Board Thread:Fleet's Prepared-ness/@comment-33386374-20171019001006/@comment-26366865-20171019032810

You can probably pull an all-Hard on an average event with what you currently have, but it’s probably not going to be very pleasant. You have a lot of ships at decent levels, but “decent” will likely result in a lot of retreats on Hard, especially on the squishier classes like DDs. You’re at the point where you really need to start getting your core set of ships to 90+ so you don’t give up on a possible win because you ran out of SAN – your DDs and CVLs in particular could really use more training, since they really need all the evasion they can get for survival. Your CVs and CAVs are just about passable, too.

As for equipment, it’s time to get the high-end stuff – that means grinding Souryuu and Hiryuu dupes for planes, Kitakami and Ooi for quints, and stockpiling T32 Radars for support expedition, as well as spamming LSC for Maruyus so you can get the top ships to do reliable TCIs – Yuudachi can do 54 more damage than Yukikaze using TCI*, and that can really make a difference on Hard.

(*This is assuming they have the same equipment; Yuudachi can actually reach the yasen damage cap with just 2 upgraded quints, while Yukikaze would still be a few points short even with 3. When you’re dealing with damage-cap grade armor, having ships who can reach it on hand is extremely helpful. If you haven't already, I also suggest getting familiar with these calculations.)

Some of the benefits are small, but they really add up, and once a truly hellish map comes along, you’ll be really glad to have them on hand – half-baked upgrades and stock equipment will inevitably lead to a lot of salt on the higher difficulty maps.