El2aZeR

Just coordinated only via simple quick commands with a fellow Midway. Jesus Christ that was disgusting. We literally killed a ship every 1-2 minutes. First to go was a Harugumo 1 1/2 minutes into the match. He barely even made it out of spawn lol. Expect some more maximum kek footage heading your way.

Had to take my first loss after 32 matches. Was a 400k damage game tho with only 1 low HP enemy ship remaining. Had I had 30 seconds I would've killed him and won, too.

Spotter didn't get any changes afaik. You launch a squad of fighters now (yes, this looks exactly as silly as it sounds), duration is only 30 seconds but cd is also fairly short. These will however only shoot down one plane per fighter and, like all fighters, can be cheesed. Still considering the state of AA guns catapult fighters are currently your best means of defense.

Ah, someone remembers the good old days of T8 Fubuki. Played my first Shima random game in what feels like years for the snowflake today. Honestly I couldn't help but feel handicapped at almost every turn.

Both have 20966 alpha strike. Unless you play with stock torps which would be stupid.

Maybe because they're actively trying to discourage you from playing ranked and want you to go get farmed by reworked CVs in randoms instead.

Acquiring targets through flak bursts or smoke from fires can be rather difficult. I suggest making them a bit more transparent or giving enemy ships and the aiming circle an outline through such.

Want some new topkek footage? This is what I would call an average game. I wouldn't even consider it particularly successful.

And, well, AA ships aren't exactly safe on their own anymore. Overall it's still a huge nerf to surface ships especially considering the hilarious increase in damage potential for CVs. Yup.

Mino is the most worthless AA ship now due to a lack of DFAA. Can't even protect itself. Smoke firing is no longer a viable playstyle for fast firing ships. The mount of tracers you spew out betray your position pretty easily and will get you killed vs reworked CVs. RIP Akizuki/Kitakaze/Haru. Multiple DFAA ships stacking together seem to be a "viable" way to defend yourself from reworked CVs. So yeah, DMs etc. gotta hug together too now if they don't wanna take damage from air strikes. CVs got a pretty substantial AA buff it seems. Inevitable snipe fest at the end of a match seems to result in more casualties to AA than before. 31 games played in Midway, still 100% WR.

Rocket speed seems to have been reduced. Not that that particularly matters, really. Just lead a bit more. Ranger and Lexington are still monstrously effective. EDIT: Managed an 8 min Confederate with Midway. DFAA now creates flak bursts with a red glow as an indicator that it has been activated. When that happens, just abandon squad and come back with a fresh one. Fighters can be cheesed again.

Shouldn't the India X-Ray flag be listed as effective on USN CVs?

T4 TBs are the only T4 plane type that can spawn fighters. Drop distance is about the length of a DD with TA (aka don't bother dodging in a BB lol). Squad attacks one at a time (total of 3 planes), alpha strike is 5400 for Hosho and 5567 for Langley. T4 CVs are still extremely boring to play tho due to slow plane speeds. I'd say cut their alpha strike but increase their speed for a more enjoyable experience.

No he doesn't. I only get hit once by a flak burst. The other "hits" are visual indicators that the plane has gone from one health status (green) to another (yellow). Or at least that's what I have always assumed considering there are often no flak bursts whatsoever near me when that happens. Just played Langley on the PTS. Still boring, but reasonably effective if you play the DCP game or just hunt cruisers/DDs with rockets. AA on those tiers is practically nonexistent as expected. Note that TBs are the only aircraft type on T4 that can spawn fighters. They can also drop their torps practically right on top of you, but they deal pitiful damage so that isn't really an issue. EDIT: Nevermind those "hits" are actually caused by mid range DPS. Still not the flak bursts that were buffed tho. Those now really hurt if you fly through them, but on T4 and T6 at least it feels like you really have to actively try flying into them to get hit.

Not that I know of. AA always seemed equally heavy regardless of angle of approach. AA guns do however have a minimum range. This can be fairly easily seen when I fly my DBs directly over you and flak bursts stop appearing. While losing less than half of your mid range AA guns doesn't seem like a huge deal, it does widen the gaps in your AA defense which any CV with sufficient WASD hax can then exploit more easily. Besides, I suspect a DM e.g. would've lost a couple long range mounts as well as they don't have the benefit of being the main battery. We could try to repeat the test later on if/when we both have time, but I'm fairly certain it won't be any different. As you've already pointed out the problem is accuracy, not damage.

@MrConway an official statement on this completely gamebreaking issue please?

Apparently. We must celebrate this joyous occasion! Drinks are on me tonight.

Here: Clearly MK was underperforming at the time.

Actually MK was released sometime before the nerf. Statistically she used to be I think the 2nd best T8 cruiser in average damage behind the monster that was pre AFT/BFT nerf Mogami along with the best in WR. Then WG decided to buff her specifically once the nerf hit. Official reason? The ship was statistically underperforming in their eyes. Not a joke btw.

If you stack AA and CAP + fighters with your fellow CVs you are so difficult of a target that it is far more effective to clear out the enemy surface fleet first before tackling the CVs. So yeah, hugging CVs is actually a viable tactic for a surface ship, but it is not them providing AA cover. It is them seeking AA cover. Is glorious design made by brightest minds in gulag comrade!

Took 2 solo caps and got a full cap assist along with a full HP kill on a YY in my last Gearing game, practically winning it for my team as the only enemy DD remaining was a Khaba that had obvious difficulties contesting caps. Came in 4th behind @Saiyko in glorious Balancegrad and 2 backline camping damage farming BBs. Playing for the win just isn't rewarded.

Probably because it was one of the suggestions put forth by skilled CV players and thus likely got discarded immediately. Sorry about that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is actually precisely what happens with DFAA, AA skills and sector selection. The flak wall you create with both active is practically impenetrable. The problem however is that this can be cheesed by, ironically, attacking which changes your altitude. AA must inevitably finish the first barrage wall before it can create the next one, giving you several seconds of complete immunity. However even if it were effective, DFAA itself can also be cheesed. Method 1: Abandon your squad and come back 30 seconds later. The easiest method of them all. This is not a viable strategy in the current iteration since planes have longer turnaround times than the cd of DFAA. It will be in the rework which allows CVs to attack you again within ~30 seconds anywhere on the map. Method 2: Clear out a good chunk of the medium caliber guns with a few rocket salvos. Medium caliber guns also contribute to the flak wall in addition to large caliber ones, destroying them inevitably creates gaps in AA defense which you can exploit. Method 3: Fly in so close that the large and medium caliber guns stop shooting and just stay there. Yes, minimum AA range is a thing now, so using DBs against ships with DFAA is highly effective if you do not want to "waste time" on the other methods. So no matter how you adjust DFAA, it will remain completely useless. Note that you can deploy these not only against single targets but entire groups. That stack of ships hindering your attack runs? Just fling a few rocket salvos onto their decks and boom, problem gone. Literally.

According to an AL dev tweet Warspite may get a retrofit. Wouldn't surprise me, like Sandy before her retrofit Warspite currently has a rather niche use at best as well. Looks like they're keen to give the worse SSRs retrofits first. Which sadly means a retrofit for Enterprise is rather far off. T_T