Some T3 and T4 games

[Max_Battle]

So I have heard and seen how good Izmail and SinOP can be in operations and I thought I might jump on the bandwagon. I got Vlad from a misison drop when that event was on, but it is my only Russian BB (apart from Okt. Rev.).

I considered FXPing up to Izmail to save some time and bother and just work up to SinOP in T6 operations. I roughly estimated 100k FXP (prolly wildly wrong but meh I'm here to shoot ships and chew bubblegum, not to do maths 😛 ).

But I thought, "nah bugger it, I'll start at the bottom and see how I go".

Stock T3 Russian BB in 3 CV battles. I went poorly. That was not fun. There's only so much turn into this and turn away from that you can do in a T3 BB...

Not fun.

Now of course there was culture shock... I have a penchant for US ships and so am accumstomed to begging planes to come TO be rather than away from me and I wasn't using skilled captains but still, that was not fun.

3 CV games and CVs divving with T3's to ensure they only fight easy prey... not fun man, just not fun.

I mean I wasn't expecting a lot as far as skilled players go when voluntarily dipping my toes back into such low tier PvP and it was of course wildly varied (can't complain about that) but CVs at that tier... what can you do?

I am neither for nor against CVs. 

BUT I kind of felt like agreeing with someone who called CV players opportunistic and only playing when and in a manner that gives them an edge.

It kind of made me angry and I felt like firing up my Nicholas or Hill and running punishment duty... but I could get T7ed (karmic reward for getting angry) so I considered refitting a Wyoming Vengeance Machine with a high level captain for pay backs.

In the end I fired up my first ever ship, literally - Yubari with DFAA. Now it's only a 10 point captain but that was a bit of tension relief.

I drove up and down in front of my allies with furious AA pew pew and though I was shooting down planes (and that felt sooo goood), it simply did not stop them dropping on the battleships.

Is there a better T3-T4 ship to run AA support?

I could not really save my team from damage... until the enemy CV players realised what I was doing and stupidly started going for me.

That was really dumb. I was stinging them, sure, but I burned my 2 DFAA early and I wasn't actually preventing them from hurting my captial ships.

So I drove off into a corner with the enemy planes hounding me like a swarm of killer bees and while they focused me, my team actually capped and we won.

But I am still left to ask the question - what is that experience like for new players?

What do you do against CVs at these low levels?

I mean I got focused in my Suvorov by all the enemy CVs at one stage and I wondered exactly what support I could even ask for from my team? I mean there's no Atlanta to beg for cover and no ship that can really do AA cover...?

I'm not really complaining, I mean I have the luxury of FXPing to where I need to be, but a couple of low tier games in a BB just got me asking questions.

[Reinhard_of_Avercland]

The problem is basically what's wrong with the MM which is the only rework we need. Tiers were supposed to be how we could compare one ship's strength with the others. However WG got a brilliant idea to put ships of "X" tier, and "Y" tier in the same pool (they include ships of "Z" tier sometimes).

9 hours ago, Max_Battle said:

Is there a better T3-T4 ship to run AA support?

Unfortunately there is none.

9 hours ago, Max_Battle said:

But I am still left to ask the question - what is that experience like for new players?

I did an experiment on that subject. All new players have the "protected MM" to keep them away from facing against the human-controlled CVs until they have unlocked their first CV. Then there is another layer of the "protected MM" that prevents them to get into full PvP Randoms until they play one battle in a T5 ship.

[Pervis117]

11 hours ago, Max_Battle said:

 

Is there a better T3-T4 ship to run AA support?

 

Yes there is. Orion.

I break the 50K aa damage bar about once every 4/5 games where there's at least 2 cvs in it while playing Orion.

And I dont have any AA skills taken in the commander cause after the rework it isnt worth it.  

[Max_Battle]

9 hours ago, Sir_Feather said:

I did an experiment on that subject. All new players have the "protected MM" to keep them away from facing against the human-controlled CVs until they have unlocked their first CV. Then there is another layer of the "protected MM" that prevents them to get into full PvP Randoms until they play one battle in a T5 ship.

Hmm. I recently made a couple of alt accounts. Max_British and Max_Baguette, UK and French focused respectively.

I faced 2 CVs in PvP in the T4 French BB. I know because it really stood out.

The account was sub 100 battles and at least one of the enemy CV players had about 5k battles when I checked his profile after the battle.

I was surprised and it really stood out for me because I had been led to believe that couldn't happen on such a new account.

I just checked the stats on the French alt: https://wowstats.org/stats/sea/max_baguette/

The account has only 57 PvP matches on record... 57 "real" games and I assure you, there is zero protection for that account of any kind against any level of player or ship type and has not been since T4... after only 57 battles.

Again, I'm not really complaining, it was kind of interesting and exciting but it just seemed to show that the "new account protection" is not clearly defined.

And being French, of course, there has been no CV unlocked on that account at any time.

[Sparcie]

The low tier Russian BBs are pretty poor if you ask me. The T3 in particular has poor armour and AA while not having anything that is particularly good. The T4 Gangut isn't as bad, but still is a bit of a pain. The first bearable ship is the T5, and it's just ok. Izmail is a bit of a glass cannon, but can do well.

 I think there's an up-surge in T4 CVs because they increased their firepower recently. Before the increase they were a bit impotent, but now have more capability, although on their own they lack firepower still. The problem I found stemmed from there being too many CV's in each match, and them all ganging up on individual ships. If you face an individual CV you can dodge and shoot down some planes, but when they come at you as a group you're boned.