I see no big issue in US CVs balance of loadout in T8-10

[Brock_Amnel]

As a returning CV player continued to upgrade from T8 saw many US CV players complained about the imbalance of load out in comparison with IJNs. I have my midway in battle already these days and it was quite fun since I enjoyed from T8 Lexington, BTW I never researched IJN CV line as I am a big fan of US navy. 

 

I do not deny that sometimes bug happened to my aircraft control to make me totally miss the chance of offense such as my planes get closer to enemy vessels and the manual drop is not workable.

 

As a US CV, the key role is more defensive than offensive, we can never imagine matching the potential damage the IJN CV may do, however, fighters are powerful like the historical truth that US fighters always control the sky. So we could consider how to defend teammates more effectively and spot more enemy rather than rush to deal with the damage. Even when raid, more planes in a squadron means an ideal hitting rate, not to mention planes have more HP for sustaining AA fire. 

 

US CVs even have strike loadout with sacrificing the fighter squadron if you choose to be more offensive, at the price of a sort of abandoning fleet defense, I think it is quite reasonable to pay the price to get the intended need. There is no perfect ship in this game, always notice the advantage and disadvantage before choosing a ship class line and a game style. 

 

CV playing is intense and competitive more than any other class of ship, there should not be any second of wondering without doing anything in a battle, choose upgrades and captain skills deliberately to fit what you need and what your role and duty will be is vital to enjoying CV playing, in addition, I suggest attend high tier of battles T8-10 then you will see how enjoyable NA server will be, as most of the casual players may not insist on attending such high level due to the time and wallet matter. 

 

Currently enjoy my Midway so far and teammates are more experienced than Asian server, feel fulfilled even for the loss of the battle.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ulthwey]

Playing top tier CV doesnt mean this game is problem free. Try playing tier 8 Lexington for 20 matches and come back and tell us what its like to face tier Xs in 15-17 of those battles.

[Brock_Amnel]

8 minutes ago, Ulthwey said:

Playing top tier CV doesnt mean this game is problem free. Try playing tier 8 Lexington for 20 matches and come back and tell us what its like to face tier Xs in 15-17 of those battles.

This is a weird logic to assume T8 planes can do good towards the AA fire from T10 ships, as a cv player I never command my T8 planes to attack a T10 CA, it is suicide, will only attack T10 DDs if there are no supporting ships around and perhaps an isolated T10 IJN or Germany BB cuz their AA are not devastating... 

[anonym_Hf93Jbjm9WjT]

Lexington is soooo depressing to play. I am currently 80k xp short of Essex, the slog is painful. The only other carrier as bad as Lexington is the Graf Zeppelin, yet I hear no Youtubers ranting abotu how bad it is. They should, because it far worse. In fact, from in game experience, the Graf Zep is better....

(*shakes head in profound sorrow)

[Brock_Amnel]

7 minutes ago, nuttybiscuit said:

Lexington is soooo depressing to play. I am currently 80k xp short of Essex, the slog is painful. The only other carrier as bad as Lexington is the Graf Zeppelin, yet I hear no Youtubers ranting abotu how bad it is. They should, because it far worse. In fact, from in game experience, the Graf Zep is better....

(*shakes head in profound sorrow)

But I used my lex strike loadout to reach 58% WR once but dropped at Saturday night with 9 losses of 10. It was still quite fun and powerful if you dispatch your attacking group to avoid enemy fighter's intervention.  How about trying 2+2 AS? The sky is yours then you bomb enemy with setting fire. 

 

Get your Essex soon you will enjoy it! 

[Flashtirade]

I play Strike Lexington comfortably knowing that my T10 friends have enough AA defense to fend for themselves :^)

[CCloak]

Just now, Brock_Amnel said:

But I used my lex strike loadout to reach 58% WR once but dropped at Saturday night with 9 losses of 10. It was still quite fun and powerful if you dispatch your attacking group to avoid enemy fighter's intervention.  How about trying 2+2 AS? The sky is yours then you bomb enemy with setting fire. 

 

Get your Essex soon you will enjoy it! 

 

If I have to play Lexington I would just go strike, and try to out damage the other CV. But let's not try to argue with the fact that a same skilled Shokaku will always outperform Lexington, shown by the fact that Lexington is dead last in the T8 winrate, compared to the second highest for Shokaku.

 

I would agree Essex and Midway are better. Most that say they are still inferior to IJN CVs are due to the fact that they are not as reliable(or overpowered) as IJN CVs when it comes to deleting DDs. And, being able to remove DDs early on usually win games.

[Brock_Amnel]

10 minutes ago, Flashtirade said:

I play Strike Lexington comfortably knowing that my T10 friends have enough AA defense to fend for themselves :^)

Yes, even my Essex T9 planes will be shoot down fast if choose the wrong target, never attack tight fleet formation, never go for US and RN T9-10 CA is the rule when you play CV, unless, one of the mentioned is alone and isolated, but you still need to sacrifice several planes under AA to attack.  

 

Not a right idea to expect a T8 CV can destroy everything easy. 

[sulghunter331]

The only problem to playing the defensive role as you say, is that you get a grand total of jack, and sh*t, for shooting down planes. Unless you pull off an imitation of the Marianas Turkey Shoot, you will have a dismal return on your efforts, as far as silver and experience is concerned. The reason why USN CV players go for strike load-outs is because damage is key to grinding any appreciable amount of silver and exp.

The main point of contention that USN CV players raise any time carrier balance is raised, is that IJN carriers are in a situation where they can have their cake, and eat it too. IJN carriers are able to take load-outs that have large amounts of strike squadrons, but still have several fighter squadrons anyway. They do not have to deal with overly specialized load-outs as the USN carriers do, they retain the ability to be relatively flexible for many situations, where as if a USN carrier goes with one or the other load-out, they will suffer greatly in handling situations that the other load-out could handle. Going for AS, willing to handle not being able to deal damage at sufficient rate? Going for strike, willing to handle being gimped in handling enemy fighters?

[Frederick_The_Great]

14 minutes ago, sulghunter331 said:

The only problem to playing the defensive role as you say, is that you get a grand total of jack, and sh*t, for shooting down planes. Unless you pull off an imitation of the Marianas Turkey Shoot, you will have a dismal return on your efforts, as far as silver and experience is concerned. The reason why USN CV players go for strike load-outs is because damage is key to grinding any appreciable amount of silver and exp.

The main point of contention that USN CV players raise any time carrier balance is raised, is that IJN carriers are in a situation where they can have their cake, and eat it too. IJN carriers are able to take load-outs that have large amounts of strike squadrons, but still have several fighter squadrons anyway. They do not have to deal with overly specialized load-outs as the USN carriers do, they retain the ability to be relatively flexible for many situations, where as if a USN carrier goes with one or the other load-out, they will suffer greatly in handling situations that the other load-out could handle. Going for AS, willing to handle not being able to deal damage at sufficient rate? Going for strike, willing to handle being gimped in handling enemy fighters?

pretty much this.  IJN don't lose anything when going strike.  They even gain a fighter in at least one of their CVs for doing so if memory serves.  If they went along the same pattern as the US CVs, they would be losing some or all of their fighters when going strike.  It is comical that with an AS loadout on IJN CVs, they are able to control the skies easier than US CVs.  3 fighter squads for 15 planes is better than 2 for 14.(the extra squad alone is great)  10 is still enough to contest the skies anyways or stop strikes.

 

I always view strike CVs playing for themselves.  They need a bad opponent or another strike CV opposing them to strike well and freely.  If the opponent is competent with their fighters, they will be limited in what they can do, and in a tier 10 match, that isn't a lot to begin with.  All they really need is a good strike or 2 do well in a match.   They aren't going to be protecting you or your teammates, or spotting people or their torps unless they happen to on the way to or back from the topic.       If they are shut down, your team is basically down a ship.      

 

of course, AS isn't much better.   It is not much better in terms of air control, as i said above.   you don't have that great of a striking potential, especially with the RNG based DBs.  If you control the skies, stop the enemy strikes, and spot for your team, you are relying on them to play well.   Which, suprise suprise, is not a good thing to rely on.   The amount of times i spotted DDs or torps, just to watch people ignore them and get killed is just amazing.   There is also the issue where you cant make up for bad teammates and carry the team.  You cant help that you had  a CA yolo up the middle of the map, sail broadside to the enemy team, and get deleted 2 minutes in.  or that IJN DD wanting to get in a gun fight with a RU DD.  or a BB who thinks J10 is how you win battles.  

 

there isn't one loadout that is as good as the equivalent IJNs.   This isn't taking into account player skill, which will make bad ships look good and good ships look bad.(or loadouts)    I don't have confidence in them balancing this either.   the lexi will always be at the bottom, and i think most people accepted it. 

[Goliath654]

The biggest factor with american CV's is if you want to do something different from balanced like strike or AS it puts you at a major disadvantage because you lose all your fighters if you go strike and if you go AS you lose the torp bombers causing a huge drop in striking power due to just the fact of RNG from DB's, where as vice the Japanese CV's don't lose anything unless they go balanced which is suicidal for a Japanese CV.

                 Lexington   Shokaku     Essex     Taiho     Midway     Hakuryu

Balanced  1-1-1           1-2-2          2-1-1      2-2-2      2-1-2        2-3-2

Strike        0-1-2           2-2-2          1-1-3      2-3-2      1-1-3        2-3-3

AS            2-0-2           3-1-2          3-0-2      3-2-2      3-0-2        4-2-2

 

Nobody is saying the american CV's cant be fun to play but when you look at the numbers it just does not even out at all, the biggest defense I hear is that the planes are weaker. and yes normally that is true we can use the example of a fully upgraded Shokaku and Lex without modules.

***All dmg numbers are max value***

 

                 Lexington               Shokaku

Fighters    169-1700-61-63     171-1660-38-70

TB             136-1710-9867      148-1720-8567

DB             140-168-10800      161-1610-4600

 

As you can see there is a difference however it is not enough to close the gap, if you add RNG into the mix it only gets worse for the American CV if you add the right modules to a JP CV it only gets worse for the Americans. is it impossible to overcome..... no, but the JP CV's are just more consistent and reliable.

Even when I play my Midway I have to do the balanced build because its just not worth the loss of other planes, I have to pray to get a lucky strafe run on a Hakuryu's planes and get him/her on the back foot to stand a solid chance. This is could be fixed without destroying the JP CV advantage by adding just one more air group to either an american strike or AS build.

[Junkieturtle]

Lex can feel a bit gimped with the AS build since every other CV(other than another Lex) that she'll face will have more squadrons to use. But playing smart can even the balance there. Shokaku is good. Haven't played any of the premiums.

Essex feels great, and you even get 1 fighter squadron with it's strike package. Taiho is also good with either of it's upgraded squadron packages.

Haven't made it to tier X CVs yet.

[AVR_Project]

I took the Lexington into Random battle a couple times.

AS is the ONLY way to go.  Basically, it's the same loadout as the Enterprise, except the Big E has 2 additional torpedo squads..  Balanced or strike, I wouldn't stand a chance against the Enterprise.  I spend my planes (and they get spent) spotting for my team, and finding launched walls of torpedoes.  You'd be amazed how fast a US fighter squad will melt while spotting a Fletcher or Gearing.  -- F3 - Please hurry and kill this guy.. NOW !!!   -- Whoops -- fighters are gone.

Against the Shokaku, the battles were entirely defensive.  Had enough trouble spotting enemy ships with fighters without being strafed, or wandering into the AA bubble of an undetected OP-AA cruiser..  Had to rely on team AA to take out enemy strike planes so I could keep on spotting.  Ended up using my bombers as spotters too since they were worse than worthless for attacking tier 10 AA.  They were frustrating, low-damage missions...  but we won.  I'd like to think part of the reason was that I was fighting strategically, rather than tactically.

I occasionally run into the CV adversary who tries to snipe...  Fine..  I can trade half my health for tying up all your planes for half the mission..   Go for it.

As far as my Lexington facing another Lexington???   Only happens in Co-Op.  Never got to enjoy that easy pleasure in Random.

If you show up in a Lexington with anything other than AS, you have let down your team.  You might do wonderful damage - but don't expect to win as you are being chased by half the enemy team at the end of the battle.  You may be top of your team, but that's only because you weren't helping by spotting for your team and they were slaughtered blind.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

I don't have a problem with Tier VIII-X US CV loadouts.  My Minotaur and Des Moines don't care.

[IronWolfV]

If they want to fix carriers tiers 7-10 USN, the 2/0/2 and 3/0/2 loadouta for the USN, give them AP bombs like Enterprise or access to a 2/2/2 format like Enterprise. Problem solved either way.

[Madwolf05]

There is a difference between "balanced, good game play" and "I can make it work." People don't dislike the USN CVs because they're impossible to use, they dislike them because all things being equal between opponents you will lose to any opposing IJN CV.