Same, just pay the silver, it doesn't take taht long, and usually the time spent on a new tank is going to be a while anyway.
No, not when transferring crews. For that I pay the 20,000 credit per crew member price. I have paid gold when resetting crew skills, although that actually ends up getting quite expensive.
Gold when transferring between vehicle types (in which case the penalty if much worse), which is quite rare. For all other occasions the 20k credits method -- each crew member can end up anywhere between 90 to 97% after retraining, depending on how much "banked" XP was available on their secondary skill(s).
Primary skill loss is cheap. But resetting your secondary crew skills gets very expensive later, because it's 10%. If you're resetting a 3 skill crew, using silver is a false economy.
Holy balls I knew there was a reason I love this tank so much. It just got me my highest XP battle ever (previous one was the old tier 9 Batchat at 2400xp and change). It's kind of a funny one: sure, please pull your giant unarmored AMX 50-120 into the open and let me unload an entire 900 average damage clip into you. Oh, you want to do it again? Sure! Wait, you're doing it a third time? Buddy this time you die. Then things went kinda south, and I was doubting we were going to win for a few minutes there, things looked so dire. And in another tier 7 light tank it may have been, but not the T71. And as much as I hate arties, I have to admit that two of them plus a good scout can seriously ruin enemy plans, especially if they get overconfident. Also, screw just being a scout. This thing is a death-dealing grizzly murder machine. When the enemy obliges by letting you unload your entire clip, bad things happen to them. I'm actually thinking of keeping it permanently, which for me is very rare with tanks below tier 9 -- this thing is that good. It also earns really well, for a non-premium tank, when used purely with standard ammo.
eek. My record is a paltry 2,150 XP, but with a Churchill VII of all things. Again a funny one, I ended up solo'ing an entire flank and capping, with the enemy sportingly courteous enough to fight a series of 1:1's rather than do anything mean like flank me.
That was pretty impressive. I thought with just you and the two artillery that would have been that. I wonder where their SU152 and artillery went. I would have thought they would either try to cap or defend base.
The T71 has the hidden benefit of lacking the dedicated scout tank (chaffee, etc) repair costs of doom. It's really cheap to run while being a monster if ignored. The gun is solid enough that there's a decent debate to be had in the T69 about using the upgraded gun or staying with the T71's.
Like most great vehicles, though, the T71 has a horrible grind. It's just that in this case, all of the grinding was moved to the previous vehicle.
Is the KV-4 good? It looks like it has a better gun (better accuracy & fire rate, slightly better pen) than the IS-3 and more armor. But paper doesn't always match reality. I'm finding that between the IS and the KV-3, I'm liking the KV-3 better.
It has better armor, but instead it being angled for you, you have to angle it yourself. Now that there are british tanks rolling around with decent pen, the KV-4 is not as hot as it used to be. The KV-3 & the T-150 are the two great tanks of the KV line imo. Although I only own the T-150.
I went to show this to a friend who says the FCM50 is garbage and I couldn't get it to play in the current version of WoT. Any way around this?
That's it, I've reached my limit with tier 10 battles, my cup has overflown, I cannot take it anymore, etc. The tier 8 arty fest is simply insufferable. From now on the highest tier I play is 9, and my T71 (which I did not let go after moving onto the T69, which is nowhere near as awesome even fully upgraded). I haven't sold my T110E4 yet, but that crew has been reassigned. I also suspended indefinitely my grind to T110E5 at the halfway point. I'm not even bothering purchasing that M48 Patton I unlocked a while back, and I'm not going to be playing the FV4202 either. I sold my AMX 50B in frustration a while ago as well. Driving tier 10 vehicles of any kind just isn't worth it in the current environment. Unfortunately those won't work without an 8.2 client. If you wish you can show these instead: It's not the epitome of WoT play, but should show him the capabilities of the vehicle, which are very far from "garbage".
Yeah, I completely feel your pain. Tier 9 is even insufferable sometimes, due to getting put into tier 10 matches with all the inherent shit that comes with those ( 7 tier 8 arty on both sides ). I will never play my tier 10 tanks. Tier 5-8 is really the sweet spot for enjoyable gameplay without major grind.
Good matches there, really gets a fire under my ass to train sixth sense on my FCM crew. Do you find the binocs to be more useful than a stabilizer on your FCM? I tend to be moving around far too much to get a lot of use out of them, sitting still for too long in this thing is suicide with its poor armor and poor camo.
One of the worst examples of how bad things are at tier 10 was a few days ago: it's the first minute of battle, I'm in my T110E4 along with a bunch of people driving from spawn towards the city on Highway. Part of our group is an M48 Patton who is speeding along. Suddenly an enemy AMX 13-90 pops up on radar, does the usual scout dive and speeds away before anyone can even bother to aim. About 10 seconds later, while the Patton is driving through the town, right as he crosses in the street-wide opening between buildings, an Object arty hits him and kills him in that single shot. The bastard was lined up and ready to hit whatever showed up in the town. To add insult to injury, the enemy arties all started to congratulate the Object driver on being all awesome, and even our own arties went all "ooh and aaah" what a nice shot. I kept thinking, how does that Patton driver, who did absolutely nothing wrong, feel about their awesomeness? And then of course who hadn't experienced tier 7-8 arty-fest on Malinovka, or worse, Serene Coast. As I said in that thread on the official forums, if the maps were two-three times bigger, you could actually outmaneuver artillery fests, as they couldn't cover a wide arc around them with any degree of effectiveness. But in the shoe box sized maps we currently have, where all they need to do is cover a couple choke points, it's just broken, and I want no part of it anymore. Oh it's not a choice between Binoculars and Vertical Stabilizer, I have that and a Gun Laying Drive. And Snap Shot to even further assist with aiming. Aim time is one of the most critical aspects of a vehicle, and one that good players can abuse the hell out of. On my FCM I give up rate of fire (Gun Rammer) or accuracy (Ventilation) for those Binoculars. As for whether it is worth using them, well, every time I removed them, I ended up regretting that decision the very next time I got Malinovka, El Haluf, Sand River and a few other open maps. Sixth Sense is, in my opinion, an absolute must on the FCM (every tank, really), considering how rarely it bounces anything. Damage avoidance is the name of its game. You're absolutely right about sitting still in this thing for too long being pretty much suicide. I try to abuse that fast aim time and good gun depression to only appear for a second or two to fire, whenever possible ... but watch me repeatedly fail to live up to this ideal, get greedy, and then take damage.
I've been that Patton before. Actually in a Patton, as well. One of the main reasons I sold it was random Artillery one shots (I got one shotted from full hp with no ammo rack by a Hummel once), the other being the insane nerf it got when they added tier 10 meds. I cringe every time I load a game with Artillery on Highway or Malinovka. I know all it's going to take is one scout to completely ruin my game. On the Sixth Sense topic, do you think it would be worth it to drop BIA and train it? I'm still a good 200 games(78%) off from getting my second skill on my FCM crew. I have been training BIA first on all my crews lately, it just adds so much of an all around bonus.
I'm slowly coming around to my T-34-2. It's still just a mediocre tank, but the 122mm option on it is lowish DPM, but comically high damage if you can use it as a supporting weapon. It's basically the IS-6's gun, shit pen and all, on a much faster tank with only a bouncy turret. I did have an amusing fight with an IS-6 at face hugging range where I couldn't flank him because I was using him to block his team's shots, and neither of us could reliably pen each other due to shit gun depression. It was at least a minute of comedy before my arty finally decided to risk the shot and wasted him.
As a first skill, I'd say Sixth Sense (and the rest of the crew trained in repair) are going to contribute far more to survival than BiA by itself. My philosophy for totally new crews goes like this: Commander: Sixth Sense / Brothers in Arms / Repair / Jack of all Trades or Camo Gunner: Repair / Brothers in Arms / Dead Eye / Snap Shot Driver: Repair / Brothers in Arms / Off-road Driving or Camo Radio Man: Repair / Brothers in Arms / Extended View, Extended Radio range or Camo Loader: Repair / Brothers in Arms / Safe Stowage / Camo or whatever For lights, like the T71, I give priority to Camouflage over Repair as well. I already had French heavy crews available for my FCM, but if I was starting one from scratch, it would be the above progression. BiA does not help when you've been tracked, your repair kit is used up, and the repairs take such an eternity that you die perma-tracked. BiA also doesn't help when you've been spotted, don't know it, a bunch of tanks are aiming at you and you are about to have a surprise encounter with a bunch of shells. My only concern is that, at this point, dropping and changing skills on your FCM crew (all 5 of them) would be expensive in terms of gold or would waste XP if you're doing it with the 20k option (though maybe not much on the first couple of skills). All I can say is that, on any tank, but especially one as fragile as the FCM, I feel naked without Sixth Sense and helpless without Repair.
If you're only on the first crew skill, silver respec is not too costly in terms of XP loss. I think 78% is actually less than half the way to completing the skill. It's far better to retrain now than wonder about it until later.
/Got first Tier 8 tank, a Centurion. Had enough XP for top gun/ turret/ tracks, not yet engine. 17 games so far, 8 wins, 8 losses, 1 draw. The gun is a thing of beauty, but I am finding that my xp/ battle so far is low (480's, compares with Comet and Cromwell at 600-620) I think this is because I am hanging back, acting as long range sniper (because I can, that gun) and so not getting much if any spotting damage credit. Can/ should I play the Centurion as a more traditional medium, so more aggressively? But it feels that it wants to stay at range and pen away, rather than going for the flank shots
I have to agree, Viz. If it's the first skill, yeah, best retrain. BiA is more "icing on the cake" than absolutely crucial like Sixth Sense and Repair. By the way I forgot to mention that on my Russian/French mediums (like the BatChat or T-54), and other high inherent camo vehicles (some TDs) Camouflage and Repair take priority over BiA as well. I continually refer to this data to see whether or not Camouflage is worth training for a vehicle. You can be more aggressive with the final engine and improved mobility. But the Centurion (I) does excel at being a sniper. And yeah I loved that gun -- best among the tier 8 mediums. But wait till you get the best gun on the Tier 9 Centurion 7/1. Gold ammo-like penetration for standard prices, accurate, high damage and on a mobile platform (only thing suffers is the rate of fire, which is like that of a heavy tank). It's the reason I played this tank for over 400 battles (far longer than was needed to unlock the next tier). And I still may buy it back again at some point.
*grin* So glad I kept this thing: My heart was racing so fast in those last few minutes ... And I may have driven that Centurion 7/1 mad. To have come so very close and yet not get me, must have been extremely frustrating. P.S. I never used gold rounds with the T71 before, but decided to try them out now that they're on sale. I'll be carrying 6-12 from now on. :)
Nice match, and yeah, I'm just discovering the use of gold rounds myself. Went from loathing the M103 to loving it with the addition of something as simple as 10 gold rounds. Nothing quite like penning a Maus in the front/sides as he tries in complete futility to angle his armor. On the same token, I absolutely hate people who use gold rounds when I'm on my T28 as armor is the only redeeming feature of the tank, and even a Superpershing with gold rounds can pen my frontal armor 10/10 shots.
So far, I'm finding the T-71 highly situational depending upon map. I just grinded the larger gun, so no longer using gold rounds. I still have the better engine to grind though. It's a very nimble tank, but acceleration from dead stop is abysmal. When getting tracked, my success rate of survival is about 0, so I may just forgo repairing tracks in the future. Where this tank really shines is scouting but the lack of bushes on some maps is really glaring, particularly himmelsdorf. It also is a great arty hunter, able to slip in between lines and in general pestering tanks. In one game, I circle straffed a KV-4 and a Lowe, doing little damage, but they get so focused on me, that it allows bigger guns to take them down faster. So even though it's been said ad-naseum, and is not specific to the t-71, staying alive to the end really is where this tank can shine. I'm finding that a challenge as it is very squishy.
Potentially important news: This is coming after people have reported anti-cheating/mod measures being installed in the latest RU-cluster update, which is apparently coming soon to EU and NA clusters as well. I don't use any of these mods, so that doesn't concern me much. What's important is that, potentially, this may nearly completely eliminate bots (as their scripts would be detected). We've all had games that have frustratingly come down to a few tanks, with one (usually one of the top heavies) who sits in base all game, and only "activates" and proceeds to shoot at everything in sight with auto-aim (and so of course bounces most of that) when an enemy gets within ~150 meters. The less of these detriments to the team around, the better.
I've always thought real-time in game hitskins were a poor crutch that should never have been allowed during game. OTOH I have found them invaluable when looking at a picture between matches to understand where to aim on tanks. If you take away the ingame method, do you lose the out of game mechanism? Bots are bad and need to be eliminated. It is very frustrating to have a bot on your team and anything they can do to get rid of them, is good in my book.
I went with the IS-3, but don't have enough free xp for the best gun, so it's just an IS with more HP and a better turret. Which is just okay. Though I didn't realize that Gold rounds are so cheap on the thing, only about twice the price of the normal rounds. Had a couple of good games, but it's mostly a money hog. There is definitely a bit of a skill bump at the higher tiers, but that's a good thing. (And I should have never taken repair skill off the the tank back when they revamped the skills and gave everyone free respecs-- oh well) I really don't like my ELC AMX, it's better now that I have the top gun, but it feels more like a crappy Hellcat, and I love my Hellcat. I'll keep chugging along, this last weekend, even as it died, I still made gobs of cash due to the event. I can understand the arty frustration, I really do think limiting the arty to sane amounts per side and even changing that number depending on map, would be great.
Bots rarely advance to somewhere worthwhile and I so am depraved of using their burning hulks as cover. A typical player however, leaves me lots of cover which I find valuable.
Well, it can be a toss-up as to whether their choice of death site helps you or your opponent. Also, if the enemy doesn't know you're down a man, they may not press their advantage. But yes, a typical player is something of a lottery ticket. Sometimes you win! You don't get that chance with bots.
Yeah, I had been flinging gold rounds like they were going out of style on my M103 over the weekend, however I found that they were actually on sale and only a good bargain at the sale prices. Now if I want to go into a battle using my usual 10 gold rounds, it'll cost me 40k. Before repairs. The up side to using gold rounds, is that I fail to pen maybe one out of 20 shots so I usually do a fair amount of damage.
I really hate stock gun syndrome. Picked up the WZ-120 last night, it's not bad by any means, the stock gun just lacks any real punch at T9. Zippy little tank right out of the gate though. I have a feeling that with the upgraded guns it will replace my T-54 as my go to tier 9 medium.
Just don't do any hilling, because the gun depression on that last one is comically bad. The turret wasn't designed to accommodate the recoil, I guess.
Ugh, two comically bad games in a row in the Cent I. It doesn't like city maps, and yearns for the horizon
Conversely, I have a quiet little cheer when I see a city map turn up on the interminable British Heavy grind. Who on earth thought that a tank which topped out at 12mph was a good idea?
The only reason the Churches aren't awesome is that their side pontoons full of tracks are also full of HP damage. So you can face hug one and shoot the inside of the pontoon and pen easily. Boring as shit to drive though. So fucking slow.
Man, I haven't played for ages, pre the British tanks. Around the time the French ones came in. Im proud to say I am AVERAGE though :-) http://www.noobmeter.com/player/na/talorc I can see my favourite tanks peeking in the top for win rate there though - M10 Wolverine, Jagdpanther (Surprised by this, don't remember it being that good), VK 3002 (DB) and VK 3601 H (my all time favourite for sure). I loved the Easy 8, but my stats say I am bad at it. I also loved the Tiger and had a Tiger II unlocked, but never purchased. Is the Tiger II any good now days? I started enjoying the KV-1S / IS a lot more when I started thinking of them as "muscle cars" looking for someone to smack with a baseball bat. The Su-85 was also a lot of fun when it still had the god gun. I'm all pretty much tier 6/7 though, except for a Type 59
