Hiryu unplayable

[Syrchalis]

1210 hp is just way too low for the TB. Zuiho has the same freaking bombers. A T5 CV! T5 has barely any AA and it seems okay for the tier, but on T7 nearly every ship has respectable AA.

[Poster_2015]

Well playing a lot of hiryu and against it in rankeds, i can say at t7 level Hiryu is very balanced and even a bit on the stronger side. It basically is a CV of "You crapon every enemy CV easily, but you strike has most problems with enemy AA". If it had t7 strike planes it would be easily OP. However vs t8 or t9 it gets brutal - and even cutting off the t9 still leaves Hiryu in t8 games where it has hard time dealing damage. Still if played right you can make enemy t7 cv life as miserable as yours - somewhat balanced but i agree "not fun". 

[159Hunter]

Hmm, must have missed that. Rushed through that one in no time. Yeah, the TB are a bit weak, but select your targets wisely and you'll do ok ish.

[Syrchalis]

Hmm, must have missed that. Rushed through that one in no time. Yeah, the TB are a bit weak, but select your targets wisely and you'll do ok ish.

 

Maybe in randoms, but in ranked where everyone is running 15+ point captains with pure AA specs you can't touch anything.

[159Hunter]

 

Maybe in randoms, but in ranked where everyone is running 15+ point captains with pure AA specs you can't touch anything.

 

Sure, same problem with team battles But in those games, spotting is your primary task and not dealing damage. The only target you can reliably hit is the enemy cv. And you'd be dumb not to use a 15points captain in such competitive modes, every edge counts.

[Syrchalis]

 

Sure, same problem with team battles But in those games, spotting is your primary task and not dealing damage. The only target you can reliably hit is the enemy cv. And you'd be dumb not to use a 15points captain in such competitive modes, every edge counts.

 

Of course, but do you think it's fair that Wargaming nerfed CVs from "balanced in ranked/team battles" to "balanced in random battles with total idiots"? Hiryu is the best example. This ship was really balanced back in the day. With T5 torpedo bombers and no redeeming values, plus Saipan around it's just the least pleasant ship to play in the game, along with some of the most horrible ships (Svietlana comes to mind).

 

I agree that there is a few CVs that are in a good spot, like Taiho, but Hiryu isn't one of them. If no ship at T7 had better AA than say Nagato without captain skills and modules, then yeah, it would be OKAY, but half the ships have much better AA.

[BuccaneerBill]

Well playing a lot of hiryu and against it in rankeds, i can say at t7 level Hiryu is very balanced and even a bit on the stronger side. It basically is a CV of "You crapon every enemy CV easily, but you strike has most problems with enemy AA". If it had t7 strike planes it would be easily OP. However vs t8 or t9 it gets brutal - and even cutting off the t9 still leaves Hiryu in t8 games where it has hard time dealing damage. Still if played right you can make enemy t7 cv life as miserable as yours - somewhat balanced but i agree "not fun". 

 

This pretty much.  Hiryu is the strongest t7 carrier IMO, certainly would prefer having a Hiryu on my team than a Saipan in ranked that is for sure.

[BuccaneerBill]

 

 (Svietlana comes to mind).

 

 

 

Yea, Svietlana is a good ship actually.

[Syrchalis]

 

This pretty much.  Hiryu is the strongest t7 carrier IMO, certainly would prefer having a Hiryu on my team than a Saipan in ranked that is for sure.

 

Not sure what people you're playing with, but if everyone has AA spec and the CVs are playing well, Saipan will win easily against a Hiryu - that is if the Saipan plays 2/2/0 and knows his crap. If he plays 3/0/1 and is unlucky with his divebombers, yeah good night.

 

Hiryu just can't attack anything but DDs with those weak [edited]Zuiho TBs.

[deadly_if_swallowed]

I only had 10 games with Hiryu so far so this is not representative in any way. 

I rarely sink/finish enemy ships (avg 0.6 per battle) but I do avg. 82k dmg while downing avg 22 planes. By WTR terms this makes Hiryu one of my Top10 performing ships as of now. As said, I have huge difficulties hitting pesky destroyers with torps so I just spot them but attack the juicy targets, i.e. BBs or the enemy CV. Only got deplaned yesterday due to strange circling bombers refusing to take orders. Even though the DD threat still exists if the carrier does not take care of them, hitting the second and last line of their fleet will eventually cripple their frontal support. They know you can strike them anytime you want to so the large targets stay back while DDs are getting isolated and easy prey for your fleet.

I think Hiryu has a smaller hangar capacity than Ranger but it is still enough to throw away 1-2 attack waves. Depending on the distance to front line, this may even be the quicker option to uplift new squads.

 

So far, the worst parts of me playing Hiryu was having 6 squads which is quite a lot to coordinate simultaneously, and her very weak fighters (even with upgrade modules).

T6 torp bombers can still do their job, and the T7 dive bombers seem to hit a lot better than Ryujo's T6.

[BuccaneerBill]

 

Not sure what people you're playing with, but if everyone has AA spec and the CVs are playing well, Saipan will win easily against a Hiryu - that is if the Saipan plays 2/2/0 and knows his crap. If he plays 3/0/1 and is unlucky with his divebombers, yeah good night.

 

Hiryu just can't attack anything but DDs with those weak [edited]Zuiho TBs.

 

Most Saipans i saw in rank 1-5 were using the 3/0/1 setup. Maybe why, but they seemed to think it was the best setup for it.

[Ishiro32]

Of course, but do you think it's fair that Wargaming nerfed CVs from "balanced in ranked/team battles" to "balanced in random battles with total idiots"? Hiryu is the best example. This ship was really balanced back in the day. With T5 torpedo bombers and no redeeming values, plus Saipan around it's just the least pleasant ship to play in the game, along with some of the most horrible ships (Svietlana comes to mind).

Actually I think you are missing something in regards of contex of the Hiryuu change. As far as I remember the Hiryuu plane change was done with the speed normalization, now this is very important because currently Hiryuu planes are almost as fast as old Shokaku and I am pretty sure you realise how big of a deal is speed. Similar case is for Lexington. Change in speed will throw balance out of the door. While I do hate what has happened with Lady Lex, you need to think about those changes in the contex of huge buff to speed.

 

Is it good? Well, I would argue that Hiryuu should be annoying cluncky ship, perfecting 2/2/2 is the Shokaku job. Not to mention that almost all CVs are clearly balanced mainly for the random mode (gut feeling) probably because this is currently main mode.

 

I wanted to add that point of view back when you created topic, but I kinda forgot. 

[Syrchalis]

Yes, Hiryu can be okay in randoms, but it's impossible to do anything with it in higher ranks of ranked. Every ship and their lifeboats are AA specced and your TBs are STILL very slow. While back in open beta they were slower, AA was MUCH weaker and they had A LOT more HP - and by the way, they weren't that slow on Hiryu. Maybe 110-115 knts, which is barely less than now. But having Zuiho TBs is ridiculous.

 

 

Most Saipans i saw in rank 1-5 were using the 3/0/1 setup. Maybe why, but they seemed to think it was the best setup for it.

 

They do that because it's easy.

 

I hate explaining that every damn time but here we go again:

Strike setup: You have to carry with it

Fighter setup: You empower your team, so they have to carry your sorry butt

 

It's smart to play 3/0/1 if you're mediocre and the other players are likely better, because it's easy to play and all your success depends on RNG - and since you empower your teammates. But for me that would be a stupid thing to do, because most players are actually not better than me, not even at those ranks. That's why I have so much success with 2/2/0 Saipan. I just am sick of playing the same ship over and over and it's sad you can't do anything in Ranger or Hiryu.

[Ishiro32]

Yes, Hiryu can be okay in randoms, but it's impossible to do anything with it in higher ranks of ranked. Every ship and their lifeboats are AA specced and your TBs are STILL very slow. While back in open beta they were slower, AA was MUCH weaker and they had A LOT more HP - and by the way, they weren't that slow on Hiryu. Maybe 110-115 knts, which is barely less than now. But having Zuiho TBs is ridiculous.

Well Hiryuu can work wonders against 3/0/1 Saipan. So it's hardly useless. It's not Ranger. Also Zuiho TBs you are talking about are in truth tier VI TBs, just because they are available on tier V doesn't make them worse.

Jump from Hiryuu to Shokaku was around 20 knots, old shokaku had 133 knots so Let's assume Hiryuu had 113 knots. Current Hiryuu has 129 knots, this makes buff around 16 knots. Don't you think it's kinda a lot? Thing about speed is that 110 knots is not enough to comfortable hit an evading destroyer not matter your skill level and prediction, you have to do cross drops to do it. At ~130 knots this changes. Current Hiryuu is much more capable of hunting DDs than she was in the past and this is a big thing, considering her potential damage is as big as on the tier VIII. 16 knots on this speed level has much bigger impact than it would have on ~150 levels.

 

Hiryuu always was clunky ship against people who can play, she was my most hated ship in beta for that very reason. Her thing is that she has immense power, but it's prone to getting countered. Shokaku was a ship that tamed power of 6 airwings in air without any drawbacks.

[Hauptbahnhof]

 

Well Hiryuu can work wonders against 3/0/1 Saipan. So it's hardly useless. It's not Ranger. 

 

Not against an equal skilled Saipan it can't... Just forget it. With the 5 captain skill extra fighter per squad it becomes even more silly. The Saipan will just dominate in the air.

 

Just because you face more pay to win noobs in their first CV game in a Saipan then in the other CVs doesn't mean it's a ship that's as weak as the Hiryu currently. You know the guys that put all 3 fighter squads in a big lump and lets you strafe them? Yes those...

 

And the Ranger is certainly stronger then or equal to the Hiryu, in all 3 specs if you know how to use them properly.

[Sea_viper]

http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/56598-skill-ceiling-of-ships-in-ranked/

 

From the stat provided in the link, top players perform better in Hiryu than Saipan. Even for my low time Hiryu captain (and average player myself) with no AS, I still find 2/2/2 set up very competitive against any setup.

 

Having enough sniping pressure, tackling power of the fighters and spotting from the DBs, I find Hiryu flexible enough to always have some counter play against both Saipan setups.

 

 

[Cadelanne]

Ye I remember that my Hiryu grind was a pain. Shokaku felt like more than a real upgrade.

[Mangrey]

Funnie ... I dont remember any of my IJN CVs was a pain to level, but i did get my tir 10 CV when it got nerfed to hell the first time(when it lost the 4 torp strike deck)

 

 

mang

[Cadelanne]

Funnie ... I dont remember any of my IJN CVs was a pain to level, but i did get my tir 10 CV when it got nerfed to hell the first time(when it lost the 4 torp strike deck)

 

 

mang

 

Maybe by the time you were leveling Hiryu it had T7 Torpedo Bombers. It has been nerfed to T6 Torpedo Bombers. Taking into consideration the strong AA buff, it makes the Hiryu not that good. I think it's a payoff for the insanly strong Zuiho :p

[Syrchalis]

 

Maybe by the time you were leveling Hiryu it had T7 Torpedo Bombers. It has been nerfed to T6 Torpedo Bombers. Taking into consideration the strong AA buff, it makes the Hiryu not that good. I think it's a payoff for the insanly strong Zuiho :p

 

Zuiho was much better back then, It had 3 torpedo bombers.

[22cm]

 

Zuiho was much better back then, It had 3 torpedo bombers.

 

Back then almost all Jap CVs had 3 TB squadrons,  and no mirorred MM… 

[Cadelanne]

Tbh I guess it was a legit nerf. I can imagine what a Zuiho would do with 3 TB squads. Oneshot Kongo's and stuff.

[Mangrey]

Tbh I guess it was a legit nerf. I can imagine what a Zuiho would do with 3 TB squads. Oneshot Kongo's and stuff.

 

and it did... allday long .... curs the noobs did like to stay with there cruiser friends.

 

mang  

[xsmilingbanditx]

Jap CVs are good up until Tier 5 or 6. on T7, all of them suck (at least now they do. Hiryu once was the most enjoyable CV ever). At T8, the US CV is superior imho. Jap Planes drop like flies and will always do. The US DBs are just devastating in comparison to any TB (because Torpedo Bulges...). 4K Torpedo-Hits anyone? Yeah right...You go in with 8 planes, maybe 5 survive and drop their torps, 2 hit and then all die. Great fun!

 

[deadly_if_swallowed]

Scharnhorst has been released, and according to some comments MM had to queue about 400 BBs this morning. Since she is a frontline ship but does not sport any serious AA except her 105mm DP guns, she should be a viable target for Hiryu's T6 torp bombers

I guess I will play Hiryu a lot in the days to come.