El2aZeR

Except that is a 57% WR, 109k average damage "great" player. I can PM the full screenshot to you if you want to so you can check yourself. And regardless, he did what you suggested he should do. Which meant he actively contributed to the loss of his team.

Just to illustrate my point: One of us tried to support his teammates with fighter cover, spotting and other supposed team-based actions. The other meanwhile farmed only damage. You may guess who did what and which had more impact on the match.

The issue with limited range is that it potentially creates boredom in what is supposed to be glorious action gameplay. Meaning that it will turn off at least part of the already sparse population. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, but I can see why WG doesn't want to go with it. I agree that AP bombs should've never been implemented and CV players voiced as much when they were first introduced on the RTS Enterprise. I mean, I recently did this on the CN server: Is it funny? For sure. Is it fair or balanced? Ofc not. Given that this is what WG once considered fair and balanced and to an extend still does one can only imagine what a cesspool of incompetence their balancing department must be. However even with AP bombs removed that doesn't solve much. I slammed a unicum Worcester for ~16k with Midway TBs in a single drop and could've finished him off easily if he hadn't run for the map border and other, more appetizing targets didn't appear just today. The ability for reworked CVs to be able to practically kill anything at will is the issue, AP bombs just exacerbate it. Limiting spotting has two issues. For one it alienates CVs even further from what is supposed to be a team game when they're already isolated to the extreme. And finally it doesn't actually solve the real issue, which is that CVs can and will still murder ships without much effort nor investment. Again, I'm not against the idea, but realistically I doubt it'll change much. Would your suggestions improve the current situation? Quite likely. Do they solve anything tho? Nah.

More or less. Again, kills per match can be an indicator on an individual basis but I doubt it yields a representative value in average stats. The issue is also average player skill. It wouldn't surprise me at all if most skilled BB players simply no longer play Montana given that her role is currently heavily contested by several other ships. Which given how game design works is simply wrong. You do not balance around that the player is too stupid to use a mechanic which is pretty much what average stats represent, you balance around that a mechanic is used successfully to its max potential, aka player skill is completely eliminated from the equation. The reason why top player stats are relevant is because they represent that potential, not because they're the best players. Again, you do not write a manual on the basis that most of the world won't be able to read or understand it. No amount of tweaking will yield a satisfactory solution due to the rework being fundamentally flawed. If you only have one squad, that squad has to deal damage as otherwise there'd be no point in the existence of reworked CVs. Because of that there must be no counterplay to reworked CVs, therefore reworked CVs are inherently broken. Because again you do not design a game mechanic on the basis that it will not be used (or misused for that matter). E.g. DCP is there to eliminate DoT, but you do not balance around the fact that most players are too stupid to use it correctly. It's the game design equivalent to Chekhov's gun.

Generally speaking BBs have the most effective AA suites, especially if you equip the catapult fighter and use it to full effectiveness. Montana I believe has the best DPS values overall in the game, however that doesn't mean much, even T8 CVs will still be able to push strikes through against you easily assuming they're sufficiently skilled. Among cruisers Minotaur still reigns supreme, but she is a shadow of her former self being around 200 DPS behind Montana in AA effectiveness if I recall correctly. Plenty of BBs have better AA suites than her. Worcester is close but worse still. DM AA has been completely murdered, being roughly equivalent to a NC now. In terms of DDs Friesland is the only DD with a meaningful AA suite with about the same base AA as a Colo if I remember correctly, followed by Kidd which has the equivalent of T6 AA, roughly same with Gearing and then comes Grozo which already falls between the T5-6 brackets. Safe to say you don't want to invest into AA in these ships as it won't do anything. The only worthwhile AA skill is BFT. Everything else either severely shafts your surface combat ability or is trash. You don't actually want DFAA either since it only gives a 50% increase in DPS now which is largely meaningless. Hydro provides much better utility. Sector reinforcement does allow you to deal more damage but in the grand scheme of things is largely useless as well. Tl;dr: Use Montana, use catapult fighter, take BFT, use sector reinforcement, still get slamdunked by T8 CVs.

Didn't I just say that this data isn't publicly available, hence we don't actually know for sure?

It's percentage health damage dealt. As in doing 20k damage to a DD is almost 100% while doing the same to a BB is like 20% roughly speaking. WG calls it delta damage I think. And here is the part where we simply don't have access to the data. Generally kills per match can be an indicator for an individual player but I'm skeptical about its use in averages considering different playstyles. The stock TBs do have better aiming parameters afaik, but it's honestly not worth it. Unless you completely mess up getting 4 out of 6 hits should still be possible with the upgraded TBs, with the possibility of getting more. And you get way more health and reserves to boot.

Which in itself doesn't say anything. Even WG doesn't balance around average damage. They balance around effective damage. What the. I was sure the stock bombers drop 6. Huh. Learn something new every day I suppose. Regardless the stock bombers deal the same damage and you get less of them, so you're effectively shafting yourself by using them. Again, Midway TBs have terrible handling, but if you can make them work they're actually quite good I found. I've been relying on them more often these days and while the damage numbers may not look impressive in battle, they do stack up pretty decently.

Honestly I haven't played Lex since forever. In Midway you generally rely on your TiTs more than anything else tho. Stock planes already have the 6x torps. There is no advantage to using the stock planes. The 6x torps are unwieldy but actually do quite a lot of damage if you can handle them.

That's exactly the point, isn't it? Aside from more effectively soaking damage there isn't something a Yamato can do that a Midway could not, however there are tons of things a Yamato has to rely on their teammates for whereas a Midway just doesn't care. Hence why CVs have no place in what is supposed to be a team game.

Except removing DDs from caps and killing them IS dealing damage. Which, again, is not a teamplay ability.

So what you're doing is deliberately helping to lose the match. That is your idea of "teamplay"? And I'm sorry, but "MORE into teamplay"? Previously a CV at least had to rely on teammates to break and soften up AA ships and blobs while having to provide reconnaissance and air cover. Now a CV can kill everything on their own and doesn't need to rely on anyone nor can he be relied upon to do anything. Dealing damage is not teamplay, it is a basic requirement of any class to exist in this PvP game. The amount of recon you provide while doing so in a CV is actually just insult to injury as it is purely accidental and, quite frankly, unnecessary as a CV can just finish off any target by themselves. Performance of top CV players?

But again, why aren't the other "overperforming" premiums getting pulled then? Except they haven't. In skilled hands Conq is now stronger than ever before thanks to the improved heal. This nerf was solely targeted at bad players. Also Conq averages have negligibly changed, if at all. So that couldn't have been the goal as it would imply that a far harsher nerf is needed instead of what can be described as a trade-off. A truly meaningless buff as proven by no change in averages. One would think that this would warrant a bigger buff than only improving the secondaries. Ofc, as the only logical explanation would be that average stats in fact do not matter. Acknowledging that would contradict your narrative, so feigning ignorance is your best bet.

Ah, now you've jumped from "all averages matter" to "class averages matter". Doesn't that contradict your narrative? In fact you said it yourself, E hardly compares to something like Massachusetts. But following that string of logic, one may also ask why the Asashio isn't getting pulled then? Or the Bayard? And why are Montpelier average stats so much better than Cleve's despite being literally a Cleve with negligible changes? Except Conqueror had damage only. In fact that was the initial explanation as to why she wasn't getting hammered by nerfs. The citadel nerf literally came out of nowhere. USN BBs have been in a state of misery for literally years concerning average stats. I see nothing being done about it neither now nor in the near future, probably because USN BBs are extremely potent when played well and do compare favorably to their contemporaries. One can also ask the same about KM BBs, about whom WG explicitly said they will not adjust. As such their average stats in fact do not matter.

I consider that as part of "pray", as in pray that the enemy CV is bad.

Except yours doesn't hold up to reality even in this very game. Otherwise I'm sure you can explain to me why E was pulled from sale despite her average performance not being all that good? Or why high tier RN BBs recently had their citadel placement raised? Or why USN tech tree BBs aren't getting massive buffs despite underwhelming average performance?

Most RFs actually have vertical dispersion which is also superb for attacking broadside, as such they don't care about how you maneuver as they're getting a perfect shot regardless. It's only the US FFAR/HVAR rockets that only favor broadside attacks. So if it is US, you can gamble on him not having TiTs and turn in/away (unless ofc you know that equipping TiTs is not possible for that CV). If it is anything else, nothing you can do but pray.

I still have yet to see a single objective reason or proof that average stats matter. Especially concerning your conclusion to E when the history of the ship already shows what a stupid idea that is. BBs do well on average because they are the most noob friendly class, not because they are the most effective one. And while I generally agree that they need harsh nerfing, that is to make them less braindead to play and not due to their average performance. A DD is in fact not guaranteed to sink a BB in a 1vs1 situation. That is because there are viable counterplay options against DDs for BBs. CVs meanwhile will not only destroy a BB guaranteed but can easily outtrade an entire flank on their own with no downsides nor counterplay options whatsoever. There is no team for a CV and they aren't a specialist class within one. CVs farm damage with impunity while being almost completely disconnected from the gameplay of everyone else, including the enemy CV. As you've correctly deduced, this should be a team game. And CVs play no part in that whatsoever. The thread was unpinned on suggestion by mods to allow other CV threads to exist. Also confirmation bias? Really? Well, since you're making such a claim I'm sure you can back it up with objective facts then?

- gets free stuff - complains about it *slow clap*

Then don't make a claim that you can't back up with facts. I've seen an afk Kagero kill the entire strike of a potato teammate once, does that make Kagero AA good?

Hold on, let me consult the spreadsheet real quick. Hm.... Yep, it says they had fun.

Yep. Apparently Shokaku is considered weak for whatever reason.

They deal 17.5 DPS. DFAA bumps that up to 26.25. A single Langley rocket plane has 1210 HP. Do the math. Hood AA is only good if the enemy CV player is bad. But if the enemy CV player is bad any ship that is capable of generating a few flak bursts can be considered to have good AA. Meanwhile Hood is extremely vulnerable to AP bombs which can easily erase a third to half of your health in a single strike. Likewise she has practically no TDS to speak of meaning air dropped torps also hurt a lot.

Hint: You have marginally better AA than a C-hull Omaha.