Azur Lane Common Compbuilding Team Guide

GOLD DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN GOOD; GRAY OR BLUE DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN BAD.

Prinz Eugen, Illustrious, Victorious, Atago, Belfast… the list of units with a shiny gold finish and without the quality you’d expect from it goes on; conversely, Langley, Ranger, Nevada, Leander and more all provide great examples of excellent units despite their bottom-of-the-barrel rarity.
Don’t get scammed by golds, don’t scrap your grays before you’re sure they are no good.

DO NOT THINK IN TERMS OF HULL CLASS.

The question you should ask yourself isn’t “which class of ship do I need”, but “what is this ship good/bad at?” and “will it work with the others?”; that is because every faction has its own spin on the various hull classes, and often enough there are multiple spins in the same nation, making sweeping generalisations hilariously inaccurate.
Laffey (USS DD) and Ayanami (IJN DD) are nothing alike; and neither are Laffey and Maury (also a USS DD).
Consider each unit its own thing, check its statline/skillset, and seek to answer those two questions above.

YOU DON’T SAVE OIL BY USING A FULL FLEET OF 0LB GRAYS.

You save Oil by using 1 MLB backliner, possibly a BBarrager (BB/BC/BM with a barrage); and 1 MLB vanguard, possibly one with a self-heal (like Cassin/Downes/Phoenix).
It’ll be cheaper and more effective.

DO NOT USE MORE THAN 1 HEALER / SELF-HEALER. (unless it’s W13)

While a ‘full healing fleet‘ sounds like a fun meme, it isn’t; the non-event self/healers you get, as sturdy as they are, are also lacking in DPS and Azur Lane is slanted significantly towards offence, not defence.
Turtling doesn’t win you games in RTS and it certainly doesn’t here, as later on doing that means the backline will get blown to bits or planed to bits; offence truly is the best defence, as never forget, dead enemies deal no damage.

• This does not matter for W13, as the sheer amount of pressure both the backline and frontline are subjected to makes taking 1 healer and 1 self-healer an appealing prospect.

DO NOT USE HEALERS IN A BOSS FIGHT.

Related to the point above. Treat boss fights as DPS checks, as your healing does not have the potency nor the speed to match the enemies’ DPS and this will only become more apparent the farther you progress; the only way you get out of a lategame boss fight is by killing the boss before it kills you, and healers by and large trade their DPS for support.

DO NOT PUT A CARRIER AS YOUR FLAGSHIP. (unless it’s Zeppy / you’re bringing 3 carriers anyway / you’re bringing 2 USS BB pre-W12)

Carriers lack the HP, the armour and – more importantly from W1 to W11 – the secondary guns needed to endure incoming threats.
Battleships and Battlecruisers all do, and often enough also happen to have barrages which will be most effective (if at all) only when launched from the flagship position; barrages that work from the sides only come with Georgia and Kirishima.

• Zeppy is an exception, as she can be armed with defensive CL guns.
• 3CV/L comps are another exception, in which case you’ll want the toughest carrier as flagship.
• 2BB 1CV USS comps are an uncommon sight but can be quite effective, and the reason for the flagship being in the middle lies in the DD secondaries carried by those American barrage-less Battleships; if they DO happen to have a barrage, however, you’ll still have the BBarrager as the flagship as you’ll benefit more from the barrage than from the improved coverage.

DO NOT USE MORE THAN 1 BBARRAGER. (unless the other one/s are Georgia and Kirishima)

Related to the point above. The vast majority of proper Battleship/Battlecruiser/Monitor barrages fire directly forward and will neither aim nor curve towards enemy units; this means that to operate properly, the BBarrager will have to sit in the flagship slot, and that if that is not the case most of the barrage will splash harmlessly into the water (or all of it, in Pennsylvania / Washington / Alabama’s case).
If you insist on taking two BBarragers at once, make sure to have the stronger barrage at the flagship spot and the weaker one to the sides.

• Georgia and Kirishima are not subject to this rule as their barrages are aimed, heading straight for the ‘appropriate’ targets regardless of the respective positions.

If you’ve fixed all these issues and you still find your fleet’s performance to be lacking, the possible causes can be narrowed down to a subpar gear selection/enhancement (learn how to fix it here), being underleveled compared to the enemies (level up), having employed incorrectly your units or having taken too many bad ones (learn how to fix these here).