Kaga is for sale?

[Jarkorsis 92]

Is it worth it? do you have multiple loadouts? Wki says it does, but they dont keep it upgraded.

[Psycodiver 101]

From what I gathered from reviews it is a completely op CV in the hands of a good captain and very easy to pick up for beginners that understand the basics. I get the feeling in going to be taking a break from the game lol

[Jaegaer 180]

The Kaga is OP until it meets an AS Indi or a halfway competent Saipan or it is put against AA powerhouses. These planes are simply so squishy.

[Psycodiver 101]

I figure I'm going to see allot of Saipans out also because they will absolutely destroy Kagas, good thing most of my USN stuff is AA build

[Hellvn 578]

Both the Saipan and Kaga are OP in different ways.

Sure, the Kaga's planes are weak, but if he sends everything at you, trust me you will get fucked up in anything short of a Cleveland running DFAA.

I've been in Colorados and Gneisenaus and been wrecked by the fuckers.  Problem is that the torpedo dispersion is so tight that instead of being able to dodge and take one hit, you end up taking three.

DO NOT dismiss the Kaga lightly because the planes are a tier lower...

 

[xWulffx 393]

Have not played against one, but that is sound advice Hellvn.  If seasoned CV captain(s) really have it out against you or decides to focus on you and sends enough squadrons from a non-premium CV he will make it sting bad even fatally.  I was in my Iowa with 100 AA AFT and BFT when the 2 Lady Lex tier 7 CVs ganged up on me with dive bombers and torpedo bombers and rocked me badly.  I shot down 18 but was so messed up and had to use my repair and heal. The enemy BBs and CAs in range were able to focus fire me so badly, I was done. 

[Hellvn 578]

Too put the Kaga's power in perspective, I believe the alpha strike potential is equivalent of a Taiho which is two tiers higher.

The amount of fish that they put in the water during a strike is scary.

[Jaegaer 180]

But due to how the torps are stacked you will pretty much never ever take all of them at once, something you can totally do in the Taiho against the huge ships like Kurfürst or Yamato.

Anyways, the Kaga is a dream to play whenever there is no serious opposition as the damage potential is HUGE.

[bathoz 107]

I don't have one, but I was playing with a clan mate who was (at the time) on his 17th win in a row since buying the Kaga. First game, fine... me derping around in the Hood, we do well, win the game.

Second game we're the only two tier 7s in the game. The reds have two Missouris and an Izumo, Neptunes and North Carolinas. Nasty stuff. My guildie goes "no worries, I'll get the Izumo first". And does. He also nukes out the Missouris and a couple of destroyers for good measure. Completely carries the game.

AND still had bombers left at the end of the game. So, basically, it's doable.

[sahtila 95]

As usual LittleWhiteMouse writes excellent review, good reading... I thing I dont play Hood for some time now

http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/127385-premium-ship-review-kaga/

[CompanionCav 27]

Assuming good players playing each team's CV, Saipan will shut down Kaga and win the damage race.

Kaga player will have a rude realization that he has little to no initiative against a good Saipan when he sees Saipan fighters flying faster than empty Kaga DBs.

[Rodrigopine 184]

I only encountered he Kaga so far in the Tashkent and Fletcher; I run DF in the Fletcher and I shot down about 15 planes over the course of that match and took zero damage in return.

 Even the Tashkent's AA is enough to widen the spread on torp bombers. The DBs can still hit you but I didn't take much initial damage and the two fires set I simply repaired. Ended up shooting down 4 planes which is nothing special. The Kaga didn't attempt another strike on me.

[Psycodiver 101]

Had a Kaga last night on my team and was shut down by the IJN CV on the enemy team, pretty sure he was a scrub but the enemy CV was tearing us up

[BiggieD61 364]

I have not played CV's in many months, and only made it to the US tier 6 and the IJN tier 5 before putting them aside.  SO buying the Kaga ( and not the Hood ) was a weird decision, but with the doubloons and a month of Premium I decided to try it based on the Torp bombers. 

I had an 11 point Captain, and combined with modules, made my fighters as competitive as possible.  I then set about playing 8 PVE ( I was not ready to screw over humans ) matches this  morning to get a feel for the gameplay.  I came away very impressed with how noob friendly this CV is.  In fact, I bet it's easier to do damage with the Kaga for a noob than in a Saipan. 

The 2-2-1 module is probably the best load out ( much like Saipan's 2-2-0 ).  You have enough fighters ( with the tier 4 skill that adds a fighter ) to strafe enemy squadrons for decent damage, and if you lock up with better enemy fighters, they will last a while before getting erased.  The fighters are the weak point of the ship, they are useful for locking down the enemy fighters for a bit and some scouting.  The Dive Bomber squadron is unique, while the bombs are small and do less damage than other nations DB's, the accuracy on an autodrop is better than most nations manual drop.  You will hit the ship you drop on and start a fire or two if you don't lose too many on the way in.

The Torpedo planes are the special sauce however, the torps are capable of 53 knots with torpedo acceleration  @ 8500 damage and you have 6 per squadron.  They drop in two waves, 3 wide, and then 3 tight on the center line behind the first 3. with two squadrons attacking the same ship, you get a potential twelve torps on target, and the spread does focus down if you manual drop them.  If you have any skill at all, you can one shot a tier 6 BB.  You can even autodrop them and get hits if you cross drop.  They are pretty much idiot proof. The only downside I have seen is an almost 0% chance of flooding from them.  If you use the flooding flag +15%, you will get 1 or 2 floods a drop.  In a way these torps are like IFHE - more damage per drop instead of getting flooding damage over time.

Against higher tier ships with more advanced AA - well it's like any CV fighting up tier, you will lose a boatload of planes.  Kaga however, has a boatload of planes to use.  I never ran out in PVE, and I had games with over 20 of my own planes shot down.  What happens against a North Carolina?  You bring in all 3 squadrons and let loose, even if you lose an entire torp squadron, you still get 6 fish on target, and you will take a healthy chunk of his HP - plus whatever the DB's do.   It is very important to NOT allow your planes to fly over enemy ships with good AA before or after your attack, they will vanish.  If you are good at CV sniping, then the 2-2-1 loadout is pretty much a guaranteed kill of any tier 7 CV - too much Alpha.

Edit:  It has very bad concealment values due to it's height - so on a small map, you can easily be spotted and shot at.  Based on tier and map size, your best bet is to either hug a large island or go away from the action until the number of ships thins out.

It's a noob friendly premium CV, I imagine the best players will do incredible things with it, but scrubs can actually contribute damage to the team, as opposed to an AS Ranger.

[Madner Kami 405]

PvE is a very bad environment to test CVs in.

[canadiantrex 2,621]

My Scharnhorst got fucking nuked by one of these last night.

[Hellvn 578]

16 minutes ago, canadiantrex said:

My Scharnhorst got fucking nuked by one of these last night.

 

Yup. Happens.

It's the horror of being at the receiving end of those twelve torps and knowing that around 5 will get you that pisses me off about the Kaga.

[canadiantrex 2,621]

Just now, Hellvn said:

 

Yup. Happens.

It's the horror of being at the receiving end of those twelve torps and knowing that around 5 will get you that pisses me off about the Kaga.

Nah... how bout: 

Well, I just got torped... do I fix the flooding then let the bombers finish me in 15 seconds? Or do I just let the flooding kill me?

[Jarkorsis 92]

Some guy in a Kaga came after my Iowas twice in 2 minutes. (12 point captain so only have AFT) I shot down 33 planes but later I sank from the other BB's on his team. He forced me to turn, then they nuked me. I took some bomber hits and maybe 3 torps that did little damage.

I think the ship isnt overpowered. It just will force you to react to the torp planes, and allow teammates to rek you.

 

[BiggieD61 364]

8 hours ago, Jarkorsis said:

Some guy in a Kaga came after my Iowas twice in 2 minutes. (12 point captain so only have AFT) I shot down 33 planes but later I sank from the other BB's on his team. He forced me to turn, then they nuked me. I took some bomber hits and maybe 3 torps that did little damage.

I think the ship isnt overpowered. It just will force you to react to the torp planes, and allow teammates to rek you.

 

That is the worst case scenario for any tier 7 CV - having to go up against tier 9 AA from an American BB.  The one upshot for the Kaga is the sheer number of planes/torps that can be brought to bear on a ship, and the large number of replacement torp bombers they have to replace those losses.  Tier 5 and 6 BB's die a quick death since they have relatively no defense, some tier 7's can put up a fight and take some planes with them, but they are still gonna die to a decent Kaga player.

As far as PVE being a bad testing ground, I won't disagree - there are not enough ships to sink and the battles don't last long enough to get as much damage as you normally could.  I'm not about to throw a bunch of PVP games for my team because I haven't played a CV match in 6 months though.  About 10 more games or so and I will have my control click game back together, and then I will try some PVP matches - In fact, I need to get the Ryujo researched ( 30k more xp ) because it's pretty important for any clan to have multiple CV players to throw at the new PVE operations.

[Birkovic 135]

15 hours ago, Jarkorsis said:

Some guy in a Kaga came after my Iowas twice in 2 minutes. (12 point captain so only have AFT) I shot down 33 planes but later I sank from the other BB's on his team. He forced me to turn, then they nuked me. I took some bomber hits and maybe 3 torps that did little damage.

I think the ship isnt overpowered. It just will force you to react to the torp planes, and allow teammates to rek you.

 

I'm curious, why AFT before CE on a high tier US BB?

[Jaegaer 180]

On ‎07‎.‎06‎.‎2017 at 4:06 AM, BiggieD61 said:

It's a noob friendly premium CV

Yes and no. The planes are ultra squishy and not very fast. AS Rangers and Saipans will pose a serious thread to any Kaga. Also if the targets turn away from your TBs and force you to circle around you will lose a lot of them and bc you always lose the ones that come from behind first, your left over spread is ridiculously easy to dodge...

The only upside is the sheer number of planes you've got.

We will see about the stats in a few weeks but I seriously doubt that the Kaga will surpass the Saipan or the Hiryu in anything.

[Jarkorsis 92]

7 hours ago, Birkovic said:

I'm curious, why AFT before CE on a high tier US BB?

T8+ CV's are so tough, and are becoming relatively popular that I wanted to max my AA first. (I have even had a T6 and T7 CV on each team recently) I use islands to hide me on approach, so it would be nice to have, but by playing defensively you can mitigate the need. Good CV players can erase anyone they want. They choose BB's because they are huge targets. I want them to pay dearly for picking on me. I saw a CV constantly go after a clanmate in an Iowa and he had 56 kills and managed to barely survive the game.

I guess why I chose AFT first is even if you get sunk. If you can take out 50+ percent of an enemy CV's torp and dive bombers you have helped your team. I tend to protect the weak flank a lot. So I can get looked on as an easy target to CV's. Because of my play style, I need as much AA as I can have.

[BiggieD61 364]

Early results show promise;

 

[Rodrigopine 184]

1 hour ago, BiggieD61 said:

Early results show promise;

 

Ranger looks to be far and away the weakest of the bunch. #MAGA