VC381

Go back to Langley and learn manual attack for all plane types. IJN carriers have more squadrons but each smaller. High tier captain skills allow +1 plane in fighter and bomber squadrons. Modules and captain skills can also improve plane firepower and survivability and can explain why you lose "equal" fights. T5 gets used to club so you always meet good players (with high point captains) and T6 is in a bad place due to AA buffs and MM issues. Forget playing those if you don't know what you're doing. Carriers get good again at T8+ but there you REALLY need to know your game first. Basically carriers are very hard work. There are dozens of more detailed guides if you really want to stick with them.

Or go with fictional AA upgrades, keep the speed, make her sniper accurate and place her T10 of an RN split BC line.

The main thing that bothers me about the CV lines in game is the way the progression forces each next ship to have both more planes and better planes than the previous. It's a shame because that means big fleet carriers can only be high tier even though some were built long before WWII and served alongside BBs and cruisers that are T6 or T7. The lower tiers are filled with escort carriers which messes with the chronological order as some of these ships were wartime designs. If we had the same power progression philosophy for other ships, we would have mixed lines where DD are only low tier and BB only high tier. That's completely opposing the core game concept. Or a BB line where each ship had to have more guns and bigger guns, and better armour and all soft stats better than the one before. That makes no sense at all, so why apply it to CVs? Squadron setup and planes used is one of the most WG fictional things in this game. It really shouldn't be that hard to have period appropriate fleet carriers at each tier, balanced using their loadouts, with separate branches for light or escort carriers. You could even have steps where you progress to a smaller but newer CV with much better but fewer planes, kind of like two BB lines go from 12x14" guns at T6 to 8x16" at T7, or how sometimes a BB is faster and better armed but with less armor (T8 for IJN and USN). Just because a CV is big and has a lot of hangar capacity won't make it OP at any tier if done right. There are so many things WG could tweak, from launch setup to different bomber accuracy changing with each ship (like they balance BBs with dispersion) instead of having one solution where all planes behave the same in same squadrons and progression is just "bigger CV". It could even give nations completely different flavors (much more than now). I know it won't happen and this is just a dream of mine, but I wanted to share anyway and see what you think. I can propose more detailed ideas for planes balancing mechanics and alternative trees if people are interested.

It's worth it for those games when you bomber pilots on Lexington behave like they're using the force and you drop a 30k hammer on a BB, or for when it all adds up and you end up with a 150k+ damage game. Strike feels good. It may not always work but it feels good, plus it looks awesome when you group your bombers and hit "Shift" and watch 18 or 21 planes buzzing in formation. "Block out the sun" comes to mind.

After so many pages, can't you guys just agree to disagree by now? The thing is, regardless of which of you is "right", the KGVs direct counterparts (the other treaty BB, North Carolina, and her direct enemy, Bismarck) are T8 so for the sake of those match-ups she will probably be squeezed in there. The fact is, KGVs were not bad ships in real life but their relative strengths and weaknesses translate poorly into the game mechanics. My biggest issue with the 14" guns (from a RL perspective not game) is not their caliber, I understand the political reasoning behind it, but their shocking mediocrity. The RN were designing a brand new gun from scratch. Sure, they couldn't wait until they could make a bigger one, but this is the nation that had built the most naval guns, including for other nations, AND examined all the WWI German tech AND had access to USN designs. So they had at their fingertips the design of basically every major naval weapon up to the day they decided to make a new 14", you would expect it to be THE BEST 14" gun in the world by a long margin. It just isn't. It's not a bad gun, but it just could have been so much more.

That isn't SMS Emden, or at least not the one being talked about in this thread. That looks like a Karlsruhe class cruiser (judging by the bow shape and the positions of the armament), and has four genuine funnels (I believe the only German light cruiser class to have four). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsruhe-class_cruiser

Lol, I bad-mouth the ship then this happens: Sounds like most like it although a few echo my frustration. Will keep it up a bit, with +200% XP per day

Yeah, I didn't get as far as thinking about the MM. I would think if the main line was all fleet carriers balanced by period and planes rather than size, then they would continue to have mirror MM, with the light and escort carriers having their own line with separate MM rules but maybe not mirrored (since they wouldn't be as game-turningly strong). So you might sometimes have games where one team has an escort carrier and the other has none, or games where each team has a mirrored fleet carrier and one might have an extra escort while the other team has an extra BB instead.

Damn you guys getting it from presents I kind of want this ship, for the history and for something different (haven't taken German cruisers past T5) and of course the LOOKS (damn!). But I don't really want to pay full price for it, now I don't know if I should just get it on that measly 15% discount or keep trying my luck with presents...

When I got this ship I tried the switching thing but for a while I've basically just left it on AP and it works fine. I very occasionally switch to HE if there is a higher tier BB bow on, or if the range is very long and I'm just taking pot-shots hoping for fires, but usually it's AP all the way like any other BB. Oh and a couple of times when I know I'm charging a DD and there isn't anything else around. In all those cases though, it's better to keep AP and switch target than to switch ammo (unless you have no choice). The turret traverse makes this ship for me, super fast target switching means you can always find someone to punish (e.g. broadside). If you aim at BB superstructure the AP racks up consistent damage from most angles. Against cruisers HE is never worth it because the chance of citadel is more useful than the chance of fire, even with angling and RNG getting in the way.

Well, Lexington as we have it in game at T8 is more or less how her sister Saratoga looked in 1945 (Lex herself was sunk in 1942) and has a ton of extra AA that was added during the war. In my scenario the ships would look as they were built in 1927 and would be completely different ships. Their AA would be awful, same as stock T5 BB. They would have 8x 203mm and 12x 127mm guns. Now that sounds very impressive (yes those first set are Pensacola guns) but since these would all be "secondaries" they would have short range and bad accuracy, probably not enough to just charge cruisers with it especially given how huge a target you would be. For reference: http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/020208.jpg

You can make the Mogami work but you need a 15 point captain (for Concealment Expert). Full concealment, stock hull and guns for lower detection while firing, 1km+ invisifire window. BBs can't citadel what they can't see, simple as that. Turret traverse doesn't matter when you're invisible spamming the same target. 15 shells every 11 seconds, almost guaranteed fire each salvo, just sit back and watch the world burn. A few days ago I managed 100k damage in this ship while taking 0, in a T10 game. The ship is not always the easiest to make plays with but my god it farms damage if played right. I haven't played it that much but so far it's my best cruiser on average damage by a country mile, it's hilarious. The problem is, although some people struggle with it, any buff would make it instant OP in the hands of those who know what they're doing.

Indeed it isn't. KGVs guns are mediocre for their caliber (slow shells, mediocre penetration) while Scharnhorsts are excellent (minus accuracy). Sure Scharnhorst can't overmatch but as has been said her RoF allows her to spam superstructure like a cruiser would or viably switch to HE, plus the other advantages of her "package". Having said that, KGV could be T8, just for time period if nothing else, but will need a lot of soft stat help. As for Nelson, again don't let the 16" fool you, the guns are very much mediocre for their caliber. I don't agree she would be outright OP at T7, her armor is equivalent to Colorado, she's a tiny bit faster with 1 more but a bit weaker guns. We don't know what the angles are going to be on Nelson's third turret, she might need to show almost as much broadside to fire all guns as Colorado does to fire her rear turrets.

Wait, how does that work? The 3 euro containers don't have a change to give PE, and it's not in the list of the ships you can get from the "super" containers, unless the website is just wrong.

So we have Shrodinger's BBs here, simultaneously going YOLO everywhere while also camping?

I think the approach is not awful but it could be better. To me it juts seems that WG aren't using all the tools possible to tweak CVs and it's a bit lazy. With BBs for example there are at least half a dozen soft stats that can make or break a ship, turret traverse, sigma, dispersion, reload etc. and they are used for balance. With CVs they just mess with silly things like plane ammo and ship AA but they could do so much more. Bomber dispersion, plane prep times, squadron sizes, hell even bomb and torpedo damage barely change from T4 to T10. If they plan to introduce more premium CVs and/or more CV lines without them being completely copy-paste boring or horribly broken they will have to start looking at this stuff. But yeah, since you mention Lexington I had fun thinking of how you might balance that monster at T5 (obviously 1920s hull). Basically T4 planes only with few but big squadrons, horrible wide drops on everything, lots of reserves but long service times and 8" guns as the "secondaries" to counter the fact she would be spotted at spawn on every map at that tier. It probably wouldn't work, but I think maybe T6 could. I think she could be made so she isn't OP but then she would be a bit clumsy and not fun.

So it seems WG might finally be starting to understand the fundamental game design concept of "meaningful choice". Let's see how this pans out...

To be honest, now they restricted the divisions to +/-1 tier it's pretty stupid that it still takes only the top tier ship for MM. Can't be that hard to tell the MM "this is a T6-7 division put them in T5-8 games". That would stop all the fail and is not really open to abuse.

I like London, it's good enough for what it is and I don't get all the nitpick complainers. The ship size thing might be because WG forgot the ships are scaled up.

The ship is awesome but don't use the range as an excuse to snipe. Get a bit closer, not too close, angle well and those 12 guns will farm damage like almost nothing else.

Damn, so jealous! To be honest, the boxes are a great deal and you will end up with stuff worth way more than you paid for it. I guess it's expectation that leads to disappointment. I only got 3 Admiral boxes and by all accounts I've been very lucky (Murmansk, Marblehead and 180 days premium) but personally I don't care much for the two Omaha clones. But even if I just sell them I still get more silver than the direct doubloon conversion for the same money and I'm left with two free 10-point commanders. Or even if I dismiss those two boxes entirely I got 180 days of premium for 25% of normal price. But there are more things I want, so I'm not sure at this stage if I should keep trying. Odds are I won't be as lucky and I'll just get more disappointed but the temptation is there.

Look we get it, you don't want this ship, that's fine. But it's not a good thing for premiums to be better than their regular counterpart and not everyone buys a ship just for how strong it is. Premiums are meant to be different and unique. There is a group of people that have been very vocal for some time about wanting WWI and 1920s look ships to be viable not just stock hulls to grind past and this makes us very happy. We wouldn't complain about a premium you might like but we wouldn't so why should your incessant negative feedback affect our chances of getting more things we like but you don't in future?

OK, having seen the stats, and even if the torps are just a gimmick, this is awesome. Also, the torps reload faster than the guns... and their range is approx. what your secondary range would be with the standard secondary build, so more power for brawling. And if they do the same to Amagi I'm expecting the same for Fuso (arguably the worst offender for "gameplay comfort" stock). Yamashiro T5, stock Fuso with torps. Damn... I'm gonna end up buying all of these aren't I...

Well, smoke combos have been mentioned already but I had a lot of fun with a fellow forumite Kutuzov + Mogami 155mm setup. A smoke cloud spitting fire, it was hilarious and more effective than Belfast pairs because of the bigger smoke and better shell arcs and fire chance. If you want a T7 radar pair try Belfast + Indianapolis. That way you get DPM and great alpha as well. A cruiser might approach smoke thinking it's at most 6" guns and get a face full of 8" freedom AP.

Not really, it just shows they want to do something that actually adds variety and that they listened to players who want a WWI look and feel from their ships. It might not end up being a great ship but if you want to play a 1920s Nagato just for the look/feel this beats deliberately playing a stock hull at T7 and doesn't need a dedicated captain. Also, can someone clarify what changes about Nagato's armor with the hull? As far as I can tell the belt stays the same. You get more deck but T6 fights don't take place at ranges where that's really relevant. And for the guns, the poor shell penetration just means you won't insta-citadel a broadside BB at medium range but you will still overmatch every bow pointed at you, which is arguably more important in game. I think you guys are being too quick to exaggerate regarding these "nerfs". It's still essentially a T7 ship at T6 with the only real weakness of being CV food and it looks gorgeous.