Aotearas

The below tier X CVs aren't in a much better balanced state. Even uptiered, since the vast majority of AA dps is now concentrated in flakbursts that can be dodged is basically useless unless AA RNG puts a flak screen right in front of your aircraft where you can't physically dodge it. Continuous dps isn't enough to properly ward off attacks, at best you force a bottom tier CV to limit his attack to two runs before recalling the remainder of the flight due to low plane HP. Even a tier VI Ryuujou or Ranger can happily drop on tier VIII ships as long as they don't catch a facefull of flak and if they do, the difference between tier VI and tier X airplanes isn't that substantial given flak bursts will basically OSK everything caught in the explosion hitbox, even tier X aircraft with HP bonuses will just barely survive that and would fall swiftly thereafter to continuous dps chipping away what little remained of their airplane HP. The fundamental problem is the AA system which is de facto All-or-Nothing, sprinkled with the usual dose of RNG on top (this time for flak hits, not critical plane damage as before the rework). As long as you don't get hit by flak, you can fly over ships far longer than you'd actually need to in order to make your 3-5 attack runs depending on plane type. The only difference between CV tiers is that the damage potential increases the higher up the tiers you go, but what most people forget to put into that particular bit of the equation is that surface ship HP pools likewise increase with higher tiers so the effective damage stays largely the same. The Hakuryuu is the sole outlier due to the longrange torp option allowing for players to drop two thirds of their ordnance completely outside AA range and only spending a fraction of their attack run time in AA range with the last flight before dropping and engaging in the return immunity phase. But honestly, doing that you trade effective damage output for plane survivability as dropping from longrange gives ships plenty of time to dodge and even with 50kn torps it doesn't take much to evade the longer ranged drops by sheer coincidence alone, nevermind evasive manouvers meant to actively dodge the airstrike. So overall the much dreaded Shimairkaze isn't exactly the most reliable way to deal lots of damage unless you've got buttloads of highly cooperative targets that seem to have nothing better to do than try to catch all your torps.

Retiering the GC is the first thing I hear out of WG's balancing department for months that makes sense. Usual WG quality timing of course, but the GC was utterly demolishing everything in its tier V bracket and if you got top tier fighting against poor tier IV ships *edited*

The rage when playing CVs is flowing so freely and indiscriminately, I'm literally getting rage-complimented for playing CVs. Yes, you read that right: "rage-complimented". I don't understand it either, but it's bloody hilarious. People commenting in all chat how broken CVs are, etc. pp. and there's me, minding my own business, doing CV things, sinking a ship here or there, the victim literally exploding into a salt geysir about how stupid the new Cvs are and then saying they compliment me, wut? BEST. PATCH! EVARRR!!!

GC at tier VI makes a lot more sense than at tier V. On the other hand I cynically expect the russian version of it to be introduced at tier V. As for increasing the deck/casemate armour from 32 to 40mm on the RU tier VIII and IX, how about no? The ships are supposed to be monsters at 12-15km brawling, so why give them an armour scheme that makes them resistent to longrange HE from cruisers where they are by design supposed to counter them? Has logic been deported to gulag again?

It's funny how fast WG can apparently tweak an entire class of ships after just a couple days of their release, but when a single premium ship is overperforming they need more data collection for months until they determine to pull it from the store.

The vocalists are amazing.

Naw, we had a stab at an overzealous moderator that closed a previous topic with a link to a reddit discussion under the pretense that this isn't the reddit forum. The things that would be necessary for WG to pull their heads out from where they're currently stuck have already been said and ignored for the most part, so I won't both with that anymore.

All the red. xD

A bit late to start argueing semantics on what people chose to call the previous gameplay iteration. For the previous CV gameplay RTT would be more accurate yes, but there's a whole lot less people that would recognize what that means compared to those who have at least heard the abbreviation RTS instead and in the end the only important aspect of what you call it is to make it more readily distinguishable from the current style of gameplay.

The salt.

Concealment is always worth it. There might be a chance you don't get into a CV game after all and suddenly no planes everywhere to spot you and you'd look pretty downtrodden in a no-concealment cruiser then. Otherwise, most cruisers don't really need any other tier IV skill barring those who rely on IFHE obviously. Since AFT no longer gives AA range even that isn't as necessary for previous AA cruisers like Des moines/Worcester/etc. so you're better off dumping more skillpoints into lower tier perks.

Depends, if it's an isolated target the go-to method is fly a straight line out of the first drop to get out of AA range ASAP, then go for another approach, use TB heal as necessary. Alternatively if you know you're going to face nasty AA and won't be making more than one drop, it's better to simply drop all but the last squadrons into the empty sea, that way they'll already back on the CV and ready for redeployment by the time you've done your intended strike and ready for the next one.

Hakuryuu. Serious now though, surface ships are going to be quite tough to play for quite a while and depending on how the CV meta developes and what changes to the AA system might still come it's not really possible to give good recommendations.

No idea. The term hotfix suggests something out of the usual patch cycle so it could come whenever they're ready for it.

Last time I checked the Alabama ST was its own ship. Sure it's a duplicate of the Alabama with only the camouflage being a distinct difference, but not everyone has the normal Alabama. Also: edit: Awww, the whoosh.gif doesn't seem to work here. I haz a sad. Here an inferiour version:

*Edited

Of course it will. That's why it's so important to give them data. Who knows what else slips through if they have to pull everything out of their arse.

Honestly, since we're testing CVs though I'd rather have a pick of CV premiums then. Dibs on the Indomitable, that ship looks absurd even for today's CV standards.

*Edited

*Edited

Oh that's easy, abusing the hell out of it to give WG all their precious data. Or more cycnically, hurt WG where they feel it, that being the general playerbase getting pissed as opposed to only the active forum users that WG can always argue are just a minor fraction of the game's populace. And it's working, since I've seen a notable increase of "I don't use the forum but ..." comments from people with single digit post count but thousands of battles played. I don't even play surface ships anymore right now, all I'm doing is abusing CVs, see how much I can annoy people as that's the only way to influence WG's bottom line and get them to understand how much of a mess they made with this. @El2aZeR had been quite vocal about how the CV rework was a mess from the start of it and prior to the whole rework debacle he was also saying again and again that the RTS CVs need to be worked on. He's been giving advice on how to play CVs and how to counterplay them. If you're looking for a non-WG scapegoat you can stone to death, you're going to have to keep on looking.

Not an exploit in the technical sense of abusing a bug/glitch like popular infinite money exploits in other games or some such. It's just using an existing game mechanic. WG won't punish players for finding and abusing balancing loopholes. Or alternatively, you could assume the probably adjustment of said game mechanic coming soon™ to be a form of punishment for understanding the game better than the devs.

I personally am a fan of farazelleth's Doom Dolphin Dive torpdrop. Hakuryu with stealth module and CE captain skill -> 6,1km plane detectability -> use 8km torp bombahz -> first drop at ~8km not much lead (expect ship to turn into your squadron once he realises he's under attack) -> hit the brakes, immediately start second drop, lead more to hit if moving on current course -> hit the brakes, point blank drop. You do that right and the enemy is a bit cooperative by slowing down/turning in enough, by the time your first torp hits hopefully caused a flooding and baited the DCP and the DCP immunity timer running out the torps from your first drop should arrive and might proc another perma-flooding that'll stick. Added benefit that your first two drops are basically out of AA range and return upon attack unharmed, so you really only risk the third group to enemy AA. Maximum ordnance dropped, minimum AA exposure and potentionally proccing a permaflooding all in one go.

Unless the Saipan gets seriously reworked, I'm going to refund it. The ship's ability to do damage is anemic: The Tiny Tims are too inaccurate to do reliable damage do DDs (and with only three attack runs you might aswell not bother in the first place), the rocket spread is still inconsistent when attacking cruisers and the firechance is likewise extremely inconsistent as far as I've experienced so far. The torpedo bomber pilots are apparently crosseyed as it's extremely hard to get the targeting reticule to narrow down into an acceptable spread without just straightlining at the ship (which makes it vulnerable to flak) and the planes themselves apparently turn into the aerodynamic equivalent of bricks on an attack run, so trying to curve into a target is physically impossible, even if one were to ignore the utterly horrendous spread that would result in. Divebombers are divebombers, not exactly the most durable of attack means as an attackrun inevitably rolls you through the entire radius of a targets AA, plus the less sluggish ships can minimize damage, if not completely dodge an attack by manouvering hard. Nevermind that the targeting reticule even fully narrowed down appears to be more akin of an accuracy suggestion than anything else as I've still missed drops on ships that filled up the entire drop reticule. The ability to use HVAR on the attack craft would be nice to have a reliable anti-DD tool and for whoever you pray to's sake please reduce the ludicrous spread and turning characteristics on the torpedo bombers.

edit: Forum derped a double-post