PvP

PvP in Armada Girls is currently focused on Drills, a ranked competition where you fight other captain's AI controlled fleets with your own, when you go to Drills you will find a list of players with similar combat power to the average of your current rank. The following guide covers the basics and also advanced strategy. For more detailed vessel recommendations, make sure to also check our **Tier List**.

## The basics

In Drills, you can preset two fleets, one for attack and another one for defense, each fleet consists of a main and sub fleets with 5 ships each, making it a (maximum possible) 10v10 ships battle. When one of your ships is defeated, you can replace it immediately with a ship from your sub-fleet.

* **ATK fleet**: The active formation you will use to attack other captains DEF fleets in real time.
* **DEF fleet**: A passive formation you create with your vessels for other captains to attack. Your DEF fleet will appear as suggested rivals for other players to fight with.

The performance of both fleets will affect your rank.

Every reset, you get 30 chances to reset the opponents you face. This does not stack.

### Combat

To fight in drills, you need Drill tickets, which are red-colored cards that look like the ones used for regular PvE games. You can hold a maximum of 5 Drill tickets at any time. Each ticket recharges every 2 hours, but can be recharged to the max instantly with certain items.

Performing well in Drills will grant you Medals, which you will be able to exchange for items in the Drills Shop. Ranking higher also gives you better daily and season rewards based on the amount of points you obtain.

## Drills and PvP: General advice:

### The Appropriate Time for Drills.

* Be online to defend your ranking shortly before daily Drills reset, at 10PM (PST+9) or be completely sure you are in a safe spot in ranks.
* Be online to defend your season ranking before reset to get the best rewards.
* Start pushing as soon as the day resets, as you will find the easier opponents. At the beginning of the day always try to fight the highest ranked opponent that you can find and defeat to have an awesome head start, especially at start of season. This will also allow you to make better use of free refills.
* If opponents are too strong for you, you can use the 30 resets provided each day to try and find easier opponents.
* When climbing, aim for the player with most reward points possible that you can defeat. If you always target players that give you +24 points every time along with a win streak, you will climb much easier than other players.
* Do consider, if you stay in a rank far above your combat, you are going to get spammed, so either have a defense that can overcome a large combat power difference, or stay in a lower rank, you may even **lose hundreds of points in a couple hours** and that can cause you to drop even lower than your average if you mess it up.
* What matters the most to get a good rank and keep it even if you are attacked. Points, always another reason to start pushing early, **the more points you have, the less it will matter to lose them**, in other words, you can rank high in Drills by simply spamming matches and buying Drill fuel.
* **Spam to win**, the people on top of the ranks are either very powerful or have a ton of victories due to spamming Drill fuel.
* Use common sense, if for example you have 250 points and rank 83, but everyone behind you have between 230-249 points, just one loss can kick you out of the top 100. Always look at the number of points, not ranks.
* If you cannot afford to buy refills, simply remember to use your attempts when available. Having more tries is a massive advantage.
* For some lazier servers, you can actually slack more and not require to spam Drill fuel, because no one plays. Just go online on time to ensure the drill fuel does not max out for too long.

### Attack is about energy, Defense is about tanking.

* When it is your turn, be very careful about what move you make. For example, if it is your last turn and there is a chance for the opponent to get a spark that benefits them immensely, get rid of the possibility of the spark unless you can guarantee the defeat of the opponents' vessels.
* If possible, use your second action to sabotage the next move of your opponent. **Not allowing your opponent's dangerous vessels to activate their skills nor ultimate** is the best way to beat stronger captains.
* Keep in mind what enemy vessels will activate the most devastating Ultimates and try to prevent it.
* **For Attack Fleets**, Sabotaging enemy turns, ultimates and energy is currently the best way to beat captains stronger than you, try to find vessels appropriate for this, like **Akagi** or **Ghost Ship Ω**.
* In case you are losing because of unforeseen circumstances, quit the game before the match ends. This helps to keep your ranking.
* **For Defense fleets** you don't have control, so it's best to add characters that can take a ton of punishment and **exhaust all enemy turns** like **Argo** or **Minneapolis** to win the game (in a game, when the time or turns exhaust, the opponent wins.) **-Video example: Minneapolis tanking on defense.**
* In case you think that was a fluke **Video Example:** **Minneapolis defense wasting 30 turns of a much stronger fleet.**
* In case you are not convinced, **Video Example:** **Minneapolis tanking a much stronger attacker with great blocks on their side.**
* Sometimes, in the defense fleets, it is better not to fill it to maximize the amount of damage you are able to do.

### **Don't always trust combat power: Check the fleet.**

* Check the "Power" button before every fight to have a better insight of your chances.
* You have two actions per turn, DO NOT leave powerful blocks unused in your second action of the turn as it'll leave you wide open immediately.
* When choosing your opponent, keep in mind higher combat power won't always grant you a victory. Take a look at your opponents' vessels and keep in mind elemental advantage (see Fleet)
* Low combat power is often used as bait for inexperienced players to attack players that just want to stay in a certain ranking range, with a low total power, but most of it coming from a single overleveled vessel placed there just to waste your turns.

**PRO-TIP: WATCH THE REPLAY OF YOUR DEFENSE FLEET VICTORIES AND LOSSES TO OPTIMIZE YOUR DEF FLEET**, you can do this by going to the stats of the match, it will help you understand what makes the best defense, vessels that you should include or remove or switch in position, common habits of attacking players and much, much more.

## Main and sub-fleet basic strategies

* DO NOT waste large AoE ultimates like **Izumo**'s Crimson Rain if there aren't many targets in the current turn, but you know the enemy sub-fleet will replenish the enemy team with more ships in the next turn unless you want to quickly finish a specific enemy. Otherwise, make sure to use AoEs when they are optimal.
* Consider the potential synergy between your main and sub-fleet, if one of your main-fleet ships is defeated, your replacement ship from the sub-fleet must make a good combination with your remaining main-fleet ships.
* Generally focusing enemy ships with lower defenses is advised, your priority is to reduce numbers in the enemy's fleet quickly.
* In your Defense Fleet, **seriously** **DO NOT** put weak vessels on front and your strong ones behind as some sort of clever bait, anyone who has played this for over one day will know to receive your strong ships with a barrage of ultimates taking advantage of the fodder, I see this in Drills and I don't recommend it.

## SSR, SR and R in PVP

Though there is a large difference in power and stats from SSR when compared to SR and R, there are instances where SRs can be very useful if upgraded enough (+3 star), here are some things to consider:

* In the current meta, SR will generally get killed in one or two swipes when faced with a fleet of SSR vessels.
* When ships on your main fleet die, it is best to wait until the best conditions are given before you deploy most SR vessels, for example, when one of your vessels is drawing fire, or you see enough blocks to immediately make a play with them(for example to submerge them)
* Deploying SRs immediately when you need a replacement can be a terrible mistake.
* SRs that are meant to die (such as those providing certain effects like Lexington in a carrier fleet, which is applied in the first turn no matter who starts) can be placed at the front to quickly bring out the other vessels.
* R vessels follow the same criteria, though they are unadvised, **their stats scale terribly with levels,** their skills' effects generally don't make up for it, and upgrades won't make a big difference.
* Some SR vessels can help SSR formations greatly, like **Hana** with **Aria** surrounding a **Minneapolis** for a ton of combined heals

### **Safe Deployment:**

Safe Deployment is a basic PvP strategy to make the best use of your **SR and R vessels**, to prevent them from instantly dying to one or two swipes, if for whatever reason you have to use them, it works as follows:

1. If you use SR or R vessels, it is generally advised to have them in your sub-fleet
2. When a vessel from your main-fleet is defeated, do not deploy SR or R vessels immediately unless you can make use of them in your current turn or need one of their passive buffs right now.
3. It is recommended to deploy them while you have another vessel Drawing Fire, or applying evasion buffs to make sure whatever you wanna do with them doesn't get interrupted.
4. It is recommended to deploy them if you see you have enough blocks to make your play in the current turn or fast enough.

## Terminology

Community made terms to describe the role of a vessel in the fleet:

* **Tank:** A durable vessel used as a damage sponge to protect other vessels, like **Victory** and **Minneapolis**.
* **Turn waster:** A durable vessel with a self supporting kit that gives it potential to exhaust enemy turns and win defense fleet fights against otherwise stronger opponents, for example **Minneapolis** or **Argo**, or even **Ghost Ship Ω**
* **Finisher:** A vessel good for executing low HP enemies, like **Ayanami** or **Aurora**.
* **Support:** A vessel meant to assist your fleet with buffs or heals, like **Aria** or **Kaga**
* **Offtank:** A ship capable of assisting the tank by removing pressure, often drawing fire, providing extra defensive stats, or temporarily assuming the role of tank for a couple turns, allowing the tank to buff up/heal, for example **Hood** or **Ghost Ship Ω**.
* **DPS:** A ship meant to deal strong damage consistently, they are often harassers as well, examples of DPS would be **Nagato** or **Akagi**
* **Harrassers:** Vessels that **specificly** use an attack skill after a number of blocks is destroyed, examples would be **New Jersey** or **Kongo**
* **Energy spammer:** Ships with great energy restoration, like **Pegasus**.
* **Submarine**: Vessels with submerge mechanics, like **Cavalla** or **Seehund**.

## PVP Gangs

If your desired rank is within the top 10, you have to be aware there are powerful Alliances and groups of players who coordinate to target specific players to ensure people mostly or only from their group stay in the top 10, thanks to a simple advantage part of being on the first ranks quickly, with a bit of wit and this unsportsmanlike tactic:

The simple fact that, unlike the rest of ranks, there are no players ranked higher than them, gives them a much wider range of options when it comes to attacking players than the rest, and they can very easily attack the same player over and over because it's very likely they're gonna get similar options always, so if for example, four of them coordinate to attack #8 at the same time, that can result in a **MASSIVE** loss of points for that player.

If you want to be in the top 10 and are not very powerful compared to them, stay around the top 30s, and do a large push one or two hours before reset.

## F2P vs P2W

There will obviously be a difference, in terms of raw power, between a player doing just their daily grind, and the whale who buys all the gems and takes advantage of every special deal in the shop. However, if you've read the rest of this page, you'll notice that there are ways to overcome this (to a certain extent)

~~It is currently possible for a free to play player to get and keep #1 rank in Drills, by both following an efficient attack/defense strategy AND spamming Drill refills even if everyone in the top 10 is of higher combat power, you probably won't beat the whale 3 times your combat power, but you don't really have to.~~

*Editor's note: LMAO XD, it depends on your server.*