Xebadir

726 is the exact number I believe ;), with a max for 5-6 around 3100. However - that is fairly disproportionate - if I can manage 4 strikes on a DD without losing a plane (invariably I do actually get all 4 to hit - as long as you know how lead them its hard to avoid), and I am an ordinary carrier player, that means that I'm landing somewhere between 2800 and 12000 HP damage, per wave - and can take off and do it again. Given that tier 6 DDs have 10-15k HP (with the majority on the low side) - thats 25%-100% of life lost in first few minutes - that doesn't make for a great game experience, especially with the pile on effect. If they smoke I can just sit on top of them, or guesstimate position if they fire. Even at Tier 8 it isn't much better for DDs - and there the pile on effect is far worse. I can manage to torp DDs but agree - it aint easy, requires some serious potato on their part and longer aiming leads which means more time to dodge. Regarding the role of spotters - what about capping which DDs are expected to do? With the need to cap in order to win games (or at least have an alternate way to do so), we are seeing an increasing number of DDs not willing to leave the safety of spawns or capital ships - so teams are getting cap out victories very quickly - things have been unusually one sided since the rework. I agree that DD AA should not be too crazy - but remember that the US fleets actually rarely had more than 1 or 2 cruisers, and much of the AA wall was actually coming from the multipurpose DD guns. Would really like to see a fuel limiting mechanic on aircraft. Would make life more interesting.

Thanks for the reply, glad to see additional iterations are being planned on the in between regular patches to keep dialing this in - this needs to persist until some sort of balance can be found. Have been continuing tests with Ryujo, the result in terms of torpedoes is definitely not isolated - while it is possible to still land them, it takes a very steady flight path for an extraordinary length of time - even starting an attack run at 6km can be problematic if its even a hair off - one accidental bump of the mouse and it quickly ends up a 90 degree diffluent triangular drop with two torpedoes at the maxima. It seems like the RNG is either two pretty much straight on (tight reticle), or 90 degree - I haven't seen a variation that is in between. I think part of the balance there might be easier tightening of the reticle, but a greater RNG element in the torpedo spread, similar to the mechanics for ship fired torpedoes. Another idea might be maintaining the ease of hitting, but adding a warhead failure element to the aerial torpedoes - it was common during WWII to have failure to arm/premature detonation as the torpedo was dropped or on impact - this might address the issues seen with the accurate higher tiers. DBs were always tough to land, but seem to have received a difference in RNG following the hot fix - even with a tight reticle its hard to even land a bomb (dispersion/reticle is perhaps more realistic though), especially given the losses due to flak/constant damage on approach. Honestly for DDs (as someone who has played quite a few games in them prior to patch and fewer in patch) - the spotting meta is a real problem - even if you go dark with AA - I'm wondering if there needs to be a buff to DD aerial concealment further (DDs were always extremely hard to see for aircraft unless at high altitude where wakes became apparent) - while maintaining the surface spotting level. To provide an example, I sat over a Kamikaze R with rockets seeing what the spotting range was - I can still leave my rockets over there and continually pound him until he goes into smoke - without penalty on my aircraft prior to attack. Have done the same to numerous DDs - without AA support I haven't run into one in that 5-8 range that really causes me to lose more than two planes and so they are getting pounded by rockets, or spotted for surface ships. Fixing the bloom issue is also probably another that needs to be looked at, as its further impacting DD play. My suggestions for things to look at for this element would be greater dispersion of the rockets - even at the end of WW2 rocketry was inaccurate at best, and terrible at worst, very few flew in the right direction and hit the intended target - especially for a maneuvering ship (see videos of British rocket attacks on DDs, or indeed the Americans going after land based targets in the Pacific Theatre or on the ground in Europe). An idea could be - a more dispersive reticle that forces the rocket planes to deviate further from target to line up their attack runs, or maybe slightly harder hitting, but far more dispersed rockets. Any change though to this source of damage is going to be a problem for carriers if DBs/Torpedo bombers are balanced in tandem - as atm - the current meta involves a lot of picking off DDs as they are soft targets for carriers, and then slowly hitting isolated ships if possible, and given the accuracy issues and stronger AA you are getting lower damage totals as a result. One oddity - as planes gain altitude to return to ship and remain vulnerable (to prevent F-spam) it seems that the ability of ships to shred them increases exponentially - case and point that Kamikaze - while he couldn't stop my aircraft from attacking, few if any of those aircraft made it back to my ship. Question here - does the AA aura range also apply vertically? This might be a way to tweak that element so that at least some aircraft are making it back to ship (e.g. aura decreases at some rate due to dispersion as planes move to altitude) - alternatively, make it an angled flight to altitude so that they aren't sitting in the higher aura and getting shredded Another thought - you might want to look at providing a greater number of fighter resources to carriers for on summon, perhaps at the price of the carriers defense (i.e. the same pool is drawn from for both attack aircraft and defensive applications) - I feel really bad playing CV when I can't help my team out by at least laying out some defense - it also seems as if these fighters are relatively weak and result in few aircraft shot down, even if those aircraft make multiple passes. This would allow a CV to provide more in the way of AA support, and help make it less feel like CVs are just in it for themselves. Dialing down their AA protection slightly to make strikes possible (though not without significant losses) would also be reasonable to think about (particularly given that CVs typically got much of their AA support from the fleet). More target options for carriers would also add some diversity.

Well done WG - now as a reaction you've wielded a multifaceted nerfbat and managed to destroy the Tier 6, Tier 8 CV experience. Line up for a torp run - and barely tweaked from a 5 km starting point - torps dropped at 45 degrees, missing a stationary Bayern - this is far too sensitive and almost unmanageable - did someone even play test it?. The nerf to flood chance and strengthening of AA was needed, but perhaps instead of tweaking multiple dials to combat people exploiting a loophole, try and do it a little more gently when you inevitably have to correct the other way. Lone Bismarck against a tier 6, not even a chance to get anywhere near it with dive bombers - shredded by the DPS on approach, no flak. Given that ship was sunk by biplane torpedo bombers, that seems a little rich. Perhaps instead of caving to the Haku scare, you should have looked at whether this experience was throughout the tiers, and adjusted accordingly. Now can barely manage 30k in a top tier - 17k in a tier 8. Prior to hot fix I was reliably 60-100k - more in line with my overall stats, but perhaps a touch high. I like the concept of the rework, with some more adjustments it has the potential to be fun and engaging (more variance in how the squads perform) - but think about the multifaceted aspects of the changes made. And btw - still need to find fixes for the anti-DD play - that doesn't seem to have improved much for the DDs which is a shame.

Have played a few games in Tier 6 Ryu and a whole bunch in my various favorite ships - some thoughts that might address a few of the things I've seen. 1. Reload time for aircraft - stop the spamming of single types/torpedo bombers at T10 out of a Haku - I had a game in a Massachusetts where it was only thanks to an Irian who provided me support that I survived 1.5 million potential damage from a Haku and an Audacious before getting in range to shoot - we had to shoot down so many torp bombers before we got any respite - only to then get bombed to all hell. Aircraft carriers historically had a lot of problems with timing takeoff and aircraft recovery in operations during this timeframe due to single deck operations. There should be some sort of time out of action implemented for rearmament similar to the old mechanic. 2. Increase vulnerability of carriers to carrier strike consistent with historical vulnerabilities - perhaps by diminishing the Combat Air Patrol. At the moment they are unable to hit each other without significant losses, and so tend to focus everyone else until its just the carriers left. Allowing more of this mechanic might reduce pressure on other ship classes somewhat. 3. Controversial - but what about an increased vulnerability to fire/detonation from incoming aircraft or warship fire when reloading aircraft reflecting the danger of aviation fuel/ordinance when coming under attack. This would have some interesting implications for strategy, particularly regarding spamming aircraft.

I agree with the vast majority of points by the OP based on my far more limited sample at T4/T6 - the flak randomness/sector reinforce I'm not so sure of given that I'm starting to work out how to better avoid it with throttle control/WASD hacks. I agree that it would be nice to have an abandon attack run option - perhaps with an additional penalty for taking that step. I also think the fuel mechanic (n minutes over target) actually sounds really quite reasonable, and would be a nice mechanic to tie this back to actual carrier operational limitations. Something needs to be done about the DD spotting mechanic though, as its making that class extraordinarily hard to play. The Tier related issues at low tiers for AA is a real problem - for example - I wouldn't go within 100 miles of an NY if you want anything to live. I'd also think about: 1. Reload time for aircraft - stop the spamming of single types/torpedo bombers at T10 out of a Haku - I had a game in a Mass where it was only thanks to an Irian who provided me support that I survived 1.5 million potential damage from a Haku and an Audacious before getting in range to shoot - we had to shoot down so many torp bombers before we got any respite. Aircraft carriers historically had a lot of problems with timing takeoff and aircraft recovery in operations during this timeframe due to single deck operations. There should be some sort of time out of action implemented for rearmament similar to the old mechanic. 2. Increase vulnerability of carriers to carrier strike consistent with historical vulnerabilities - perhaps by diminishing the Combat Air Patrol. At the moment they are unable to hit each other without significant losses, and so tend to focus everyone else until its just the carriers left. Allowing more of this mechanic might reduce pressure on other ship classes somewhat. 3. Controversial - but what about an increased vulnerability to fire/detonation from incoming aircraft or warship fire when reloading aircraft reflecting the danger of aviation fuel/ordinance when coming under attack. This would have some interesting implications for strategy, particularly regarding spamming aircraft.

I think there is some actual precedent for this idea - it was in the original CVs, and has similarity to the actual mechanics (CVs were extremely vulnerable while recovering aircraft and reloading, and couldn't launch/recover at the same time as flight decks were relatively confined). I like the detection for planes/RPF loss for carriers as a suggestion - either that or one heck of a buff for DD concealment is needed.

People above were referring to the Shima being worthless - I was pointing out that its more than playable. As for Shiratsuyu - same rules apply, in fact if anything require greater caution as you don't have that stealth to rely on - I'd tend to favor the torp reload booster and play it more like a yugumo (the ghost of T9).

It can be tough initially at higher tiers, but with time I find the Shima can be a really fun ship - its just a matter of realizing her strengths aren't soloing into a cap early (you should be evaluating what your opponents are, and what support you have, risk of radars etc and play accordingly) - if its contested, use your ability to spot to drive out your opponents with your teams support - the guns since the buffs are great but choose your opponents wisely. I also love the Yugumo with the TRB if played correctly. I average about 55k in the Shima now - though that started much lower and have been more regularly logging 100k games as I've got a feel of the ship in the last 20 games. Predictive usage of torping/dual purposing and picking obvious travel routes rather than following the white line, ambushing in later game play are great options. A critical element I find for good games in the Shima is being their for your team as much as possible early (spotting, capping if you can, perhaps not landing much but keeping the enemy in uncomfortable positions that lead to team damage), and then as you get toward the end game your ability to saturate with torps can make it hard to avoid - even if they are easy to see (also helps as the consumables run out Hydro - Radar, Spotter). I will say - Shima can be remarkably unforgiving if you don't get the finer points of steering down pat, and if you get spotted for more than a few seconds - but then thats a common trait to most DDs in the current meta.