World of Tanks

Is that trifecta importance the same regardless of tier? If not, at what point do you really think the last two points become the most important?

Again, I really don't think this is true as a general rule. There are times and places where it becomes true (the tier 8 skirmish results where all the winners basically used big groups of AMX 50 100s, for example) but only a handful of CW clans relied primarily upon massed BatChats, and the last set of changes have resulted in the E-100 and IS-4 becoming excellent vehicles again. Plus, there was that time when the new TDs were released that people thought the T110E4 would replace all heavy tanks. It was summarily nerfed, but the mobility wasn't changed and the firepower change was just a token reduction in ROF. The big change was the armor, and now you barely see them at all.

Slight correction to what I previously said about tracers. Just fired and saw my own premium round (AMX50B gun) miss a target wildly, which allowed me to see the tracer - it was blue.

14k battles in this game and I only just notice this now ... or someone just fired from right behind me at exactly the same instant as me. It's hard to confirm, since those wild "totally outside the dispersion circle" shots are quite rare.

I pretty much had to share this replay on my AMX 50B. It came down to the wire, had so many close calls, and may be one of my best games in the vehicle.

I think it is true at all tiers, that you can normally have 2 out of 3 firepower/ mobility/ protection, and that premium ammo has increased the firepower by reducing value of protection. Having said that, I don't think premium is used much at T5, except for 105mm derps.

Of course protection is still important, but premium has reduced its value. I.e. for almost all tanks (including my t4 Covenanter) I'll have c.10-15 premium rounds "just in case". So whereas before, a Sherman Jumbo could ignore my Cromwell unless I flanked him, now I can if I choose hurt them from the front.

Same for me. I carry enough "Gold" rounds to take out at least one or two tanks.

I usually carry 2-15 gold rounds, depending on the vehicle. usually closer to 2, for when I need a couple clutch shots. I have a few more on stuff like my T5 premium churchill, which often needs it to frontally penetrate T5 heavies and some T6 stuff, and is too slow to flank. I think half of my IS7's armament may be golds, but that tank has low penetration/high damage so I find it makes a world of difference in winning fights against stuff like T110's.

I typically don't carry any, but the only heavy I run at the moment is a Caern which can frontally pen most things if I aim. During the Churches I was tempted due to being dog slow.

My current grinding paths are my Caern, my T69, and my T-54. The 54 I'm more just playing for fun, as I have no real interest in commonly running a 62A. But the 54 is an amazingly useful little tank.

Of those three, the T69 is by far the worst, and the one I could fix with gold rounds. It's pen is shit enough that even side shots on an E series are dicey.

Isn't it crazy expensive to shoot gold rounds, even when bought with silver? I haven't experimented, but a good portion of my tanks start to lose money if I fire too many times, especially if I miss or hit low tier tanks. My IS being the most problematic for this.

I use them sparingly. With premium tanks the extra earnings mitigate it some. I evaluate whether I think it's worth it more on higher tier vehicles on the basis of whether I'd rather pay silver for gold rounds, and earn money for the kill of a hard target, or whether I'd be better off dying and paying a repair bill. So typically I won't do it unless I think it's going to directly keep my tank from being destroyed, or act as a key turning point which pushes our team to victory (with the win bonus making it worth it).

Using 10 (silver paid) gold rounds on an IS7 to solo take out two enemy tier 10 tanks is frequently enough to carry a game and pay back the cost.

Or sometimes if I'm feeling spendy I actually buy gold and spend gold on them.

I usually carry 5-20 gold rounds, depending on the tank.

On the FCM50t I usually carry 10, but use them less and less lately, because the price difference with regular rounds is immense. I could pay 250 credits a shot for a 212mm average penetration round, or pay 4000 credits for a 259mm average penetration round. With the matchmaking the FCM50 gets (it never sees tier 10 tanks), the latter are usually unnecessary, and the former allow the tank to print money.

The exception to the above is the Centurion 7/1 (Brit tier 9 medium), on which I carry zero gold rounds, because they are HESH rounds and so are wildly inconsistent (500 damage one hit, 90 damage another, then 125 on the next, and so on) but still command premium prices. When the standard rounds already have very high penetration (268mm average), HESH are pretty much there to make you go broke for no good reason.

HESH is wonky. My T69 should carry a few clips of gold, just because the change is 173mm pen -> 300mm pen.

Brits past the Church and the Comet don't have pen issues anyways. They have frontal armor built out of ammo racks and loaders, but no actual pen issues.

I got my first 24hr ban last night for killing two fucktards who decided to grief me. I was sitting in a bush and they intentionally ram me, pushint me out & continue to do so. I lost it & killed both of them. Ban for me.

Fuck wargaming and their stupid system. Their reporting system is stupid and does not work, it's only use is to allow people to vent - just like their forums. They don't listen. It's really turned me off this game.

I guess I've been lucky because I've never seen that sort of griefing. At one stage I was so frustrated with a string of bad matches that I announced at the beginning of the match that I would attack and kill anyone who camped the base (in Highways), so I guess I'm more part of the problem.
So, anyone tried out the new Chinese line? I have the tier 7 medium and heavy and I've found I'm a much better heavy player than a medium player. The tanks have good armour and guns that hurt when they hit but damn, they are so inaccurate. The time it takes to aim is also crazy- this is with the stabilizer on as well. The MM also seems to hate China as well- about 25% of the time I'm on the top tier, otherwise I'm up against 8s and 9s.
The arty nerf seems to have worked, the amount of arty-free matches I've been in has rocketed.

Started playing this again after ragequitting a few months ago ( I just can't stand anything above tier 9, so imbalanced ). Picked up the new French tier 8 heavy premium tank, the FCM 50t. At first glance, it seems underpowered for a heavy, with only 120 frontal armor and a 90mm gun that the tier 6 French heavy has. I am having an absolute blast. It plays exactly like the American Pershing, except with more pen, more speed, a little less agility and maximum tier 9 matchmaking, as well as the huge credit gains. I am so glad I bought this thing.

I had been pretty lukewarm about picking the game up again after so long not playing, but the FCM was absolutely worth it. I have no other premium tanks to compare it to, income wise, but I've not made less than 40k ( post repairs/ammo/consumables ) in a game so far win or loss and I've had a blast every match regardless. Highly recommend the tank to anyone who loves the Pershing playstyle.

Still grinding Black Prince & Comet, and playing rest of UK line below that reasonably frequently. Still playing too aggressively with the Comet, I need to play more carefully with it. Black Prince is very easy to play - if top tier, just go where you want to. Slowly. If not, then sit behind a top tier heavy and plink away

Definitely enjoy the British tanks. The Comet is a lot of fun although I didn't like it at first (it felt pretty sluggish after racing the Cromwell around the battlefield!), and I've got a Centurion, although I haven't spent much time with it. I've also got a Churchill VII and have a long way to go before reaching the Black Prince.

The Cromwell may be fast, but the Comet is much more useful once you actually get there. Among its peers, the Cromwell is distinctly below-average once actually in combat (it's not the worst, though; that's the new Type 58, which combines thin armor and lousy penetration with mediocre speed and abominable gun depression).

Wow, I hate my Black Prince and Comet because the low penetration values of these tank lines seems to be a much greater problem at tier 7 than it was at tier 6. I loved the Church 7 and the Cromwell, and the BP and Comet seem way too underpowered comparatively.

I didn't really mind the comet, though it really is just an up-tiered cromwell that loses a bunch of speed for no good reason. The pen is only painful on a few maps where you can't really flank early on.

The BP is like all heavily armored heavies. It's overpowered as hell against lower tiers, and completely useless against higher tiers. I prefer the Caern and Conq, as their armor is entirely dependent on how you use it and less "face flat bit towards enemy, pray there aren't any french tanks"

I tried to like the British tanks but ended up selling them- the benefits of gun depression and thick armour couldn't outweigh the cons of weak guns and slow speed.
I'm now grinding the Chinese line- the T34-1 plays something like a T59 when it's fully researched so I'm pretty cool with that. The IS2 was a pleasant surprise, I didn't like the IS but this thing is a real beast. It has enough armour and speed to survive and an amazing pen when firing gold ammo such that tier 9s aren't that scary for me. The accuracy is poor but I'm a natural brawler anyway. The 110 plays like an IS3 and is pretty 'meh' for me, I've heard that tier 9 and 10 are when the fun begins.

The Brits are like the French, the lines change completely in the upper tiers. Brit heavies go from slow walls of undergunned armor into thinly armored gun platforms of highly accurate doom. My Conq basically points in a vague direction and pens things. About the only thing I frequently fight that annoys me are IS-7s which are bouncy as fuck.

The medium line goes from low pen/high DPM zippy little fuckers like the Cromwell into high pen/low mobility snipers like the Centurion.

I'm not in love with my 34-1 yet. Seems okay, but the T59 comparison seems odd, since the 59's notable feature is bouncing tons of shit while the 34-1's hull is made of paper.

I meant more in terms of speed and good damage. Against other meds it also holds it own.

Grog mode on - that is actually true to life. Brits gave up on Infantry/ Cruiser split with the "Universal" Centurion, but then got scared by likes of T10 & IS3, so produced the Conq, which wasn't a breakthrough/ assault heavy tank, but a TD, specifically designed to fight at long range from pre prepared hull down positions on the North German plain against incoming hordes. If we ever get the Chieftan, it will be even more so, turret designed to survive anything, hull, well, designed to save weight...

But the Type 59 doesn't have either of those things. Its acceleration and top speed are both mediocre, and its gun doesn't hit much harder than its peers' while having otherwise below-average properties. The only outstanding attribute of the Type 59 (and it's a big one) is that it's a pain in the ass to kill when played correctly.

I swear there is a rule where if I am top tier, the first shot against me will always result in either, A. My gunner dying, or B. my gun being damaged.

It's not a real WoT game unless a guy in a scout tank complains about matchmaking.

Dude in the scout has a bit of a point though, half the scout tanks are shittier scouts than high tier mediums. :P

But I agree on tanks with fragile and amusingly placed guns. This mostly happens to me with tanks that are lowish profile to the point where auto-aim center of masses on my gun barrel. Alternately when a slightly taller tank I'll take turret ring damage 15 seconds into a fight. My fucking Caern of all the tanks took five hits in a match once, and three of them destroyed the turret rotation.

I'm enjoying the 34-1 a bit more with the 100mm now, but it still just seems like a passable T7. Nowhere near the love I had for my T20.

Not sure how relevant this is but:

http://www.vg247.com/2013/01/29/world-of-tanks-developer-buys-day-1-studios-for-20-million/

Interesting. I think WoT would actually work okay on a xbox controller.

Agreed, there's really not much to the game as far as controls go.

The biggest issue is whether the existing Xlive or PSN networks are set up to handle microtransactions in any real fashion, and whether Wargaming finds it worthwhile to bring WoT to the consoles considering that while it may increase the number of players, they will have to share any profit made on microtransactions on those platforms.

you'd think that, but I can't seem to get the game to work with one on the PC no matter what I try :)

it should be fairly trivial to implement, hell, maybe I should see if there was a way I could do it, it would be kind of neat if I could get it to work with Steam's Big Picture and play on my TV.

I would hate hate hate to trade in the sniperlike accuracy of my 9000dpi übermouse for the clumsy wallowing about of that short li'l joystick on the pad. But yea more control options would be nice. I could drive the tank with the foot pedals of my HOTAS set. oh yea :)

Speaking of tanks, real men drive TOG* (yes the * is official part of the tank's name.)
I named mine Bert.

I saw some TOGs, those things could be renamed land yachts. The thing is that you don't need super twitchtastic accuracy on most tanks, as the speed is limited by the tank turret / accuracy anyway. Xpadder seems to have control mappings, not sure how good it is.

So if I were to start a new tank line, what would be best thing to go? Brits? French? Chinese? Mediums? Heavies?

In the higher tiers you really do wind up needing pretty decent accuracy, as pretty often you're forced to shoot at hatches and the like. What's odd is the accuracy on guns pretty much being meaningless. I currently snipe with a .48 weapon, and it's a goddamned rail gun most of the time. Meanwhile I have a few .30ish accuracy guns that will fail to hit anything stationary at medium range.

The explanation I saw on the forum makes sense, but would be a huge dick move by the devs. There's supposedly a second accuracy stat that's unlisted(impulse), that impacts how often the shells go dead center compared to the outside of the circle.

Basically: WoT, while a fun and technically interesting game with a ton of modeling on hit locations and gun behaviors.. has a fuckload of hidden stats in the game XML that seriously impact play.

I like the Brits (at least the Medium line up to Tier VII, I haven't decided about Tier VIII). But if you want to do something different, I think the French are clearly the way to go.

I really liked the british tier 6 and 7 mediums. French lights are funfunfun as well. I like fast tanks with rapid fire cannons but tend to do much better on fat slow ones such as KV3, Churches and of course His Majesty's LandBattleShip Bert.

Low tier frenchies are such a pain. They look wtfawesome tho.

I wouldn't suggest the brit mediums unless you really liked the US mediums. US mediums are relatively unforgiving but have bouncy turrets. Mostly the line is about finding positions to abuse your soft stats. Brits are very similar T8+. Cromwell/Comet are just really fun little tanks in general, but the Cents are boats with nice turrets and very nice guns.

Chinese medium line is painful until the T-34-1, and will make you curse the gods frequently when you can't get a shot across mostly flat terrain because of a small rock. I died to a 25/2 the other day without managing to find a single angle on the hill we were fighting over to get an actual shot off. If you can dodge those painful locations though, the chinese have absurdly good guns.