Daring Review

HMS Daring is a Tier 10 Royal Navy tech tree destroyer. She is renowned as a competitive ship, retaining the strengths of and improving the weaknesses from the previous tiers. She is perhaps the ultimate “hybrid” destroyer, capable of performing any DD role with a good degree of efficiency.

DIFFICULTY: Fairly easy
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?

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SUGGESTED EQUIPMENT:

Slot one: Reload (-5%)

Slot two: Acceleration (+20%)

Slot three: Concealment (+10%)

Bonus: Advanced gun director.

Acceleration is preferable to rudder in slot 2. Rudder module will only shave 0.36 seconds off her (already excellent) rudder shift, but acceleration shaves 1.45 seconds off her time to max speed. It buffs both acceleration and deceleration, allowing her to speed-juke and reduce her turn radius by slowing down more quickly.

Advanced gun director is her best elite bonus- it gives her a more comfortable engagement range against capital ships. It is a more competitive boost than Advanced torpedo.

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Daring boasts a good stat layout, with a lot of competitive strengths.

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GUNPOWER:

Earlier British destroyers all had generally mediocre raw gunpowder. At first glance, Daring has a lot of the same gun range on the short end, loopy ballistics, and low damage per shell. However, Daring enjoys an exceptionally fast reload time on her main gun, only 2.5 seconds stock. Fast reload solves a lot of problems- Daring’s gun DPM is quite competitive, and she enjoys good firestarting thanks to high volume of fire. Additionally, Daring retains the 360 degree turret rotation from earlier tiers, with fast turret traverse to boot. She easily keeps all guns on target while maneuvering at full speed, which is a notable advantage.

Daring's guns work best at close range. However, she can still comfortably farm big ships from a distance too.

The biggest issue with Daring’s gunnery is the loopy shell ballistics- while perfectly serviceable against bigger ships, she will struggle to land consistent hits on destroyers at long range. Daring best fights DDs at very close range. She has an excellent toolkit for aggressive DD hunting- combining this with her high gun DPM makes her a highly dangerous opponent. Daring outguns anything that can outspot her, and will always hold the initiative against anything that can outgun her. When hunting destroyers, close proximity is the way to go.

Against larger ships, it is advised to stay at longer ranges. Daring can keep a constant stream of HE shells on target, while effectively avoiding any return fire. Once the early-game DD hunt has finished, keep your guns firing whenever possible. Over time, the combined damage of massed shell hits and fires will stack up- as a bonus, this tends to attract a lot of attention which can be used to sway the match in your team’s favour.

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TORPEDOES:

Daring carries ten torpedoes in a 2x5 setup amidships. All ten can be fired to either side of the ship, and like all British ships, she has the option to “single-fire” each torpedo individually. Daring’s torpedo angles aren’t particularly good, necessitating a lot of broadside to release a salvo- this is partially offset by excellent agility allowing her to rapidly swing the hull around.

Daring's torpedoes aren't bad at all- they would just be really boring if not for single fire.

From a statistical perspective, Daring’s torps are as average as it gets. They deal decent individual damage per hit and have a middling flood chance. A volume of 10 torps per salvo will deal considerable damage, but she does not have the incredible “nuke potential” that more torpedo focused DDs boast. Because of this, torpedo rushes are HIGHLY DISCOURAGED in this ship. Daring’s torpedoes have a decent 9.00km base range, giving her a comfortable stealth-torping window, and they travel at a perfectly generic 63 knots. However, while she can function in a stealth torping role, doing so means wasting a lot of Daring’s potential. She is a hybrid DD, not a pure torpedo boat. Gunnery makes a core part of Daring’s damage output, so it should not be ignored.

The presence of single-fire opens up a lot of potential for these otherwise generic weapons. Among the uses for them are:

• White-lining one torpedo to bait an enemy into a maneuver, then firing the other nine to intercept the enemy’s predicted maneuver.

• Firing your full torpedo spread into a bowtanking enemy attempting to push.

• Firing one/two torps at a time to force a rushing enemy destroyer to make constant course corrections (keeping them too distracted to fire back!)

• Landing all 10 torps on a stationary target who isn’t paying attention (No torpedo spread means no misses!)

• And so much more!

Get creative with your torpedo use and you’ll be rewarded! Daring’s torps can be used for bonus damage, routing enemies into unfavourable positions, or basic area denial weapons. Fire these off whenever convenient to do so- just don’t waste your entire game trying to set them up.

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EVASION:

Daring’s evasion is as good as it gets at T10. Her concealment is only surpassed by Somers, her rudder shift is snappy, her acceleration is the best at T10, and her turn radius is the best in the game. Daring can reactively dodge incoming shellfire using her rudder and throttle, and torpedoes are essentially a non-threat to her. With an expectedly low HP pool, and higher chance to take full damage from large calibre AP, Daring is heavily reliant on evasion to keep her guns floating- whenever engaging a target, constantly change course and speed to make yourself an unpredictable and difficult target. A well played Daring is very difficult to sink.

Daring combines her evasion with a strong toolkit, with five charges of fuel smoke and three charges of sonar. These traits make her a very powerful DD hunter- Daring will almost always hold initiative in a fight, can conceal herself for a further 10s while moving at full speed, and using sonar creates a 4.5km window in which enemies cannot hide. Use torpedoes to cut off enemy escape routes while aggressively maneuvering to reduce return fire- Daring’s 360 degree turrets allow her to keep all her guns in play while juking. Closing to very short range is where Daring performs best as a DD killer, maximising her gunpower and bringing her full toolkit into play.

Against larger targets, Daring should play from farther out. At longer ranges, she can comfortably avoid return fire, while keeping up a constant stream of HE shells from her own guns. Continuously stack damage onto enemy ships, and attract their fire towards yourself. 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. Daring is annoyingly difficult to kill, and combined with her constant stream of damage output is rather good at contesting capture points or flanks.

The only major gripe with Daring’s evasion is her low speed; she cannot outrun enemy destroyers, or some of the faster cruisers at her tier. To account for this, try to keep islands nearby- they serve as an easy way to break contact before the enemy can run you down.

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ANTI-AIR:

Daring’s AA suite is largely decorative, as expected for a destroyer. It lacks both the damage output and range necessary to prevent or punish airstrikes. DFAA is present… for some reason. It does not add any meaningful boost to AA power so it can largely be ignored.

Bofors STAAG mounts look very pretty, but there aren't enough of them to do anything.

Daring’s best chance against a carrier lies in her evasion- she is exceptionally good at avoiding torpedo drops, and can change course so quickly that the CV must reset their attack runs. She doesn’t punish resets though, lacking the AA firepower to do this. If not otherwise distracted, Daring can reliably keep herself safe from torpedo planes. Just beware of the RNG dive bombers- she has no means of avoiding those.

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FINAL REMARKS:

Daring is an excellent ship overall. She can fill any DD role with some efficiency, and can function within just about any matchmaking. Her ability to dodge and weave out of trouble, combined with a strong toolkit for DD hunting and solid weapon systems leave us with a very competitive ship. In the hands of a player skilled at using evasion, she can be infuriatingly difficult to sink.

Daring is a generally high-effort ship, in that you never stop doing things. Whether this be the constant dodging and weaving, or constant firing of your weapons, there is rarely a dull moment in this ship. Both for fun, and for carrying games, Daring is a very strong choice. If her playstyle appeals to you, she is highly recommended.