User blog:Rimedimichelangelo/Spring 2016 Admiral's Log - week 1

Log to remind myself of the sheer insanity of this motherfrigging event.

May the 2nd After a seemingly endless maintenance the Event started in the evening in my time zone and I had to attend a family dinner so I spent the first hours of Spring 2016 watching frontliners' livestreams from my smartphone.

May the 3rd I had classes all day and I spent the evening gathering more intel and watching Japanese frontliners in the final maps and sweating because "holy fuck 6 himes! Abort abort abort!". But I also discovered that Teruzuki was an early map's drop so there was an upside. Later in the evening/At night I sortied in E-1 for the first time. 3 runs, 3 clean kills. A Maruyu is the only notable drop in this map for me.

May the 4th No classes that day so I sortied another couple times in E-1 and obtained other 2 clean kills. E-1 Hard clear. Gathered intel and resolved to attempt rescuing Teruzuki for the day. 22 runs, all S ranks, no Teruzuki.

May the 5th Moved onto the clearing E-2 part. I had one lucky run, the first, in which I met Depot Hime instead of the Artillery Imp so the bar went down one third of the way but it was the only time and I encountered that blasted Artillery Imp for the rest of the time. 5 S ranks for the first 5 runs, but then last dance happened. After 2 A ranks at boss I swapped Chitose CVL for my second CAV, Suzuya, and got a further A rank and a final S rank. Late afternoon sees E-2 clear. No notable drops, not even a Maruyu. Since I had classes the successive day I decided to get an early start on E-3 since there was enough intel around. First A rank only chipped 56 TP points so I maximised the number of Daihatsus and drums. Next 3 boss kills (one retreat in-between, the first of the event) chipped 111, not bad at all, and I finished the night with an unfortunate A rank of 77 points. In the end a Maruyu during E-3 boss kills was the only ‘notable’ drop of the day. Luck was not with me, as usual.

May the 6th I had classes on Friday but I got home earlier because I was reading up some dreadful accounts of the last three maps and went a bit paranoid. Even after Thursday’s last A rank I figured that since the gauge was so short I didn’t have to swap equipment. Not my brightest moment since I got a further A rank and so got stuck for another Final form run. Honestly I wasn’t even salty about it since for the TP gauge you don’t need clean kills, so the next A rank did the job and I took the mental note to come back to farm for the WG in the future. My Friday afternoon freed up and I decided I had enough Intel to tackle E-4. Fujihita painted such an easy map so I went with E-1 ships, of course, and some others I wanted to level, including Zara. Bad, bad idea. Awful idea. After a first A rank and a second lucky S rank I kept scoring A ranks which has always annoyed the xmas daylight out of me, especially when I get to boss with my fleet intact and when all night gear activates for the night battle stage. I changed from Carrier task force to Surface Task force and back again to see if it was me or RNG. Looking back to that afternoon I think it was a combination of non-excellent girls and RNG both. IT was still frustrating as all fucks. After two refreshing S ranks along the way I got stuck in motherloving Last Dance with more A ranks. I swapped the equipment around but didn’t dare locking more girls in (I had swapped Zara out immediately though), and late at night I finally cleared E-4 Hard.

May the 7th Saturday will be going down as “the day when I overestimated my girls”, them or my equipment, anyway, yesterday I decided to tackle E-5 in Hard after all (damn you Tanaka for wooing me with fancy new fairies planes). Boy, oh boy. Since the compos for E-6 were still hectic yesterday I locked up my whole Tone Class in E-5 only to end in an endless loop of retreats and A ranks and with few sparse occasional strokes of luck, even S ranks. I’ve never hated Tsu class CAs and Ru class BBs like in this map. Lycoris is a darling compared to those fuckers. And wow, seeing RNG screwing me so intently is always such fun. Said no Teitoku ever. After the first dozen runs of consistent retreats and A ranks I’ve stopped counting them.

May the 8th And here we are at today. Also known as “E-5 Last Dance Unlimited Works”. It’s well into the night at the time of writing and I’ve finally decided to swap a CAV and a DD for my Nagato class since I’ll need my Fusou sisters for E-6. Even if I know that they are empty words: here’s hoping RNG has mercy on my months-worth stockpiled resources.