Anyone have a general purpose AA captain for USN?

[enderland07]

Been thinking about a captain for USN that's more of an AA captain, after playing a few Atlanta games where I really wished I had Manual AA for maximum anti-sky cancer.

I have most USN premiums, wondering what a good build would be - something able to drop on boats like the Atlanta, Missouri/Alabama, Kidd. It seems the only real viable build would be:

1. Priority Target
2. Last Stand (or Adrenaline Rush?)
3. Basic Firing Training
4. Concealment / AFT / Manual AA

It seems if you put something like this on Kidd you'd need it to have Last Stand. Giving out Expert Marksman seems rough but doable for the MO.

Also not sure what boat this would fit best on for a "native" captain, I guess I could make my Des Moines captain the "home" but I'm not sure if there are better options. I don't really like the Cleveland _that_ much and my dedicated Atlanta captain is already home based there.

Anyone do something like this?

[Th3KrimzonDemon]

I have multiple USN AA captains, because I have multiple USN AA ships.

[AnimaL21]

I run one US AA captain in my nicholas, and he sees parallel duty in sims, atlanta, and kidd.  

PT, IFA, LS, BFT, AFT, CE, MFCAA

 

I guess one could swap IFA for PM if one really thinks that does more than an elevator-close or pedestrian-walk button does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Deviathan]

Do you div with a CV regularly?  If not, having manual AA isn't really worth it (especially if you don't have many AA guns that are over 85mm).  Also there's no one captain build that works for all the ships listed.  My Kidd has its own captain, my Atlanta and Cleveland share a captain, my DM captain also gets used in the Indianapolis, and then I use one captain for my Montana, MO, Bama, and the other US BB.

[Khafni]

2 hours ago, Deviathan said:

Do you div with a CV regularly?  If not, having manual AA isn't really worth it (especially if you don't have many AA guns that are over 85mm).  Also there's no one captain build that works for all the ships listed.  My Kidd has its own captain, my Atlanta and Cleveland share a captain, my DM captain also gets used in the Indianapolis, and then I use one captain for my Montana, MO, Bama, and the other US BB.

How did you spec out your DM/Indy captain, if you don't mind?

[Deviathan]

2 minutes ago, Khafni said:

How did you spec out your DM/Indy captain, if you don't mind?

 

If you wanted to give the Indy its own captain, you could make a case for rearranging some of the skills (depending on how you feel about having the extra radar charge) so that you can pick up Expert Loader+JoAT or BFT if you want even more AA.  This guy is specifically meant for my DM though but works perfectly fine for the Indy.  I don't see CV's often but I still carry around Def AA just in case.  Seems like everytime I switch it to hydro, MM tosses me CV games.

[Kizarvexis]

2 hours ago, Deviathan said:

Do you div with a CV regularly?  If not, having manual AA isn't really worth it (especially if you don't have many AA guns that are over 85mm).  Also there's no one captain build that works for all the ships listed.  My Kidd has its own captain, my Atlanta and Cleveland share a captain, my DM captain also gets used in the Indianapolis, and then I use one captain for my Montana, MO, Bama, and the other US BB.

 

Oh yeah. You are right about MFCAA as the Texas doesn't benefit at all from it as it's biggest AA guns are 76.2mm.

For Texas, I went with the aux armaments module, DCM, & AA module.

I went with PM to help keep the main guns going. EM for faster turrets. BFT and AFT for more AA. I'm going for HA, BoS, and FP to round out a survivability/AA build.

 

My Cleveland has the AA module and PT, PM, EM, LS, BFT & AFT. I'm thinking of adding IFHE and swapping EM for DCCA and DE to round out a Cleveland and Atlanta captain.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

BFT, AFT combined with AAGM2 is typically enough to cause a lot of losses to planes, quite sufficient for general use.   Toss in DF and it's even better.  The weakness however is when dealing with higher tier CVs is if you don't have DF ready, simple AA DPM may not be enough, especially against higher tier CV aircraft.  Atlanta for example, dealing with Taiho's planes when DF is on CD isn't doing much.  MFCAA helps in closing that gap but that is a very expensive investment.  For Tier 4 skills alone, AFT+MFCAA is a yooge investment.  Trying to squeeze that into an Atlanta build presents a lot of problems, and either IFHE, CE has to go.

[MrDeaf]

I have an IFHE, AFT, MFCAA, BFT 19pt captain that I use on my Atlanta and Cleveland.

When you hump the island and lob your catapults, concealment doesn't matter too much.

[enderland07]

31 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

BFT, AFT combined with AAGM2 is typically enough to cause a lot of losses to planes, quite sufficient for general use.   Toss in DF and it's even better.  The weakness however is when dealing with higher tier CVs is if you don't have DF ready, simple AA DPM may not be enough, especially against higher tier CV aircraft.  Atlanta for example, dealing with Taiho's planes when DF is on CD isn't doing much.  MFCAA helps in closing that gap but that is a very expensive investment.  For Tier 4 skills alone, AFT+MFCAA is a yooge investment.  Trying to squeeze that into an Atlanta build presents a lot of problems, and either IFHE, CE has to go.

Yeah, it's definitely a tradeoff. I think I might end up with a PT/PM, AR, BFT, CE/AFT/MFCAA build that I base on my Des Moines? idk. I don't really super like the DM so maybe it'd be a good "home" for it?

[IronMike11B4O]

2 hours ago, Deviathan said:

 

If you wanted to give the Indy its own captain, you could make a case for rearranging some of the skills (depending on how you feel about having the extra radar charge) so that you can pick up Expert Loader+JoAT or BFT if you want even more AA.  This guy is specifically meant for my DM though but works perfectly fine for the Indy.  I don't see CV's often but I still carry around Def AA just in case.  Seems like everytime I switch it to hydro, MM tosses me CV games.

I call that my 8inch cruiser build.

[Deviathan]

Just now, IronMike11B4O said:

I call that my 8inch cruiser build.

Yeah exactly.  When I was grinding the line, I ran that build from Pensa up through the DM, and ran an IFHE build on the Cleveland.

[IronMike11B4O]

Just now, Deviathan said:

Yeah exactly.  When I was grinding the line, I ran that build from Pensa up through the DM, and ran an IFHE build on the Cleveland.

Same, i suspect the new split won't mean I have to spec differently.

[Ivlerlin]

My generalist AA build for the USN is:

PT or PM, AR (boosts all things), SI, AFT, MFCAA (cmdr lv14)

CE if you're planning on slotting the commander in a CA or DD. 

FP or MFCSB if you're slotting in on  CA or BB. (MFCSB is a void option when specializing for Atlanta; IFHE on the other hand holds potential)

EM + Vigilance at 19 if your not taking 3x4 skills. 

The benefits of a pseudo secondaries build is debatable and highly dependent on personal play. If your willing to sacrifice the module slot for AA range for SB range to assist in DD hunting. And how confident you are pressing a smoke cloud. Secondaries don't help allot but imo if you want a DD dead any bit helps. But as mentioned it's preferential to your playstyle. 

Your pick of modules on the ship is just as important as the Cmdr skills if your looking to maximize AA protection. 

Making sure you're able to pick off that Catapult Fighter is as valuable to your DDs when supporting them as panicking that TB or DB sqd when supporting a BB. 

AR on a Cruiser isn't the greatest but if you risk your ship to early and eat a Citadel and Live... the benefits hold high potential. 

Good luck and good hunting.