VC381

All ships had fire control upgraded as the war went on so it's hard to claim that's a class specific improvement. AA as we've seen WG is willing to change and make un-historical as required for balance. That leaves a 25% increase in firepower as a not insignificant advantage to Brooklyn.

I want to dispel a myth as well. Cleveland is a mid-war build but the original design was to treaty limits and it was rushed into mass-production without really changing or growing much (it ended up very overweight). It's not a strict improvement on Brooklyn, more of a trade-off for better AA. Now we've seen the RN line with the newer but smaller Fiji a tier lower than Edinburgh we can work from that. If anything, in a new US light cruiser branch, I would see Brooklyn (which, like Edinburgh, was designed to counter Mogami) at Tier 8 with her RN and IJN counterparts and Cleveland bumped to T7.

Sorry dude, but getting rid of the enemy DD gets you closer to winning the game more than any other action, especially in domination mode. Every good CV player knows this, and the really good ones can and will nail the first DD they see every time. After that they farm the damage on those huge HP pool low torpedo protection German BBs, which explains why they're there in the first place.

New and returning players finding out new BBs aren't as OP as first thought? I've noticed the same, far more steamrolls this last week or so. As well as DDs, it's actually a good time to take a CV out and punish those camping BBs while the cruiser numbers are low. Just annoying your damage potential is essentially limited by how quickly the points rack up in your favor (or otherwise). On the plus side, smaller repair bills since if you're good you survive a fast points loss.

So the conclusion then really after two pages is that both are viable choices for different reasons and ultimately it depends more on personal playstyle and skill. Which just shows there is healthy choice I suppose.

Which part of CV division will only fight other CV division are you guys not reading? This is a great idea! Unfortunately it would force everyone else to group around their CVs and share protection until one CV division won the airspace, then that team would go on to win the game. Oh wait, that would be realistic! And to be honest I would like that. Not every game, but from time to time it would be cool. Some games no CVs, BBs go nuts and slug it out. Other games CV 2v2 divisions everyone else escorts. It would actually bring a lot of variety to the game! But the negativity so far essentially proves it won't happen anyway.

Well, sniping is still quite rare so I didn't go nuts with the AA setup, I have the plane reload module in that slot and plane reload again as the 4th row skill. More strikes=more damage. My point is only that DF alone is far from making US DBs useless.

Really not sure how I feel about DF. Twice with my Lexington I had 2 DB squads from enemy Lex set 3 or 4 fires through my DF. I know it's RNG but I still go though with my strike usually and get OK results (better than retreat and lose planes for nothing). DF is equally annoying for all, doesn't specifically counter US DBs.

Well, it's all opinion, sometimes I feel like I want a checkbox to not get domination. I like standard because you have more time to play tactically not cursed to win or lose because of a good/bad decision a DD made 1 minute into the game before you fired a shot.

I got quite a bit of money when I got my second Hiei, I remember because I literally just bought my way to zero credits (or near enough) and then a few games later not paying attention to the mission I was thinking "where did that 1.5 mil come from?" I think you get money same as if you sold an elite regular tree Kongo.

And why not? If everyone falsely thinks the setup is OP and play it but find it boring, or are frustrated when they don't do well, that's bad game design and stops people learning CVs better, and the other things they can do.

Just don't do it when you know the enemy has RADAR. Was in division both of us using Indianapolis. Kutuzov tried that, I pressed "Y" and he lasted 2 salvos each.

Meh, DF is far more annoying than raw AA DPS and I imagine a lot of people will want to improve that fire chance and not play these ships as AA escorts. This is good news for CVs if in future there are fewer DF ships per team.

I agree Saipan is easy mode to help sell the premium but not that it's broken. Hiryu can handle it if they run same setup. Ranger I don't know, haven't played. I also have much better damage and win rate in Hiryu than Saipan. I also got my back side handed to me by a couple of well played AS Rangers on small maps yesterday. I didn't have fun but they certainly weren't useless to their team! I might go back and play AS Saipan a bit just to see how much damage those bombers can actually do. The biggest problem with the setup isn't even RNG, it's that you can't stack fires unless another ship forces their repair for you.

I also wasn't whining, in fact it's only specifically Saipan's AS setup that I consider forgiving and easy to play in that sense. AS Ranger won't do any damage in the hands of a noob an probably won't provide very good air cover either. AS Saipan will do both to some extent without much effort from the player. This doesn't make it OP, it can be out-played and I agree the 2/2 does more damage and carries harder but that requires a lot more thought and input from the player. The other thing about AS setups in general is that damage alone, to an extent, won't win a game. Domination mode especially can be decided in the first few minutes. If the strike player has to spend those precious minutes circling around fighters while the AS player gets a good hit or even just some spotting that wins a crucial cap, that can be the game won or lost, even if strike then does more damage later. You can rack up huge tons of damage as you kite the enemy BBs charging you, with your team dead and points ticking against you, you'll still lose. So I don't think AS is useless overall but it's more situational. Players who think it's "easy mode" make it useless. It also becomes weaker with increasing map size.

Yeah, it looks like the RN cruiser "trick" is great concealment including smoke. To be honest this sounds really fun. My only concern is low fire chance makes that HE spam a little less threatening, though I guess if you can do it without getting shot at it's good enough. Also they seem pretty agile, always a plus.

Well, the beauty of Saipan's DBs is the auto drop circle isn't bigger than manual, so there is essentially no benefit to manual drop and it's overall much easier to get good damage. That's what I mean it's relaxing, it's super noob friendly. I played it like that to start with and was getting 40k or more damage per game, simply because the planes are so fast and you don't need to position for manual drop or really care about AA, just auto bomb, cycle, repeat. Getting "a few torpedoes" past those 9 Corsairs still won't come close to that damage output.

That's because it's good it's hard work but very satisfying. Plus once you get used to the setup you get Shokaku with the same 2/2/2 without being chained to lower tier planes.

I only have permanent camo on one ship and I'm not taking that risk

Well, it's relaxing to play and still pretty strong although I agree with you I prefer to try to "carry" by picking off key targets with the TBs. The DBs though can and do 1-shot DDs and that's enough to win a domination game combined with the fact you completely deny the enemy CV. But it feels boring doing it that way

Because there is an "overmatch" mechanic where shells of a certain size will always penetrate armor of a certain thickness regardless of angle. Cruisers are not designed to bounce BB shells, except some special cases where at a certain angle and range some cruisers can bounce some BB shells (and usually only if BB is lower tier).

Well, I had a very nasty surprise trying to nail a Bayern in my Hiryu. The thing turns on a dime, you basically can't hit it if the guy sees you coming.

Thanks, and thanks to fnord_disc for doing these. So Warspite does have better pen but sure doesn't feel like it sometimes.

Oh well, would like to see it anyway

Hi, excellent work! Would it be possible to get the curves for Warspite, even better on the same graph as Bayern? Thanks!