Hydro or Enhanced AA?

[AkiyamaSaneyuki_2017]

What'll it be if you can choose only one?

[Nevermore135]

What ship are you mounting them on?

[AkiyamaSaneyuki_2017]

1 minute ago, Nevermore135 said:

What ship are you mounting them on?

IJN ships, duh.

[Landsraad]

Can you take a catapult fighter and do you take it? If the answer to both of those is "yes", then I'd take the hydro. This way you have something that can deal with planes as well as something that can help versus torps. Of course if you find that torps aren't a big problem, which I can see happening with the long range open water style of the IJN cruisers, then double up and take defensive AA.

[Nevermore135]

1 minute ago, AkiyamaSaneyuki_2017 said:

IJN ships, duh.

And where did you state that? 

Most IJN cruisers have, shall we say, subpar AA compared to US, RN, German, and even Soviet cruisers. DFAA might help you fight off a lower tier carrier, but against a higher tier CV you'll have a hard time warding off aircraft on your own. You can get a lot of utility out of the hydro, though, especially if you are running RPF and hunting DDs. Plus, you're locked in to the catapult fighter in slot 3 until high tiers, so you have some defense against aircraft with that.

Then again, many IJN cruisers play well at or near their max range, kiting and spamming HE from open water due to their good alpha and fire chance on top of DD-like dispersion of the Japanese 203mm guns. If that's your primary playstyle, you're less likely to utilize the hydro and might as well slot DFAA.

[The_Chiv]

I take DFAA on the Atago. 

[Tzarevitch]

I generally take DFAA for IJN ships. IJN hydro is nothing to write home about.  On a German ship the question is harder because of really good hydro.

[AkiyamaSaneyuki_2017]

1 hour ago, Tzarevitch said:

I generally take DFAA for IJN ships. IJN hydro is nothing to write home about.  On a German ship the question is harder because of really good hydro.

How good, might I ask?

[Tzarevitch]

1 hour ago, AkiyamaSaneyuki_2017 said:

How good, might I ask?

For cruisers I believe in the upper tiers the German cruiser hydro reaches out to 6km for ship detection and like 4km for torpedoes versus like 5km and 3.5km. It also lasts like 20 sec longer as I recall.

[crzyhawk]

Given the meta at the moment, I have swapped into DFAA.  I miss my hydro greatly, but I hate CVs.  I'd rather die to DD torpedoes than allow CVs to attack me without hurting them to the maximum.

[Ensign_Pulver_2016]

17 hours ago, AkiyamaSaneyuki_2017 said:

What'll it be if you can choose only one?

I have not played IJN cruisers, but I have been able to torpedoes very few Zaos.

Ymmv.