Introduction
Welcome to the latest list of Azur Lane’s best heavy cruiser ships! Some of the ships on the previous tier list maintained their positions at the top despite new changes and improvements. However, the inevitable comes, and with that, new power comes. So here are the latest tier changes for heavy cruisers!
Heavy Cruisers
Tier 0-4
This vanguard meta is centered around most heavy cruisers since they get this massive evasion boost once they get past level 100. Now that you can get your ship up to level 120, evasion was one of their main weakness since they have some decent evasion. They’re good. Their high HP pool combined with their significant damage means that they have fantastic survivability and DPS.
Tier 0
Azuma
First up, we have Azuma, who is the only rainbow heavy cruiser. She does extreme damage with her HE gun, which lights people on fire and does an incredible amount of HE damage. She’s a rainbow ship for a reason that means she has perfect stats.
Roon
Next up is Roon; she is the complete package of what a heavy cruised should be. She has an incredible offensive skill that lets her switch between AP and HE ammo, which means she is versatile against every ship type. She also has a defensive skill that spawns shields that protect her and the other vanguards, increasing their survivability and making her good in any situation possible.
Bremeton
Moving on, we have a brand-new ship named Bremerton, and she is being compared to her sister Baltimore who is in fourth place in Tier 0.
Bremerton has a slight edge over her sister because they both have the exact stats, except Bremerton has an incredibly good anti-air, and one of her skills makes the anti-air more potent if you place her in the middle or back position.
This skill is handy on World Thirteen, where most planes are coming from the back, and you will have to destroy as many as possible. So, make sure you get her. You can buy her from the shop or get her as a rare drop on the last level.
Baltimore
Now we have Baltimore; she has incredible stats just like Bremerton’s. She increases the AA of the fleet when store tied with an eagle union, which boosts their aviation by 15%, making a perfect union with Baltimore and any other eagle union carrier like Enterprise, Intrepid, or Essex. All of them are amazingly good together. She’s excellent, and she tends to change her ammo type to a particular AP, but it’s not that big of a deal; it’s just AP ammo but just a little bit different of the damage multipliers.
Portland Retrofit
Next, we have Portland Retrofit who is easily the best vanguard to start. Her insanely good stats for a blue ship and her extra defensive skill that decreases the damage taken of the vanguard fleet is always going to be helpful. She is a fantastic budget ship that outperforms tons of her higher rarity counterparts. She is a blue, meaning that she’s beating all of these SR ships and even the priority ships, which is insane. She has beautiful stats and very high evasion for a heavy cruiser which means she is very survivable. She also has very lovely DPS.
Minneapolis
Lastly, in Tier 0, we have Minneapolis. She’s an excellent ship with excellent skills. She nothing too special about her, but she has standard offensive and defensive skills. She gains firepower every time she sinks a ship, and she also has a self-healing mode that when her health drops below 30%, she heals a portion of that back.
Tier 1
St. Louis
Starting things off in Tier 1, we have St. Louis. Her main gun is terrific when you’re dealing with escort fleets. She doesn’t have that drastic increase in damage, but she has straight-up, consistent, and constant DPS.
Ibuki
On the other hand, we have Ibukki, the perfect definition of an excellent boss killer. She is a destroyer in a heavy cruiser’s body. She starts with two torpedo shots loaded, and she has a secondary skill called flash of lightning that shoots out even more torpedoes; with that, all of her heroes now are buffs by her first skill that increases her crit rate and crit damage by 40-60 percent. She gets extra evasion when she launches the wave of torpedoes.
Zara
Now we have Zara, she has very similar abilities to Baltimore and Bremerton but a little bit toned down and less good.
Her defensive skill is just like Roon’s, some shields that block incoming shells. Her offensive skill gives damage to both HE and AP shells, depending on what you use. Overall she’s an excellent ship.
Mogami Retrofit
Next up, we have Mogami Retrofit, she has an ability that increases her firepower every 20 seconds, and she has a second ability that lets her take lesser HP damage. Her third retrofit skill increases her damage for every five torpedoes that she lands, which is excellent for long battles, but the ideal torpedo that you would use is the quintuple magnet which takes quite some time to recharge.
Tier 2
London Retrofit
London Retrofit is the definition of a glass cannon. She has the fifth-highest theoretical DPS for a heavy cruiser right behind Baltimore, St. Louis, Roon, and Minneapolis. Since a glass cannon is defined by something with a very high DPS but low HP which implies that she will die very quickly if the vanguard does not protect her on both sides.
Prinz Eugen
Prince Eugen, she’s a free SR ship. She is highly defensive and tanky. However, being tanky is not as appealing as having more DPS. You would want to clear a battle as soon as possible.
Takao, Atago, ChouKai
Now, I would want to link Takao, Atago, and Choukai altogether even though they don’t belong in the same tier because they all roughly perform the same. It’s just that Takao conducts a little bit better because she has excellent skills like double torpedoes and the other skill that doubles her shots. All three are good if you don’t have access to the higher ships on this list.
Exter Retrofit
Exeter Retrofit is very nice, but basically, everything about her is terrible compared to everybody else. Her skills are mediocre, her stats are very average, and she costs a ton of money. When using full firepower, every 20 seconds, she has a 30% chance to increase her firepower by 20% for 10 seconds. She has an excellent defense order wherein, for every 20 seconds, she can reduce all the damage taken from all ships in the fleet.
Carrier
Tier 0
The most notable change in Tier 0 is that Enterprise dropped down to the fourth place. This is because she has less versatility, and she has no special buffs and skills compared to the other three that are right above her.
Enterprise does not have any special buffs. Enterprise has an overly powered Lucky-E skill, which is good, but her three carriers have jumped over her because of her lack of versatility.
Essex has a fantastic eagle union buff, and combining two of her abilities works best when paired with eagle union.
Centaur increases her airpower and firepower when launching an airstrike and has that excellent slow. Formidable stops time and reduces the speed of the enemy when launching an airstrike. They sometimes can inflict flooding.
Tier 1
Here on Tier 1, we have a brand-new ship named Intrepid who is another Essex-class sister. She is the defensive one and has the extra helldiver airstrike, which gives tremendous damage. Because helldivers are the best dive bomber in the game, but it’s not that centered.
This means that helldivers will cover a wide range which is very good for mob clearing, but it may not damage the boss extensively. In every other battle, she also switches between the aviation buffs and decreasing the damage she’s taking, which is very lovely.
Intrepid can be used with anyone in Tier Zero like Essex and Enterprise; with that, you can form an excellent carrier backline eagle union fleet.
Conclusion
So there you have it—a list of the new updates of the ship girls in Azur Lane. Having powerful units is not the only aspect of the game. Once you have built a strong core of ships, you will surely be in an excellent place to improve your team to your liking.
