HaachamaShipping

Because if you look at my post, the quoted part which I responded to claimed Hermes Swordfish were more maneuverable than AR Swordfish. If I tell people that it might be due to the difference in tiers, what is the point of telling me that the Barracuda is better? Of course it is better, given it's a tier appropriate plane, but that isn't related to the subject at hand really. it's like arguing whether the water I drank today is better or worse than the water from two weeks ago and someone told me that orange juice contains more nutrients.

That's a comparison with the Barracuda, not the Hermes Swordfish, which was what it was compared to. Might be useful, though it raises the question as to what overall build is supposed to be. I guess you'd cut Air Supremacy for it (which effectively gives you one extra plane per type over the course of a 20 min match), but every other perk I have is basically better than CE: Improved Engine Boost and Improved Engines: You don't want to be even slower. Though you could make a case that 2 points for 2 knots on a Swordfish isn't paying off much. But what else to take? Last Gasp: Way too useful to actually make the last attack on a Swordfish squad usable. Torpedo Acceleration: Given you point-blank torp anyway, the range is unimportant, but torp speed is useful. Survivability Expert and Aircraft Armour: Lets those planes actually survive. I'm currently on a 16 point build. I'd need to sacrifice a skill to get CE. Air Supremacy or Improved Engines would be my picks, but if I go with Improved Engines, what to put the extra point in? Also, on the topic of bombs and fires. for one, with a bit of help from RNGesus, they do disgusting numbers on DDs, but also tried to use the bombers more and results don't look bad. If Audacious is flying Conqueror, this is flying Iron Duke. Slow, but still burns you to the ground.

Well, let's hope they won't sell commanders only in containers again. Also, please no sub lolis. Zara would be appreciated though to cover a nation where we have no captains.

Are they though? Or are ships at higher tiers just way more maneuverable targets? Fightersget shot down and after a while despawn, swordfish on the way to a target spot for a good bit longer. Overall, three added things I found with Ark Royal: Concealment is actually quite meh. Ark Royal is best behind some island to overcome its 14 km concealment and not get blapped by some Fuso, Nagato or even get shot at by rushing GC (sank them, but that was pretty close...) Quite sad for a CV that wants to be as close as possible, yet has not the armour to back it up (Ranger is worse, but Furious and Ryuujou are better). Plane losses on this thing really are a joke. One game I lost 20 planes to a single NO (guess they actually found the O key and used their fighter well). Didn't notice that I lost 20 planes till the result screen, because I still had enough planes and wrecked the NO anyway. The slow but maneuverable Swordfish can easily cross-drop DDs. Something like a Fubuki that has no real AA and isn't fast isn't that bad of a target.

British CAs are very appreciated and it sounds like a good concept, but I can hear Hipper crying in the corner. Because not getting overmatched by half the guns, having good AP damage and some decent hp was kind of its thing (which wasn't even very useful), but now we get a line that likely has actually troll armour, also good HE and a repair party?

Tested bombs more on DDs. For smaller DDs, rockets are more reliable, but on larger ones, the bombs can do pretty brutal damage. Hit an Aigle in battle for like 6.8k because RNG just hated him.

If they don't damecon immediatly, you still get a few ticks of fire/flooding. Won't say no to that either.

Slow plane turns tight but slow. At least in Killer Whale (where enemies damecon immediatly), I managed to cripple Nassau (20s damecon), Kawachi and Myogi (both 10s damecon) with this.

And over a large enough sample size it eventually should even out to 1 fire in like 18-19 secondary hits.

Gneisenau is the better secondary platform though...

If you reset a line that gives double exp because it is the first reset line of the season, that bonus stays until you collected it. If you collect it and reset the line again in a season where you used that bonus, you get no bonus on that reset. If you didn't collect it and reset another line next season, that line (if it is your first of that season) will get the bonus. You potentially can reset multiple lines and have them with x2 bonus, if you do it across multiple seasons but don't regrind them.

6% means 1 fire in under 20 shells. Ohio secondaries can get that number quite fast. And DE payoff is basically greater the lower your fire chance is. Same reason as to why you get more from putting it on a Smolensk than on a Conqueror. Or Ark Royal vs Ranger.

Still a 33% increase.

And then there are cases like Furutaka...

If you want fires, Swordfish bombers do that. Drop along the length of a BB, 1-2 fires is almost guaranteed. If they damage con, turn around, do it again. Turning circle on Swordfish is nonexistent.

They can work for that, though frankly, I rarely used them for that. Back when they dropped even more bombs with even less pen in testing, yes, these were absolutely just there to make DDs cry and they still can do that, but I find that given how slow the aircraft is and how most bombs will land in the water, rocket fighters are the better option for anti-DD work. And because the Ark Royal basically never runs out of planes, there is little reason to take these over the Skua. What they can do pretty well though is crap all over T5-7 cruisers and T5 BBs with 19 mm plating. When you are still waiting for your torp bombers to return. Will maybe find out more tomorrow.

It's okish for T6. The slow planes keep it from being OP, but it certainly isn't bad. Rocket fighters: Basically the Skuas from Furious, but what furious gets done with an attack flight of 2, you get in 3. So strike power remains the same, but the Ark Royal can take more losses and loses strike power less fast. also, it regenerates the planes in 46s vs Furious' 68s. Given how the Skua is the only plane that is tier appropriate and pretty solid, this is certainly nice. Torpedo bombers: Almost Mini-Kaga. The Swordfish is slow as all hell, but certainly no joke. Just like Kaga vs Shokaku, you get more torpedoes per drop, but your torpedos actually do the same damage as Furious ones. So, basically 50% more strike power. Also, Swordfish restock in 56s vs the Furious' glacially slow 85s. Carpet bombers: These are likely the worst of the whole thing and basically the main drawback imo. These bombs don't pen most BB decks with their 19 mm of pen. On the other hand when they pen, they do decent damage with a drop and setting 1-2 fires is not uncommon even without penning. Try to aim for superstructure and hope for fires. These things could be worse. As with the others, these restock fast at 53s vs 80s. Swordfish overall: The Swordfish as a plane is bad. Not going to lie. It's slow af and hasn't got great hp. I first considered the ship a kind of Mini-Kaga and thought I could play it that way, but Kaga gets papermache planes of the IJNAS that are fragile but fast. These things are fragile and slow. In return, you usually get a pretty powerful strike package once you are there. The Swordfish isn't fragile to the point of being unplayable, but it certainly needs some getting used to and I can guess many people will find it annoying as hell. One thing that Ark Royal captains should definitely keep in mind though: Anything that has actual AA needs to be approached from the front. If you approach any T8 BB or such from the rear, the AA will chew up the slow planes, so you need to cut the distance. On the flipside, you can pointblank torp enemies with the highest damage torp drop of T6. And then turn tight to do it again, if the enemy isn't killing all your planes. Potentially you can also do memes over islands due to the short arming distance. Lastly, the short reload and the long flight times make sure that this thing is impossible to deplane. Ark Royal will always have planes and will usually always have enough of every type to fly a proper attack, provided you know how to dodge flak clouds. If you can get over the Swordfish speed, the ship isn't bad. Getting uptiered sucks for every T6 CV, but worst case, you still get the decent Skuas to DD hunt and if you find an isolated target, you can try to kill it. The Skuas being a bit faster also means that people will use them a bit more to hunt DDs at the start, unlike for example GZ, where the rocket fighters being slow means that the anti-DD capabilities were the worst. I consider it competitive enough and certainly would pick it in modes like Ranked or (god forbid) CB.

Yet, the reason it is like this is because after the initial announcement with tier-appropriate aircraft people requested the ship to get the iconic Swordfish. It's because of that fame that it now is stuck with the antiquitated plane as a T6 mini-Kaga. For better or worse.

RN 120s are no better. And sure, we can talk about giving USN better ballistics when IJN 127 mm guns wouldn't require me to move my ship to compensate for the poor turret traverse. Or when German guns do actually good HE damage.

BFT is the sole skill you ever would take and then only if you got nothing better anyway (RN CLs for example can afford to put points into AA skills without compromising themselves too much). Upping flak damage is a joke (especially on anything with defAA) and Massive AA Fire is only useful on ships that have no real AA, where you don't care about your sector AA increase. Ships like maybe Atago.

Tachibana is pretty similar. Put a 19 pt Akizuki captain on it and you just roflstomp the opposition most of the time, coop or not.

Guess Yoshino and Salem need buffs then.

Load AP. Monarch isn't for HE spam. Monarch can fire HE at bow-in BBs and 27 mm plating cruisers, but for the most part should use AP. It isn't terribly accurate, but it still beats the Germans, Richelieu and Roma. And compared to all other T8 BBs, it has the best reload and thus dpm. Combined with good concealment, Monarch is a solid mid-range BB. 28 knots is low end, but not incredibly low. USN has that too. Vladivostok is 29 knots. Lenin is 28.5 knots. Compared to what exists on other tiers like 21 knot Colorado vs 32 knot Gneisenau, this is nothing. Low citadel got replaced by getting an improved repair party. Monarch might no longer be able to broadside to use all its guns in every situation (at least vs BBs, against cruisers and DDs you still can), but it has the best repair qualities at T8 with 0.6% repaired per second, 60s repair CD and 75% of pen damage repairable. As long as you don't get focused down, eat a bunch of torps or cits, Monarch is pretty hard to kill, also because of the good concealment. Admittedly, the ship needs more skill now.

Likely, full Leander-class is about the cheapest you get for grinding, but if you want to throw in cruisers that are useful: London is best RN CA retro. Preparing to retro that one isn't bad. Sheffield is one I personally run with Leander and Ajax, but with level disadvantage and no LB, it is hard to keep her hp higher than the others, so, not really useful. Yorck and Exeter are kinda useful as retrofits, but London is still better Depending on where you grind the exp, I'd use a combination of Leander class and London/Yorck/Exeter, with Leander bringing the performance and the others being just there to get the exp. But likely running CAs is eithermore expensive in oil or they aren't LB and suck even more than RN CA do normally when not retro'd. On the other hand, when you get your London and such retrofitted, equipped and to proper levels, they are pretty solid units.

Asashio is at least good at something, Yuudachi basically sucks in every role. Wouldn't play either, but I sure as hell don't see a point of giving WG money to play a ship much worse than what I can play anyway for free.