User blog:SlashZero/Summer 2015 E-3 Hard S Rank Pre-final & Farming Composition

Did you, like me, clear E-3 on hard and then realize you need to come back later to get Mizuho (or Isokaze)? Have you had difficulty getting S ranks at the boss? If so, then read on! If you haven't finished the map yet and want Mizuho, I highly advise switching to easy first until you get her because S-ranking the boss in E-3 sucks.

Also, this composition works fine for the final clear as well.

Why E-3?
Notable drops include Mizuho, Isokaze, Maruyu, Shoukaku, Zuikaku, Urakaze, Hamakaze, Tanikaze, Hatsukaze and others. And that's right, they all drop only upon S-ranking the boss node. A-rank victories drop nothing interesting. (Isokaze can be gotten from the X node but that won't be discussed here.)

Performance
I made it to the boss 12 of 14 runs with this setup. Out of 12 boss battles, 9 were S ranks, giving me an overall success rate of about 65% S-ranking the boss.

Route


The northernmost route (ACEHZ) is by far the easiest and shortest route to the boss node, which puts the following stipulations on your fleet: The first battle at C is a fairly easy fleet, although it does contain a Chi-class Flagship torpedo cruiser that can cause trouble if she is able to enter the torpedo phase.
 * Carrier Task Force
 * 1 or fewer CLT
 * 2 or fewer CV (CVL are OK)

There's an air battle at E which notably contains a Tsu-class Elite that gets two rounds of air battle to shoot down your bombers.

The preboss battle at H is two Wo-class with a Ta-class battleship in diamond formation. Any of these 3 can pack quite a punch if they manage to land hits.

Looking at the boss node, the enemy has a formidable force of a 175 armor Seaplane Tender Princess, two beefy Aircraft Carrier Demons, a Ne-class heavy cruiser and two destroyers.

Composition
Dealing with this boss effectively means setting your fleet up to as likely as possible disable the Aircraft Carrier Demons by bringing them to half health so they cannot deal damage to your fleet. In order to do this our main tool is the Main-Main-AP shell artillery spotting setup, which gives post-cap bonuses that will help dish out enough damage to potentially bring an Aircraft Carrier Demon down to chuuha in one shot. Thus, However, those double attacks and cutins won't do much good if they end up targeting the destroyers. Therefore we want to stack some preemptive striking power in torpedoes and boss support shelling to try to eliminate the fodder before hand. Preemptive torpedoes will also help reduce damage taken at the first and third nodes. Boss support can also help weaken the Carrier Demons quite a bit if you get good hits.
 * 2 battleships in the main fleet (Nagato Class, Vittorio Veneto Class recommended)
 * 1+ battleships in the second fleet (Bismarck strongly recommended)
 * 1 CLT (Kitakami Kai Ni or Ooi Kai Ni)
 * Abukuma Kai Ni
 * Full boss support shelling fleet

Perhaps a lesser known fact is that being in the flagship position and also achieving air supremacy (compared to air superiority) both increase the trigger rate of artillery spotting. Since we are trying to maximize the damage output of our battleships we will utilize both of these mechanics. Not to mention, getting air supremacy in all battles will lower bauxite costs compared to air superiority only. In order to do this we need as many carriers as possible. Seeing as there's a total 4 air battles in this map it's not a bad idea to bring a AACI setup. However, it's not really worth sacrificing too much night battle power for. In fact, the night battle is so important and difficult I'd even recommend bringing a cutin setup destroyer as well Finally, the last position in the escort fleet can be filled either by a second battleship (stronger in day, weaker in night), or a heavy cruiser (weaker in day, stronger at night and can fire a torpedo). Personally, I go with the heavy cruiser since it guarantees my other battleship (in the flagship position) goes first, and heavy cruisers can put out pretty good damage in the day still and can help clear out straggling destroyers with torpedoes.
 * 2 CV (Taihou, Kaga and/or Akagi recommended)
 * 2 CVL (Junyou Kai Ni, Chitose Kai Ni and/or Chiyoda Kai Ni)
 * 1 AACI destroyer (Yuudachi, Ayanami, Fubuki, Shimakaze, or Akatsuki recommended)
 * 1 torpedo cut-in destroyer (Yukikaze, Ayanami, or Shigure recommended)

Main fleet
Depending on the slot capacities and quality of your fighter planes, you may have some leeway to drop fighter planes from the 4th slot of one of your carriers and put a yellow secondary gun there instead for more firepower/range. To calculate how much fighter power each slot gives for fighter planes, just add +1 AA for every rank above default. So for example, +3 AA for three blue bars, +7 AA for max rank chevrons. A max ranked Reppu thus has 17 effective AA in the fighter power calculation. You want to aim to have around 860 starting air power to meet the ~840 required at the boss for air supremacy. Bombers also get some AA bonus but the formula isn't clear yet so I've neglected bomber experience levels in my calculations to be safe.
 * 1) Extra-long Range Battleship
 * 2) *By putting the longest range battleship first, this will give the first attack of the first shelling phase to the flagship, which means your fleet gets to open with a higher artillery spotting trigger rate attack.
 * 3) *2 upgraded fit guns.  If you are using two Nagato-class or other such setups, give this ship an upgraded 46cm or 51cm.
 * 4) *Upgraded AP shell, of course.
 * 5) *Your best scout plane.  (e.g. >> rank Type 0 Obs)
 * 6) Long Range Battleship
 * 7) *Similar to 1 except setup to have just long range, not extra long.
 * 8) Standard Carrier 1
 * 9) *If you're using Taihou put her here.
 * 10) *Equip one of your two best torpedo bombers her largest slot.  Why the largest?  Due to the prolific appearance of the Tsu-class Elite AA cruisers on this map, any smaller slots are in danger of being wiped out and leaving your carriers unable to attack at the boss.  In fact, this will still happen sometimes even in Kaga's monster 46 slot, but there's not much you can do about it.
 * 11) *Fill the remaining slots with fully trained (gold >>) fighters
 * 12) Standard Carrier 2
 * 13) *Same as above
 * 14) Light Carrier 1
 * 15) *Fill completely with fully trained fighters.
 * 16) *If this CVL has the smallest slot in your fleet, equip a Saiun there instead.
 * 17) Light Carrier 2
 * 18) *Same as above

Escort Fleet

 * 1) Bismarck Drei
 * 2) *As previously, take advantage of the flagship bonus for artillery spotting here.
 * 3) *Two upgraded 38cm kais
 * 4) *Upgraded AP shell
 * 5) *Your best scout plane.  (e.g. >> rank Type 0 Obs)
 * 6) AACI Setup DD
 * 7) *Should be the first or second weakest (in terms of night battle power).  We want to stack the heaviest hitters at night at the bottom since the enemy flagship is the most durable.
 * 8) Abukuma Kai Ni
 * 9) *Give her a night battle double attack setup.  Upgraded 20.3cms or OTOs work well.
 * 10) *Of course, a midget submarine for the preemptive strike.
 * 11) Heavy Cruiser
 * 12) *Main-Main-RADAR artillery spotting setup.  Upgraded, of course (or FuMO for the RADAR).
 * 13) *Give her your night scout.  The reason we don't put it on Bismarck is that this plane is said to have a lower rate of triggering artillery spotting.
 * 14) Cut-in Setup DD
 * 15) *Personally I like triple torpedo for maximum torpedo phase and night battle damage, but if you haven't raised luck to 50+ you may want to use a Star Shell or Skilled Lookouts.
 * 16) Torpedo Cruiser
 * 17) *Same as Abukuma Kai Ni
 * 18) *The reason we don't set up Abukuma or the CLT for cut-in is for both consistency at night and also for helping wipe out enemies in the first node before the torpedo phase.

Support Fleet

 * I like doing two bombers + two RADARs on high firepower carriers (Unryuu-class, Hiryuu Kai Ni, Souryuu Kai Ni)
 * Personally I do 2 main + AP + RADAR on my battleships believing that the AP shell bonus applies to support shelling, but many others do 3 main + RADAR.  Keep in mind overweight penalities.
 * Your destroyers probably won't do much anyways since the new destroyers at the boss have a fair bit of HP and armor, so feel free to stack whatever you think is best on them.
 * I recommend sparkling the carriers and battleships, but at the very least sparkle the two carriers since you can also raise some bomber exp at the same time.

Formations
Formation 3 at the air battle node, Formation 4 at all other nodes to wipe the enemy ships out and give them the fewest possible attacks. Formation 2 doesn't really help with your evasion, but it sure as hell will lower your opening torpedo accuracy and all-around damage.

About X Node
There are some rumors that clearing X node will affect the boss armor like in E-7. Someone did an investigation on this and found that even 10 S ranks on X node had no effect on the boss armor. This node is just an alternative spot to farm Isokaze/etc.