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Yes, another one of these threads about CVs Its no secret that DD life has been very difficult with the prevalence of CVs flooding the queue. On average at least 3 of every 5 games will have a CV in it. Shouldn't be too big an issue right? For a CA or a BB, mostly not. For a DD however, CV presence makes life absolutely miserable against any CV that's even slightly competent. The trouble with playing a DD in a CV game at Tier X is not so much the damage output that a CV can do to a destroyer, but more lies with the fact that the presence of a carrier forces you, as a destroyer, to play a certain way, because playing any other way will be punished very very heavily if you catch the attention of a carrier. The damage that they can do, its not fun, sure, but with the possible exception of Midway, and to a lesser extent Lexington HE Dive Bombers, the damage is not the issue here. Think of the current DD vs CV situation as playing a BB back in the days when OWSF was still a thing. The problem with stealth firing is that it is a very frustrating mechanic to play against, because the only real counter-play option as that BB is just to hope that the DD's aim sucks. The same holds true for CVs in the current state of the game when it comes to destroyers. Outside of shooting the planes down, which lets face it, most DDs don't have the greatest AA in the world, and even the ones that do like Gearing or Grozovoi need a full AA spec to defend themselves reliably. Because of this, DDs are easy prey for a CV, and with that fact, a DD is forced to stay very close to their team for the first half of the game, which severely hinders the role of a destroyer at all, and that is the biggest problem with the current state of DD vs CV. CVs effectively act as an "on/off" switch for the entire point of a destroyer. A DD's primary job is capture point and maintaining vision control for their team. Because of this, DD operations are generally very independent and is often why the impact of bad DD players vs good ones on the outcome of a game is so prevalent, but that's a topic for another day. Back to the matter at hand; DD operations are generally very independent themselves but have a vital impact on the outcome of a game. But this is the biggest problem, any good CV player can completely shut any of that down and cost a DD at least half their HP for even trying. Yes, I can hear you already clacking away at your keyboards "Turn your AA off until you're about to get spotted and you'll be harder for the CV to find". Yes, that is true, but also consider the number of other things that can spot a destroyer. Radar and other DDs are the two most significant and common spotting threats to a DD. Once a DD has been spotted in an area, whether they fall undetected or not, a determined CV will hunt you down without too much issue. The ultimate result is forcing DD players to hang back towards the rest of their team, because they really just don't have the AA power to reliably defend themselves unless they're an AA spec Gearing or Groz, but even then if the enemy CV is good they will still get at least 1 strike off on you, with damage ranging from only 1 or 2k HP to potentially half your HP pool depending on the nation and type of planes involved. This remains true even with friendly AA support. Its a no-win situation, your only hope as a DD when being focused by a CV is praying that the enemy CV's aim sucks. Other than that you're pretty much SOL unless you can chew through the squadron via AA which is never the most reliable tactic. As a DD, your role and ability to perform your duties as a DD is effectively turned off by the presence of a CV. All you can do is really just hope to be ignored, which by any good CV the chances of that are slim to none the second you get spotted. Now, I am aware that the CV round start delay is in the works, but while it will definitely give a bit of breathing room at the start of the game, it will ultimately fail to solve the problem. While there is a significant difference between being spotted at 18:00 against being spotted at 19:15, the ultimate result is still the same. As a DD, you're still being forced to play that same certain way, hanging back huddling near friendly AA if you wish to survive. And as the match progresses, however, even this becomes increasingly unreliable as the attrition of battle sets in; AA mounts are destroyed on friendly battleships and cruisers, and usually the DD as well. This leaves an even bigger gap in AA defenses for CV players to exploit and increases both your own and your team's overall vulnerability to air attack. The fact herein is really that even huddling with your team won't always save you, which defeats the purpose of huddling with your team to begin with. Just like a DD in the RTS CV version, a CV's impact on the match grows as the match progresses, just like a destroyer's would. Really, the ultimate problem is the fact that CVs, as a DD player, will effectively force you to play a certain way, because playing any other way will cost you a significant chunk of HP with nonexistent counter-play options outside of smoke, which will not always be available. With how easily a CV can adjust their attack runs on the fly, it would take more skill to miss the target than it would to hit. CVs will severely punish, to great effect, what would otherwise be good play and positioning from a DD. A CV literally turns the role of a DD on a team into the start of a bad joke, and punishes DDs for playing DDs, basically. DDs have 0 freedom unless you're a full AA Groz or Gearing, but even both of those are a coin toss whether or not it will really help to any significant effect, especially later in the game (again, attrition of battle; AA mounts being knocked out from enemy fire and past air attacks). While DDs are by no stretch of the imagination unplayable, life can be a whole lot more challenging than it needs to be. Life as a DD was already hard enough, but now some games can be that much more incredibly frustrating to play in if the CV decides to focus on you, which a lot of CV players will target DDs first. A fair amount dont, but a fair amount do. Which is just terribly unfun to play against. Of course, there is an old saying that does "Complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining." That's not what I'm here to do. I have 3 suggestions for possible solutions to help give DD players a little more breathing room in CV matches. These are all, as far as I am aware or have seen, never been suggested before, but if they have been suggested elsewhere and refuted then well, refute them again I guess. (Also if you wouldn't mind, also link the thread where the idea was proposed first, thanks) 1.) Rework the way plane attacks operate. This is a very extreme option, and will be, if even possible at all, very very difficult to pull off. This effects mostly rocket planes and dive bombers (especially USN). The current iteration of CVs, it is very easy for CVs at adjust their attack runs on the fly, which makes dodging and any form of counterplay extremely difficult. With the old RTS system of carries, bombers had a line called the Line of No Return, which means that the second that line is crossed, the bombers are committed to the drop and cannot be readjusted. I propose some sort of similar system, keeping the elements of manually controlling a large, single squadron but still retaining some element of "commitment" from the old RTS system. Torpedo bombers are fine as is attack-wise, but I propose a system of dive and rocket attacks to have an element of commitment to a direction, being unable, or very slot to, turn in either direction once the attack run initiates, increasing the value of good plane placement to maximize hits across the bow and stern of a ship. Again, this is a very, very extreme option and probably will never happen. 2.) Rework DD air detection. A simple fix, simply decrease the air detection of DDs further, thus increasing their potential to both hide from, and defend While the first buff did significantly help, unless the DD is spotted by other means, I believe that this change, by decreasing the air detection range, will help throw off accurate attacks against a DD without making attacking them impossible unless the DD is spotted by other means. If this makes any sense, think of it this way: A DD is spotted by a CV at a distance that the attack run will pretty much have to be launched almost the second the squadron spots the destroyer for the most accurate attack, rewarding good plane placement to catch the DD nose or stern to attack for maximum hits as well as good reflexes. If the attack is not launched almost immediately, the resulting attack will be far less accurate due to there being a much narrower gap between the attack location and DD position. Again, this is probably an extreme option. 3.) My last, very simple solution is to simply beef up destroyer AA capabilities to improve their defense against carriers, especially those that will drop fighters over a destroyer to keep them spotted, and getting them focus fired heavily. While proposal 2 would help to alleviate this, the simplest solution I can think of that would help improve the amount of freedom and defense a DD has in a CV game would simply just beef up their AA defense not quite to cruiser or even Groz/Gearing levels, but enough to actually being able to reliably shoot down planes more consistently, although the weakness with this, again, is the attrition of battle. This is a very simple suggestion that ultimately will probably fail to fully fix the problem, but will at least help. Another possible variation of this would also just be decrease damage on CVs overall, which would help lower their effectiveness against DDs so the DD isnt a quarter at least of their HP in the first 2-4 minutes with almost nothing that can be done about it, sure, but will also cripple their damage on other classes, which I don't think is a good idea. This is my take on the current situation of CV vs DD interactions. Again, all of this is just my opinion, and my suggested solutions are definitely far from perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I would like to know everyone else's opinions on the matter, and other possible solutions that you all may think would work better. Discuss~

Well, this has been bugging me for quite some time. You see, I mostly play BBs these days, followed by Cruisers and DDs(and a tiny bit of CVs), so I probably warrant being called a BBaby. But anyway, what's bugging me is that, increasingly, especially in the mid tiers(though this is most certainly not confined to the mid tiers) I find myself with my BBs quite often getting into brawls/close-quarters dogfights with DDs,(even with BBs with weak secondaries) and THEY keep losing. Why? It's not like I'm the second coming of Yuro or anything. I'm not that great at Yuro-beats. Admittedly, I'm decent at torpedo dodging in my BBs, but I'm not the best. Not by a long shot. In fact, I often encounter in my own DDs much better torpedo dodgers than I. In addition, it's not just the long torpedo reload DDs that are losing, either. it's the faster reloading torp DDs, like Minekaze, that are losing too. I mean, I understand that Minekaze's torps are slow now, so that's obviously part of it, but it can't be everything. It's not like these DDs aren't usually predicting well, I mean, most have pretty spot-on predictions, and set-up predictions for any possible dodge attempts I could make. But somehow, no matter how good their predictions, in these kinds of situations, at max(ultra rare) I take 2, but usually 1 or most commonly of all, none. At high-tiers, though, it's a different but equally strange story. I keep seeing DDs at Tier VII+ that can't seem for the life of them to defend their smoke screens, even when they can see me, from me in a rampaging(fast, slow, it doesn't seem matter) BB. I think I at least get why they are so terrible: they never seem to have much fire discipline, and thus they fire their torps much too hastily( I dodge most or all of them) and so, before you know it, I'm in their smoke screen and am able to work my magic on them before their torps ever reload. But, that's not the only weird thing going on at high-tiers with DDs v BBs. All the time now, it doesn't really matter what I'm in(I see this in my Cruisers and my DDs as well)I easily dodge high-tier DD torps without doing much of anything. I maybe turn a few degrees to angle a little better or slow down just a little to prevent me from over-extending, and I am in the perfect position to either thread their torpedoes or thread a gap between their spreads. It's like they are all aiming directly at the indicator, and just firing everything straight at it. If that wasn't enough, I'm starting to see more and more torpedo volleys sent at enemy ships that are sailing away, and from DDs with relatively short range torpedoes, too. At least I understand what these high-tier DDs are doing wrong(though I don't get why they are committing these noob errors), but I can't say I understand a lick why these fast-reloading torpedoes, mid-tier, DDs are succumbing so darn easily and fast to my BBs. I mean, by ALL ACCOUNTS, THEY SHOULD WIN THESE KINDS OF ENGAGEMENTS!(IT'S WHAT THEY ARE GOOD AT), BUT THEY TOTALLY AREN'T. I'll say again: Why? I really honestly don't get it. Perhaps you could fill out my poll and answer a few questions about BBs v DDs(and visa versa)? That would be much appreciated. Has anyone else noticed this recently, or is it just me? Comments are appreciated, and I thank you in advance. - Regards, Legoboy0401