IJN CVs -the broken ship tree

[BattlecruiserOperational]

So... where to start... from someone who has played CVs for a pretty decent amount of time, and loves them, even I have to finally admit that IJN CVs are undeniably overpowered. Not at one tier, not at the beginning or end of the tree, but the whole tree. I have gotten 100k+ pretty reliably at T4 and 5 now, and when I played the Shokaku when it was first released in CBT, I was sitting at 180k average damage per game over 120 matches. Now, I just picked up the IJN carriers again yesterday, so I haven't gotten around to the Taiho again since it received it's new loadouts, but man, it's even more broken now than it was when I had it in CBT.

 

I went up against it with my Essex today, and even when running 3/0/2(which I pretty much never do), it had no problems chewing through my 3 fighter squadrons with it's 3 fighter squadrons. I was fully fighter specced, including all the right modules and commander skills(minus Air Supremacy).

 

The Essex has to be HARD air superiority or a washed attack loadout. The Taiho can be both at once, and still be better at either role than a specialized Essex. It's a complete imbalance. A slap in any USN CV player's face.

 

3/2/2? With commander skills which specifically help out IJN fighters vs USN ones? It has better camo. The service time of planes is about half that of that of an Essex. IJN planes are tougher individually, so even at T10, the 36 plane hangar capacity difference is negligible, because you lose less planes to begin with.

 

IJN planes turn better, allowing for last second adjustments before dropping their payload, as well as faking out evading ships. Their torpedoes are faster and have a shorter arming distance.

 

IJN dive bombers hit and cause fires more reliably.

 

So in short, whenever people complain about CVs being OP, they aren't talking about CVs in general. They are talking about IJN CVs specifically, and now I agree. They need a fix.

 

 

below is the result of my 1st ever match in a bone stock Zuiho...

[Tedster_]

T9/10 US CV strike build is even more deadly than same tier IJN CV strike now.  same number of torps, but 1.3k dmg more per torp and a far tighter spread that means you can actually land all 12 of them on a big target combined with DB's that actually do more than set fires.

[Fog_Destroyer_Akizuki]

Don't worry at Tier 6-8 the carrier vs carrier is real. lol  My Hiryu has a rough time against that AA and thost tier of USN fighters........they mush mine into dust.

[suleiman71]

You are very good, the top 95% of CV players.

[BattlecruiserOperational]

T9/10 US CV strike build is even more deadly than same tier IJN CV strike now.  same number of torps, but 1.3k dmg more per torp and a far tighter spread that means you can actually land all 12 of them on a big target combined with DB's that actually do more than set fires.

 

if uncontested, then yes. Harder hitting drops, but less DPM, and can't defend yourself vs other CVs unless they are running the same loadout you are.

You are very good, the top 95% of CV players.

 

I highly doubt that. Not anymore.

[darien22]

T9/10 US CV strike build is even more deadly than same tier IJN CV strike now.  same number of torps, but 1.3k dmg more per torp and a far tighter spread that means you can actually land all 12 of them on a big target combined with DB's that actually do more than set fires.

 

While it is possible it is unlikely because the strong aa , panic , fighters and if the player is skilled enough to turn.

[MikeLapTrap]

T10 midway planes can bomb Monty with 2 des Moines next to it, unlike a haku thanks to the tanky TB. iChase even thinks midway planes might be bugged

[Numbah18]

Problem is from tier 7 onward IJN FT do more damage then US FT and they benefit more from the 10% damage increase. IJN FT also get dog-fighting on there side at tier 7.

[BattlecruiserOperational]

they are everything USN CVs are and more starting at T9. Before they are just seal clubbers, perfectly suited to teach every new player to absolutely hate CVs and call them ALL OP.

 

If you want the better ship, you will pick the IJN line. Simple as that.

[Anumati]

Completely agree.

Dont even get me started on the Haku with it's 4/2/2.

An easy 20 fighters that have better DPS than midway's ontop of getting the dogfighting bonus.

No competent Midway captain is going to run 3/0/2 unless its clan warfare.

Even then the Hak with a 4/2/2 does Air Sup better than a midway on the simple fact that it can fight multiple fires at once and get more air coverage.

While having enough bombers to be a legit threat.

 

 

That blatantly broken crap needs to go.

You wanna fighters on a haku? Sure!

4/1/1

Or 4/0/2.

 

Fighters on a taiho?

Sure!

3/1/1

 

 

Why the heck does a hak get

2/3/2 at start.

And why does a Taiho get

2/2/2.

 

No, thats bullcrap.

 

1/2/2

Stock for Taiho and Hak.

 

1/3/3 full bomber Hak and Taiho.

They need to be neutered and brought in line with US CVs at tier 9 and 10.

They need to be tweaked heavily IMO once these changes are made.

 

 

[Grizley]

The USN T9+ might be OP, but in general I agree that the CV balance problems are more then IJN CVs than the USN.

 

Looking at the stats the USN CV are pretty average for win rates and damage, annoying because of the ability to just delete a ship every time their TBs go out but that's the old WoT arty problem, being able to deliver a heavy alpha anywhere on the map is worth more than a great deal more sustained damage in a localized area.

 

IJN CV... yeah.  Way too much damage.

[HAGZ1LLA]

complains about broken CVs, still has more than 1 torpedo bomber flight.

 

[BattlecruiserOperational]

^ you are completely missing the point.

[Takeda992]

Funny how some people's solution to a problem is to neuter something to uselessness. I guess because it's not an American line. What kind of feedback do you hope from NA server anyway!

[SilverforceX]

It's because tier 9-10, USN CV switch from air superiority which they were so used to from tier 4 onwards, into a better strike package. The IJN CV at those tiers dominate with their Fighters when all the tiers below they suck at it. Role reversal!

[Elysion]

The thing with CVs is that there are two balance issues.

 

One is that the lines are not balanced well against each other

The second is that CVs in general are not balanced well within the game.

 

The IJN line needs to be brought in line with the USN line, and all t9 and 10 carriers need to be toned down. What a carrier is potentially capable of doing needs to be nerfed, quite severely. What a carrier is minimally capable of doing, should be buffed.

 

Im not sure how to go about it all. As ive always maintained carriers are a difficult issue because they can swing from being overpowered to underpowered quite easily.

 

My intuition tells me that it would require many different changes, i wouldn't be surprised if it took ALL or at least most of the following:

 

1. A change to how AA works and how it interacts with plane health. (some CVs, particularly at mid tiers, can be totaly negated)

2. A change to how fighters work (imbalance between CV fighter and contributing to number 1)

3. A change to the loadout options (plane strenghts and weaknessess interact with the loadout options. Hakuryu has better fighters than midway for example, because for midway to not be useless it needs to have only a single fighter squadrons whereas haku has two, 10 planes vs 7, and the hakus fighters are better on a plane per plane basis as well, all US loadouts before t9 are pretty bad)

4. A change to dive bombers (this could interact with point 3 above, if dive bombers were not seen as sort of a secondary bonus strike plane lower tier US carriers wouldnt be so bad)

5. A change to plane reserves (in conjunction with 1 and 2 above, to create some sort of better dynamic for making cv players have to pick between caution and agression with their planes more meaningfully)

 

 

There is another option which ive thrown out before.

 

Now that we have float fighters as a mechanic we can easily just turn all carrier fighter planes into 'float fighters' that circle the carrier in multiple squadrons to function as part of their AA. This works well because the fighters become a secondary mechanic to the carrier AA, and carrier loadout, fighter balance, and AA balance, can all be manipulated to give all carriers better survivibility. This will have effects that reach into the CV matchmaker balance issue as well. Because in this situation a 1v2 CV matchup, the lone CV will be harder to kill, and his planes will not be able to get shut completly down.

 

The benefit of this is that it now lets you balance the CV lines against each other MUCH easier since the only real consideration is how good their planes and loadouts are at dealing damage. You just need to find a good balance of torpedo bomber and dive bomber options. The amount of fighter squadrons circling the carrier can still be a part of the loadout system, its just that since these planes can not be sent out, there is no excuse for leaving a 'fighter heavy' loadout lacking any meaningful strike potention. So under this system the fighter component becomes more of a self protection than a team protection variable.

 

That last point is important because that makes it much easier to balance the other issue, CVs vs everyone else. With out enemy fighters as potential plane counters to worry about, you can focus much more on strike aircraft VS AA. As the only plane counter now, AA can be fine tuned with out having to consider what additional influinces (fighters) may have. This will lead, ideally, to situations where a carrier can never be completly shut down by an AA blob, but can still decide to not commit them to a costly attack just yet but has the time and oportunity to let those planes linger for psychological effect, or to wait for a time to strike. I think a lone ships AA capability should be stronger, but the way multiple overlapping AA fields works should be reworked entirely, possibly something where the strongest AA field is the only one that 'works', but others in the area provide a bonus to it, in a vague sort of way simulating how multiple AA crews can 'box in' planes. It could also work well with the new US DD AA ability, letting US DDs regain their old alpha role as 'plane hunters' (back when scouts were controllable DDs were good at chasing them down) and act as an actual AA screen. This could also have all sorts of competitive consequences as it would essentially mean that you can divide people up into smaller groups focused around single strong AA points (a battleship) supplementing them with a few cruisers/DD, with out losing too much potential AA.

 

The real desired goal of the CV balance matchmaking issue is that it shouldn't matter if one team is short a CV but up something else. Currently at high tiers a CV imbalance can cause draws simply because people ball up for defense, it is a fault of course of that AA deathball not actually migrating to the objectives and just circling around each other, but you cant fix the playerbase. The issue is not that the MM creates unbalanced CV balance, its that CVs should not be so capable of throwing the game out of balance to start with.

[soulsedge]

So... where to start... from someone who has played CVs for a pretty decent amount of time, and loves them, even I have to finally admit that IJN CVs are undeniably overpowered. Not at one tier, not at the beginning or end of the tree, but the whole tree. I have gotten 100k+ pretty reliably at T4 and 5 now, and when I played the Shokaku when it was first released in CBT, I was sitting at 180k average damage per game over 120 matches. Now, I just picked up the IJN carriers again yesterday, so I haven't gotten around to the Taiho again since it received it's new loadouts, but man, it's even more broken now than it was when I had it in CBT.

 

I went up against it with my Essex today, and even when running 3/0/2(which I pretty much never do), it had no problems chewing through my 3 fighter squadrons with it's 3 fighter squadrons. I was fully fighter specced, including all the right modules and commander skills(minus Air Supremacy).

 

The Essex has to be HARD air superiority or a washed attack loadout. The Taiho can be both at once, and still be better at either role than a specialized Essex. It's a complete imbalance. A slap in any USN CV player's face.

 

3/2/2? With commander skills which specifically help out IJN fighters vs USN ones? It has better camo. The service time of planes is about half that of that of an Essex. IJN planes are tougher individually, so even at T10, the 36 plane hangar capacity difference is negligible, because you lose less planes to begin with.

 

IJN planes turn better, allowing for last second adjustments before dropping their payload, as well as faking out evading ships. Their torpedoes are faster and have a shorter arming distance.

 

IJN dive bombers hit and cause fires more reliably.

 

So in short, whenever people complain about CVs being OP, they aren't talking about CVs in general. They are talking about IJN CVs specifically, and now I agree. They need a fix.

 

 

below is the result of my 1st ever match in a bone stock Zuiho...

 

i commend you for actually being one of the few, honest, rare cv players.    =)

 

 

[BrianDavion]

the fact that teams aren't by faction proably don't help eaither as it means each ship needs to be balanced by itself, so you can't do a "US has less fighters at this tier but their surface ships have more AA" in short the decision to not divide by faction (while proably smart)  it does mean they can't balance around fleet synergies. 

[HAGZ1LLA]

^ you are completely missing the point.

 

Yes, I did. I just reread your post.

 

[SilverforceX]

So in short, whenever people complain about CVs being OP, they aren't talking about CVs in general. They are talking about IJN CVs specifically, and now I agree. They need a fix.

 

below is the result of my 1st ever match in a bone stock Zuiho...

 

 

Why do you think IJN dive bombers hit and cause more fires more reliably? That's absurd. The bomb dispersion circle is the same, USN have MORE bombers with much higher damaging bombs (7500 vs 4600).

 

USN CV can be very strong, people just don't want to give up their Fighters for it. Here's my Bomber Bogue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A ton of bomb & fire damage.

 

 

 

 

I wasted quite a few games on the Bogue with default 1/1/0 and 2/0/1 setups until I switched over to the 0/1/2 setup, which works equally well to the Zuiho's 0/3/1.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

Problem is from tier 7 onward IJN FT do more damage then US FT and they benefit more from the 10% damage increase. IJN FT also get dog-fighting on there side at tier 7.

 

This is kind of funny actually.  Because when the US got its better fighters (Corsairs, Hellcats, etc) that simply had way more power and speed than the Japanese fighters, they crushed them.  So in WoWS, those high powered US fighters are a detriment.

 

There was no need to dogfight when you can use energy for Boom & Zoom tactics.

 

Side note:  Fighters were being used to attack warships also.  .50 cal MGs and 20mm cannons can do a number on those anti-aircraft gun crews before the attack aircraft come in.

[SilverforceX]

 

This is kind of funny actually.  Because when the US got its better fighters (Corsairs, Hellcats, etc) that simply had way more power and speed than the Japanese fighters, they crushed them.  So in WoWS, those high powered US fighters are a detriment.

 

They avoided engaging them at low altitude fights where the slower but more agile Zeros would often win. 

 

Problem is, ingame doesn't reflect all the possible scenarios, it's just low altitude dog-fighting. 

[Shadeylark]

Problem is from tier 7 onward IJN FT do more damage then US FT and they benefit more from the 10% damage increase. IJN FT also get dog-fighting on there side at tier 7.

 

no IJN fighter benefits from dogfighting against an equal tier USN CV until t10 when midway's get jets.  EVERY SINGLE IJN fighter is faster than its tier equivalent USN fighter... dogfighting NEVER benefits IJN CV's unless they're either lower tier, or if t10, up against upgraded midway fighters.

[ScoutinArbiter]

Problem is from tier 7 onward IJN FT do more damage then US FT and they benefit more from the 10% damage increase. IJN FT also get dog-fighting on there side at tier 7.

 

Misinformation is bad. USN Fighters get dogfighting bonus at almost every tier with the exceptions of tier 7 and 10. Any self-respecting CV skipper will take dogfighting, this even outs the fighters...which invariably end with a USN victory since they have more planes per squadron.