User blog comment:NPC01/Preparation before Winter 2018/@comment-26366865-20171214152343

Most of the useful advice has already been said, but there are a handful of points that are still worth mentioning:

-Always improve in steps – everything to +1, then everything to +4, +6/+7 pair for guns, and only then should you worry about +9. You get a lot more bang for your screws this way. Exceptions: planes and situational guns, such as the 381mm Kai.

-You really need to bump the priority for your heavy guns, especially the 35.6cm group; the value of their improvements has grown significantly since the FP cap increase. Before that, it was relatively easy to get to the cap, now every point of FP counts, and the devs have made it pretty clear in the previous events with E-4H Z6 and the near-cap armored bosses that must be killed on day battle.

-Reinforcing what others already said, you really need to get your Akiguns to MAX; their impact on AA defense is huge, even if you don’t use them for AACI. With the numbers you have, you really shouldn’t be using any other gun for your DDs.