Ministry of Balance Reports: Carrier Changes

December 9, 2022

With the December update, we’re making changes to many of the aircraft carriers in the game. These changes come after careful analysis of the data we’ve received from carriers, how you feel about them, and how well they are doing within the average battle in World of Warships: Legends. We want to provide a lens that will allow you to see the process we adopted to decide on these changes, what goes into making them, and our thoughts on carrier interaction as a whole. Princeblip is here with the breakdown!

First, some terminology:

Average Damage: This is a measurement of how much damage a ship does on average in each battle. Typically, a carrier is designed to have the least potential damage per minute out of any ship type in the game.

Win Rate: This represents the percentage of wins vs. losses (and draws) that a ship has on average. The usual win rate in Legends is 49.95% (it's less than 50% due to a small number of draws); typically, we use this measurement to establish the “need” for a buff. A ship with a 46% win rate “needs” a buff more than a ship with 49% win rate, for example.

Battle Impact: This measurement represents the difference the ship itself makes on the player’s win rate. If a player helming a particular ship has a win rate of 50% and that particular ship has a win rate of 55% among similarly skilled players, the ship has a +5% battle impact.

We call these "the big three" as they are our primary indicators for overall ship performance. They are not the only indicators though, since your perceptions about ships are also valuable.

Tier III

Hermes

Since her introduction, Hermes has been lagging behind her peers in total damage dealt, which also affects the ship’s win rate and battle impact. Hermes dishes out damage equally with both weapons normally, so they have been buffed:

HE bomb damage increased from 3,200 to 3,400
Torpedo damage increased from 5,633 to 5,833
Torpedo speed increased from 40 to 42 knots
Torpedo range increased from 2.4 to 3.0 km
Torpedoes are more likely to disable modules

Komsomolets

We recognize that Soviet carriers are very strong in specific situations, but Komsomolets is also lacking in damage output on average and at every skill level. However, she is doing better than Hermes, so the buff only applies to the torpedoes:

Torpedo damage increased from 3,833 to 4,133
Torpedo arming time decreased from 6 to 4.5 seconds
Torpedo speed increased from 41 to 43 knots
Torpedoes are more likely to disable modules

Tier V

Weser

No two ways about it, Weser is one of the best carriers at Tier V and almost always has been. There’s also a fair amount of feedback concerning this ship, so we have nerfed her primary damage dealer—AP bombs.

Stock AP bomb damage decreased from 6,400 to 6,200
Upgraded AP bomb damage decreased from 7,200 to 7,000

Serov

Serov is an interesting ship indeed! Statistically speaking, she doesn’t stand out in any major ways—but she certainly dominates the feedback channels. With that in mind, we’re reducing the effectiveness of Serov’s skip bombers, particularly their fire-setting chances and penetration. This will greatly reduce their impact against most Tier V battleships and some carriers.

Stock & upgraded skip bomb fire-setting chances decreased from 35% to 25%
Stock & upgraded skip bomb raw HE penetration decreased from 32 to 25 mm

Furious

This sneaky carrier often goes under players’ radars but does incredibly well on average—in every category at every skill level. We’re going to bring her down a notch by nerfing the carpet bombers:

Stock HE bomb damage decreased from 5,000 to 4,750
Upgraded HE bomb damage decreased from 5,250 to 5,000

Zuihō

Zuihō was our first Premium aircraft carrier, and we played it very safe with her. As a result, the ship deserves some improvements to help her out:

Dive bomber hangar capacity increased from 10 to 12 planes
HE bomb damage increased from 9,400 to 10,400

Ranger

This ship has had her ups and downs, and right now, she’s at the bottom of the damage board for Tier V carriers. We’ve decided to help her out with improvements to her torpedo aircraft:

Stock torpedo damage increased from 6,033 to 6,367
Upgraded torpedo damage increased from 6,400 to 6,600
Upgraded torpedo arming time decreased from 3.66 to 3 seconds
Upgraded torpedo speed increased from 47 to 49 knots
Stock & upgraded torpedoes are more likely to disable modules

Ark Royal

We plan to reduce the power of Ark Royal. Nothing is happening in the December update, but keep an eye out for changes to her in the future.

Tier VII

August von Parseval

A top pick from the beginning for Tier VII CVs, we’ve decided to drop her AP Bomb performance down a notch. This ship has the highest battle impact of any carrier and has earned the attention:

Stock AP bomb damage decreased from 6,450 to 6,200
Upgraded AP bomb damage decreased from 7,200 to 7,000

Saipan

Even after nerfing, this ship remains a strong performer at Tier VII. Saipan does the most damage on average so we’ll be reigning that in a little:

HE bomb damage decreased from 9,500 to 9,200
Torpedo arming time increased from 3 to 3.5 seconds
Torpedo speed decreased from 48 to 46 knots

Pobeda

Pobeda is a situation where she doesn’t stand out in the data but is greatly disliked in your feedback. We’ve made a balance pass on her skip bombs to make them do more direct damage, though less regularly and with fewer fires.

Stock skip bomb damage increased from 6,800 to 7,500
Stock skip bomb fire-setting chances decreased from 39% to 25%
Upgraded skip bomb damage increased from 8,700 to 9,600
Upgraded skip bomb fire-setting chances decreased from 49% to 33%
Stock & upgraded skip bomb raw HE penetration decreased from 43 to 33 mm

Kaga

This iconic ship from the Battle of Midway is lagging behind her opponents in all three main areas, so we want to amp her up some by improving her plane HP and damage output.

Dive bomber HP increased from 2,050 to 2,250
Torpedo bomber HP increased from 2,100 to 2,250
HE bomb damage increased from 9,000 to 9,500
Torpedo damage increased from 6,300 to 6,600
Torpedo arming time decreased from 6 to 5 seconds
Torpedoes are more likely to disable modules

That covers the changes made to carriers of all nations this update. Some were improved; others were downgraded according to their performance and your feedback on them.

This is the first time that we’re writing a developer blog about upcoming balance changes—please let us know what you think in our feedback channels!