El2aZeR

Taste the tears of BBabies once and you'll never want to do anything else ever again.

It has always been this way whenever a split happened, so this time it shouldn't be any different either.

I like QE tbh, literally the only thing wrong with her is her godawful turret traverse. No idea why everyone calls her weak. Then again I never played Warspite and I also dislike KGV, so maybe it's just me. Yet if someone writes "Being safe from CV strikes is easy, just use teamwork and stick together." that doesn't seem to be a valid argument in your eyes.

Fify. Wrong, they're T8 planes. Enemy Taiho in that video is completely stock.

As guns themselves they were perfectly serviceable, even if they were too low on endurance (their barrels broke incredibly fast due to their high rof and shell velocity). Given proper fire direction, a longer service life and shell types they could've become fearsome AA guns indeed. As it stands though they were at best adequate and still miles behind contemporary allied AA guns. The 127mm/50 mountings used on DDs were ineffective against aircraft due to their low traverse speeds and slow rof. The 127mm/40 guns used on cruisers and BBs on the other hand had a low effective range and ceiling. Seriously, every single IJN AA gun had at least one, if not more crippling drawbacks. Kinda ironic considering this is the nation that pioneered naval aviation.

I can play just fine.

Is balans comrade! Xaxaxaxaxa!

The BBs you cannot hit with such numbers are BBs you tend to avoid anyway (USN mostly). Besides, I believe Essex & Midway (heck, perhaps Lex as well) will have access to the teased 1600lb bombs, which should put some serious hurt on even those targets. Some cruisers are also incredibly vulnerable to AP DBs. You usually don't want to hit most of them but when a cyclone comes up it's free hunting season.

I'm actually expecting Midway to brutalize Haku if played correctly. Sure your plane cycling time will still suck but the sheer (theoretical) alpha strike provided to you is simply out of this world. I imagine the over 140k AP DB alpha strike will make for some rather rude wake up calls for BBs (assuming they can pen them) while your TBs can shut down any DD that is dumb enough to venture out alone, so unlike Haku you will be able to prosecute two different targets effectively which should make up for the longer service times. Imagine nuking a full HP GK with citadels. The mere thought makes me giddy.

RPF can be substituted by good situational awareness. I can usually predict where an enemy DD is based on minimap/spotting information and experience, so I'd rather not waste 4 points on something that I will rarely need.

True, but at least you will have some options at your fingertips rather than losing by default.

Akizuki AA was no exception to suffering from horrible drawbacks that plagued all IJN AA guns irl. On that basis she doesn't deserve DFAA. Her AA ingame was most likely balanced with lack of DFAA in mind as they have values that far exceed their counterparts. Giving her DFAA would probably entail a pretty big hit to her base DPS, whether or not you'd be willing to make that trade though is another story.

Make this about what ships you would rather play than which ships have better credit earning ability. A ship with the latter is worthless to you if you do not like to play it, thus will never leave port with it often. So get the tech tree counterparts first before making a decision as then you will have a rough idea on how a premium ship will play.

I disagree. USN strafes are vastly inferior to IJN strafes due to their long pathing. This makes them incredibly vulnerable to counterstrafing, so all you need to do is dodge the initial strafe and you're golden. Even being within allied AA is no use if your enemy is striking at the same time because they will usually target the bombers instead, leaving your fighters to die. Seriously, fighting USN AS in a tech tree IJN CV T7+ is the most boring thing ever. You can predict 100% of the time what they're going to do and how they're going to react in a given situation, outplaying them accordingly. If they're bad, simply strafe them to death. If they're skilled, bait and wait for them to strafe, then wipe them out. As soon as they lose a single fighter squad you've taken the initiative and can strike wherever you want. It's no contest and the enemy CV can do literally nothing about it no matter how skilled he is or what choices he makes, because any decision he makes is never in his favor and opens him up to a play by the enemy he can do nothing about. Can't even remember the last time I had trouble against an USN AS CV, regardless of tier. Heck, most of my Clear Skies I nowadays get is against USN AS. You're right, actually. Many people vastly underestimate the value of fighters and waste them needlessly. They are your primary teamplaying tool and keeping your team safe should have equal, if not more priority than getting a good strike in. I'll gladly delay or abort a strike if it means I can prevent the enemy from damaging or killing my teammates. But fighters themselves are worthless if you do not have strike ability to back it up. Serious strike ability actually helps you in gaining air superiority because it can be used to bait and pull fighters out of position. If you only have fighters there is a plethora of strategies and tactics unavailable to you, making you extremely predictable and even easier to outplay. That's ofc in addition to USN AS always being in the position of having to choose the lesser evil.

All Lexington setups only work when the enemy sucks, so choosing strike to maximize your game impact is only logical. Balanced is just straight up inferior to Enterprise/Shokaku in all aspects and you automatically lose against any experienced CV player when playing AS with no options to outplay, while you cannot make your air superiority advantage count against bad ones since you have no strike ability to back it up. Thus strike is the way to go.

Considering you do not have enough strike squads (and that your bombers are stupidly fragile) to draw the enemy fighters out of position you'll have to use your one fighter squad to force your way through and strike. The enemy CV meanwhile can simply strike wherever your fighters are not. Basically that just means you're gonna lose your fighter reserves a lot faster for no gain whatsoever.

During my grind with her I've only experienced getting nuked twice. Never had a problem with getting up-tiered either. Honestly Yorck feels like a downgrade. Just do this all the time and you'll be fine:

If there were a plague of bots that'd be an improvement to average player skill.

Well, the naval battle that Leyte followed up on is Philippine Sea. Though I guess there is a broader spectrum to cover depending on what can be considered a "prequel".

Educate playerbase about basic game mechanics? To gulag with you xaxaxaxaxaxa!

C'mon, you can't say he isn't funny. :D

I guess you still haven't realized yet that you also play largely the same ships as me. Or you do realize it but don't want to admit it, simply resorting to childish insults. Either way it's extremely amusing. :) *check your graphs at wows-numbers.com* - completely consistent results over the last 180 days, with changes ranging in the 0,2% area max "TOTALLY INCONSISTENT GUYS I DO NOT SUCK AT THE GAME YOU ARE ALL WRONG I AM THE BEST PLAYER EVER RNG IS AT FAULT SHUT UP!!!1111"

Honestly it's a mystery. I mean: - WG releases Enterprise, unique playstyle but fairly well balanced - WG releases GZ, total [edited]-fest even after several iterations - WG teases new USN loadouts, all are a step in the right direction Seriously, what's going on? It's like there are two entirely separate teams working on CVs, with one having at least some basic understanding of CV play while the other has no clue whatsoever. Is WG punishing their marketing team for the GZ debacle by making them do the balance work on it or sth?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/412830/STEINSGATE/ Expensive though. I recommend waiting until Xmas sale. There are actually plenty of VNs on Steam and have been there for a while. Though relatively speaking they're a fairly new addition to the lineup. Heck, there is even a Fate game on Steam although I've never heard of it before (a Hack'n'Slash one, not a VN. Looks kinda fun if you're into the genre.). http://store.steampowered.com/app/511680/FateEXTELLA/