Azur Lane(EN) In-Depth Equipment Guide Series: Dive Bombers

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Dive Bomber Overview

Dive bombers share the same problem with fighters. Let's reiterate it.

First rule of fighters and dive bombers:
BASE DAMAGE STAT IS COMPLETELY USELESS
BASE DAMAGE STAT IS COMPLETELY USELESS
BASE DAMAGE STAT IS COMPLETELY USELESS

Base damage stat is boxed in red.

The rationale is as follows:
For one-dimensional equipments (guns and torpedoes), the damage comes from the equipment as a single entity. Therefore the numbers listed in game are accurate.

Planes are not one-dimensional like those. Each plane comes with its own set of weapons(machine guns, bombs, torpedoes etc) that each have stats of their own.

The number the game calculates is the theoretical damage based on all weapons assuming they all hit. This is drastically inaccurate because weapons have their own sets of attributes that need to be considered.

An (non-perfect)analogy would be like this: In this game, you can tell what a ship is good at, because you can see if she has high firepower, high torp or high AA etc. But imagine that instead of displaying each stat for your ship separately, they combined all of them and put an average number next to the ship's name. This is very unhelpful and is exactly what the game is doing to fighters and dive bombers. DPS calculated completely out of context based on the displayed damage stat is completely worthless and should not be referenced at all.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about dive bombers.

Dive bombers carry AA weapons(machine guns/cannons) and bombs. There are currently bombs of 5 different weights. Armor modifiers for them are as follows:

	Against Light Armor	Against Medium Armor	Against Heavy Armor
100lb Bomb	80%	85%	100%
500lb Bomb	80%	90%	110%
1000lb Bomb	80%	95%	115%
1500lb Bomb	75%	100%	120%
2000lb Bomb	70%	105%	125%

Modifiers are weapon tier-independent.

Bombers use AA weapons the same way as fighters use them in active AA. In other words, they shoot down enemy planes during air strikes(after you press the air strike button). As expected, there is no passive AA auto-launch for bombers.

Plane HP in the next section are scaled to Lv 100 CVs. The relative difference in plane HP should remain the same ratio for higher or lower Lvs.

Plane weapons are tiered T3, T2, T1 just like equipments and they scale with plane tiers. T3 planes will have all T3 weapons and T2 planes will have all T2 weapons, even though they may carry weapons of the same names. T3 weapons are quite a lot better. Therefore, you should avoid T2 and T1 planes if you can.


Dive Bomber Analyses

SB2C Helldiver

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+25	11.88s	45	180	509
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
2x12.7mm MG T3	32	0.45s/wave	30	180°
1x2000lb Bomb T3	456
2x500lb Bomb T3	2x360

Often considered the "best" dive bomber in the game.

Carries a ridiculous 2000lb bomb and two very adequate 500lb bombs(FYI, bomb damage increase is diminishing after 500lb. This is why fighters are considered good if they could carry the 500lb bombs).

Bomb diversity makes this bomber more adaptable to more enemy armor types, though the effect might be minor.

Although the purple SB2C is not the only carrier of the T3 2000lb bomb, it is currently the only one that carries it AND can be enhanced to +10(the other one that uses this bomb is blue locked at +6).

This turned out to be a purple plane that is stronger than gold, which might not be intuitive for new players.

Obtainable from: US boxes, 3-2, 11-4

BTD-1 Destroyer

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+45	11.71s	45	206	554
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
2x20mm Cannon T3	40	0.65s/wave	36	80°
2x1600lb Bomb T3	2x429

Intuitively this should be the "best" bomber, but for general purposes this is worse than the SB2C.

Carries 2x1600lb bombs that tend to cluster, contrasting SB2C's three bombs that usually are more spread out.

A little bit overkill for a small area, which generally isn't the role of a dive bomber. This causes it to lose a lot of potential damage output.

Otherwise this beats the SB2C in pretty much all other stats. Bigger aviation buff, (slightly) faster CD, more touchdown(kamikaze) damage, and beefier HP.

This is by no means a bad dive bomber. In fact it might be better than SB2C if you know that both 1600lb bombs dropping on the same enemy will NOT be an overkill (lone stationary bosses). In most cases, if you opened this plane there is no reason to deliberately ignore it and obsess over the SB2C. All things considered SB2C is still usually better, but it's not a deal breaker if you used this plane.

Obtainable from: US boxes, 5-3

Comet(Suisei)

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+45	10.44s	48	193	554
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
2x7.7mm MG T3	26	0.38s/wave	24	80°
1x1000lb Bomb T3	402
2x100lb Bomb T3	2x173

Like most Japanese planes this is a "light" plane specialized for speed. The Suisei has the fastest takeoff among planes that actually do reasonable bombing damage. Flying speed is faster than most of its peers as well.

The bombs it carries are kind of lackluster. The 1000lb one is fine but it has those irrelevant 100lb bombs that the Type 52 fighter carries. AA guns are also not very good, though this isn't too much of a big deal for dive bombers.

Best used if you want to speed up CV/L air strike triggered-skill while not sacrificing bombing damage completely(i.e. Shouhou). This is not the fastest dive bomber in the game, but the fastest one(discussed later) will sacrifice most of your bombing damage output.

Obtainable from: JP boxes, 12-3

Ju-87C Dive Bomber

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+25	11.57s	45	112	484
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
3x7.92mm MG T3	29	0.36s/wave	24	80°
1x1000lb Bomb T3	402
4x100lb Bomb T3	4x173

Theoretically ranked as the second best dive bomber, slightly worse than SB2C. In practice it's probably a bit "more" worse than expected, but it's still overall decent.
Instead of relying on one big bomb, the Ju-87C has one 1000lb bomb and 4 100lb mini bombs.
Assuming everything hits, the damage should come close to that of SB2C.  But SB2C has fewer bombs to deal with. For Ju-87C, achieving theoretical damage is a lot harder.

Graf Zeppelin buffs this plane. After buff it's more usable and comes closer to SB2C in practice. You are free to have her use these for flavor reasons without getting punished for not equipping SB2C.

Obtainable from: DE boxes

Aichi D3A Type 99

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+25	10.91s	45	180	460
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
2x7.7mm MG T3	26	0.38s/wave	24	80°
1x500lb Bomb T3	360
2x100lb Bomb T3	2x173

Weakened version of the Suisei above. Slightly worse stats all around at purple rarity. The most significant would be the 500lb bomb instead of Suisei's 1000lb bomb. But the difference is probably not big enough for you stress over.

Still a strong contender for a light dive bomber with fast takeoff. Similar usage as the Suisei.

As much as the bombs might be lacking, they are at least T3 so that's something.

Obtainable from: JP boxes, 3-3, 12-3

Fairey Fulmar

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+25	9.18s	48	200	484
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
8x7.7mm MG T3	61	0.38s/wave	24	80°
2x100lb Bomb T3	2x173

The strongest fighter in the game disguised as a dive bomber.

Only half-joking. This has insane AA capabilities from its 8x7.7mm MG. High damage with very short reload. It actually is better than most fighters in the game. The downside of the AA is that this is not defined as a fighter in the game so there is no passive AA(no self-launch). To learn more, click on the fighter page. But if you play manually and timed your air strikes to when there are enemy planes on the screen they can still serve as AA planes.

The bombing aspect of this is very bad. 2x100lb bombs barely does anything.

This also happens to be the dive bomber with the shortest CD. You can use this to shorten your air strike reload time(sacrificing bombing damage of course). This can be good to either 1) trigger air strike-triggered skills more frequently or 2) min-max for early torpedo output in some PvP situations.

Very high kamikaze/touchdown damage for a dive bomber. Actually gold-tier.

In general if you want two CVs with similar air strike CD to launch with a time lag in auto mode, you can use this one separate them apart. Though this is usually done with a real plane(with damage output) with +/- takeoff speeds.

Obtainable from: JP boxes, 7-1

Firefly

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+45	11.17s	47	210	528
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
4x20mm Cannon T3	80	0.90s/wave	36	80°
2x1000lb Bomb T0(?)	2x402+

Average damage bomber with AA specialization.
Because this is event exclusive T0, 1000lb bombs are assumed to be T0 so they likely do a little bit more damage than the T3 version. Probably not by much though.
Even taking this into account there are simply too many good dives in this game to make this plane worth it.
Similar to the Firebrand, the AA specialization on a bomber feels out of place for the current PvE contents.
This can fulfill the roles that Fulmar fulfills in terms of providing AA for lone CVLs with no fighter slots. This is less extreme than Fulmar and has much less AA but reasonable anti-ship damage.

Obtainable from: Events

SBD Dauntless

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+12	12.64s	45	156	351
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
2x12.7mm MG T3	32	0.45s/wave	30	180°
1x2000lb Bomb T3	456
2x100lb Bomb T3	2x173

Weapon stats are at +10. This is a blue plane so in reality they can only go to +6. Reference with caution.

Can be seen as the blue SB2C. Same 2000lb Bomb T3 (capped at +6). Too bad the two smaller bombs are 100lb instead of 500lb.

Other stats are expected of a blue plane. But the T3 bombs are still really good compared to its peers(especially those with T2 weapons). Recommended as a transitional dive bomber.

Obtainable from: US boxes, 3-1

Blackburn Skua

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+12	11.77s	45	156	335
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
4x7.7mm MG T3	38	0.38s/wave	24	80°
1x500lb Bomb T3	360

Weapon stats are at +10. This is a blue plane so in reality they can only go to +6. Reference with caution.

Carries only one 500lb bomb but 500lb is kind of like the cutoff from where diminishing returns in damage begins. It's a pretty efficient bomb especially in the stage of the game at which this plane is used. Being a T3 weapon also helps.

Like the SBD Dauntless, weapons being at T3 helps a lot for early game, fulfilling the role as a transitional dive bomber well.

Obtainable from: UK boxes, 2-3

Aichi E16A Zuiun

Stats	Takeoff CD	Flying Speed	Touchdown Dmg	HP(CV at Lv 100)
AV+25	13.97s	45	120	391
Weapon	Damage	Reload	Range	Firing Angle
1x13mm MG T3	18	0.45s/wave	30	180°
2x20mm Cannon T3	40	0.65s/wave	36	80°
2x500lb Bomb T3	2x360

Technically not a carrier dive bomber. This is a seaplane that can only be equipped to aviation battleships(BBV).

It also happens to be the only seaplane in the game as of now. You don't really have another option.

Stats are rather mediocre compared to actual dive bombers. The slow reload hurts it quite a bit. But this is mostly meant to allow BBVs to launch air strikes, which clears the screen of bullets for you. Some BBVs have skills that support this plane and they are ship-dependent, but the base stats of the plane is what you see here.

Obtainable from: JP boxes



References: Chinese Azur Lane Wiki: http://wiki.joyme.com/blhx/%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5