Ark Royal or Kaga for a CV noob?

[genosse]

I played carriers years ago when it was still RTS mode, and I didn't like all the micromanaging I had to to do with multiple squads of planes in the air, counter play etc.

 

From my understanding, the new direct control alleviates this specific problem (meaning CVs were dumbed down for players like me), and I want to dip my toes into carriers again, if only to learn how to counter them better.

 

Since I am a wallet warrior and for some reason enjoy playing premiums a lot more than silver ships, I am thinking about getting a premium CV, and since Enterprise was recently removed from the shop, the best choice now seems to be Kaga. On the other hand, Ark Royal is new and shiny, and a Tier 6 might be better for some low-pressure gameplay.

 

What ship would you suggest to me? Or are Saipan and GZ viable options after all?

 

Some things that are important to me:

 

- I would like a ship that is still fairly useful when uptiered, as this will probably happen frequently.

 

- The carrier should be comfortable to play, so I'm preferring a low skill floor to a high skill ceiling, although both would be optimal, of course. I don't want to get the feeling, that I have to constantly play against the negatives of my own ship to contribute something.

 

- To further elaborate: If I had to decide between being able to carry well, but being under constant pressure, or not being able to carry as well, but still able to make a meaningful contribution, I would chose the latter.

 

- Please don't default to Ark Royal, just because I got no clue how to play CVs and it's lower tier (see below). If the Ark is crap at Tier VI, there is no point for me to spend money on it.

 

- Please don't suggest to grind a silver line to Tier X first. Don't worry, I won't gimp your teams with a high Tier CV and no skill in playing it. I will get the basics down in the low tier silver lines, and if I get the impression that I am still "not ready", I will find other ways to improve other than randoms. I also don't see much appeal in either Tier X, nor most of the silver ships, as I said above. This question is about the potential of the carriers only, and not about me and my ability to acquire the neccessary skills to play them.

 

- Please don't suggest not to play CVs at all (because sky cancer etc.). I play a lot of DDs, and let's just say that I disagree, and I don't think carriers are much of a problem these days, compared to other stinkers in this game.

 

Thank you! :)

[Onsterfelijke]

My advise would be try first the silver ships before going for ANY premium ... I mean the T6 ones which is easy todo for a returning player. Japanese CV are great with Torpedoes, British are decent with bombs and after a buff round Torps are doing something.  Americans are the best with rockets..

 

You get the Nation advantage better that way AND more important if you like the gameplay as it suits you.

 

If you have to buy one i would get the KAGA as the GZ is soso the Saipan loses too fast it's planes and your stock replacing is very small. Ark Royal .. don't untill you like the english line.

[Guest]

I'm not 100% sure as I have little experience in CV's, but this...

 

12 minutes ago, genosse said:

I would like a ship that is still fairly useful when uptiered, as this will probably happen frequently.

combined with this

12 minutes ago, genosse said:

The carrier should be comfortable to play, so I'm preferring a low skill floor to a high skill ceiling

 

Then based on memory here... I would suggest neither of those are the best choice - their 'flavour' is faster regen rates on planes because their planes are 2-tier lower. So for example, Ark Royal at TVI has planes (as in, health/speed wise) that are found on the TIV Hermes so when uptiered into TVIII matches can be brutal for a 'noob' (like me).

 

Saipan is kind of the opposite - slower regen rates but higher-tier planes so you may want to consider that?

[genosse]

10 minutes ago, Onsterfelijke said:

My advise would be try first the silver ships before going for ANY premium ... I mean the T6 ones which is easy todo for a returning player. Japanese CV are great with Torpedoes, British are decent with bombs and after a buff round Torps are doing something.  Americans are the best with rockets..

 

You get the Nation advantage better that way AND more important if you like the gameplay as it suits you.

 

If you have to buy one i would get the KAGA as the GZ is soso the Saipan loses too fast it's planes and your stock replacing is very small. Ark Royal .. don't untill you like the english line.

 

Good suggestion, thanks. I am actually not sure why I got the urge to buy a premium CV without even trying out the different nations first. Mix of stupidity, boredom and still too much money I guess. I will defintily consider this, now that the weekend is around the corner.

 

6 minutes ago, Rusty_9 said:

I'm not 100% sure as I have little experience in CV's, but this...

 

combined with this

 

Then I would suggest neither of those are the best choice - their 'flavour' is faster regen rates on planes because their planes are 2-tier lower. So for example, Ark Royal at TVI has planes (as in, health/speed wise) that are found on the TIV Hermes so when uptiered into TVIII matches can be brutal for a 'noob' (like me).

 

Saipan is kind of the opposite - slower regen rates but higher-tier planes so you may want to consider that?

 

Thank you for your suggestion! :) I read everywhere that Saipan is not very comfortable to play, because you have to be so careful not to lose your few planes. Other than that, I think she is kind of sexy, hehe (god damn I am a nerd). Maybe someone can elaborate further?

[Panocek]

While both CVs have solid qualifiers for being noob friendly, I'd advise getting silver CVs first. Maybe Ryujo or Ranger and practice in Operations and then see what happens.

 

I'd steer away from silver UK carriers unless you're of masochistic variety or want to try polishing a turd

[genosse]

13 minutes ago, Panocek said:

I'd steer away from silver UK carriers unless you're of masochistic variety or want to try polishing a turd

 

Maybe if I become a literal god when playing CVs and I need some kind of challenge, but at the moment this is definitly not what I want. ;)

[Xevious_Red]

6 minutes ago, Rusty_9 said:

I'm not 100% sure as I have little experience in CV's, but this...

 

combined with this

 

Then based on memory here... I would suggest neither of those are the best choice - their 'flavour' is faster regen rates on planes because their planes are 2-tier lower. So for example, Ark Royal at TVI has planes (as in, health/speed wise) that are found on the TIV Hermes so when uptiered into TVIII matches can be brutal for a 'noob' (like me).

 

Saipan is kind of the opposite - slower regen rates but higher-tier planes so you may want to consider that?

I would disagree;

 

Saipan does indeed have higher tier planes, but it has low reserves and an extremely long respawn time, so a few mistakes back to back and you'll have no planes.

It has some other problems - zero secondaries, so nothing at all to help you against a DD, and very short range AA meaning it can be carrier sniped.

 

Kaga has tons of reserves - she has 96 planes on deck before it even starts respawning. You can throw kaga squads at things and still have planes for days. Due to the numbers, fighters worry you less. Losing 6 bombers to fighters in the saipan is disasterous. Losing 6 in the kaga you barely notice.

Kaga is the zapp brannigan of CV "wave after wave of my own men"

 

Ark Royal respawns fast, so you dont really run out of planes either. The planes are slow and low tier, but you get decent numbers in a squadron. Ironically the slow speed makes it quite easy to dodge flak clouds, which are the largest damage dealers to planes. Again you dont really care about losses too much as the planes respawn fast enough.

Main issue I have with the Ark Royal is due to the slow speed of the planes, there's a LOT of flying to places, wheras other carriers spend more time attacking

[Asakka]

Play silver CVs first to learn until t8 atleast. You dont want to be burden for your team

[Vbeest]

2 minutes ago, Asakka said:

Play silver CVs first to learn until t8 atleast. You dont want to be burden for your team

 

Buy all the premiums you want, even T9s.

 

You dont want to hear instructions how to spend your money.

[Asakka]

Just now, Vbeest said:

 

Buy all the premiums you want, even T9s.

 

You dont want to hear instructions how to spend your money.

Yeah just be useless ,why the hell not :)

[black_falcon120]

I’m going to say this.  T8 CVs play VERY differently to t6s, training wheels come off.  I like t8 more, t6 feels stale in comparison.  It’s not harder as such, just different.  Your Damage potential skyrockets at t8 as well which is always a good thing

[Noray]

I would go for the premiums.

Especially with CVs most of the premiums have a different Setup than the silver ones. So you can't really compare them to the regular silver-line CVs.

 

Go with Ark Royal.

It is a lot of fun and in T6 battles you do not have that much AA to worry about. If you get uptiered in a T8 CV and you Encounter Worcesters/Minos/Smolensk the game gets really boring really fast.

[genosse]

16 minutes ago, Asakka said:

Yeah just be useless ,why the hell not :)

I mentioned that I don't plan to be useless, and that I don't plan to pollute Tier 8 with a low skill level. Still, I want to buy a premium CV.

If I have to grind the silver lines to get up to speed, I will do that, but it is not relevant to my actual question, sorry.

 

Or do you think that I plan to kill my stats even more in a 40 % WR carrier, so I can't have a single argument in this forum without someone downtalking me?

That would be pretty stupid, wouldn't it? ;)

[Asakka]

5 minutes ago, genosse said:

 

I mentioned that I don't plan to be useless, and that I don't plan to pollute Tier 8 with a low skill level. Still, I want to buy a premium CV.

If I have to grind the silver lines a bit to get up to speed, I will do that, but it is not relevant to my question.

I just hate people that buy their way into high tier and then suck with the ships so much they are basicaly AFK.

 

I would go for Kaga ,better credit/xp potential and you have alot of planes. Ark is more chill since AA is weaker in his tier, also her planes are slow AF.

Uptiering is brutal for every CV

[Aixin]

Saipan is a bad choice. In a T6 battle you are God Noone can kill your planes. But if you are in T10 you will lose planes no matter what. Also it has no aa. It's the only cv that's possible to be sniped very easily. I also wouldn't get gz I got it for challange and Cuz it's the only German cv. Graf is hard to play and when it comes to bombs rng is your best friend (enemy). So that would make kaga the only option. Kaga has no fast Regen but you have so many planes that you simply don't care about a few losses even in T10 battles. So I would go for kaga. 

[Blixies]

Wait wait wait... when did they pull the Enterprise from shop? Was there a previous announcement?

[CptBarney]

8 minutes ago, genosse said:

 

I mentioned that I don't plan to be useless, and that I don't plan to pollute Tier 8 with a low skill level. Still, I want to buy a premium CV.

If I have to grind the silver lines a bit to get up to speed, I will do that, but it is not relevant to my question.

Kaga you just spam torpedo bombers going up the ijn line will teach you how to do so better. She has incredibly gud plane regen.

 

Saipan avoid, shes trash with terrible plane regen.

 

Graf zeppy is a meme.

 

Enterpresents i would of recommended since shes blatantly OP.

 

make sure to avoid flak clouds and learn when to boost and slow down during flak bursts also boost leaving and shortening squads plus slingshotting.

 

@Blixies yeah they just pulled her, first reason was to 'balans' her then they actually admitted she was OP (last part on the steam forums but still). So lol.

 

Maybe yorkie can be a replacement (better bloody not be).

[Aixin]

Gerade eben, Blixies sagte:

Wait wait wait... when did they pull the Enterprise from shop? Was there a previous announcement?

It was without announcement. They did it like with Missouri Cuz it's to strong and Noone shall get it anymore. 

[Asakka]

Just now, Blixies said:

Wait wait wait... when did they pull the Enterprise from shop? Was there a previous announcement?

Yeah, she was overperforming i guess.

Only CV i bought 

[Blixies]

Just now, Karotte_marksman said:

It was without announcement. They did it like with Missouri Cuz it's to strong and Noone shall get it anymore. 

The removal of Missouri was announced amply enough though.
The Missouri was removed because of economy reasons, not because she was everperforming damage/win/kills wise.

[genosse]

6 minutes ago, Asakka said:

I just hate people that buy their way into high tier and then suck with the ships so much they are basicaly AFK.

 

I would go for Kaga ,better credit/xp potential and you have alot of planes. Ark is more chill since AA is weaker in his tier.

Uptiering is brutal for every CV

I can totally relate to that. I play WG games for years now, and I used to be a much better player, so I know where you are coming from. Thanks for your help! :)

[Asakka]

1 minute ago, genosse said:

I can totally relate to that. I play WG games for years now, and I used to be a much better player, so I know where you are coming from. Thanks for your help! :)

You are already better than half of the playerbase, because you are willing to learn and not just rage on the forums if something goes wrong 

[Vbeest]

8 minutes ago, Asakka said:

Yeah, she was overperforming i guess.

Only CV i bought 

Kaga may be the next - another reason to buy it. It is not as strong as Enterprise, but still good. Before recent Shokaku buff Kaga seemed far more powerful than its techtree colleague (not sure by how much the gap closed).

 

Even if not that strong anymore it is at least much distinct from IJN silver CVs. It has 4 torpedoes drop and HE bombs.

[Asakka]

2 minutes ago, Vbeest said:

Kaga may be the next - another reason to buy it. It is not as strong as Enterprise, but still good. Before recent Shokaku buff Kaga seemed far more powerful than its techtree colleague (not sure by how much the gap closed).

 

Even if not that strong anymore it is at least much distinct from IJN silver CVs. It has 4 torpedoes drop and HE bombs.

Yeah maybe, Kaga seems cool, but if you have Enterprise you dont need any other premium CV tbh  Its just that good

[lossi_2018]

39 minutes ago, Vbeest said:

 

Buy all the premiums you want, even T9s.

 

You dont want to hear instructions how to spend your money.

o7