El2aZeR

Now, how are they able to do so? Because most players are scrubs that tend to go solo and disregard their teammates. Perfect targets for CVs as designed. So just teach them that sticking together is a good idea and suddenly CVs aren't nearly as powerful as they were before. Make tutorials about it. Adopt it as the official stance about CVs. Make an official post about it. Write it under every CV whine thread if you have to. It also promotes teamplay as a bonus. What WG has failed to understand is not how to balance CVs (personally I think the concept of CVs was actually handled pretty well) but that the current meta and common playing styles create highly favorable situations for CVs that they can exploit, leading to their overperformance. What they underestimated was not the power of CVs (at release state, CBT CVs were undoubtedly OP), but how dumb the average player was going to be. Nerfing CVs on the basis of their overperformance is essentially punishing CV players for playing the game correctly.

Can you imagine the whine from scrubs who complain about CVs being op, yet they don't understand that CVs being powerful has very little to do with CVs? Oh, wait, we don't need to imagine it. All we need to do is to look at you. Probably the best summary I've seen about this.

Which is what removing fighters will fix? Removing strafe alone will simply give USN loadouts the advantage (and make AS Bogue the single most *insert lots of bad words here* CV loadout in the game if it isn't already). Giving them fighters only is not only horribly bland, but *everything dasCKD says*. Do you want more worthless AS CVs in the game? Because this is how you're gonna get more worthless AS CVs.

If anyone needs more proof that no one in the balancing department of WG plays CVs, this is it.

Strafe also counts as alt attack.

I imagine it's not much different than dealing with your usual AS USN CV. Can't say for sure since I don't have a Haku, but the common tactics should still apply. Refer to this thread and scroll down a bit for both the author's and my own post about it: http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/76412-unicornpoachers-shiny-noob-guide-on-carrier-tactics/ I do believe however that those are harder to pull off as more skilled people will tend to play 2/1/2 Midway as well unlike AS. Also if you feel like you need more fighters, I think the stock deck gives you a couple more along with some extra torp planes for the loss of a DB squad (which seems like a pretty good trade to me tbh). Don't take my word for it, tho, as again I don't own a Haku.

Let me explain everything he mentioned . He probably assumes that you're gonna intermingle with the back row, which would make you a pretty good target regardless of what the enemy is currently shooting at. The only CVs that can technically speaking get away with such things are those with armored flight decks, but those don't have the concealment to vanish again and thus would put them in extreme danger as you're risking getting permanently spotted by enemy planes or even DDs that cannot be removed. Not sure if you meant it that way, but you should maintain a bit of distance to even the back row. From T8 onwards you get Defensive Fire anyway, making potential friendly AA escorts a moot point. You can also use the clock and simple situational awareness to prevent being sniped. Depending on how big the map is you should start worrying about a snipe 2-4 minutes into a battle if you don't see any enemy bombers. The opinion about Concealment Expert is split, most CV captains here think it's a great skill to have. Personally I beg to differ, as the spotting indicator is useful in identifying DDs attempting to sneak up on you and therefore CE would decrease the time you have to react to it, but I can also see why people like it. It's essentially a trade off that's useful in some situations and a liability in others and thus it comes down to personal preference. The thing is that you want to get in, drop and then get out as fast as possible. Using the auto drop reticle automatically prolongs your stay in the enemy AA bubble, which you could have avoided by simply setting up a good approach angle manually beforehand. This may not be such a big deal at lower tiers, but at higher tiers a few more seconds in enemy AA can easily allow it to wipe entire squadrons from the sky.

- Hosho/Zuiho will never be able to deal with Langley/Bogue again - AS Bogue becomes completely invincible - T5 CVs without alt attacks can still be put into games with T6 CVs who can very much use them - new players will never learn that manual drop exists - new players that want to learn how to manual drop will now have to do so in an extremely unforgiving environment Need I go on?

Wait, again? I thought that was last year, after all we had one major patch without nerfs to CVs!

Same with StarCraft actually. Maybe dasCKD is left handed? Well, here goes all my hope I had for this patch... (Tho there wasn't much to go in the first place considering removing alt attacks for low tier CVs is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen WG do by far)

Situational advantages such as the ones I described will give Gearing the edge, so she should win the majority of the time regardless of player skill. What I meant was that you need to identify those situations and use them accordingly instead of stupidly engaging head on in a gunfight right away (and thus most likely lose).

Which is ofc why you use your excellent concealment to your advantage. Close the distance first, then cut off a Khaba's retreat path and force her to either turn towards you or friendly ships or attack her when she has no other choice but to get closer due to terrain. Gearing vs Khaba is very much winnable in a Gearing, it just takes more brain than brawn.

In my experience either Khaba angles so hard that she can't use all guns, giving Gearing the advantage in an HE spam fight, or she will still eat pen damage. Either way, AP is key.

Gearing is the ultimate knife fighter and should be geared as such (pun intended). At close range she will straight up outgun everything and anything she meets, even Khabas (the key is to use AP and aim for the armored sections to get massive damage returns). As such she actually requires a different playstyle than Fletcher despite being fairly similar at first glance, so keep that in mind.

Tbh I feel like DDs were never really meant to counter CVs. That belongs to cruisers only. It's just that the majority of the playerbase "forced" the role upon them at some point and now are salty because it obviously doesn't work out. To be fair having a more responsive UI is a great start. Certainly not enough, but a great start nonetheless.

And how did the BBs in the fleet contribute to their sinking? That's right, barely anything. BBs were mostly worthless as surface combatants, as proven by various engagements in history. So if you wanna take real life into this, at least get your facts straight. Considering DDs are supposed to counter BBs anyway, regardless of their choice of weaponry, I don't see the problem with this. Next you're gonna tell me that broadsiding cruisers at close range should not get blown up by BBs. Or that AA cruisers should not be able to shoot down planes.

Shima cannot make her advantage in torpedo numbers felt unless you fire an extremely close spread, which in turn makes it easier to miss if the target makes course corrections. If you however decide to fire a "normal" spread chances are that you're gonna get the same amount or perhaps even less hits than a Gearing would as they give your target a lot more time to react. Gearing torps are also superior in either performance or utility depending on which torps you decide to use in Shima. In addition to that, there are very few situations in which 15 torps will do things that 10 torps can't, regardless of how you decide to fire your spread. Besides, I was not talking about Gearing (which has to deal with a long reload, arguably making it slightly inferior as a torp boat). I was talking about Fletcher, the currently best torp boat in the game. Yes, I have. More than that in fact. Some of the easiest, most relaxing games in my career of playing BBs, as my team was pretty much guaranteed DD superiority.

Maybe it means the rework will be coming with it? I mean, I doubt it, but one can hope, right?

Huh, now I almost regret selling my Arkansas (how was I supposed to know I'd get a [edited]-ton of port slots via ARP?). Maybe I should contact support to see if I can get it ba... *remembers I just bought Moskva and have no cash left again* Yeah, nevermind. And I see WG is stubbornly clinging to removing manual drop for T4/5 CVs.

Considering WG is unwilling to give up on AS you can bet she'll have at least one AS loadout (that nobody of a higher skill level will actually play). IJN full strike is unlikely to ever come back, so that'll leave us with just AS and balanced. As AS is not even worth talking about, we can just keep basing our discussion around the balanced deck.

There's a lot right and a lot wrong with this guide. I applaud you for your effort, but you can tell that it has been written by someone that has yet to reach higher tiers. Minor note: I do believe USN CVs get larger hangar capacity than IJN ones (I'm sure about T9/10, can't be bothered to check about the rest right now). Also it should be noted that for the higher levels of play IJN is absolutely superior to USN due to greater strike potential and versatility. It is imo a better idea to focus all planes on one cap that is likely to be the goal of an enemy DD and then pick said DD off (more on that later) before the enemy CV can formulate a response and scout with your fighters afterwards. Generally speaking you don't need to cover the whole map, just seeing a good amount of ships heading one direction usually gives you and your team a good picture of what's going on. CVs are nowadays most effective against destroyers. It's one of the reasons why IJN reigns supreme, USN simply lacks the ability to cross drop and thus ensure a quick kill. BBs at higher tiers have too much AA to strike them with acceptable amounts of losses until they've been sufficiently softened up by allies and CVs fall out of your target selection at T8 latest since they get the Defensive Fire consumable. One thing missing I already mentioned above: Wait for your allies to HE spam the AA down. Hunt DDs in the meantime, note that DDs with Defensive Fire will also swat aside your planes without breaking a sweat. You can also use DBs without ammo as bait as they will fly faster than enemy fighters. Auto-attacks are never effective if the target knows what he's doing. I have a feeling you misunderstand how manual drops work. More on that below. You don't need to activate auto drop to do manual drops. You're eliminating one of the greatest strengths of manual dropping with that: The ability to drop your ordinance closer to the target. Even worse, with the IJN inverted drop trajectory it will actually give your target a better chance to evade. Just press alt and the reticle will appear, left-click to give the order to drop. Practice it until you know the time/distance the torps need to arm. Nothing else to it. This is how you hunt DDs with torp bombers. Drop from one side to force a DD to dodge and get trapped between torps (if you do it right or he makes a mistake you'll get a hit here already), then drop him again from the side so he cannot evade. It's more commonly known as cross dropping. You can make it easier by attempting to DB him with one squad first, wait for him to blow repair, then DB him again before committing your torp bombers. With a little luck you have severely impaired his maneuverability or made him a sitting duck outright. This will usually give enemy fighters enough time to respond and support, though, so you should only do it when you know you have the time to do so or you have already secured air superiority. The best possible approach for a strafe is from slightly behind the squad you're attempting to kill, not from the front (if that's what you mean with "head-on"). This will keep enemy squads longer in the attack area and usually result in them being wiped. You can keep your fighters together to bait enemy strafes. It's usually (USUALLY, the UI tends to screw up now and then) fairly easy to tell if a fighter squad has engaged a strafe. Simply wait for the enemy to do so and then dodge to the sides and you basically have yourself a won dogfight assuming the enemy captains the same CV as you. You can also attempt to follow up a bait/dodge with a counter strafe, but that is a bit harder to pull off. It's easier against USN CVs as they have to strafe longer. If you have multiple fighter squads (as you should because USN is inferior) you can strafe multiple fighter squads then strafe them again when they're dealing with the first squad to wipe them out. You can also attempt to use your DBs as bait/sacrifice to set up a good strafe. This obviously only works on stupid CV captains, but most CVs that play AS fall into that category, so it'll work more often than not. Here are a couple more easy ways to deal with AS CVs: - intercept their own strikes, if they then choose to escort their own bombers you get a free run somewhere else - always look for isolated targets - look out for enemy fighters being out of position (such as when they're attempting to scout) - scout yourself. A scouted enemy DD will usually call for help. If the enemy CV responds that gives you a window to strike elsewhere. If he doesn't, just strike said DD or keep him spotted for your teammates if your bombers can't make it in time. - if their fighters tend to stay grouped, simply strike the other flank - if they split their fighters, bait the fighter on the flank you're striking into a fight with your own fighters. The other fighter will usually be too late to deny your inevitable victory. If he does reach you in time, break off with the squad that's able to and check which squad he will be pursuing --> If it's the squad that's already engaged, use it to target the full fighter squad to tie it up, then proceed to strafe them with your other fighters --> if it's the squad that broke off, simply run away until your other squad has finished mopping up the remains of the enemy you ganged up on, then either run away with both or engage depending on how much ammo you have left

I fully agree, but such a completely random mechanic has no place in ranked nor in clan battles and should therefore be disabled in competitive gamemodes.

By enemy DDs actually. As the only ship still remotely combat capable after Samar. She got spared plenty of damage when she got caught between torps and sailed right out of the battle. Can't be said of the rest of her fleet. Let's face it, BBs were mostly worthless in surface warfare irl. So... Yes, because it'd be realistic. Anything else would be immersion breaking.