Have you guys gotten ranking rewards before?
I'm starting to really get into KanColle. I'll probably end up spending more than 2 hours a day on it over the Summer.
Learned a lot of mechanics I plain did not know or was unfamiliar with this Event and since. Combined fleets, AACI, support expeditions, recovering resources, repairing ships resets morale, and the value of medals, destroyers, CVL, equipment.
Really, I did not know Hatsuzuki was so good for AACI or that she had the best destroyer armaments in the game. Even though I liked her design, I ignored her because she didn't have a Kai Ni.
So many mistakes, so very many mistakes: this most recent and dramatic failure has spurred me to believe I underestimated the game.
So many things I want to do: clear events on Hard, amass Kai Ni ships, craft more Reppuu and Shinden Kai, do Extra Operations for more medals, LSC for Taihou, Yamato, Musashi, I-401, normal construction for Hiryuu & Mutsu, complete more quests.
Now that I've at least become aware of how much I don't know, it feels great to have so much to do. The game to me even seems to be structured for all these self-assigned goals.
Deep down, Kancolle is a more complicated game than one may think, and orginally it use to be very simple and basic back in it's early days. But as the years go on, the game continues to become more complex and more strategies that are involved especially as more events roll in roll in. I mean the new land base plane system really changes the way we use our planes we once had in the past and now we have strategize what planes we need to use for battle and at the same time make sure they can cover the said distance to reach thier destination to assist your fleet without them getting mangled by the enemy fleet all at the same time.
It's a game planning and strategy along with RNG elements. And yes your Air Defense DDs (like Hatsuzuki) are really important. In fact most of the rare ships that don't have kai nis can be valuable even thought they don't have a second upgrade. I've always learn to never judge a kanmusu by it's cover as they can many potentials down the road.
Have you guys gotten ranking rewards before?
As of May, I've finally gotten my first Rank Reward that I've ever gotten by making it to the top 500 in April and boy was it not easy... but what I got was this:
The Prototype 61cm Hext Oxygen Torpedo Launcher Along with a
Type 4 Sonar which was given to those who made it to the top 500. And the trip was not easy. But I can explain to you what it took to get up there though...
What did I have to go through to earn this?Basically getting into the top 500 require you to be extremely persistent, strong and very determined. As you will need to
devote a large amount of hours daily to make the point you earn to get into the rank system.
To summarize my runs during the top 500, I had to do the following in order to understand what measures I had to take to be on top of the game of everyone else.
Know how many points other players get on a daily basis.Each server is different and will require you to at least observe what it take to work between the top 500 - 300 so you know what you need to be in top of everyone in the rank battle. Every server is different and therefore the results from each server will vary between players. As an admiral from Burnei, I know that our server is generally the most relaxed out of all the Kancolle servers (as most of the players there are from the Western Boom back in late 2013)
So competiion on burnei is no where nearly as heavy as it is in other locations. But if I have to give you the math, I would say on average, the players who make it into Burnei's top 500 are between 1600-1800 points on average.
To understand the rank point system, it's simply goes likes this for every 2000 points you earn in HQ experience, it counts as a point on the rank meter.
But before I go further into this let's review something else to remember.... you also
gain points by completing Extra Operations every month.
50 for 1-5, 75 for 1-6, 100 for 2-5, 150 for 3-5, 180 for 4-5 and 200 for 5-5So on average, you can gain a total of
755 points for completing all of the current extra operations that month.
It we take that 755 points into account and then subtract it from the admiral's scores from the end of the month, it should provide the standard amount that most players on average make. In my group, I consider 1800 to be the "safe zone" so...
1800 - 755 = 1045
So we then multiply the pointed needed for the month: 1045 x 2000 =
2,090,000 expSo basically that's what I had to earn over the course of this month to make it in the top 500.
And personally if you plan to do this, you best consider doing this
AT THE START OF THE MONTH. cause gaining the needed points will not be easy.
What about the resourcesDepending on how much effort you're trying to do to get into the top 500, you need to remember that you are going to likely not make resource gains during the time of rank battle as you will be
spending most of it JUST to stay in the ranks.Be ready to conduct unique methods of "Budget Fleet management" and also mutiple batchs of subgirls wouldn't hurt either for this. This'll save you some pain during your runs for points.
What are good places to go to?There are several locations players use to rank battle, and each of them will invovle extensive uses of your fleet, so be prepare to utilize them accordingly:
2-2 The Bashi Island Budget Fleet Approach 800 points per boss node winThis is often a good spot to farm for points when you don't want to go to the other locations, but it'll be EXTREMELY tedious and time consuming.... I wouldn't recommned it as a main place to go to, but as a place to go to when you want to use a "budget fleet" to save on resource spending.
What's a budget fleet you may ask?
It's simple: Take 1 strong ship girl in your fleet and make her your flagship. Then make every other ship girl in your fleet a level 1 copy of some other ship girl (Carriers, Heavy Cruisers, and Battleships are highly recommend). Run fleet on map, and once you're done, refuel ONLY the flagship girl and no one else! A keep running them until they're too tired or run out of fuel. Scrap the copies, then rinse and repeat!
It works wonders, saves your resources, and give you those extra small points.
2-3 The Orel Cruise 1000 points per boss node winIf you used subs to gain fuel before in 2-3, this method is a straight forward method as it's a no brainier to everyone. You can keep using sub girls here to assist gaining fuel and possibly scoring boss node kills IF they land on it.
I general recommended number is 4 non kai'd subs (outside of U-511, she can be kai'd or converted to Ro with little cost) and you can usually get fuel gain, and if you get to the boss node you'll get a B which can net you an easy 1000 points each boss run.
5-4 The Southern Seas Submarine / Surface Fleet Run 3000 points per boss node winThis is where the majority of rank players ALL go for points. Is within this map. There are two ways to tackle the map, you can use an all submarine fleet or you can use surface fleet. If you're played 5-4 and know how to use your drums to get a short cut to a supply node to gain fuel, then you know how to play this map the normal way with a surface fleet.
The method will usually cost you a hefty amount of ammo, and a little bit a fuel in the process.
But the alter net method is to take the Submarine route, which is also a gamble upon itself, but with 5- 6 talented sub girls, you can make the most out of this map. Since you'll likely take out most of the DDs and CLs before they can fight back. The only problem is, you will get a D on occasion in the night battle node since it can have an all sub fleet. Which oddly counts as a defeat since there are no "draws" Outside of that, if your fleet gets to the boss node, simply take out as many of the ships you can and that's an easy 3k there, and you'll only spent around 100something fuel/ ammo per round.
How many points should I gain per day?There's no real way to determine unless you do the math, but I know that for me, when I began to notice my rank building up, I made an important decision to try to keep my rank building up. So I set a goal during the month of April to gain about....
50000 points every 12 hours..... AKA
100,000 every dayAs noted I started doing this around the 10th of April, so I did this for about 20 days. And over that course of time I....
Again 2 levels in my
Admiral HQ level (from 116 to 118) and was
VERY TIRED....but more importantly I made it into the top 500 by being in 350th place around the final 12 hours.
Also,
I completed every single Extra Operation This was the most important factor to remember here.
I can't urge this enough. If you're aiming to get into the top 500, do all of the extra operation map.... including the dreaded 5-5. These are what player to get themselves into the top 500.
Other things that might be important to note:Players have a tendency to focus more heavily on rank battles after an event, but will reduce thier activity as an event comes closer to happening. They will especially come to a near stop and focus on the event if the event comes into play. Though highly skilled rank battlers (mostly those in the top 100 or so) will usually just aim the clear the event and get what they want on easy and care not for the rewards they can earn on harder difficulties. And some are just absolute neets (usually the top 1-5) that do nothing
BUT rank battle, regardless of if an event is taking place or not.
During the final days of the month, rank battles will always get more intense during the final stretch. This is usually where things can be unpredictable, and sometime, unsuspecting players may get the jump on other rank battlers. Usually by scoring the wins on 5-5 and the like. But usually players who want to get into the top 500 are recommended to get into rank 430 or higher to guarantee thier chance at the rank reward. Anyone at 431 and lower is likely to be subjected to unexpected surprises by other rank battler,
ESPECIALLY in final 12 hours!
Why are the final 12 hours so crucial?This is where you will usually know where you stand in the ranks JUST before the final tally. You will not know if you made it into the ranks until AFTER ranks rewards are handed out. This is where players will usually throw surprising upsets that can throw some players for a spin. Important things to note is that
rank points gained via Boss nodes will usually end at 8 PM JST on the final day. But rank points from beating the Extra Operations can still be gained during 8PM -12 Midnight of the final day for that month. And
that is where the unexpecting upsets can happen. So yes, rank battle is a blood bath, rank battle is taxing, and I only recommend it if you have
LOTS of free time and /or resources on your hands.
Just remember, that usually during that time players will usually complete certain early EO maps they haven't beaten, rarely do you usually see more than 30-50 people cause an upset during this time frame (which you'll know nothing about till you know if you did or did not get your rank reward). Just assume to worst and always do everything you can under your final hours to build up the points you need to hold your rank in place.
I alone was impressed I accomplished this as I do not see myself doing this stunt again any time soon....