User blog:Hayashi H/Spring 2016 Event Guide - Part II

E5:ラバウル航空撃滅戦

Hard Clear

Hard Clear [Done] Route: ACGILM
Main Fleet
				N/A
				N/A
				N/A
				N/A

If insufficient power to clear boss, replace Teruzuki's radar with a fourth Wurf™ to increase damage at the cost of reducing rate of reaching boss.

Players having trouble with the Final boss clear may also opt to use Chikuma Kai Ni instead (since at this point no E6 branching rule has been found to require CAVs - the possibility of this was why I reserved her in the first place), and equip No.3-No.3-Wurf™-T3 on her in fleet slot 6. This will allow her to basically wipe out 50+% of the boss's HP alone in exchange for losing Artillery Spotting in all preboss nodes, regardless of whether she is healthy or chuuha (obviously you won't get it at boss anyway), as long as she targets the boss.

Results: Node and boss supports used from the start with all ships permanently sparkling. out of 16 non-Final attempts 7 reached the boss, resulting in 3 A-ranks and 4 S-ranks. Out of 6 Final attempts 4 reached the boss, resulting in 1 C-rank and 3 A-ranks (kill was from boss snipe).

Notable drops: 2 Akagi (S-rank #2, preboss) and 1 Kaga (S-rank #4).

Resource utilisation: 4213 , 4529 , +1506 , 2993 , 34 .

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E6:北太平洋深海中枢泊地沖

This is it. This map is the reason why all the ships for the previous maps have been second-tier.

Avoid using node support since the greatest taiha risk comes from submarines, which node support does nothing for. Should your rate of getting past the first two nodes be too low, you may wish to consider dropping the difficulty since the boss itself will be even harder, though node support-powering through is possible if you have lower levelled ships but a ton of resources. Boss support is useful on HP draining if you have more bauxite than buckets, and compulsory for the clear run.

According to the tweet on 10 Jan, S-ranking nodes E5I, E6A, E6G, E6L once each will debuff Central Princess' resistance to airstrike damage. Obviously the existing build prior to that will debuff L easily; two new builds have been added for the single debuff sorties for A and G.

While theoretically this *might* mean that you could debuff on Easy and clear Hard, this isn't proven, so these builds are crafted for Hard. They'd obviously work for Easy as well since Easy is... easier than Hard, so if you want to try that it's up to you. No refunds if it doesn't work.

When all four nodes are S-ranked, the Central Princess's voice will change, and end with -'masaka'. If a partial debuff is done the damage will increase already, but why not just go all the way?

Node A Debuff

CTF A Debuff [Done] Route: A. Retreat after A.
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
Any four cheap non-shiplocked CVLs	High ASW >> bomber	Best ASW equipment avail (Autogyro, ASW Liaison or Bomber). Exactly one Saiun in smallest of the 12 slots.
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A

This is basically a pure ASW build because this is a pure ASW node. Just S-rank this once and move on.

Node G Debuff

CTF G Debuff [Done] Route: DG. Retreat after G.
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A

Air Power value: 244 (AS node D, AS+ node G). Because nobody needs to care about branching when you're hitting the last node on a guaranteed route, might as well use up the last two CLTs for this. BBV is necessary to ensure double shelling phase in node G for more daytime shelling. At night, the CLTs will have no trouble eliminating the sub-boss, in the extremely unlikely event that you don't already kill her in the day. S-rank this once and move on. The DDs are all in AACI mode so you're basically guaranteed AACI on the first node; Maya has highest AACI priority so they won't overwrite her, they merely act as a fallback.

CTF L Debuff

CTF L Debuff [Theoretical] Route: Mostly EIKML
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A

This composition is the same as the earlier one calculated for Oyashio farming. I actually debuffed using the previously advocated ZKK-SKK-Hiryuu composition, but this should be better if it routes to L as expected. Farming E7D Easy is easier for Oyashio, but this will still be the best option for players who already cleared as attempting to S-rank E7D node in Hard is extremely resource inefficient.

Testing with the ZKK-SKK-Hiryuu composition seems to routes to L node too often to be viable for a clear or even a clear cum farm (but good for a debuff build). A separate clear composition has been added using CVLs that seem to route far more reliably. See below for that.

CTF Hard Clear

CTF Hard Clear [Done] Route: Mostly EIKMN
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A

I've had to rework the composition since it seems like Armoured Carriers have a very high rate of going to L, while Light Carriers have a very high rate of going to boss based on my own tests. Anyone who's followed the earlier bits of the guide very strictly should have six light carriers still available (Hiyou, Junyou, Chitose, Chiyoda, Ryuuhou, Houshou) assuming ze started with one of every ship in final remodel. Since Tsu Elite's AA has a chance of killing 17 bombers outright, the minimum acceptable slot size for any bomber is 18. 136.5 is the minimum firepower allowable so that in parallel formation IV, the CVL in question will shell for firepower cap.

Allocating bombers according to these rules and using a SCAMP to reach the firepower cap requirement on Chiyoda, we have the above allocation that gives 401 Air Power and firepower cap on all three light carriers - sufficient for AS+ half the time in the first node and guaranteeing AS+ in all other nodes except Hard Final.

The dive bombers are concentrated on Junyou K2 as she has both the largest slot sizes of the three and the highest firepower, so she can reach about 140 firepower in head-on, while all three are firepower-capped in parallel formation IV. This also allows the carrier with the highest nuke potential to carry the bombers that are capable of nuking the Central Princess.

• The air power value of this build is 401, enough to get Air Supremacy in all nodes except the first, and get Air Supremacy in the first about half the time. The reasons for Air Supremacy are simple:
  • This map murders your bauxite dead even with AS+, so if you were to use AS, your resources will be rekt fast.
  • Having additional bombers on 16-slots won't help since they would almost always be wiped out by node M.
  • Shooting down enemy bombers is also of extreme importance due to the number of BWS floating around, and CV Hime. That's also why Maya was saved for this. Otherwise you'd be rekt.
• Junyou K2 carries divebombers to force her to bomb Dyson twice if Dyson is still alive to finish her off. She is loaded in slot 2 to minimise the chance her attack turn will be wasted by Dyson dying. Her divebombers are also capable of doing the Central nuke.
• Yamashiro K2 and Fusou K2 are compulsory for this as you need both the firepower cap in head-on function from their APCI, and the 20+ slot Zuiun function for the Zuiun nuke. Do NOT use Ise-classes as most of their Zuiuns will almost definitely be wiped out by the boss, and even if they were still alive they would not be in sufficient numbers to do anything significant to the boss.
• WG42 is compulsory or you'll have fun times when Kamis shoot the soft installations and Type 3 Shells shoot the hard installations. You'll still need Type 3 Shells on the CAs because WG42 will not be strong enough to pierce Central Princess's armour at night.
  • With this current build, DDs will shell twice for 217 (Kasumi) to 232 (Yuudachi) damage at night, and shell once for 188 damage in the day. Ooyodo will shell twice for 223 damage regardless of day or night. Two DD hits are needed to destroy an Artillery Imp, or one Ooyodo double attack.
  • If you have more WG42 than 4, replace the 2 gun 1 WG42 builds on the DDs with triple Wurf builds. This allows those DDs to shell for 240+ damage in the day EVEN WHEN TAIHA, and for 480 damage at night. This is optional but will make the build stronger. At these levels they will onehit the Artillery Imps in the day and probably onehit Supply Depot Princess at night as well.
  • The amount of time it takes to farm that many WG42 needs to be balanced against the improvement in viability from them.
• The roles of the battle order are as follows:
  • Airstrike: Battleship Princess must be reduced to Chuuha state. If possible, Central Princess needs to be nuked.
  • Escort Fleet Shelling phase: At least one Artillery Imp must be destroyed. Airfield Princess and Supply Depot Princess need to be reduced to Chuuha state.
  • Main Fleet (both shelling phases): Battleship Princess must be sunk. Other Artillery Imp must be destroyed. Additional APCI & crit-boosted Carrier shelling on Airfield and Supply Depot Princess should reduce them to Taiha but is very unlikely to be able to make the kill.
  • Night Battle: Ooyodo and the 3 DDs MUST destroy everything other than the Central Princess. CAs' job is to eliminate the Central Princess herself.
• If you have problems S-Ranking node L, drop the difficulty level to Medium as it will be extremely unlikely you can defeat the boss on Hard.

If no supports are used this should generally get C rank with quite a lot of scratch damage and the occasional boss kill B rank. On Final boss airstrike support is compulsory to secure the kill.

According to Fujihita it may be possible for torpedo bombers to bomb Central Princess unlike normal installations.

Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful...

Results: Boss supports used from the start with only the two fleet flagships (and escort fleet flagship) sparkling. Out of 16 non-Final attempts 12 reached the boss, resulting in 8 C-ranks, 1 B-rank and 3 A-ranks. Out of 2 Final attempts 1 reached the boss, resulting in A-rank kill (kill was from initial airstrike nuke).

Notable drops: None.

Resource utilisation: 17720 , 7730 , 15824 , 11792 , 137 . This map hit my resources so hard I'm taking a 2-3 day break to regain softcap before proceeding with Harukaze farm.

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E7:波濤を超えて

E7 is an odd map. Since STFs go through 7 nodes but CTFs go through only six, on first glance it would seem that CTF are ideal for the map, and that is true up to Medium difficulty. However, after that at Hard the CTF route gets spammed with so many Princesses (and even a double CV Princess/II preboss) that getting to the boss becomes ridiculously impractical on CTF. Since the node length is 7 and thus the boss is out of Combat Radius for most aircraft types, an STF will need to use Land-based Aircraft and Flying Boats in order to have the ability to bombard the boss node.

This will thus have a CTF-based Easy farm composition and a STF-based Hard Clear composition. This is probably the first time I'm advocating different Combined Fleet types for different difficulties.

Easy CTF Harukaze Farm

Easy CTF Harukaze + Oyashio Farm [Done] Route: ACDHLN
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A

Build has a fighter power of 495, enough to guarantee Air Supremacy nearly everywhere (except takoyaki variant of node A), just by avoiding smaller slots that are likely to be wiped should bombers be in them. Costs ~650 bauxite per full farm (S-ranks in both D and N). Both Cranes will shell for firepower cap when Chuuha'd in Parallel, Hiryuu and Souryuu will shell for firepower cap when in Head-on. 12-slots are not used for bombers to avoid Tsu wipeout - as a result if Land-based Aerial Support is concentrated on the boss there is the potential to get Air Supremacy even on the Diamond formation (usage of fewer fighters would cost more bauxite, usage of fewer carriers reduces chance of consistent S-rank on Diamond). Reset before final to prevent clearing by accident. No need for support expeditions as doing it at Easy is a joke - A ranks are basically guaranteed in the worst possible case (Diamond formation) while S-rank is basically guaranteed in Line Ahead formation.

In the extremely unlikely event Oyashio shows up before Harukaze, use the same route but choose F instead, which will go either ACFHLN (less likely) or ACFIJLN (more likely).

Results: 12 sorties, 1 terminated at node A from airstrike random taiha (thanks poi), 3 which terminated at node D due to taiha (thanks AV hime), and 8 which reached boss, resulting in 4 Line Ahead and 4 Diamond. Of 4 Line Ahead all were S-ranks, of 4 Diamond 2 S-rank, 2 A-rank and 1 C-rank.

Notable drops: Harukaze (S-rank #6).

Easy CTF Oyashio-only Farm

Easy CTF Oyashio-only Farm [In Progress] Route: ACD
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet

All LBAS bases set to Air Defense since there's nothing bombers can do in Node D which is worth the cost of fuel, bauxite and rank loss, and the first node should generally result in S-ranks before shelling phase. Same bomber setup - while 495 is pretty much overkill for node D, there aren't really any other slots you can use without risking bombers getting rekt by Seaplane Tender Princess II's 152 effective AA value (15 + 37.8%), shelling accuracy is bad enough in CTF that carrying more battleships doesn't really help, and you obviously can't reach node D using a Surface Task Force. Finally the number of bombers in the first two nodes makes Maya still a necessity, while a battleship of some sort is still compulsory for double shelling phase, where Fusougata still have the highest offense. That leaves the main fleet composition unchanged except for Maya's FCF being swapped for a second 90mm because FCF is entirely unnecessary for a composition this broken OP which travels only 2 nodes.

However, the escort fleet composition can be changed, and is changed, to have more night battle-focused attackers in order to reduce the chances of the fleet failing to kill the Destroyer Water Demon (because that DOES happen). By more night battle focus, I mean 3 CLTs in double attack mode with three CI users.

I'm sorry, AV Princess.

Hard STF HP Bar Drain

Hard STF HP Bar Drain [Theoretical] Route: BEGIJMN
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
				N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A

Routing is unconfirmed. The Diamond formation of the boss has very high fighter power, so this build has 320 Fighter Power just to be sure at least Air Superiority always happens (you'll get Air Supremacy on its Line Ahead variant). Akitsushima is used since she is speculated to have special routing that fixes the M path with a Flying Boat equipped.

It may be possible to use dual Prototype Seirans and still get Air Supremacy if the Land-Based Aerial Support can reduce the required Fighter Power value, but this is not possible for me to test yet at the moment.

Hard STF Final Clear

Hard Final Clear [Theoretical] Route: BEGIJMN
Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
				N/A
									N/A
									N/A
									N/A

Routing is unconfirmed. This build has 224 Air Power. For the final clear, no FCF is used as you'll need all hands on deck. Akitsushima is used since she is speculated to have special routing that fixes the M path with a Flying Boat equipped.

This Bismarck build requires 70 luck on Bismarck - if not available swap for a T3+Seaplane-equipped Roma which won't deal with the escorts as effectively, but can deal better damage on the boss if she snipes it. But Roma would be in slot 4 since her purpose is to hit the boss, while Bismarck here is in FS position in order to hit escorts + because flagship position buffs both cut-in rate and Artillery Spotting, where she's the only artillery spotter in the fleet.

Note that as this build has no Artillery Spotting on the escort CAs, this is not very viable before Final; at Final the number of installations go down and the number of surface ships go up, making usage of multiple cut-in builds useful to ensure the CAs get to do uninterrupted T3+Wurf DA on the boss.

The boss, at 270 armor, cannot be reliably pierced with a standard T3 shell setup, and the escorts, at ~150 armor, cannot be reliably sunk without CI. Searchlight on Ayanami has dual purposes of tanking for the CAs and increasing trigger rate for all CIs, and is placed in position 2 to increases chances she can CI before getting rekt (Bismarck needs the flagship possition).

Tone and Chikuma must be used as normal CAs are incapable of holding Wurf™, and Mogami-classes are not nearly strong enough for this purpose.

As the postcap modifier for WG42 is at least 1.63, Tone's damage potentials are:

• [(77 + 112 + 24) * 1.2] * 1.63 = 416 on double Wurf™ healthy/shouha
• [(77 + 112 + 24) * 1.2 * 0.7] * 1.63 = 291 on double Wurf™ chuuha
• [((77 + 24 + 1) * 2.5 + 75) * 1.2] * 1.25 = 386 on Wurf™ + T3 healthy/shouha
• [((77 + 24 + 1) * 2.5 + 75) * 1.2 * 0.7] * 1.25 = 346 on Wurf™ + T3 chuuha
  • For the above values, deduct the excess over 300, square root it and add it back to 300 when the square brackets are applied. If the value within the square brackets is below 300 this step is not necessary. This is to account for the night soft damage cap of 300.

Thus against the Central Princess of 270 Armor (189-351 Armor rolls), after reducing damage to .708 using the recommended BEGIJMN route's ammo mod of 46/65 on Tone:

• (160, 103, 46) damage on double Wurf™ healthy/shouha
• (72, 14, scratch) damage on double Wurf™ chuuha
• (139, 82, 24) damage on Wurf™ + T3 healthy/shouha
• (111, 53, scratch) damage on Wurf™ + T3 chuuha
  • Above brackets signify maximum, average and minimum damage values.

Because of the above effect that double Wurf™ is superior when Tone is healthy and T3+Wurf™ is superior when Tone is rekt, I'll leave T3+Wurf™ in the above build based on the assumption that an airstrike capable of wrecking Central to the point that you are likely to finish her off is simultaneously likely to not wreck the other Abyssal ships much, so that Tone/Chikuma will probably be chuuha by them.

But if in your gameplay experience Tone/Chikuma are usually in shouha or better condition when they shell at night, please replace it with twin Wurf™ because you'll do better with it.

KusoRNG's battle replay for STF Final clear on his first attempt with a similar fleet.