DDs are kida weak, finish K2'ing Ayanami, Get Asashio to K2D because you'll want some OASW from DD's, throw some xp (60's ish) into Yukikaze cuz cut-ins. You've got nothing by way of Akizuki class which sucks hard but I guess that gives you something to farm for.

Jintsu K2 cuz strong, Naka K2 cuz easy OASW and she's in the upper end of strong CLs. Get some levels into Ooyodo and Yuubari cuz 4 slot Cls come in handy.

Haguro and Myoukou are the better 2 of the 4 sisters so don't neglect them, though you can probably get away with doing that after the event. Throw some xp at Kumano and or BP Chikuma (but I think we talked about this with Zuikaku and Shoukaku so Kumano it is then), you don't wanna get caught needing 2 CAVs when 3 of your 4 are in their 30s.

Junyou and Ryuujou K2.

Equipment is pretty good, decent numbers of the important stuff and a fairly wide variety considering the time you've been playing. Maybe the export image thing messed up but I see you have 2 U-511 but 0 WG42.... please tell me they arent resting at the bottom of the ocean somewhere.....

Thanks for the feedback. 

To answer/address some of your thoughts to explain the method to the madness:

I am aware that my DDs are kind of lacking, but all of the DDs that are at K2 have max-stats except AA and I can fill out a Transport Fleet with K2 max-stat DDs...not the best DDs, but the ones I like. 

This said, I am working on getting all of them at the very least to K2 (or at least Kai in those that don't have a K2 yet) if for nothing else except their cool gear.

Frankly the jury is still out on whether or not I am going to keep Ayanami once I get her gear at K2 (I made a list of ships I want to get to K2 for gear purposes, quests and the like and I don't remember where I put Ayanami XD)...and I'm not sure if Asashio is worth it at the moment. I mean, she doesn't get any new equipment and there are other DDs that do give equipment and the like. 

No Akizukis, I did try to farm for them during the Summer Event, but I was given some other hard-to-find/event-only ships instead (Prinz, Amagi, 2x U-511s...). I imagine that the new one will be a reward ship and I see no reason why she would not join my fleet...but yeah, I'd like some Akizukis...if for nothing else than I like thier artwork :3

As for Jintsu and Naka; I will admit that I had them for awhile, but was forced to cull them out when I was a 100-slotter and found myself making use of the Agano-Class as my CL's of choice...and the only reason why some of the CLs (such as Natori, Nagara and Kuma) are getting love is because most of the CLs I have are about where I want/need them to be (or so I think). This is not to say I won't go back to Naka and Jintsu...if only to get all 3 of them together with Sendai...but yeah.

Haguro and Myoukou are better than Ashigara and Nachi? Really? Anyway, those 2 are in the same boat (heh) as Jintsu and Naka; but given that I got my other CAs to K2, I can focus on those two...besides, I know there's a quest that requires 3 out of 4 of them, so all 4 will get to K2...eventually...

My CAVs are... I don't know actually. I thought out of the 4, Kumano was the weakest? I could be wrong here... either way, she's got awhile for K2, and I think Suzuya will get to that point first... either way, I think that is a weak point out of the fleet; I rely so much on Suzuya, and I kinda feel 'bleh' if I need 2+ CAVs for, well, anything really. This said, moving forward (thinking after-event here), should Kumano get the BP before Chikuma, as Chikuma is ready to go right now?

Jun'You and Ryuujou are my present go-to CLs so they can get XPs, I'm finding Ryuujou a little harder to work with than I'd like due to her limited plane-slots though...

Now, I am aware that many of my choices for ships in particular (such as Hamakaze getting the first ring and is first waiful) are waifu/art/character-based rather than stat-based...which may or may not be a hinderance... but meh?

As far as equipment goes, I've been making it an effort to get good/decent gear in a (reasonably) effecient manner. I mean, there are some things I could have more/better of (such as Medium or Large main guns), but I just don't have the resources (screws) to drop in their development right now. For the WG42's, I think you were just looking at the preview or something because I have 3 of those (1 from each U-511 and 1 from the Saury reward). 

I do my damndest to make sure my girls come home; there are rare exceptions, such as making a 'calculated risk' during sparkle-farming with common 1-1 DDs and a stint of Sink-Tests for the Combined Fleet mechanic I used during the Summer event (I heard that the 2nd Flagship was unsinkable, but the 'newest' info on that was 1-2 years old and again, I was using common-drops/dupes).

In any event, thank you for taking the time to look over my fleet and gear; I will look into boosting the strength/levels of my CAVs and get more DDs to higher levels.

I was just going to comment on your bad choice of upgrades, but after reading your reply, I think a lot clarifications are in order.

The only DDs with noteworthy equipment are the Akizukis. Unless you’re farming searchlights or Poiguns for improvement fodder or something like that, you really shouldn’t care about what equipment they have, since they are all craftable anyway. The fact that you’re dismissing Ayanami and Asashio, who have 2nd and 3rd best stats of all DDs (1st is Yuudachi) shows how screwed your priorities are on this point.

It’s fine to stick with the girls you like, and you can probably get through Easy with just them, but if you want to be able to tackle Hard maps, you’ll definitely need some top-stat ships.

Incidentally, you should definitely take a look at the ships by top stats pages, since you clearly don’t have much of a clue about which ships have the best stats (looking at the comments about Jintsuu and Myoukou/Haguro here)

Again, top stats. CAVs are regularly used both for branching and on Transport maps, so what you have is certainly not enough; you should at the very least give them some levels, and get Suzuya and Chikuma to Kai Ni when you can spare the blueprint. Yes, Kumano is marginally better than Chikuma, but unless you’re planning on power-leveling her all the way to 84, there’s no point in waiting.

Jun’you is slow, and will regularly get screwed by branching. Ryuujou is very situational due to her slot spread, as well as being very weak unless she’s Kai Ni – you should definitely get her there ASAP if you plan on using her regularly.

This is fine - motivation to keep playing is a very important point - but again, balance is key if you want to progress beyond clearing events on Easy.

Ok, to put it bluntly, the majority of your upgrades have been nothing more than a waste of time. There’s no reason whatsoever to improve junk like base 12.7cm, base 20.3cm or T94 DCs, especially considering you have better versions of them just sitting there, as well as plenty of equipment that are already top-tier, such as quint torpedoes and AP shells.

And yes, I’m aware that most of them are free in terms of screws since they only cost 1, but time is very important resource as well. It’ll take a looong time to get a decent amount of upgrades to deal with the many situations the game will throw at you, and you’ve wasted at least a couple of months on stuff that is completely useless.

Thanks for the feedback, and taking the time to look over everything, I really do appreciate it. 

I read over your responses and I have some of my own. 

I am not dismissing Asashio or Ayanami.

For Asashio, I am not sure I see the benefit getting her to K2 D, where she is giving up her surface-combat superiority for better ASW stats is worthwile at this time. I am well aware that she is one of the strongest DDs, and I'm not sure I want to give that up in return for a marginal improvement to ASW, especially since I'm not going to do much with her after doing the upgrade. Will she get level 99+? Sure, but not in the immediate future. 

For Ayanami, I stated I was not sure what 'category' I put her in, regarding getting ships to K2. Some ships I do want at K2 for their obvious benefits in stats or gear, and I recall making some notes for Ayanami, just not what those were at the time I wrote my response. 

As far as gear, there is nothing in specific that I am necessarily looking for, but I won't turn down 12.7 Twin Bs, Poiguns, Searchlights, Engines/Turbines or Skilled Lookouts either.

Not going to disagree with you. My CAV game is weak.

However, up until last week, my intent was to give my newest set of blueprints to Chikuma so I could have a second good CAV at suffecntly high level. Unfortunately, out of the list of ships that needed a BP that were ready to go 'now', I was advised to give it to Shoukaku/Zuikaku and the next BP to the other one next month. I have no problem in putting Kumano 'on the list to level up to K2' and give her a higher priority than someone else...but there are about half a dozen other ships that need Blueprints (Choukai, Chikuma, Amagi, Shokaku and Kinu off the top of my head).

Regarding my thoughts on Myoukou/Haguro:

I actually looked at that chart before making my assessment on that class of CA (and as a point of clarity, I do consult that table from time to time). Thing is, is that the stat difference between them is marginal (1-4 points pending stat), and I have yet to see anything that tells me 2 points of FP, Armor, AA, Luck, etc. makes much of a difference. So, at the time I made the initial decision of 'what ships to keep, which ones to drop', based on character and artwork/design. But that was months ago. I have more space and gotten the higher priority CA's I have since re-acquired those two and am leveling them up. 

Not gonna lie, I like Jun'You's character and design. I don't intend on using her regularly. And I do like Ryuujou... I want to like her more, but I am aware of her limitations. Those 2 are only getting leveled up to K2 for the sake of leveling them to K2.  As of right now, if I absolutly need CVLs, I will probably use the Chitose Sisters more often than not.

That said, I bring both of Jun'You and Ryuujou to my 2-5 runs (either map-completion or Taigei hunting) for the levels/EXPs they need. 

I am aware of the situation of my equipment... however, something I ask that you keep in mind is that most of those upgrades were done either when I had no f**king clue what I was doing or I had an idea of what I was doing, but not the helper ships needed.

For example, I upgraded the T94 DCs when I didn't know what I was doing and I wanted to make sure I had the ability to run a full Anti-Sub fleet (6x DC 6-12 Sonar) because of the Spring 2017 event taught me that all Abyssal Subs need to die a firty death.

The 20.3 (no.2/no.3) were only recent acquisitions... as in I got them towards the end of or shortly after the Summer 2017 event. 

The 12.7cms are holdovers from when I didn't have a better spread of helper ships and/or equipment upgrade goals. 

Time and resources wasted on these things? Certainly. But that's usually what ends up happening when folks are just starting out and trying to learn things and figure them out.

To be clear, right now my equipment upgrade goals are getting some Seaplane Fighters (I got screwed hard more than once due to not having any Seaplane Fighters in the Summer Event) or improving the fighters I do have. I am favoring the Ro.44 because they're cheaper to make than Type 2 Seaplane Fighter and their stats are close enough that it's harder to argue the cost difference IMHO. Since I can't do those every day because I don't have the helpers, I drop what I can into the M32 (Skilled) or T96's in preperation for the quarterly Skilled Crewmember Training.

If you feel that building up Seaplane Fighters (an area I know I am lacking) is a poor use of my time and resources, I am open to suggestions of what a better use would be.

Here's the thing, and this may not have come across very well, but I do understand and appreciate stats. I understand that there are just some things that are objectivly superior, plain and simple. I get that, and I do take a look at those stats and hem and haw and take them into account before making a decision. However, if there is an area where stats are very close or, the difference isn't significant, then I find I have to fall back to something else.

No, Hamakaze is not the best DD out there, but I got her out of nowhere during the Spring 2017 event (I did muck around in E1 and E2) and I was hooked. It didn't hurt that at that time, she was possibly the most powerful DD I had to date at that time either. 

Alternitively, I have seen the power of Yuudachi, and I am a true believer in the power of Poi...and as much as I love Hamakaze, Yuudachi is just outright better. If I can run those 2 side by side, I will do so, but I understand that stats do matter and are a factor. 

As far as clearing events other than Easy, I cleared E1 and got to Last Dance on E2 on Medium using my 3rd Tier ships (which consisted of no K2-level ships). I probably could have muscled through E2 on Medium as well, had I just kept more patience with RNG-Sama...but instead, I got frusterated, switched to Easy Mode and brought the biggest guns I could bring and steamrolled through most of the rest of the event. I only ran into problems/frusteration again on E7's Last Dance until I made a couple of adjustments...but I still finished it with about 2 weeks to spare.

That may not sound like much to more experienced players, but considering that I started just before the Spring 2017 event (I reached the level where I could choose Medium *during* that event), I would like to think that's a pretty good bit of progression. 

In any event, I want to thank you again for taking the time to look over everything and give your feedback. I do appreciate it. Please do not take my rebuttals or snark as negative pushback or anything. My default sense of humor is 'Mildly Sarcastic' and I think some of my decisions bear explaining because while my HQ is level 101 and I have a variety of gear and ships, I have only been at this thing for 6-7 months or so. 

Rather than the static max stat pages those lovely green names made sortable lists a while back and those beat the shit out of having to endlessly scroll up and down compairing this stat and that stat across a bunch of DDs for example. Heres a shitty pain image that'll show you how to find it incase you don't know where the sortable lists are already.

That said, Peroim nailed it on all counts. Sure level and use girls you love because at the end of the day it's a game and it should be fun, but you might find getting your ass kick during event not so fun because you want to use cute girls rather than good girls... theres gotta be some balance. My very first blueprint went to Taigei>Ryuuhou because I just love her, and this way way back when there was only 1-5 2-5 3-5 and 5-5 (I couldnt even do 5-5 so it took more than a month for that first print), and I knew I was making the "wrong" choice and it was going to set me back a bit, but those are choices we all have to make and live with.

As for the methood of your madness... well to be frank, it's a whole lotta bullshit, guess work and assumptions about things that don't really matter. Don't take this the wrong way and get upset or defencive because virtualy every single player has done these things and it's just part of being a noob or still fairly new. I curse like a sailor and tend not to beat around the bush so even if I come off as and asshole just ignore that and search for the usefull bits of info.

Just because you can put together a transport escort of mostly good ships dosen't mean anything, event's dont consist of just 1 stage and you just taged all your good girls potentially barring them from Med/Hard on later stages if the tag colors dont qualify. Every single combined fleet needs at least 2 DD and if you burn all the good ones in a transport escort you'll be left shoving to low level weaklings into an otherwise sound fleet comp.

The max stat/sortable pages will put an end to the is she good guesswork.

K2 stock equipment dosen't mean nearly as much as you might think. For the most part they are just a by-product of getting the actual prize which is the K2 ship, in the not too distant future you will literally be awash in searchlights and starshells so K2'ing Ayanami for those rather than for a top notch fighting DD is the absolute wrong way of looking at it. The 12.7B K2 (poi gun) is just a stop gap untill you've got several 10cm aafd's (Aki guns). Just speaking of Akizuki class also brings up aaci, Aerial Combat#Equipment.2C API you're going to need a crystal clear understanding of not only how it works but what to use on who and when.

Agano class are cute but they are utter shit. They use more fuel and ammo than the top 7 CLs (in terms of combat stas) and have nothing special to offer your fleet like the 4slot CLs. In terms of events and combined fleets, CLs kinda get the short end of the stick, Combined Fleet , CTF uses 1 and only 1, STF can use up to 3 (2 in main 1 in escort) and transport escort uses 1. I'll say it again, this doesn't mean to level or use them, but don't skimp on the CLs that actually bring something legit to the table.

Again, maxstat/sortable will clear up any confusion with the CAs and their value.

For CAVs, again.. maxstatsortable blah blah but I will point out - Though your Chikuma and (eventually) Tone are CAs they will eventually become your 2 best CAVs, untill then you should put work into Suzuya and Kumano simply because of their forward growth potential (K2 and conversion to CVL), unlike Mogami and Mikuma, So since you absolutely need working CAVs you might as well invest in ones that have room to grow, its kinda 2 birds with 1 stone type deal.

Good on Jun'you and RJ, you don't need to focus level them, just do as you are doing and incorperate them into fleets whenever you can without weakening the fleet toomuch, they make good escort carriers in 3-2a fleets for example.

3 Wg's good! your life sucks substantially less by having those, even if you dont need to use them this event.

I sink lvl 1 or 2 DD's that get popped while sparkling all the time, fuckit they were just going to get thrown out anyway and you get more morale by going on and sinking them rather than retreating right away, if they get taiha'd on the first node of 1-1 fuck'em they deserve to be an artifical reef.

Best advice I can give you is explore the wiki constantly and re-read shit you think you already know. ask questions if you can't find the info or you don't feel you have a clear understanding of something, sure people might shit on you but it's the internet afterall, that's just part of the deal, ignore it and try and extract the nuggets of worthwhile info and put it to use.

I'm not even going to get into equipment improvment because that's a whole other can of worms and I'm sick of typing.

As I mentioned, I have taken a peek at the stats and such and I am quite cognizant of what's good and what's 'meh'. I don't live by those pages like I do others (such as the Expeditions, but when I want to double-check something, that is one of the first places I go. I am aware that there is a semblance of BS to my explinations (I can hear it now: "artwork is your measure? Really?", "Bust-size for said artwork is a significant factor...seriously?"), I get it. But I don't think anybody can help but explain their reasons for doing a thing that goes against the objective facts when it comes to stats and such. For me, a prime example is Hamakaze; no she is not the best DD objectivly speaking. Her stats aren't top-tier, but she's not mid-tier average either...but just like you love your Taigei, Hamakaze is mine...and people do silly things, knowing full well that they are silly, for the things they like and care about.

This said, I am less concerned about how others approach me (I have a thick skin and not easily offended or upset)...but I am far more concerned how I come across to others. The way I see it, I came here asking for help/advice; I expect to catch flak for it...but that does not mean I should come off as a jerk or anything (you guys are helping me out, remember?).

As far as putting together the Transport Escort fleet, that was primarily an example of where I stand on things; I am well aware that Events can be pretty dammed big (I stated I participated and cleared the Summer 2017 event). It's more to the point that even though I don't have all of the 'good' girls, I have enough to do the job if I absolutly had to do so...and given my (admittedly, limited) expeirence, I wouldn't put all my good girls in one fleet without planning for it in advance. Using Summer 2017 as an example, I didn't break out Yuudachi, Hamakaze or other strong ships until I was certain I was going to do E5/6 on Easy. I knew I was going to need some of my strongest girls for those 2 maps and I wasn't going to risk them getting locked out of those.

I think you may have been misinterpreting my thought-process. 

If I pick up a ship I don't already have (for example, say, Kisaragi), I will take a look at what she comes with and how far she can be upgraded. In Kisaragi's case, she can get to K2, so I am going to at least level her to K2. I then take a look to see if she is required for any quests and then at her stat-line. The fact of the matter is that Kisaragi does not bring much to the table that most others don't already bring or do better...but she's got some nice gear (Poi Gun, Triple O2 Torp and the Boiler), which means she's an Expedition Slave until her quests are done and I start running out of space. 

As far as AACI goes, I think I have a pretty good handle on that... I just don't have the equipment/ships that I want for it. At best, I have Maya and know how to set up Isuzu for her AACI if needed and a non-aki DD for the task as well...

For Suzuya/Kumano, I don't see a reason to turn them into CVLs... okay, for some quest-related stuff, sure, but to keep them there? I'm not sure about that; they are potent CAVs, but not really good CVLs...unless I'm missing something other than plan-slot size/distribution. 

On WGs - holy hell in a handbasket batman, tell me about it! I kept running into bosses and such that said "oh, you should totally have WG42's...they're near-required equipment to deal with certain things" in their notes and just found myself staring at the screen going "are you f**king kidding me? Unbuildalbe and you can only get it from 1 ship that drops during events only?!? Seriously?!?"...effectivly forcing me to bully my way through the hard way. Let me tell you, a CAV with SKC34, 203mm/53 +2x WG42's make installation bosses cry!

As far as your advice on exploring the wiki and asking questions; that's exactly why I'm here now. That is exactly why I made this post in the first place. I've looked over the wiki, the reddit and the internet in general, bullied my way through to 5-5 (1 kill down, 4 to go!) and generally feeling I'm getting by without too much salt/frusteration on the regular maps. But I felt it was time I reached out to the people who know far more about this game than I do and get a San-Check of sorts; get a sort of sense of where I stand, how I'm doing overall. 

With this in mind, it is clear that I need to put more love into my CAV-game, press a little harder on Myoukou and Haguro and get some more TLC to Yuubari and Ooyodo. 

Again, thanks for your feedback and thoughts. I do appreciate it.