[2022] AA needs to be wound back tier 8 and above.

To the folks in the thread poking the OP, please recognize that Carriers are not only played by high-end players and do have a learning curve. Part of that curve is Flak at Tiers 8+ has a much higher amount of it than the earlier Tiers. This can and does catch players by surprise.

AA might not be powerful enough to stop El2aZeR or other Unicums that have taken the time to pick apart the mechanics and learn the resource trades, but it CAN AND DOES KILL PLANES. Very capably depending on the situations and ship in question.

Please remember that there are players of all skill levels here. Further, try to be respectful when encountering a player that is having trouble with game mechanics (we have a LOT of them and they can be cryptic).

-

AA mechanics come into their own at Tier 8. After that, they get amped up higher. The play experience at Tier 9+ is faster and more intense (for our paced game) then in the Tiers below it, and CVs are no exception.

If you are losing planes completely, you are likely having a few issues:

Chakalov and Russian CVs in general have slow planes. Slow planes are more vulnerable to Flak and will have a harder time if you are not attacking from extreme range.


Chakalov and Russian CVs tend to need considerable lead time which can be hard for players when learning them.


Flak MUST be avoided at higher Tiers

Most Flak is aimed "ahead" of your planes. This can be "placed" by faking one direction, but going another. In some cases, just a steady turn is enough to throw off the majority of the Flak.

I'll post two videos below that describe how to avoid flak, and then show the movement of doing so.

Further, it's ok if Tier 8+ is too fast paced. Everyone has their preference for the game they enjoy and our game being slower-paced is one of its best features. There is nothing wrong with playing Tier 6 CV.

-

Videos below:

How to Dodge Flak

"The Flak Wall-tz"

Prior to 8.5, all the Continuous AA damage was randomly delivered across each plane in the Squadron. If a Squadron had 20,000 health across 8 Planes (2,500 Health per Plane) then RNG could deliver 19,900 damage to the Squadron with all of them being extremely damaged but no planes being shot down. This was very frustrating to players as their AA gave no feedback or signs of working against players that managed their plane health well.

Update 8.5 altered the mechanics so that all Continuous Damage was focused into a single plane. This enforced plane death and was extremely successful at doing so, but it was determined the AA was overtuned to deal with the "random saturation" from prior to 8.5 (IE: It was tuned so that it could overwhelm because it had to be that high to get any planes dead in the first place). So, AA was roughly halved in Patch 8.7, but Priority Sector was altered and given Instantaneous Damage as a form of manual AA incentive. The instant damage is considerable when used against undamaged squadrons.