El2aZeR

It should still be possible to specialize to some extend into AA, but not to the extend that you can now. Likewise not specializing into AA shouldn't make you effectively useless at it. Because that's essentially what we have now at least in high tiers. Specializing into e.g. torp detection via Vigilence + Acquisition mod doesn't make you completely immune to torps either.

Obviously. Can't have my giant e-peen shrink you know? On a more serious note, so it is basically the usual "Exclude CVs Y/N?" stuff. Considering WG wants CVs to succeed, if only so that they can profit on them, normal randoms would have to have an economy far worse than coop for such a split to happen. As for AA builds, my stance has long since been that AA builds as a whole shouldn't exist in the first place. The idea of having to specialize to be effective against a supposedly core mechanic is doomed to fail. Still, having everyone with half a brain run around with AA builds and ships means CVs would have to get overbuffed to be viable. That means any poor sod who wanders into veteran queue in a non-AA build or a ship with weak AA is inevitably going to get slaughtered.

It's true that WoWs isn't a big game, but to say that WG doesn't have ludicrous resources at their disposal is just a straight up lie. WG is a filthy rich company. If the WoWs team doesn't have enough QA testers then the higher ups must be penny pinching HARD. However that doesn't seem to be the case considering they have an entire office dedicated to QA located in Prague and while I realize that their employees obviously aren't all dedicated to WoWs, there have to be enough to form at least ranked size teams which would have exposed most issues easily.

How exactly are you going to determine who is a veteran and who is a new player? There are players with tens of thousands of battles yet are still just as garbage, if not worse than they started out. And how are you going to discourage veteran players from just going sealclubbing via choosing normal randoms? The only reasonable way would be to lock them out completely or make it so that even a single game utterly murders their economy. Alternatively how are you going to solve balancing problems with CVs? Anyone with half a brain would only play ships with heavy AA in veteran queue, meaning CVs would have to be way overbuffed to make them remotely viable. Just to name a few issues. Split MM, especially when splitting off a specific class, is a horrible idea all around.

Which was because IJN CVs were more easy to get in to. USN have slow torps that require you to fly straight for ages to become accurate along with a substantial lead even with TA and from what I've seen most players literally can't use DBs which is an essential part of USN striking capability. This will naturally lead to lower averages. Again, the result of the hotfix was predictable even when just looking at the values. One cannot tell me that the devs couldn't have done things in moderation. That something as simple as the flak burst damage bug managed to slip through just says everything about how rushed this hotfix was. Literally no testing was done here whatsoever. Then again one could say that the rework as a whole was rushed out way too fast.

Eh, true, but then again that would imply that the devs are incompetent. E.g. how they could have felt that IJN CVs other than the Haku deserved nerfing is utterly beyond me. I realize that one week of live testing is far too little time to perfectly balance something but you don't need to immediately hit everything with the nerf sledgehammer either. Anyone could have predicted the outcome of what the hotfix would result in, really.

*rush BB intensifies*

I averaged almost 100k in the Enterprise but that was before the hotfix. Generally speaking I would refrain from playing T8 CVs right now since getting up tiered is beyond painful. Wait a couple of days for WG to roll out the next fix which they've already scheduled for next week.

I only needed one game of getting a T10 match in my Enterprise to know that I should not play anything but Midway for the duration of this hotfix. I can only recommend everyone else to do the same. And generally speaking I dislike IJN CVs at least in their current state due to their overspecialization in killing capital ships, so that would only leave Lexington and Saipan as alternatives to play for me personally. Lexington I already tested, Saipan I wasn't willing to touch because I dislike TiTs. So really it comes down to Enterprise vs Lexington and in my experience Enterprise is simply far superior especially considering the latest RF change, leaving E as the only CV that has the 12x3 squad attack pattern in addition to the by far best RF spread in the game. That means E is the best DD killer out of all CVs. It doesn't stop there, though. If you know how to handle them E's AP bombs also make her the best cruiser killer in the game, being able to kill almost every single one she can meet in only two attacks if you can get them to hit. They also give her massive alpha against some BBs. Lex' HE bombs are good, but they simply can't keep up. E's and Lex' TBs really don't differ all that much. E's are a tad more fragile and a bit slower but that's really it. As such there is really no reason to play Lexington over Enterprise imo. When they buff IJN CVs again I may give them a second chance, but until then I'll sail under stars and stripes. As for lower tier CVs, I found them incredibly dull during testing, hence why I haven't revisited them on the live server.

That's implying you should play any CV except Midway which I already stated you must not do. Getting up tiered now is beyond painful and Haku has been overnerfed, so that leaves Midway as the sole viable CV to play. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Refer to the first two. And quite frankly it isn't that hard to deal ~18k damage with a single TB attack on an island camping Mino. A Mino isn't a BB, it has no TDS worth mentioning. And if said Mino is island camping you will inevitably get two attacks by virtue of cover and heal. Follow that up with DBs which usually add another 10-15k per attack on top + DoT and you get a dead Mino/Worcester/DM/etc. I've been there, I've done that. And while it will inevitably chunk your plane reserves quite a bit, it will eliminate one of the most dangerous ships to you on the field which I would consider a pretty good trade.

WG has already stated that they've overdone the nerf and are looking to push out another hotfix next week. In the meantime refrain from playing any CV but Midway. And when playing Midway be extremely picky about your targets.

A few reasons: - a lot of time invested - money invested - playing other classes is still enjoyable - WoWs is a monopoly with no serious competitor, has been for the last 3 years and will be for the foreseeable future See that last part? It is why WoWs will always have players and always generate revenue whether we like it or not. And quite frankly seeing people say "OMG I SPENT 400€ ON CVS AND THEY ARE NOW NERFED" doesn't imply that you're about to lose a customer, it means they are now invested and all you need to do to string them along is make a few balancing adjustments you were going to make anyway. In a sense it is a genius business model. Release something overpowered, make people become invested via spending money on it, overnerf it then weather the outrage and finally balance it to the true value to make it seem like you're listening to concerns. This will gain you money AND praise. - camp an island - camp a smoke without air vision - get forced out in the open via TBs - gets continuously spotted by a CV to name a few things.

I have very little patience with those that would rather moan and whine instead of gitting gud considering this is one of the things that caused the death of the previous CV iteration and why this game has went downhill since ~2 years ago. So excuse me for not having any sympathy at all with such people. And quite frankly your ability to insult others doesn't concern me.

@pra3y You are clearly not denoting your sarcasm well enough it seems. Maybe supersize and make it bold next time?

On the other hand Sandy is also the source of AL's greatest meme. Make of that what you will.

AA is actually too strong currently and will be tuned down a bit in a week or so.

Except the age of the "base" ship still matters. Most people who wanted a Tirpitz already had one due to the ship being so old. This means only newer players (and collectors I guess) are going to buy Tirpitz B. Massachusetts meanwhile was relatively new. Last I checked when filtered for recent stats Tirpitz B is pretty much always at the bottom while Tirpitz usually sits somewhere in the middle. The ship is fine aside from having horrendous MM, but that applies to all T8 ships.

No ship except DDs has an AA range longer than air spotting range and perhaps most important of all it is consistent as it can no longer be buffed. And if you know there are AA ships on the field, why would you fly smack dab into enemy formations? Just do it at an angle at the start of a match, after that you can pretty much extrapolate where everything is from the minimap and act accordingly. Alternatively if you favor speed you can just make your RFs act as sacrificial scouts just like DBs used to be. While your HP may take significant hits, you're unlikely to lose even a single plane if you're paying attention. Just abandon the squad outside of AA once you know where everything is and plan a strike with DBs or TBs instead. Yes. While spotting may be a boring job, it is a crucial one and will benefit you in the end. Do you want to win or not? This is not a solo game. Every class must be reliant on another one for something. CVs must not be any different.

Wait, the CN server still has RTS CVs? Time to migrate guys!

Who says they weren't? Quite honestly the hotfix has opened my eyes towards certain things. You can no longer afford to simply keep throwing at a wall and hope something sticks. In fact you're much better served by playing more akin to a pre-rework CV. It's not like we've never had to deal with no fly zones or AA death balls before. That means accepting that there are targets which you can only pursue and destroy under special circumstances, cataloging the ones you can actually damage and kill along with prioritizing them according to the situation. It means choosing the best approach and exit vectors that will not only allow damage to be dealt but also for as many aircraft to survive as possible. It means gathering intelligence first and worrying about striking second. It means knowing when to sacrifice planes and when to preserve them. And so forth and so on. And yes, sometimes it means just flying circles outside of enemy AA range, spotting and waiting for an opportunity. This is all familiar territory. We've been through this before. Would you have struck something covered by e.g. a full AA Mino in the RTS iteration? Didn't think so. Just fall back on your previous experience in RTS CVs, adapt it to the current iteration and you should find success very rapidly. At least that was the case with me. One more or less disastrous match in the Enterprise basically taught me everything I was doing wrong and how I should adapt.

Am I the only one who is reaching new heights in performance despite the hotfix?

Just finished Ace Combat 7. Genuine but minor spoiler ahead I enjoyed every single second of it. If you're into arcade air combat you must not miss this game. Also the soundtrack deserves special mention. It is amazing.

Meh, who cares about those nowadays?

Some KC news: Mutsu K2 will get a gimmick. Pairing her and Nagato will result in additional bonuses. Akagi K2 confirmed.