Talk:Abukuma/@comment-26297438-20150717234909/@comment-24332640-20150719035650

Which ship is 'best' really depends on the map and circumstances.

Yuubari is still the ASW queen, but suffers from being extremely susceptible to damage. However there are situations where she's uniquely useful. I remember using her for 5-3 because she could equip 2 guns (for nightime DA) and sonar+DC for the sub at the boss node. No other ship at the time could do that. And while you could try to do it with Ooyoda now, her crap torpedo stat and base ASW means she would be pretty mediocre at both roles.

Ooyoda has the potential to be 2nd best at ASW after Yuubari (though it takes 3 sonars + DC) without her frailty, so she's probably the best choice for ASW under normal circumstances. Some people also like using her as an equipment mule, carrying things like searchlight and/or star shells to help out other ships at night, though her low torp means she's pretty weak at night herself. Personally I find her extremely useful for the 2-5 monthly quest with 4 DDs just to reach the LoS requirement (which is pretty tough to reach for that quest because DDs don't have great LoS).

Jintsuu has the stongest all-around stats included the highest night attack potential and highest daytime shelling damage. She's an obvious choice for night battles but I would probably still pick her for situations where you have air superiority and 2 shelling rounds because her shelling damage is quite good. She also has high max luck so with enough maruyus she has the potential to be a dyson-killer in events. And good stats all around means she's never really a bad choice.

Finally, enter Abukuma. A regular CL with an opening torp is obviously a big deal. Her torpedo stat is quite good but shelling is kind of mediocre. For situations without AS and/or only one shelling round the opening torp probably gives her the edge. I'm definitely going to use her for 3-5 south. She also has a lot of potential in combined fleet because of the low accuracy of shelling and the fact that the 2nd fleet only ever gets one daytime shelling round anyway.

So I don't believe in "one CL to rule them all". It depends on the circumstances. And I haven't even touched on ship locking in events or scenarios where you can have more than one CL (which certainly have happened in the past despite your insistence otherwise).