Doublemint’s Comprehensive Azur Lane Guide

Hello. This is a guide. It’s not like most other guides which just give you generalizations and
leave you asking lots of questions (albeit they may be more informed questions at that point)
and just generally annoying people in discord.

Instead, I wanted to write a very straightforward, easy to follow guide that both teaches you
mechanics and gives you a linear plan that you can follow to both get you through the currently
available content (and do so efficiently) as well as prepare you for content to come!

You can think of this like a 3rd party tutorial that teaches you both mechanics, AND metagame.
For a game like this, the metagame is just as important if not more than the mechanics, and a
major failing of many guides is to pretend this isn’t the case. There is a meta. It is (mostly)
objective. Knowing it is key to your success in both the long and short run.

The meta is in somewhat constant flux as new ships are released, but there are certain core
ships that never really stop being useful. This guide aims to introduce you to most of those core
ships and equipment, the rest are located ​here​.

Because of the way this guide is written, ​it’s meant to be read in its entirety​​.​ I promise it’s not
as long as it might look. I formatted it… spaciously, to say the very least.

You don’t have to follow everything I say 100% if you’ve already completed some of the content
being described, but you will want to read over every section nonetheless because the linear
part of the guide is interwoven with the meta stuff. ​You will learn from every example even if
you don’t follow every example.

For any feedback or questions, @Doublemint#8851 on Discord!

Press ctrl+alt+A, or View > Show Document Outline to pull up the outline!
 General Mechanic Intro:
To start with, I’ll talk you through the different features of the game and how to interact with
them efficiently.

This’ll be stuff like raids, hard mode, PvP, dorm, commissions, and item management.

General:
Common naming convention for rarities:
SSR = gold
SR = purple
R = blue
N = white
People will generally not know what you’re talking about if you say things like “elite” or
“legendary” or call gold ships “SR.” I have no idea why this is the case, it just is.

As far as rarity goes, it’s generally an imperfect indicator of usefulness. As you will see in this
guide, many of the best ships and gear are not SSR, and being SSR can actually be an active
detriment!

Also, remember to tap Akashi in her shop twice per day! (until she gives you 5 gold boxes, then
she won’t give you anything else and you can stop tapping her)

ALSO

Remember to ​bind your account to Twitter or Facebook​ (Twitter is dramatically more reliable so
I would recommend doing it through that, it won’t post anything to your accounts unless you
deliberately do so yourself through the share buttons in game)

Once you’ve bound your account you can open it with your twitter username and password on
any device, and even keep it safe if you should for some reason delete the app.

Speaking of deleting the app, you don’t need to reroll in azur lane! The gacha rates are
exceptionally generous and as I’ll demonstrate to you with this guide you do not need any ships
from the gacha to do well! You’ll be more than able to clear all content with ships you can obtain
through drops, I promise.
 Combat/Farming:
Always rush the boss, because the boss always drops:
A ship (and has a chance on some stages, like 3-4, to drop a unique SSR to that map)
Multiple upgrade plates
Up to 2x equipment blueprints (as well as a higher chance of a blueprint in general)

Always try for ​S-Rank​ on every node, but especially the boss, as the above drops are only
guaranteed by S-Rank.

You can exit and retry any battle by pausing and exiting, at the cost of 1 oil per ship involved in
that fight (so if you brought 3 ships, you’d lose 3 oil) - if you lose, you lose ALL the oil for the
fight (so if you brought a fleet that cost 30, you’d lose all 30), so this is good to keep in mind if
you’d have failed the fight anyways.

You can still send a fleet to fight on 0 ammo, theyll just do half the damage they normally would.
Once you’re sufficiently strong, this is often preferable to sending your much more expensive
boss fleet against a regular node.

Fun fact​: ships can’t ambush you on the “corpses” of enemy fleets you’ve cleared, or when
passing over a friendly fleet, so stick to those as much as possible to avoid ambushes - this
sometimes involves manually pathing rather than just clicking your target

Fun fact #2​: non-boss enemy fleets cannot spawn on top of a friendly fleet on the map. Because
of this, you can position your fleets to strategically block off enemy spawns in tight,
corridor-layout maps. This ensures there’s a clear path to the boss and prevents you from
spending excessive oil on non-boss fights after the boss has spawned.

Hard mode:
Do the highest world hardmode you can, no matter the oil cost, as higher worlds improve retrofit
drop rates
X-1 drops destroyer retrofits
X-2 drops cruiser retrofits
X-3 drops battleship retrofits
X-4 drops carrier retrofits

I personally recommend doing X-4 to rush for Shouhou Kai, but you can do X-1 (starter kai
hoarding) or X-2 (Leander Kai or others) and you’ll do just fine. Just, stay away from X-3, since
there are no BB retrofits currently in game​.

If none of those things make sense, don’t worry, they will once you’ve read the guide.
 Dorm:
Always buy Naval Curry if you’re going to buy any food at all

Always buy food with oil if your canteen is overflowing

The furniture you place in your dorm has no bearing on the happiness rating of your dorm - that
factors in every piece of furniture you own

Prioritize expansions over buying non-limited furniture

Save all of your gems to buy dorm slots

 Academy/Storage/Docks/Shops​:
Always upgrade your T1 skill books and T1/T2 boxes
Upgrade your T1 books because ​opportunity cost​ - look, you learned some economics from
your waifu bote game
Save all of your gems after dorm slots to buy the third academy slot
Always buy T2/3 books for gold or medals when they show up

Save dupes of everything above normal rarity for ​limit breaks​, especially ships with collection
rewards!

Use the ​enhance​ feature liberally on any ship you actively use - only use commons as fodder!
Gold bulins should be hoarded, purple bulins are generally fine to use on ​whatever

Buy gold boxes with coins until you’re level 50 HQ, then it’s up to you
I would prioritize Ironblood>Eagle Union>Royal Navy>>Sakura Nation

Always try to have at least 80 medals stocked up at all times during each 2-week medal shop
SSR rotation ​not counting those you spend on the 2-week SSR​, to ensure you can buy the gold
bulin when it comes up on 3-day rotation (this happens once and only once per 2-week medal
shop rotation)

Save your merits for the merit-exclusive ships, South Dakota and Eldridge

Save your merits after that for the gold bulin

 Exercise​:
Before we get into the meat of this, let me preface this by saying PvP is stupid and if you take it
seriously, you’re a tool. The amount of effort required to get rank 1 even once in a season is far,
far more that it is worth

With that out of the way, let’s begin!

PvP ranking is determined on a points system.

You get a variable number of points for each completed fight in PvP
That number of points is decided by your rank relative to your opponents rank
You get the most points for choosing the leftmost opponent on the PvP interface

However, there’s another dimension to the points system:

The lower your rank compared to your opponent, the more points you get

This leads to a strategy called ​sandbagging​, in which you:

Set your PvP defense fleet to be as easy to beat as possible (minimizing your own rank)
Save your tickets as long as you can to wait for your opponent to spend all theirs before you do
(maximizing opponents rank)

So, for your own good, and really for the good of everyone on your server, set your PvP
defense fleet to your highest level, completely ungeared ships - as many ships as
possible, but all as easy to beat as possible.

This ensures players fighting you get:

Good free exp
More merit
More time to spend doing things that aren’t PvP

While simultaneously min-maxing the number of points you earn!

Side note: just like regular fights, you can withdraw from PvP fights before the battle is finished
and retry with no consequences: you don’t lose a try, so you can just reset until you win (you
sometimes may not be able to win if you’re just starting out, though)
 Beginner: Week 1 Guide:
You may have noticed I threw around the word efficiency a little bit in the intro to the guide.

… and you may be wondering what exactly ​efficiency​ even means in a waifu collection game.

In Azur Lane, every ship in a fleet costs a set amount of oil to sortie depending on:
Rarity
Hull type
LB
You probably don’t know what those things mean yet, but don’t worry, it’ll all make sense soon!

The first bit of terminology you’ll want to know going forward is the term “LB” which refers to
LImit Breaking, explained nicely ​here​.

But why does oil cost even matter?

The less oil you can spend, the more tries you have at getting a certain ship or
equipment plan to drop in any given map, since you have more tries at it before you run
out of oil!

You’ll want to start your Azur Lane journey somewhat inefficiently, though. Just throw whoever
you manage to scrounge together at the game until the game gives in. Your main goal is to
make it into 2-3 to start farming up some ships that you can take to endgame.
 Why 2-3?
Because 2-3 drops two very interesting lolis:

Cassin​ and ​Downes

Sometimes referred to as the ​Mahans​, are the first two we’re after here - these destroyers (aka
DD​​ hull type), are twins of one another, and though they might not seem like much at first
glance, they’ve got a nifty little skill on them:
When Health falls under 20%, heals 15% (25%) of max Health. Can only
occur once per battle.
Now, because DDs tend not to have very much health to begin with, this skill isn’t as well-used
on these two as it is on a certain other ship we’ll be seeing later. However, it still puts in a whole
lotta work, and without any limit breaking, these two only cost 1 oil each!

Not only that, but DDs really help out your fleet’s ambush evasion rate, so throwing these two in
along with whoever else you fancy will help you conserve oil from avoiding ambushes.

As if that weren’t enough, commander/player/HQ exp is determined by the number of ships you
field. This bonus is irrespective of the ships rarity, level, or limit break, so you can effectively
double the exp you receive at the cost of a measly 2 oil per battle. Sweet, right?!

So, those two are gonna be the bread and butter of your vanguard for a while, but who is gonna
be your main fleeter?
 Shouhou
Shouhou is a special type of Carrier called a light carrier, or ​CVL​​; essentially just a normal
aircraft carrier, the main hallmark of this hull type is lighter armor and smaller hp pool, generally
lower airpower, and sometimes fewer plane slots compared to regular size carriers, in exchange
for an AA gun slot.
Shouhou is really, really good. Her skill
After launching an airstrike, heals the Escort Fleet for 3.5% (8%) of their
max HP
allows your frontline to sustain a lot longer than it otherwise might. You want to start leveling this
skill up as soon as you get her - ​getting this skill to level 10 is, in my opinion, a top priority.

Aulicke​, ​Foote​, and ​Spence​, and ​Thatcher​ are 4 ​other​ DDs we’re looking for on 2-3 - but not to
actually use…

These 4 are going to be commission slaves you’ll use to unlock a very useful collection reward!
More on that a little later, but for now, hold onto these lolis!

Anyways, your vanguard moving forward should be Cassin, Downes, and ​a ship of your
choosing.

Don’t be afraid to mess up with your choice here. I want you to learn that at least right now the
game isn’t so hard that you can’t have a little fun with who you choose. Really it never even gets
that hard, you just end up costing yourself more oil than you’d probably like. But for now,
anything works, so again, your third vanguard should be whoever you like!
 Your main fleet should be Shouhou, and just Shouhou

Now, gear is important too.

You won’t have a lot of it when you start.

You may, in fact, not have any of it at all.

My advice is this:

If you get a purple gun, plane, or aux, throw it on your ships! All purples should
outperform the default whites, so you’re safe to do that without any guidance from me.

Blues to look out for are blue barracuda, which comes from Royal Navy boxes, and some
Japanese ships from construction come prebuilt with blue torps that your Mahans would be
happy to have. Norfolk, who drops from 2-3 also, has a really solid blue AA gun that should
serve you nicely for a while until you get purples.

You’ll also want to swap out Shouhou’s torpedo bomber for pretty much any other non-Sakura
torpedo bomber at your earliest convenience.

Sakura nation torpedo bombers have their place, but you may notice they try to hone in on
targets - not good for general purpose clearing, only really good in boss fleets, and slightly
questionable even there.

Now, depending on who you chose to tag along with the mahans, you may be sitting at as cost
as low as ​7 oil per battle​.

Awesome, right?
 Breaking past the world 3 difficulty wall is hard, though:
It should be doable around vanguard lvl 50, shouhou will be lvl 70 from flagship+mvp bonus by
then, so Max Limit Break (MLB) her. Do not limit break your mahans. If you’re still having
trouble, feed fodder ships to your ships to raise their stats. Next, try upgrading whatever gear
you’ve managed to get to +3.

Your goal is just to get to world 4 ASAP.

The best way to do this is by simply ​leveling your ships way above the level of the content
you’re trying to farm​​, as I kinda hinted at above, because evasion, damage taken, and
damage received are scaled by level difference, which is explained nicely ​here​ and ​here​ (under
“level advantage”).

This overleveling strategy is effective throughout the game, by the way.

But you’ve probably already gotten everything from 2-3 if you’ve made it this far in the guide, so
you should move on to 3-2 to farm up levels instead!
 Why 3-2?

In order from left to right:

Purple Steam Catapult​​ - an auxiliary equip for your aircraft carriers (like shouhou!) which
boosts their airpower, 3rd best in slot offensive aux for them behind the gold version and purple
droptank, which doesn’t drop anywhere nice. Can also be obtained from any box type.
Purple 127mm single​​ - main gun for destroyers (like the mahans!), decent filler gun until you
get better stuff, fires ​HE ammo​. These are just decent to have a lot of as filler! Can also be
obtained from Eagle boxes.
Purple SB2C Helldiver​​ - an Eagle union dive bomber, best in slot dive bomber for your aircraft
carriers (like Shouhou!), this thing is simply amazing. Literally cannot have enough of these.
Can also be obtained from Eagle boxes.

3-2 also drops:

Dumb loli​, another fletcher commissions/dorm slave and the last piece of the fletcher puzzle.
She also drops from the next place I’m going to mention, so don’t worry if you can’t pick her up
while you’re here.

3-2 drops really good gear, but try to get to world 4 as soon as possible!

If you’re having trouble getting past 3-4, just add any random ships to the back, since
Shouhou alone might not be beefy enough to get the job done. They might die. That’s
fine. This is just to get the final commission slot and to unlock world 4, because you
shouldn’t start farming 3-4 just yet-

“Wait, what?”

WHAT ABOUT FOXES?!?!

 Now that I’ve gone ahead and confused everyone, I’ll tell you what I think you ​should​ do for
efficiency: ​farm 4-1

Before we dive into 4-1 though, I’d like to familiarize you with a very hand mechanic and
some useful strategy

Long Oil Commissions/Dorm Leveling

Go into the commissions screen. See that really long one that costs you oil to run? That
commission happens to be super good for leveling up ships passively.

This next stage has a ​bunch​​ of ships that you’re going to want to start passively leveling the
second that you get them, so what you’re going to do is put them in the long oil commission and
dorm along with any of the 5 lolis you’ve picked up (Aulicke, Foote, Spence, Thatcher, and
Charles).

You only need to get the lolis to lvl 30 in order to 2nd limit break them, at which point you can
sub them out for another of the ships you’ve gotten your hands on - either collection reward
ships or ships I mention further ahead in the guide that you happen to get in the gacha. You’ll
want to keep all of the ships coming up in this guide in the long oil comm until at least level 30
for 2nd limit break, but ideally 70 for max LB.

Anyways, now I’m finally going to tell you why you care about these stupid lolis, if you haven’t
already figured it out yourself:

Beaver Badge
Beaver Badge is a fantastic auxiliary equip that gives 35 evasion at +10 (best in slot evasion
boost, gives almost twice as much as the next best option), 20% movement speed for the entire
fleet (super handy if you’re using any slower ships), and 75 HP (not a ton but its more than 0).

You know what has garbage evasion and movement speed? Heavy cruisers! So, if you’re ever
using a heavy cruiser, throw this on them - it’ll single-handedly make them significantly better.

It’s also fantastic on light cruisers, but we haven’t talked about light or heavy cruisers at all yet…

Which bring us back to your next farming location, 4-1.

 Why 4-1?
Wellecause world 4 ignores your main fleet almost completely - you can full auto everything
including the boss and lose ​maybe h​ alf hp bar on Shouhou.

Oh, also because..

Phoenix
Phoenix is a light cruiser, or ​CL​​. She belongs to a special class of cruisers exclusive to Eagle
Union referred to as gunboats. Instead of a torpedo secondary, she has a DD gun secondary!
This makes her much better in auto than her torp-bearing counterparts because the AI likes
shooting torpedoes into nothing.

As if that weren’t enough, gunbotes actually get a second “mount” of their CL main gun on 2nd
limit break (people usually call this perk +1MGM), which essentially means she gets to fire it
twice per reload cycle. Essentially, she does twice as much damage with her main gun. This is
super strong! (seriously it's somewhat OP and I was a little surprised to see they didn't nerf the
gunboats’ main gun efficiency on the English release)

That’s not all though, remember when I said you’ll probably not stop using Shouhou because
she heals the vanguard? This is Phoenix’s main skill:
 When Health falls under 20%, heals 15% (25%) of max Health and
increases Firepower by 30% for 15 seconds. Can only occur once per
battle.

This skill makes her functionally immortal if the node she’s against can’t deal more than around
1200 damage to her (at max level). Once per battle means once per node, not once per map,
and thus her skill can proc numerous times per sortie. This skill makes her so impossible to kill
that, when geared and supported properly, she can ​outright solo-vanguard the entire game​.
Against content earlier than world 10 you can easily just 1:1 with her - she’s one of the few ships
that can boast that, and certainly the cheapest.
Start leveling this skill as soon as you get her.
 Saratoga
Saratoga is an aircraft carrier or ​CV​​ with two nice nice skills, a nice loadout, and good stats. Her
first skill is:
Every 20 (10) seconds, provides supporting fire with 20.3cm guns (damage
varies with skill level)
Now, a lot of these skills that fire level-scaling projectiles are a little dubious. However, this one
fires quickly enough and does decent enough damage that it actually ​shores up one of CVs’
main weaknesses, which is inconsistency in damage.​ BBs just fire more often, so get better
damage distribution and hence better DPS (this is just one of many reasons they’re superior to
CVs). Whether this skill just pings down a suicide ship or scratches the last little bit of HP off an
enemy, it’s ​good icing on the cake​.
Her second skill is:
Every time Saratoga launches an airstrike, increases Escort Fleet
damage by 5% (15%) for 8 seconds. Does not stack with the same skill.
This is, again, basically just icing on the cake.

Perhaps the most interesting part about saratoga is her ​good, but abnormal loadout​ - two dive
bombers, one fighter, and no torpedo bombers. What this means is she has really, really broad
coverage potential on her airstrikes, especially if you give her two SB2Cs.
 There’s one more drop worth noting in 4-1:

Brooklyn
Brooklyn is another gunbote CL that drops from 4-1, and worth farming and leveling up.

Unlike phoenix, Brooklyn is more suited for a boss fleet because of her skill:
Boosts the FP of all cruisers (that means light and heavy) in the fleet,
including herself by 5% (15%)
This is the reason you’ll want to raise her. LBing her also gets you closer to Wichita, who I’ll
explain later but you’ll also want to be going for.

While all these ships are super great, they’re a lot less great without good gear to go with them.
Luckily for you, 4-2 has you covered.
 Why 4-2?

In order from left to right:

Purple 120mm Twin​​ - a main gun for destroyers, but more importantly a secondary for gunbote
CLs and CAs (like Phoenix!) this gun is better than 127mm single as a secondary for gunbotes
because it’s incredibly accurate and reloads very quickly, which makes it superior, especially at
shooting down suicide ships (and just as a gun overall)​. C ​ an also be obtained from Royal
boxes.
Purple Twin 150mm (TbtsK C/36)​​ - a main gun for CLs (like Phoenix or Brooklyn!), best in slot
or second best depending on who you ask, fires AP ammo, you seriously cannot get enough of
these things. Can also be obtained from Ironblood boxes.
Purple Quad 40mm AA Vickers Pom Pom​​ - Just decent AA, pretty bad but better than all
blues, worth getting as a bonus while you farm the other two. Can also be obtained from Royal
boxes.
Triple 152mm (6"/53 caliber gun)​​ - ​good general-use battleship secondary gun​, useless on
actual CLs, very solid fan-like bullet spread for shooting down jihadis for the main fleet. Can also
be obtained from Eagle boxes.

Just stay long enough for two copies of purple twin 150mm (TbtsK C/36)​​, you’ll probably
be coming back here for more of these later.
 Boss Fleets and Clearing Fleets:
You may have heard these terms thrown around by now and wondered “why doesn’t this guide
have me making a boss fleet and clearing fleet like everyone else?”

For the sake of simplicity, mostly, I didn’t want to burden you with that info just yet. One fleet
does fine for a long time, after all! Look how far its gotten you!

But, moving forward, you’re going to want to make use of your second fleet to keep clearing
costs low while you can throw a big costly DPS fleet at the boss to ensure nobody sinks and you
can get it down in time to S rank.

Clearing fleet:
The clearing fleet usually has stuff that’s really tough to kill and doesn’t cost a whole lot - stuff
like Phoenix, the Mahans, and Shouhou.

This fleet usually runs 1:1+2, with the +2 being mahans, added in mostly for HQ exp and
ambush evasion. They’re only worth using at 0LB, so keep them like that.

As for the 1:1, typically people use Phoenix + a battleship, but you don’t have a good battleship
yet and even if you did, probably don’t have good enough gear for her to outperform shouhou
yet anyways.

So, for now, just use solo shouhou. Eventually stuff gets so hard you’ll have to use 2:1 with the
BB, shouhou, and phoenix, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Bossing fleet:
The bossing fleet is usually the one that costs more - you can justify it costing a little more due
to the increased difficulty of the boss and the fact you only have to do the boss once per map,
plus you want to absolutely guarantee S rank for reasons I’ve already mentioned.

Your beginner’s bossing fleet should look like this:

Saratoga
Brooklyn
Whoever it is you started with - you can probably MLB them by now, so feel free to do so if
you’d like
 And with that, you’re certainly ready to take on 3-4!

Side note for 3-4, since you’ll be here a while:

Don’t be afraid to MLB your ships as they hit level limit caps, or even before then - just ​DO NOT
LB your Mahans for reasons explained earlier.

Why 3-4?

Hey wait a second, that’s not the foxes!!!

Yeah, yeah, well, alongside foxes, 3-4 drops the most versatile/useful aux in the game, and a
really solid fighter plane!
In order from left to right:
Purple Toolkit ​- an auxiliary equip for literally any ship: when in doubt, slap a toolkit on it. Heals
1% of max life every 10 seconds and gives flat 500hp at +10, which is like 50% of the base HP
of some DDs. On that note, really good on DDs. Super strong aux. Can also be obtained from
any box type
Purple F4U Corsair​​ - A decent fighter for your aircraft carriers like Saratoga and the foxes,
pretty overall good plane, shouhou doesn’t have a fighter slot and thus can’t equip this. Can be
obtained from Eagle boxes.
 Akagi​ and ​Kaga
This pair, who we will henceforth refer to as ​Akaga,​ are twof twin carriers who perform decently
alone, but really shine when put in a pair.
Their skills are as follows:
When paired with Akagi/Kaga in the same fleet, increases own Air Power
by 15% (35%)
This is pretty great; it means they consistently outdamage pretty much any other pair of carriers
when placed together. This is what makes them worthwhile in a bossing fleet for PvE content.
However, their true power comes from their second ability:
At the beginning of combat, reduces the charge time of own first airstrike by
20% (50%)
With this skill maxed on each of them, Akaga beats pretty much every main fleet to the punch in
PvP, and do so with so much oomph from their first skill that it’ll usually wipe out all but the
beefiest of main fleets before they can even launch a salvo of main gun fire, let alone a wave of
planes.

Once you’ve gotten both the foxes, move some place that isn’t 3-4. I suggest doing 3-2 or 4-2,
or just moving on to the next section of the guide.

Bear in mind if you go back to farm anything in this section of the guide at higher commander
levels:
“A gap between commander XP and enemy ship level diminishes the XP gain: a 21-40
level difference halves the XP gained, and a 41 and above difference reduces it to 1/10 of
its original value.”
 Adept: Week 2 Guide

So, if you’ve followed everything in the guide perfectly, by the start of week 2 you have at least:

Equipment:
1x Beaver Badge
2x purple twin 150mm (TbtsK C/36)
0-3x purple 120mm twin
0-3x purple 127mm single
0-3x SB2C divebomber
Some toolboxes and fighters from fox farming

Ships:
MLB Shouhou
0LB Mahans
MLB Saratoga
MLB Phoenix and Brooklyn
MLB ship of your choosing
Both foxes

If you don’t have all that, read back in the guide to find out where it drops or how to get it, or if
you’re further ahead by a completely different means, good for you! ​Basically, if you have
access to and can farm any of the stuff I mention below, feel free to have a look at the week 1
advice, but don’t feel like you need to max a set of fletchers or something.​ Like, if you’re short a
few of the equipments, you’ll probably be alright.

If you need some advice with your fleets, check the bossing and clearing fleet section in the first
part of the guide.

The only change I’d make is put Akaga as your bossing fleet ships

This next part of the guide is less linear, though I will present it linearly in the way I would go
about doing it. Here, I’ll just be letting you know how to prepare for event hard mode
requirements, which ships you can farm right now that never go out of style, and where to find
the last few pieces of gear for the slots I haven’t already mentioned.

But before we start…

 On BBs and why they’re important:
Battleships, or ​BB​​s, are a hull type I actually have yet to explain in this guide.

Battleships are main fleet ships that fire big-ass high caliber guns in salvos as opposed to the
waves of planes that CVs send out.

They also have secondary guns that they can use to shoot down suicide ships, aka jihadis. This
second trait alone is enough to make them the main ship of choice over CVs later into the story
mode, but they also tend to have higher dps than CVs with comparable gear investment.

However, the place to farm good BB gear is in world 6, so I told you all to level up CVs and
neglect your BBs for the time being.

But now that we’re in the section of the guide where we move into world 6, it's time to pick up a
particularly good and easy to obtain SSR one!.

South Dakota
South Dakota is a Battleship with excellent firepower, good hp, incredibly high AA, and two very
solid skills:
Every 30 seconds, absorbs 50% of damage taken by the backline for 8
seconds. At the end of the effect, heals for 20% (50%) of the damage
taken.
This makes her pretty good for PvE, but exceptional in PvP before you have Hood to use with
Akaga - it gives her the ability to potentially tank the second Akaga strike if you can survive that
long, or possibly the third(?) HMS salvo.
15% (30%) activation when firing main gun to inflict double damage.
Speaks for itself.

Now that thats out of the way...

 Farm 4-4

Why?

Cleveland
Cleve-aniki is a gunboat cruiser like Phoenix and Brooklyn: 1 main gun with double mount on
2nd limit break and a secondary DD gun for incredibly consistent damage output which works
wonders in auto (no AI torpedo aiming? Yes please!)

While Phoenix’s main selling point was her absurdly strong skill, Cleve-aniki’s is her stupidly
high stats, among the best for light cruisers. She makes an excellent addition to a bossing
squad, and, because she’s a gunboat, has no trouble running 1:1 in earlier content.
 4-4 also drops:

In order from left to right:

610mm quad purple​​ - a torpedo for destroyers and cruisers, really solid overall, inferior to
some quints for auto but superior for manual shotgunning (more damage per 4 torps than quints
damage per 5 and smaller spread). Can also be obtained from Sakura boxes.
Purple Twin 203mm (SK C/34)​​ - a main gun for CAs (like Indianapolis), purple version of the
best in slot and no sloucher itself, fires AP ammo, useful to have a couple lying around. Can
also be obtained from Ironblood boxes.

And finally, for 4-4 drops…

Unicorn
“Hey Doublemint, can I swap out Shouhou for unicorn?”
This question put me in a tough spot numerous times. Yes, you could have, if you had gotten
her from CV construction early on, but again, 0 luck guide. Furthermore, you’ll want to have
shouhou leveled to ​retrofit​ her, because her retrofit outpaces unicorn damage-wise (and
cost-wise), so I tell people “no.” for their own good(?).

Unicorn has the same first skill as shouhou, but she has a fighter slot instead of a divebomber
(divebombers do more damage than fighters, and you get the BiS one in world 3 for god’s
sake!), unicorns second skill and superior base stats make her better for when you have a full
vanguard: it increases vanguard reload. However, this buff falls off competitively compared to
Shouhou’s superior bomber configuration in the case of 1:1 or solo vanguarding.

Mid-Late Game Ship Leveling Strategy:

Once you’ve gotten who you want from 4-4, you’re probably ready to head right into world 6,
where you can start finding purple plates. Ideally, you’ll not really want to be leaving world 6
from here on, both for exp penalty and purple plate reasons, so you’ll need a way to level ships
you’re not actively using in order to get them up to snuff.

From here on out, you’ll want to put primarily ​battleships and cruisers​​ in the long oil
commissions ​(especially battleships!!!)​​ and any spots in your dorm not filled by your farming
crew (trash clearing, boss group doesn’t need the morale bonuses). Any of the ships mentioned
anywhere in this guide are good candidates for these spots, and you should consult list towards
the bottom of the guide for my opinion on various other ships for PvE purposes.

You want to get at least two functional (lvl 80+) MLB BBs up and running by the time
you’re done mining for Poi (more on her later)

Quick sidenote:

5-2 (and some very brief PvP talk):

Queen Elizabeth
Also known as QE, she’s the only notable thing that drops from 5-2, but quite notable for PvP
specifically. This isn’t a PvP guide (though I might write a PvP section later when I get better at
it) so I won’t spend much time on her, just mention that Royal Navy (HMS) fleets are very strong
in PvP. HMS fleets are comprised of Hood, QE, Warspite, Belfast, Juneau and Fortune Kai, with
the vanguard being slightly more flexible. Her skill is:
During combat, increases FP, Torp, Air Power, AA, Reload, and Evasion of
HMS (Royal Navy) ships by 5% (15%)
I hope I don’t need to explain why that’s pretty good if all your ships are HMS.

She’s pretty solid in PvE as well, since her buff also applies to herself. This allows her to work
decently as a solo main fleet in the clearing fleet, or you can use her with some other HMS
ships for a bossing fleet.

Getting her is purely optional, you can go back and do it anytime. You’re probably best moving
onto world 6 from world 4 right away.

“But Doublemint, where should I farm in this big scary new world?”
 Farm 6-1

Helena
This is Esugee. Get used to her, because once you get her up and running she will never leave
your bossing fleet. Why? Not only is Helena a gunboat cruiser like Aniki and Phoenix, but she
has the skill…
Every 20 seconds, with a 30% (60%) chance to proc, increases the
damage that all enemies take by 20% (40%) for 10 seconds.
“Okay,” you’re saying, “but what makes this buff better than Clevelands?”
It multiplies your post-multiplier stats.
What do I mean by that?
Cleveland’s skill multiplies the FP of the ​vanguard​.
...Helena’s skill multiplies the ​already multiplied​ FP ​AND​ torp ​AND​ airpower of the ​entire fleet​.
60% of the time, your entire fleet just does 40% more damage for 10 seconds, flat out, stacking
with preexisting buffs to any stats elsewhere in the fleet.
If the power of this buff is still not appreciable, I don’t know what else I can say to make it so.

Once you get Helena, if you also leveled Brooklyn up and LB’d her, you should have Wichita.
Throw her in the backyard or oil commissions if you want to, she’s pretty strong.
 6-1 also drops Vestal

Vestal
Vestal is a repair ship (AR), a special main fleet ship whose only purpose is to heal the rest of
the fleet with their special crane auxiliary, skills, and ​3 repair kit consumables they grant their
fleet at the start of every map​. By now I’m sure you’ve gotten one of those little green wrench
things from one of the “?” nodes on the map - repair ships give you 3 of those by default. This
may not seem useful now, but it’s among the only ways to heal your main fleet in later worlds.

Vestal’s unique skill is:

Once a battle, whenever a ship falls under 20% Health, Vestal heals it for
10% (20%) of its max Health. If the target is Enterprise, the healing amount
is increased by 50%.
Before you ask: the Enterprise thing is never useful.
Vestal exists to turn your entire fleet into almost-Phoenix. If any one member gets singled out,
she turns them into Phoenix. She can also turn Phoenix into double Phoenix, which can get
pretty absurd pretty fast.

ARs also give you 1 extra ammo, which again may not seem super useful now, but it’s a nice
quality-of-life addition for later worlds where you have to clear 6 non-boss nodes to make the
boss appear.

Vestal is a ​super​ long game investment - you won’t use her until world 10 and might not even
use her there depending on the strategy you choose, though if you’re going the route of phoenix
vs the world like I tend to enjoy, she’ll be your friend in a number of months.

Reminder: Equipment skills (aka cranes, in this case) do not stack. If for whatever reason you
decide to run two ARs though, their cranes will both “stack”

6-1 ​also​ drops:

From left to right:

SG Radar (Gold and Purple versions)​​ - These are as critical to have as toolkit. Purple gives
8% flat extra rate of evading ambushes, gold gives a whopping 12%. This is on top of adding
good base accuracy and evasion to whatever ship you equip it on. Can be obtained from Eagle
boxes.
Purple Upgrade Plates​​ - These allow you to upgrade your equipment beyond +6. You’ll never
have enough of these, get farming them early and in large quantities. ​THESE ARE DROPPED
FROM EVERY MAP WORLD 6 ONWARDS AND SUPER IMPORTANT TO GET LOTS

Reminder: ​Equipment skills (aka radars, in this case) do not stack - the buff is fleetwide,
applying more to ships in one fleet will not give more flat evasion bonuses (you might get 1-2%
chance to evade from doing so, however, because you’re raising the ships evasion which raises
their chance to evade ambushes)

What’s after 6-1?

Farm 6-3

Yamashiro​ and ​Fusou

These two twin BBs are two of the best you can get your hands on until Tirpitz or Duke of York
show up. They have solid base FP stats and main gun efficiency, with a potent self buff of
10-20% to FP. Big, heavy hitting, cheap (because of their rarity) BBs, you really can’t go wrong
with either one.
These two drop from every world in world 6 aside from 6-1.

But, you’re gonna need guns and aux for them… 6-3 has you covered there, too!

In order from left to right:

Autoloader​​ - an aux that boosts reload and FP, decent on BBs, good on CAs, I’d advise
against its use on CLs or DDs unless you really have no idea what else to put (spoiler alert: the
answer is probably toolbox instead). Hood’s best friend. Can also be obtained from any box
types.
Triple 406mm (16"/45 caliber Mark 6)​​ - Colloquially referred to as triple 406, this is the best
general purpose BB gun in the game. Fires 3 HE shots. The perfect balance of reload speed,
damage, and shot distribution places it at the top of the list for 99% of BBs. Can also be
obtained from Eagle boxes.
Twin 410mm (3rd Year Type)​​ - Twin 410 is the second best gun for boats like Hood that have
an on-main-gun-firing skill that you want to proc often, and actually performs pretty respectably
even on regular BBs. Fires 2 HE shots. Skewed more towards reload speed, some people
prefer its 2 shot spread over the 3 shot spread of triple 406. Some people are generally wrong.
Can also be obtained from Sakura boxes.

Since I’ve just mentioned two HE BB guns as being two of the best, I should explain a little bit
about HE, mechanically, since I think at this point you’re ready to get the nitty gritty of
mechanics.

HE is strictly the best BB ammo type​​. ​The burns you inflict with BB shots are huge, and add
up to basically double the initial damage of the shelling. This can be amplified if you have either
another BB with HE shots on a lower cooldown that does less damage (i.e. hood with 410) or a
vanguard ship with an HE gun (usually the secondary in the case of gunbotes, another reason
why gunbotes are OP), because while ​burns do not stack, subsequent lower damage burns
inflicted refresh the timer on older, heavier damage burns.

Oh, by the way, now that you have easy access to the good farmable BB guns, you’ll want to
start phasing out CVs that aren’t shouhou and the foxes from your fleets. They just really don’t
cut it compared to BBs due to lack of both secondary guns and meaningful AA contribution.

And now, after this big ol’ gauntlet you’ve run through half of world 6, we’re onto our final world
6 farming destination...
 Farm 6-4!

Yuudachi
Poi is a really awesome torpedo-focused destroyer that drops from 6-4. Not only is she super
cute, but she’s even got her own in-game ​theme song​! Until Ayanami gets her retrofit, she’s got
the single highest torpedo stat in the game, and even after Ayanami comes out she still is (in my
opinion) far better in auto because of her stupidly strong skill:
6% activation upon firing: For 8 seconds, increases own FP, Torp, Reload,
and Evasion by 20% (40%)
But this skill is unlike any we’ve encountered so far (at least unlike any I’ve explicitly mentioned)
- you need a fast reloading gun to make it work.

Single 76mm (3″/50 caliber gun)

A blue gun with a reload speed of .6s per volley at +6. You get it from Eagle Union boxes, and
it’s the best in slot gun for what you might call barrage-dependent DDs. These are so few in
number that I’ll just list the relevant ones explicitly: Yuudachi, Ayanami, and Eldridge. If you
somehow haven’t gotten one from Eagle boxes you can farm it in 3-3.
 6-4 also drops:

From left to right:

610mm Quadruple Torpedo Mount (Purple and Gold)​​ - The best torp for manual shotgunning
and probably just manual in general, most flat damage per torp and most total damage per
reload cycle if all torps land - gold version is BiS for Poi. Can also be obtained from Sakura
boxes.
Purple 533mm Quintuple Torpedo Mount​​ ​-​ ​the purple version of the starter collection reward
torpedo, pretty solid overall for auto mode, nothing to write home about exactly, but this will
probably be your go-to filler torp. Can​ also​ be obtained from any box type.
Purple Twin 105mm SK C/33​​ - Purple AA with high range and flat damage, slow reload. Solid
filler AA gun, I’ll elaborate more on AA later. Can​ also ​be obtained from Ironblood boxes.
 7-2:

From left to right:

Purple Steam Catapult​​ - an auxiliary equip for your aircraft carriers (like shouhou!) which
boosts their airpower, 3rd best in slot offensive aux for them behind the gold version and purple
droptank, which doesn’t drop anywhere nice. Can also be obtained from any box type.
Purple/Gold Twin 113mm BD RP10 Mk​​ - the best general purpose purple AA gun, the best
general purpose gold AA gun. Long range, huge base damage, slow reload. Because of its long
range and huge base damage you can slap these on anyone and feel fine about it - low AA
ships contribute with the range of it, high AA ships get both the range AND the damage! Can
also be obtained from Royal boxes.
Purple Barracuda​​ ​- purple cuda is the second best torpedo bomber, only behind its gold
counterpart, which is unfarmable.Purple version is just a marginally slower launching gold
version with a little less stats. The purple version is the only farmable version but still easily
trumps every other torpedo bomber available that isn't the gold version. ​This plane is silly OP.
Can also be obtained from Royal boxes.

7-2 doesn’t drop any noteworthy ships that you don’t already have.

7-2 is really interesting because it has 4 “?” nodes that spawn in it - if you haven’t already
noticed, these drop gold! In 7-2 they drop gold, spawn treasure ships, and sometimes drop food.
The nodes themselves aren’t as good as they are in previous worlds, but the abundance of
them along with the stellar equipment drop table make this make an excellent candidate for
leveling ships from around 80-100 (usually ex-commission/dorm slaves)