Manual AA skill...is it worth it anymore?

[imweasel]

So I am wondering, with the respec sale going on, if I should respec and take the manual AA skill for captains.

 

Is it worth taking anymore?

 

I am referring to T8+ bbs...

 

With the MM changes and with the reduction of cv players overall, I wonder if it's worth spec'ing into...

[Estimated_Prophet]

Some might say no; obviously it's your choice; but irony/luck would mean that as soon as you took it out, you would be in a battle where you needed it... Even if there were a 100+ battles after that where you didn't... 

 

[VTAdmiral]

I'm going to get it on my AA-specialized Atlanta. +100% DPS on focused squadrons? Yes please. It's my next goal for my Atlanta captain since getting AFT.

 

It's not like manual secondaries where it disables all AA on other planes when you focus one, as far as I understand it.

[saagri]

Some might soy no; obviously it's your choice; but irony/luck would mean that as soon as you took it out, you would be in a battle where you needed it... Even if there were a 100+ battles after that where you didn't... 

 

10/10 can confirm.

Used hydro on Lo Yang and got CV's. Used def. fire and did not get CV's.

[HMCS_Devilfish]

I use the AA skill on my Kustuzof ,used Hydro for a bit but changed back to AA and played smarter the AA gives a 40 second stand to and litterly shreds planes, 23 in 1 game

But now the CV stay away from me .. Bummer

 

[RearAdmiralButts]

So I am wondering, with the respec sale going on, if I should respec and take the manual AA skill for captains.

 

Is it worth taking anymore?

 

I am referring to T8+ bbs...

 

With the MM changes and with the reduction of cv players overall, I wonder if it's worth spec'ing into...

 

Wrestling with this one myself.  High tier meta and nerfing has T8-10 CV players so rare these days its hard to justify using the 4 skill points for this.

[VTAdmiral]

 

Wrestling with this one myself.  High tier meta and nerfing has T8-10 CV players so rare these days its hard to justify using the 4 skill points for this.

 

To be fair RE: my afformentioned Atlanta plans, I only ever bring Atlanta out when divisioned with a carrier, these days. It's the only way to guarantee I have planes to shoot at.

[KamiSamurai]

Works great for me on NC.

[Lt_Huber]

I'm going to get it on my AA-specialized Atlanta. +100% DPS on focused squadrons? Yes please. It's my next goal for my Atlanta captain since getting AFT.

 

It's not like manual secondaries where it disables all AA on other planes when you focus one, as far as I understand it.

 

Wait, so manual AA works just like normal AA ,except with the +100 buff if targeted manually. But with secondaries they ONLY work if manually targeted? 

[iEaTDaGrudge]

So I am wondering, with the respec sale going on, if I should respec and take the manual AA skill for captains.

 

Is it worth taking anymore?

 

I am referring to T8+ bbs...

 

With the MM changes and with the reduction of cv players overall, I wonder if it's worth spec'ing into...

 

NO...

[VTAdmiral]

 

Wait, so manual AA works just like normal AA ,except with the +100 buff if targeted manually. But with secondaries they ONLY work if manually targeted? 

 

That's how I understand it, yes. Someone else who's tested it out more will have to weigh in on if I'm right or not.

 

As far as I understand, it's basically just a buff to the damage bonus for prioritizing a squadron from 30% (I think?) to 100%.

[vak_]

So I am wondering, with the respec sale going on, if I should respec and take the manual AA skill for captains

 

Depends which ship. For Tirpitz, for instance, it's a valuable skill since most of her AA is concentrated in DP guns.

[4bRbyHSSzZ6pk]

Some might soy no; obviously it's your choice; but irony/luck would mean that as soon as you took it out, you would be in a battle where you needed it... Even if there were a 100+ battles after that where you didn't... 

 

This is so true, I removed my AA skills from my ships and got several CV games in a row. Put them back on and the skies were quiet for a goddamn eternity, go figure 

[Flametz]

Honestly not worth it unless you division with a CV player (enjoy the long queue times then), since they're so rare nowadays they might as well not exist. On the off-chance you do need AA you'll do ok with how buffed BB AA has gotten (especially NC), and other skills will perform vastly better and with more effectiveness in more games than AA.

[vak_]

manual AA works just like normal AA ,except with the +100 buff if targeted manually

 

But with secondaries they ONLY work if manually targeted? 

 

Yes. +100% bonus applies only to guns above 85mm

 

Yes. If you don't target with secondaries when your captain has the manual secondary skill, they won't fire. And you can't fire at two targets at once.

[VTAdmiral]

 

Yes. +100% bonus applies only to guns above 85mm

 

Yes. If you don't target with secondaries when your captain has the manual secondary skill, they won't fire. And you can't fire at two targets at once.

 

The questionw as if manual AA works the same way or if it continues to affect other planes aside from the prioritized target, while the prioritized target is hit with the damage bonus.

[vak_]

The questionw as if manual AA works the same way

 

or if it continues to affect other planes aside from the prioritized target

 

No. it does not.

 

Also no. Short explanation of AA mechanics: each AA aura can target only one airplane squadron. There are some situations when two or maybe even three airplane squads are taking damage (e.g. when you prioritize a target outside your inner AA aura, and there is another airplane inside that aura -- in that case, AA will attack two targets). The only time when all airplanes in range are affected by the AA is when DF is on -- everyone within your AA auras gets panicked (but only 1 or at most 3 are taking damage). Point is, even without designating the target, AA will attack airplanes when the captain has a manual targeting skill, and is different from secondaries in that regards.

[Carrier_Graf_Zeppelin]

As far as I can tell from experience, manually targeting planes makes all guns aim at whatever squadron you targeted.

[TenguBlade]

It works really well for Tirpitz and should for all German BBs as most of their AA comes from heavy guns.

[VTAdmiral]

 

No. it does not.

 

Also no. Short explanation of AA mechanics: each AA aura can target only one airplane squadron. There are some situations when two or maybe even three airplane squads are taking damage (e.g. when you prioritize a target outside your inner AA aura, and there is another airplane inside that aura -- in that case, AA will attack two targets). The only time when all airplanes in range are affected by the AA is when DF is on -- everyone within your AA auras gets panicked (but only 1 or at most 3 are taking damage). Point is, even without designating the target, AA will attack airplanes when the captain has a manual targeting skill, and is different from secondaries in that regards.

 

this is literally the first time I've ever heard someone explain AA as working this way.

[reaper_swpz]

Saw an NC shoot down 61 tier 9 USN planes (Essex) by himself last night with this skill. It was... a bit disturbing. Although with an Izumo bow tanking, he literally had our back the entire game. CV tries attacking? Nope!

 

Don't have a captain who can take both AFT and MAA though so can't try this ourselves.

[goldeagle1123]

Was it ever worth it? You get more bonus AA from AFT than from MFCFAA (which manifests as better range), and you don't have to designate targets. Not to mention DE on cruisers, which is almost always what you want to bring.

[Killjoy1941]

AA works exactly like secondaries in that it works against any/all aircraft within range of a specific aura, so just as secondaries can fire to both sides of the ship, AA can fire at multiple squadrons. You can test this in the training room, where planes will be shot down in non-targeted squadrons even if you manually target a squadron. This applies, except when it doesn't, but more on that later.

 

How it works: AA has three auras, short, medium, and long. These correspond to the three ranges you can find under the stats for any AA-equipped ship you can find in your port. Long range AA is anything 5km and over. Short AA is the shortest range guns. (20mm for say, the USN) Your medium aura is everything in between. (Exception: tier 10, where your medium and long range AA both reach to 5km on cruisers, and Japanese ships, which have no short range AA.) All three apply independently to squadrons as they enter the range of each respective aura, they do not combine for destruction calculations. It works like this: Say your AA auras are 100, 200, and 250 for short to long, respectively. Say you have an enemy squadron with 1,000 HP. The DPS value of your AA is applied against the HP of the squadron to generate a chance of shooting down an aircraft; you don't actually do damage, you calculate for a full kill. So, using the previous values, at long range you have a 25% chance of downing a plane per check, 20% at medium range, and 10% at short range. These, however, do stack. Thus, at short range you'd have a 10%, 20%, and 25% chance to down an aircraft, all working simultaneously.

 

How multipliers work: Your multipliers are manual targeting, DF, and manual fire control. Taking manual targeting first, selecting any squadron regardless of captain skills and modules means your AA DPS is multiplied by x1.3. DF multiplies DPS for 25mm and larger AA guns by x3.0, and a manually targeted squadron with DF active is subject to a x3.9 increase in DPS, for both the medium and long range aura. Manual fire control adds +100% (or +1.0) to the manual targeting bonus for AA 85mm and up (for a total of x2.3) at the expense of your long range AA firing at that target and that target only. So, while your short and medium range AA will work normally, your long range AA will only fire when you give it a target and only at that target. This also effectively means your DF, if you have it, will only boost your medium and long range AA. Your long range AA will only work against a single target, but then your long range DPS multiplier climbs to a whopping x6.9.

 

How modules and captain skills work: AA2 increases the range of all auras by 20%, or x1.2. So does AFT. That's how you get ships with 7.2km AA. AA3 increases DPS by 25% (x1.25) and BFT increases DPS by 10% (x1.1). The signal November Echo Setteseven also increases DPS by 10%. It's important to understand that just as modules and skills give you a new base range for AA, they also effectively give you a higher base DPS before you take a given ship into battle. So if your long range aura is 100, having a captain with BFT and the NES signal equipped means you're going in with a base long range DPS of 122 (both range and DPS are cumulative).

 

Why manual fire control can be powerful: It should be pretty obvious that a high DPS long range aura can be massively boosted by having manual fire control. If you have a 100 DPS long range aura, it climbs to 130. with DF, it hits 390. With manual AA and DF, it jumps to 690. This is why the skill is so important for cruisers with a strong AA build or even battleships with powerful long range AA. You can push the long range AA of Atlanta to 146 DPS at 7.2km. Coupled with DF and manual fire control, you simply tear through planes all the way through tier 9. Tirpitz has a long range aura of 137. Since you can push that over 150 before you even hit "Battle!" and then multiply it by x2.3 simply by selecting squadrons, it becomes easy to understand the power of manual fire control. It's also much more flexible. While standard AA can engage many squadrons at once, a Tirpitz player might really want to focus down the torpedo bombers.

 

So, when should you pick manual fire control in addition to or instead of AFT?

1) You're building an AA cruiser. Atlanta and Kutuzov immediately come to mind, and I have both cruisers built for AA2/AFT and BFT/manual AA myself. They shred everything all the way through tier 10. Equal tier planes need to stay well away from my 7.2km Circle of Nope, because I can and very often do shoot down entire strikes, fighters included.

2) You don't want to pick DF as a consumable. Hipper, Roon, and Hindenburg players may very well have their ships set up for AA with both AA2 and manual AA if they operate hydro.

3) You have powerful DP guns for your long range AA aura and you want to choose what you kill. High tier BBs and half the high tier CAs can fit into this category. If you DPS is over 120, this could work for you. As previously mentioned with Tirpitz, being able to damage a specific squadron might be more important than general AA power.

 

Edited to include new data.

[TenguBlade]

Saw an NC shoot down 61 tier 9 USN planes (Essex) by himself last night with this skill. It was... a bit disturbing. Although with an Izumo bow tanking, he literally had our back the entire game. CV tries attacking? Nope!

Did he say he had the skill?  North Carolina is quite formidable without it already.

 

I can trash entire strike Lexington attack waves with just AAGM2 and AFT on my North Carolina, Essex players will be hard-pressed to get any sensible amount of planes through in one wave.  Reason I mention this is because he could easily have gotten 61 planes if the Essex player kept throwing wave after wave at him and he just bagged about half each time.

How multipliers work: Your multipliers are manual targeting, DF, and manual fire control. Taking manual targeting first, selecting any squadron regardless of captain skills and modules means your AA DPS is multiplied by x1.3. DF multiplies DPS for 85mm and larger AA guns by x3.0, and a manually targeted squadron with DF active is subject to a x3.9 increase in DPS, provided we're talking about the long range aura where all the 85mm+ guns are currently found. Manual fire control adds +100% (or +1.0) to the manual targeting bonus (for a total of x2.3) at the expense of your long range AA firing at that target and that target only. So, while your short and medium range AA will work normally, your long range AA will only fire when you give it a target and only at that target. This also effectively means your DF, if you have it, will only work against a single target, but then your DPS multiplier climbs to a whopping x6.9.

Didn't WG change Defensive Fire with the AA rework so it affects all guns?  The compensation for that was they reduced the multiplier from 6.0 to 3.0 IIRC.

[Royeaux]

My AA spec North Carolina Rear Admiral has both manual AA and Advanced Fire Training.  She'll melt whole squadrons before they can even drop anything, I often find I'm protecting cruisers and CVs better then they protect me.  While true I don't encounter many CVs, the NC base model is good enough that I don't feel the need to increase turret rotation or accuracy.  I bow fight a lot, and the biggest weakness of bow fighting while reversing is getting a torp bomber squad coming at you, since you can't maneuver well at such a slow speed.  Also, I'm not really convinced that any of the level 5 skills are worth it, and the US secondaries suck (twice already I've gotten to within 3km of a enemy CV and the secondaries couldn't do jack), so I can't say it'd be a good idea to make her a better brawler.

 

If it's a IJN captain, I'm not sure AA spec is a good idea though.  Advanced Fire Training increases the secondary range, which is useful on the Amagi, Izumo and Yamato.