El2aZeR

You know, there used to be a time when CVs had a mythical ability called "manual hull control". Legend states that this allowed CVs to move their hull with manual WASD input while playing with planes at the same time! That sounds truly incredible, no?

I actually picked up Lex recently. Personally I've had no particular issue with positioning. It's just that the higher your concealment goes, the more aware you have to be when you need to move. I guess you could drop Sight Stab for CE on Lexington maybe since I found TBs to be the more effective and reliable damage source over DBs. Not that her DBs are bad tho ofc.

Auto pilot alone pretty much defeats this suggestion.

It is. Depending on the CV TA can still be useful though to cross drop DDs if you really need to. It also changes the aiming point to something imo more comfortable on non-IJN CVs. I use it on all RN CVs and USN CVs barring Midway because Midway TBs have terrible handling. If you can do without it though, that's fine too. It's not a mandatory skill by any means on anything but perhaps Enterprise because her arming distance is extremely low as is. I use Flight Control Mod on all CVs. Concealment Mod is generally useless nowadays except on maybe Kaga as she fields gigantic reserves to begin with. Concealment Expert on the other hand can be quite useful if you don't need Sight Stab (aka RN CVs) and/or Demo Expert (aka IJN CVs) as it allows you to get closer to the front lines and thus increase your DPM.

Jesus Christ dude.

You just take them.

You don't. Terrible advice. Most rockets have vertical dispersion.

To put this laughable debate to a conclusive end, here's some math: A fully upgraded Midway DB squad has 32808 health. Lets say an attack will take 30 seconds of full on AA exposure, which in itself is already unrealistic as DPS auras are split but for simplicity's sake lets go with it. In 30 seconds a full AA spec Des Moines will shoot down 6 planes while heavily damaging a 7th, dealing ~18570 damage in the process. This means two attack runs will go through. In 30 seconds a Des Moines possessing no AA skills whatsoever will shoot down 5 planes while damaging the 6th plane a moderate amount, dealing ~14670 damage in the process. This also means two attack runs will go through. Now lets add DFAA to the mix. With DFAA boosting DPS by 50% the full AA DM will deal 27855 damage, killing 10 planes. However because the initial attack lets 3 planes escape he'll only kill 9. AA has reached the point of overkill, but that's still one full attack that goes through. On the base AA DM meanwhile it will deal 22005 damage, killing 8 planes. That too is one full attack that goes through. However DFAA can be cheesed by accel bail and/or slingshot, minimizing losses and cutting down AA exposure. This time we'll say it's 12 seconds. In 12 seconds the full AA DM with DFAA shoots down 2 planes while severely damaging a third. In 12 seconds the base AA DM with DFAA shoots down 2 planes as well while moderately damaging a third. Why am I not talking about sector reinforcement? Because using sector reinforcement against DBs is in most scenarios a severe mistake. Due to their optimal approach angle it is extremely easy to just dip into the non-reinforced side to mitigate AA DPS. SR is also often a more or less 0 sum mechanic when it comes to rockets or TBs as they'll often just pass over you into your non-reinforced side after an attack before your SR goes on cd. The only thing that really matters is the instant damage, which on some ships with halfway decent AA allows you to kill one extra plane. Wouldn't MAA be a good choice then? No, because not only does the skill present a massive investment, the effects are likewise marginal. Now I could repeat this for every potential squadron in the game but the result is generally the same. A ship fully specialized into AA will shoot down a negligible amount of planes more than a ship without any investment into AA while preventing no attack runs. And do keep in mind that the scenarios described above are actually even more favorable to the CV as constant full AA exposure isn't a thing. So to potentially get 1 or 2 more plane kills you're giving up 3 captain skill points spent on BFT and, at T10, the extremely valuable 6th upgrade slot for AA Guns Mod 2. Given that even T8 CVs carry reserves of ~90-100 planes in a full duration match you'll die long before coming even close to depleting that if the CV is skilled. If he isn't however then he will just die to flak, which he will do regardless of whether you'll invest something into it or not. It's therefore pretty safe to say that you shouldn't bother with it.

Not really. If you check stats you'll see that the average CV player has become vastly more incompetent.

We were able to scrape together 12 people just barely. We played 10 matches, won 8. Everything about that has already been said above. Gameplay was a complete show from my perspective. CVs make DDs practically obsolete with far better spotting capability and reaction times. We didn't even bother taking one with us as Smolensk substitutes as a smoking vessel and ofc synergizes with CV spotting quite nicely. Everything else that isn't sitting in smoke trying to hold down a position can get farmed by CV or other ships unless ridiculous amounts of AA is amassed which inherently gives up map control. Initial spotting within the first minute also turned out to be quite devastating in quite a few matches as we caught ships broadside trying to reach positions. There were also still a lot of CVs trying to do dumb fighter interception. Like really, I thought it's common knowledge by now that fighters aren't fighters but spotters? Needless to say it was a minor annoyance at best. On a sidenote, we encountered one team that didn't bring a CV. I bet they regretted that. The amount of Grozos I saw thinking that their AA is still worth something was quite sad, too. If this shows anything it's that CVs should stay out of CBs and competitive indefinitely. Even if the spotting change goes through, which would essentially make the sole purpose of CVs to grief everyone else, the concept of being capable of attacking people at will aka the core design of the rework itself is just outright toxic for gameplay just as it is in randoms. In fact the entire affair felt barely any different to a random battle from a CV perspective as even with requests for spotting or priority target callouts, which I will usually try to preempt just like in randoms anyway, there is just THIS little interaction between you, your teammates and your opponents. I felt far more part of a team and actual pressure from the enemy playing RTS in competitive. If the rework was somehow meant to solve any of this it has once again failed spectacularly.

Mostly Smolensks, Stalins, DMs and Henrys. Cruisers did cruiser things which depending on where I put my attention on got punished quite hard.

Yup. We played entirely without DDs. I think I averaged like 100-130k and 2-3 kills. Not too different from randoms. Teams that brought DDs were at a severe handicap because they were rendered largely useless. Even encountered a team that didn't bring a CV at all. To say that they lost badly would be an understatement. Perfectly balans.

Meh. Gonna guess potatoes like to be carried. Literally.

Which even according to WG is wrong.

That's actually outdated. Almost 12 million now. And well...

Because what we have is what we get. Removal is honestly a far more likely (although still minuscule) option than another rework which would cost a lot of money and time.

Did you even need to ask?

Das ist dann aber auch kein counterplay, sondern einfach nur ein Maßstab dafür wie lächerlich schlecht die durchschnittliche Spielerschaft ist. Und ganz ehrlich, die Messlatte für reworked CVs was skill angeht ist ohnehin schon tief genug.

A very astute observation. And as we've been saying and proving, fire damage is low impact.

So you agree that Indomitable has little impact on the match? That sounds very different to what you've been saying previously.

And why, pray tell, is the BB in front in higher concentrations of AA than the BB in the back? I'm not even going to mention how this contradicts your narrative about everyone camping. Something that is not only hogwash, as CVs tend to stay even further back than the gun range of most BBs, but also extremely unlikely especially if said CV is angled as they tend to be given that is literally how they spawn.

Because the juicy BB in the front presents a better and more efficient target? This is basic stuff, you know? Even the less experienced players will tend to run away before becoming exposed to enemy fire. If they do get caught they were never worth sinking for their striking potential in the first place as they had none to begin with.

Actually pushing forward makes you a more appealing target for the CV, makes you suffer air strikes far more frequently as a result and exposes you to enemy fire. You'll actually just end up dying much faster. And what, pray tell, prevents the faster and stealthier CV from just, you know, running away and never exposing itself to shell fire in the first place? A CV isn't a stationary air field contrary to what you believe.

Yes, that isn't surprising indeed. I'm more waiting on WR and KPM. I also have a feeling that not a lot of poor players are actually playing Indomitable in the first place. Given that Indomitable mostly relies on fires to deal damage a survivability build is actually optimal compared to everything else. Your statement is contradicting itself.

You know, the fun part is that if this had been a Lexington, Shokaku, Enterprise, etc. they would have all gone out of the match with less damage as they would have killed those targets and won the match much faster. Yup. And no, according to official statement hybrid ships won't happen as the rework is incompatible with surface ship play. Rather funny because before the rework they told us that hybrid ships would become a possibility afterwards.