Thracen

Yeah, I agree that class plays such a huge role in maps when you are a CC, dds operate from stealth and smoke so don't care about islands and BBs can just tank it out.

I too struggled with the donskoi, spamming HE at range without IFHE makes it difficult to finish ships and influence games, The 3rd turret angle makes you show a little too much side and you are prime BB bait. Give it time and you get into the rhythm though, oh and the best bit about the ship (read the most fun) is the AP, you see a broadside at any range put an AP salvo out. You can delete CCS like a BB with more than twice the rate of fire and 12k into BB superstructures happen often enough, every broadside ap hit will really pump your damage especially if you don't IHFE.

I just had a game where a NC, was able to reverse so fast and turn so well doing so that i couldn't catch him in my tirpitz. I was gobsmacked, I closed within 8km using a mountain for cover and I thought I had him. Turns out an NC in full reverse does over 20 knots and turns on a dime, I gotta say I was pissed, who knew the thing was so fast backwards? utter cow poop. So yeah NC strengths better backwards.

I keep playing my yugumo and it keeps being a terrible experience. Every other ship on the map feels more useful. The 5.5km concealment is great- if they don't have radar or planes or hydro, otherwise it's a death sentence. Everything else on her is average to bad, speed, guns, torps, the absolute lot. Garbage.

I can't get anything out of the ognevoi. The torps are terrible, the guns, all 4 of them, they feel like the worst guns I've fired since tier 4. Her concealment is a trap because if you actually get that close to a ship you are very much in trouble, because she handles like a pig. Seriously some of the contradictions in this game are incredible. IJN dds get out run by german BBs, russian dds get out turned by well, almost everything. Ships have to have strengths and weaknesses to make them fun and interesting I get that (love the pensacola and have a good winrate in her as evidence). I just can't stand ships that have no impact even if you play them well. The Ognevoi is one of those ships.

So there are 3 points on domination. Most teams in random pick a combination of AB/BC the old AC strat is rare. This seems to be based on the idea of supporting fire. Fair enough. However those ships trying to take the center point have the harder task as they take all the fire. They have ships in front of them contesting the middle point and ships on a flank. Much better tactically to take the flank points and face fire from a smaller angle. I think this is why dds don't get supported into some points and why lemming trains occur. Leaving the poor fools that listen to a center point start to get screwed. Furthermore, this is compounded by the fact that the safest thing for any ship to do, (once you've left port) is stick with the greater number of allies. You may not win with no caps, you may not get much damage sharing the spoils, but you never die fast for nothing. So this leaves two types of players, those that want to try and play the game to win and win well, and those that just don't want to get blown up. These personalities naturally shift to ships that suit them. This creates aggressive DDs and CCs that moan about passive BBs. Is the simple answer just spawn placement, Make it obvious from the start for one lump to go A and one to go C? No unbalanced cross fire, more incentive to go forward, no dispute in tactics. Yes games may be overall more 1 note but the initial phase maybe more palatable? More players going forward, less getting deleted off the bat. I don't know, what do you think?

At higher tiers nearly all ships can reach 30 knots, the variation in speed is narrower. Also the cc cap rush is less common up there too. At least in my opinion. Part of my point is the confusion at the start of the match, you can't take a glance at the map and know what peoples intentions like you can when everyone had picked a direction. It's this decision phase that is an issue, some players launch into action, others purposely wait and follow the largest group, (others simply need another 2 minutes to load in or are AKF/bots). It's this different decision making/load in times that makes that initial team play difficult. Once a team gets to the second stage of gameplay natural units tend to have formed, this is where things get fun in my book, so getting more ships to this stage and achieving it fast would create a better ( more fun and engaging) gameplay loop.

I think they Yugumo and shima need an increase in their speed. The torps with more range than 8km are useless and the 8km are so damn dangerous to use you just can't. However if you had a little more speed they might be useable, letting you nip in and dump torps and run, using a little extra speed to escape. At the moment my yugumo gets run down by T7 BBs which is bloody ridiculous. THAT IS TOO DAMN SLOW WARGAMING!.

I agree, but what incentive is there for them to do it? They use their smoke, something even more precious now stealth fire is gone. Even if they aren't using it to spam themselves it's a valuable escape. They reduce their own damage potential and survivability things that give them direct rewards for something that gives them indirect rewards at best. The number of times I've smoked for a focused BB only to see him keep at all ahead full and charge through the safety I provided to his death. I cannot fathom what they were thinking but I makes me thing twice now. I would suggest an anti spotted reward system. Smoke an ally that is spotted to the point that they aren't, earn a ribbon of value X. People can't abuse it in spawn because they would need to be detected to be useful. That and smokes are more valuable now and not likely to be wasted. DDs have an incentive and other ships can play closer to their dds with the greater expectation of a shared smoke. That's the dream people using smoke to cover an advance, instead of camping.

I have been more irritated by CVs as I've been going through the mogami, the difference between having a CV in the game and not is an average of about 800exp. That is a vast and unpleasant gap to be caused by a single opposition ship. It's not like the ship doesn't already have flaws, all of her upgrades are worthless since people recon the 155s are better, (and I agree, for the rate of fire alone) and the turret traverse is beaten by tier 4 BBs, throw in the abolishment of stealth fire and I hope to hell the ibuki is better so I can escape. Thing is despite her flaws in a match without Cvs her challenges make her fantastic fun to play.

I've over 2000 games, average tier of 7.8ish and well versed in anti CV tactics from both here and many a Flamu, ichase and noster video. I dislike them more now than and T5 and 6. They felt much less powerful tier for tier and were obviously less experienced. 7 I can just about handle without much trouble. Anything above that and the combination of skill and firepower is often too much for me if I happen to be in the wrong ship.

15.7 Km is not the backline, I ain't rolling around in the Zao, and in the name of team play I'm way more likely for draw fire and irritate from a broadside and 1 or 2 torps makes a big difference in match damage. Not to mention blowing away DDs, very valuable kills unavailable from the back line. I know where my team would rather have me and it ain't behind them. When I'm in my mogami, I can be with 2 other ships and still get instagibed by CVs for no planes lost. At that tier 1 or 2 planes lost is nothing anyways. Hell some players wipe their planes to get them up faster with a respawn than trawling back for a reload. Even if it's a failed strike the spotting and turning can cost me my ship with a yamato/any bb shooting me as I maneuver. That's another thing the tier difference is so much worse against CVs, because of their ability to target. You say turn into torps, forgetting high tier cvs with good pilots and cross drop making escape for even the most skilled players in the most maneuverable ships impossible. When CVs are about I change my play style, I hug ships for any sort of help but it is never fun to play against a CV. Unlike DDs CCs and BBs that I can shoot and kill for rewards I get no rewards for going up against a CV. Even if i was an AA ship only a bot CV would throw planes against me giving me no reward for protection. A lot of my arguments you've accepted and suggested changes, if they were made maybe things would be different but I think it's going to be nearly an impossible task. I don't want them gone, they don't add good gameplay but the atmosphere they add is brilliant, AA going off, planes splashing down around. That at least I want to keep.

If there was a ship that only died to secondaries I would play it and it would be overpowered. Make it as fast and as stealthy as planes with the ability to respawn on top and you'd have thought WG had lost their minds.

It's wargaming, nothing is an easy fix ; ). I agree the balance of ship numbers is out of wack, but part of the inflated BB number is the fact that they are simply more popular powerful or not. Weakening them would be a very risky move for WGs bottom line, they know they make the most money out of BB players and BB premium ships. This goes doubly so on the russian sever I hear. You make a very good point about CV health being equal to plane reserves, However it does make the only way to reduce a CVs hp the equivalent of RNG secondary fire. Ever come across a ship that is invulnerable unless they get within secondary range? What makes it worse is that they are the fastest things on the battlefield, picking and choosing targets is the bread and butter of a cv. Crucial for all ships but must easier for a CV that can split deploy forces, spot for itself and as I said has maximum speed. A lot of your points depend on ship choice, which is fair if incentives for AA ships are introduced and numbers balance out and they fix stranded spawns. There is much to be done and little sign of these things happening so far. I personally I think there are too many ships at every tier that are helpless to CVs and depending on random teammates to protect you is perilous especially since any ship with less AA is always going to be target number one. Ships all have bullseyes on them for certain other ships, the problem is it's much easy for a CV to pick out a target exaggerating any vulnerability. Too much depends on "having the right ships". Why should IJN ccs flank? This may be my personal quirk but i think they are built for it. They are fast and stealthy, He damage does increase on the broadside by the way, more ship to hit = less misses, and the AP rocks too throw in the torps and every trick in their book is best on the side where BBs don't want to turn their guns over to you just for you to disappear again. Any DD coming out to spot you is toast to your great HE. The perfect distraction force in my book hit and run at it's best, all out of the window with a single plane, and no AA to do anything about it. Terrible manoeuvrability too, very easy to strike. No you can't easily take a forward position and run back to AA cover, you just can't. Turning in front of an enemy while spotted is death, basic, obvious even. When taking a forward position you are committed. Even scattered CV torps under defensive fire can mean death. That's if you have the speed and turn rate to run in the first place. Planes be fast bro, and stealthy too. No sure about your "never spotted first" deal sure they will spot the BBs first but they will spot whoever is in front soon after and will strike the closest target as opposed to flying over ships.

Largest AA CC bubble is 7.2 KM and TX, you get 1 or 2 a game that covers maybe 6 ships, if you don't spawn already isolated. Anyhow, for any other ship to do damage it has to risk taking it. Reducing a CVs damage is not the same as a counter. DDs die to radar CCs, BBs die to torps and fires. CVs only die when the rest of their team is dead. "And when there are no CVs around everyone suddenly stops camping? Stop kidding yourself."Did I say that? No, so no need to be trite and strawman. When I complain about CVs people always say group up, as you have. Groups move slowly even when well coordinated, let alone in a random wow match. Imagine this, a whole fleet grouped, the BBs get into their range and don't close any further, why would they? this leaves the CCs and DDs achieving bugger all, all the while spotted by planes and under fire. Different ships are designed to fight best in different environments. Grouping weakens these strengths as I stated. Also since when does teamwork mean gluing myself to another team mate. Russian dds are at their best on the flanks spotting and doge tanking. How are they meant to use 40+knots of speed when they're rolling with the BB fleet? IJN ccs are also best out on the flanks putting irritating cross fire into encamped BBs, can't do that anymore with a CC in the game. Spotting and forcing BBs to miss and move out of strong positions benefit the team greatly. Good teamwork no? The crux of my point as I said before is that most ships are nerfed when a CV is in the game. Nobody likes spawning in to see they are weaker because a CV is in the team. CVs are designed to dominate and suppress entire navies. Playing under that dark cloud is no fun for most ships and players. If I am in a DD and I come across a CC, I can stay stealthed and torp, I can spot him for my BBs or I can smoke up and torp. All have risks but all have the potential for earning exp and credits and this is against my direct counter. When a CV comes along the engagement is 1 sided. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose for the normal ship. The CV player at worst will lose a few planes. But they get to pick their target to mitigate that risk. CV's are like game bosses, they can screw with everyone with near impunity, they die last and they die the hardest. They are currently in a terrible state, no-one wants to play them but they still have the highest potential damage and the highest survivability. They are not balanced and I don't think they ever can be in a way that is fun for all players. BBs would love escorts, what do the escorts get out of it? Well they get to not shoot at stuff and get shot at by BBs. DDs get to smoke them up and get no benefit from that either. You say this is a team game, I agree, but nobody wants to play in a way that gives them less credits and exp while their team mates reap the rewards of their work. That's just human nature.

CV's will never be fair or balanced. To make the class fun to play and even half reflective of their real influence they'll simply have too much power. Even now CVs have a map wide presence turning any 1v1 into a 2v1 at will. DDs cannot torp, ccs cannot stealth or defend themselves. Every other ship on the map gets worse the instant a CV is in play. We all hate the Camping in the game, CVs force it. Group together or die. Why in the hell do they have a ship in the game that has no single counter? It takes a whole team, every player, compromising his/her playstyle to even partially mitigate a CV. When there are CVs in a match it goes 1 of 3 ways. 1, stomp for team A, 2, stomp for team B, 3, an even well fought battle enjoyed by both players. Guess which one is rarest? Oh and in all those scenarios there are at least 3 or 4 players that have their game ended early even when they did everything right against a strike. The only fun games I have that have CVs in them are the ones where I don't notice them. Usually because I'm in an AA CC, the only sure fire way to never see a plane. Sure I can cover 2 or 3 ships but considering AA ccs are like hens teeth it's never enough for everyone. Only the lucky few that spawn near by have a chance to live stifled under my AA buble having their movement dictated by me and the threat of strike. I've spent huge amounts of time and money on this game. I would quit in a heartbeat if every match had a CV.

Right oh, I've switched to my chappy captain, he's got 11 points instead of 16 so he should be my fastest route to IFHE. I'll look forward to that damage increase. I have near infinite commander exp flags so it shouldn't be long. Thanks for the help.

I play exactly like that, or at least try too except the IFHE, I was always aiming for the moskova so that's the way I trained the captain. I should sprinkle more AP maybe, I didn't think it would pen at the range I operate at. I got on a bit better with the chappy, much smaller and quicker in the turn. I do find positioning tricky, the angle on 1 of the back turrets sucks and to evade you need to be at full speed really, often leaving me often going nowhere fast. I just feel like I can't get the dps out of her and I can't roll with other ships because I'm too tasty a target. Since she's so slow to turn you have to commit to charging or running to keep an angle so doing that with a fleet is very difficult.

I'm getting a little frustrated with the donskoi, The guns are long range and accurate but they have little punch, my damage seems to depend on fire RNG more than anything else. I also lose a lot of matches without really having an impact. She is too clumsy and fragile to close to any distance less than 15km making her radar useless. The arcs are so good shooting from island cover is next to impossible. Anybody know how to actually make a dent in matches with this thing?

I like the NC, She feels fun and powerful still I don't win matches in her. 14.29% 74,379 1,335 0.5 0.4 2.0 14% 32% 0% 9 Funnily enough I do similar in the Colorado, although I hated her with a passion, just too dam slow. If anyones got any ideas on How to get my performance up a bit I'd love to here it. 46.30% 58,000 1,425 1.0 0.7 1.3 31% 29% 0% 1,144

Did you read this? The idea that a CV will defend itself with it's own fighters shouldn't be an argument I have to make. I never once said CVs have an easy life farming ships left and right but even a bad game for a CV can be a terrible game for half a dozen ships. 2 Ships in the game with the highest average damage? 2 T10 cvs. Anyway I don't want to argue, I want help countering CVs, your response has been to tell me it isn't a problem, it's easy, and tactics I already employ should be fine at keeping me safe. If this was the case I wouldn't be here going page for page looking for answers and telling people what I struggle with in terms of CVs

I would love to counter CVs that's what I came here for if you look back. But short of strap myself to an AA CC and turn into torps nobody has come up with anything useful. I use full AA builds and CVs are my biggest problem in any match they appear with a even a mediocre player behind the wheel. Defensive fire has been in the game for as long as I'v been playing, so I have no other reference. AA rating is what the game gives you to measure AA effectiveness, I think it's a fair metric to use if not perfectly accurate, when combined with the extended time of CV defensive fire and their own fighters its clear they have the most effective AA in the game. Just to hammer my point home and say that CVs have the best defensive against planes in the game, the top 15 ships for average plane kills are all CVs, the 16th is the Flint. I included the use of fighters in my air defense argument. I appreciated your efforts but you are right, I don't understand how to deal with CV strikes effectively and you haven't offered any help beyond what I already know and implement.

No team likes seeing their DDs going on an random CV hunt, fletcher defensive fire has what a 90s cool down? more than enough time to drop. Closing on a CV is very hard if you get spotted, all the turning through the rapid strikes, (they come faster the closer you get) kills a fletcher's speed it's hard to keep up with 33knot ships while turning without the speed boost lost to the defensive fire. A T10 CV with armoured decks will shatter most shells a fletcher fires it can take a minutes to bring one down without torps, which would obviously be spotted as soon as they are launches.

They have the longest lasting defensive fire, buffed to stop CV sniping. Because Losing a CV early while the enemy CV survives ruins games. God forbid they have a ship on the ocean that can attack them the same way they attack others. Just imagine a world where CVs had to sail with their fleets for defense like every other ship you say should. The whole compositions of fleets was made up to protect CVs at their center for this very reason. USN BBs were often most useful in WW2 for defending carriers with their huge AA batteries. The Des Moines has a 90% AA rating on ship comrade, well known as one of the most powerful AA ships in the game. T10 CVs have 85% and 86% ratings and a much, much longer lasting defensive fire.Throw in a couple of units of fighters and I think my argument stands.

This game is all about positioning, trade efficiently and don't get overwhelmed, these judgements are impossible to make when there is a ship that can put torpedoes down on any broadside all over the map with literally seconds of warning. To counter a CV you have to group up to an impractical degree and hope you start close to an AA ship if you even have one in the first place. Hell the best tactic to not get hit by a cv is to sit next to the one on your team, get his uber defensive buble and you can bet he'll protect his ship with his fighters. Not being able to shoot anything or contest points makes me a low priority target too for the CV. There the perfect CV counter tactic, all I have to do is not you know do anything fun or useful. This is an exaggerated argument but the point applies on all levels. CVs force all players on the map to be less effective and have less fun because they have to position just in case they are next. It's like a whole platoon being pinned by machine gun fire, yes they can survive if they stay in cover and keep their heads down, but they ain't getting anything done until they deal with the MG. Problem in warships is you can't deal with the CV, you have to wait until he runs out of planes/bullets. The CV is nearly always the last ship to die, he is nearly always stealthed if he is in range at all and has the best AA defense in the match in most cases, just another CV privilege.