Cossack Review

HMS Cossack is a Tier VIII premium Royal Navy destroyer. She shares many fundamental similarities with her tech tree counterparts, notably excellent evasion characteristics. With an emphasis on gunnery over torpedoes, Cossack functions very well in a cap-contesting and DD-hunting role.

DIFFICULTY: Moderate
How hard is it to stay afloat and perform decently well in this ship?

EFFORT REQUIREMENT: High
How much screen-tapping and situational awareness is needed to perform decently well?

POTENTIAL INFLUENCE/OUTPUT: High
In skilled hands, how much damage output or game influence can this ship exert?

...........................................................................

SUGGESTED BUILD:

Slot one: Main battery reload (-5%)

Slot two: Rudder shift (+10%) OR acceleration (+20%)

Slot three: Concealment (+10%)

Elite bonus: Advanced gun director (+4% firing range)

A fairly standard DD setup for the most part. I go with rudder in slot two, for slightly improved reaction time against shellfire. However, acceleration is also viable so this is down to personal preference.

Since there will almost certainly be comments about choosing turret traverse over reload, here are my thoughts:

Yes, Cossack has slow turret traverse. This can largely be negated by pre-rotating the guns and shifting the rudder. Reload module directly improves damage output, and turret traverse does not. If you cannot make this ship function without the slightly faster turrets, that equipment will suffice. However, reload is the objectively better pick of the two.

Advanced gun director is Cossack's only viable elite bonus. The others should be ignored entirely.

...........................................................................

BASIC OVERVIEW:

Cossack's best stats are in the evasion category, but she boasts some solid guns as well. Ignore her AA entirely.

...........................................................................

GUNPOWER:

Cossack's guns initially seem weak. Her individual shell damage is low, and the guns have a rather long reload of six seconds. To compensate for these flaws, she boasts good firing range, comfortable dispersion values, and high barrel count. Despite her barrel count, Cossack's theoretical DPM is merely above average for the tier. However, theoretical DPM is not practical DPM. It does not take accuracy or typical engagement range into account.

Cossack gunfights best at close range- VERY close range. She has an excellent toolkit for knife-fighting destroyers, and good use of her consumables combined with her gunnery make her a terrifying ship at close range. Cossack easily outguns anything that will outspot her, and will always hold the initiative against ships that can outgun her. Combining gunpower with the excellent toolkit is what propels Cossack's dueling ability from decent to exceptional. I estimate that ~80% of my kills in Cossack are at ranges below 5km.

At longer ranges, Cossack's gunnery begins to drop off. While she maintains a high degree of accuracy, her shell arcs are rather loopy and require practice to get used to. At long range, Cossack is mainly relegated to farming larger ships with HE- destroyers will easily dodge her salvos. The good news is that Cossack has long gun range; courtesty of the advanced gun director elite bonus, Cossack can reach farther than most DDs at her tier. This allows her a great degree of comfort when farming targets from afar- more on that later.

Cossack hides her individually mediocre guns behind quantity, range, and dispersion. It works better than one might expect.

...........................................................................

TORPEDOES:

Cossack has a single quad torpedo launcher amidships. Her launcher has good firing arcs, and reloads reasonably quickly. These are a longer-ranged version of Lightning's torpedoes, with all other stats being identical. Just like Lightning, Cossack can single-fire her torpedoes.

These are an opportunistic weapon, not a damage dealer. A Cossack should fire her torps whenever convenient, whether this means dumping them into smoke, or firing them in a DD knife-fight to herd your enemies into trouble. Use them whenever they're loaded, and consider any damage they deal a bonus. Cossack should NEVER deliberately set up torpedo runs- it is a waste of time, and a waste of your ship.

Somewhat strangely, Cossack's torpedoes work best when they don't hit. When entering DD gunfights, fire torpedoes along the path the enemy would want to take. Use your torpedoes to reroute enemy ships, keeping their broadsides off of you, and forcing them into duels they cannot win. Skilled use of torpedoes can decide the outcome of your duels, despite not landing a single hit. Guns are your damage output, and torpedoes can route the enemy into your guns.

...........................................................................

EVASION:

This category is where Cossack shines. She is a typical British DD, with good concealment, excellent response times and a very tight turning circle. She has no trouble avoiding torpedoes even at close range, and from longer ranges can reactively dodge enemy shellfire. The only downside of Cossack's evasion is her comparatively low top speed, but this is a very minor weakness in her sea of strengths.

But it gets better. Cossack has six(!) charges of fuel smoke, and this allows her a great degree of freedom when choosing her moves. A Cossack can essentially choose to dump smoke whenever convenient, without needing to worry about limited capacity. Fuel smoke is an excellent tool in DD gunfights, and quite useful for disengaging. I highly suggest taking the mist weaver skill to reduce cooldown time, further increasing your freedom to smoke.

Cossack's agility and smokes, combined with her gun range, allow her to farm cruisers and battleships with nearly total impunity to shellfire. She can reactively juke and dodge incoming shots, kiting around and responding with her own pop-guns. If a Cossack is paying attention, she becomes incredibly hard to kill, and this is the reason she can farm kill-ratios so well.

But there's another value to her evasion.

A Cossack at long range is not an immediate threat, on account of her low damage output. But her damage will slowly stack up, infuriatingly painting enemy screens with red flashes. Eventually, enemies will be tempted to return fire. And this is exactly what Cossack wants. Cossack is an attention-hog, trying to reroute enemy fire towards herself. Every shell you dodge is a shell that could have gone into your foolish broadsiding teammates, so try to bait as many enemies as you can safely dodge.

...........................................................................

ANTI-AIR:

Cossack essentially has no AA. Moving on.

Is there a rating below "Garbage"? That's how bad her AA is.

Evasion is her best defence against CV planes, but even her excellent evasion does not fix her garbage AA score. A CV can orbit their torpedo bombers around Cossack indefinitely, until they set up a good attack run. Dive bombers ignore her evasion entirely, and are the single deadliest thing she faces. The majority of my Cossack deaths are from dive bombers, no amount of dodging can save you from RNG.

When defending against CVs, all you can do is stall for time. Smoke, turn, play with the throttle. Make yourself unappealing, because your survival will depend on the enemy CV actively choosing to target someone else.

...........................................................................

FINAL REMARKS:

This is a strong ship, but not a ship that everyone can pick up and succeed in. Cossack is great at knife-fighting, great at cap contesting, and great at staying alive. HOWEVER, this is entirely reliant on her driver playing to her strengths.

The main key for a Cossack player is risk-management. Know when you can be hyper-aggressive, as this is when you deal the most damage, when you can most efficiently remove enemy DDs from play. However, you have to know when it's best to hang back, calling attention to yourself from afar, and letting your team deal the damage. If you like what you hear, consider picking up this ship.

Until next time!