Azur Lane is one of the few mobile games out there with gacha elements that’s surprisingly completely playable even without dropping an obscene amount of money. With good rates on some of the higher-tiered shipgirls and decent chances to build a capable fleet with just normals, rares, and a few elites, Azur Lane has become a very underrated game that fans of the anime art style should definitely check out.
For this guide, we’re taking a look at cost-effective farming with nothing more than common, rare, and the occasional elite shipgirls. Low cost farming refers to the grinding part of Azur Lane; ultimately, somewhere along the middle stages of the game, you’ll find that you’re running out of raw materials and resources to fund your sorties through higher levels or improve your shipgirls. At some point, you’ll also need these resources for Priority Ships, which are special shipgirls that need a ton of requirements before they can be constructed. To get these materials, a good Azur Lane player will turn to farming with what are called grind fleets, which are relatively cheap shipgirls that still excel for the purpose of cost-effective farming.
Oil consumption and self-healing skills
Ultimately, choosing shipgirls for your farming fleet falls down to two important aspects: low oil consumption and the presence of skills that can self-heal. There are some other aspects to consider, such as evasion and firepower, but that’s only worth taking very seriously if you’re planning on running the game on auto. For the most part, you will want to take ships with as minimal oil consumption as possible in order to effectively farm stages at the lowest cost to your resources.
Following these two general criteria, here are some of the best shipgirl choices for farming low-level escort content.
Low level farming
Low level content refers to Chapters 1 to 9, where the enemies are less punishing and a cheap grinding fleet can thrive. It’s important to note that cost-effective farming in low level content requires shipgirls that have not been upgraded through Limit Breaks yet, as while this increases their overall stats, you also end up spending more oil to fuel them. Besides Chapters 1 to 9, you can also use this grinding fleet for normal difficulty events.
Frontline
- Cassin (Normal rarity) and Downes (Normal rarity) – the two Mahan class destroyers (DD) are exceptional at low level farming thanks to their minimal oil consumption and self-healing skills. Both are incredibly easy to acquire as well, and it would be nothing short of extremely bad luck if you haven’t already acquired them within the first few days of playing. Both of them have the Recommissioned skill, which heals them for up to 25 percent of their max health after their current health falls under 20 percent. While this only activates once per battle, it’s extremely useful to have and will easily allow them to be efficient even at later stages of the game.
- Phoenix (Rare rarity) – with relatively good all-around stats, low oil consumption and a self-healing skill to boot, Pheonix is a great light cruiser (CL) compliment to your Vanguard or for use solo, if you’re running a 1:1 fleet (1 backline, 1 frontline). While missing torpedoes, she provides a good boost to Anti-Air which helps out a lot in terms of backline protection. Her Crimson Phoenix skill works the same as the Mahan destroyers, except that hers also increases her firepower by 30 percent for the next 15 seconds. Phoenix is a drop from Map 1 and 4 of Chapters 4 and 5, and can be constructed if you’re lucky.
Backline
- Erebus (Elite rarity) and Terror (Elite rarity) – these two Battle Monitors are some of the best options to have for your backline. Erebus in particular is exceptional thanks to her relatively low cost in contrast to the high firepower she brings, and what’s even better is that in the lower levels you can worry less about suicide boats and air attacks to permeate through her lower armor rating. Both Erebus and Terror use the Infinite Darkness skill, which has a chance to fire a special barrage at enemies every 20 seconds.
- Yamashiro (Rare rarity), Fusou (Rare rarity) or any other rare battleship – the Japanese battleships are a bit more situational, and should only be used if you can’t really get any of the Battle Monitors. This is due to the fact that they are double the cost of the latter at six oil consumption. That said, they are pretty good damage dealers for lower costs, but using one of them means that you’re stuck with only a single-ship backline in order to keep oil consumption down.
Stay tuned for more guides on Azur Lane. Check out a recommended shipgirl guide for Destroyers (DD) here, Light Cruisers (CL) here, Heavy Cruisers here, Battleships (BB) and Battlecruisers (BC) here, Aircraft Carriers (CV) here and Light Aircraft Carriers (CVL) and Repair Ships (AR) here.
