u/Helstrem

Tier VI, VII and VIII cruisers are getting a heal. Great, good for them.

It is a substantial relative weakening to all Tier VI, VII and VIII cruisers that already had a heal.

Why you ask? They are getting an additional charge for their heal, so they are all good, right?

No, the first heal has, by far, the most utility as it is the most likely to be utilized. To use the second heal you need to both survive long enough to use it and take damage requiring it, the third heal is even less useful and the fourth even less so. Having a 3rd (or 4th with the captain skill) heal is not a particularly useful bonus. Yes, playing well it will help, but not nearly as much as the first two heals help.

These ships, premium and tech tree alike, that were balanced around having a heal have all, uniformly, been effectively nerfed by their competitors who were balanced around not having a heal now get all the utility, toughness and DPM performance they had over the ships with a heal and get the two most important heals as well, they have their cake and eat it too. Sure, some high performing ships that had heals, such as Fiji, will be fine, but on the other hand there are ships that were performing well without a heal and will now have one too.

There are also ships that had a heal, but a 'special' weak version of a heal, like London which, barring it being normalized which I've not read is happening, means that it will have less healing than, say, Aoba which is getting two charges of the standard heal.

Bottom line is, Tier VI, VII and VIII cruisers that had heals already need meaningful compensation to keep parity and not a token, won't usually get used, 3rd or 4th heal. They need practical buffs, something like rate of fire, range, handling or just a bonus chunk of base health.