AP bombs from CV. How to counter?

[Munchboii]

I just had the quickest game ever in my entire experience. 

 

Ship - Nelson

I was up tiered to VII - IX

 

I sailed to the centre of the map and was singled out by enemy bomber planes from a Shokaku. On the first attack run the AP bombs hit me for 23K damage, the second hit me for 7k damage and the 3rd hit me for 12k damage. Holy crap I couldn't believe it, my Nelson got deleted and there was nothing I could do. I attempted to turn full rudder right/left but I was countered very easily by the enemy CV player. 

 

There were 2 or 3 ships also giving me AA support but none of them really helped that much. The Nelson AA is awful already so I'm not complaining about the AA being too low damage as I understand that's how the Nelson is balanced. But why do the AP bombs deliver so much damage? 

 

Because of being such a slow and wide ship I think this is why I took so much damage from the AP bombs. 

 

All I can say is that it makes me angry to see CV's - which let's be honest dont require very much skill - getting nearly 50k damage within 2 minutes of the game starting. Whereas in a cruiser or DD to achieve 50k damage in an entire game would be a good achievement. However the rewards are probably highly different and well stacked towards the CVs. 

 

So tell me war gaming are you happy with giving certain CVs (shokaku in this case) the ability to take away 75% of a BBs health within 2 minutes of a game starting? Is this fair balance? Can you honestly tell me you think you have a good balance between difficulty and reward here? 

 

And to the community I ask, do you think this is balanced? Or would you suggest reducing the damage potential of AP bombs? How can we balance this sky AP edit????

[Vogelhund]

You cant counter good CV soon we get worser AA reason of crying CV players.

[Hopeless_Guppy]

I think in that particular case the CV player was very good, unlike me, lol.

 

How to avoid AP damage, I have no idea tbh, I would suggest Zig zagging, but of course if you are aiming at something than that would not be feasible, plus the Nelson is a Clumsy ship anyway.

[Beastofwar]

You yourself in a Nelson can't counter that.

 

Now is the question :

 

- were you alone when bombed ? If yes, that was a mistake of you ( or bad luck late game ) as your AA is known to be weak.

 

- were you near any other ship with better AA ? If yes, that is the only thing you can do. If no, that was a mistake of you ( or bad luck late game ) as your AA is known to be weak.

 

You cannot counter everything by yourself in all ships. Never will have that in WOWS either. You need others to protect you or operate with you, and vice versa.

 

 

Apprach from bow or stern, overflying it in lenght of the ship and not sideways, dropping AP bombs without diving ( almost overfly the target and release before they dive = 90 degree fall angle = highest drop possible = highest bomb speed possible = best penetration ) you can get 1-3 citadels easy.

@NoobySkooby

[rnat]

The problem with BBs that have large citadels (cruisers) is that as long as the CV has a bit of time to line up his drop well you're gonna take massive dmg.

This is both due to the relative size of the citadel and the fact that those ships tend to be on the lower end of the maneuverability spectrum

(you need DD levels to actually do any meaningful dodging if the CV is any good)

So how do you counter that ? The only way is to make sure the CV does NOT have that time. I.e. sail with high-aa ships. use fighter consumables if you have them.

Make sure the CV has to stay in your AA as long as possible before he can drop and can't just approach using a mountain as cover from your AA (this is more for ships like DM, Worchester or HIV)

[Bear__Necessities]

13 minutes ago, Munchboii said:

I just had the quickest game ever in my entire experience. 

 

Ship - Nelson

I was up tiered to VII - IX

 

I sailed to the centre of the map and was singled out by enemy bomber planes from a Shokaku. On the first attack run the AP bombs hit me for 23K damage, the second hit me for 7k damage and the 3rd hit me for 12k damage. Holy crap I couldn't believe it, my Nelson got deleted and there was nothing I could do. I attempted to turn full rudder right/left but I was countered very easily by the enemy CV player. 

 

There were 2 or 3 ships also giving me AA support but none of them really helped that much. The Nelson AA is awful already so I'm not complaining about the AA being too low damage as I understand that's how the Nelson is balanced. But why do the AP bombs deliver so much damage? 

 

Because of being such a slow and wide ship I think this is why I took so much damage from the AP bombs. 

 

All I can say is that it makes me angry to see CV's - which let's be honest dont require very much skill - getting nearly 50k damage within 2 minutes of the game starting. Whereas in a cruiser or DD to achieve 50k damage in an entire game would be a good achievement. However the rewards are probably highly different and well stacked towards the CVs. 

 

So tell me war gaming are you happy with giving certain CVs (shokaku in this case) the ability to take away 75% of a BBs health within 2 minutes of a game starting? Is this fair balance? Can you honestly tell me you think you have a good balance between difficulty and reward here? 

 

And to the community I ask, do you think this is balanced? Or would you suggest reducing the damage potential of AP bombs? How can we balance this sky AP c*ncer????

You can’t counter. Just either hope it doesn’t hit the deck and arm in the citadel or move enough to throw off the aim. Though great CV players will get you no matter what. Sorry.

[Munchboii]

1 minute ago, Beastofwar said:

You yourself in a Nelson can't counter that.

 

Now is the question :

 

- were you alone when bombed ? If yes, that was a mistake of you as your AA is known to be weak.

 

- were you near any other ship with better AA ? If yes, that is the only tning you can really do. If no, that was a mistake of you as your AA is known to be weak.

 

You cannot counter everything by yourself in all ships. Never will have that in WOWS either. You need others to protect you or operate with you, and vice versa.

 

@NoobySkooby

There was a cruiser 4km away and a battleship 5km away from me at the time, it was the start of the game so I did not consider that I'd need to be sticking with my teammates that early on. So I had some Aa cover.

 

This just sounds like a situation where there was nothing i could actually do. Because I believe the bombs went straight through and hit the citadel which caused me not to be able to repair any damage either. 

 

Only solution is... PREMIUM HMS RODNEY - the sister ship to the Nelson - but give it AMAZING AA and 6km Torpedoes

[black_falcon120]

6 minutes ago, Beastofwar said:

Apprach from bow or stern, overflying it in lenght of the ship and not sideways, dropping AP bombs without diving ( almost overfly the target and release before they dive = 90 degree fall angle = highest drop possible = highest bomb speed possible = best penetration ) you can get 1-3 citadels easy.

@NoobySkooby

The penetration bit is untrue.  The penetration is always a set value, they announced it on Reddit once. The reason you want to drop early is so that your bombs come down as vertical as possible, which means they hit the armour square on, and are therefore more likely to penetrate the citadel.  

 

OT: British, French and to a lesser extent, USA BBs have a reputation of being hard to citadel.  AP is meant to eat cruisers, but DBs are harder to aim than HE DBs, so manoeuvring throws them off more.  

[Panocek]

Only way to counter AP bombs is to play BB with hidden citadel, so silver UK and FR battleboats, to lesser degree USN ones.

 

That or build altar to RNGesus and pray and pray and pray for bombs to miss.

[GulvkluderGuld]

13 minutes ago, Munchboii said:

 

There were 2 or 3 ships also giving me AA support but none of them really helped that much. The Nelson AA is awful already so I'm not complaining about the AA being too low damage as I understand that's how the Nelson is balanced. But why do the AP bombs deliver so much damage? 

 

13 minutes ago, Munchboii said:

 

So tell me war gaming are you happy with giving certain CVs (shokaku in this case) the ability to take away 75% of a BBs health within 2 minutes of a game starting? Is this fair balance? Can you honestly tell me you think you have a good balance between difficulty and reward here? 

You sir, seem to contradict yourself, but i realize it's about fun (or, not fun).

 

First Nelsen cant do anything vs CVs, it is just balanced to be weak vs CV.

CVs counter Nelsons, just like BBs counter cruisers (except Charles Martell, which can citadel nelson through the deck from long range for the lols)

So what you should really ask yourself is: Is it fair for your Nelson to do 75% hp of  cruisers health within 2 mins of the game starting?

 

As to why the damage is so high - it's citadel hits. 

[Beastofwar]

5 minutes ago, Munchboii said:

There was a cruiser 4km away and a battleship 5km away from me at the time, it was the start of the game so I did not consider that I'd need to be sticking with my teammates that early on. So I had some Aa cover.

 

This just sounds like a situation where there was nothing i could actually do.

 

Such are the fortunes of war......sometimes CV are blown out of the water minutes after match start too......a well concealed spotting enemy DD that met no enemies at a cap and long range BB fire of several BB can do that.

Quote

 

Only solution is... PREMIUM HMS RODNEY - the sister ship to the Nelson - but give it AMAZING AA and 6km Torpedoes

 

Excellent idea.....i have nothing against it :-))

[GulvkluderGuld]

2 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Only way to counter AP bombs is to play BB with hidden citadel, so silver UK and FR battleboats, to lesser degree USN ones.

Actually only silver UK BBs cant be citadelled by AP bombs.

It's fairly hard to citadel Republique reliably, but that is more due to the citadel being very narrow and thus bombs tend to miss it. Jean Bart and Richeleu take citadels too with the same limitation.

Montana reliably takes 1 citadel per bombing run. Kremlin and Yamato takes 1-2 and GK just get rekt often with 3. 

[ironhammer500]

7 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

 

You sir, seem to contradict yourself, but i realize it's about fun (or, not fun).

 

First Nelsen cant do anything vs CVs, it is just balanced to be weak vs CV.

CVs counter Nelsons, just like BBs counter cruisers (except Charles Martell, which can citadel nelson through the deck from long range for the lols)

So what you should really ask yourself is: Is it fair for your Nelson to do 75% hp of  cruisers health within 2 mins of the game starting?

 

As to why the damage is so high - it's citadel hits. 

Is it fair a Haku with AP bombs can take 17.5k hp off my Des monies? With def AA running!!! And if a cruiser is stupid enough to broadside a Nelson where he can land all his shots then they deserve to lose hp. Planes cant be dodged anymore due to the bomb side not getting bigger when you move.

[Panocek]

3 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Actually only silver UK BBs cant be citadelled by AP bombs.

It's fairly hard to citadel Republique reliably, but that is more due to the citadel being very narrow and thus bombs tend to miss it. Jean Bart and Richeleu take citadels too with the same limitation.

Montana reliably takes 1 citadel per bombing run. Kremlin and Yamato takes 1-2 and GK just get rekt often with 3. 

Considering OP had Nelson in mind, that somewhat rules out T10. And on mid tiers I've found US dreadnoughts tough cookies to crack with AP bomb from midtier IJN carriers.

 

And it would be hard to NOT citadel things when Haku/GZ bomb have like 350mm pen... assuming bomb reaches citadel to start with

 

Just now, ironhammer500 said:

Is it fair a Haku with AP bombs can take 17.5k hp off my Des monies? With def AA running!!! And if a cruiser is stupid enough to broadside a Nelson where he can land all his shots then they deserve to lose hp. Planes cant be dodged anymore due to the bomb side not getting bigger when you move.

Its about as fair as BB player winning RNG lottery with 2+ hits to the citadel.

[Munchboii]

8 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

So what you should really ask yourself is: Is it fair for your Nelson to do 75% hp of  cruisers health within 2 mins of the game starting?

This is a fair point and I agree with you here sir. However if I managed to snipe an enemy cruiser from 18km away and get a devastating strike or 75% of his health would it not be the case that I used high skill to know exactly where to shoot and therefore I was rewarded with a very satisfying kill? 

 

Whereas in a CV it's just fly forward, aim the marker, drop bombs ahead, rinse and repeat. 

[ironhammer500]

10 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Considering OP had Nelson in mind, that somewhat rules out T10. And on mid tiers I've found US dreadnoughts tough cookies to crack with AP bomb from midtier IJN carriers.

 

And it would be hard to NOT citadel things when Haku/GZ bomb have like 350mm pen... assuming bomb reaches citadel to start with

 

Its about as fair as BB player winning RNG lottery with 2+ hits to the citadel.

If you compared overpens amount to citadels from BBs, then 90% of shots end up as overpens or 0 pen hits. There is a clear difference between 100% chance and a random chance, guess which one is op.

[Aotearas]

To quote WG: "just dodge".

[ironhammer500]

3 minutes ago, Aotearas said:

To quote WG: "just dodge".

Yea but they removed the bomb aim bloom...so yea good job WG! You nerfed your own advice!

[Yosha_AtaIante]

Vor 4 Minuten, ironhammer500 sagte:

Yea but they removed the bomb aim bloom...so yea good job WG! You nerfed your own advice!

wrong information, only nerfed on he bombers.

[GulvkluderGuld]

27 minutes ago, ironhammer500 said:

Is it fair a Haku with AP bombs can take 17.5k hp off my Des monies? With def AA running!!! And if a cruiser is stupid enough to broadside a Nelson where he can land all his shots then they deserve to lose hp. Planes cant be dodged anymore due to the bomb side not getting bigger when you move.

Your DM was lucky it didnt eat a triple citadel for 24k.

 

Dont confuse AA cruisers (CV counter) with BB (countered by CV). AP  bombs blowing a Nelson up is fine, but AA cruisers should counter planes.

Atm only Minotaur and Worchester actually does that and it's down to how AA mechanics are built.

 

AP bombs have been broken as  vs cruisers since the introduction.

 

 

22 minutes ago, Munchboii said:

This is a fair point and I agree with you here sir. However if I managed to snipe an enemy cruiser from 18km away and get a devastating strike or 75% of his health would it not be the case that I used high skill to know exactly where to shoot and therefore I was rewarded with a very satisfying kill? 

 

Whereas in a CV it's just fly forward, aim the marker, drop bombs ahead, rinse and repeat. 

The difference is more a case of missing counterplay on the Nelsons part compared to the cruiser

Using wasd.exe works vs. BB AP, but AP bombers can easily compensate for ship maneuvers by paying a slight penalty to aim (probably 1 less citadel). 

 

Also I'm not posting here how many bots and players were missed completely before I mastered AP bombs.  

Getting the timing of initiating the drop right is trickier than it seems. 

 

[ironhammer500]

12 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Your DM was lucky it didnt eat a triple citadel for 24k.

 

Dont confuse AA cruisers (CV counter) with BB (countered by CV). AP  bombs blowing a Nelson up is fine, but AA cruisers should counter planes.

Atm only Minotaur and Worchester actually does that and it's down to how AA mechanics are built.

 

AP bombs have been broken as  vs cruisers since the introduction.

 

 

The difference is more a case of missing counterplay on the Nelsons part compared to the cruiser

Using wasd.exe works vs. BB AP, but AP bombers can easily compensate for ship maneuvers by paying a slight penalty to aim (probably 1 less citadel). 

 

Also I'm not posting here how many bots and players were missed completely before I mastered AP bombs.  

Getting the timing of initiating the drop right is trickier than it seems. 

 

But if i eat a 24k citadel from a BB its because i made a mistake and showed my broadside in a cruiser so i should expect to be hit hard, difference is with CV I can move, dodge and fit full AA and he still hits me for full AP damage regardless of how I hide or angle.

 

BB damage can be dodged in a cruiser, AP bombs can not! Unless the CV is an idiot.

 

Counter is 

 

BB>CA>DD>BB

CV > other classes

 

CV counters them all.

[thiextar]

1 hour ago, Beastofwar said:

You cannot counter everything by yourself in all ships.

No, that is exclusive to cvs.

[GulvkluderGuld]

8 minutes ago, ironhammer500 said:

But if i eat a 24k citadel from a BB its because i made a mistake and showed my broadside in a cruiser so i should expect to be hit hard

...

CV counters them all.

CV always countered them all. 

 

AP bombs are a strange weapon. Some (Battle)ships are completely immune, while Nelson is particularly vulnerable. 

Your mistake was picking the wrong ship for the meta and RNG telling you NOPE 

[KillStealBoss]

1 hour ago, Panocek said:

Only way to counter AP bombs is to play BB with hidden citadel, so silver UK and FR battleboats, to lesser degree USN ones.

 

That or build altar to RNGesus and pray and pray and pray for bombs to miss.

Duke of York also immune since it's a KGV premium. 

[Hopeless_Guppy]

2 hours ago, Munchboii said:

There was a cruiser 4km away and a battleship 5km away from me at the time, it was the start of the game so I did not consider that I'd need to be sticking with my teammates that early on. So I had some Aa cover.

 

This just sounds like a situation where there was nothing i could actually do. Because I believe the bombs went straight through and hit the citadel which caused me not to be able to repair any damage either. 

 

Only solution is... PREMIUM HMS RODNEY - the sister ship to the Nelson - but give it AMAZING AA and 6km Torpedoes

Give the Rodney a Spotter plane too, hell I might even buy it like that