The thing with WS in later stages is, you need that BLOOM on your girls. The raw stat increase is what you need for you WS.
I´ve been playing this game for a damn long time and just got my ass handed to my on the last stage of the new WS mission.
Unless you whale and have tons of 6* ov every color, your 5* of which most will be event ones anyway, wont have the stats to beef up the WS attack high enough for smooth sailing.
As for whaleship: I'm a little surprised when I see Edelweiss or Evening Primrose that aren't level 80 in a helper group. Edelweiss is an event girl, so anyone can get her. Evening Primrose is the free 5* you start the game with. As for second affection, it makes a huge difference. It's around 3k total power. That's more than any single piece of jewelry - and cheaper too. Across 40 girls that's 120k total power. That's more stats than my 5 girls in team 8 have.
Does everybody get Evening Primrose as their first free 5* now?
I thought so. Maybe not - too lazy to start a fake account just to check.
Maybe it is now, but not 1 year ago...
My first 5* was Bipinna Cosmos
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