Help us decode AA Explosions in WoWs Legends
Every ship's AA Defense card now has new rows the live game has never explained: AA Explosions, Flak burst damage, Flak inner ring (km). They describe a flak system we have partially mapped from in-game data, but the picture has gaps that will need pilots, AA shipowners, and curious players to test in real matches to finish. This page lays out what we believe so far and asks for help on the specific questions we cannot answer alone.
What we need from you
Five concrete experiments that anyone can run from a normal match. Even one observation on any of these would push the picture forward. Reply on the GamingDiver Discord, tag @GamingDiver on Reddit, or DM a1 in-game with what you saw.
- Fly into a 2.5 km flak aura at altitude. Does the flak ring engage planes that are directly overhead but at high altitude? We think flak uses 3D distance with a per-aura altitude weighting; a flight that pushes vertical clearance would settle it.
- Watch flak salvo timing. How many seconds between flak bursts when a squadron sits in the donut? We have the burst count and damage but no published cadence.
- Test the priority-target field. Pick a single plane in your squad. Does it take extra continuous DPS or extra flak damage relative to its squadmates? Long-range auras carry a number that suggests yes, but the magnitude makes no sense to us yet.
- Stack flak skills. If you run Sunaookami Shiroko plus any other AA bonus skill, do the burst counts add cleanly or does a cap kick in? Tell us the captain combo and the burst number you saw on the card.
- Aircraft carrier observation. CV captains: try flying into a known-flak ship inside 2.5 km, then back out past 2.5 km. Does the burst count visibly change at that boundary? That is the dead-zone test we cannot run cleanly without aircraft.
What we currently believe, in one Mutsu
Every ship's AA defense is built from up to four overlapping auras. Each is a region around the hull with its own range and damage type. The in-game spec viewer only shows the longest range of each AA aura. Mutsu (Tier V Japanese battleship) lays it out clearly because her aura sizes separate well:
Near (1.0 km) and medium (2.0 km) deal continuous DPS at point-blank range. Far continuous (5.0 km) extends sustained fire out to mid-range. And the amber ring is the flak band: a separate aura that produces 2 burst explosions of 190 damage each, anywhere a plane sits between 2.5 km and 5.0 km from her hull.
The donut shape
Notice in Mutsu's diagram that her near and medium auras fit entirely inside the 2.5 km flak dead zone. That's the cleanest illustration of how flak works: the burst aura has a hole in the middle.
Aircraft inside 2.5 km face continuous AA fire only, never a flak puff. For carrier captains, that's a big tactical fact: pushing planes closer to the target ship trades flak risk for continuous damage. There is no "stay back at 6 km to avoid AA" play. The only way to avoid flak specifically on a flak ship is to be inside 2.5 km.
How it scales: Minotaur
Mutsu is a Tier V battleship. Now compare against Minotaur (Legendary tier UK cruiser, one of the strongest AA platforms in the game):
Same four-aura structure, but bigger everywhere. Near covers 2.0 km, medium covers 5.0 km, far continuous reaches 6.0 km. The flak ring carries 3 bursts of 290 damage each, the heaviest flak alpha in the game (tied with a handful of other Legendary ships). Total flak salvo is AA Explosions × Flak burst damage:
- Mutsu: 2 × 190 = 380 HP per flak salvo.
- Minotaur: 3 × 290 = 870 HP per flak salvo.
Fleet-wide spread runs from 380 (Brindisi at 2 × 190) up to 870 (Minotaur, Halland, Hindenburg, Vermont at 3 × 290). Every flak ship sits in that range.
The questions we cannot answer alone
The AA Defense card on every ship page now includes an amber-bordered "Flak mechanics (decoding in progress)" expandable list. It holds raw per-aura values for several fields that look meaningful but that we have not yet matched to in-game observation. Each one is a question we are asking the community to test.
Does flak use the 3D hypotenuse, not horizontal distance?
Each aura carries a per-aura altitude scaling factor: near reads 1.0, medium reads 1.5, far auras read 1.3 to 1.5. If the aura check were "is the plane within X km horizontally", we would not need a per-aura altitude knob. The fact that it varies per aura is suggestive.
What would help: a CV flight that climbs to maximum altitude directly above an AA ship, then crosses out beyond the aura's max range. Does the flak still hit at altitude? Where does it stop?
How does damage drop as distance increases inside the aura?
A pair of small numbers changes consistently between flak (0.4 / 0.1) and continuous auras (0.5 / 0.2). They look like the two ends of a damage-vs-distance falloff curve.
What would help: notice whether continuous AA damage feels noticeably weaker at the edge of medium/far range vs at point-blank. Any rough observation helps narrow it down.
What does the per-aura priority-target multiplier do?
This one is striking: 0.1 on near, 0.5 on medium, 5.0 on far. A 50× range over a single tier suggests it controls a real gameplay knob. Best guess: extra damage on the plane your squadron has flagged as priority target, OR an AA aiming preference (the aura prioritises that plane). We have not yet isolated which.
What would help: CV captains, mark a target plane in your squadron and see if that plane takes obviously different damage at 5 km vs at 1 km.
How often does a ship throw a flak salvo?
We have the burst count and burst damage but no published cadence. Total burst alpha matters most if salvos fire every few seconds; less if they fire once per squadron approach.
What would help: count the time between visible flak puffs while a squadron sits inside a known-flak ship's donut. Even a rough "one burst per 4 seconds" observation pins this down.
Do flak-bonus skills stack additively or hit a cap?
Sunaookami Shiroko's "Aerial Fire Support" adds +2 bursts while detected. There are other AA skills with similar mods. On a 3-burst ship like Minotaur, does the burst count cap at some value, or do bonuses keep adding? The AA Defense card on every ship page shows the base; the in-game card during battle shows the modified number.
What would help: load a captain combo with two or more flak bonuses on a ship you know the base count for. Compare the live AA card burst count vs base + sum of bonuses.
What we are confident about
Three numbers are now on every ship's AA Defense card as headline rows because their meaning is well anchored:
- AA Explosions: the base flak burst count per salvo. Fleet range: 0 to 3. When a ship has AA but no flak aura at all (most DDs, low-tier hulls, a handful of CVs) you'll see "0" with a tooltip explaining that those defenses are continuous-only.
- Flak burst damage: the per-burst alpha. Fleet range: roughly 190 to 290 HP.
- Flak inner ring (km): the dead-zone radius. Universally 2.5 km on every flak ship in the fleet.
Multiply count by burst damage to get total flak alpha per salvo. The ship-by-ship spread is real: Mutsu's 380 per salvo is in a different league from Minotaur's 870.
How to send findings
Anything you observe is useful, even partial. The best ways to share:
- Replay clip: a 10-30 second clip with the moment you tested. Twitch / YouTube link or attached video both work.
- Match details: ship name, captain build, range you were at, any rough numbers you can read off the screen.
- Conflicting observation: if any number on the AA Defense card does not match what you see in-game, that's exactly the signal we want.
Reach us on the GamingDiver Discord (#aa-research channel), reply to the article on Reddit, or DM a1 in-game.
This page is intentionally open-ended. The headline numbers (AA Explosions, Flak burst damage, Flak inner ring) are anchored to sister-game field names where comparable data exists; the altitude story, salvo cadence, and the rest of the in-progress list are inferences. The article will be revised as community findings come in.