New player help!

[olive current]

Hi guys! Newish player here (lvl 42) are there any veterans willing to help with general gameplay/min-maxing/pve-pvp compositions and meta ships?

basically, I was wondering what is the most optimal way of clearing PVE stages in terms of fleet compositions, as well as the most efficient way to level new ships and farm stages (like 3-4) in order to conserve oil

also very interested in which ships are meta for later-game PVE and also PVP content, as well as all LAB ships (META and PR) and how those work

[fickle grail]

push and don't farm 3-4

[cursive jay]

okay one thing at a time buco

[neon owl]

post your dock
also not worth farming 3-4 until you have a fleet with 1 ship each in main fleet/vanguard that can solo the entire map for basically no cost

[cursive jay]

okay first things first don't farm 3-4

[fickle grail]

#bot-spam /tierlist

[cursive jay]

push as far as you can in the main campaign to reach W9+ for oiled capped maps

[cursive jay]

is this everyone?

[jade elm]

The ectl from Rice is kept up to date more or less

[cursive jay]

deducting points for no Portland or Unicorn

[olive current]

also have graf zeppelin, victorious, javelin as noticeable ships

[olive current]

getting unicorn from guild shop soon but first helena i think

[neon owl]

unicorn would be better

[viscid lance]

unicorn first

[cursive jay]

no get Unicorn first

[olive current]

also i already spent guild coins on vestal

which i kinda regret

[fickle grail]

get both. easy

[olive current]

tbh

[fickle grail]

or not

[cursive jay]

you have Portland right?

[viscid lance]

vestal kind of useless

[olive current]

i realized that, unless she's with EP i guess (altho still kinda not good as far as I've heard)

[viscid lance]

unicorn top tier and will be probably in every mob fleet composition you run til forever

[neon owl]

theres no situation in which vestal is good

[olive current]

i have portland btw

[fickle grail]

in order to conserve oil
stop using vestal

[viscid lance]

i mean if you wanted vestal because she was cute then yeah, whatever, but just stop raising her

[olive current]

i got her cuz i assumed vestal + EP would be op

[cursive jay]

can you post your entire dock and the fleets you're using

[olive current]

then I later found out it won't

[viscid lance]

unlucky

[jade elm]

Vestal is garbage unless you rly want aa

[viscid lance]

wiki + tier list will be your best friend from now on

[jade elm]

So I do strongly in fact recommend checking out the ectl tierlist. It’s not completely accurate, but gives you an idea if your ship is total trash or worth using

Don’t use ships in the <other> tab

https://slaimuda.github.io/ectl/#/home

[olive current]

strangely enough vestal is S/A tier in a lot of tierlists online

[cursive jay]

those are garbbage

[viscid lance]

citation needed

[cursive jay]

stop reading them

[fickle grail]

T2 is pretty high. throws away ECTL

[jade elm]

The t2 only for the aa

[olive current]

I know Fortune META, Rodney, Indiana and Vestal are bad

[cursive jay]

okay so go : Pennsylvania, Unicorn, Taiho, Portland, Laffey, Helena for your fleet for now

[jade elm]

Meaning drops down to the abyss when you don’t want aa

[fickle grail]

It's a tier list not a fleet comp generator. You need to pick the right ships for what you want to do. And Vestal is rarely it.

[cursive jay]

I don't reccomend lvling up two fleets early game

[viscid lance]

bad ships are still usable if you're just starting off

that being said, i would take fortune meta out of the fleet rn, if you must use a purple meta ship at least use sheffield, since her cruise event going on rn

[cursive jay]

you're spreading your resources too thin and two fleets are really unecessary for early game

[olive current]

https://slaimuda.github.io/ectl/#/main/dd
https://azurlaner.com/azur-lane-tier-list/

[neon owl]

[cursive jay]

Warspite Still A tier cope

[olive current]

but you can't clear content with 1 fleet because of ammo no?

[fickle grail]

@olive current

[viscid lance]

you can if you just overlevel your fleet lol

as long as you kill fast enough even at 50% damage, 0 ammo isnt a problem

[olive current]

which idk if I've done

im at 4-2 atm

[jade elm]

Well uh at least it isn’t flat out lying but it’s 1. Very incomplete 2. Lacking accuracy/precision

[neon owl]

says a lot when the comments section can identify improper "placement"

[jade elm]

Don’t use it

[viscid lance]

reading that blog comment section lmao

[olive current]

oki tyvm!

[olive current]

is this the best I can do with the ships i got?

[fickle grail]

all it does is give you -50% damage dealt. you can overcome it by overlevelling.

[cursive jay]

pretty much

[olive current]

i thought most R tier ships are garbage except shouhou and shropshire

[viscid lance]

you could maybe do a bit better but that's probably the easiest to raise

[cursive jay]

just focus on progressing through the main campaign

[olive current]

also Theseus is supposed to be super good atm no?

[viscid lance]

nah

even on release the consensus was theseus being decent but nothing amazing

[olive current]

oki ty

so basically, change to 1 fleet, push for chapter 9? don't farm stages? get unicorn from guild instead of helena? (i can do it rn)

[viscid lance]

farm stages if you need to level your ships

and yeah, raise unicorn asap

[cursive jay]

once you reach chapter 8 or 9

[viscid lance]

you'll struggle a lot less in stages once you have a proper source of healing

[cursive jay]

then you can start thinking about a 2nd fleet

also start working on retrofits

Unicorn>Portland>Laffey

[olive current]

what about PR ships ? are those important? (its been prompting me to start researching for a while now)

[cursive jay]

you can start developing one though don't actively focus on it

[olive current]

is portland a good lategame ship? since i'd be investing so many resources into it

[cursive jay]

just have slowly work in the back ground

[cursive jay]

she'll take you right up to Chpater 13

also don't worry since she's really cheap

[viscid lance]

ehhh

[olive current]

is what it says here the correct way to level new ships? https://www.gameskinny.com/1ygfg/azur-lane-upgrade-and-leveling-guide#:~:text=When you have upgraded ships,or MVP of the battle.

[cursive jay]

no

it's completely outdated and bull shit

[jade elm]

Yes the earlier the better

[neon owl]

when the first thing they mention is farming 3-4

[jade elm]

Many of the best ships in the game are locked in there…

[olive current]

oh the PR note, which is the best PR1 ship? I'm between saint louis/neptune

[viscid lance]

monarch tbh

[cursive jay]

at least the first bit

[olive current]

i can only do saint louis now tho

should I wait?

[cursive jay]

just do Saint Louis then

[viscid lance]

saint lous is okay, makes a god mob fleet tank

if you can start her research just do it, with portland and helena you're gonna be racking up a fair bit of eagle union vanguard exp anyways

[neon owl]

on the topic of research
set your research focus to season 4

[olive current]

oki

[olive current]

i'll have to wait for guild shop reset to get helena since I just got unicorn but it shall be soonish

[jade elm]

You can reset once yourself

It’s only 50 guild coins

[olive current]

also one thing I cannot understand, it says Noshiro is in light build pool but it also says she is event limited...which is it?

[olive current]

oh oki tyvm

[cursive jay]

she's in the light pool

[jade elm]

Each shop resets with diff currency check it out. Never use gems

She was event limited

Then she entered into general light pool

[olive current]

im gonna keep gems for skins idk if thats smart tho 😄

[neon owl]

event limited during the event period
when the event was put into war archives, she was added to perma light banner

[olive current]

ty

[cursive jay]

as a FTP no

[jade elm]

Are you f2p?

You won’t be able to afford it

[cursive jay]

if want skins you gotta spend real money

[olive current]

im f2p for now, its day 4 for me

maybe in a month or 2 i will pay

if im still into it as much as now

[jade elm]

Well fine. Point is, gems are needed to increase the number of ships you can have at one time

There are over 550 ships in game currently

[neon owl]

do /gems in #bot-spam

[jade elm]

And you’ll get copies and other stuff too and many ships will be added through new events

If you spend those gems as an f2per then you won’t have enough to buy dock expansions

And hence will have to say bye bye to your aspirations as a collector

[olive current]

thats a fair point, do you get anything if you collect all available ships?

since i might want to keep only the ones I'm using

idk if im into collecting them all

[cursive jay]

not really, it's just a personal goal

[jade elm]

AL’s monetization is reliant on skin selling. You can’t afford it without paying, but it also means everything else is easy even as f2p; you can pull for every ship as an f2p and get them too (excellent Chance

Most generous gacha on the market by a long shot

[olive current]

Any priority on who I should oath (cuz of bonus stats) ?

[cursive jay]

no

go for your waifu

[viscid lance]

whoever u wanna waifu

[jade elm]

Eh keep it for now

You can wait till you get more ships

[neon owl]

if you want to oath for stats, be prepared to spend a lot of money for rings

[olive current]

I want Noshiro tbf thats why I asked x.x

[viscid lance]

i think one of the rookie starting missions is to oath a ship

[jade elm]

Yeah well ignore it

[viscid lance]

but they give you a ring to do it so whatever lol

[jade elm]

They’re perma so you can do it later

[olive current]

already got it yeah

[jade elm]

Rings are extremely rare

They basically are never obtained

[viscid lance]

i started playing this game with 0 prior knowledge bc i saw Harbin's beach skin and thought it looked nice

[jade elm]

Except within exceptionally rare mail gifts

And bought by you with gems

[viscid lance]

imagine my disappointment when i found out what it took to get harbin

[olive current]

😄 I can imagine yeah

i have too many ships I like

i actually started the game since I watched the anime and I'm a ww2 naval warfare history nerd

[jade elm]

She’s pr5, so kind of expected. The DE ships is a pain admittedly

But hey the ddgs

And now yatsen retro

[viscid lance]

yeah, the small solace was that the dragon empery rerun event happened just as i started playing so i got a whole load dumped onto me

i think i can start harbin research now if i MLB/120 yatsen and anshan

[olive current]

I've heard yatsen is kinda bad

her dmg is too low

[viscid lance]

with retro shes good now

[jade elm]

She was recently given a retrofit

[viscid lance]

bc she now no longers gets tied to ping/ning hai, so she has a lot more flexibility

[jade elm]

She’s extremely tanky with another Ning ship

Comparable to uh kron, though definitely weaker by a bit

Though still lacking dmg

[olive current]

fair

[jade elm]

For ref that’s a UR ship (kronshtadt) so that’s top tier toughness

[olive current]

i know 😄

btw can you construct UR ships?

[neon owl]

during banner

[viscid lance]

there are a few in PR (that are tagged DR), but otherwise pull in banner during events

[jade elm]

So there are three types of UR: research UR, 1. done through research and the shipyard,2. Event build pool UR, 3. Retrofit URs

The retrofit URs being UR in name only (not as good

By the way

[cursive jay]

eh the older ones yeah

Poi Kai is still up there with Shima

[jade elm]

There should be a UR event soonish

[olive current]

"Pennsylvania, Unicorn, Taiho, Portland, Laffey, Helena" also on this composition is there any specific way i should place the ships in? I know Portland will tank...idk abt rest

[jade elm]

Oh right. Ye she’s still great

[jade elm]

Save your cubes

[cursive jay]

Pennsylvania should be the first you replace when you get a good BB

[olive current]

aight

[jade elm]

You’ll need them to pull for the UR.

[viscid lance]

pennsylvania is flagship, so middle backrow

[jade elm]

It will, in all likelihood, happen this month

[viscid lance]

taihou/unicorn you can place whichever way

portland leftmost front row, helena will be rightmost i think, laffey in middle

[olive current]

a lot of youtube content on azur lane says BBs are super slow and not as good generally as using multiple CV/CVLs is that true?

[cursive jay]

my positioning is based off of how it's done in game in this screen

[cursive jay]

pffft ignore that, you'll need at least one BB for most of the main campaign

[jade elm]

Absolutely not. But cvs are hm. Generally more used in mob in campaign

[neon owl]

funny
triple cv is one of the worst things you can do early because all it takes is a few suicide boats to kill your backline

[olive current]

a lot of guides/videos mention using things like enterprise/yorktown 2 combo

[viscid lance]

i'm describing based on something like this

[jade elm]

Well, just know that bbs are necessary for most of the game

[cursive jay]

you should not be worrying about that right now

[olive current]

or the jap versions shinano/haku

[cursive jay]

notice the flag tag for the left most ship

[raven lake]

full cv fleets aren't for main campaign, so dw

[cursive jay]

well not until W13 anyway

[olive current]

oh yeah, I have An Shan isn't she supposed to be S+ tier atm?

for destroyers

[viscid lance]

with retrofit

[jade elm]

I mean you can use her for now, but she does need the retrofit

[cursive jay]

don't worry about that for now

she's an expensive investment in terms of equips

which you won' have early game

[olive current]

and Taiho is better than GZ right?

[cursive jay]

I'd say yes

[raven lake]

yes, but both of them need their Augment to shine

[jade elm]

Right. To use an Shan at her maximum potential you’ll need core data, and prototype core, and lots of coin

Which you don’t have at this point in time

Taihou with her augment is significantly better than gz

[cursive jay]

even without it Taiho is still better

when her augment was added

[jade elm]

Hm was she? Well then

[cursive jay]

her skill descrip was updated

[olive current]

No idea what augment is but I assume its lategame stuff >.<

[cursive jay]

so that base at least one of her additional airstikes is gurneteed

whereas GZ get's nothing

[jade elm]

It’s uh somewhat expensive but more mid game

Not too difficult to get

[viscid lance]

you get access midgame, but yeah very expensive

[jade elm]

It’s only 20k. Not horrible

[olive current]

anything from this i need to be buying?

regularly

[jade elm]

The t4 plates always

The t3 retrofit prints always

[cursive jay]

get some T3 CV retrofit prints for Uni

[olive current]

for which part

[jade elm]

Well never pick anti air or torp

[cursive jay]

main guns

[viscid lance]

main gun most likely

[jade elm]

Other than that, depends on what you want to upgrade ig

[raven lake]

make sure to join a guild as well

[olive current]

i have joined one but know none in it kinda sad tbh 😄

[fickle grail]

you know there's a refresh button to get unicorn or helena

[jade elm]

Always refresh the guild shop

[olive current]

im gonna refresh now i just got unicorn

[jade elm]

Very cheap refresh

[olive current]

was asking if i should stock up

before I do it

[raven lake]

you always refresh

[jade elm]

Yes always buy the retrofit and the t4 plates

[viscid lance]

i find in terms of what plates I need, main gun >= general part >= aircraft part >= aa gun > torp

[raven lake]

after buying what you need

[fickle grail]

it doesn't make a difference. those are all long term materials. buy the T3 RF if you really want to

[olive current]

should I also get t3 plates

[olive current]

i did, ty

[viscid lance]

if you absolutely need them, but if you don't need them you can skip

[jade elm]

Well uh… they look mildly expensive to me… eh I guess

Eh get them

[olive current]

oki

[jade elm]

You have enough guild coins to afford it

And early game you don’t have enough

[raven lake]

i never bought them and never was in a shortage of them, so... I would say you don't need to buy t3 plates

but I guess it's good early on

[jade elm]

Late game you’ll be drowning in them but early game you’ll be in a constant shortage

Recommend buying purple general plates as an aside

[olive current]

Any other elite ships i should be buying from guild shop after helena/unicorn?

[neon owl]

not in particular

[viscid lance]

not really as a priority

[olive current]

also, should I enhance purple gear or only golden/yellow?

[viscid lance]

maybe graf spee / hipper if you need iron blood tech points, but that's not urgent

enhance whatever you're using, in some cases you're going to be using purple gear over gold gear so don't be afraid to

just get them to +6 or so at first, maybe +8 on the ones you know you're going to be sticking with

[neon owl]

just stick with +6

[olive current]

aight

is dmg/wave timing more important or general stats such as AA or AVI? since some blue gears have higher dmg but slower wave and lower stat

[cursive jay]

it depends on overall and practical DPS

check out the gear guides later on but for now you'll likely just have to make do with what you can get

[olive current]

oki, in the composition you made for me

is there a ship (except laffey) that i should focus the best items on?

[cursive jay]

I mean they don't exactly use the same gears

[olive current]

i mean for example helena main gun and penn secondary

they can both use it

[cursive jay]

give it to Helena

[olive current]

@fickle grail oh yeah it was helena secondary and penn secondary mb not helena main gun^^

but point was some ships have same gear slots

[fickle grail]

They don't want the same secondaries so there shouldn't be a conflict

[olive current]

oh yeah but I only have one purple secondary for them so one of them gets it^^ I don't have gear with 100% efficiency on helena

unless its common

[viscid lance]

no, i think u had it right the first time

BB secondaries are usually CL main guns

CL secondaries are usually DD guns

[olive current]

yeah idk im getting confused

[fickle grail]

The ammo and spread matters more than the color

[olive current]

this is the gun swap between penn secondary and helena

[cursive jay]

Penn is a USN BB remember, can't equip DD guns

so actually give it to Penn cause interecpt matters early game

[fickle grail]

Sus on Penn. Excellent on helena.

[olive current]

x.x

so helena or penn lastly? it says 65% efficiency on helena

[fickle grail]

Efficiency is irrelevant. You want the right ammo and spread for the use case.

[cursive jay]

either way just don't leave the slot empty

[viscid lance]

You know, I never even realised USN BBs use different secondary guns, weird

[cursive jay]

historical accuracy lol

[viscid lance]

shows much attention i pay to them

[fickle grail]

They down to one fleet and no z23?

[cursive jay]

yeah cause two fleets is a waste early game

[olive current]

is this a decent setup for unicorn?

[viscid lance]

their starter was laffey pretty sure

honestly no, but do the best that you can really

[olive current]

also what aux should i use for different ships?

[cursive jay]

no but I doubt you have better options

[fickle grail]

They have a L46 Z23 or something

[cursive jay]

https://slaimuda.github.io/ectl/#/home

use this as a gear guide

[olive current]

this is all I have

[fickle grail]

messershit. When you're not even good enough for the trash

[cursive jay]

give Uni the Corsair

[viscid lance]

oh yeah they do, but laffey is alread 75 so yknow whatever

[cursive jay]

that and they only have so many Gold Bullins

[olive current]

laffey is 75

[viscid lance]

give unicorn one of your f4u corsairs

and the others are fine for what you currently have

[olive current]

I keep the barracuda on taiho right?

[fickle grail]

I would swap with hellcat until uni is same level

[viscid lance]

also, if you haven't already, start converting your gear boxes upward, 5x T1s into a T2, 5x T2s into a T3 etc

[olive current]

i've recently started doing that

i dont open gray or blue boxes

really

[olive current]

because of timing?

[fickle grail]

Corsair at equal enhance is flat out better and taihou is the better carrier right now I assume.

[olive current]

i cant swap barracuda torpedo with hellcat

[olive current]

oh i have 2 corsairs

[viscid lance]

no, they're different types of planes so you can't just swap them over sadly

[olive current]

so one for taihou one for uni

but the hellcat is +6

unless i enhance the corsair as well

[fickle grail]

+6 hellcat better than +3 corsair

[olive current]

yeah so i will keep hellcat on taiho

until corsair is +6

[viscid lance]

as far as auxiliaries go, carriers generally want steam catapults

maybe aviation oil tanks if you dont have enough catapults

for the rest of the fleet, check your ship on the tierlist and see what gears are recommended

that said, you're probably not going to have a lot on hand at the moment anyway

[olive current]

Tyvm everyone! I learned a lot! I will pester you again in the future if I need any help, so I hope you don't mind >.< hehe

[olive current]

@cursive jay i forgot to ask, can I use laffey lategame if I retrofit her? or is only unicorn usable from the fleet you made

also, I noticed u play WoWs! nice! me too x)

[cursive jay]

she's usable but by then you'll probably have better options

[olive current]

like Noshiro-chan?

[cursive jay]

they don't fulfill the same roles

[olive current]

true, still a vanguard tho

[cursive jay]

TBH Noshiro kind of falls off hard late game as she really can't keep up with the CBs for tanking

[olive current]

fair

for DD i want shima ofc

but she's probs too hard to get

otherwise Aya is a favorite too, or Marie (which u cant get anymore)

[olive current]

which CL is best late then?

Helena still?

[fickle grail]

Plymouth

[cursive jay]

Plymouth, Harbin, Helena

[olive current]

well yeah but I mean outside of UR

since UR is super hard to get

[olive current]

oki

[cursive jay]

honestly you can still invest in and use Noshiro just know that then you'll probably have better options

[olive current]

alright, let me get her first if I can...

someone said not to use cubes tho

since URs will be in build menu soon

[cursive jay]

I mean just keep this in the back your mind

[olive current]

(this month)

[cursive jay]

you're gurenteed her after 60 runs of D3 in Swiriling Cherry Blossom WAs

but don't farm for her until you've progressed further in the main campaign

[olive current]

oh oki

i didnt know that

are war archives hard?

[fickle grail]

For someone on 4-2 yes

[olive current]

alright, thank you

[fickle grail]

But there's also no reason you can't clear up to PP SP4 either

[olive current]

as in the ongoing operation?

[fickle grail]

Passionate Polaris is an event in War Archives

[olive current]

oki, u think i can get sp4 despite 3/6 of my ships being lvl 23?

[cursive jay]

uh no

[fickle grail]

Laffey can probably solo it as long as long as backline doesn't die but as long as collect the tickets it doesn't have to be exactly today.

[olive current]

should i be doing any WAs atm or no? if yes which ones are best to start on?

[cursive jay]

no

focus on progressing through the main camapign

[olive current]

You reckon I should retrofit laffey? @cursive jay

[cursive jay]

yes but prioritize Unicorn first then Portland and then Laffey

[olive current]

oki tyvm, which ship should I spend medals on?

enterprise?

[cursive jay]

what are your options?

[olive current]

or should I buy something else and not a ship

its either minneapolis or a carrier

i think the other CA's are not that good

[cursive jay]

get Enterprise then Mineapolis

you have a month which should be enough time to get 160 medals

[olive current]

oki

ty