Talk:Quests/@comment-175.156.137.30-20141104214025

For B33, the advice to put one additional CA/CAV opens yourself to other risks less obvious than compass routing. With just normal Zuiuns, and Zuiun-634s, its close to impossible to get an S on the 5-1 boss node. It's a catch-22: you can't get air superiority without spamming seaplane bombers, but putting seaplane bombers gets you ruined by submarine variations. Replacing all or some seaplane bombers with seaplane scouts lets your beatsticks ignore the SS, but then you lose air superiority on the boss node and get wrecked along the way to the boss. Although having 2BBV 2DD 1CAV 1CA has only a 20% chance of reaching the boss node due to the compass spin, this 20% is probably much higher than the chance of S you get with 2BBV 2DD 2CAV, and more-or-less guarantees the requisite boss S victory with double line formation(I did it on head-on engagement too). The reason being that there are so many factors that could screw you over without a CA, assuming you survive the gauntlet on the way to the boss without air superiority. For the boss node of 5-1 I find it's much more effective to have 0 bomber seaplanes and only seaplane scouts/obs, get air superiority with your CA, do good daytime damage(with 2*46cm+AP+obs seaplane and 2*20.3(2)+SCAMP+obs seaplane) during the day, mop up the survivors by night, leaving the ASW to the DDs(type3 set on both+ radar 22 kai 4 for whirlpool). If you put seaplane bombers onto your BBV/CAVs, the second variation of boss node will waste at least half of your day firepower on the troll SS. Furthermore, most of your seaplanes will get shot down during the penultimate pre-boss node and you have only a 1/3 chance of getting air superiority(the third variation with no enemy carriers). Of the 5 times I tried to go the northern route with 2BBV 2DD 2CAV, most of the time the HP of the heavier ships got whittled down so badly that it was impossible to get S on the boss node, made even worse if you can't get the air superiority. Sometimes I couldn't even make it to the boss node without getting brought to red. Then I switched out one CAV for Kaga with Saiun and that 20% spin chance was more than enough. Maybe the chance is better if you have Zuiun-12 and Zuiun-12-634, or maybe a Tone-class-kai2.