AL Tier List

Video link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/542009158 Notes: none at this time.

Airspace Control: Understanding your new frenemy Written by www.twitch.tv/mrglrglrglrgl (discord Mrglrgl#1126).  All formulas taken from the EN wiki .   The average player after attempting ch13 for the first time. EN now has the Airspace Control mechanic (ASC for short), and - as per usual for plane-related mechanics - the ingame details do not properly explain it.  Understanding this mechanic is crucial for ch13, and may be for future content as well, so I have decided to take the time to write a detailed guide about it. By the time you are finished reading this, you will have full understanding of Airspace Control, and also be able to calculate your ASC Tier for any map. The Fundamentals Airspace Control has four components: Fleet ASC, Modified Map ASC, Final ASC, and ASC Tier. Fleet ASC Each ship has its own ASC value, calculated from its number of planes and AVI.  Each type of plane has different contribution weight, with fighters being ...

Tier: 2S Another Fast Takeoff ship.  Please see Long Island for why this skill is powerful. Ranger carries a very atypical load for a CVL: Torpedo bomber/Dive/Dive.  She can be seen as a more damage-oriented version of Long Island.  Since Fast Takeoff’s damage potential far outweighs its support potential, Ranger is typically considered better. Skill: Assault Carrier Normally I would not give the time of day to 25% Double Damage.  However, we’re already rolling a giant pile of dice with Fast Takeoff, so let’s roll some more.  This skill gives Ranger a far higher damage ceiling than any of the other Fast Takeoff ships, and possibly even the highest of any ship in the game. This is, of course, assuming that the 15%/25% RNG Matryoshka favors you.  She IS nicknamed RNGer for a reason.

AKA Gascan Tier: 1 Gascan is a very unique ship.  While most BBs get MG+2, and a few get only MG+1, Gascan gets NO extra main gun mounts at all.  Instead, she gets TWO main gun charges with simultaneous cooldowns.  It’s kinda like having MG+1, except that you get full aim control over both volleys, and get to double-dip on both the innate 20% manual aim damage bonus AND Gascan’s 40% manual aim damage buff.  You even get to hold the second volley if you don’t need it immediately! Thanks to Gascan’s second skill, the 20% manual aim damage bonus, and a staggering 180% main gun efficiency, her main gun volleys are some of the strongest in the game.  Having full control over aiming both volleys (and being able to save unneeded ones) significantly improves accuracy and reduces overkill.   Skill: Emotion Inhibition Module Compared to other Zombie skills, Gascan’s heals for less per activation (8%, compared to the usual 20-30%).  However, it has a ...

Tier: 4 Worse stats than Giulio , and without the gun barrage that makes Giulio somewhat useable.  She still has the crappy torpedo barrage.  It is strongly recommended to avoid Conte.

Tier: 3 ...For some reason I have latched onto this as my go-to BB for easy events on EN.  I have absolutely NO idea WHY. Spectacularly failing the Rodney Test , Giulio has the gun stats of a BC and is Caliber Restricted, despite being classed as a BB.  A halfway decent clearing barrage is all that saves her from a fate in T4. Skill: Sardegnian Coercion Giulio’s first barrage fires 4 sets of 203mm HE shells in a 2-3-3-2 pattern, which travel in a fixed line, and an assortment of close-range noodleshells.  The HE deals decent damage, and the pattern is good for clearing.  50% proc rate is not exactly optimal, but it works well enough. Note that, on some maps, the pattern actually “threads the needle” between enemy ships, and subsequently does nothing. Skill: Fading Memories of Glory Giulio’s second barrage launches 2 waves of 3 torpedoes in rapid succession.   They function most similarly to homing plane torpedoes, in that each of the two sets aims...

"Kooooooooon~~~!" Tier: 1S Well now I’ve seen everything.  No, the wiki does not have a typo; Fubuki does, in fact, have a Dive Bomber slot instead of an AA gun. The Dive Bomber in question is extremely weak - with only 201 AVI, 80% efficiency, one expansion, and one charge, it is more akin to a BBV seaplane.  However, the actual strength of the plane is not very important in this case - simply by HAVING a plane, Fubuki gains the screen-clearing utility of an airstrike and contributes to Air Superiority.  It also means she has an AVI stat - roughly half that of a CV - which counts toward event Hardmode stat requirements, and opens up numerous cheese possibilities. Interestingly, the planes Fubuki launches (both from her airstrike and her skill) come out very delayed.  This is because planes normally spawn from the ship that launches them, but Fubuki’s planes spawn offscreen on the left - significantly behind the backline - and thus have further to travel befo...

Tier: 0 Jean Bart is very unique, for several reasons.  She is the only T0 BB with no barrage, but has still earned her place in the tier. Jean Bart has an extremely rare LB bonus: Preloaded Main Gun .  This means that she STARTS each combat with her Main Gun charge off-cooldown and ready to fire.  Only one other ship in the entire game - {Dunkerque} - has Preloaded Main Gun, and it is extremely powerful.  This (along with her skills) makes Jean Bart one of the premier backline fast-killers, often able to end both siren and boss fights before normal BBs even have a chance to fire once. Skill: Pirate's Soul This skill is the other reason for Jean Bart’s T0 placement.  To clarify: “first main gun volley of each salvo” means the first of her two Main Gun volleys each Main Gun activation.  This is also the volley that counts as “manually aimed” for the other damage bonus.  This also synergizes with Jean Bart’s high Main Gun efficiency (courtesy of ...

Tier: 2 Passes the Rodney Test , and therefore is perfectly acceptable. Skill: Divine Marksman Warspite’s barrage fires 3 shots of BB AP, targeted at the enemy furthest from her.  Deals somewhat reasonable damage, but it is often rendered useless by suicide and production ships that regularly spawn in at the back and move forward before the barrage can reach the target point.  Still, it is free damage, with no trigger RNG and a short cooldown. Since Divine Marksman ALWAYS targets the furthest enemy, it can sometimes be manipulated into consistently shooting a specific high-priority enemy. This is mostly useful in PvP, where she can focus down and delete squishy backliners before they can contribute significantly.

Tier: 3 Stereotypical crappy torpedo CA block.  Norfolk actually has the lowest TORP of any ship in the game (although, due to efficiencies, her torpedoes are not the weakest). Regardless, Norfolk has a very special role: of all the shieldships, she is the easiest to acquire and LB, and has much higher HP than most early CAs, making her a decent early game tank.  Her shield skill also requires very little investment - the proc chance and shell block total are the same across all levels, and it does not need to be leveled much to last long enough to utilize the block total.  The {Prinz} obtained from the new player campaign is far better, but during the first week, Norfolk can be useful. Unlike the other shieldships, Norfolk’s shield does not rotate - it stays still in front of her.  While this means that it cannot defend against back or side shots, it always defends the front, which is where most projectiles come from (especially early on).  I personally p...

These are the "Ship Reviews".  Full written analyses are based off fully informed and tested data, which is difficult to obtain in the first few days of an event.  Especially with barrage-focused ships, as these barrages often change patterns and ammo types when upgraded, and these details are not known until AFTER players have gone through the week-long timegate of skill upgrading. However, players still wish to know how good ships are when they come out.  Thus, I began a tradition of reviewing every ship on-stream when it comes out - generally on day 1 or 2 of the event.  This page houses all of them (at least as far back as I have stored VODs when I started doing this tier list). The ship reviews are based entirely off datamined information, publicly available information, intuition, and practical experience with similar ships and common strategies.  They may not be 100% accurate in hindsight, but perfect accuracy is impossible when they are made this ear...

Video Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/529672523 Notes: At 9:58 I accidentally said "full frontline".  This was a misspeak, I meant to say "full backline".  By "3:1 fleet", I meant 3 backliners and 1 frontliner. After testing, I have found Ryuuhou's targeting to be slightly buggy.  When the most damaged ship is a backliner, it does not always seem to heal three times - sometimes it only heals twice, or even once.  It seems to always behave correctly if the most damaged ship is a frontliner for the duration of the skill. At the start of battle, if Shiranui is in the fleet and Kasumi's first skill fails to activate (due to there not being 3 frontliners), she has a unique skill textline.  This appears to be entirely cosmetic, and does not actually affect gameplay in any way (the skill does nothing, as the trigger requirement was not met).