. It was also given longer ranged torpedoes and a better AA package. The gamebreakers were that the only people who got their hands on this ship were the highly skilled ranked players, that it was given the smokescreen that is normally reserved for destroyers and the Inertia Fuse talent that made it's shells much more likely to penetrate enemy ships and do direct damage instead of having to rely on starting fires.
- The Japanese Kamikaze and Halloween-themed twin Fujin destroyers were so good at the stealth torpedo role that they were removed from sale permanently.
- Belfast is considered one of the most overpowered Tier 7 cruisers. Belfast can fire both AP AND HE shells, already making her far more versatile (though less unique with the advent of the British heavy cruiser line, which have both HE and AP), she can also take smokescreen, hydroacoustic search, AND radar consumables at the same time! It was also somehow given access to the Tier 8 upgrade slot, allowing her to mount the Concealment Module. With a full stealth build, Belfast can reduce her detection range to 8.7km. Combined with the fact that her radar has a range of 8.5km, Belfast becomes the ultimate destroyer hunter.
- Mikhail Kutuzov was added to the banned premium list for being too good against everything, with good torpedoes, extremely accurate weaponry with a long range and a smokescreen.
- Kidd earned a reputation as being one of the most powerful Tier 8 destroyers in the game. A modified Tier 9 Fletcher with one torpedo launcher, she makes up for the lack of torpedo power with an insanely high AA rating for her tier and the Repair Party consumable. The ability to heal herself means that Kidd can afford to be extremely aggressive in destroyer fights and take fights that would normally get any other destroyer sunk. Her extremely high AA rating, combined with Defensive AA Fire, allows her to mow down even Tier 10 aircraft.
- Giulio Cesare is widely considered to be the most overpowered Tier 5 battleship. Specifically designed to be able to stand up to Tier 7 ships, Giulio Cesare is fast, manoeuvrable, well armored, and has very accurate guns. However, the fact that she can take on Tier VII ships means that she is leagues above her fellow Tier V ships, making her extremely overpowered at her tier.
- Missouri is a Tier 9 carbon copy of the Iowa Battleship in all respects except for one critical difference: Missouri can mount the radar consumable. Suffice to say, having radar means Missouri can more easily engage and sink destroyers, which are supposed to be the intended counter to battleships. And since Missouri still retains Iowa's thick armor and high AA protection, she has very few weaknesses.
- In addition to being an extremely good ship on the water, the ship had a game breaking feature outside the actual combat. It has a large credit per battle boost baked into the ship itself, letting it earn more than other premium ships can. Since the boost came with the ship not the camo, the use of flags & special camos to boost it even further, a good player in this ship could use it to make so many credits that aspect of the game becomes irrelevant. This is the major reason it was removed from sale in a little more than a year after release.
- Stalingrad is a Tier 10 premium Russian cruiser that is a Moskva with battleship caliber guns that have improved AP penetration angles on her shells, a faster fuse arming time and extremely high accuracy. The combination of high AP penetration and improved penetration angles means she can deal massive damage to heavily angled ships. Her radar and faster fuse time allows her to easily deal with destroyers. Her Mosvka level armor lets her repel most types of damage, including the 460mm shells from Yamato. The cherry on top is like the Black and Flint, Stalingrad is only available to the top performing players who reach the highest Clan Battle ranks. The Stalingrad's power is pretty clearly shown in Clan Battles tournaments, where almost every team's lineup includes at least one Stalingrad and a good deal of the remaining ships are meta picks intended to counter the enemy Stalingrad.
- Musashi is a copy of the Yamato, that's available at Tier 9, with minor nerfs. But it keeps the same long range 460mm guns, heavy armor protection, and massive HP pool as the Yamato. As long as it is not facing other warships of equal tier or higher, Musashi is vastly overpowered.
- Smolensk, is a Tier 10 Russian light cruiser with the Smoke Generator consumable and 16 rapid reloading 130mm guns. Like the Flint, Smolensk can drown enemy ships in a rain of high explosive shells from the safety of a smokescreen or behind an island. The 16 guns fire so fast that certain ship & captain skill builds were able to have a salvo hitting a target, two more already in the air behind it, with a fourth being fired. The 130mm guns have a very high fire chance even with the old Inertial Fuse skill, it also has torpedoes if a bigger ship tries to close on it as well. It had a "troll" armour scheme that meant that large guns would often pass right through the ship doing minimal damage when they would annihilate other ships. It was also available as a coal ship, making it very easy for players to acquire and having it become a very common ship in higher tier player.
- The French Tier 10 light cruiser Colbert is very similar to Smolensk. Armed with 16 rapid reloading 127mm guns which it can use to rain HE down on enemies. Unlike Smolensk, Colbert does not have a Smoke Generator, but makes up for this by having an incredibly efficient Repair Party that is comparable to the one used by Minotaur.
- The Tier 9 American battleship Georgia, like the Missouri, is essentially a superior variant of Iowa. Instead of radar, Georgia gets six 457mm guns that have better than normal accuracy, long range fast reloading secondaries, an improved repair party consumable, and a speed boost which is normally the reserve of the French ships, that can have it's active time extended with a coal bought premium modification. This gives Georgia a massive amount of utility, as the 457mm guns allow her to overmatch the armor of almost every cruiser in the game, her improved secondary armament is more efficient than those of the German battleships against everything except other battleships, and her speed boost allows her to quickly re-position anywhere on the map, or charge down a weak flank, as it reaches high speeds that match Destroyers. As a Tier 9 Premium Battleship, it also has a very high potential for making credits.
- The Japanese Destroyer Shimakaze could fire 15 long range, high speed torpedoes while having a small detection range. The game forum was flooded with cries to nerf "torpedo soup" until the ship was nerfed heavily and forcing players to pick between long range torpedoes that the enemy can see a mile away, or short range torpedoes that put it into radar range of enemy ships, which is suicide. The consensus is that the nerf went well overboard.
- The Russian Destroyer Khabarovsk is a much better brawler than any other destroyer. It has the most guns of any tier ten DD, incredible shell characteristics, high speed, the ability to trade its smoke screen for damage repair, a large amount of armour for a DD and all Russian DD guns were given an extra 200 points of HE damage. Now no other DD has even close to its gun DPM and can't beat it in a damage trade with its healing ability. The presence of the 50mm belt armor, repair and larger HP pool than any other destroyer has led many players to say it's not actually a destroyer at all, declaring Khabarovsk to be the best light cruiser in the game.
- Black, a Tier 9 American Destroyer that can only be acquired by getting to Tier 1 in 5 ranked seasons. She's a Fletcher with a higher damage torpedo that goes extremely slowly and gets a radar. This means that she can easily flush out other destroyer from their smoke at much longer range than the German destroyers who have to rely on hydro for that job. Even a nerf to her radar range and duration doesn't make people think she's balanced. Carrying both smoke and radar at the same time means Black can also self-spot from inside its own smokescreen, an ability shared only by Belfast (considered overpowered in its own right).
- Akizuki, Kitakaze, and Harugumo are all Japanese destroyers with rapid firing 100mm guns with a special exception in that they have a base 25mm armor penetration for their HE shells, which can be boosted to 32mm armor penetration with the IFHE skill, allow them to cause massive raw damage to even battleships with just their main guns. Their rapid fire guns and good concealment also mean they can easily ambush and outgun other destroyers, making them almost impossible to fight in a head on engagement.
- Slava, a Tier 10 premium Russian battleship, is massively broken since it has a unique dispersion formula that makes its guns more accurate the farther away the target is. Combine this with the typical characteristics of Russian battleship guns that boast extremely high armor penetration and extremely fast shell speed, and the Slava will easily farm citadels and Devastating Strikes on unsuspecting ships sailing on the other side of the map. And unlike the Champagne, which was terrible armor protection, Slava boasts the same armor scheme as Kremlin, effectively making it immune to citadel hits at long ranges, where it prefers to fight from anyways.
- Massachusetts is considered one of the most overpowered Tier 8 battleships in the game. Being Alabama's sister ship, she boasts the same armor protection and improved repair party. Not only that, but she has long ranged and extremely accurate secondary guns that don't require Manual Secondary Control to be used effectively. This means that Massachusetts captains can afford to invest points in more defensive skills like Fire Prevention and Concealment Expert. And even though her guns are slightly less accurate than Alabama and North Carolina, Massachusetts still sports heavy 16 inch guns which effectively makes her better than her German counterpart Bismarck in every way.
- The Inertia Fuse High Explosive skill turned the game meta into being dominated by fast firing light cruisers, as they became capable of both direct damage and burning ships with fire. It was the biggest reason the likes of the Smolensk became so reviled, and was such a problem that Wargaming had to dedicate an entire major update of the game to an attempt to fix it.
- For the May 2020 season of Clan Battles the dominant ship roster was the Hakuryu Japanese Carrier, 2 of the Stalingrad super cruiser, and 4 of the Italian Tier 10 Venezia Heavy Cruiser. It was the first Clan battle season to allow carriers, and Hakuryu has insanely good AP dive bombers that take gigantic chunks out of large ships. The Stalingrad is for the reasons mentioned in it's own entry. The Venezia is taken because it has 5 turrets each with 3 long range guns firing SAP rounds that penetrate at much higher angles than ordinary shells, making angling far less effective, attached to an extremely fast & nimble ship.
- The June 2020, 16th Ranked season saw a meta based around the Sinop battleship, Belfast & Fiji cruisers and the Haida & Jervis destroyers.
- Battlecruisers are a group of ships that at the higher tiers are outside the normal tech tree and are given as reward ships for spending coal, steel, ranked tokens or purchased premium ships. They aren't given their own class and exist in the matchmaking with normal Cruisers. Although they do have trade-offs compared to regular Light & Heavy Cruisers, such as having longer reloads on their larger guns, they still have much higher healthpools and their guns are all rounders capable of punching holes in Battleships or Heavy Cruisers, and still having strong HE firepower for use against Light Cruisers & Destroyers. If a cruiser place in the matchmaking is taken on one team by a Battlecruiser like an Alaska or Stalingrad, and on the opposite by one of the weaker cruisers, it can drastically unbalance the game.
