The CV Captains Cabin

[LongJohn_]

5 minutes ago, Estaca_de_Bares said:

Yep, all KM BBs have learnt to fear facing an Enterprise, and if the bombs from Essex and Midway are even more powerful people will just have nightmares of swarms of wasps stinging from above. About 0.6.14.0, no idea, but expect it in one or two weeks (I would bet on next Thursday, so the whole December becomes a sea of BB tears).

 

What I've seen from AP bombs they seem to be very situational and/or inconsisted. KM BBs shake with those but with any other nation BBs effect is much smaller. And you dont do well against cruisers and DDs with them. I have to experiment them myself and decide which ones to use. 

 

T9-10 Essex and Midway bombers also get option of 1000lbs HE bombs or actually Lexington gets them at T8. And they also hurt like heck, you can drop them on any target and you also get good firechance to do damage over time with TBs. AP bombs are alpha only. 

 

Actually I expect tears of blood from high tier DDs as well. Midway gets 2-2-2 loadout as sole option. T8 TBs but with tight torpedo spread and option to crosstorp is deadly combination. At the same time you get air superiority with 2x7 fighters and then HE/AP option to DBs. 

 

Have you tried or thought what 2x6 T8 TBs do to a T8 BB? With careful drop you hit 10-12 of them...

[El2aZeR]

6 hours ago, longley89 said:

Iowa have  crap deck armor and  upper citadel armor

 

You can't see the main armor deck of high tier USN BBs anymore. They have infinitely better deck armor in both thickness and scheme than KM BBs, so they are highly resistant to AP bomb citadel hits.

Spoiler

 

[LongJohn_]

 

Well. It seems I took that AS business (too) seriously so I run through some tutorials with pretty advanced stuff. Basic principal was that you dont try to win fighter battle if you are outnumbered but play smart in other areas. I think I have to implement these things in practice. Allthough 1-1-3 Essex is very heavily outnumbered against 3-0-2 Essex. 

 

Also thought few other things. These tutorials also stated the "holy trinity" in CV gameplay and I think I have to change my overall gamestyle to become overally better. I do love smashing and sinking stuff and there for example 1-1-3 strike Essex shines but like stated in many cases loadout isnt balanced and present Essex doesnt even have balanced loadout. Strike is heavily invested into smashing leaving aircontrol and recon into lower level. 

 

I do see this in my gameplay. I cant help my teams DDs contesting caps right at the start since I cant gain airsuperiority in cap airspace using only one fighter squad. This automatically leads losing caps and cappoints right at the start. In some cases these early points are worth gold later in the game. 

 

So basically two options. First loadup 2-1-1 stock loadout to my Essex and rush forward. Use 1-1 attackplanes to attack separated ships mid-late states of the battle and mainly concentrate to maintain strict aircontrol and spot for the team. 

 

Second, perhaps little longer run but also bolder option, is to sell my Essex, get Shokaku back and start thing with a totally fresh boat. Shoka has rather painful stock grind but I think I could manage it. 2-2-2 loadout hasnt been my favourite but I have to learn it at least for the future Midway... This option doesnt even crap my Essex stats. Allthough I dont care that much about them anyway. 

 

Or maybe option C that I havent even thought? Get Independence or Ranger with AS loadout and strafe the s#it out of everything?

[Commander_Cornflakes]

3 minutes ago, LongJohn_ said:

Get Independence or Ranger with AS loadout and strafe the s#it out of everything?

Please not, lol.

 

The IJN CVs are your best choice if you want to maximize your influence on the outcome of the match. I'd recommend using free exp though, 1-2-2 is useless.

[El2aZeR]

Option 1:

Switch to IJN.

 

Option 2:

Wait for the loadout rework.

[LongJohn_]

8 hours ago, Commander_Cornflakes said:

Please not, lol.

 

The IJN CVs are your best choice if you want to maximize your influence on the outcome of the match. I'd recommend using free exp though, 1-2-2 is useless.

 

7 hours ago, El2aZeR said:

Option 1:

Switch to IJN.

 

Option 2:

Wait for the loadout rework.

 

I guess those are my options. And even the loadout rework doesnt help Essex that much. Sure 2-1-2 is more viable than present stock 2-1-1 but still worse than IJN 2-2-2 which also Midway is going to receive. And since I have Midway researched why not.... 

 

IJN is going to stay the same in the rework, only change in Shokaku gameplay is going to be single 1-1-2(?) loadout to Lexington and that is not going to change that much Shoka gameplay. T8 is also swarming with premiums (and hence walletwarriors). 

 

Shokaku balanced loadout is also very good practice to Midway - both shall share 2-2-2 loadout and that way same keyboard commands which comes in handy. 

 

I dont think I even want to go Midway before the change or even short aftet it since top tiers are going to swarm Midways for a while.

 

[unsinkable_sam_]

True.. Give it back my "old" Essex. 

[LongJohn_]

 

There you go. First decent Essex game today.

 

Boy that one strafe hurt. Taiho got all attack planes in one cluster, turned them away and got a perfect strafe from behind. 26 planes down.

 

Actually pretty rare one. Top of the scoreboard with CV.

[LongJohn_]

Oh, what is your record for one straight strafe? I think that 26 today is my tops. Hit right on. Shame his fighters fly towards so only 4(?) of them. All attack planes (3x4 TB, 2x5 DB) dropped. 

[gekkehenkie50]

 

I might or might not have picked up a Saipan in the discount

Fun lil' heartbreak here, broke my record aircraft shotdown by 9 ^^

Messed up final drop on their last ship (ranger), missed 1 torp of the 5 that got through, 8k left on him last 20 seconds of the match.

The cap explains where my team was btw

Spoiler

 

[RUSSIANBlAS]

Hey so with the CV rework does the Saipan get the highest USN TBs? Or does the Essex get a single squadron of T9 TB?

[unsinkable_sam_]

Today first  battle with Essex.  Essex main weapon is div bombers.. After the  update   -1 DB and T8 torp bombers, significantly weaking  strike ability..

 

 

[LongJohn_]

 

I agree. Essex is maybe getting a bit more versatile with 2-1-2 loadout but damage potential is going down. So enjoy it while it lasts. I attend to do right that and then just shift to Midway.

[Favuz]

So, Tomorrow should be the new dawn for american CVS.

 

As a semi-noob CV, would you advice to play my cruisers ( kutuzov and Donskoi are ready) or try with CV? i should encounter a lot of them, from super unicums to tomatoes.

 

Also, next 2 weeks should not be the ideal time to buy Izumo and play her stock, i think i'll wait

[LongJohn_]

6 hours ago, Favuz said:

So, Tomorrow should be the new dawn for american CVS.

 

As a semi-noob CV, would you advice to play my cruisers ( kutuzov and Donskoi are ready) or try with CV? i should encounter a lot of them, from super unicums to tomatoes.

 

Also, next 2 weeks should not be the ideal time to buy Izumo and play her stock, i think i'll wait

 

So it hits live tomorrow. 

 

I think you should try CVs. Lower tiers, that you use for practice anyway, arent going to change that much and IJN tree is not going to change at all. 

 

But sure there can be a little rush on CVs for some time.

[veslingr]

On 11/28/2017 at 11:37 AM, longley89 said:

Today first  battle with Essex.  Essex main weapon is div bombers.. After the  update   -1 DB and T8 torp bombers, significantly weaking  strike ability..

 

 

It is a buff. With 1 fighter you can only strike by brain dead monkey. So it is better to have air domination and strike free than hope on other side is tomato. 

[LongJohn_]

2 minutes ago, veslingr said:

It is a buff. With 1 fighter you can only strike by brain dead monkey. So it is better to have air domination and strike free than hope on other side is tomato. 

 

At least it should shift air control abd therefore maybe WR statistics from IJN to USN but I still think avg dmg is going to come down. TB+2DBs only. Unless those DB AP are insane.

[veslingr]

1 minute ago, LongJohn_ said:

 

At least it should shift air control abd therefore maybe WR statistics from IJN to USN but I still think avg dmg is going to come down. TB+2DBs only. Unless those DB AP are insane.

Average dmg is not important. Ussles stat. 50 k on dss is much more important than 150k on yammato. 

 

Wr is what counts

[LongJohn_]

20 minutes ago, veslingr said:

 Average dmg is not important. Ussles stat. 50 k on dss is much more important than 150k on yammato. 

 

Wr is what counts

 

Useless? So what is wrong with those AS loadouts? WR might be decent but you win or lose with the team. You can black out enemy CV completely and spot everything but cant deal damage. 

 

Its triangle. Air control (fighters) - scouting - raw damage. IJN has plenty of balanced options for it, USN CVs have been leaning towards one depending on loadout. 

 

2-1-2 loadout will be better in aircontrol than present strike 1-1-3. The rest I dont know. Fighters arent good for scouting and raw damage is very propably going down. But maybe avg WR might go up. 

[veslingr]

15 minutes ago, LongJohn_ said:

 

Useless? So what is wrong with those AS loadouts? WR might be decent but you win or lose with the team. You can black out enemy CV completely and spot everything but cant deal damage. 

 

Its triangle. Air control (fighters) - scouting - raw damage. IJN has plenty of balanced options for it, USN CVs have been leaning towards one depending on loadout. 

 

2-1-2 loadout will be better in aircontrol than present strike 1-1-3. The rest I dont know. Fighters arent good for scouting and raw damage is very propably going down. But maybe avg WR might go up. 

Again total dmg is ussles stat. 150 k dmg on yamato means your e pen is big but you sis not kill single ship and bisicly were bad for team. On other hand 50 k on dds equals to 2 dead dds and big influence to game. So 150 k vs 50 k......who did more for game? You see now why raw dmg is worst stat ever?

[LongJohn_]

9 minutes ago, veslingr said:

Again total dmg is ussles stat. 150 k dmg on yamato means your e pen is big but you sis not kill single ship and bisicly were bad for team. On other hand 50 k on dds equals to 2 dead dds and big influence to game. So 150 k vs 50 k......who did more for game? You see now why raw dmg is worst stat ever?

 

Like said. Its whole packadge. Air control / anti CV - spotting - damage / kills. You can black out enemy CV, spot everything and ninja 2 kills with almost dead enemies. Still not that much to team. 

 

Its much more than any single thing. Air control alone isnt it, raw damage isnt it, spotting isnt it. All together... Strike Essex has been leaning strongly to damage and kills sacirficing others.

[LongJohn_]

Taking other ship classes into account you can make a killer game with DD just by spotting for team and getting caps. 

[veslingr]

22 minutes ago, LongJohn_ said:

 

Like said. Its whole packadge. Air control / anti CV - spotting - damage / kills. You can black out enemy CV, spot everything and ninja 2 kills with almost dead enemies. Still not that much to team. 

 

Its much more than any single thing. Air control alone isnt it, raw damage isnt it, spotting isnt it. All together... Strike Essex has been leaning strongly to damage and kills sacirficing others.

Yes it is a lot of factors. And raw dmg is least important. 

[LongJohn_]

 

Its actually quite intresting to try out Essex with new loadout. How damage behaves and ore importantly how WR and PR start to change. 

 

At least most of AS dudes are in deep crap. I met one today and flew most of his fighters around the map with empty DB squad. Shot down couple planes less than he did and got couple of kills as well. New setup evens things up and you can just strafe the sh*t out of them. 

 

Experimenting wont even be that bad. I guess most unicums are going straight to T10 and Midway testing and overall above T8 you dont get more than one CV in a game which makes things easier. 

 

But I am still very tempted to buy myself Saipan. After mandatory 1-1-1(?) loadout on Ranger things turn more and more towards Saipans.

[El2aZeR]

7 hours ago, LongJohn_ said:

After mandatory 1-1-1(?) loadout on Ranger things turn more and more towards Saipans.

 

It's 1/1/2 actually.

Things were always skewed towards Saipan as she is the single most overpowered CV tier for tier.

 

I'll just use free exp to skip Ranger once the update hits.