Thread:Nep-Nep/@comment-26913812-20151116221628/@comment-24978536-20151119141443

True.

I did my first sortie to E-3 Hard just now, reached the boss node, and received a damn ERROR CAT when entering night battle. Ugh, I hate cats now...

Anyway, I went with the recommended composition in the event page and also ran a sortie support expedition, which really helped as the map is filled by bunch of dangerous DD and CL that can Taiha your ship girls with their torpedo salvo. First and Second node went by easily thanks to Tone's Seiran, Abukuma and sortie support expedition taking out almost the whole enemy fleets. Third battle sortie support expedition did activate, but a Late Model Elite DD still managed to survive until torpedo salvo, which Taiha'd one of my DD, forcing the use of FCF. Boss node has two Ta-class BB (one flagship, one elite) and obviously the AV Hime - I don't think it is a terribly difficult node to A-Rank, but due to fuel running lower your own ship girls will probably start getting wrecked, which will make S-Ranking difficult unless a boss support expedition is also used.

I personally had three enemy ships alive when entering night battle and only two healthy ship girls on the escort fleet, so I wouldn't have been able to get S-Rank, but A-Rank was a likely outcome.

Also, with the new Destroyer combined fleet, the escort fleet is the first to participicate in shelling, which makes the torpedo salvo by enemy DD even more dangerous.