Talk:Winter 2017 Event/@comment-2.97.193.30-20170227005257/@comment-108.88.197.98-20170227022830

Drop the Type 3 shell from Prinz. I'm baffled by it. There's no reason to equip it, unless you just forgot to remove it after doing Node J debuff fights.

I also notice that you've got a ton of night battle cut-in boosting equipment scattered around your escort fleet, but you've only got one actual cut-in setup taking advantage of it. That is a waste of equipment. Prinz has 40 luck. Remove the guns and give her a torp cut-in. Switch some of the night battle equipment to her leftover slots to free up space on your other ships. Give Yuudachi a torp cut-in and set her in the flag position. That will get her to cut-in often enough to be well worth it.

On the other hand, get rid of the torp cut-in on Kitakami. She's wasting tons of that damage potential due to the damage cap, while sacrificing reliability. Both her and Ooi should have your most powerful cruiser guns for double attack setups. With double attacks, they already come close to the damage cap, so save your best torps for other ships.

For any ship able to equip sonar or depth charges, give that ship one of either a sonar or depth charge. It provides a 1.15 multiplier for damage against any enemies at the boss node. When I did last dance, I even gave my CLTs sonar and sacrificed the minisub opening torp. It made it notably harder to *get* to the boss, but once I did, Ooi did 325 or so damage to the twins in one-half of a double attack and sunk her on with the other shot, right after the boss had soaked two torp cut-ins from my Yuudachi and Prinz.

If you have Italia or Roma available, swap them in and give them a standard setup, but replace the AP shell with a Seiran for a special boss node damage effect (The Italians should hit the daytime cap even without an AP shell's extra firepower). A double attack with the Seiran 1.24 special multiplier is almost equivalent to two AP shell cut-ins, and the Seirans' multiplier will produce higher average damage when artillery spotting does not kick in. Keep the seaplane scout, because the Seirans will almost always be elminated by the time the shelling phase at the boss starts. They still provide the special bonus effect even if the slot is emptied, so they're really not there to act as aircraft, but function more like the AP shell as a pure damage boost. The battleships are there to clean up the rest of the fleet, so this is desirable, in contrast to the escort fleet, where the potential for lucky burst damage is much more important.

I'm starting to lose track of things, now, so I'll just post my general fleet composition for Last Dance on hard mode.

STF Main Fleet:  Iowa (2x38cm Kai*9, scout, AP shell), Italia (2x381mm Kai*9, scout, Seiran), Bismarck (16" *4, 35.6cm proto*9, scout, AP), Hieiiiiiiii (2x16" *4, scout AP), Chitose & Chiyoda with lots of fighters and one Saiun. Eventually I moved the CVL girls to the top of the fleet to try and stop them from getting taiha'ed so much on the way to the boss.

STF Escort Fleet:  Yuudachi (2xQuint*4, T4 Sonar*4), Prinz Puddin' (2xQuint*4, Searchlight*9, Star Shells), Ooi (2x20.3cm(#3)*9, T3 Depth Charge*9), Maya (20.3(#3)*9, Star Shells, FuMO, 5"/38 DP Gun, Bofors in Reinforcement Expansion Slot), 36-Luck Tenryuu (2xQuint*4, T3 Depth Charge*4, lots of irrational sentimentality), 48-Luck Ushio (2xQuint*9, T4 Sonar*4, irrational dislike of Shigure and Yukikaze)

Used dual shelling support expeditions, and both LBAS with 1 fighter + 3 bombers, as well. On my final run, the LBAS and support expeditions actually didn't do much, but the battleships smashed the CV himes badly. At the start of night battle, the Doublemint Twins were undamaged, but their only company was a taiha'ed CV Hime. Yuudachi & Prinz each cut-in for around 130-150 damage to the Twins, and then Ooi hit them for ~325+ I forget because all I could see was the boss gauge exploding. Then Maya double attacked the CV Hime for only my 3rd S-rank overall, and I was happy. Prior to that run, the best result I had had was Tenryuu doing a 450+ damage cut-in to the Twins, but everybody else preferring to gang up on the two CV himes.

I think if my haphazard fleet could do it on hard, you can do it on easy even if you don't have so much upgraded equipment. You just need to keep going through the cycle. Maybe try sparkling everybody for one or two runs just to see if that tips things over the edge, but if it doesn't don't spend any more time on that (except for the support expeditions) and just concentrate on getting run after run in until the RNG declares you have proven your loyalty through suffering and grants you an "Everything Goes Right" run. Chew a pack of Doublemint Gum for good luck if nothing else works. Godspeed, brave sailor.