eliastion

Almost all your posts in this thread you started yourself are in response to and about that existence you don't care about, though

1. Description Problems with ARP voices: - repeated lines (most often happens at the beginning of battle with CVs - perhaps it's the "squadron ready" repeated for two or more squadron types? I don't understand Japanese.) - lack of the line for big damage in case of hitting enemy citadel/dealing big damage in one salvo (at least from CV AP bombs) - lack of voiceover for consumable use (starting/ending smoke, starting/ending engine boost, launching fighter, using heal - though that one tested only on planes) 2. Reproduction steps Playing CVs with an ARP captain, playing ships with relevant consumables with an ARP captain. 3. Result Some lines repeated like a stutter (most consistently at the start of a CV match with an ARP-captain voiced CV). Some lines missing. 4. Expected result - The exact same line shouldn't be repeated back-to-back with neither time nor another line in-between. - All scenarios for which there are recorded lines (and consumable use is voiced for ARP captains based at the very least on files extracted from earlier versions of the client) should have their corresponding lines played when appropriate 5. Technical details -

I can give you a very approximate break-up of "ten statistic battles" and winning. It goes roughly like this: 3 battles are lost. The team will throw them no matter what you do. Getting a Kraken+High Caliber? Nice, that's an impressive defeat. 1 battle is extremely hard. You need to be a god of this game to win. It's possible but only just. If you win all of these (and all easier ones) you're a guaranteed super-unicum. 1 battle is hard. You need to carry these mindless muppets to victory, hard. If you win all of these (and make up for any easier lost with harder won) you're at least a borderline unicum. 1 battle is ok-ish. You need to do your part and not drag your team down - and they'll win it. If you win all of these (and make up for any easier lost with harder won) you're an average player. 1 battle is easy. You need to... just do something. Start your engines, shoot at some enemies, be a target for them to draw fire away from more capable allies using you as a meat shield - doesn't sound impressive but that's the kind of contribution that should be enough. If you win all of these (but none of the harder ones) you're a bad player. 3 battles are won. You can go AFK and still get carried. If you only win these three then you're a lazily written bot. BEWARE: The above is a very rough estimate and it doesn't mean that every 10 battles will be like these statistic ten. In fact, it usually be different. One day you might play 10 battles and all would be "hard" or harder. Another day you might have so much luck that just not sucking completely will yield you 90-100% winrate. The points of these are, however: don't really expect to have an impact on about 60% of your battles. That's more than half - and they are decided by your teammates and enemies because the gap (in skill, luck of the day, whatever) is just so big that you won't bridge it if at a disadvantage and wont matter if it's your side that's "destined to win". What remains is 40%, these 4 out of 10 statistical battles where your performance will make or break the match. They might demand from you what seems like single-handedly wrecking the enemy team or they might just require you to not forget that you clicked "battle" and ALt-Tabbed. But they are, at least potentially, up to you. And how you perform will, over time (a LONG time, many hundreds or even thousands of battles) decide whether your winrate oscilates among the 30-40% of "how can you be that bad" or 60-70% of "whoa, a solo unicum player, let me check if he's stat-padding and sealclubbing".

My suggestion? Play a CV. CV matches usually mean plane kills, because... 1. You drop fighters on opponent's fighters (or he on yours) and then at least one of you is going to get kills. 2. You are often one of the last guys alive AND you tend to have good AA, so the enemy is likely to attack you then and lose some planes. 3. Even earlier in the match some CV players tend to attack enemy CVs. 4. If you manage to hide behind the same mountain behind which some of your BBs camp (they do it more than island-hugging HE lobbers!) you can use your AA (and even ship-based fighters) to shoot down something from the enemy trying to attack them. 5. You have a guarantee that there will always be CVs in the enemy team, so at the very least there's no risk of "empty matches". Now, on the flip side - it's rare to rack up A LOT of plane kills because you have good AA and are resistant to DoT, so you're not a very inviting target. It's rare to see a dedicated CV sniper kind enough to throw wave after wave of planes at you.

He said that IJN torps still are more comfortable to use (in the context of the nerfs to aiming, mind you) than USN. In the same stream MrConway was playing some of both... IDK, at least to me it looks like the USN attack runs were started later, had more room for adjustment and resulted in better spreads. Sure, IJN torps have better speed and are, in theory, capable of long-range attacks but as far as being convenient goes... it really didn't look all that well... Idk, maybe MrConway just has that "touch" for USN torps specifically

Your solution brings back the disadvantages of the former system without its advantages. CV plays almost exclusively against the enemy CV, since fighters with twice the speed of bombers can deny any strikes, or at the very least repeated strikes. A CV has the choice to either fly around with fighters (scouting a bit but basically doing nothing interesting and only waiting to ruin the day of the other CV) or use the (painfully slow) bombers to send them on roundabout trips (making the low speed even more painful) to stealthily approach and quickly attack targets that happen to be far enough from the confirmed/expected position of fighters so that at least the first strike gets a chance. The alternative is, of course, when both sides launch with fighters - then you get CVs playing some gimped version of WoWp, disconnected from the rest of the match. And yes, I know that you mentioned giving bombers self-defense measures but it would either be basically useless against fighters or it would make playing the fighters even more pointless... I could go pointing out more problems but, long story short: to me it seems like implementing your suggestions as described would simply create a system that's worse and less enjoyable than both the pre-rework and post-rework ones.

Well, nice to see it indeed is somewhere in the article, then. Who knows, maybe next time they will even write these things somewhere among the "Rules for exchanging aircraft carriers for credits and Free XP:" rather than in the preamble to the chapter "Ship Replacement Rules", next to information about what you get for your old ships (especially the disappearing ones), a page or two removed from the final section of the article - you know, the one that deals with selling whatever the aforementioned ship replacement rules gave you I mean, one might think that "you can't sell for freeXP a ship researched after 0.8.0" would be a pretty important entry in a list labeled "Rules for exchanging aircraft carriers for credits and Free XP". After all, they did manage to squeeze the lengthy "Aircraft carriers can be exchanged more than once. But all subsequent operations will convert the XP used for researching the ship and its modules across to the associated XP of the ship one Tier below. If you exchange Tier IV carrier, starting with the second operation of this kind, the associated XP will be transferred to Tier I ship." rule in-there, I'm pretty sure that adding another bullet wouldn't have been completely outside of the realm of possibility Oh, that actually IS pleasantly surprising - considering that the warning was there in the article (even if not in a very convenient place, to say the least) and the inventory does show you what you're exchanging for (the silver symbol of normal XP rather than the gold freeXP). Then again, the section in the shop says "credits and Free XP" and makes no mention of the fact that ships (re-)researched after 8.0 aren't actually sold for Free XP but normal XP on the t1 ship, so you could probably make a reasonably strong case for having been misled by that description, leading to you selling a ship you wouldn't have sold had you realized that it would be for normal XP. PS: This actually reminded me of an issue I actually had with the refund - while I did research all the CVs pre-8.0, not all the modules were researched. Then I researched a module on one of the ships I was going to sell, I went to the Inventory to see if the price was adjusted - and the ENTIRE price of the ship (plus the newly researched module) changed to normal XP. I got a bit angry and was about to make a fuss about it on the Forum + send a support ticket, but halfawy through writing the thread I went in to check something again and... the price tag (with the price of the module added) reverted to freeXP. I quickly sold it just in case it might've changed its mind again So while "no freeXP for you if you researched the ship after 8.0" isn't a bug, the system most definitely doesn't seem completely bug-free when it comes to deciding what kind of XP you're supposed to receive

Actually it wasn't. They said that selling for the second time will only give normal XP, nothing about "only researched pre patch".

Are you sure this circle is not shown for ship-based fighters? Anyway, the point is - I usually can strike my target and get away before fighters lock on to me. Making their role of deterring airstrikes somewhat... debatable. And then, if you do get locked on, shaking them off takes forever (if possible at all, depending on where the map border is, how much engine boost you have etc). It just doesn't seem like good mechanic the way it works now. And enemy CV drops their figters and they nullify each other since the losing fighters die and the winning fighters go back home satisfied by each getting a kill

DDs do get this aid, however - and for good reasons. Despite usually spreading more love at once (compared to the iconic 2-torp drops from IJN TBs), creating more room for error. The part where the skill comes is in knowing that the torps will take quite some time to arrive AND that the enemy is likely to react to the drop in some way or perform other maneuvers based on the situation. You need to predict their actions and torp accordingly. Basically: calculating where your torps meet the ship with badly presented speed was deemed unnecessary extra difficulty for DDs - and I agree with that but also believe the same applies to TBs. Let them torp with the same aid as DDs - and you'll see more long-range drops. That, incidentally, on one hand gives the CV player more options against heavy AA but also more counterplay opportunities to the ships (these torps aren't very fast and you see the moment of drop due to squadron splitting - the one exception being Haku's 4-torp drop at max range... but that's with 40kn torps at 8km - unless you really love sailing in straight lines, you probably won't be hit by these torps launched at torping aid indicator). Currently long-range drops aren't very viable and the point-blank ones are basically bruteforcing your way through AA and dropping at ranges where the enemy usually can't really dodge unless you mess up the drop.

Not really. Then again, the other ideas aren't that bad. Although I'd refrain from "have not yet been discussed" clickbait title - DBs are quite fragile and their attack pattern is... strange. Not only for historical reasons. It's just strange and makes aiming problematic because the reticle also does strange things. Of course, having them fly at higher altitude would have certain ramifications and the attack would probably be faster rather than slower - that would require balancing... Personally I have a quiet suspicion that the weird attack run we have is WG trying to make AP bombers work without obliterating everything with alpha AND without being completely useless at the same time... - for TBs - preach. I mean, with really good sense of speed you technically CAN provide longer-range drops but then again, with the exception of one Haku loadout with 40kn torps that take ages to arrive (and still deal pitiful damage), stealth-torping is impossible. Other than that, dropping aircraft are always visible, so the "victims" that pay any attention can react. They even get a confirmation of drop: the squadron separates into two before one of the parts (both if you are a Minotaur ) promptly disappears. Adding visual aid would also have the extra effect of letting you assess the speed and bearing of a ship other than via minimap. Currently at the point where you need to commit to a strike you don't see the smoke or wake of the ship yet, without the minimap it can be hard to assess if the thing is even moving - and if yes, then in which direction. As for rockets, well, WG really wanted to get rid of the "suppress the enemy CV meta". It's not that they really wanted rocket planes. What they really wanted was to get rid of fighters. I guess they COULD let them shoot guns at ships, but having planes with guns that - can't engage enemy aircraft as fighters (WG explicitly wanted to get rid of the situation where CVs focus on fight for air supremacy) - deal noticeable damage to lightly armored ships would probably be even more immersion-breaking than having rocket planes on IJN carriers.

The fighters are a joke though. They hardly ever lock on but when they do, they chase you across the map. Why the hell couldn't WG have made it so that they had a "initial acquisition" circle, smaller than now - but where they would immediately acquire incoming enemy aircraft. Add to that better speed (so that they would be slowly gaining even on the fastest tier-equivalent planes using speedboost) and a "maximum chase circle" larger than the current "fighter circle" but not something as massive as the distances they cover now. As an added measure they could "remember" they target and re-acquire it if it returns into the "maximum chase circle" to make it harder to abuse the system by going out briefly and returning with the follow-up attack. There would be only benefits of that: - the "initial acquisition circle" would be smaller but you'd really have to avoid it - right now we can fly freely through the fighter circles unless we really linger too long - the "maximum chase circle" would make escaping the threat more viable: your planes would either be safe reasonably quickly... or dead - also reasonably quickly - the fighters would actually have value as a defensive measure. Let's even have them toned down if that fast acquisition made them too powerful (less planes, less duration), but right now they are pretty worthless for a ship. And for a CV (the plane-dropped ones)... well, they ARE useful but I don't think that's for the right reasons. I mostly use them to put them around enemy DD to provide prolonged spotting (wasn't that something WG didn't want in the rework?) or on top of enemy fighters to remove THEIR spotting. They are just too unreliable to be of much use in helping allies - and for the same reason it's rare for me to feel much need to get rid of defensively dropped/shipborne ones (not to mention that they melt quickly in enemy AA if dropped close to an enemy ship, so I'm likely to still have to play around the enemy fighters even if I do drop mine).

Oh, so you're one of them skill-based MM proponents?... Ok, nevermind, let's just end this discussion on this.

I can assure you, when I played pre-rework CVs, I had plenty training opportunities. Then I was able to do whatever I wanted when meeting bad CV opponents and I was utterly helpless against the really good ones. Sometimes I met someone on my level and that sometimes led to a more exciting match. Unicums love to say how "people know how strafing works and then they are gods, others don't and they are potatoes" but *edited* Contrary to popular belief, average CV players did exist... problem is: there were no "average players" in matches because an average player to a unicum was just like a potato. And just like a unicum for a potato, btw. Either way: the weaker side as just completely screwed. In the end... This one has many flaws, I agree. RTS had many, many more. I don't say that having a significantly better CV was completely absolute. Just that the difference wasn't quite as pronounced as it is now. That's, at the very least, what I observe in the matches I play, be it as a CV or not. Just being a lot better than the enemy CV gives me not nearly as big an advantage as it used to in RTS. Just being worse (or not that worse but screwing up early on - that in RTS would've meant putting myself at a nigh-irrecoverable) isn't nearly as disastrous. Oh, and I'm a pretty decent DD player, well aware of the power of the class. And no, having a better CV was MUCH better than having better DDs. Even a 1v1 DD match with one DD being a potato was less unbalanced than a unicum CV vs average CV in RTS was. If I were to point a finger, that would probably be (other than expectations raised by the lol-balance of the first week - that is usually responsible for the "best battles to day") the way WG went about nerfing CV. I can't really understand that, to be frank: they nerfed power, yes, but what was hit the most was QoL. I'm mostly speaking about IJN CVs here and the thing is: IJN CVs like their torps. Rockets are not good against bigger targets, AP bombs are somewhat underwhelming at their best while being very tricky to use - torps it is. And WG made the aiming... disastrous. You need to start the run from REALLY far away (so far away that you're aiming by minimap because you don't see smoke or wake and wouldn't know which side the ship is going by looking normally), the spread is extremely sluggish in narrowing and at the end of that you get off two torps that don't do much damage (and rarely cause floodings). IJN TBs are about landing subsequent strikes (you have up to 12 planes in the squadron and drop only 2 torps at a time) but the torps are EXTREMELY bad at performing subsequent attacks because you need to fly far away to be able to turn and attack in a way that would give you a decent spread. It's not impossible to play around it, you see. I'm still learning but it kinda-ish works out when I try. That and I spend a lot of time throwing rockets at DDs anyway. The problem is, however, that using what was (by design, I think) supposed to be my main weapon is just extremely frustrating. If WG really had problem with people being too effective with 2-torp loadouts and believed that AA changes wouldn't be enough (loadouts with small strike detachment were affected much more since they relied on multiple sequential attacks, meaning more time in AA, not to mention that returning planes become a separate squadron and take AA separately, so the less there are in the detachment, the higher the chance that all of them are going to be destroyed before they reach safe altitude) they should've nerfed... pretty much anything else. Alpha would be better. Speed would be better. Maybe even arming time could be a bit worse. But a nerf to aiming, from very comfortable to a chore? I mean, maybe it was A BIT too comfortable, so that you were allowed to do practically anything when aiming and the spread was still pretty good. But the way they changed this is that now using these things simply unpleasant. And even if the result is satisfying, when the process of playing isn't... then you have a problem, one not as much of balance anymore but rather of (bad) design. But people don't necessarily understand that. Even those that are still getting results, they very often feel how bad the ship plays and instinctively conclude "overnerfed" while the problem isn't that it was nerfed too much (and become weak) but that it was nerfed in wrong places (and became unfun to play). I really hope that WG either manage to notice the problem before the balancing settles in or fixes the issue half by mistake or something, they are doing strange things in balancing sometimes. Otherwise... I doubt I'll be really playing Haku much after the "testing period" ends. Not because she can't perform, but because I'm playing to have fun and I'm having serious trouble finding it in the current way she plays. IDK, the "myth" seemed to be working pretty consistently for me ...that or I hardly ever met competent surface ships, that might be the case too

It's not a problem. But when player in team A is better than one specific player in team B and, as a result - the player in team B can do nothing the entire match and - even if the rest of team B is better than the rest of team A (unless the difference is extreme) the team A still wins then it is bad. Because the worse player is excessively punished for not being as good as his counterpart AND the superior ability of the rest of the team is not rewarded (they are noticeably better, or at least noticeably less bad, but they lose the match because CVs are that much more influential as a class AND the difference in ability scales into effect disproportionately, where even a good CV player accomplishes very little when facing one even better). That's... like a complete non issue, though? It's like showing a match of Hakuryuu with 500 main battery hits and saying that she's extremely underpowered because 500 main battery hits from Yamato would've obliterated the entire enemy team. Old Haku and new Haku are two different ships. Old CVs and new CVs are two different classes. And one of the points of the rework was to make CVs deal less damage per attack but more often. Last time I checked - Hakuryu wasn't a DD and carried a very different torpedoes, delivered by vastly different means. When I score a single torpedo hit in Shima on a BB, I'm happy that I scored a hit. When I score a single torpedo hit on a BB in Hakuryu, I know that I f*cked up my approach - I should've been able to land (all) two. Well, you will do it more efficiently - but... ok, let's put it this way. I think you might be actually underestimating how many players with little to no CV experience (not all skill is transferable but a lot is) are now playing CVs, even highest tier. As for the average-goodish players, however... Let me say this: If I met you now in a match, I would know that my team is at a disadvantage because I'm not as good as you. But I would probably still do my part (unless it happened to be one of THESE matches ) and if my team was better than yours, I would have a chance to actually win the match. If I met you before rework, you'd just suppress me. I'd do little spotting, even less damage and unless your team was full of complete potatoes and my uncommonly good - the defeat would've been pretty much certain, it wouldn't even be a contest.

You know, I thought to myself "how can someone with any significant amount of pre-rework CV experience be so blind to the problems of the previous system where one CV was more often than not completely suppressed by the only relevant enemy on the enemy side with that enemy just reaping all the benefits of CV power while the loser had nothing to say". I saw two possibilities: a unicum (likely re-roll kind) that was almost always on the suppressing side and is salty that it's gotten much harder to win games all by himself OR someone who feels like an expert on CVs but never really got to playing them. I'm pretty sure you know full well which one you are, right? The stats don't seem to agree with you, however. At the very least not post-hotfix (pre-hotfix Haku was ridiculously OP). Well, good players are better than bad players, that much won't change until some class comes with a consumable "toss a coin that decides the vistory of one side". Then again, the good players would only be using that coin in games that seem lost, so the gap would still exist But, more seriously - of course the skill gap is a thing, the thing is: as long as the bad player isn't bad enough to just as well be AFK, he'll still be useful whether the opponent is a similar potato, an average player or a super-unicum. The average player will perform more-or-less averagely even if the enemy has a unicum that (in the old system) would've made it so that the pre-rework average player would be only marginally more useful than a complete noob. Good players win more games, but a "big difference in skill" generates "big difference in results" rather than "absolute suppression". I'd argue that you're wrong. Let's face it - wouldn't you, of all people, be able to achieve a pretty similar results with old carriers? And while doing that, you would also stop the enemy CV from locking out your friendly DDs in return. But now, as long as the opponent is at least an "average CV player" or even "below average but not an absolute noob" (pre-rework both categories would be almost as helpless against you as a complete potato), he will be able to somewhat suppress attempts at early capping from your side as well. This means that the early capping situation is as follows: pre-rework: the side with significantly better CV caps for free because enemy DDs are pushed out of caps while friendlies are protected from the enemy CV post-rework: neither side can hope for easy early caps because even if your CV is a unicum, your DDs won't be safe - the weaker CV is still able to apply the level of pressure decided by his skill rather than the gap between him and the better CV Now, I'm not saying that it's a good thing that CVs can suppress DDs so completely (seriously, we need an initial takeoff delay and removal of situational awareness from planes) but the results are clearly less one-sided when the skill level of both CVs is significantly different. Frankly, I'd prefer to have a unicum CV enemy AND an average CV ally post-rework than a unicum CV enemy and a GOOD CV ally. Because "good" just wouldn't be enough to have significant impact when the enemy is unicum. And currently an "average" CV will still do his job... averagely. He will fall far behind the unicum counterpart on the enemy team, but he won't be suppressed into being useless.

No. A bad CV player meant a player that wouldn't do any of these (spotting, defending friendlies etc). A player good enough (pre-rework) to decide that he can't win against the enemy CV in the air, prompting him to go spotting and put fighters on allied ships, is more than adept enough mentally to (post-rework) figure out that he can't seem to be able to strike most enemies - prompting him to go spot and maybe occasionally harass DDs with rockets or whatever he happens to have on hand. Being at least marginally useful without actually doing much (especially to anything bigger than a DD) isn't any harder than it was. The chances are lower than if you had a potato CV in the RTS system, though. A literal AFK CV right now is less of a burden than a bad CV player in the previous system was. It's still a heavy thing to carry (CVs weigh a lot ) but not as heavy as it used to be. Stats of potatoes confirm this - it's just not as easy to make your team lose as it used to be, even if you try VERY hard

One game genre implies multitasking and coordination of multiple units you control independently at the same time - that was THE gameplay of old CVs. Currently the closest you get to that is the ability to set a course for the carrier while controlling the planes, you never get to control and coordinate multiple independent squadrons. It was clearly a case of an RTS (even if very basic one) and now it can't be called RTS no matter how you stretch the definition. That's not cosmetic, that's a change in what genre the game belongs to. And it changed to something much closer to what the other ships are playing. The interaction with other ships was of lesser importance, however. If you won the air superiority, you were the king of the map and very few ships had any means of opposing you (and these few were often, conversely, completely untouchable, so not much interaction with them either). I mean, sure, technically you did interact with all the ships. Likewise technically you interact with all ships now too - you can drop fighters (lol), you can strike the enemy CV... see? Interaction! It's just much less important than what you do with - and to - the other ships. Just like then it was much more important what you did in the air battle because that (rather than your skill in capitalizing on the effects of that aerial battle by dealing with surface vessels) was the most decisive factor in how effective you were overall. pre-rework: CV vs CV battle was more important than CV vs 11 other ships post-rework: CV vs 11 other ships is much more important than how you match up with the enemy CV Both factors have some weight both pre- and post-rework but the dramatic switch in priorities makes it so that the responsibility for dealing with the enemy CV no longer is in 90% up to the friendly carrier. And this is a very welcome change, because thanks to that having an average CV on one side and a bad one on the other no longer spells nigh-assured defeat for the side with the worse one. Sure, if the enemy has a unicum and you a potato, it's going to be really tough - but then again, having a "match-up" of a potato DD vs a unicum one is an extremely unfavorable as well, especially if the number of DDs in general is relatively low and population of Radar ship unimpressive as well.

Size. They are not supposed to be more important and more powerful than the other classes in a game blanced around players controlling one ship each, you know? This makes the very idea of a "capital ship" as the main, most powerful part of the fleet not applicable to the game. Nope, you discard them only where it suits you and stick to them where it suits you. It's a bit regretful that you don't see that the distinction between a role of a ship and the tactics they use is just an arbitrary decision on your part. For DDs their "role" in regards to torps you basically restrict to "performing torpedo attacks". You don't delve into what kind of damage, to what, in what situations and what quantities they are supposed to deliver - because that's "tactics". But for CVs you're not content with their role as mobile bases for aviation - you assert that their role extends to how much damage they are supposed to do and to what. You pick what fits you and call it the "role" of the ship. You throw away the rest calling it "tactics". But the distinction is assigned entirely by you and shifts from class to class. Sorry, accusing me of "hypocrisy" while having an approach like that is just a bad joke. Let's just leave this at this. I have neither time nor energy to waste on further taking your post apart. I have no hope of getting through to you and there's little value in this for everyone else - so I'll just drop this conversation, sorry.

I'd check some French colonial ports and the number of British ships that got interned (is that the right word in English) after France's surrender to Germany? That kinda counts as ships lost and the decision to intern allied ships present is made for all of them at once, so that would be done to all present in the given port pretty much simultaneously

Because now 1. You're not playing a completely different game genre (RTS) - you still have unique gameplay unlike any other but the difference has shrunk considerably. 2. Your gameplay is focused on interaction with all the enemy ships rather than with just one of them, that happens to also be a carrier. With old CVs, most of your effort was directed towards CV vs CV battle for air superiority. Now it's considerably more spread out (with enemy CV usually actually being the ship you spend the least effort on but I digress). 3. Most of your arguments actually don't actually hold up. Notice how your examples of "watching out for your team" are actually "watching out for the actions of enemy CV", the sole exceptions being localized spotting... that you still can (and should, depending on circumstances) do. The stats are tainted, but - even if we don't know how much of that was pre-hotfix (seems like a bit less than 2/3 though) - we do have stats that give us indication as to what is the bottom line (how much of a disadvantage it is at t10 to have only 11 ships with the CV being AFK for all practical intents and purposes). I won't be giving any nicks, but there are leadearboards listing people with over 80 battles (and they are so empty so far that everyone above 80 battles is top 100). And among them a player with a little a bit over 20k damage. "Terrible average", you'd probably say and you'd be probably right... but also completely wrong. Yes, 20k damage is a bad, bad average even after hotfix. And no, it's not his average damage. It's his record from close to 100 battles now And that's how we know - it's actually still possible to get below 30% solo winrate in a CV But, speaking seriously - stats like these do in fact provide us with some information. They are, in fact, arguably more important than the results of "top scorers" - because the most brutal situation of WoWs isn't "I'm screwed since I met a super-unicum", they are the "I'm screwed because I have a complete potato on my team". And to that I can affirm: in the new CVs getting below 30% solo winrate seems to be... an achievement, sort of (I seriously wonder if that player launches any planes or just relies on secondaries for everything). Compared to that, the old CVs had loads of players getting as low a winrate or lower - while also scoring tens of thousands of average damage per battle. Quite a few people with over 60k average damage - and solo winrate over hundreds of CV battles dipping below 30%. They weren't AFK - they were actively playing but the average enemy had just that much more impact than them... Of course, the sample sizes are different and the bigger the sample the more outliers you might find (outliers that, on top of playing badly, were also uncommonly unlucky). Still, it seems to show that the power of the new CVs (even before the hotfix, I'd say) to decide matches (when not opposed by their counterpart of not too inferior ability) has dropped considerably. To put it simply: it's much more realistic for a good team to carry a complete potato of a CV (or a CV afker even) than it used to be.

My Haku build isn't complete yet since I'm experimenting a bit. The must-haves are: 1p: Air Superiority 2p: - 3p: Survivability Expert, Aircraft Armor 4p: Sight Stabilization This costs 11 points (and there's obviously the need to take at least one 2p skill to get the p3+ "must-haves". As for the skills that aren't quite as mandatory: 1p: - IEB would be nice in case of having spare extra point - LG looks nice but, in the end, seems underwhelming for IJN CVs. Your RPs regenerate boost very fast and have little of it, your TBs fly in the set of 2 so the skill would only apply to the last 2 and your DBs are... very situational and usually have enough boost to not leave you wanting. AND they get shot up with one attack so much that the last strike is mostly irrelevant anyway. 2p: - TA - this might be nice, but has problems. The main one being: longer arming range makes aiming even more of a chore than it already is... The loss of range (on the shorter torps) is less of a problem: hitting the enemies who aren't straight-sailing bots at max range is extremely unreliable (remember, you can't stealth-torp with these things and these torps are only fast for plane-dropped torp standards) and even if they ARE straight-sailing bots, you lack the DD torping indicator to make full use of that. The only thing you can reliably strike launching from max range is a ship that's AFK. Also, even if you drop max range, you're going to find yourself deep in enemy AA anyway because the squadron keeps moving forward when you're torping and planes aren't good at turning. BAsically, the range has very limited value. - IE - a nice buff (who doesn't like speed)... but relatively small. - AR - now, this is not a popular choice and it suffers a lot from the fact that dead planes are deducted from maximum hp. One green plane and one red? Damaged! Red one explodes? Whew, the pilot in the green one is now relaxed, he's flying in a full-hp squadron Still, the buff becomes substantial (compared to IE) since as long as you're below 85%, you're going to be at 3% improved speed (compared to IEs 2.5% flat) and you'll often have less. AR - unlike for ships - isn't an offensive tool: it helps you get away saving more planes of a badly damaged squadron. 3p: nothing really worth taking; DE boosts rockets a tiny bit but there's no way in hell I'd get 3 extra points to spend on +1% fire chance, even if I use rockets a lot 4p: - CE - STEALTHYYY. Stealth torping is not doable anyway but I can try getting closer to the battle with my hull and my planes are a bit less predictable. Overall, current build is: AS IE, AR SE, AA SS, CE but it might not stay that way when we get to respec for free the next time

Dead men tell no tales. If he dies, his damage will remain untold

You're wrong, plain and simple. This can be easily shown through a simple analogy to the other DoT source we have in the game right now: A single full flooding post-change deals, to BBs, 20% of their hp. A single full fire deals, to BBs, 18% of their hp. And do you know what smart BB players usually do with a single fire? They let it burn. Because these 18% of their hp is not worth using DCP unless the situation worsens. They can easily get that back with a heal. Are 20% that much more catastrophic than the 18% to force an insta-repair? Or, considering that BBs tend to fly the anti-fire flags and assuming they would fly anti-flooding ones as well now: Is 16% of hp lost due to a single uncontrolled flooding so much worse than the 14,4% (I'm not sure how the DoT durations are rounded) from an uncontrolled fire that the latter can be allowed to run its whole duration but the former requires instant DCP? And, of course, there are also DCS Mod 2 and Basick of Survivability that, when taken, each provide further 15% reduction to fire and flooding duration as well, leaving both (with signal) at 10% hp lost to a single fool flooding, 9% hp to a single fire. So, best (worst?) case scenario the difference is between the DoT that can deal 9% and one that can deal 10% total hp worth of damage. Sure, flooding still does more damage and there are other reasons for it to be more pressing of a problem to solve, but I dare say that no-brainer insta-repair might no longer be the case. At least for people who actually take the note of the changes - we know that there are some people who still believe that they are saving credits by surviving a battle, after all.

WG is wrong about many things but not about this. You use math and calculate the number of seconds/amount of damage a flag saves and you call quits - but you ignore the reality of the game. Let me illustrate it this way. Imagine if flooding lasted 5 minutes (300 seconds), dealing 1% of ship's HP per second. A -20% duration signal would mean cutting it down to 4 minutes (240 seconds), saving you 60% of your ship's hp worth of damage, right? Problem is, it would be useless, because - a flood would kill you if you don't use DCP anyway, even Conqueror couldn't repair enough to live through this - even caught with DCP on cooldown, it would be back before the flooding is over, so as long as you were alive you would cut the flooding short long before the natural end The actual situation is, of course, much less extreme, but the same generally applies: floodings usually don't end naturally. They are usually cut short either by DCP coming off cooldown or the ship sinking. The signal that reduces the duration doesn't really change that - floodings still last so long that you usually (not always but usually) either die or end up ending them with DCP. In both cases the signal has basically 0 effect. Making floodings less painful means that a player can afford to save DCP despite flooding AND if you are caught with DCP on cooldown, there is a chance that a flooding will run out before DCP becomes available (or it will be close enough to ending that you'd rather save DCP rather than use it to save these few remaining ticks of damage). In these situations the duration of the flooding actually starts to matter a lot and, because of that, the value and usefulness of the signal increases significantly. Well, thing is: this doesn't seem to be the case, actually. An island can hide your planes and being unspotted lets you avoid damage. But if something else does spot them, they actually seem to be taking damage from ships behind islands (solid ground basically working like smoke for purpose of AA). This could be, of course, tested more conclusively in controlled environment of a training room, what I'm saying comes from the impressions of playing post-rework CVs in actual battles where it's easier to be mistaken about certain details.