The problem with high tier CVs

[Destroyer_HatsuzukiKai]

I reached the shokaku and now that I'm playing at high tiers I'm starting to get the high tier cv problem.

The problem is that in the high tiers most of the people have some idea how to play the game and they most of the time they try to stay with the fleet.

 

The problem is not the amount of AA of each ship, you can strike any ship that is isolated, but when they group together ( 3 NCs, 2 Kutuzovs for example ) it's literally impossible even without defensive AA.

WG cant fix this problem by buffing or nerfing the amount of AA, because it doesnt matter, if the targuet is alone he is going to be a easy targuet, if he is with the fleet is going always to be impossible to strike.

 

Now that tier 8~10 CVs can only see 1 CV on each team per match should be easier for WG solve the problem.

 

I dont have a definitive answer to how to make CVs work but I have an idea to start.

 

Limiting the AA outuput when there is more than 2 ships togheter, example:

If you go strike a NC that is with a kutuzov, you planes are gonna take AA from both, but if you are gonna strike a NC that is together if another 2 NC and 2 Des Moines, your planes are only gonna take damage from the 2 highers AA dps ships ( in this case the 2 DMs ). this will encourage the players to stick together still but it's not as bad as you taking damage from 3 NCs and 2 DMs.

 

I dont think that's not even near to how to solve the problem but at least is an idea.

 

It really upsets me because CVs only work because this game doesnt balance the MM per skill and you'll allways going to face bad players that isolates themselves, and that's why high tier CVs kinda work, but if you face a team and they decide to group up and stay together, you are going to do literally nothing the entire game.

 

edit:

 

just want to add that low-mid tiers CVs would have the same problem if Clevelands / Atlantas decides to provide AA cover to the team and they stick together, but at low tiers, but the majority of players in low-mid tiers dont have enought insight to notice this, so they dont do it.

 

tldr:

CVs right now are good against unorganized players and useless against good/organized players

[OffShorePanda97]

No then in the 2 DM and 2 NC example, the NC would not be able to shoot which mean no airplane ribbons and XP. U could  buff plane health 

[Arvanna_1]

Called this, teams group up and CV player wants some manner of AAA nerf.

[Aritsugu]

Reducing AA output when there are more than 2 ships staying together is unrealistic.

 

People choose to play ships with good AA defense and stay together because they don't want to get bombed nor torped by CVs.

 

So I think reducing their AA defense for the reason that CV players can get more damage is not fair to them.

 

The idea is that this is a team-based game. Thus, facing a fleet with strong AA defense, you need to have other ships in your team to help delete them, so that you can strike the remaining force.

 

If merely a single CV were strong enough to face a fleet with strong AA defense, that would be the real problem.

 

Anyway, the solution seems to be, like you said, finding some lone ships to strike. Or, use your increased amounts of planes at higher tiers to trade for damage. Otherwise, why would they give us more planes at higher tiers.

[Destroyer_Asashio]

I used to agree with this, but then IRL by the end of WW2 conventional air attacks on USN ships, even individual destroyers, were very costly.

 

WG seems to have made the choice not to give CV their immense power IRL and make other ships a sideshow, in favor of having each class contribute something on the field. For high-tier CVs it's not mainly dealing damage anymore but mainly spotting ships and their torpedoes.

 

I've given up grinding high-tier CVs myself because of the inconsistent dmg output, but I also think giving them more power would be counterproductive.

 

If merely a single CV were strong enough to face a fleet with strong AA defense, that would be the real problem.

 

 

[Wo_9]

even isolated Iowa's/Montana/Des Moine's wipes my plane's in my Midway.  

 

i have full plane stats to but if there fully specced you just cant touch em or barely hurt them even when there alone. 

[VGLance]

The problem with CVs is the range of skill level in CV drivers. If you go based off the poor players, they need a huge buff. If you judge based on skilled player output, they need a huge nerf. 

 

Same goes with those on the receiving end. 

 

Arty and CVs are the ultimate punishers of the stupid, stubborn and complacent. We should continue to punish them, not punish those who work as a team. 

[SmokinCAT]

even isolated Iowa's/Montana/Des Moine's wipes my plane's in my Midway.  

 

i have full plane stats to but if there fully specced you just cant touch em or barely hurt them even when there alone. 

 

I just dont see that, my montana has a 100 AA rating, just left a game with a T8 Lexington and three squadrons of dive bombers lost 7 planes total between coming in and back out, I dont see that being wiping planes away.

[Carrier_Junyo]

IMHO, the bottom line should be this. 

 

A CV should not be abke to penetrate the AA perimeter of a fleet of ships that sail close to each other. A CV should be able to strike quite successfully any single isolated ship, no matter how powerful its AA. 

 

Yes, this means a Tier X CV should be able to inflict serious damage to a DM or Iowa or NC and be able to sink it in no more than 2 strike runs. 

 

This is also historically accurate, especially late war. Early war, IJN CVs were able to penetrate AA perimiter of USN task groups. 

[Reymu]

If the other team furballs, then play alligator. Some of my T7-9 and T8-10 in Hiryu and Shokaku are my best matches because I carefully picked my targets; lone DDs gambled on taking me alone, but fell to TB cross drops and manually aimed DB. Lone BBs that charged out see my TB coming from the side often come with depleted AA and my manual drops bag them. Even lone cruisers (DM/Hindeburg only exceptions) will attract my sorties.

 

The problem is CVs aren't balanced against each other, so balancing AA is impossible. Kiyo put together a very thoughtful rework on CVs, including making AS loadout viable. Once CVs are reworked, AA needs to be reworked--personally it should be the strong point of US BB starting with Colorado and US CA/CL starting with Cleveland. If AA needs nerfing to balance against reworked CVs, I'm all for it.

 

Don't need CVs roflstomping, but AA preventing the carrier doing anything is also unacceptable.

[Edgecase]

High-tier battles play out in phases. Do not attempt to attack the death ball in phase 1. Instead, establish vision on destroyers and fight for early control of caps.

 

When the death ball has spread out or been whittled down, go for kills on opportune targets. HE damage will have reduced enemy AA and maneuvering will have opened up some gaps in the AA bubble.

 

If you absolutely must attack the main fleet, you must commit all your squadrons to an alpha strike and accept that you are going to lose the entire flight. However, assisting the fleet on hard targets like an angled Yamato can completely snowball many encounters.

 

Good luck.

[BlazerSparta]

even isolated Iowa's/Montana/Des Moine's wipes my plane's in my Midway.  

 

i have full plane stats to but if there fully specced you just cant touch em or barely hurt them even when there alone. 

 

Oh please, My Hiryuu's T6 TBs can land a few torps on an Iowa. Usually even come out with 1-2 planes alive.

 

AA isn't nearly as bad as you're trying to claim.

 

Your CV victim complex is kind of disgusting when the CVs at their tier you're [edited]about are still at the top of the damage list (Essex at 2nd for T9, Midway at 3rd for T10). If AA is bad, the stats certainly aren't showing it.

[VTAdmiral]

Just wait until all the HE spam destroys all their AA mounts. That's the usual response to "AA isn't a fun mechanic" comments from carrier players.

[Edgecase]

Your CV victim complex is kind of disgusting when the CVs at their tier you're [edited]about are still at the top of the damage list (Essex at 2nd for T9, Midway at 3rd for T10). If AA is bad, the stats certainly aren't showing it.

 

IMO, this statement is lacking a lot of context, and needs to be expanded upon.

 

Essex does the second-most damage and yet is dead last in WR and XP. This suggests that Essex is capable of doing a whole lot of inconsequential damage. Specifically, since we know XP awarding is based on %health instead of raw damage, it suggests that Essex players love to bomb BBs that subsequently heal it all back, or something similarly useless. If you want to throw out XP as a broken statistic due to premium/modifiers, then that's fine; huge damage and low WR still indicates ineffective damage.

 

This is not the case for Taiho, which is first in tier for damage AND WR (and second in XP, if we're using that). Taiho also averages between 40% and 50% more kills/game than Essex, despite doing only ~20% more average damage. Essex's kills-per-game rating is in the same ballpark as other ships (0.9), while Taiho's is far, far above everything else (1.3). Hakuryu-Midway is the same story, +/- one rank slot due to Yamato and Khabarovsk bouncing around in there. USN lots of damage and few wins; IJN lots of damage and lots of wins.

 

What does that have to do with AA? Well, two things. One, is that ship-based AA overall is not preventing either carrier from getting raw damage. The planes are living long enough to deliver their payloads. So, on that note I would say that the OP's blanket statement is incorrect.

 

However, the second major point I see is that something is very importantly different between the type of damage USN carriers are capable of, and the type that IJN carriers do. The most obvious difference, of course, is torpedo versus dive bombers. Every player at T8+ knows to manually AA focus the torpedo bombers, and maneuver to avoid the torpedoes. However, IJN carriers can cross-drop torpedoes to guarantee hits. Torpedo damage is also not repairable (technically, only 10% repairable). Torpedoes have higher alpha damage than dive bombs, no RNG, and can cause incidental damage to secondary targets. Essentially, one might hypothesize that the big difference is that AA and dodging doesn't neutralize all USN CV damage; rather, it neutralizes the important (torpedo) damage at a higher rate because the single USN TB squadron gets shut down much harder than the IJN's 3. That leaves Essex and Midway with the 1000lb. dive bombers, which mostly just poop out a whole lot of easily repairable superstructure and fire damage.

 

* All stats are 2-week recent, from the NA server

[ryuukei8569]

 

IMO, this statement is lacking a lot of context, and needs to be expanded upon.

 

Essex does the second-most damage and yet is dead last in WR and XP. This suggests that Essex is capable of doing a whole lot of inconsequential damage. Specifically, since we know XP awarding is based on %health instead of raw damage, it suggests that Essex players love to bomb BBs that subsequently heal it all back, or something similarly useless. If you want to throw out XP as a broken statistic due to premium/modifiers, then that's fine; huge damage and low WR still indicates ineffective damage.

 

This is not the case for Taiho, which is first in tier for damage AND WR (and second in XP, if we're using that). Taiho also averages between 40% and 50% more kills/game than Essex, despite doing only ~20% more average damage. Essex's kills-per-game rating is in the same ballpark as other ships (0.9), while Taiho's is far, far above everything else (1.3). Hakuryu-Midway is the same story, +/- one rank slot due to Yamato and Khabarovsk bouncing around in there. USN lots of damage and few wins; IJN lots of damage and lots of wins.

 

What does that have to do with AA? Well, two things. One, is that ship-based AA overall is not preventing either carrier from getting raw damage. The planes are living long enough to deliver their payloads. So, on that note I would say that the OP's blanket statement is incorrect.

 

However, the second major point I see is that something is very importantly different between the type of damage USN carriers are capable of, and the type that IJN carriers do. The most obvious difference, of course, is torpedo versus dive bombers. Every player at T8+ knows to manually AA focus the torpedo bombers, and maneuver to avoid the torpedoes. However, IJN carriers can cross-drop torpedoes to guarantee hits. Torpedo damage is also not repairable (technically, only 10% repairable). Torpedoes have higher alpha damage than dive bombs, no RNG, and can cause incidental damage to secondary targets. Essentially, one might hypothesize that the big difference is that AA and dodging doesn't neutralize all USN CV damage; rather, it neutralizes the important (torpedo) damage at a higher rate because the single USN TB squadron gets shut down much harder than the IJN's 3. That leaves Essex and Midway with the 1000lb. dive bombers, which mostly just poop out a whole lot of easily repairable superstructure and fire damage.

 

* All stats are 2-week recent, from the NA server

 

There is a couple of caveats worth mentioning. A lot of CV players tend to tunnel vision themselves to attacking only the battleships, which is sometimes counterproductive to actually winning a game. But it is worth mentioning, top tier IJN CV's that are skilled enough can delete DD's with a lethal crossdrop where as US players have to rely on divebomber RNG to kill a destroyer. But killing or crippling enemy DD's, especially on 3 or 4 point domination gives your team a huge advantage as it gives your team better capability to control the caps.

 

IT is worth noting, Crossdrops are rarely needed against battleships as they are usually not maneuverable enough to avoid the triple TB stack of doom attack. it is also worth toring torpedo hits amidships are only reparable to 10 %. Torpedo hits to the bow and stern are reparable to 50%. But otherwise, yes you are essentially correct, IJN CV damage is more meaningful usually than USN.

[BlazerSparta]

~snip~

 

W/R is also a worthless stat though, when talking about CVs.

 

Due to mirror MM, CV W/R will always tend towards 50%, accounting for games played.

 

Thanks to mirror MM, CV W/R is only useful in discussion inter CV balance, and not for comparing CVs with anything else.

 

Exp is, of course, a bad stat since it's affected by premium, but even if it weren't, exp earned is a poor indication of actual in game power. Exp is a measure of a ship's ability to cap and deal damage, and nothing else. It can not measure the impact of spotting, or the deterrence value of an escort.

 

Looking at the rest of Midway's stats (which, admittedly, isn't much), Midway is tied with Zao and Khabarovsk for average kills, and blows away anything that isn't a CV for survival rate. Essex is tied with Udaloi for average kills, second behind Taihou.

 

Given the 

 

And, of course, there is no stat we have that can quantify the power CVs gain via utility, primarily spotting.

 

At worst, Midway has power on par with the most OP non-CVs. Hakuryu and Taihou are the most OP ships for their tier, bar none.

 

USN CVs are not weak ships, nor are CVs in general in a weak position.

 

Wo is just salty because he can't roll in and out deleting whatever he wants with minimal losses like CVs used to be able to do.

[VTAdmiral]

Wo is just salty because he can't roll in and out deleting whatever he wants with minimal losses like CVs used to be able to do.

 

It always seems to boil down to this single strawman accusation, doesn't it?

[Edgecase]

W/R is also a worthless stat though, when talking about CVs.

 

Due to mirror MM, CV W/R will always tend towards 50%, accounting for games played.

 

You correctly described what mirror MM does for the WR stat, but came to a strangely reversed conclusion about what it means.

 

If WRs are being statistically pulled toward 50%, then the "true" values are even more extreme. That means that USN CV damage is EVEN MORE ineffectual at winning games, and IJN damage is EVEN MORE potent at doing so than the displayed 45% and 55% suggest.

[1nv4d3rZ1m]

I made a thread months ago about the issue with AA and the interaction of fleets or single ships: http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/63561-aa-change-proposal

[Arvanna_1]

Because that's always the issue in the end, the CV players don't want to lose more then one or two planes out of two or three squadrons when they plow into a mass of AAA to get that point blank torp drop on that battleship and auto delete it as is their divine right as the ultimate surface warship in history. You can dress it up any way you like but it always boils down to a lot of the CV drivers wanting AAA, doesn't matter if it's a single ship or a mass, to not be capable of really blunting or stopping  their planes.

 

It's no different then if I started complaining about how unfair it is that I can't just charge my BB thru the enemy team to get at that one ship I really want to pound the snot out of behind them without getting blown to bits by the other team. An even better example would be DD drivers demanding that BB's can only be controlled via the auto nav system, cause being able to adjust speed and course  at the player's choice makes it too hard to land torpedo hits.

[BlazerSparta]

It always seems to boil down to this single strawman accusation, doesn't it?

 

Find me one indisputable stat that shows CVs are struggling against other ships.

 

The stats show that USN CV struggles against IJN CV. Nothing else.

 

If you're still complaining about not being able to do damage when your stats are as good as Wo's, then I don't know what else you can conclude.

 

You correctly described what mirror MM does for the WR stat, but came to a strangely reversed conclusion about what it means.

 

If WRs are being statistically pulled toward 50%, then the "true" values are even more extreme. That means that USN CV damage is EVEN MORE ineffectual at winning games, and IJN damage is EVEN MORE potent at doing so than the displayed 45% and 55% suggest.

 

YEs, but that fails to demonstrate that USN CVs struggle against other ships. 

 

It ONLY demonstrates that USN CVs struggle excessively against IJN CVs.

 

Compared to all other ships, USN CVs do extremely well.

[Edgecase]

YEs, but that fails to demonstrate that USN CVs struggle against other ships. 

 

It ONLY demonstrates that USN CVs struggle excessively against IJN CVs.

 

Compared to all other ships, USN CVs do extremely well.

 

I thought about it, actually, and your point about detectability of performance is correct in a vacuum, but is still missing important context. Also, for the record, we're not disagreeing about the OP's post; we've both said it's incorrect.

 

I conducted a thought experiment on how the CV matchup cross can explain the observed results. The assumptions I'm using are proportional probability of drawing an Essex vs. a Taiho (roughly 60/40 by games played), and that most Essexes in Random Matches run Strike-focused loadouts (1/1/3 instead of 3/0/2 or 2/1/1). The latter assumption is based mostly on personal experience; for now, just take it as provisional if you disagree -- this is a thought experiment, after all.

 

Consider the following damage table, where "your" carrier is on the left (rows), and the opposing team's carrier is on the top (columns):

 

	vs. Strike Essex	vs. Taiho
Strike Essex does:	100,000	15,000
Taiho does:	90,000	65,000

 

The values in the table were chosen such that they work out roughly correct for overall damage (Essex: 65k, Taiho: 80k) given the expected matchup rates: 60% of seeing an Essex, 40% of seeing a Taiho. They also reflect some very simple rules that are based in reality. In fact, they're so true that it sounds stupid to even say them:

• Strike loadouts can do a lot of damage if left unchecked
• Fighters are a natural check on bombers
• USN strike loadouts have few or no fighters, and therefore reduce enemy bomber damage by very little
• IJN loadouts all have significant numbers of fighters, and therefore reduce enemy bomber damage substantially

 

Thus, in the thought experiment damage table, Strike Essex scores big numbers against other Strike Essexes, and gets its bombers shut down horribly by Taiho, which always has at least 2 fighter squadrons. Taiho gets mostly free rein with its bombers against Strike Essex, but encounters stronger resistance from other Taihos.

 

The most interesting element here revolves around the suppressive effect that carriers have on teach others' damage... BUT ONLY to the extent that a given loadout has fighters. Thus: if most Essexes are Strike, and therefore interfere very little with each other's anti-ship activities, both Essexes will achieve inflated damage numbers in an Essex mirror match. Since Essex vs. Essex is statistically overrepresented as a T9 CV matchup (36% when it should be 25%), Essex's damage figures overrepresent its performance in low-AA environments, i.e. those which lack enemy fighters. This is actually also true for Taiho, which enjoys low-fighter environments at the similar rate (i.e. when fighting Essex).

 

So, bringing it all back together:

• I agree with issm's point that ship-based AA is not so strong that it stops high-tier aircraft strikes alone
• However, the ship-based AA network is NOT the only component of a team's AA -- fighters matter as well
  • Except, a lot of carriers don't bring many fighters, or sometimes any at all; this is mostly the more-popular USN CV line
• Thus, fighter underpopulation inflates the amount of damage carriers do
  • Especially when the low-fighter build is the most popular one

 

The important nuance I am trying to add here is that it is NOT necessarily correct to say that "carrier damage is high, therefore ships need more AA". It is also not necessarily correct to say simply that "carrier damage is high, therefore carriers are too good as a whole". Carriers put checks on each other's performance, but only to the extent that they carry fighters as part of their complement. It is this last piece that I believe the carrier balance discussion regularly fails to take into account. The balance between AA and CVs needs to take into account the strength of the entire AA network, not just its surface ship-based components. Fighters matter. If there were more fighters, CVs would do less damage. Even if you didn't take away any bombers to do it. And right now, CVs, especially USN ones, are undercontributing to their teams' AA networks, because they simply do not bring enough fighters. This, in turn, is because of the broken incentive structure for doing so.

 

TL;DR: Ship-based AA doesn't stop bombers alone, but it shouldn't. Fighters should contribute to the AA network, but the game disincentives bringing them. Fighter underpopulation inflates damage numbers for CVs. More fighters would be a better way to control CV damage than more ship AA.

 

There is an obvious circularity to the logic in this post; I made assumptions about the way carriers worked, then showed that the consequences of those assumptions match the observations. That is how thought experiments work -- the point is not to show that the proposed conditions are true, it is to show that the observed results are possible from a certain set of conditions. Thus, this post does not show that the culprit is too many people picking strike loadouts, only that it's a feasible possible explanation.

 

[BlazerSparta]

~snip~

 

Imo, you're heavily overestimating the efficacy of fighters.

 

Going down to T7, which is decidedly not a tier with fighter underpopulation, you see CVs with rather high damage numbers, relative to their tier.

 

Even Ranger, which runs the fighter package irritatingly often, pulls 6th highest average damage for the tier, 4th if you ignore Flint (which, by the very nature of how it's obtained, will have significantly more skilled players than average) and Saipan (which is friggen OP) (oh, and they're both premiums).

 

Ranger is in a similar, if not worse position than Midway, as far as putting out damage, since 2/3 of it's potential matchups (Hiryuu, Saipan) are guaranteed to have fighters, and even the remaining matchup is very likely to have fighters. Despite all that, The discrepancy between Ranger's and Hiryuu/Saipan's average damage is far smaller than the discrepancy between Hakuryu/Midway.

 

Honestly, if you ask me, USN CV's aren't at a disadvantage because of 6 plane squads vs 4 plane.

 

It's because USN depends on RNG-y dive bombers, while IJN CVs have the near certain accuracy of TBs. After all, back when USN CVs at high tiers had 2 TBs in their strike packages, they were the top CV, and they were top CV with the 6 plane squadrons.

[Desmios]

CVs need to be re-worked entirely.  USN CVs are utter garbage.

 

Wargaming has totally neglected CVs

[BlazerSparta]

CVs need to be re-worked entirely.  USN CVs are utter garbage.

 

Wargaming has totally neglected CVs

 

USN CVs are garbage compared to IJN CVs*.

 

They'll still wreck any other ship, god tier AA or not.