AA builds vs CV's in game

[Silence_CN]

Well, I may be the exception  but I didn't do anything on my ships to improve AA. I just use the values I know and it works rather well.
Someone said earlier that a skilld red CV player would know the game enough not to come back to some ships (Colbert's or EU DDs' friends, come to me). And this is very true.
I don't play CV and am certainly not a very good player, but I have now a bit of skill to get rid of airplanes. There are a lot of solutions.
The thing is that I don't really see the point of fitting  a ship with AA when, most of the time, another more useful equipment can be mounted. Personal opinion of course and there are exceptions I admit.

To be fair, if a CV really wants to sink me, it will succeed. It's only a matter of time, whatever the ship I play (or so).

But when a good CV player sees his first squadron be deleted in a few seconds (sometimes without being able to drop bombs/torps/rockets), he never comes back. Only bad players keep losing airplanes.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Silence_CN

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

3 hours ago, Silence_CN said:

To be fair, if a CV really wants to sink me, it will succeed. It's only a matter of time, whatever the ship I play (or so).

Indeed.

This is my attitude when playing full AA spec NorCal and Iowa. I want to play on the flank, and the AA helps discourage CVs from punishing me too quickly for doing so...

...but I fully know that if the CV wants me dead, I will die...I'm just raising the cost to kill me.

3 hours ago, Silence_CN said:

But when a good CV player sees his first squadron be deleted in a few seconds (sometimes without being able to drop bombs/torps/rockets), he never comes back. Only bad players keep losing airplanes.

The really good CV players don't even lose the planes...they just see you and go elsewhere.

[Aethervox]

5 hours ago, Silence_CN said:

Only bad players keep losing airplanes.

doesn't matter, if the CV hangar has endless planes

2 hours ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

good CV players don't even lose the planes.

not many, at any rate

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

4 minutes ago, Aethervox said:

doesn't matter, if the CV hangar has endless planes

It doesn't have endless planes...the problem is that plane loss is almost entirely in the control of the CV captain. There is almost no situation that forces him to lose planes unless he chooses to lose them.

WG intentionally balanced the class by number of people playing them...

They are doing the same with subs...

...which is part of the problem with the upcoming changes. If they make CVs too difficult to play, no one will play them and WG management will have to buff them again.

[Aethervox]

1 minute ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

It doesn't have endless planes...

 RTS CVs had finite number of planes meaning they could & did get to 0 planes. Reworked CVs never run out of planes & everyone but you, apparently, knows that.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

24 minutes ago, Aethervox said:

 RTS CVs had finite number of planes meaning they could & did get to 0 planes. Reworked CVs never run out of planes & everyone but you, apparently, knows that.

Sigh.

The game is time limited. There IS a limit to how many planes a CV can have in each match.

Usually somewhere between 75-150 strike planes...depending on the specifics of the CV regen rate and deck reserves.

So, yes...there is actually a finite number of planes...because the match has a finite length.

My point, is that during RTS days there was an active set of fighters that could chase down enemy strike planes and IMPOSE losses on them.

Now? So long as my planes aren't in the AA bubble of an enemy ship or the small fighter radius of an enemy fighter...they are literally immune to loss.

[mashed68]

Couple more Johan full AA build games last night, no cv's. 
Played no AA Massachusettes, napoli, and alsace as well. All cv games. 

[Unlooky]

On 12/18/2023 at 8:50 AM, ArIskandir said:

AA skills sinergize perfectly with Dutch CAs, so there's no reason to not take them. Some other cruiser lines like the RN CLs don't have any other clear and better choice so they can invest in AA without sacrifying anything relevant. 

Not sure exactly what RN CLs you're playing but that's definitely not true.

All these skills provide great value to the ships in the line. There is not a single one worth dropping for an AA skill. 

 

 

[ArIskandir]

2 hours ago, Unlooky said:

Not sure exactly what RN CLs you're playing but that's definitely not true.

All these skills provide great value to the ships in the line. There is not a single one worth dropping for an AA skill. 

 

 

I sometimes used a more support oriented build (as in AA). Ditch Radar, RPF and the consumable enhancements. Radar Mino can be fun but I already had Ragnar that does a similar job but better. 

[Spent_AlimonyOnKitakami]

The unfortunate truth is that most ships with AA that is worth building into get completely smashed by anything else

Take particularly CLs, Halland, even Gouden with BB fire and weakness to 30mm overmatch or 30mm pen HE, there isn't a really tanky AA ship

Other than a few asides like skills that buff AA as a side benefit, AA builds are just not worth it, even on Asia.

I do have a friend who loves the 4 pt AA skill for cruisers which recently got buffed to cut your consumable CD time even more, which is nice for some consumables like MBRB which take forever to recharge, and he basically uses it on every ship that has it. However, that particularly suits his playstyle and I don't reccomend anyone else doing it