pra3y

I guess just do the usual cruiser thing? Push and support DDs if possible and if focus fired on run away while dropping back into stealth. For some reason I feel that the French CAs rudder break all the time so much so that I take last stand on my Algerie. The positive side is that have good range and their HE shells seem to be soaked in gasoline and then heated over hot coals before being launched out of the barrels. Don't have the Charles Martel yet but base on the Algerie and trying the tier 8 and above French CAs on the PTS I think I'm going to enjoy the French CA line alot.

I'll just leave this here. And in case you're wondering whether or not I was camping I was not. Still close to the front but not as aggressive as before.

I think some people just don't get it. Its not about BBs being OP or premium ships finally getting a nerf. For me I think one of the best display of teamwork that leaves a good feeling while playing in random is when you push and support your DDs/teammate and they smoke you up when you're in a pinch and you continue supporting them while taking a breather and if you can recover some health. I've had games won just like that. But now? Why would I want to play aggressively and support my DDs or other ships? If I push forward to tank and aggro while the other BBs camp, I'll be the one dying. I might as well camp at the back and farm as much damage as possible and it's not impossible in a high tier BB with their better accuracy to camp and still do substantial amount of damage and earn a decent enough credit or XP. "Oh but smoke can be used to cover your escape" Shut up Timmy do you think this is a 2 dimensional game? An aircraft can spot you and god forbid some crazy potato DD going around the map border for no particular reason or goal and inadvertently spot you for his team or there is an/some stealthy enemy ship/s flanking you as well. Sitting in smoke is useless since it'll fade and if the enemy ships decide to push? Just sit there and accept fate? If you decide to fight fate and shoot while in smoke you get spotted now. So what's the point? It just remove a faucet of team play in random games. Sure if in a competitive setting where its easier for people to play cooperatively more in order win excessive smoke is an issue but in random? How often will a teammate smoke specifically for you? Can't this "setting" be limited to just a competitive environment where it is the actual problem? And just because some people decide to division up in Belfasts, smoke suddenly becomes a menace and everyone's problem? Can't WG do something like what they did with CVs and prevent more than one Belfasts/Flints/whatever else that can be abused easily in a division? If you think about it it still doesn't change the fact if that if some scumbag decides to have a 2 Belfast division again now in the patch it doesn't solve that problem of a 2 Belfast division? What about the RN CAs or are people going to pick and choose and talk about MK and Belfast and just say "Oh WG will observe the situation and make the necessary changes, you're worrying too much". Especially the Neptunes and Minos with their high citadel. So what camp at the back? "Oh but if you let a DD get so close without a friendly DD scouting that's your problem". Do people have brains and think? You think your friendly DDs will always be alive or be where you want them to be? If he's a potato scrub that goes to the map border I should follow him since he's "clearing" the way and scouting for me? Or if he tries to cap and die, what then? I couldn't follow him into or directly next to cap and support him since I can't smoke and then shoot at the enemy DD that he's spotting since the enemy DD will probably spot me and I'll die fast enough as well. Tbh if a scrub can't deal with anything bigger than a DD shooting at him from smoke then the scrub is the problem not the smoke.

Yeah that's why it would be a waste of flags. OP's best bet is to just play higher tier games.

Flags affect the xp earned overall but it doesn't affect the base XP right?

Indeed. Tbh if WG can have the same AS and strike loadout for the Essex and Midway, why not make the stock one similar? Sure it'll lessen the difference between the 2 of them but it'll be better balanced for the Essex against the Taiho.

I just got the Baltimore and was going to respec the captain for the "more gasoline" shells skill during the next weekend where there is a discount for respecing but I guess I get to do it for free now unless they decide to limit it to players who belong to clan only.

So in order to stop this passive playing that is supposedly caused only by smoke, you solve it by making those who use smoke play even more passively now? It's like saying there are too many BBs in game but the solution to that is to introduce more BBs into the game. Oh wait.

Do you play high tier British CAs? Fully specced out in concealment, a Mino has 8.64km detection range, Neptune has 9.85km range while Edinburgh has 8.77km range. The next question would be, what do you do in a CA line with such low detection range, shells that somewhat arc to the moon and in general have pretty poor range compared to its peers? You move closer to the engagement zones to fight. As close as possible. In fact I dare say that the Mino is perhaps the best CA at tier 10 to support your friendly DDs in cap or just next to it because of the low detection range and super fast dpm. The only thing that would save a Mino from dying right off the bat is being able to smoke and fire from it. I know its just an example but let's say you follow a a friendly Shima into a cap to support him. Suddenly a wild Khaba pops up and spots you so you pop smoke and start shooting at it. Pre-patch you'll probably either kill it if the khaba is dumb or if its smart it'll run away as far as possible. With the patch if you do the same thing you'll die straight away because dumb khaba will be spotting you for the rest of his team while you kill it and smart Khaba will probably figure something out to spot you long enough for the rest of the team to kill you. So your job as a cap support is now neutered. Sure you can still support your DDs, but now instead of being up close and machine gunning that Khaba to death you stay 3 or 4 km further away from the cap and pray that your lead your shells well enough to hit that 43 knot speed demon trying to sink your friendly shima while at the same time hope that he doesn't come close enough to spot you while you're at it. People know it because they play those ships and know how to utilize their ship's ability? I mean a Mino only has 15.8km range and a shell arc that is not that different from an Atlanta's. So does that mean the Mino should just camp at 15.8km while spraying and praying and never move forward to support friendly ships? After all if it gets spotted it'll usually die fast given the poor armor that it has. Might as well camp and farm those enemy BBs instead of supporting the friendly DDs right?

So buff DDs and RN CAs to BB level armour so that they can shoot at you without getting one-shot? Its kind of BS to say that smoke is an escape route only when WG designed the whole RN CAs to fight from smoke and therefore gave them weaker armour in comparison to their counterparts.Plus with or without the nerf u should be charging at that smoke cloud already. Running away from the smoke benefits the ship in the smoke to do damage in the first place since there is no pressure on them whereas charging with or without nerf can panic the ship in smoke to make mistakes. ---------------- While I disagree with OP on this ending wows, I think it'll make the game even more campy. Afterall who would want to push forward be it in a CA or a BB? Its useless to push/hold an area now without having alot of allied ships around. Case in point, a few days back only me, another CA and 2 Bensons in a div were at point A of Northern Light while most of the team's BBs for some reason decide to go to C and camp there. That other CA died pretty fast while I kited around. Then the Bensons began dropping smokes for me without me asking or them telling me. With the smoke and kiting around we held off A to quite a few enemy ships, at least 5 (the amount of ships we sank together but excluding those that ran away). With the new update this would now be impossible. Instead of relying on skill and teamwork to hold off the enemy ships I'll now be at the mercy of the rest of my team that says decide to camp. If the problem is smoke being so prevalent and abused in rank or competative play that it stagnates the gameplay there then it should be limited there. In normal random games how often does a teammate drop smoke for you in the right situation and how often can u use it well? It kind of dumb to say it stagnates gameplay when one possible side effect not is that it forces CAs or BBs to not push and support their DDs because they're just going to get focuse fired on and die. For RN CAs might as well camp as far away from spawn as possible, smoke and then shoot whatever comes close rather than making use of concealment and smoke to support DDs by being in the cap or just next to it.

I still prefer the 1/1/3 over the 2/1/1 ( I think you mixed up Essex's and Midway's stock loadout unless wiki and my memory is wrong) for Essex. When i get to the Midway I'll probably swap back to the stock loadout so that I can give better aircover.

Mine works xp 10s reload or lower if you use the reload mod along with being tankier than a NO make me enjoy her quite alot. 2nd game in her. The Mino never knew what hit him. Kinda sad really:

I'll rather deal with the AA then this. Being forced to move forward just to be able to do a manual drop without any consideration of the tactical situation is pretty bad.

Did Flamu potatoed that round? Why was he 2nd last lol. How did you play that round btw? What did you do etc that kind of things?

Just got the Baltimore and I'm enjoying it. Free-exped the modules so I'm not playing it stock. I'm playing it with the range mod (yes i can hear the shock and horror) but I find it pretty worth it since I get more options while engaging the enemy and the 10s reload is fast enough for me.

Tbh, like I've said before the difference between USN CVs and IJN CVs is that one is like playing hard mode in a game while the other is easy mode due to their loadout. IJN CVs have a more all rounded loadout which makes them more noob friendly. Any potato with abit of knowledge on how to play CVs will be able to do well in an IJN CV. On the other hand USN CVs are severely curtailed by their loadouts. Thus if you try to play a "balanced" play style in a USN CV as you did in IJN one it is significantly harder. That's why I think the overall stats for USN CVs should not be compared with against their IJN counterparts since they're not exactly "balanced" in the first place. That being said I think USN CVs are still pretty strong if you know how to play them. Even with 1 fighter in Essex it doesn't necessary mean you'll lose to a Taiho. Knowing when to strafe, break out strafe when locked etc are all essential skills when playing USN CVs. Plus they have 7 fighters in 1 squad. 1v1 they'll probably win most of the time. You lock me and use your other squad to strafe? I'll just counter-strafe and you'll probably be the one who lose more in that engagement. Try to rush me with both fighters together? I'll either strafe you or use strafe to escape. Plus a USN fighter squad has more ammo.

In case people not playing CV wonder how it looks like from a CV's perspective: Manual drop: Auto drop: Given that the filth expands and the enemy ships all spawn from there, it really hampers CV game play for the Halloween event a lot. Granted you can still do damage but its like someone trying to blind you while you order your planes to make attacks. Plus the enemy ships can move pretty fast so its even easier to make mistakes and misjudge drops.

@El2aZeR Do you know if WG had ever talk about it in the patch notes?

Got reported by an Iron Duke who was camping on the left flank of 2 brothers while I was on the right side in my Algerie. I asked the left to push since there was only 2 or 3 enemy ships on their side while half of our fleet was on that flank. As I was busy dodging shells and trying not to go to the map border, I went back towards the middle instead. Said Iron Duke started calling me a camper who had done nothing the whole game. I told him to wait for the battle results. I beat him in team scored and had a million plus potential damage. Still got reported so I just report him back lol. I also got shot by a friendly BB recently for not doing my job of shooting DDs while he camped behind me. Feels like I've been meeting alot of angsty people recently. A friendly Hindi shot at me a couple of time for sailing past him even though we didnt collide.

Hahahaha I guess we're the ones helping then test along with STs and CCs. On the somewhat same topic, do you guys get irritated by the neon light drop zone circles you get on certain maps. I've messed up droos here and there because of it. Wonder how they sneaked that in.

Lol have any of you guys tried the Halloween scenario on the PT? I think WG really hate CVs. You can't see your attack plane's drop zone through the neon light aura. Edit: Added image of how it looks like. Manual drop: Auto drop:

Had a 2 CV game earlier, me and a 1/1/1 Ranger vs an AS Ranger and Saipan. Between me and the friendly Ranger we took down 4 enemy ships while the other side CVs managed one when RNGesus blessed the enemy saipans DB and 1 shot a Kamikaze R. I shot down about 30+ to 40+ planes in a Kaga and most of them were the AS Saipan's fighters. The AS Saipan only took down about 20 odd planes? AS Ranger fared better and shot down 50+ planes but they still lost the gane. Me and the Ranger came in 2nd and 3rd respectively on team scores. Moral of the story is while AS does give you an AS advantage, if you don't have the skill or your team is potato you'll still lose. If I was in a 1v1 CV match against that same player in his Saipan I'll probably have deplaned him. Why you ask? Cause they guy a) does not know how to use the strafing mechanics b) allows me to strafe him without working for it c) only does click fights with me, which is a no no most of the time since any other tier 7 CV with dogfighting expert can usually beat saipan fighters in a click fight, which I did. In case the AS saipan is not a potato then either bid your time or strike all over the map. One TB left one TB right and the DB somewhere. He can't stop all of them plus your fighters at the same time as OP as his fighters are. Sunk a couple of good Saipan players by waiting for an oppertunity to push through and sink them or scout them out for the team to shoot at. Edit: Just trying to say not all people who play AS Saipans are good so that's a major factor to consider as well.

Yeah that's why I almost never play AS in any of my CVs. You're too dependent on your team to win.

While I agree doing massive damage is not everything, you're still heavily reliant on your teammates to actually take advantage of the spotting and AA advantage you provide to them. If they decide to all potato then no matter how well you perform as an AS Lexi your team will still lose. Plus taking into consideration that you're now playing CV against tier 8-10 ships, there are plenty of ways to deal with you even in a strike lexi, strafe or no strafe. Way tougher for sure but not that hopeless ;)

Apparently when you don't shoot DDs in your CA now, the commissar camping in the back in his shiny BB will now shoot you and tell you to do your job, even if you have to die by getting focus fired by half the enemy fleet while he camps at the back. edit: blackout