HassenderZerhacker

as I'm slowly progressing through the tiers, I get more and more often into battles on hier tier maps with high tier opponents. enemies have GK, Yamato, Thunderer, Alaska, Donskoi, etc... these maps often feature high islands over which I can't shoot the enemy. and if I get close enough to shoot, it usually means I'll get back a volley that will cost half my health or worse. Radar makes it very difficult to approach to do damage in my Mogami or Hipper. What I do is trying to hunt DD at the beginning, shoot targets that are busy with a more dangerous foe than me and I also try to hide and ambush ship with my torps. While the last thing is a bit exciting, most of the battle feels very boring though, like being a dog and lying beneath a table waiting for bits to drop off. So, how do you play tier 8 CA vs. tier 10 opponents on maps like this? The question is also valid for tier 8 BB which already melt rapidly under tier 8 HE spam, so at tier 10 it's a massacre.

that's easy: when a CV is there, it's even more difficult to hide. short range guns + high islands make a for a very boring battle.

I got missions to shoot down aircraft, so I have been looking more closely at what my AA does. Sometimes (well, rarely...) it does damage such as 2000-3000 one, two or three times in a row within a few seconds. This happens rarely, so my question here is what can I do to make this kind of damage more often? Second question: sometimes my flak stops doing damage. This happens for example when torpedo planes fly lower to launch torps. Why do these planes stop taking damage from AA ? Third question, as I read attacking planes have options to avoid AA fire, what are my options to reduce their chances of avoiding it?

mission details: - shoot down 300 aircraft - tier 8 and above - European ships.

anyway, those concealment modules are pretty ridiculous. look at that concept: we install some stuff on a big ship tall like a 20 storey building and it magically disappears... Philadelphia Experiment, anyone? why is this module needed at all? WG could take it out of the game.

what a threadf*ck ... this thread has totally derailed. it was about improving FLAK, not how about to avoid it! shame on you!

if anyone feels like teaming up with me in his tier 8 CV so that I can hunt the enemy planes, you will find me online at about 20:00 - 01:00 Thai time (approx. 15:00 to 20:00 European time in Summer, we don't have DST)

ok... as I'm hunting planes in a destroyer (Öland), I mostly have my flak off until I switch it on - so that moment I control... is there an optimum range for switching on the flak to get flak clouds to surprise the planes with?

I can't do these missions in co-op as they are campaign missions

shoot down 300 planes in a single battle? I'm in !

nope

you were playing CV... private user profile, all right. I'm trying hard to feel sympathetic. EDIT: probably renamed the account too !

seeing how much ship balance borrows from the realm of fantasy, I propose that cruisers be bestowed the power to cast concealment spells on other ships. Russian ships should have to option to add christmas lights and fluorescent camo to improve their concealment. others would think "this can't be a warship" and only upon getting closer would they see what that thing which looks like a fairgrounds ride really is. new California BB 11.8 while much smaller cruisers get 14 ... what are they smoking ?

the maps are different. playing tier 5 vs tier 7, it's much easier to find spots where I can use my ship's guns without being spotted. islands are lower and give more opportunities.

yeah... so it's really about hiding and tiptoeing around. problem: it's boooooring.

funnily enough, it's the maps I dislike most that are the most frequent Northern Waters Mountain Range Ice Islands Crash Zone Alpha Shards ... then North and Northern Lights come up fairly often. these maps have 2 spots on each side from where to shoot, other than that in fragile bottom tier ships, it's just hiding, trying to get an angle over some rare island that is low enough for the shells to fly over it while ducking from DDs and CV... that gameplay is as exciting as watching paint dry. the maps where the islands are too far for the guns to reach the enemy are the best of course...

"learn the maps" is what I try to do with this question in the forum I can get spotted everywhere because DD and CV. usually on these maps the cover is either too far to be useful or concentrated in the middle of the map from where to fire: as I said, the islands are too high to fire over them position/close to objectives... doesn't work as I always get spotted when I try to close in

this game mode is a good idea

yeah, the criteria can be a bit vague. but some weeks ago I did exactly the same as OP and had a look at the best random players. there are many listed with astonishing winrates, but when you look at their detailed stats, you see many CV mains, many low tier champions (tier 1), and some others where one just says, looking at the stats, "yeah, well... no. that's not the super-unicum I was looking for". try it yourself, you will find many such players high ranking in the list. but I can tell you what we should be looking for in a "best random player". we look for sustained skill, not for exploits. this means: - sustained: more than 1000 solo battles in relevant tiers - not exploiting the inexperience of new players (so anyone with a majority of battles in tier 1 to 5 is out) - not exploiting the OPness of certain ships (so CV mains and players who played only OP premiums that aren't readily available are out) the ideal best solo player: - has the best winrate in 1000+ battles in a large variety of tier 9 and 10 ships that are no CV over the last 12 months. maybe we could lower the required battle count if we consider only tier 9 and 10.

well, uh... because it's not a CV player... that's why. CV are OP. that's why the original poster had to skip so many players who derive their winrate from CV battles.

we want to read something we don't already know...

special feature: they can change sides while in battle.

I had a handful of battles with Graf Spee, I can't make its guns work. The spread is too much, I get salvos from the same (!!!) turret that spread 2 shiplengths when shooting on a York at 12Km. About 1 salvo in 4 has nice shell grouping, the rest is shotgun-like. And when the AP hits, it ricochets. The AP seems to be useless unless an enemy cruiser comes really close by accident. Is it supposed to be so bad or did I have really bad luck with RNG ?

when you say "outperforming most cruisers" is this measured by comparing the same players' performances in the Graf Spee relative to the other cruisers they played? say, players who have both Graf Spee (or HSF Graf Spee) and Budyonny (or Molotov, or Nürnberg, or Leander, or Devonshire, or Pensacola, or Dallas, or Cleveland) do better in Graf Spee, right? that's what you mean?

it's stated everywhere that her guns are more accurate than BB's, but so far I think I would have had better luck with Gneisenau's guns (yes, that's how bad it felt)