ship review Tier 8 premium CV review USS Enterprise (Revised edition for 0.10.0)

[Well_DoneX3]

 

Greetings, fellow captains! This time, I will be reviewing the best tier 8 premium aircraft carrier Enterprise. Since she has been removed from the premium shop, this review will mostly uncover the reason why she is no longer purchasable.

 

 

 

A.   Technical & historical overview

A Yorktown-class strike aircraft carrier that combined a number of key characteristics typical for this type of ship: a large air group, superbly assembled take-off and landing equipment that allowed her to launch a large number of squadrons, good speed and powerful AA defenses. Historically, she participated in more major actions of the war against Japan than any other USN ships. On three occasions during the Pacific War, the Japanese announced that she had been sunk in battle, inspiring her nickname The Grey Ghost.

 

 

 

B.   Comparison with premium CV of same tier

I apologize for not including Indomitable in these comparisons because her release on the premium shop was right after this review was completely composed.

 

a)      Plane hitpoint (HP) without another addition factor

 

 

Firstly, let’s look at the base/raw HP of Enterprise’s planes and the comparison with the other three tier 8 premium CV. Enterprise uses F6F Hellcat rocket attackers (RA) that has 1400 HP per plane, making it the second tankiest RA per unit after Saipan. She utilizes SB2C Helldiver with 1980 HP as dive bomber (DB) and TBF Avenger with 1800 HP as torpedo bomber (TB). Again, those two plane types are the second tankiest after those on Saipan.

Meanwhile in an attacking flight of RA, the planes have the most HP compared to all tier 8 premium CV. For both attacking flights of DB & TB, the planes have the second most HP after Kaga’s. These are the same for the total HP of all planes in her whole complete squadron. Despite losing to Saipan in term of RA HP per unit of plane, Enterprise’s full squadron of RA has more total HP because she brings 12 planes in one squadron instead of 6 for Saipan.

 

 

b)      Hangar capacity with Flight Control Modification I upgrade

 

 

Flight Control Modification I is the fifth slot upgrade that adds 2 more aircrafts on the deck for each type of plane. With this upgrade installed, Enterprise has 20 RA, 16 DB and 16 TB on her hangar from the beginning of the match, summing up to 52 aircrafts. Based on the figure above, she is the second tier 8 premium CV having the most number of RA after Kaga. She has the same number of DB with Graf Zeppelin. For the number of ready TB on her deck, she is second after Kaga with 38 TB followed by Graf Zeppelin with 14 TB.

After taking off a full squadron of 12 RA, she is left with 8 RA on her hangar. A full squadron of her DB and TB consists of 9 planes each. She will have 7 DB and 7 TB left after taking off a full squadron of each plane type. All of these remaining planes on deck cause the follow-up squadrons to be incomplete. To overcome this, her player is advised to drop off the ammunition once for TB and DB or twice for RA into the sea/terrain for a complete follow-up squadron formation. This is elaborated more in the recommended playstyle later.

 

 

c)      Aircraft restoration time with Aircraft Supremacy commander skill and FGM1 upgrade

 

 

Other than adding two extra aircrafts on the deck, FGM 1 upgrade also shortens the aircraft restoration time by 5% whereas Air Supremacy commander skill gives 5% reduction to the time taken for aircraft restoration. By taking both of these upgrade and skill, the aircraft restoration time for Enterprise is reduced and the final restoration time taken for all three types of aircraft on her deck are shown in the figure above. One rocket attacker only takes 44 seconds for restoration which is the shortest among the tier 8 premium CV. One torpedo bomber only needs 54 seconds for restoration which is the shortest compared to the others. However, the dive bomber restoration time takes 5 seconds longer than that of Kaga which is 69 seconds for Enterprise compared to 64 seconds for Kaga. In conclusion, her RA and TB take less than one minute for restoration per unit which is unique when compared to the other tier 8 CV.

 

 

d)      Aircraft cruising and maximum speed with Improved Engine commander skill

 

 

The figures above show the aircraft cruising and maximum speed respectively after taking Improved Engine commander skill which increases the aircraft speed by 2.5%. Rocket attackers are the fastest plane type that Enterprise has which cruise at 164.0 knots and can reach up to 204.0 knots with engine boost usage. When compared to the other tier 8 premium CV, her RA is second fastest after Saipan’s at 180.4 knots of cruising speed. However, her TB and DB are the slowest among all tier 8 premium CV at 123.0 knots and 128.1 knots of cruising speed respectively. Fortunately, the slow speed of these planes gives them excellent maneuverability, allowing them to turn fast with maximum deceleration if someone decides to turn back to attack the same target.

 

 

e)      Strike planes

• Rocket attackers

 

Maximum rocket damage: 1900

Rocket penetration capability: 27 mm

Base fire chance of rocket: 7 %

Enterprise uses 5-inch FFAR as her rocket which has maximum damage of 1900 per rocket with 27 mm armor penetration capability and 7% raw chance of causing fire. She has 4 attack runs in a full squadron with 3 planes per attack run. One plane brings 6 rockets. Therefore, she has 18 rockets per attack run. The aiming reticule is horizontal-shaped similar to HVAR rockets on Lexington.

 

Based on the graph shown above, her rockets armor penetration capability is 27 mm which is tied up with that of Kaga. They are very excellent against DD and good on lightly-armored cruisers. For BB, you need to aim for the superstructure especially for high tier BB as they are heavily armored. But here is the conundrum; the rockets are not good against targets with saturated damage on superstructure. If such case happens, just hope that the target will catch fire with the 7 % base fire chance. Her rocket base fire chance is also the worst compared to the other tier 8 premium CV.

 

• Dive bombers

 

 

AP bomb maximum damage: 4900

Potential AP bombs maximum damage per strike run: 29400

Enterprise utilizes AN-M62 AP bomb that deals 4900 damage per bomb. Since there are only two tier 8 premium CV with AP bombs, Shokaku and August von Parseval are added to the comparison for more diversity. Enterprise bomb is the weakest among the other tier 8 CV with AP bomb as they have less penetration capability, meaning that they citadel less BB. But to make up for that, she drops 6 bombs per attack run compared to 2 for Graf Zeppelin and 3 for Shokaku & AvP. If she managed to score 6 perfect citadel on her target, she could deal up to 29400 damage per attack run. This is really deadly against cruisers of lower tiers such as Aoba and Yorck which are easy targets for Devastating Strike.

 

Due to having 6 AP bombs in an attack run, her drop reticule is really huge when compared to that of Shokaku. The drop reticule is oval shaped just like the bombs on other CV except for Graf Zeppelin. Starting from update 0.8.4, the bombs drop closer to the edge rather than the centre of the aiming reticule. Getting consistent multiple citadels in a single attack seems to be a difficult task especially against small-sized CL such as Smolensk. Still, her bombs are special because their aiming is not affected by movement unlike other AP bombers of other CV of which the aiming reticule will not shrink during maneuvering. This allows players to line up perfect alignment on target while having the aiming reticule shrinking to maximum accuracy at the same time.

 

• Torpedo bombers

 

Torpedo alpha damage per unit: 6467

Torpedo speed with Torpedo Acceleration skill: 37 knots

Torpedo range with Torpedo Acceleration skill: 2.9 km

Torpedo activation distance with Torpedo Acceleration skill: 430 m

Torpedo flooding chance: 52 %

Enterprise uses Mk.13-2 torpedoes which are the same torpedoes used by Saipan and Lexington. One torpedo deals 6467 damage which is the highest among the other tier 8 premium CV only to be tied up with Saipan. In a strike run, she could drop 3 torpedoes and potentially deal up to 19401 damage omitting the damage reduction by torpedo bulge on target. In a full squadron of 9 TB, she could hypothetically deal up to 58203 damage given that all planes survive from being shot down by AA and all 9 torpedoes hit the target(s).

Enterprise has slow torpedoes moving at 35 knots that taking Swift Fish commander skill is kind of necessary. With SF skill, the torpedoes move at 37 knots with 3.9 km range which is the shortest among tier 8 premium CV other than Saipan. However, the major advantage of her torpedoes compared to the other tier 8 premium CV is that she has the shortest aiming distance at 430 m and by taking SF skill, her player can drop the torpedoes closer than that of other tier 8 premium CV to the target so that the target has less reaction time to dodge them especially if it is BB with bad maneuverability.

 

 

f)      Secondaries

 

Minimum firing range: 4.5 km

Maximum damage per secondary HE shell: 1800

Reload time of secondary guns: 6 seconds

HE penetration capability: 20 mm

Chance of secondary shell causing fire on target: 5 %

Enterprise is equipped with eight turrets of single 127 mm/38 Mk24 secondary guns that could fire up to 4.5 km without any other modifier. Her 4.5 km secondary range is standard for all tier 8 CV excluding the secondaries monster, Graf Zeppelin. The HE penetration capability of Enterprise’s secondary guns is just 20 mm which means they are not made for secondary brawl against BB and CA. If you found yourself doing this, you are playing her wrong. It is not worth speccing for her secondary because it is not the way you should play her.

 

 

g)      Anti-aircraft capability

 

Long range AA = 0.1 – 5.8 km

Long range aura damage per second = 77.0 dps (100% hitrate)

AA explosions within far range AA = 4 flaks with 1400 damage each

Medium range AA = 0.1 – 3.5 km

Medium range aura damage per second = 315.0 dps (100% hitrate)

Short range AA = 0.1 – 2.0 km

Short range aura damage per second = 367.5 dps (95% hitrate)

Enterprise has a very excellent AA capability among the other tier 8 CV. Her AA guns consist of 50 units of single 20 mm Oerlikon Mk4, eight units of dual 40 mm Bofors Mk1, six units of quadruple 40 mm Bofors Mk2 and eight units of single 127 mm/58 Mk24. Her raw AA damage per second sums up to 759.5 dps excluding the hitrate and reduction due to overlapping AA auras. Her AA flaks spawn for 1.51 s every 5 s from 3.5 km to 5.8 km range with 1400 damage per flak. Other than having reliable AA guns, she also has 4 AI-controlled carrier-based fighters that automatically orbit the hull within 3 km radius for 10 minutes once the hull is spotted. With these outstanding AA defenses, any attempt by the enemy CV for carrier-sniping will be unimaginably difficult unless if the enemy CV somehow manages to dodge the flak and drop torpedoes at point blank range without Enterprise’s fighters engaging the hostile TB on time. Therefore, her player is advised to always move her if such threat were to happen.

 

 

h)      Hull hit point

 

 

Enterprise’s hull has base HP of 51400 that ranks her the third among the other tier 8 premium CV. Starting from update 0.10.0, Survivability Expert skill no longer gives extra HP to CV hull. Hull HP doesn’t really matter because a CV is still functional as long as she is not deplaned and her hull is still afloat.

 

 

f)      Maximum detectability by sea and air

 

Among the other tier 8 premium CV, Enterprise has the second worst maximum concealment at 14.14 km by sea and 11.02 by air; her concealment is only better than Graf Zeppelin.  Historically, Yorktown-class aircraft carriers are relatively large when compared to the other tier 8 premium CV with overall length of ≈251 m which, when represented in the game, causes her to have low concealment. To sum up, being too close to the combat area is dangerous because any player who pays attention to their enemy might snipe you down.  

 

 

j)      Hull speed, rudder shift and anti-torpedo bulge protection

 

 

Enterprise moves at 32.5 knots which makes her second fastest tier 8 premium CV after Saipan. Her rudder shift time is 13.1 seconds with 1.07 km turning circle radius. Comparing to other premium tier 8 CV, this means that she can dodge torpedoes slightly better than them. However, it does not mean you should attempt to do so. Her torpedo bulge is also the best among tier 8 premium CV at 28%. Again, this does not mean that her player should take some torpedoes.

 

 

k)      Squadron’s patrol fighter consumable

One of Enterprise’s specialty is her squadron’s patrol fighter consumable. One summonable patrol fighter has approximately 360 HP. When used, it summons a dreadful squadron of 10 fighters that will patrol a circular area of 7.2 km diameter for one minute. One strike squadron can only summon up to 3 patrol fighter squadrons once at a time with 10 seconds reload after the fighters squadron timer expired, got shot down or engaged hostile aircrafts.  The fighter patrol radius is really big that it can cover the entire capture point such as B point on Shard map. The proper usage of these fighters will be discussed later in the recommended playstyle section.

 

 

 

C.   Recommended build

Assuming you already own Enterprise, you are advised to take the following commander skills in the order shown below.

The first four commander skills are basic skills for all CV regardless of tier. Take Improved Engines as your fifth skill to buff up your aircraft cruising speed by 2.5%. With this skill, the RA will cruise at 164.0 knots whereas the DB and TB will cruise at 128.1 knots and 123.0 knots respectively. Faster speed means that the planes will travel within AA auras in shorter duration thus slightly reducing the AA damage to them. This is to ensure that most planes will safely arrive to their target and drop their ammunition.

Next, take Concealment Expert and Sight Stabilization skills. You can take CE first followed by SS as your final skill or vice versa. CE reduces your hull and squadron detectability by 10%. By taking it, your hull surface detectability is reduced to 12.73 km whereas all of your squadrons have a reduced detectability of 9 km. SS provides some benefits to your attack aim; it gives extra 7.5% of aiming speed for the rocket attackers & torpedo bombers and extra 15% of aiming speed for the dive bombers. This allows the aiming reticules to be shrunk to the minimum size faster especially for rocket attackers and dive bombers.

As usual, take Aircraft Supremacy  as your first captain skill for 5% faster aircraft restoration time. Secondly, take Swift Fish for slightly faster torpedo. With this skill, the torpedoes will move at 37 knots rather than 35 kts without. Starting from update 0.10.0, the torp acceleration skill no longer shortens the total range of the torp so it is worthy to take this skill. Next, take Aircraft Armor for 10% less continuous AA dps followed by Survivability Expert to further buff up the HP of all aircrafts.

            You can consider taking Enhanced Aircraft Armor for 25% reduced AA damage taken from AA flak. As a tier 8 CV, you will always be uptiered to tier 10 matches of which the ships of that tier have insane AA flak walls that can obliterate the entire squadron if you’re being careless by hitting them. However, this skill is only useful if you accidentally hit the AA flaks during attacking run because Enterprise’s squadrons especially the rocket attackers are really big that sometimes even if you try your best to avoid the AA flaks, the rightmost or leftmost planes will still hit the AA flaks. Having this skill does not mean that you can simply try to go through the AA flak clouds because if the flaks are generated during DFAA usage, your planes will be instantly decimated right away.

            For the sixth skill, take Improved Engines for 2.5% faster squadron speed. Being able to fly faster means that you will reach your targets faster and at the same time to reduce the contact time with AA so that at least one attack is guaranteed successful. This skill is also important for the flight group that has dropped their payload to climb faster to the safe altitude without being exposed for too long to the AA of enemy ship(s). After that, pick Repair Specialist for one additional Squadron Repair Party for your torpedo bomber squadron and literally 0.5s longer action time. With this skill, the TB squadron has a total of 4 heals with 5.5s action time per usage. The 3 minutes cooldown time between usage however remains unchanged though. Lastly, take Proximity Fuze to bypass the anti-torpedo bulge by 10%. This skill is really useful against high tiers BB as most of them have excellently high anti-torp bulge such as Yamato and her sisters.  

            If you do not want the extra torpedo damage from PF, take Sight Stabilization as eight skill followed by Improved Engine Boost as final skill. With SS, all your squadrons will be able to aim faster by 7.5%. It is important to take this skill if you want to hunt DD with the rocket attackers because unlike Tiny Tims, the reticle of FFAR rockets do not aim fast. If you like to use the unreliable AP dive bombers, this skill is also helpful to quickly tighten the bomb reticle so that you can drop with slightly better accuracy. IEB gives extra 10% engine boost time that can make or break the game. With this skill, the TB & DB squadrons will gain extra 2 seconds engine boost time which means that they can fly at maximum speed for 22 seconds.

 

For the upgrades, consider taking the following.

The first two upgrades from left are no-brainers because they are the basic upgrades that all CV should have. Take Attack Aircraft Modification 1 to increase your rocket aiming time from 5 to 7 seconds. This is important if your rocketing target is a DD so that you have extra time for aiming in case if the enemy DD is smart enough to turn off her AA and by the time she is spotted again, the RA might still be in aiming phase that you have sufficient time to attack the DD. For the fourth slot upgrade, you can choose to take either Torpedo Bomber Modification 2 or Dive Bomber Modification 2. These upgrades give extra 7.5% of health to individual HP of the type of designated strike aircraft. The effects of taking either of these upgrades together with Survivability Expert skill are shown below.

 

Maximum hitpoint of TB with SE and TBM2 = 2135

Maximum hitpoint of DB with SE and DBM2 = 2328

 

Personally, I would take TBM2 because the torpedoes are more reliable than the AP bombs with wonky dispersion. You might argue that the TB squadron already has heal that taking TBM2 is kind of useless. Due to the recent AA buffs of which AA focuses on a single plane rather than the final attack reserve group, I find that the heal is sort of iffy; thus taking TBM2 might be better than DBM2. If you are confident that your TB can drop their ordinance on enemy ships after surviving the combined AA of a few grouped ships, then take DBM2 instead and hope that you get more than 2 bomb hits per attack on enemy ship. Lastly, take Flight Control Modification 1 for 5% faster aircraft restoration time and adding 2 more aircrafts to the hangar for each plane type.

 

 

 

D.   Recommended playstyle

If you are an owner of Enterprise and consistently get good result playing her, then feel free to skip this section. If you own her but are having difficult time playing her and getting good result, kindly read this section. This section will cover the tips for the usage of all the attack squadrons and your summon fighter consumable.

First of all, rocket attackers is your second main source of damage after your torpedo bombers. The RA are really fast with 164 knots cruising speed and 205 knots maximum speed with engine boost usage. Always use them to scout the enemy and know the position of their DDs. If you get into a tier 10 match, drop your rockets into the ocean/onto the terrain once and let the other three attack runs/groups/flights scout the enemy team. If you encounter a DD during the scout, slow down and take your time to aim and hit it. If you somehow overshoot the enemy DD because of sudden encounter when you are moving at maximum speed, summon your fighters by pressing the button assigned for it. 10 AI-controlled fighters will spot the enemy DD for you so that you know where to lead your rocket aiming reticule. Please be mindful that it takes roughly 4 seconds for your rocket attacking group to detach from the squadron into the attack mode. Therefore, you can start your attack run 3 km from your target. Accelerate using the speed boost if the target is running away from you. With AAM1, you have only 7 seconds to aim and hit your target. If you are going to attack the same target, slow down after your RA passes it by 2.5-2.8 km, make a U-turn and start your attack run. If you slow down after 3.0 km, your RA might hit the flaks that spawn starting from 3.5 km distance during the turn.

Your AP bombs are useful against battleships, large cruisers, Kaga, tier 6 CV and a few heavy cruisers. The citadel hits are not always consistent. Sometimes, you might get regular penetration or over-penetration if you drop the bombs from lowest altitude. If the enemy maneuvers during your bombing attack, your bombs will probably be ricocheted. To overcome these problems, always drop your bombs from maximum altitude for CL and medium to slightly high altitude for BB & CA. If you are going to bomb multiple ships using a single DB squadron, always plan your bombing targets ahead to maximize your damage output while minimizing your plane losses. Starting from update 0.8.4, the bombs fall closer to the edge of the aiming reticule more often and more rarely at its center. Refer to the following diagram for the distribution of the AP bombs at maximum aiming tightness.

 

 

Yes, the bombs distribution is that bad! If you are unfortunate like me, you will get no hit at all even if the target ship is fully inside your aiming reticule. To marginally mitigate this problem, do not aim in a way that the crosshair of the aiming reticule is on top of the target ship. Instead, make sure that the longer vertical line inside the crosshair is on the broadside of your target.

 

 

Slingshot is highly recommended for the usage of the AP bombs. It is a technique of which the bombs are dropped into the sea/onto a terrain from a distance that the remaining dive bombers will be launched/thrown forward at high speed without taking any AA damage including damage by AA flaks. This is useful if you have to attack a threat of excellent AA or grouped enemy ships without losing too much DB during the attacking phase. For Enterprise’s DB, the slingshot distance is about 7–8 km. If the target is moving towards your DB with speed boost, start from 8 km and then adjust your bomb aiming accordingly. If they do not bother to move at all, then start your slingshot at 7 km. For a target running away from your DB, your bombers might be thrown outside of their 3.5 km AA range, causing the target to spawn AA flaks. Try to decelerate and maneuver your bombers to avoid those flaks. If you are the bottom tier ship of the match and the higher tier ships are grouped up together, find any straggler to be bombed. Do not even hesitate to bomb an isolated DD because overpen hits are better than nothing.  Slingshot has been murdered by WG themselves due to the constant whines of the Ledditards. Hooray!!!!! 

Lastly, you have strong torpedoes that can be dropped on basically everyone in the enemy team. Together with Swift Fish skill, the torpedoes move at 37 knots with slightly diverging pattern. The short arming distance of 430 m means that you can drop fairly close to the enemy ship. If the enemy does not pay attention to your TB and moves in a straight line, all of your torpedoes might hit them. If they turn inside that they are facing your TB, drop earlier and hope that the torpedoes will arm before hitting the bow or any part of the enemy ship. If they turn outside, just do an angled drop and hope that at least one torpedo will catch the running ship. In case if the three torpedoes do not hit the ship running away, try to flank them and drop from the side.

Your TB has repair party consumable that heals 10% of your TB total health. Always instantly use it as soon as your TB enters the AA zone(s) of enemy ship so that the entire squadron will not be depleted quickly. You can also use it when the hostile fighters are engaging your TB. You know that your TB are being engaged by hostile fighters when you start to hear the sound of the fighters’ machineguns. Press the button assigned for the squadron repair party to survive the engagement. But, this does not guarantee the survivability of your TB because it is heavily RNG-dependent. Therefore, try not to attack an enemy with active catapult fighter or let your squadron enter a summon fighter zone.

An attacking flight of TB can drop up to 3 torpedoes per attack provided that all the attacking planes survive from enemy AA. If enemy ships are clumped up together that all your TB might die before even dropping their payload, drop the first three torpedoes into the sea/onto a terrain and let the other 6 planes attack them. Your TB are also good against ship hiding in smoke. If an enemy ship conceals itself in smoke, just drop your torpedoes into the smoke to flush them out or mess up their positioning. If they do not pay enough attention to your TB or if they do not have allied (opposing for you) ship or squadron to help spotting your TB for them, they might catch one or two of your torpedoes! 

Squadron’s summon fighters consumable is an indispensable tool for Enterprise due to their huge patrolling radius. Its primary purpose is to spot the enemies for your team and as stated a few paragraphs back, it helps your rocket aiming run against enemy DD with AA guns turned off. Its patrolling diameter is 7.2 km that it could potentially cover the whole capture point to cause an area denial against enemy ship especially destroyers that might try to approach the capture point. If an enemy ship tries to get into the capture point with the summon fighters consumable being active, your teammates might be able to shoot it unless if the opponent decides to lay down in smoke.

Other than area denial, the summon fighters are good for team AA support especially for your team’s DD. If you see a ship in your team especially DD being harassed by enemy CV or in most cases, the enemy CV spawns summon fighters on a smoking allied DD, it is your job to give them AA support by summoning fighters over them. With a total of 10 fighters, the summon fighters are able to decimate an entire enemy squadron given that the opposing CV captain does not pay attention to where their squadron is flying into.

You can even use the summon fighters consumable to kill any catapult fighters used by enemy ships (cruiser and battleship) so that the catapult fighters will engage your summon fighters instead of your attacking squadron. For example, you are trying to attack a North Carolina with TB but the BB is using catapult fighters for self-defense against your TB. A North Carolina using Direction Center for Fighters skill has 4 catapult fighters. Therefore, summon your patrol fighters using the button assigned for them so that the hostile catapult fighters engage them instead of your TB. You can even destroy enemy’s spotting aircraft using this tactic too!

The summon fighters can also be used for potential allied BB sniping against enemy CV. This is a useful tactic if you are in a division with two BB that use spotting aircraft such as Enterprise-Amagi-Monarch division. Keep in mind that the AA of most tier 8 CV can extend up to 5.8 km only. Thus, you can summon your patrol fighters 9.6 km from the enemy CV then ask your allied BB or the BB you are in a division with to use spotting catapult plane to snipe it from a distance. Be wary that the enemy CV could use this tactic against you too. If such case happens, move your hull away from the hostile summon fighters. Fly your attack squadron to the edge of the summoned hostile fighters’ area and then summon your own patrol fighters. This will negate the spotting threat against you.

 

 

 

E.   Skill floor, skill ceiling and team carry potential

For new CV players in general, Enterprise is neutrally forgiving. With AS skill and FGM1 upgrade, her plane restoration time is really fast when compared to other tier 8 CV with one unit of TB and RA takes less than one minute for restoration. Only the DB takes 1 minute 9 seconds for restoration per unit. Even with this advantage, her player should always be preservative with their planes especially against ships of higher tiers.

If you have remarkably became skilled at Enterprise, it would be easy for you to decimate the enemy team especially if they decide to stay apart from each other and you are the top tier of the match. The rockets are very devastating against destroyers. In addition, the AP dive bombers are good against cruisers and battleships. With these two armaments, you can opt not to use torpedoes at all during the first 13-15 minutes of the match. It is easy to get High Caliber and Confederate in this CV once you have fully mastered it.

 

 

 

F.   Should you regret for not getting her?

Why is this section titled like that? Well, it is because Enterprise is no longer available to be purchased in the premium shop and the armory. The following reasons are why you should regret your decision for not purchasing her while she was still for sale.

 

i) For Random battle

Yes, Enterprise is very viable in Random battle regardless of which tier you end up in. Her planes are relatively tanky and if you lose 3 or 4 planes while attacking the enemies, they regenerate fast enough that you will get another full squadron in a short time. If you are the top tier in the match, you can single-handedly carry the whole team given that your team does not derp too much.

 

ii) For Ranked/Competitive

Are they still doing King of The Sea at tier 8? For tier 8 Ranked, Enterprise is a great support ship with her enormous squadron of patrol fighters that can protect your friendly destroyers against enemy CV attack. Your plane armaments are good enough to kill or at least damage any lone enemy ship that tries to flank your team. In addition, your hull AA is excellent that any CV snipe attempts by the enemy CV can be unpleasant for them.

As my final conclusion for this section, I would say that Enterprise is relevant in any game mode. Congratulations if you own this marvelous CV! Contrariwise, I feel sorry if you do not manage to get her while she was being sold. If you adore Enterprise due to her being the most decorated USN ship during the war or because you are just a weaboo who fall in love with her Azur Lane self, you might have purchased it when she was in the premium shop.

 

 

 

G.   Final verdict

Garbage	=	Completely inept and critically in need of several buffs to make her relevant.
Mehbote	=	Average ship. Has strengths and drawbacks. A couple of buffs are needed to make her slightly advantageous.
Gudbote	=	A strong ship that has apparent competitive strengths and unique features that make it very pleasing.
OVERPOWERED	=	A ship with very clear benefits over all of its same tier competitors and unbalancing the game with its presence

 

 

Indeed, she is the most overpowered tier 8 CV. She has decent strike capability, excellent plane restoration time and is able to provide good AA support for the team. The only tier 8 CV with the closest playstyle to her is USS Lexington which has access to HVAR rockets with better penetration value. However, be reminded that Enterprise has a few advantages compared to Lexington. For example, one torpedo bomber on Enterprise is restored 18 seconds faster than that of Lexington. At the hands of unicums, Enterprise can easily dominates the battle due to her strong influence.

 

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H.   Special thanks

 

Screenshots providers

[TENGO] Kitsune_Ivy

[TT-R] TTierR

[HTBT] Denarmo

 

Raw data collector

Aiharaterumi

 

Proofreader

[KNCOL] Tutorial_Target

 

Original review format

[WG-CC] LittleWhiteMouse

 

 

 

 

^{P/S: I am not LittleWhiteMouse. The next one will be Kaga 's review but it may be done in February due to me having to work extra time and playing Kancolle.}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[S4pp3R]

Great review!

As I was reading it I was like 'surely he's going to give it an OP rating...'

I hate the Enterprise more than any other ship lately, even more than Smolensk, and I'll tell you why...

I keep running into poor players running Enterprise with Super Unicum results...

That I've checked, I've seen 3 in the last week alone...

We're talking about players with sub-50% WR in Shokaku and half the average damage of their Enterprise.

I'm not doing this to stat shame, we all have bad ships (go check my Yamato WR, yep for some reason I can make the whole line work cept Yama-chan, you have no idea how painful that is).

But to be an objectively poor-average player and a T8 premium CV makes you a Super Unicum... ...

It just frustrates me is all...

[Metal_illness]

Yes awesome information.

There are plenty of over powered unbalanced ships STILL in the tech tree, or can get in armoury etc.

 

SO WHY DID WG REMOVE A CV?.

Because of the bad press CV have got, encouraging players to leave the game (CV are akin to SPG in WoT in reputation and hate).

Was it FAIR for ANY CV Captains they removed the Enterprise?.

 

NO!. Now I gotta face them in my "you're torpedoes are your strength" but actually kaga torps are extremely weak, as shown in your information.

Each torp strike to a hull does 2- 3.5k dmg and very very rarely do I get floodings.

SO WHEN ARE WG GONNA REMOVE THE SMOLENSK??.

[Well_DoneX3]

7 minutes ago, Dread_Pirate_BlackHeart said:

SO WHEN ARE WG GONNA REMOVE THE SMOLENSK??.

I would love to own her too for clan battle thus I hope they won't remove her too soon. 

 

How long Kutuzov was in the premium shop btw? I wasn't even playing the game when they removed her from access to newer players. 

[Well_DoneX3]

6 hours ago, S4pp3R said:

But to be an objectively poor-average player and a T8 premium CV makes you a Super Unicum... ...

 

This is again why her skill floor is low compared to the other tier 8 CV because even average or lower-than-average players in general could get good results in her. The rockets & torps are excellent against anything in addition with the short plane restoration time. 

 

However, I haven't seen any super-unicum Enterprise who has average or lower stats in general. I only met one with hidden data but they became mvp in their team; maybe because they're bad player in general or unicum++ only in OPprice

[Well_DoneX3]

 I have to edit this review because of the recent nerf to AP bombs alpha damage including those of premium CVs. 

[TakemoriKohoto]

Wait when did WG mention about removing her, I totally didnt know WG remove her until I came across your post and beside that not even once did I hear anyone mention anything about this. I rarely cursed but f king hell, I was saving my money to bought her since I was making a Azur lane series with her playing somewhat a major role later on, and now this. Jesus f king christ. 

[TakemoriKohoto]

As if 2020 wasnt bad enough 

[UnderTheRadarAgain]

Wait? What? Enterprise has been removed for a long time. It was already removed when I first installed the game on 20 May 2019. It's not been obtainable (apart from xmas crates) for over a year.

[S4pp3R]

1 hour ago, lunsmann said:

Wait? What? Enterprise has been removed for a long time. It was already removed when I first installed the game on 20 May 2019. It's not been obtainable (apart from xmas crates) for over a year.

You know the funniest part?

She wasn't even that broken pre-rework...

Post-rework she became a monster, so they had every chance to balance her during the rework but didn't.

Man I really hate WGs balancing department half the time!

[Moggytwo]

I've never really enjoyed playing Enterprise, and always thought Saipan was better.  I think Enterprise is definitely more forgiving than Saipan, but in terms of ability to put down ships quickly and win the game, Saipan's incredible and reliable alpha puts her ahead now that Enterprise AP DB's have been significantly nerfed.

I think where Enterprise is strongest is in her regen.  This makes mistakes not particularly punishing, and means that poor to average players will be much more successful with her than in other CV's, meaning she is the strongest CV for the average player.  This also brings all of her stats up.  At the top end though, Saipan has moved ahead to become the better ship.

You can see this reflected in the relative stats of the two ships.  Since the rework, Enterprise has an overall win rate of 52.36% and 64.6k damage per game, while Saipan has a much lower 49.89% win rate but higher damage at 67.0k damage per game.  Enterprise is the way better ship clearly.

However, if you look at the top 5% for the ships you start to see the reality of the ships; Enterprise has a win rate of 73.78% and 104.1k damage per game, while Saipan has a basically identical 73.68% win rate but a much higher damage of 117.1k per game.  This trend is consistent when looking at the top 10/25/50% players as well.

What this clearly shows is the poor to average players of the much easier to play Enterprise bringing the whole data set up, but that Saipan is the better ship when played well.  Note this data set is all games since the rework, so is basically all before the AP bomb nerf.  Saipan will have pulled ahead even more now.

This is further borne out by the week to week stats.  Before the AP bomb nerf, weekly stats across all skill levels showed Enterprise doing about 10% more damage than Saipan, at about a 9% higher win rate.  Post nerf, the win rate delta has reduced by 2-3%, and Saipan is now marginally but consistently outdamaging Enterprise.  Unfortunately the weekly stats don't divide by skill level, so we can't look at the best players here, but the quarterly stats do.  The latest quarter only goes up to the end of June, so pre-nerf, but for the top players this continues to show Saipan level on win rate but well ahead on damage.  When we get the next quarter data at the start of October, it is extremely likely based on the overall weekly stats that we'll see the damage delta in Saipan's favour grow even larger, and Saipan's win rate start to pull ahead, if we look at the data set for the top echelon of players.

[Lupis]

I only got her because of the CV rework and i'm a fan of her career in the Pacific theater.

[Thyaliad]

20 hours ago, TakemoriKohoto said:

Wait when did WG mention about removing her, I totally didnt know WG remove her until I came across your post and beside that not even once did I hear anyone mention anything about this. I rarely cursed but f king hell, I was saving my money to bought her since I was making a Azur lane series with her playing somewhat a major role later on, and now this. Jesus f king christ. 

She was removed from the Premium shop sometime last year after patch 0.8.7, which is somewhere around September 2019 I think. It was done quietly and WG made no mention of it until people noticed she wasn't in the Premium shop anymore and started asking about her. WG's response was that they had noticed "fluctuations in her combat efficiency" which was why she was removed.

11 hours ago, S4pp3R said:

You know the funniest part?

She wasn't even that broken pre-rework...

Post-rework she became a monster, so they had every chance to balance her during the rework but didn't.

Man I really hate WGs balancing department half the time!

Imo she wasn't that broken immediately after the rework either, but she became so after some global CV changes which didn't nerf Enterprise as much as the other CVs. So it is more like how a bunch of changes can have unforeseen consequences.

Enterprise always had slower, weaker planes in exchange for better plane regen. That hasn't changed, but everything else did. For example in one of the patches all CV plane speeds were nerfed to a more standardised level, but that didn't affect Enterprise as much as she had slower planes to begin with.

But imo the biggest change which made Enterprise and her plane regen overperform was the AA rework, where continuous AA (CAA) would damage one plane at a time instead of randomly damaging planes in a squadron. That is a huge change because it places so much more importance on plane regen since the CAA going to shoot down planes at a constant rate.

Previously, since CAA damage was random, it would take a period of time before non-flak AA actually started shooting down plane instead of merely damaging them, since the damage would have been spread out. Pre AA-rework, CV planes were mostly balanced by squadron size, individual plane health,  plane speed and plane regen. Squadron size mattered because more planes in a squadron means more planes to spit up CAA damage before they start getting shot down. Plane speed also mattered because you would want to conduct your strikes as fast as possible before you started losing planes to the random CAA.

Post AA rework, the only thing that really matters is plane health and plane regen, because plane health determines you how fast you will lose planes to continuous AA while regen determines how much you can replace those losses. Plane speed doesn't matter because unless you are still going to be losing planes individual planes to AA no matter what, unless you are using fast planes like Indomitable which can strike once and press F before CAA can even shoot down a plane. Squadron size doesn't matter at all when it comes to CAA, since it damages planes one at a time now. It doesn't matter if your squadron has 6 planes or 10 planes, if CAA can shoot down 1 plane in 10s, it will shoot down 1 plane in 10s no matter what. Pre AA rework, that may be 10s, 15s, 20s, or even more, depending on CAA RNG. And the more planes in the squadron, the more RNG is required.

So yeah that is how Enterprise, which was no stronger than other CVs post rework, slowly became overpowered - the environment changed to downplay her weaknesses and emphasize her strengths.

 

 

[TakemoriKohoto]

3 minutes ago, Thyaliad said:

 

So yeah that is how Enterprise, which was no stronger than other CVs post rework, slowly became overpowered - the environment changed to downplay her weaknesses and emphasize her strengths.

Then why did they removed her just nerft her wouldnt that be okay

[TakemoriKohoto]

6 minutes ago, Thyaliad said:

She was removed from the Premium shop sometime last year after patch 0.8.7, which is somewhere around September 2019 I think. It was done quietly and WG made no mention of it until people noticed she wasn't in the Premium shop anymore and started asking about her. WG's response was that they had noticed " fluctuations in her combat efficiency" which was why she was removed.

Also maybe my UI had bug or some thing because I remember still had her in the premium shop like just last few patch because when I bought Kii, Enterprise was still there 

[Thyaliad]

27 minutes ago, TakemoriKohoto said:

Then why did they removed her just nerft her wouldnt that be okay 

Probably because of WG's no nerfing Premiums policy. If Enterprise is to be nerfed, it needs to be done as part of a global change. We all saw the outcry from the playerbase the last time WG tried to nerf a Premium directly with the GC.

Another possible reason is WG is not sure how to nerf the Enterprise. The thing is, WG tries to balances ships across all skill levels. As Moggy pointed out earlier, Enterprise doesn't exactly overperform when compared to other CVs like Saipan when it comes to the top players. Where she overperforms is among the poor to average skill CV players, because Enterprise's plane regen makes her a lot more forgiving to use, especially when she is bottom tier. So the question is how should Enterprise be nerfed without touching her performance among the better skilled players? WG probably doesn't have an answer to that yet.

[TakemoriKohoto]

1 hour ago, Thyaliad said:

Probably because of WG's no nerfing Premiums policy. If Enterprise is to be nerfed, it needs to be done as part of a global change. We all saw the outcry from the playerbase the last time WG tried to nerf a Premium directly with the GC.

Another possible reason is WG is not sure how to nerf the Enterprise. The thing is, WG tries to balances ships across all skill levels. As Moggy pointed out earlier, Enterprise doesn't exactly overperform when compared to other CVs like Saipan when it comes to the top players. Where she overperforms is among the poor to average skill CV players, because Enterprise's plane regen makes her a lot more forgiving to use, especially when she is bottom tier. So the question is how should Enterprise be nerfed without touching her performance among the better skilled players? WG probably doesn't have an answer to that yet.

wait so a more forgving ship is even count that OP. Nah that sound like an excuse of people that like to bashed on CV, I mean there are tons of ship out there that are easy to play but had high skill celling for example my favorite ship Georgia and second favorite Kii, these ship are like what describe in Enterprise, if you not used to play with them, normally you could do some 50-70k ish damage, but if you used to them they could easily racked up some 110-160k damage.

[Metal_illness]

"Probably because of WG's no nerfing Premiums policy"

Hmmmm, ALL my premium TANKS, SHIPS, and PLANES say Hi.

The main issue with enterprise is:

You can't buy it, therefore any eager, keen cv player who wants to help their team as much as possible, simply CAN'T when enemy team "randomly" has an enterprise on it.

WG has a history of self promoting a mythical tank plane or ship, they release them overpowered on purpose, then remove from sales, reason overpoweredness, then watch the myths and legends grow from players around the world about their overpowered tanks, ships, planes.

Examples: Type 59, Su76i, Belfast, Enterprise, MK47 (once upon a time), Defender (sold once, I had to wait some 4 years for the next sale, is magically STILL OP, power creep eat your heart out, now is sold with regularity), many other examples I am sure, including planes from wowp.

It's an obvious business sales and marketing tactic WG employ, what I've noticed personally over the years is it's impossible to determine which premium vehicles are OP until it's too late to buy one, so BUY THEM ALL, to make sure you get one before it's removed.

GENIUS LEVEL 100.

[Moggytwo]

5 hours ago, Dread_Pirate_BlackHeart said:

You can't buy it, therefore any eager, keen cv player who wants to help their team as much as possible, simply CAN'T when enemy team "randomly" has an enterprise on it.

WG has a history of self promoting a mythical tank plane or ship, they release them overpowered on purpose, then remove from sales, reason overpoweredness, then watch the myths and legends grow from players around the world about their overpowered tanks, ships, planes.

This is just a conspiracy theory.  It's pretty absurd to think that WG intentionally releases OP ships.  They'd make far more money if the ships were still on sale, especially Enterprise (one of the most famous ships of the war) and Belfast (a current museum ship in London) who are some of the most saleable ships in the game regardless of power levels.  They want to have these ships on sale, as evidenced by WG soon releasing another version of Belfast, since they can't sell the current one.

What actually happens is they release the ship, and then after a while it turns out they've missed the mark on the balance and it is OP, at which point they decide to remove it.  This happens in reverse too, sometimes they release a premium ship and it turns out to be underpowered, and they just buff it.  Since this isn't an option with OP premiums, they are forced to remove it.

As @Thyaliad pointed out above, Enterprise wasn't actually OP in the months following the rework, she only became OP following various changes to the game that benefited her more than others.  She has just been actively nerfed, and is probably not OP anymore following that nerf, although still strong.  If the DD air detection change were to go through, she'd actually go down significantly in power level compared to most other CV's, because her strongest aspect is her anti-DD ability.

[Metal_illness]

Enterprise fighters also cannot be beaten by any other cv of same or lesser tier.

Thats a huge deal.

 

[Thyaliad]

11 hours ago, Dread_Pirate_BlackHeart said:

"Probably because of WG's no nerfing Premiums policy"

Hmmmm, ALL my premium TANKS, SHIPS, and PLANES say Hi.

I dunno about other games. But for WoWs almost every nerf to a Premium ship was part of a global change, which I have already mentioned earlier in this thread.

11 hours ago, Dread_Pirate_BlackHeart said:

You can't buy it, therefore any eager, keen cv player who wants to help their team as much as possible, simply CAN'T when enemy team "randomly" has an enterprise on it.

WG has a history of self promoting a mythical tank plane or ship, they release them overpowered on purpose, then remove from sales, reason overpoweredness, then watch the myths and legends grow from players around the world about their overpowered tanks, ships, planes.

Examples: Type 59, Su76i, Belfast, Enterprise, MK47 (once upon a time), Defender (sold once, I had to wait some 4 years for the next sale, is magically STILL OP, power creep eat your heart out, now is sold with regularity), many other examples I am sure, including planes from wowp.

It's an obvious business sales and marketing tactic WG employ, what I've noticed personally over the years is it's impossible to determine which premium vehicles are OP until it's too late to buy one, so BUY THEM ALL, to make sure you get one before it's removed.

GENIUS LEVEL 100.

Nah that is just your conspiracy theory.

For every supposedly overpowered Premium released there have been several average or even trash tier Premium ships. It is just that they don't get remembered by the general playerbase. Remember Ashitaka on release? Or how about the recent California? Heck, there is a thread on this very forum complaining that the California is crap. I bet most people forgot that Yuudachi even exists in this game.

Besides that logic makes no sense. WG wants to sell ships. How are they going to sell ships if those ships are removed from the game?

No, what happened here is a result of WG not testing balance changes properly, and Enterprise became too strong as an unexpected consequence.

[Well_DoneX3]

On 1/12/2020 at 7:22 PM, Pepega_MY said:

C.   Recommended build

 

Just updated this section together with the comparison graphs for TB and CV hull HP because of the cmdr rework. 

[Onlinegamer]

you shall not PASS