Beastofwar

Someone stated a general rule how to behave in cruisers if you find yourself seperated from the allies and alone : if you see a lot of enemies you can shoot, don't shoot and run away. Goes for BB that has become seperated from other allies and find themselves alone too.......turn around and show them your stern only ( smaller surface to hit, much angle on incoming shells ) untill you are far enough they can't focus fire on you anymore, then reconnect with friendlies. You don't only attract focussed fire when you are alone and far from allies, but attract aircraft and roaming stealth DD too. In general attempt to stay near to other BB or Cruisers, safety in numbers. If incoming damage is focusssed on you face the bow to them ( smaller surface to hit, much angle on incoming shells ) and reverse of turn the stern to them and create distance. Note that some BB have most of their guns on the front of the ship....use that and don't be tempted to use you aft guns too as this will make you more much vulnerable. A broadside ( full lenght exposed ) positioned BB eats citadels and/or takes lots of damage. Note that some BB have most guns on the back of the ship....these are great to retreat but make the BB/cruisers firing at you pay dearly. So use the design of the ship in your advantage. If you are fed up with standoff type fighting then face your bow toward the enemy ( smaller surface to hit, much angle on incoming shells ) when closing in, but only do this 1:1 or 1:2 if both are heavy damaged. You can't charge alone of will be focussed down. DD like charging BB....it will be often torpedo's out of nowhere that stop you, not enemy shell fire. Maybe you want to check your captain points and ship enhancements too.....if you are burned down all the time you need some fire prevention/reduction going, and maybe shortened consumable CD's and more points in survivability.

Yes (light) rockets in general are rediculously enough more effective on the upper structure of large ships where they can cause considerable damage if a lot hit at the same time. They often cause fires too. Have seen 5k to 8k ( combined damage) hits per pass on BB and killed enough of them late game that didn't have that much health points anymore. Damage against DD is just nerfed so they are not killed instantly as they should be. That is the same for most classes vs DD, even without taking having no citadel into consideration.

Nib nab nob.. Still underperforms and sinks.....it is not that good vs bots. Note the means of my destruction as i torpedoed it's friend : secondary batteries ! Too weak, too soft, no heal, no smoke. Nowhere to hide nowhere to run, because : meeting objectives in Operations.

No because one has the face of a bare butt. And i cannot stand the captains that look like nerds or wimps either, even if historical captains looked like that.....only men that look like men get to command my ships. I do not tolerate weird looking event freaks either. So there are too few Italian commanders.

IRL Destroyers had better stay away from secondary battery guns that were designed on large warships to destroy such targets.....that had ofc much longer range then in game, while in game torpedo range is very much like RL. But before radar and infrared vision scopes night battles were the circumstance you could do all kinds of stuff that normally would have blown you out of the water. I take it torpedo's are far harder to detect in the dark, too.

I know almost no-one even considers it as it is too far out of their logic...but there are other choices in the 3rd slot. I have in all CV put secondary battery modification in there. WTF ? Well, since rocket fighters were so much nerfed they cannot defend the CV in close quarters combat from popping up DD next to your CV, anymore, and dive bombing them will be also difficult to achieve in the 30 seconds or so you have left before too much torpedo's will hit you it is the only means of defence you have left. And believe it or not, these enhanced secondaries killed many ( heavy damaged ) DD already. I use them even offensively to cap end game when a DD could be lingering there in stealth defending a deciding cap, or chase the enemy CV if that is the last ship alive and litterally kill it with my secondaries.Moving a CV into a cap or killing their CV with use of secondary guns is perfectly viable if the outcome of the match depends on it, and CV are often the lasts ones alive. DD are pretty resistant to aircraft damage due to nerfing, but they are not resistant to secondary battery fire. Several hits - these are mostly 127 mm just like DD or even light cruiser guns - kill them quick. Lexington even has 12 x 127 mm ( 6 sec ROF ) to each side, Midway 9 x 127 but they are faster ( 4 sec ) firing. But i understand you rather enhance your aircraft. I don't see any benefits in what it offers, and from T6 on i don't think the CV AA + fighter patrol ability needs any enhancement either.

Don't mind some of the "counter arguments" @sgtmarple you are at least in part right.....players have adapted - slow and after much whining and calling for nerfs - but developed changed tactics anyway. As could have been expected. One of those tactics is to sneak through gaps in the line and find the enemy carrier. And attack it. Depending on the map and tactical situation being attacked by the DD can also mean other enemy ships closing in fast too so you come under enemy surface fleet fire. A failed comment is that aiming to sink an enemy CV is a failed DD tactic....some of the better DD players CREATE a gap in the lines by sinking a blocking enemy or contribute in taking a cap an slipping through there. They can be scoring on their way to you and arrive near you early midgame. It is very important to a team to sink a CV as they become most dangerous in end game, killing all heavy damaged remaining ships one after the other ! Some of the counter arguments is to move.....that is correct. After several minutes it becomes clear - certainly to you because you spotted the entire enemy fleet in search of those pesky dd right ? - where the enemy ships are going and where allied ships are going. The you make a decision where your CV will be most protected and go there. Setting a course can be done in seconds while flying aircraft. But even moving does not mean you are safe. Often the enemy CV attacks or at least spots your position. DD don't have to go looking for you, they know where you are. Most DD are pretty speedy and cover longer distances fast. When DD do pop up near you - can happen as trying to make CV work is intensive play with your eyes outside of your aircraft most of the time - there is little reaction time. You must immidatly move away ( auto pilot ) but also return to your CV to defend it. And then indeed the nerfs work against you. Good luck aiming dive bombers to a chasing DD that will sink you the next 30 seconds or so. The same goes for nerfed rocket fighters that must make long attack run legs and cannot dispatch a DD fast enough for defence. That is why i gave my CV's a ( for most to rediculous to even consider ) secondary gun build. It can then kill heavy damaged DD/help your aircraft sink it in time but it won't be enough if the DD is full health. To me DD that succeeded in popping up near me is good gameplay. Trying to sink me very much ok too. But being nerfed so you cannot defend yourself proper...no that is a failed nerf. Btw : when in DD ultimately sinking the enemy CV is my goal too, after scoring here and there on my way through the map. But lacking exceptional skill at it i usually end up burning it down with little DD popguns because they are pretty hard to chase when they reach full speed. Thats why the best thing you can do is play all classes, use all tactics you read about or think will work. So in other classes you know how to counter them. My conclusion : yes the nerfing did take away self defence and that is wrong. However you can prevent/escape having to defend yourself by moving your CV often. That however is not the ONLY mandatory way to play a CV. It really should be able to defend itself when in emergency close combat. Nerfing DD is not a good thing.....but reversing the nerfs on rocket fighters or make these nerfs milder would be a good solution. Will be even more so when you hardly see any CV in matches anymore, and the skies are not filled with endless planes.

It seems it is more Aegis that is not suitable for De Grasse and Duca....since there are a lot of tech tree cruisers that have no heal or smoke either. Those that say that is not true..... - try fishing the commander of the Shcors out of the water when he sinks without heals or smoke ? Just let him drown ? No 5 stars because of your ship. ( can't rely on others, really...if they are still alive ) - stop 5 escorts in time before the merchants go so far they won't be able to go to the exit before overrun by bot reinforcements. Kite that....you won't be able to. - Bot concentrate accurate fire on the nearest ships yes....but that means they kill one player after the other....when it is your time, what will you do ? Run off and kite ? Fail Operation. - Bot reinforcements have closed in because of your kiting around trying to survive while dishing out long range damage and therefore taking too long. Now you must draw fire off the merchants to ensure their survival....wait....you can't ! Yes using other ships just seems smarter. Just a fail buy by me.

Graf Spee : heal Huanghe : smoke Perth : smoke Maybe halfway competent but above perform very well in Operations, on par with BB and DD i use that have heal or smoke. You need to understand tht when half your team has sunk, there is no kiting..... All the bots turn their guns on you once they dealt with the nearest target, and say "Dodge this" and then you sink in De Grasse or Duca.

This. I use T6 premiums exclusively for operations. Although their damage output is fine i find De Grasse and Duca de Aosta hard to play because they cannot heal in operations like Aegis. And indeed the bots close in fast and often YOU CANNOT RUN AWAY OR WILL FAIL OBJECTIVES ! Even battleships that do not even go front line without premium consumables sink because of bot accuracy and their pushing/charging nature. I see in the reactions many do not play operations but still have a strong opinion there is nothing wrong with these ships. I'm sure in randoms that is the case, but also they are premiums, not tech tree ships. Read again.....if you kite around you fail objectives. Because of that it is a fail ship in those operations, but all other ship can do them succesfully : DD have smoke, cruisers have smoke or heal, battleships have heal. It's just the De Grasse and Duca de Aosta failing here. Torpedo's are useless if you cannot come closer for accuracy and take damage. Torpedo's are useless if you don't have smoke against bots. I'm fully aware the Duca has 12 km torps....they just won't hit reliable enough at that range to meet objectives in time. Ofcourse the ops are meant to have a balanced team so you can kite around in heal/smoke-less cruisers, while BB attract enemy fire....but in reality it won't go down like that. Noobs sink ( Duca and De Grasse too ) or indeed kite around staying outof range of the pushing/charging bots and objectives are not met so you fail the Ops. Yes you need to be alive to draw fire off the merchants in Aegis right at the end. De Grasse and Duca are at the bottom of the sea by then, but if they live then then fail. Ofcouse you can conclude these ships are just not the right choice for Aegis. But i regret having purchased them then very much as i play i mix of all game modes, not only randoms.

Yep i got the Duke of York out of only 5 boxes i purchased because i wanted to unlock the T6 CV faster. Since that is a ship that costs 36 euro's in the shop and the boxes were 13.95 it seems like i was "lucky" for a change. I'm not really overjoyed as i use the King George V too and don't really see any difference.

If you can hit them with divebombing that is.....but thank you for the clear explanation why Tiny Tims don't do full damage. They do wreck a lot of modules.....

New aircraft are added continiously at a low rate untill they are full capacity on deck. There is a bar running in which you can follow the progress of new aircraft spawning, a full bar is a new aircraft on deck. The +2 aircraft on deck is i think a report that returning aircraft are ready for use again. Repair is instant, but you may want to know aircraft have returned - were not shot down when escaping - and are ready again for use.

The only one i find difficult is even stronger AA ( i am pretty sure that is overkill unless fighting off 2 enemy CV that come for you simultaniously ) longer range secondary battery ( seems rediculous for a CV but it can kill heavy damaged but undetected DD that pop up near your CV ) or giving some type aircraft longer time to aim. The latter i find useless and even killing since aircraft will be longer locked in a mode the can't freely move and evade FLAK.

Not in Operations i take it ? What it does in randoms is no concern of mine in this topic....the game has more modes then only randoms. If ships are only configured to do well in randoms they might fail in other modes, i still think - having played Aegis all evening - De Grasse is the weakest premium i have. And with weak i mean will sink before Ops end, because it cannot heal but is now and then shot at by pretty accurate bots, not comparable to clumpsy random human players. The amount of damage it dishes itself is ok, but hampered by not being able to go beserk....that will only sink it in a sh*tstorm of return fire. Smoke it has not either.....my other Cruisers that have heal or smoke do much, much better.

Never even on good teams that kill very fast.....but i sure wish i could see that. Seems a wish come true if you have a good DD, what insane damage can you then do..... I do often get a much higher score for higher damage then for the difference between a 4 star or 5 star win. So the more heavy BB present itself, the more damage you can do.....the higher the score and rewards will be.

Stock playable, but upgraded aircraft have more hitpoints which is important when being thrown in +2 tier matches. I would say the aircraft you use most are logically the first to upgrade. It is my opinion torpedo bombers are the main damage dealers of a CV. The ship itself has enough AA + fighter consumable to not need an upgrade hull at all, it kills all attacking aircraft when stock. It is literally packed with dozens of AA guns per side. Maybe with the upgrade it survives for longer when being shot at by surface ships, but then you will often die anyway. Ship upgrade slots have important features too, don't forget them. I gave my divebombers a ship upgrade because they spend most time right in the middle of the stongest AA (aura) I use Tiny Tims against all ships, including DD. If your aimin reticule is maximum narrow you can hit a DD with at least 1 Tiny Tim which has a damage potential of 5000 a pop, when you hit both 10K and most DD do not have much more health then that. Sadly they never really take that much damage - modules seem to soak up damage - but it does hurt them. Wrecks their engine, rudder, torp tubes, main guns and so on. Could really save a friendly DD which then cannot get torped or shot. Smaller HVAR wil hit more often, may cause the same amount of damage but do not give the frightning peak damages of Tiny Tims that have some DD chased out of the cap. I have read about the divebombers too - US divebombers have usable HE bombs against DD allright - but only consider attacking DD with it if i was underway to another target and then stumble on a DD. The most perfect target for divebombers is ofcourse a DD sitting still in smoke but visible due to some detection, the agile evading ones are easier to hit with rockets in my opinion. Be sure to spend points in aircraft hitpoints and AA resistance. More speed is more attacks = more DPM. I use torpedo acceleration too as without it too many ships evade my torpedo's. Have fun too :-)

Maybe not....this is a Cruiser without heal too, but has smoke to compensate. De Grasse has neither smoke or heal, but for OPERATIONS useless AA consumables. For all those that refer to RANDOM matches....i didn't say that, i mean litterally OPERATIONS require heals. But maybe the Operations should do that for these cruisers to stay alive AND be able to achieve the objectives in time.

I do agree there are too few commanders in Arsenal. Japanese commanders are abundant in game already, but Italian ones there are only 3.

Yeah that is maybe the good part of it.....i do not use Cruisers or DD that much, but being forced to by certain mission requirements i get noticably better at playing them by the time i complete those requirements. Ddin't know IJN DD were fun too.....didn't know why there were 2 types of them in the tech tree.....now i have the impression i do....

Those bot operated Ishizuchi's have a taste for my De Grasse, even among other players that are slightly ahead with big BB. It is a very large cruiser, it is still easy to hit hard with smaller (low tier) battleship guns as is often the case in Operations. For the same reasons player Fuso's behave like beasts in those Ops...... Now hiding behind islands is not going to prevent the convoy sail too far to be able to go to the exit point without being overrrun with bots. Certainly not if you can't draw their fire to prevent them to fire into the merchants.....Became very obvious in a Ops with only Cruisers and Destroyers. But i guess not every ship is suited for all modes/operation types. Would love for the not needed consumbables - you need those in randoms - to chose from more suitable ones for that Ops mode.

I usually take a day ( 2-3-ish effective gaming hours ) to complete 1 part of weekly 4 part event missions, complete those 2 daily missions for 200 coal and some random stuff, and complete all 3 XP supply boxes. Those special missions like that of the Exeter in 1-3 days when they are frustrating to achieve like the "shoot 30 aircraft" when there are no CV, and you cannot use CV.....Getting a few million potential damage with cruisers or DD was a good one too, would be childish easy in a BB, but in DD or CL/CA....those ships are not supposed to be shot at that much. I always start playing for fun in all modes i like without heeding what is actually asked and after some matches go have a looksee what bar does not fill and why. Usually that is the stuff that really needs random and cannot be completed in Operations. Some stuff like capping, cap assist or defence go quicker in Coop, but i dislike Coop for it's ultra low credit and XP rewards as i need shiploads of those to climb the techtree further with all nations and all classes.

Yeah i hate them for Ops too.....in random it's just a matter of learning to use them i guess, but then you don't have to push in time for objectives to be met so hard. You can support other ships more instead of whacking a lot of bots in little time. But it will cause me to buy no other premium cruisers if they do not have heal or smoke. I regret that as i have very little premium Cruisers/Battlecruisers to use in Operations.

I tried that - a sort of long range sniper equivalent - but for it to work the bots need another player target in their range as a sort of magnet to draw their fire. If i open fire when they do not have another player in range they just return fire.....you can say a lot about bots but they often fire more accurate then human players, hard to dodge. But you are right you simply cannot control an Ops when in such a flimpsy very big Cruiser without heals or smoke....if your teammates then do not perforn you're f*cked. Not used to that, those Cruisers with heals give room for taking some hits although not many more. Smoke cruisers are even easier/not so different from DD. I guess non-heal, non-smoke cruisers are the hardest to use in game...at least for me. Edit - last game i got it to perform on the level ( XP reward ) of Graf Spee, but it still did not survive the Ops.

I was impatient and bought 5 boxes to get to the T6 Furious faster. Got the Duke of York (mission to get it) by surprise out of that so it ended up being "worth" it, but then again giving away a copy of a ( not that populair) ship doesn't cost WG anything. I would never have bought it. I see getting the T8 one will require buying many more boxes but i don't want to do that, as that ship can be aquired normally playing the game too. Already spend those gold wings on other stuff, which is maybe a mistake. That caused me to never have the Gallant too, but i did get the Cossack. ( for 1 euro )