CV Tier 4-6 AA spike

[StarbuckTheThird]

So I've just made the jump from tier 4 Hermes to tier 6 Furious and after half a dozen odd games, god does the AA go up severely. In the Hermes, you could get 2 or 3 passes on most ships before loosing a single plane. Now in the Furious, it's maybe one before my entire squadron is wiped out by the AA I'm encountering.

 

Is that normal for T6 carriers to encounter or am I going to have to adjust somehow?

[ColonelPete]

• Avoid the AA bursts
• go for ships with low AA first, no need to focus on North Carolinas or Clevelands

 

[Beastofwar]

Depends if you payed attention the tier of ships you were attacking......tier 6 CV can ofcourse meet tier 8 ships with tier 8 AA, and just starting a new stock CV you have -1 tier stock aircraft so you are essentially flying around with tier 5 aircraft possibly facing tier 8 AA which is a +3 tier gap...that is very tough.

 

The tiers roughly - but not necessarily - correspond with a certain timespan it was in service in a certain state ( new/revision/rebuild ) so with climbing in tiers AA gets ever more powerful and numerous on decks. Tier 10 are covered from bow to stern with them ( and yet players complain it is too weak, but that has other causes of their own doing )

 

So yes.....it AA gets harder to deal with with increasing tiers. And since CV do not progres +1 tier but +2 tiers and stock your aircraft can be +3 tiers difference  the AA power gap is wide.....You will get that again at tier 8 where you face tier 10 AA, the heaviest in game, all the time.

[Lootboxer]

T4 you can drop anything, but the damage is pathetic.  At T6 you can deal more damage, but you need to be more selective with picking targets, conserve planes in the beginning, you will farm a lot damage later.

[Mad_Dog_Dante]

Tier 4 is toddler level, your training wheels to get you familiar with how to steer and where to drop without any resistance whatsoever. T6 isn't a spike, T4 is the Huge Crater of Passifiers.

[gizaman]

Tier 6 is training wheels....Furious is the most easy at that level. Seems to get bloody serious at tier 8 and up.

 

[Beastofwar]

I disagree T6 facing T8 is "using training wheels" and T8 facing T10 is more difficult.....it isn't.

 

If there is an easy mode, were high damage comes when you even look at a target then it is playing T10 CV because they cannot face +3 ( stock aircraft )  or +2 uptiering.

 

Not for nothing my Hakaryu has highest WR and highest damage of all my CV. That is the one with "training wheels" as you can do little wrong facing even tiers....or lower !  The game was never easier then at tier 10....

[beercrazy]

tier 6 is the start of learning to play cvs properly

now you need to select targets with care

you must look after your small plane pool

getting near any ship now that's aa spec is going to hurt so learn which ships can wipe your planes fast and which are easy to attack

spotting is now more important than ever so don't be afraid to keep dds spotted for your team to kill (its now not all about what damage you can do)

end game is certainly where the cv will shine so don't lose all your planes in first 5 mins thinking you need to attack everything because when its near end of match you need those full squads to get after the last low health ships to stop capping ect ect

 

I also got to say tier 8 Is even harder and more unrewarding when your shoved into a tier 10 match in cv but you will hopefully have learned the basics of how to survive even when faced with epic aa ships

[Beastofwar]

It will get easier with upgraded aircraft and hull, filling all ship upgrade module slots with aircraft enhancing stuff and getting captain skills that make aircraft more durable.

 

Stock CV with empty ship upgrade slots, no captain skills into CV and stock aircraft are horrible to use....

[eliastion]

2 hours ago, StarbuckTheThird said:

So I've just made the jump from tier 4 Hermes to tier 6 Furious and after half a dozen odd games, god does the AA go up severely. In the Hermes, you could get 2 or 3 passes on most ships before loosing a single plane. Now in the Furious, it's maybe one before my entire squadron is wiped out by the AA I'm encountering.

 

Is that normal for T6 carriers to encounter or am I going to have to adjust somehow?

There are two factors that hurt you.

1. T4 CVs can only meet t5 enemies at the very most. This means that you NEVER encounter AA of ships two tiers higher than you.

2. T4 CVs are meant to be easy to play. It's the introduction to the class. They don't pack that much of a punch and their planes are slow - overall, their impact is somewhat limited. In return it's harder to mess up. The planes are relatively sturdy compared to the AA they face, flak burst is more sparse and less deadly, aiming is relatively forgiving. When you go to t6, you get much more power at your fingertips - but the power also becomes harder to use. Enemy AA has more range, more power, spawns more flak (the part of AA that can be avoided but hurts you plenty when you run into it). And THEN, as mentioned before, there comes the fact that you're sometimes meeting t8 AA.

 

Basically, you need to adjust to a harsher environment. That's the price you pay for the power. And be prepared that it's not going to get easier at t8 either. At least the step between t8 and t10 feels a bit more comfortable due to the fact that there is no such thing as t11+ AA.

[StarbuckTheThird]

Thanks for the input, beginning to adjust, but god damn, is it rough and unexpected first. Really did enjoy picking on a lot of ships with near impunity at tier 4.

 

Would be nice if you could spot destroyers further out, often pass right over them and don't spot them until they're about 1/4 of the distance between my aiming reticle and squadron. Worst example I've has so far was at the start of game and 5 of my rocket planes were shot down. Didn't even detect the ship.

[El2aZeR]

Wait until you see the spike in high tiers.

E.g. when transitioning from Neptune to Minotaur your mid range AA becomes literally 4-5 times more powerful which is a totally ed progression model.

[Panocek]

2 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

Wait until you see the spike in high tiers.

E.g. when transitioning from Neptune to Minotaur your mid range AA becomes literally 4-5 times more powerful which is a totally ed progression model.

Its working as intended camrade. Stick and carrot, stick and carrot And then 5k doubloons for premium paint to sustain your new shiny [T10 ship]. And then quit the game because boredom playing T10 or frustation anything lower.

[asalonen]

2 hours ago, StarbuckTheThird said:

Would be nice if you could spot destroyers further out, often pass right over them and don't spot them until they're about 1/4 of the distance between my aiming reticle and squadron.

That's working as intended. DD's can be difficult to fire at if they have a clue, and keep their long distance AA off when planes are incoming. If you really want to hit the DD, drop a fighter on top of him, go far enough and then turn back into attack. This also allows your team mates to fire at it.

 

About the AA difference -- it's very real. Only a handful of ships in T5 have any sort of meaningful AA. Texas is strong, but only up to 1.5 km. Some of the BB's (König and Kongo at least) have sort of reasonable long-range auras.

 

When playing T6 however, it's a very different life when facing T7 and T8 ships. Not only is their base AA values a lot better, most ships in these tier can mount Defensive AA or Fighter consumable. In T7, Lyon and Gneisenau for example can have very good AA with a long range (6.0 km). In T8, you face a lot of American battleships and cruisers with generally excellent AA. You just need to learn target selection.

[Myrmidon19]

4 hours ago, eliastion said:

Enemy AA has more range, more power, spawns more flak (the part of AA that can be avoided but hurts you plenty when you run into it).

 

Disclaimer: I'm a newbie.

 

Can you really evade the flak explosions? From all I've read in my relatively short time of the game my understanding was all the tracers and visible streams of rounds flying through the air around the ship were actually just cosmetic and didn't correspond to anything physical because AA mechanically works as an aura. But the Flak is different?

[Spunyarn]

When they did the carrier rework they split the AA into two elements. They kept some of it as the same sort of continuous damage aura that cannot be evaded but added a system of flak explosions that could be dodged. Initially a lot of the damage was in the flak but they swiftly rebalanced things to have more in the continuous. Most of the flak is aimed directly ahead of the planes with some being aimed to either side or, with enough flak bursts, overflowing into the areas to either side.

[asalonen]

11 hours ago, Myrmidon19 said:

Can you really evade the flak explosions? From all I've read in my relatively short time of the game my understanding was all the tracers and visible streams of rounds flying through the air around the ship were actually just cosmetic and didn't correspond to anything physical because AA mechanically works as an aura. But the Flak is different?

Flak bursts are visualized client-side but the hits and damage are calculated server-side -- they don't correspond exactly but do correlate. But you can't use the visual cues to reliably avoid flak, other than knowing that you're definitely under fire.

 

Unlike the unavoidable continuous damage inside an AA aura, flak periodically generates a set of small circles (flak bursts) that deal lots of damage. If you're hit you lose planes quick, and it can be avoided.

 

Flak is fired in front of your flying path, so turning, slowing down or accelerating avoids being hit. If there's a lot of flak (really strong AA, or multiple ships with overlapping auras), some of the bursts "overflow" to the sides of your flying path, making it more difficult to dodge. 

 

I think this forum post from the developers is still the best explanation of how it works. 

 

Gameplay-wise I think it kind of sucks, since the avoiding part is absolutely necessary, yet mostly mechanical changes of direction. The only reliable feedback you get is when you fail, and you suddenly lose some of your squadron. I do appreciate the basic idea of some AA damage being inevitable (continuous AA) and some avoidable (flak), but WG really could improve it a lot. 

[Ace42X]

T4 it's hit-and-miss whether or not the ships you are facing have AA.  IIRC the Russian BBs laugh at T4 aircraft.

With Tier 6 you start to face actual AA builds (with DFAA), but the planes are vastly superior in terms of handling and (with CO points) survivability.  Because Continuous AA skills are expensive (Man Control is 4-points, and as Concealment is a priority, will require a 14CP captain to wield it.  BFT is a 3-pointer fighting with Superintendent and Dem Expert for points so probably only turning up on 17CP captains), most Tier 6s aren't going to be too threatening in terms of AA even on AA-boats and builds.

What you're mainly looking at when you reach T6 are stock / flak builds (AA module, AFT if someone's trying to level up a secondary build); they are devastating if you fly into the flak - but avoidable if you appreciate the flak spawns in front of your planes, and as such can be avoided by gradually changing your bearing as you move in.

Being bottom tier is a pain at T6, and problematic, but still workable if you just concentrate on avoiding AA-heavy ships and blobs and focus on harassing lone ships - especially ones who've eaten HE damage and thus lost AA mounts.

[Myrmidon19]

4 hours ago, Ace42X said:

T4 it's hit-and-miss whether or not the ships you are facing have AA.  IIRC the Russian BBs laugh at T4 aircraft.

With Tier 6 you start to face actual AA builds (with DFAA), but the planes are vastly superior in terms of handling and (with CO points) survivability.  Because Continuous AA skills are expensive (Man Control is 4-points, and as Concealment is a priority, will require a 14CP captain to wield it.  BFT is a 3-pointer fighting with Superintendent and Dem Expert for points so probably only turning up on 17CP captains), most Tier 6s aren't going to be too threatening in terms of AA even on AA-boats and builds.

What you're mainly looking at when you reach T6 are stock / flak builds (AA module, AFT if someone's trying to level up a secondary build); they are devastating if you fly into the flak - but avoidable if you appreciate the flak spawns in front of your planes, and as such can be avoided by gradually changing your bearing as you move in.

Being bottom tier is a pain at T6, and problematic, but still workable if you just concentrate on avoiding AA-heavy ships and blobs and focus on harassing lone ships - especially ones who've eaten HE damage and thus lost AA mounts.

 

Thanks a lot for the summary. I am very soon going to be making the jump from T4 Langley to T6 Ranger where initially I'll be an un-upgraded T6 facing off against fully upgraded T8 ships... Which is a daunting prospect. As you say I'll just have to pick targets more carefully (maybe more providing intelligence data and DD hunting etc). I find currently at T4 I can often get 3 full passes in HE and Torp Bombers on a lot of ships but suspect it may be down to 1 after the jump and even then whilst being very careful.

[eliastion]

On 6/23/2019 at 12:26 AM, Myrmidon19 said:

 

Disclaimer: I'm a newbie.

 

Can you really evade the flak explosions? From all I've read in my relatively short time of the game my understanding was all the tracers and visible streams of rounds flying through the air around the ship were actually just cosmetic and didn't correspond to anything physical because AA mechanically works as an aura. But the Flak is different?

There are two kinds of flak.

When you look from outside, or from the ship defending itself, you see nice fireworks meant to give you the feeling of incoming squadron being shot at.

When you are flying that particular squadron, however, things are different. Flak spawns periodically, in big puffs and in horizontal lines (all at the same height). This is the actual representation of what's supposed to ruin your life. Other people basically see that you're playing the flak minigame and that's it - you actually see what you're dealing with.

 

Now, as to "can you really evade", that can be a tricky question because planes don't really turn that way. In practice evading flak isn't easy (especially when it starts to appear as imposing black walls of flak rather than a couple puffs here and there) and mostly is about prevention. Flak anticipates your movement but this also means that it can be misdirected if you perform the right maneuvers. I won't get into detail here because it's one of these things you get the feel of rather than learn point by point but - generally speaking - the idea is to not approach your targets in a straight line. If you do that, flak will spawn between you and your target and if it's a target that spawns a lot, it will be really hard to dodge it...

 

A couple other tips for dodging flak:

 - you can dive under flak with torpedo bombers by starting an attack run. Even if it ends up messing up your intended attack, it's still one of the few reliable ways to dodge a big wall of flak that spawns in front of you, so consider this as an escape option as well - flying into thick flak basically blows your squadron up (and you won't deliver your payload when you're dead) so missing on an attack opportunity might be preferable to wasting planes and perhaps still missing on it anyway.

 - RN CVs can do a similar trick with their bombers - they jump over flak and that's what you want to do to deliver a reasonably aimed attack. USN and IJN also can avoid flak this way, of course, but it's mostly useless for them because they're basically locked in place when that happens with no way to maneuver or get to the target unless they're over it already

 - flying over islands is a great way to avoid flak. Changes in altitude forced by the terrain make it very unlikely to fly into flak... of course there's that tiny problem that terrain also messes up your ability to aim your payload when you're coming from over even a small island. Rockets are somewhat problematic (then again, you can actually shoot from a couple kilometers when attacking from over a big mountain ), DBs do really strange things with their reticle that can suddenly jump from "aiming at water in front of the ship" to "aiming two lengths behind the ship" with seemingly no middle ground, TBs simply need the time for torps to aim so you rarely get to strike. Still, as long as merely dodging incoming flak concerns you, islands are your friends. And you can even hide behind them from sight and AA.