The Enterprise is WEEEEIRD

[AdmiralMudkip]

I'll be short:

 

You can't call it garbage because it has Shokaku-like characteristics and the fighter reserves are utterly massive. But you can't call it overpowered because its key characteristics is very... specific towards German battleships and Moskva! The AP bombs remove the Enterprise's ability to take on destroyers and cruisers.

 

If the Enterprise had the ability to switch between HE and AP bombs during battle or if the Big E has decent torpedo drops, it would be well regarded as a strong CV comparable to the Shokaku. But it's... weeeeeird. 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

Just now, AdmiralMudkip said:

I'll be short:

 

You can't call it garbage because it has Shokaku-like characteristics and the fighter reserves are utterly massive. But you can't call it overpowered because its key characteristics is very... specific towards German battleships and Moskva! The AP bombs remove the Enterprise's ability to take on destroyers and cruisers.

 

If the Enterprise had the ability to switch between HE and AP bombs during battle or if the Big E has decent torpedo drops, it would be well regarded as a strong CV comparable to the Shokaku. But it's... weeeeeird. 

Nothing like sending your DBs on a strike on a CV with the bombs doing 800 damage.

[Unabletony]

The torp drops prove to be effective, as shown in WoWs' ARMADA: Enterprise.

[Fast_Battleship_Iowa]

It's situationally overpowered. On the other hand, it is nice to see the extremely popular German battleship line finally get some counters. Although I'd say Enterprises knocking 40,000 off with two squads still seems disgusting.

[Spartias]

14 minutes ago, AdmiralMudkip said:

I'll be short:

 

You can't call it garbage because it has Shokaku-like characteristics and the fighter reserves are utterly massive. But you can't call it overpowered because its key characteristics is very... specific towards German battleships and Moskva! The AP bombs remove the Enterprise's ability to take on destroyers and cruisers.

 

If the Enterprise had the ability to switch between HE and AP bombs during battle or if the Big E has decent torpedo drops, it would be well regarded as a strong CV comparable to the Shokaku. But it's... weeeeeird. 

 

 

Agreed

[AdmiralMudkip]

13 minutes ago, Destroyer_Teruzuki said:

It's situationally overpowered. On the other hand, it is nice to see the extremely popular German battleship line finally get some counters. Although I'd say Enterprises knocking 40,000 off with two squads still seems disgusting.

I guess soo... but I feel like they could have done a more efficient direction. 

 

Not only that but on a few cases against German BB's, I deal about 800 damage. The RNG is kinda strong at times. 

[Raptor_alcor]

37 minutes ago, Destroyer_Teruzuki said:

It's situationally overpowered. On the other hand, it is nice to see the extremely popular German battleship line finally get some counters. Although I'd say Enterprises knocking 40,000 off with two squads still seems disgusting.

No real different than a bismark getting a good RNG role and slapping an enemy battleship for 60K TBH, and the bomber turn arround is much much longer than the 25s bismark reload. 

[Slimeball91]

I keep hearing the AP bombs are good against German BBs.  That's great, but what about the other BBs? 

If the TB aren't well suited against DDs or attentive cruisers, are they specialized for BBs?  With a torp drop pattern that isn't optimal for all ships you'd need the HE bombs for a reliable source of damage on all ships.  If that's the case why would you want the AP bombs?  Seems like the choice between the AP and HE bombs should be in game.  I'm not a CV player so maybe I have this sized up all wrong.   

[JCC45]

45 minutes ago, Raptor_alcor said:

No real different than a bismark getting a good RNG role and slapping an enemy battleship for 60K TBH, and the bomber turn arround is much much longer than the 25s bismark reload. 

 

Or simply sailing the Bismarck up to secondary range and letting the AI do all the work while your troll armor shrugs off everything else.

 

The Big E can't get widespread soon enough.

[Aetreus]

11 minutes ago, Slimeball91 said:

I keep hearing the AP bombs are good against German BBs.  That's great, but what about the other BBs? 

If the TB aren't well suited against DDs or attentive cruisers, are they specialized for BBs?  With a torp drop pattern that isn't optimal for all ships you'd need the HE bombs for a reliable source of damage on all ships.  If that's the case why would you want the AP bombs?  Seems like the choice between the AP and HE bombs should be in game.  I'm not a CV player so maybe I have this sized up all wrong.   

They're okay against most of the USN BB at tier. I've gotten 8k hits against North Carolina, for instance. IDK about IJN T8 BB, but their T9-T10 can resist AP bombs, and so can Iowa/Montana. Having the choice between AP bombs and HE bombs would be awesome... possibly too awesome. IDK, and it'd need a new UI feature so it's not likely to be a near-term thing.

 

Also, they can do some work against cruisers with tougher deck armor(>50-60mm), so uptier cruisers need to worry about them quite a bit.

[Estimated_Prophet]

2 minutes ago, Aetreus said:

Also, they can do some work against cruisers with tougher deck armor(>50-60mm), so uptier cruisers need to worry about them quite a bit.

 

How Battle of Santa Cruz planes are supposed toi do ANYTHING at all against battle of the Phillipine Sea ships still completely escapes me. Must be nice being a player who can sally right up to some high tier, high AA ship, even one off by itself, and not get his bottom handed to him...

 

...my experience has always been otherwise.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

14 minutes ago, Slimeball91 said:

I keep hearing the AP bombs are good against German BBs.  That's great, but what about the other BBs? 

If the TB aren't well suited against DDs or attentive cruisers, are they specialized for BBs?  With a torp drop pattern that isn't optimal for all ships you'd need the HE bombs for a reliable source of damage on all ships.  If that's the case why would you want the AP bombs?  Seems like the choice between the AP and HE bombs should be in game.  I'm not a CV player so maybe I have this sized up all wrong.   

The AP bombs in order of being most effective against are in the order of these BBs:

Worst in taking AP bomb hits:  German < IJN < USN, best in taking AP bomb hits

IJN BBs fluctuate wildly in taking these AP bomb hits.  Fuso gets rekt HARD in videos I've seen.  Yamato takes them much better and is in between in suffering with GK & Montana.  USN BBs tend to take the AP bomb hits the best of the BB lines.  It also helps a lot that they tend to have good AA in punishing the planes... IF specced for it.

 

Enterprise's torpedo bombers are a very mixed bag.  On one hand, you have 2 TB unit capability, something USN CVs have not had since being nerfed at around October / November 2015.  Saipan can but her TB unit sizes are small at 3 planes each.  Enterprise can drop 10 torps into someone's direction, something currently not possible with any other USN CV, not even Saipan.  Buuuuut, Enterprise's drop pattern is so wide that even with a focus drop of all bombers slamming from one side, there will be gaps.  YOOGE gaps.  Then again, the torpedoes do a lot of damage each.

 

What are the TBs suitable against?  BBs mostly, though a Cruiser caught unprepared to receive them and with poor AA, no Defensive Fire, they will be hurting badly.

 

If fitted with AP bombs, Enterprise is simply horrible against DDs.  The TB drop pattern is too wide open, the AP bombs will do minimal damage.  Enterprise's best weapon against DDs is spotting them with fighters and hope the others can destroy it.

 

If Ranked wasn't going on right now, I'd love to test my AA Gneisenau against Enterprise aircraft.

[Slimeball91]

I've got to remember to check out what kind of numbers the Big E is putting out next week.  I'd guess fairly low as people will still be figuring things out. 

2 minutes ago, Aetreus said:

They're okay against most of the USN BB at tier. I've gotten 8k hits against North Carolina, for instance. IDK about IJN T8 BB, but their T9-T10 can resist AP bombs, and so can Iowa/Montana. Having the choice between AP bombs and HE bombs would be awesome... possibly too awesome. IDK, and it'd need a new UI feature so it's not likely to be a near-term thing.

I'm not convinced the AP bombs won't be nerfed once the BB crowd gets a taste of AP "skycancer".  Maybe once they are nerfed you'll get an in game choice.  As is the Enterprise seems too much of an anti-BB specialist, and that didn't turn out so well for IJN DDs.  We will see.

[Aetreus]

10 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

The AP bombs in order of being most effective against are in the order of these BBs:

Worst in taking AP bomb hits:  German < IJN < USN, best in taking AP bomb hits

IJN BBs fluctuate wildly in taking these AP bomb hits.  Fuso gets rekt HARD in videos I've seen.  Yamato takes them much better and is in between in suffering with GK & Montana.  USN BBs tend to take the AP bomb hits the best of the BB lines.  It also helps a lot that they tend to have good AA in punishing the planes... IF specced for it.

 

Enterprise's torpedo bombers are a very mixed bag.  On one hand, you have 2 TB unit capability, something USN CVs have not had since being nerfed at around October / November 2015.  Saipan can but her TB unit sizes are small at 3 planes each.  Enterprise can drop 10 torps into someone's direction, something currently not possible with any other USN CV, not even Saipan.  Buuuuut, Enterprise's drop pattern is so wide that even with a focus drop of all bombers slamming from one side, there will be gaps.  YOOGE gaps.  Then again, the torpedoes do a lot of damage each.

 

What are the TBs suitable against?  BBs mostly, though a Cruiser caught unprepared to receive them and with poor AA, no Defensive Fire, they will be hurting badly.

 

If fitted with AP bombs, Enterprise is simply horrible against DDs.  The TB drop pattern is too wide open, the AP bombs will do minimal damage.  Enterprise's best weapon against DDs is spotting them with fighters and hope the others can destroy it.

 

If Ranked wasn't going on right now, I'd love to test my AA Gneisenau against Enterprise aircraft.

So far my experience has been the complete opposite in most ways. IJN T9-T10 BB basically laughs at AP bombs. You can drop piles of them on an Izumo or Yamato and zip and diddly happens to it. Admittedly T9-T10 USN is mostly the same. Low-tier battleships or equal tier in general gets owned. NC to a lesser extent. At last we have a weapon to defeat Herman the German. 

 

TB spread is surprisingly effective against destroyers. Battleships won't take as many hits because of it though, but it's not unmanageable if you're used IJN TB extensively. The nature of them as a net can catch a destroyer off-guard and leave them without the ability to dodge all of them, and the seperation also makes the spread more complicated to dodge effectively. You only need 1-2 torpedo hits depending on how much damage the destroyer has taken already, so it's fairly effective.

[StoneRhino]

8 minutes ago, Aetreus said:

So far my experience has been the complete opposite in most ways. IJN T9-T10 BB basically laughs at AP bombs. You can drop piles of them on an Izumo or Yamato and zip and diddly happens to it. Admittedly T9-T10 USN is mostly the same. Low-tier battleships or equal tier in general gets owned. NC to a lesser extent. At last we have a weapon to defeat Herman the German. 

 

TB spread is surprisingly effective against destroyers. Battleships won't take as many hits because of it though, but it's not unmanageable if you're used IJN TB extensively. The nature of them as a net can catch a destroyer off-guard and leave them without the ability to dodge all of them, and the seperation also makes the spread more complicated to dodge effectively. You only need 1-2 torpedo hits depending on how much damage the destroyer has taken already, so it's fairly effective.

That's what I have been thinking with that torpedo spread. Been debating calling off vacation to get back to playing sooner. To test it out.

[Slimeball91]

I just checked the numbers on Warships, the Enterprise seems to be doing well.  75 games, 68K damage, over 1600 XP and 58.67% WR.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

14 minutes ago, Slimeball91 said:

I just checked the numbers on Warships, the Enterprise seems to be doing well.  75 games, 68K damage, over 1600 XP and 58.67% WR.

 

Far too small sample size.  Let's talk once it gets in the thousands tens of thousands.

 

Edit again:  A great example to temper early, high results was Minotaur.  When the RN CL line released, in the first few weeks, Minotaur was doing amazingly well, regularly putting up "Moskva Numbers" and such.  Then after time, her performance plummeted to where she is one of the bottom feeding Tier X Cruisers where she resides ATM.

[Slimeball91]

10 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

 

Far too small sample size.  Let's talk once it gets in the thousands tens of thousands.

 

Edit again:  A great example to temper early, high results was Minotaur.  When the RN CL line released, in the first few weeks, Minotaur was doing amazingly well, regularly putting up "Moskva Numbers" and such.  Then after time, her performance plummeted to where she is one of the bottom feeding Tier X Cruisers where she resides ATM.

I agree we can't draw any conclusions until a couple of weeks at least.  I only mentioned it because I thought people might struggle getting the hang of her.