basically? The decent asama guns are only gotten way pass its level, and are the fuso's 14" N.

The 12" only give you meh damage with only 4 shell, the ship is pretty big and quite the bomb magnet.

To finish it, the T slots are quite spaced, and even then, you dont class your IJN AA gunners till around lvl 80 due to ability issue.

So you can't even use it to AA in GBs!

Furious is good, bit of a spread issue, but decent damage. Main problem it has is its huge and slow. My favorite HAW snack were furious. Kept betting how many shots it would take my atlanta to take one out. Best I did was 3 or 4 :P

Pensacola is heavily dependant on your gunner's quality. Quite simply, the 12" N will suck if you dont have BVE gunners (and a few vets above the regular 109 doesnt hurt). Can decently AA in GB as USN gunner are its regular gunners. Damage is also quite decent, the 12" can be surprising and go get close to 2k per shell in their good day. Pensa is also quite fast and sturdy.

Moltke is awesome. Great range, spread isnt awesome but can be worked with, great AA, good speed. Can give BBs quite a run for their money. Overall with a good crew will lay waste to blitz, and be able to get impressive plane credits in GB AAing.

I dont know mandel or petro-something yet. Mandel IS OP has it had access still to the paris guns. Think it will be fixed tough. Was also crazy fast, with amazing AA still, BB2.5ish range and damage at higher level.

I dont know the SN CA as well, I only met them while I was in a BB5 and it didnt end up very well for them.

Pensa uses 12" L which are quite good with 70+ gunners and come close to blockshot. Its AA battery is pretty weak though. 3" AA is all the fits with a useful amount of ammo and lack range.

Moltke is the best with the best range and a pretty good AA battery. the damage is low though. The main thing that makes Moltke OP now is the fact that it can carry the buffed 4.1". When 3.46" was the best choice it was far more balanced.

Furious has good damage but is very big and dosnt have great AA. Its also pretty slow. IIRC it gets +1 support slots like everything else UK.

Asama is the weakest in terms of firepower but has great AA.

The 2 new nations are gonna be abit different after tonight's path so we shall see.

Everything has its strengths and weaknesses but Asama is probably the least useful at level. Its not useless though.

The PCA tier balance is terrible since they never got a proper patch.

At level the Asama is probably fairly useless compared to others. Personally I own a Moltke and a Pensacola. I only bought them to level crews through AA mostly. Unfortunately IJN AA is not feasible at low levels. Due to having to class the AA gunners very late there is no point to buy the Asama for that. It's only worth it if you get your hands on some lvl 90+ AA gunners, imho.

I don't have RN, SN or MN crews. If you woke me deep in the night asking what their PCAs are I wouldn't even know. The Furious seems to be a decent ship for leveling. You get it before you get any BB and with good main gunners this boat can deliver some serious pain. The Mandel or whatever it is called is basically the same as the Moltke, the difference being the French AA gunner classing. And about the SN I really have no clue.

I have seen some people using the Asama for AA duties. It works really well if you have good AA gunners. It's not the boat that sucks. It's the way to class the AA gunners that reduces its worth.

PS: as far as I know all PCAs have a 2-turret layout. One in the front and one in the back. Number of barrels varies, but number of turrets doesn't.

You just said you had a Moltke, you should know better :P KM/MN/SN all have 4 turret layouts.

Anyway the way I see it, to make Asama more competitive it needs its own unique set of 3x guns and maybe a little more speed.