Ranked sprint 1 done with 73% Bogue

I wrote how I just want to mimic my T10 strategies in the T5 miniseasons using Mutsuki instead of Shimakaze and Nicolas instead of Grozovoi. Here are the battle results (click if interested):

Well, it didn’t work. While I progressed to rank 5 due to frequent star saving, my winrate was abysmal 42.9% with the Mutsuki. The reason is that the players are seriously bad. I mean frequent AFK, battleships showing broadside, shooting HE into the broadsiding battleships and so on. General retardedness. In this environment flanking does nothing as the battle is decided in the first 3 minutes when the morons swarm into the caps and duke it out mindlessly.

So I reached back to my original play, the one that got me hooked on Warships at the first time: aircraft carriers, before the T6+ manual drop and strafe turned it into an unbearable clickfest. The T5 Bogue and Zuiho can only auto-drop, greatly decreasing the click-load.

It worked well, I ranked out on page 5, so in the top 500 at Sunday morning. But “well” is an understatement here:

73% winrate and absolute air domination. Only 24 ranked out players have better. I started to use Bogue only in the first league, imagine if I played it in the second, among the really bad players! In the second miniseason I’ll do just that, we’ll see if I can rank out with the fewest battles among all players.

Of course it wouldn’t be my blog if I’d just tell “get som skillz” to those who ask how. Below you can see how I could break the T5 carrier meta:

If the two fighter groups clash, they’ll be locked into battle without the ability of strafing out and one will be lost. The Bogue has only 2 replacement fighters, so losing your first squad is practically defeat, as the other carrier can easily slay the replacement and all your bombers and torpedo bombers. Assuming both players have properly specced captains and ships, the only thing that influences the outcome of this battle is the number of planes. If I have 7 planes and the enemy has 6, I have 7/(7+6) = 54% chance to score the first kill. If he scores the first kill, we are equal. If I get the first kill, he has to score 2 kills to be equal, with 42 and 45% chance, so he has 19% chance to get equal after that. So if I engage 7:6, his chance to win is 0.46*0.5+0.54*0.19*0.5 = 28%, which is pretty much my loss rate.

How can I ensure that I engage 7:6? By selecting these two skills on top of the normal setup:

Bombers and torpedo bombers can shoot down fighters, especially if they get the skill on the left and the AA signal. With the skill on the right, their survival rate increases greatly if I recall them to the carrier. So I send my fighters center, my bombers left and the torpedo planes right. One will find the enemy fighter. My fighters retreat and the nearest bomber or torpedo plane flies on top of the enemy fighter. They can’t resist the bait and engage them. I recall the plane, increasing its HP and wait. I usually lose 2-4 planes before they score their first kill. Then my fighters jump on them and win.

See your Bogues next miniseason!