Ignore the constant nerfs and Tears, Fellow CV Captains, Make them Fear you

[Bloodyneck92]

Probably the biggest impact (not pure damage, but actual impact) I've been able to have on a game since the CV changes and constant nerfs. (ignore the Hosho, not just slumming it, just grinding up a new CV line) Its definitely not easy to do more than scratch the paint on these ships but keep your chin up my guys, when the stars align, RNGesus doesn't give you [edited] misses, we can still be kinda useful...

That being said, 2x the HP of my ship in damage is a good game yes, but in terms of any other ship out there, it is still PITIFUL any other ship class on a GREAT game can easily hit triple their potential damage taken in terms of damage dealt, they can focus fire a single ship and really punish them, and they have alpha strike potential at the very least that with some luck, will nuke an enemy ship. This kraken is more a testament to the incompetent dodging of the enemies when it comes to my torps and the fact that the hosho is probably the best CV when stacked up against its weight class.

[Estimated_Prophet]

2 hours ago, Bloodyneck92 said:

Probably the biggest impact (not pure damage, but actual impact) I've been able to have on a game since the CV changes and constant nerfs. (ignore the Hosho, not just slumming it, just grinding up a new CV line) Its definitely not easy to do more than scratch the paint on these ships but keep your chin up my guys, when the stars align, RNGesus doesn't give you [edited] misses, we can still be kinda useful...

That being said, 2x the HP of my ship in damage is a good game yes, but in terms of any other ship out there, it is still PITIFUL any other ship class on a GREAT game can easily hit triple their potential damage taken in terms of damage dealt, they can focus fire a single ship and really punish them, and they have alpha strike potential at the very least that with some luck, will nuke an enemy ship. This kraken is more a testament to the incompetent dodging of the enemies when it comes to my torps and the fact that the hosho is probably the best CV when stacked up against its weight class.

‘You exist’ is enough to make some fear, or at least loathe you.

Some seem to think you are the Anti-Christ personified, and just freeze up, or esc-key out of games.

I’m indifferent at best.

I don’t fear carriers; but refuse to play them in Randoms, and utterly despise the rework itself.

[Bloodyneck92]

Just now, Estimated_Prophet said:

‘You exist’ is enough to make some fear, or at least loathe you.

Some seem to think you are the Anti-Christ personified, and just freeze up, or esc-key out of games.

I’m indifferent at best.

I don’t fear carriers; but refuse to play them in Randoms, and utterly despise the rework itself.

I also hate the rework, I can kill a rushing DD easily enough but my primary target, a solo low AA, Battleship, I can't kill hitting it with everything I've got as it goes full steam ahead towards me. 

I'll admit if we hit a CL or a DD with a good strike the damage is devastating to them, particularly Low tier CLs against IJN TBers which do considerable damage to their small health pools and can semi-reliably hit thanks largely to their high speed  + good damage torps. Slower, higher damage torps would shift the focus to their intended targets on that front (BBs). AA is a giant pain and the lack of damage mitigation through skill (you can dodge flak, but only so much, only so often and even then there's still continuous AA and the flak bursts some times have to be eaten on a bombing run. higher tiers can't reliably do multiple passes against anything that's not alone and the inability to do an all in attack alpha or set planes into a holding pattern while one group makes a run is asinine and makes their "damage potential" absolute crap honestly.

we're a "late game" ship waiting for the chance for AA mounts to be blown off, for ships to spread apart, be partially damaged, and hoping that we can still impact the sway of the game at that point and it just feels so wrong.

[Estimated_Prophet]

21 minutes ago, Bloodyneck92 said:

...we're a "late game" ship waiting for the chance for AA mounts to be blown off, for ships to spread apart, be partially damaged, and hoping that we can still impact the sway of the game at that point and it just feels so wrong.

lol

In a way that was even true in RTS, but is more so now.

Sure carriers then and now can do things other ships can’t, but if the rest of the team is soggy powdered potatoes, there isn’t much even a unicum CV driver can do to save a game.

[Bloodyneck92]

9 minutes ago, Estimated_Prophet said:

lol

In a way that was even true in RTS, but is more so now.

Sure carriers then and now can do things other ships can’t, but if the rest of the team is soggy powdered potatoes, there isn’t much even a unicum CV driver can do to save a game.

in RTS version though we only needed to wait for enemy ships to spread, we also had fighters to manage to plug any defensive holes we could and scout while we waited, now with fighters being consumables and stationary, we're scouting with our only damage dealing sources, we can only do so in select locations, and we need to wait for AA to be blown off all while effectively twiddling our thumbs.

we also lack the ability to impact the game if the ships that come through the first "round" are relatively unscathedas they'll be able to run us down with impunity where as in RTS we could at least alpha with rapid strikes and forcing repairs then hitting again for a flood or fire dot that was effective if they got spread thin enough in the first wave...

[SOTMHK_55]

Used to play Steel Oceans before WoW. In SO the CV was fairly dominant, which is as it should be, since in WW2 the CV was the queen of the seas. Granted, gameplay realities force some changes. But the puny capabilities of the CV currently in WoW is ridiculous. I'm addicted to CV's, so I'm going to continue playing them, and I hope that my limited scouting abilities in the beginning is of some use to the team, but it's frustrating to say the least.

[LastRemnant]

Fear will the keep DD bros inline how dare they defy their CV overlords  

[loco_max]

On 6/7/2020 at 4:37 PM, SOTMHK_55 said:

But the puny capabilities of the CV currently in WoW is ridiculous. 

yes....and you're on what exactly? 

[Bloodyneck92]

3 hours ago, loco_max said:

yes....and you're on what exactly? 

Well, I think the dissention here is that it is easy to get damage in a CV, but with how spread out the damage is, across multiple waves and multiple strikes per wave, it is hard to significanty impact anywhere specifically, as that target has the opportunity to slink back to AA cover and essentially solve the problem.At best when we can significantly impact the game, we don't necessarily get rewarded for it.

 

Compare that to DD/CL/CA/BB who can all mercilessly punish a ship they catch not paying attention (either broadside, or without their support) when they get to flex their respective strengths, torps, concealment, or raw power and their damage can come in one huge alpha strike, giving the opponent no opportunity to correct.

This leaves CVs as unsatisfying to play since you effectively get high damage across multiple targets across the map but have little to no significant impact directly dealing damage.

 

True, they're great at supporting their teams, and great at mopping up heavily wounded enemies that flee from your surface ships, but this entirely relies on how their team does to perform in these roles, spotting is useless if your team isn't going to capitalize on that information provided, mopping up provides targets weren't killed outright.

They're also great at herding the enemy, one of my preferred tactics is to cause BBs to turn off from their group by letting them dodge a torp wave and separate from their main force, reducing my team's incoming damage and allowing them to focus more readily, or similarly enticing a CL/CA to turn broadside to BBs to dodge torps and let them punish. The problem is, how do we get rewarded for performing these hugely impactful roles? We get no damage, so there's no XP or credits in it for us doing that, sure we might contribute to getting more XP from the win but its not like what we're doing guarantees a win, just helps eliminate one ship and push that scorecard that way.

Don't even get me started on the fighters, which aren't entirely useless but are laughably bad at doing their job, providing support, first they require us to entirely stop attacking and fly to the target we wish to defend. Then, except in rare circumstances, they simply ward off enemies attack runs and shift the focus to another target, meaning we again get nothing for doing our jobs because our fighters just sit there until time expires and then go away without shooting down a single plane.

Sure fighters have uses primarily scouting, and warding off attacks, but the benefits for the CV are negligible, almost entirely non-existent and actually are in general, detrimental to a CV's credit/xp gains due to opportunity cost.

 

As a CV main, in my personal opinion some changes that would really help:

1) Fighter rework:

- Make them deploy to an assigned ship or location from the map, similar to autopilot. Deployed to a ship, they will follow said ship. They won't arrive instantly but instead they will show up as if they flew there from the CV at a speed of say 150% of the average speed of planes at that tier. This provides value for CVs staying closer to friendly ships.

- in addition, get rid of the "ammo" function of fighters where in they disappear after engaging one target regardless of kills or after killing a set number of planes (in testing they usually kill 1 plane per fighter) they should stay until killed or until their fuel is expired. Also, make them immediately aggro on planes in their range when they arrive. I also thing they should use the high altitude thing that returning bombers use to avoid damage until they get to their deployment zone, but that's up for discussion.

These reworks will allow more CV vs CV gameplay.

2) Fix rocket planes:

- rocket planes are, as is, fine except when it comes to DDs. They are far too accurate in hitting a DD and cause massive damage to them. I can consistently hit for 30-50% of a DDs health in a single attack run. so a single wave can nuke them if my follow-up attack waves can make it to them as well (this is dependent on their local AA). I suggest a larger dispersion/randomization in rockets when fired to make hits less frequent or a coded damage reduction of rockets to DDs due to damage saturation. 

- I really suggest removing rocket planes entirely however, instead allow for spotting planes that can effectively see things further out than their normal maximum air detection range. Either a flat addition or probably better multiplicative, say 2x for DDs 1.25-1.5x for CLs and 1.1-1.25x for BBs. Their attack should be a short range 2km?, medium duration (1 min?) hydroacoustic bouey, that will be useful for spotting torps, submarines (when added), and DDs camping in smokes. Spotting damage will reward increased XP when using these planes as well as a new "torpedo detected" ribbon could be added to give XP for any torps detected using their attack. rewarding them for supporting their team once again.

3) AA nerfs (and 'unlimited plane' changes)

AA should be nerfed, not too hard across the board but it needs to be toned down just a bit. My suggestion here is make the flak bursts only fire if that side has been prioritized, continuous AA would remain the same (maybe also tone it down 5-10%?) this removes one huge annoyance for CV players, that their enemy doesn't even have to do anything to shoot down our planes. This also provides a skill component to CVs where in you could bait out prioritized AA and either switch sides or wait it out.

Coupled with this though, regenerating planes need to go. CVs should have a fixed number of planes once they enter the battle. This would give surface ships the knowledge that every plane they shot down was in fact defanging their enemy.  I would say the correct number of planes is ~60-75% of the maximum number of planes for any given plane type. That is to say if I start with 20 rocket planes, and can regenerate 1 per minute for a total of 20 regenerated over the course of the match, then I should simply now start with ~24-30 planes give or take and have no regeneration. This will obviously be adjusted based on nationality, where in IJN has weaker planes, but maybe more in reserve, and USN has fewer but more durable planes, etc.

4) Once CV planes are limited and AA is reduced slightly we'll need to look at alpha strike capabilities and fix this. CVs, now limited in armaments, should regain some of their alpha damage, as this whole damage over time thing is just stupid when you factor in repair parties, duration between strikes, and time to target from the flat top itself. If CVs are going to risk their ability to deal damage to actually deal damage, (lose planes on an attack run) then that attack run should deal some significant damage.

I don't have a real suggestion in terms of numbers here, but it should suffice to say that a CV's intended target, a BB or large CA, of the same tier, in a 1v1 should lose that engagement. As it stands, most BBs of the same tier, through repair party usage, AA management, and damage control management can and will be able to weather the punishment of a CV and run the entire map and sink said CV. This is where we should start for balancing their capabilities for alpha strikes.

 

 

If all of these changes are enacted what we will start to see is the return of Rock Paper Scissors format Where DD beats CV (since they can't easily hurt them without rocket planes), CL beats DD, CA beats CL, BB beats CA, CV beats BB

[loco_max]

9 minutes ago, Bloodyneck92 said:

At best when we can significantly impact the game, we don't necessarily get rewarded for it.

well, I do not play CV at all, so I can't weight on that. The issue here is that before the Patch 8.0 and on every air assaults the BB were running to get protected by the cruisers AA cones, and after patch 8.0 that never happened again, never... AA was nerfed on cruisers and DD and much less on BB. CV were mutated in the present form to neutralize DD, to unmask DD stealth tactics, and they succeeded. When DDing the air harassment is constant, painful, almost unplayable...The only AA that could be nerfed is on BB, so it won't happen...See if you want to get a sure investment in WoWS, go with BB, there is an issue, they are boring to play, way slow and boring...If you like agile and risky ships, you'll get nerf after nerf after nerf...I can't comment on CV life because I never committed aviation in the meta...