I use HE far less than I thought I would, now firing AP 95% of the time, even against reasonably well-angled targets. You are also correct that the HE performance is pretty pathetic.

Neither the Ägir nor the Siegfried are battleships, however, so battleship engagement are mostly limited to ambush situations only. I play the Ägir (and Siegfried) like an uptiered Scharnhorst: work as a well-armored long-range artillery cruiser, only push flanks if you have the advantage since you can muscle out less-armored cruisers. You are correct that the super-cruiser gameplay is markedly different than traditional cruisers. I'm also a cruiser main, so I definitely get where you're coming from. Hi a KM fanboi, so I'm contractually required to purchase all German ships and at least pretend that I like them all. Every time I play this ship two games in a row I just log off after lol. As my first super cruiser I think it taught me I don’t like super cruisers.

Maybe my style is the fast-firing, zipping around style but this thing will probably just be a port queen. I’ve had a few 150k+ games in her and even they didn’t feel fun per say. The HE dmg is atrocious, the AP is oook, and the armor is just good enough to eat full pens if you’re not lucky enough to bounce off your belt. I love the roma of that says anything haha. There’s not many ships I dislike to this level. And I really do try to give ships a fair shake. So I’ve been trying really hard to like this thing but it’s got to be the least fun ship ive played in a long time.

German cruisers - world of warships