BiS Equipment Cheat Sheet 3/24/2020

Azur Lane Updated BiS Equipment Quick-Reference Chart (3/24/2020)

(Please right-click on the image and click "view image" for a larger view.)


Original chart retrieved from the CN wiki: https://patchwiki.biligame.com/images/blhx/thumb/a/ae/7cd9wg284zhfyaxk92gkjm4psb79ani.jpg/1170px-%E8%A3%85%E5%A4%87%E4%B8%80%E5%9B%BE%E6%A6%9C.jpg

Translated by Twitch user flamingmango
Additional notes written by www.twitch.tv/mrglrglrglrgl

Additional equipment notes: Please read

Please note that there are some additional usage notes that are NOT present on the chart (likely due to space issues).  In order:

DD Guns

1)  The 130mm Twin has a 200 degree firing radius, while every other DD gun has a 360 degree firing radius.  As a result, it performs worse than the other guns on Auto. 

2)  Tashkent’s best gun on Auto is the 130mm Single.  On Manual, the 130mm Single and the 130mm Twin have similar overall performance.

CL Guns

The 150mm Single is NOT the optimal gun for HMS Neptune/Jintsuu/Noshiro.  It is merely a viable option on those ships.

The overall DPS of the 150mm Single on those ships is roughly the same as with a more conventional gun.  However, the 150mm forces all their damage into their Full Barrages, resulting in very spiky damage output.  This is not a desirable quality for frontline DPS, so these ships will generally perform better with a conventional gun (“All Light Cruiser” section).

CA Aux equipment

CAs will prefer Survival gear on high-level maps.  (Both due to the weak DPS options available, and how ridiculously well they scale with extra Evasion.)

BB Guns

1)  The BB guns that focus on speed are sorted by RoF only.  The gun at the top of the list - the 283mm - has atrocious shelling damage due to its ammo type.  Most players do NOT use it, and it realistically belongs at the bottom of the list for actually usefulness.

2)  The rainbow 457mm BB gun uses AP ammo.  It is placed higher than the Mk6 and 406mm Twin (which use HE ammo) because most high-priority threats in ch12/13 are Medium armor.  For most content, the Mk6 and 406mm Twin will perform better than the 457mm, as HE ammo is much more versatile than AP.

3)  It is currently being investigated why CN recommends the 283mm on Idol Gascan.  While it is true that the ammo swap improves the gun dramatically, it still falls well behind the Mk6 (and the British gold knockoff shown on the list) in terms of overall DPS.

The Mk6 can consistently double-tap, and frequently one-shot, the durable ch13 elites - while the 283mm can’t even one-shot the most basic ch12 shipgirls.  This means that, even though the 283mm reloads much faster, it often goes to waste since it has to wait an extra reload cycle to kill anything notable.

The 283mm fires fast enough to overlap Idol Gascan’s fire-trigger buff, so that she always fires with a 12% FP buff - however, even factoring for this, the 283mm still falls behind the Mk6.  Doing this also requires offsetting Idol Gascan’s main gun volleys by several seconds, which is impossible on Auto, and not exactly feasible in practice due to enemy appearance timeframes and the amount of player attention required.

Overall, the 283mm’s recommendation seems to be largely theory-based and untested.  Practical (and personal) testing of this gun on Idol Gascan in high-level maps has show it to perform much worse than the Mk6, in addition to requiring annoying amounts of micromanagement.

It should actually be noted that Idol Gascan’s CN wiki page puts the 283mm as one of her weakest gun options, showing that even CN is not 100% in agreement that the 283mm is actually good on her.  You should really just use the Mk6 instead if you don’t have a 457mm, everyone agrees that it’s great on her.

Planes

Speed-focused planes are not used by most players (yes, not even on Unicorn) because the speed gain is very marginal, and none of these planes carry bombs, so they do not deal offensive damage.  The 2x500lb bombs on the “damage-focused” fighters are pretty good for damage, so it is advised to use these even on CV/Ls that want to reload faster.

AA Guns

The 113mm “Roomba” should be used somewhat sparingly, as it reloads very slowly.  Too many ships with this gun will drag your average AA reload speed down, denying you extra chances to attack with AA guns and overall reducing your AA damage.

The general balance should be 1 Roomba for every 1-2 T2 AA guns per fleet.  Roombas should be placed on the ships with the highest combined AA and AA gun Efficiency (such as San Diego).

Please note that the “T2” AA guns actually have higher overall DPS than the Roomba on most ships - the Roomba just sees spectacularly high return on ships with very high AA gun stats.  Explaining more would take a very long time - I will instead direct you to an in-depth explanation.  Just know that, if you are going to thoughtlessly spam AA guns on your ships, you should do it with T2 AA guns, and not Roombas.