My experience with the AMX40 depended almost entirely on the MM. Against even or lower-tiered opponents I found it to be fairly effective because you can play it like a poor man's heavy -- the rounded armor bounces a lot of shots and the gun is pretty descent. Against anything higher tiered, it's trash -- you're in a light tank that's slower than most of the heavies in the game. After about 10 matches or so I gave up and free xp'd my way to the ELC. Ironically, my best match on the AMX40 was on Dragon Ridge, although it was painful. Speaking of the ELC, I completely suck at this vehicle. I can't quite figure out how to use it. The lack of a real turret makes true scouting and arty hunting a challenge. Is this thing just supposed to be a super-fast and nearly unarmored TD?
I normally passive scout, then go and try and flank. You can also use speed to crest hills, spot, and wheel back before being hit. When in combat 'zoom and boom'
Ditto. You are a real mean machine in that T28, making me rethink going back up that TD line. It was real surprising how well we played together. JoshV/Ferrous is also good to platoon with. The night before we were on a terror. T7 is the sweet spot. While I have several T9's, I like playing T7 & T8 more. We're on most nights, best option is to just join TS. Even if no one is on at the moment, most nights someone else will be there.
I finished off the last 20,000 xp to unlock the M48A1 Tier X Patton, collected 4,000,000+ credits, cashed in both my M46 Patton and a KV-13 that I hadn't driven in forever and bought a new M48A1. My very first Tier X tank :-) It's just a lovely, lovely tank. The first American medium since the M4A3E8 that feels like it can get to places in a hurry (I seem to recall the T20 was decent speed too, but I sold mine, so I haven't played a T20 in over a year). Definitely much, much faster than the Pershing and the M46 Patton. It's got good acceleration and decent maneuverability too, so it works pretty well for flanking. With the final gun upgrade it has an excellent gun that does 268mm of penetration and 390 damage. It's also got the best accuracy of any of the heavy damaging guns I've used (0.36) with fast aim time (2.0). I'd say the only downside is it doesn't seem to have quite the range of vertical elevation that the M46 did. Turret is very hard (178mm) and nicely rounded to shrug off shots. The hulls rather meh though (110mm). All in all it's just a great all-round tank that's a lot of fun to drive. I'd say the only downside is you are now always in Tier X matches ... which seems to mean BatChat city. I'd say most of the matches have at least two BatChat's and a fair number have three of them!
Yeah, I'm going to pick up the IS this weekend, and hopefully some other T7 I haven't played in a while. I felt kind of bad that the only T7 I had to play with you guys was the AC '46, which I'm not very good in.
The trick with the Chi-Ha is that it's okay with normal ammo but utterly ridiculous with gold - the final gun it gets is a tier VI with ~110mm pen when using APCR. And in other news, Phontomen has been on Test and got the FV215b:
As an arty, if you are starting on south part of the map, it's not too bad, but if you are start on north, you have to move 3-4 sectors, but I had excellent game on my school bus on that map, there was a weird tree patch on north side, and I somehow manage to stay stealth(worst stealth in the game), and got 5 kills and one of them a TD kill.
See, to me, the problem with that argument is that the only thing you could really need that much pen for on a tier 3 is a KV-1 (it's actually 131 with APCR; if it were only 110, that would really make my argument for me because 110 is actually still fairly finicky against the KV-1). The video was impressive and all that, but that kind of thing doesn't happen much if your opponents have a clue (and also if you don't fail-platoon).
So I was reading this very informative post over on the WoT forums and the guy really lays it out on how to play. He also mentions using the Jimbo reticle and XVM, so I spent about 20 min installing those mods (Jimbo takes about a minute, XVM took me forever as it's really two mods you need to install - XVM and XVM-Stats). Here is a shot for how they look together: I like the reticle and XVM does let you know who you need to pay attention to. I really recommend reading his post. It's got a lot of good info in it. XVM, more time will tell, but I really do like the reticle.
I tried XVM and found that it sucked a lot of fun out of the game. I much prefer to go in blind about my team mates than feel depressed that the top tier has a low win rate. It goes against the very pragmatic reasoning suggested, I know.
I've never had the XVM mod installed either, or any mod for that matter. I just find the standard options good enough (I switch from default to Crosshair I for both modes). Indeed I have a beef with XVM: it leads to people despairing in low probability matchups (which we then end up winning), it leads to people being overconfident in high probability matchups (which we then end up losing!), and finally, it paints a giant target on my back, all the damn time. :( As for the thread Tman linked to, I saw and gave it my +1 earlier, since it is indeed something every player should read. But pretty much the entire thing should be painfully obvious to any competent veteran with a few thousand battles. Of course that is exactly why he meant it for less-than-capable players who are looking to improve. The sad thing is that most of the people who desperately need to read that thread will never see it.
If there is one alternate mechanism for XVM it would be sometimes I see a guy decide to go to some flank and I'll be wondering "I wonder if he's any good?" and this will let me know if I should follow him or not (or use him as bait).
Hmm, XVM seems somewhat cheesy to me, so I don't install it. But can see that it would be interesting The crying on the FV215B on WOT forums seems odd. Modern tank warfare tends to be one penetration, one knocked out tank. It is the mechanic of sitting behind someone and pecking them to death that is gamelike. Then again, pecking away at higher tier tanks with a Cromwell or Matilda is what I am better at - the high damage, low accuracy and low ROF tanks I suck with
I don't know that I buy into that, I think that the people who can kill you can always figure out that you're dangerous, and the people who need XVM to tell them you're a threat are generally too stupid to kill you except in situations where you'd probably be killed anyway. Heck, a large part of winning in this game is picking the low-hanging fruit, and those opportunities usually come from the opposing team's bad players, not its good ones. More insidious to me is that it seems like whenever people see a matchup that isn't obviously favorable (and this actually goes double for "unicums" as they like to call themselves) they will enter super-sandbag mode, not move for the whole game, and wait for people to charge onto their guns. This results in hideously boring games and hearing a lot of whines about how bad their team is when the overmatched and outnumbered remainder of their team is invariably beaten and they get to deal with the bulk of the enemy force by themselves.
The complaint with the new Brit T10 TD is that much like arty, it's raw damage potential paralyzes gameplay. Yes, three tanks can run in and murder it. But one's going to die instantly in the process, so in pub matches all three will sit and let one tank deny a lane. High alpha damage does that because people aren't really willing to take one for their possibly useless teammates. The game also has no mechanism for rewarding such team play, because if we win the match because I did zero damage but allowed us to take a lane, I get dick all for it. I've never run XVM, and would only think about it for Type 59s to know if the Type attacking me is going to be a bitch to kill, or if he's absolutely terrible. I won against a type 59 platoon once in my T-34-1 with a Tiger supporting me because, well, TERRIBLE. I find XVM to be far less bullshit a mod as the remove-bushes mod that is apparently totally legit. Mostly just allows you to easily aim for weak spots on what would be an obscured target to everyone else, since it doesn't change the spotting mechanics at all. Just seems bullshit to me.
I found the XVM entertaining mostly from a statistics gathering perspective. For the most part, it was from the games we platooned, it was mostly accurate, in that if one team had the majority of better players, it won. I'd be curious to see if that held up over the bigger picture, and if so, makes me think a little bit of matchmaking on Wargaming.net's part would be nice. I'd still love to know if I got hit by any AP/Gold/HE rounds, as a summary at the end of the match. I wouldn't mind loading up on some gold rounds, but without premium, I make jack for money as is. With the temp 1-day premium code, and the 100% gold on Pz4s, Panthers and IS, I was able to double my bank account over the weekend. EDIT: Question of the day, is it worth it to buy a Tier8 tank without premium? It's not like I'm raking in the dough on Tier 7s.
When the guy in charge of the F2P Battlefield games gave a talk a couple years back, he noted that one of the firm rules they picked up from discussions with other companies was that under no circumstances should someone who lost to a Pay-to-Win feature of some sort know that they lost because money. So I wouldn't expect to see that. Though maybe Wargaming doesn't have the same views, or the convential wisdom has changed, or whatever.
Heh, not sure if they follow that, seeing as how premium tanks are obviously premium tanks. =) Though I can understand gold rounds, though now that they can be bought with silver, its a bit different.
Well, it's been a year or more since I played, but my recollection is that few of the premiums were obviously overpowered. I think the Lowe might have been, but I also think it got nerfed? Maybe not, it's been a while!
Hard to say, I don't recall if it got nerfed or not, most of the premiums aren't overly obnoxious, but one is still paying ot skip directly to a higher tier with a decent tank. As opposed to grinding, sometimes painfully to get to anything good. (Hello German Panthers)
Sure, but I think there's a distinction between paying money to skip a grind and paying money to gain an in-game advantage (with premiums the two aren't necessarily separable, granted). Or in LoL terms, it doesn't matter if your opponent used RP to unlock [champion], but it would matter if they used RP for Premium Runes of Pwnage.
Yeah, I understand the idea, but I'd love to know if it was a really lucky roll (since pen is actually random) or a gold round. edit: and mostly the premiums are supposed to be strictly worse than their equivalents. The issue is that a few of them combined with their better MM values are a bit bullshit. The T59 of course, the newish russian TD, and the IS-6 can all bully the shit out of a number of tanks.
The damn T-59 still annoys me with my IS, as the accuracy on the IS isn't quite good enough that I can guarantee that I won't bounce on it. If I had gold rounds, I'd use'em on those buggers.
FWIW of my premium tanks (JagdTiger 8,8cm, FCM50t, and IS-6) only my JagdTiger 8,8cm has above a 50% win rating, and my overall win rating on all my tanks is just a smidge over 50% (it flits around between 51 and 52%). I don't have that many games in the FCM50t or the IS-6 though, so it could be growing pains -- I think the FCM50t crew just hit 100%, whereas the JagdTiger crew is an old German TD crew that I've had around forever, they've got sixth sense and are actually a long way toward getting 100% on their second bonus skill. The IS-6 crew is my former Russian Heavy crew and is about half-way through their first bonus skill (currently all going into Repair). My FCM50t and the IS-6 really do have quite poor track records though (43% for both of them). I fully allow it could be my poor play style with them though. I'm best with TDs, followed by Mediums.
I think WOT have been careful to make premium tanks average - better than an unreseached normal tank of their tier, but not as good as a fully researched one. Apparently the T59 and SU122-44 are the exceptions that proove the rule, but T59 has got nerfed over time. The premium tanks I have all have wr either at or below my global average - they are for credit farming and crew training, not winning.
My FCM is at 50% even right now. I really do love that tank. It's difficult to affect the outcome of a battle single-handed, unlike some non-prem T8 tanks, due to lack of armor and fairly low damage per shot. But it is possible with enough effort.
The issue with the 59 is that it's bouncy as shit against the tiers it faces (very few things will auto pen it dead on, mostly T29s and french anything), and that it's shitty gun isn't really that bad against the tiers it faces. Even with it's series of nerfs, the remaining issue is that it's got way more frontal armor and a far better angle than it should have. There's really not a down side to the 59 the way there are to many other premiums (KV-5 tumor, SP's armor, T34's hull). Honestly, I think the IS-6 is just as bullshit when I drive it, but I don't see nearly as much complaining about them. Probably due to the front hatch being a blatant frontal weak spot at close range. edit: the IS-6's gun is total bullshit though. Alpha and DPM? Hell yes.
For the IS-6, is mostly just lack of encountering them, that and I may not be the only one that gets confused as to which IS-X is the premium one, and which isn't =)
The tubes, turret ring, and low on the front plate. Depending on your precision and the range, none of these spots may be terribly good targets. Of course, if you can get to its side, you can absolutely shred it.
If you look closely at one on your team after you're dead, you can see the placement of the spaced armor, there are 4 layers on the hull and one on the turret. The spaced armor is what stops your shots, so if you can aim around it, it is just a regular Pershing except very slow. The only place to pen it ( short of having 300+ pen, then you can pen it wherever you damn well please ) on the front of the hull is the ball mounted machine gun on the lower left hand side of the tank. Anywhere else, your shot will get stopped by one of the 4 bits of spaced armor. The turret is much easier to pen, I always aim for either the turret coupling, the turret cheeks ( you can aim under the spaced armor pretty easily from ~100 meters, it's not so easy farther off depending on gun of course ) or my favorite, the top of the turret. At range it's easiest just to aim as low as you can on the turret and hope for the best. I usually get maybe 2/4 shots penetrating at over 100 meters. Anything on the sides or the back is pretty much an auto pen from any gun.
This is admittedly anecdotal, but in the ancient days before XVM (which dubs me a unicum, hence the bullseye on my back), I was definitely targeted far less by tanks and especially by artillery.
So, the new tier 10 British TD seems pretty insane. I managed to do 650 damage to a Batchat on a miss. Most I've seen so far on a direct hit ( from my gun, I've seen some videos of 2100 hits ) is 1900. It's also quite fast ( 32 km/h ) and gets up to the top speed quite quickly. It's REALLY agile, oddly enough considering it also has a turret, more so than any other tier 10 TD I've played including the Russian ones. Doesn't have much armor of any kind, so if you're taking fire you are doing it wrong. 30s reload, probably around 25 with BIA/vents. Damage is fairly random however using the gold rounds, there is no other way to play this tank as it would just flat out have the worst gun of all the tier 10 TDs, with a 30s reload and an 1100 dmg shell. Some hits will be insane high, most hits will average around 800. I have not yet had a non damaging shot in 5 games. Overall, it's going to cause a ton of tears in pub games when it comes out. But in actuality, it's probably not that powerful with the random damage on the shells. It's just the people getting the random lucky 1 shot rolls who are going to cry.
So is it really widely accepted that overall win-rate is a fair proxy for player competence? I'm not a stat-head, but given teams of 15 players, it strikes me that you'd need a really, really large sample size to be able to draw reasonable conclusions about individual player competence based on win-rate alone. My own experience is rife with examples where I felt I played well but others on my team blew the match (sometimes within the first 30 seconds). On the other hand, I've done plenty of stupid things in matches only to end up with a win. FYI, my win/loss rate is around 51/49 - draw from that what you will.
It's considered the best we have because everyone else is playing with the same mixed bag over a long enough time period. Platoons mess with win rate comparisons pretty hard though, as does global win rate farming in the low tiers with bullshit tanks. Mine's sitting at 56%, should be dropping a bit as I'm grinding through two resoundingly meh tanks (Cent 1 and T-34-2, hanging out in the mid 40% with them) without spending much time in my far better win rate tanks.
In any one individual match, statistics don't help all that much. But if you have a team full of players who win 60% of their games while playing solo, and have played over 2000 games played apiece, that tells me those players are pretty good, and are likely to win against a team of 40% win raters with the same number of games. Their are still a whole slew of other factors that come into play, like stock tanks and such that will throw things, or a guy loses his connection, etc, or just plays bad, but over time those statistical anomalies would factor into the overall win rate of the player.
