[2021] Vancou... Merde!

Actually, Fighters have been a real threat since the beginning of this year.

Fighters were Standardized to have enough speed to overtake and kill planes, which was a massive help.

Commander Skills allowed Fighter-spec'ing which increased their threat a LOT

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Since the Fighter Standardization and Talents, I've run Fighter builds through Ranked as well as Clan Battles. The support style play is a lot of fun, but it's very hard to pull off. Especially when your surface assets are behind/losing... then you're forced to stop locking up the enemy CV while you're team is already at a deficit.

Mostly "Enhanced Reactions" allows for a more intuitive Fighter playstyle. The "2 second latch time" is not intuitive to most players, I think.

Interceptor does increase the Patrol Range, so that does allow them to have more area of influence. Also, your Fighters can't just be baited off by Patrol Fighters, which is nice.

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Air Superiority-Only isn't offered with any current CV design. All CVs in the game have strike potential.

The question is about choosing flight paths which take you across areas needing Fighter support drops while on the way to strike targets. This multi-objective pathing can be quite hard to work on the fly.

The Skip Bombers on the Bearn are the most accurate in the game. They're weaker and only hit for 2k non-saturated per hit, but you can land 4 on a Tier 6 DD reliably if you have a broadside.