RUSSIANBlAS

19 point captain in my Scharn and Bis is my Captain XP farmer. With Restless Fire camo and a full suite of buff flags you can knock on the door of mid 30k+ XP in one off weekend bonus games. I got a second 19 in Benson and Sims. There's almost no point grinding captains with Elite'ed ones in port now.

If you own a few Prem ships then you can cut this down by paying 200k to halve it then grinding the rest. I did this when WG stole my Udaloi captain. I put him in the Kutuzov and clubbed seals in Gremy. Took about a week with the 50% and weekend bonuses.

Saipan is very elegant compared to IJN CV. Either 2/0/2 or 3/1/0 is very easy to juggle unlike a large amount of squishy planes. Esp as the take off and landing queue is going to be that much shorter too. I'm sure in Unicum hands IJN wins but Saipan is strong for the rest of us.

Also RU DD maybe fun but I don't think they're as decisive as other DDs as it's difficult for them to cap and they're sub optimal when knife fighting due to their general girth. I do well in RU DDs but if a game is running away then there isn't much I can do about it. Plus it takes quite awhile to hack down a top tier BB with something like a Udaloi.

This has always amused me. A 50 thousand tonne BB slipping into stealth... I still play stealth Trip with accuracy modules and full concealment. You can actually see the point when a cruiser panics at your perfect broadside salvo going towards their citadel

IFHE buffed some cruisers I guess... Maybe giving them all preferred XP but that's not a buff per say. Cruisers "can" work at high tiers but you need to be a decent player and you're still very much at the mercy of lol BB punching a new hole in you. Make the maps smaller or more islands i can agree with. Trash maps like Tears and that other Desert one with the stupid island between A and B cap with NO cover elsewhere only promotes BB sniping...

The problem is at the top tiers yes. It takes above average skill to do well vs swarms of super powered BBs. I blame WG selling T10 super camo. Means potatoes can kick around in their Yams and GKs all day with no punishment. I don't even get T10 BBs, they're boring as hell in the meta...

Extensive testing in Ranked with Atago shows that directly bow or stern can't be citadel'ed by a T8 BB. Any sort of angle however puts you at risk of Devastating Strikes

Gun calibre scaling is logical anyway, the times might need tweaking. If DDs had a short bloom time then cruisers and DD could shoot them but they'd be relatively safe from BB speculation salvos.

Anyone who gets First Blood and Flesh Wound is clearly a yolo DD of some description keen to get back into port.

At least if stealth fire is going then scale the bloom time? BBs 20s, Cruisers 15s and DDs 10s?

WG know that selling big name BB like the Tirpitz then giving them a safe environment to play in gives them epic revenue. I'm guilty of that too as I love playing BB but I'm competent with all classes nowadays and I prefer DDs or CVs in an attempt to hard carry a team. Shira is likely to get nerf batted and I'm still waiting for the final acts of Russian treachery to be played out (Giving BBs Defensive AA).

No... Some folk stack flags and camo for the weekend bonus, it cuts down ship grinding when you can bring in 10k+ for a strong win. The commander XP buff simply isn't as good. Almost a waste of flags and camo to stack with.

I'm currently grinding out USN CVs as I want to taste the Lex and Essex one day... Why does every single scrub and potato think it's viable to snipe a CV? It's starting to p 1$$ me off. I stats check enemy CVs prior to battle and even ones deep in the red Bad zone will try this. Utter fail tactic if someone is even remotely prepared for it...

More CV macro topics sorry I'm due to get into a Ranger within the next week or so. What's less painful? Strike or Balanced 1/1/1? Saipan and Hiryu are going to violate me regardless of what loadout I take. I'm guessing Strike Ranger will need to stay near the fleet for AA backup? My captain will have AA spec anyway. My issue against choosing Strike Ranger is that almost every potato will try a snipe and I might get embarrassed one day...

Necro topic... I'm on 1/1/1 Indie and she seems fine. You get violated in T8 games yes but CV play is about looking after your planes and knowing who to bomb. Bayern with Manual AA is a monster... At least 200 long range AA isn't a joke.

Surely any half good Saipan player strafes and almost never dogfights?

I think this is the CV rework with the controls being changed and the utterly g1mped starter CVs WG really spoiling CV noobs. I cannot wait for the first BB to get Defensive AA...

It got tweaked a long time ago now. Has had accurate guns for probably over a year. Was strong when I grinded it. Biggest issue it has to face now is IFHE from light cruisers which utterly ruin it...

Doh I forget CVs get slightly better MM, still tho can you imagine the rude awakening potatoes will get in months time when they break through into T6 and suffer the lol that is being strafed and the enemy CV being massively more effective... To WG: Make a G@d dammn tutorial on how to manual drop and strafe & keep alt attacks in for all CVs. Surely that is less effort than basically nerfing lower tier CVs?

It's about to get a range buff next patch so you can equip AA instead of plotting room...

Alt Drop fail WG... Utter fail, trying to "help" CVs by actually killing them off. Russia logic If T5&T4 CVs still get matched vs T6,T7 and can get paired with a higher tier CV then you might as well go AFK. Not like that scenario was ever pleasant before...

Time to dust off my Texas then...

2x5 IJN torp bombers is going to get brutalised by anything with half decent AA. This will be a lol fest for things like the Iowa if noobs try and bomb you. It'll literally be that COME AT ME BRO meme...

Enjoy your 10 Anti Detonation flags...