Talk:Winter 2019 Event/@comment-174.109.56.139-20190106072433/@comment-2003:C0:A734:4001:9FB:BC3F:CD60:CAA8-20190106113651

I have done plenty of sorties (post clear) on E3E, and from my experience both (C) and (ZZ) should not be much of an issue (on average). The Sub Hime has a tendency to overkill when hitting and usually leaves smaller ships (DDs, CLTs, CLs, etc.) in medium damage - which is annoying, but it doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things.

The thing with LBAS support is that it is not particularly great at supressing the node on easy. While the LBAS might take out her minions, it is very unlikely that you can prevent her initial attack even when using 2 OASW ships - and if your OASW deals damage to her, the loss of firepower from being in medium damage might actually make her *more* likely to tai-ha your ships.

I'd recommend the following instead:

(1) Send all LBAS to the boss: That way you need to use less slots for air power, allowing you to bring other, more important items and optimize your remaining ship loadouts. You might even be able to replace one of your SPF carrying ships with a BB or CA, which will help a lot at the boss node. My fleet's performance at the boss node increased greatly after doing this.

(2) Use 2 OASW ships: On easy those are enough to prevent Sub Hime's second attack most of the time, so you will only have to roll the dice twice. They can also supress the Sub Hime comps on (ZZ) that come with opening torp minions.

(3) Bring a FCF: Yes, fighting with 2 less ships at the boss will be annoying, but even if one of your heavy hitters gets tai-ha'ed, it might still be better to try and fight than doing retreat and losing the resources spend on your support expedition(s). Place your OASW DD in front of the finishers in your escort fleet (ideally #3), and you can use her to tug away the damaged ship -  an OASW ship won't do much at the boss node anyway.

FWIW, casual would help you a lot with farming the boss. The fact that the Hime gets replaced by a regular BB post-clear will make it a lot, lot easier to get S-ranks and probably reduce bucket use by at least one bucket per sortie.