Asking veteran CV drivers

[Pappus]

Hello I have been playing around with the ranger mod that has 2x torp and 2x dive bomber. At first I thought it would obviously suck without the ability to airfight but so far it isn't as bad as I thought.

 

I am mainly using the bombers to start 2-3 fires which 2 bombers will reliably do in a run and since naturally the torps come out later I would then get to attack a ship that has no more repair ability and would need to take the full flooding dot. However I start to suspect that 3x fire is actually a lot stronger than the flooding debuff.

 

So I am here to ask about diver bombers if you can somehow make them more efficient and what you can do with them that a torp bomber cannot do and if the higher tiers are impossible to play without fighter.

 

Additionally should I cause flooding first to burn the repair kit and then try to get triple fire on them?

[valkarianism]

sorry to intrude as a rather inexperienced CV sailor myself.

 

I've always believed that fires are inferior to flooding. Mainly because I have not mastered the art of manual launching bombs. If you are able to manually launch and constantly get multiple fires going, then torpedoes before bombs might actually be a good idea as well. I would like to take into account the amount of time that ships take to put out fires may vary from that to recover from flooding. From what I see, I would take fires over flooding any other day, as it not only damages my ship critically, it also causes my ship to be very handicapped in term of movement and manoeuvring. 

 

However, if you play on the current mindset that once you flood, you repair, you'll most likely land fires on ships which have already expended their repairs. This is because many ships have already noted that if a bomber comes for a bomb run, they may be the target of torpedoes and thus they may hold off on repairing the fire damage early, accounting for possible flooding.

 

It's very situational, but i do feel that both methods have their merits, as long as it is consistent. Flooding has a randomness to it as well, but seems to be more consistent to occur when torpedoes hit, than for bombs to land on a ship successfully, then start multiple fires. The main factor here is if you can create multiple fires reliably. Should you be able to do that, having both methods on hand will then be very effective.

[Pappus]

You don't need to manually drop the bombs, but I think if you hit that you might actually get all bombs onto a ship which also does considerable damage. You often only have 1 going of for e.g. 800-2300 but if you got 6 or 7 that it is quite nice.

 

What you say about expecting is right though that is why I often do 1x torp 1x dive and keep the others 2 sectors away. That way I am confident to get both debuffs on him after repair because they will press it if they burn and are flooded the first time.

[Ishiro32]

I will also say somethin even though I would not call myself experienced CV driver. I just like to talk.

How to make DB more effective? You can try learning manual DB drop, but... It is a lot harder than manual drop from TB and effectivnes from auto is not that bad, 1 DB wing usually start fire in 1-2 places. Other than that, nah... nothing.

What DB can do that TB can't? DB damge is treated as shelling, because of it you can stop caps with them. They are also more durable and usually faster. They are also something that people do not dodge or treat as a threat. Because people don't dodge them, you are able to hit more nimble targets like destroyers. But honestly they are just firestarters that people ignore.

Are fighters required? With the current MM? Nope. There are games where you only CV on the map and unless you encounter CV with fighter deck you should be fine. Is it better to have fighters than DBs? Yes. Fighters are better scouts, they can defend your team from enemy TBs, they can kill off seaplanes, they escort your TBs. Fighters are better tool than DB, there is no doubt.

 

As for flooding vs fire? This is actually kinda intresting. From what I noticed flooding cripple movement and lasts a bit longer than fire. It seems to be a better debuff overall. Damage wise I think 3x fire is indeed superior. So it seems like a fine choice, you prefer damage or to cripple enemy more? I will tell you one thing though, I prefer setting ships on fire first simply because I can just zoom in and see If they have used their repair or not. Maybe someone more experienced can tell if there are some visual identification for flooding?

[AgarwaenME]

Manually dropping bombs on a target that's actively avoiding is likely to get you fewer or no hits since the spear is so small, which means it's more or less only usable on BBs/CVs that are stationary or streaming straight on.

 

However, against an experienced CV captain that does not let his fighters spend all their ammo on your DBs and that do not kill entire squadrons (ie, making you able to send in attacks as his fighters return and rearm), you might end up doing nearly nothing while you can do nothing against his torp squadrons by going in without fighters. Currently you're more likely to get away with that setup since there's so few people playing CVs, but that might not last.

[KRBeC]

Fire x Flooding

 

Perhaps if you operate with DB/TB deck, try to combine your attack weaves (TB+DB). It will be hard for multitasking, but if you can set enemy afire and possible flood at same time (while using one TB and one DB), you are giving him hard time with DoT and movement debuff. And once enemy repairs, you can launch second weave again with possible both fire and flooding. Damage-wise this is the best way, just keep in mind you possible losses when flying around waiting for enemy to use repars.

 

Fighters

 

Using fighters is matter of personal choice. Personally I cannot imagine myself not using those. I usually priorize air dominance over going for ships (if you can wipe out enemy air forces, you did enough for your team, damage you done to ships is bonus). Moreover if you have no fighters, enemy will easily protect BBs and other targets by disrupting your planes before drop (and slowing them down in vicinity of pesky AA guns). On the other hands I was not much of satisfied with air decks, since you cannot do much more than just hunting planes (realy sad when you are only CV in game, or you are facing higher tier enemy and your fighters are good for nothing). Using 2-2-0 (for Ranger) or 2-2-1 (for Essex) is best (in my opinion and for my game style) and most versatile setup.

[Alexidiss]

Veteran CV drivers like me

at first dont play with no fighters setup

at second dont really care what victim first sequence to use repair - over DBs or over TBs

 

There exist much more important things ingame - like choosing proper target and proper position for attack, countering enemy CV, scouting and etc.

And the higher goes tier of CV the harder things goes on because AA getting harder, BBs evading more skillfuly and etc.

 

[Makoniel]

Someone said in the 3.1 topic that ships set afire can't use their AAA. If that's true, DB might be a viable choice when fighting high tier BBs, before launching the TB squads 

[TheDubiousDonut]

Someone said in the 3.1 topic that ships set afire can't use their AAA. If that's true, DB might be a viable choice when fighting high tier BBs, before launching the TB squads 

 

Now that sounds cruel. It would be a shame if some... would abuse this...

[Vulpes79]

Well, aside from the ones that are protected by casemates/ towers (usually the dual purpose ones) the "small" caliber ones are usually open toped and a fire in the vicinity would definetely disrupt the crews manning them.

Could add some flavor to theTB squads.

[Ishiro32]

Wouldn't it make DBs even more of support plane for the TBs?

[Markhand]

Wouldn't it make DBs even more of support plane for the TBs?

 

I just want them to implement the AP bombs they were speaking about. Would make DB's alot more potent as a main damage dealer for CV's.

[Sharana]

From what I understood only cruisers can't use their barrage skill while on fire. The AA guns still inflict damage on the planes.

 

Also I personally prefer to use the DBs after the TBs attack. I will wait few seconds until I see the target has used his repair. If he waits for the DBs attack I just won't attack and will let him flood 20-30 seconds until he finally repairs 

But of course it depends on the situation - sometimes I will use them 1st in a hope that noob CA will use his skill on them and the BB will be unprotected against the TBs later. Also sometimes I don't attack with them at all, but use them to spot some DDs near our cruisers so they can kill it, when my fighters are busy with the enemy planes.

 

And about the fighters - I can't imagine game without them. 90% of the CVs I see in games have fighters, many of them even only fighters. You can be made totally uneffective if you have to search for gaps between enemy fighters all the time to attack hard targets, because the BBs are protected or far behind and you will be intercepted before you reach them. And in rare cases when there are no enemy CVs you can just use them to spot for the team.

 

Also the alt attack with DBs is not worth it right now at least. It's much harder and you don't score many more hits if any at all.

[Ishiro32]

I will wait few seconds until I see the target has used his repair.

 

You are checking their HP and wheter it is depleting or not right or is there some kind of visual identificator for flooding, like fire for... well fire.

[Sharana]

I don't think there is visual effects for flooding so you have to check the hitpoints. Some start to heal ASAP, but keep their repair and in such cases I either wait until it's done  to see if he is still flooding or if I'm under pressure I just attack and hope he used it.

[Mr_Sukebe]

Question for you guys when picking targets with DBs.  Would you ever bother with smaller targets like Destroyers?  I did wonder if they might be fairly easy targets and that taking that kind of spotter out of the game might be a good move?

[Sharana]

The accuracy is terrible against them and you have very big chance to miss with all bombs o even if 1 scores a hit it's still tiny damage and rare some critical. I attack DDs only if they are threat for me or some frinedly ship nearby.

[Mr_Sukebe]

The accuracy is terrible against them and you have very big chance to miss with all bombs o even if 1 scores a hit it's still tiny damage and rare some critical. I attack DDs only if they are threat for me or some frinedly ship nearby.

 

 

Thanks, learning things like this now helps me avoid needing to learn it by trial and error later.

[Pappus]

I use them against DDs while often it will only be one hit it doesn't cost a lot to dual bomb the first thing you see and if RNG is with you the hit will be 3k+fire and they will naturally imediately put out the fire and then the second one lights him up too makes for a mostly dead destroyer close to the carrier anyway.

[Numbah18]

The accuracy is terrible against them and you have very big chance to miss with all bombs o even if 1 scores a hit it's still tiny damage and rare some critical. I attack DDs only if they are threat for me or some frinedly ship nearby.

 

DB on a DD can be a good move. You get a better chance to hit but it's not super damage.

[Pappus]

Damage wise it might be a small number, but it is relatively high compared to their HP.

[xBamBamx]

From what I understood only cruisers can't use their barrage skill while on fire. The AA guns still inflict damage on the planes.

 

Also I personally prefer to use the DBs after the TBs attack. I will wait few seconds until I see the target has used his repair. If he waits for the DBs attack I just won't attack and will let him flood 20-30 seconds until he finally repairs 

But of course it depends on the situation - sometimes I will use them 1st in a hope that noob CA will use his skill on them and the BB will be unprotected against the TBs later. Also sometimes I don't attack with them at all, but use them to spot some DDs near our cruisers so they can kill it, when my fighters are busy with the enemy planes.

 

And about the fighters - I can't imagine game without them. 90% of the CVs I see in games have fighters, many of them even only fighters. You can be made totally uneffective if you have to search for gaps between enemy fighters all the time to attack hard targets, because the BBs are protected or far behind and you will be intercepted before you reach them. And in rare cases when there are no enemy CVs you can just use them to spot for the team.

 

Also the alt attack with DBs is not worth it right now at least. It's much harder and you don't score many more hits if any at all.

 

 

I don't get why you use DB after TB - send DB at CA so they use their AA skill, when it resets send in TB, also DB are expendable, TB are valuable so let DB take the AA of BB while TB get as much damage as possible, that's what i do anyway.  As for manual DB, I use them every single time, as they are much more effective, trick is to line them up bow or stern and send them 3 seconds apart so you have time to manual aim on all of them, takes practice but much more effective.

[Anu_ClearSky]

I play Ess a lot, always with 2 TB and 3 DB. After the patch, most of my kills are made by the fire which is caused by DB after the attack of TB.

My advice is that you should use TB first, one important reason is if you drop terps in right place, you may sink a BB directly without the need of DBs. But before you use your TB, you should separate your DB and keep them a little far away from your target. Usually BB wont realize your DB is following your TB to attack. And, sometimes, your DB will lure enemy fighters so your TB will have a clean shot.

When your TB is approaching target, you should start to let your separate DB gather to a location close to target. So, when your TB finish their attacking, you keep watching the target. If the BB hold its repair, then hold your DB. Put your DB into attacking only after the repair skill is used. Since TB still have a much higher damage than DB, so it's important to keep TB running and it's acceptable to postpone DB's attack.

[fnord_disc]

I personally feel like fire damage is superior to flooding against carriers; partly because the damage feels at least comparable, but also because they launch no planes.

 

Sending DB against DD should almost never be done since the accuracy is appalling. I have more success launching torpedo waves from 3 directions and hitting with 2 torpedoes to kill the DD than I have dive bombing them.

[Sharana]

I don't get why you use DB after TB - send DB at CA so they use their AA skill, when it resets send in TB, also DB are expendable, TB are valuable so let DB take the AA of BB while TB get as much damage as possible, that's what i do anyway.  As for manual DB, I use them every single time, as they are much more effective, trick is to line them up bow or stern and send them 3 seconds apart so you have time to manual aim on all of them, takes practice but much more effective.

It's very simple - fires stack and provide you more damage over time. It's rare to oneshot the same tier BB with torps only, but if you wait 30sec for him to use the damage control and repair ability you can start 2-4 fires and watch him burn to death with 1-1.5K/tick and swear in the chat

I sometimes kill enemy CVs with them if I fail with my TBs - 3 fires and he will burn down from 50-60% hp before his repair is ready. You can't flood him to death from 50% if he used his repair for the DBs.