Hood Review

HMS Hood is a Tier 7 premium Royal Navy battleship. She fits a similar role to Repulse and Vanguard, an AP-focused ship with good evasion scores and consistent gunnery. Hood is the least extreme of the British 381 mm gun premiums, with a reasonably balanced stat setup and a few hidden surprises. Despite being one of the older premiums in this game, she is still a safe pick even today.

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

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

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

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SUGGESTED EQUIPMENT:

Slot one: Reload (-5%) OR Turret traverse (+20%)

Slot two: Acceleration (+20%)

Slot three: Rudder shift (+15%) OR Concealment (+10%)

Bonus: Battleship modernization.

A very conventional BB setup. Hood focuses more on mobility than stealth, so I opted to take the rudder in the third slot. This ship only has one viable elite bonus- battleship modernization. The torpedo defence option is worthless and should be avoided.

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Hood opts for a globally decent statpage, rather than hyper-specialization into one area.

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FIREPOWER:

Hood’s gunnery feels quite similar to Warspite. She has eight 381 mm guns in a 4x2 layout. These guns have decent range, fairly good dispersion, and good penetration. Like Warspite, Repulse, and Vanguard, Hood’s AP shells are substantially more powerful than her tech tree counterparts. Better damage and penetration aside, she also enjoys higher citadel chance on her AP than most ships at the tier. She doesn’t get improved HE like the tech tree though, so AP is your go-to for everything but destroyers.

Out of the British 15" gun premiums, Hood's weapons feel the most generic. They're decent all around, but not necessarily exceptional in any regard.

Hood doesn’t win any awards for DPM, due to her lower barrel count. Her damage output is quite solid at longer ranges owing to her relatively consistent dispersion and high penetration. At closer ranges where these factors do not matter, Hood will be out-traded by many of the battleships she faces. Be careful not to overextend in the early game- consistency, not raw DPM, is the virtue of these guns.

Hood has access to three charges of Precise Aim II. With reload equipment it is possible to get two shots per charge even without commander skills, so I suggest using it. Use this consumable when you see the opportunity to smack a target for high damage (ie. enemy CV inside gun range). Hood’s guns print citadels fairly consistently, so use the consumable to improve your odds of scoring them in key situations. Make sure to aim at weakpoints and Hood will perform fairly well.

When targeting battleships, standard aim points apply as usual.

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PROTECTION

Hood is a battlecruiser, with an asterisk (*). Her armour protection is on the weak end, damage reduction/resistance values quite low, and citadel protection at the bottom of the tier. Her belt armour is strong enough to repel enemy salvos, but even this is on the thinner end for the tier- everywhere else will consistently take full damage from enemy shells.

Large hitboxes make Hood quite easy to hit, especially if she's broadside. Heavy angling is recommended to reduce her profile.

Hood does not repel damage, she absorbs it. She has the largest HP pool at Tier 7 by a rather significant margin, breaking 50,000 quite comfortably with supplies and camouflage. Thanks to her enormous HP pool, Hood also boasts greater healing potential than the other battleships at her tier- with premium kits and a legendary commander, she has over 83,000 potential HP.

Thanks to this, Hood is an excellent tank in moderation. She should push forward to absorb damage (using her excellent firing angles to reduce hits taken), then fall back to heal up. Repeating this multiple times will allow Hood to tank a good share of damage for her team, but still leave her with a significant HP advantage over most enemies in the late-game. Despite her battlecruiser classification, good management of heals and positioning will allow Hood to absorb a lot of damage safely.

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EVASION

As a battlecruiser, Hood enjoys generally superior handling to most of her counterparts. Her most obvious advantage is speed- easily breaking 30 knots. Her acceleration is also better than most counterparts- she accelerates to her full 30 knots in roughly the same time that most T7 BBs will accelerate to 20-25. High speed allows Hood a good degree of versatility, able to change flanks quickly and run down cruisers. Just be wary not to overextend early- it’s easy to do if you aren’t paying attention.

Hood’s agility and concealment scores are more modest, but still good. Her max traverse speed (turn radius) is decidedly average for the tier, but she enjoys a fast rudder shift time allowing her to quickly change directions. Combined with her excellent firing angles and high speed, this makes Hood an excellent ship for pushing into targets. She can present a very small profile and close the distance quickly, while easily bringing all her main guns to bear. Due to Hood’s very long profile and large hitboxes, broadsiding is not recommended in any circumstance. Try to remain heavily angled, either towards OR away from whatever target is being engaged.

As do most British battleships, Hood gets a decent concealment value, above average for Tier 7. However, a nearly 11km detection range is not great, mobility over stealth is prioritised in this ship. Good use of agility will bolster Hood’s survivability, and allow her to quickly start pushes against key targets.

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ANTI-AIR:

Hood’s AA is a surprise gimmick. While ships like Vanguard and Conqueror, covered in 40mm bofors, suffer from appalling AA scores, Hood’s meagre AA battery puts out an enormous amount of damage… somehow.

Funny how the British BB with the worst real-life AA gets the best in-game AA.

With DFAA active and an AA damage build, Hood’s AA DPS skyrockets to 940, a damage output similar to Montana. Unfortunately, her range is appallingly bad, which single-handedly prevents Hood from functioning as an AA ship. She cannot prevent airstrikes on herself, let alone teammates. Bombers get through before the damage has enough time to stack, and torpedo planes tend to drop from completely outside her small caliber AA range.

Hood’s AA setup trades her own HP for plane kills. She can inflict lots of losses on attackers, but will take the full airstrike regardless. Aside from deplaning T6 CVs that exclusively go after her, Hood’s AA will have little impact on matches. I do not recommend building into it for this reason.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

Hood is a decent pick to this day. She requires a bit more thought to play than many T7 battleships on account of her weak protection, but compared to many of the gimmick-heavy British premiums is a very safe choice. Hood doesn't print out ridiculous damage super often, instead opting for consistently decent damage output. She isn't the best T7 to field, but certainly isn't the worst either. With decent use of her speed and smart management of heals, she functions surprisingly well as a team player.