World of Tanks

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

So for every 99 or so shit matches of pinging 50mm rounds off of an IS-3 until a stiff breeze detonates my vehicle, I get one match like this:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f175/ ... ot_013.jpg

Probably my best round to date. I got 7 or 8 kills back in beta with a humble T-34, but as I recall I eventually died and my teammates mopped up the rest. This time, however, was razor's edge intense -- me, in my DB, about 55% health, and a teammate's low-tier crap Soviet arty who informed me over team chat that he was now out of shells. Our opponents were a Hetzer at 60%, and a murderous SU-8 with 5 kills, now down to 8% health.

Teammate suicide scouts and promptly goes up in a puff of smoke, leaving me, also with 5 kills, to ferret them out of the village and kill them. Capping wouldn't have been viable, it was me or them. I figured the Hetzer wouldn't be too much of a threat -- he had 0 kills, and only the 105's HE stood much of a chance of hurting me, so I gambled on him not using that set-up. The real threat was that SU-8, who could probably derp me at point-blank from camo. So I charged into the village. I was right about the Hetzer, his shot pinged off my front armor. I got him with one of those stupid no-damage, no-effect track hits (which have been PLAGUING me since the patch), reloaded and wasted him with the next shot.

I had a rough idea where the SU-8 was and used the buildings to force a point-blank engagement where I could see him, rather than deal with stupid camo issues. Sure enough, we ended up on opposite sides of a building, visible to each other. I jockeyed around, trying to bait a wasted shot out of him, but no dice -- I had neither track nor engine upgrades so my DB was a little too sluggish for fancy maneuvers. So I reversed to give myself some room to accelerate and just blitzed around the corner. I had the new loltastic "steady cam" sniper-mode option enabled (it's loltastic because there's no reason not to have it enabled), so I went to sniper-mode to ensure proper gun alignment and blew him away as I sped around the corner before he could get his shot off.

Last Man Standing, heh. Normally I'd say I wasn't fighting hard enough, but my DB had about 6 rounds left in its magazine. I guess if I'd fired them off before killing the SU-8 I could've gotten that other medal. Still, I did get the tank ace medal, in addition to the regular top gun.

[Tritio]

... and a teammate's low-tier crap Soviet arty who informed me over team chat that he was now out of shells. ...

Was he an SU5? I'm driving one of those, and when equipped with the 152mm Mortar, I can only carry 14 shells. Given that it reloads at a rate of like 8 rounds per minute, I can theoretically empty my magazine within 2 minutes. I'll typically be yelling "I'M OUT OF AMMO! NO ARTY AMMO!" close to the end of the match.

But because of that, it makes you treat every shell as precious (which I never had to do with the SU26, the turreted SPG) and requires you to focus on your aim. I once hit a medium tank in the engine compartment running perpendicular to me at full speed close to my maximum range and set him on fire. It's so satisfying when that happens.

[Rogue 9]

New personal best. Seven kills, Top Gun, and Reaper[4]. Still lost.

[Highlord Laan]

Got my PzIII, fully upgraded engine, treads and radio, and just got the new turret. Just a bit more xp and I'll have the 50mm gun. Back during beta I was a rampaging engine of high speed death with that thing, so I'm looking forward to it. Also slowly going on with the Lee until I can get a Sherman. Focusing mainly on the Germans though, trying to decided if I want mediums or heavies.

[Thunderfire]

It's pretty funny when a kill crazy team manages to throw away a 2:13 lead. We won 15:13 because they arrived one after another at our base. It was a tier 2-4 match and we had a PzJg. I(4 kills) and my elite Marder II(9 kills).

[Slacker]

Just bought the Pershing before I had to head to work last night. Didn't actually get to play a game with it before I had to go. After getting it kitted out over the weekend I'll start maxxing out the American heavy tree, I'm still sitting on the T29. And then other than half-assing my arty line, I'm pretty much done. I have no real desire to compulsively level all of the various trees, honestly.

And Brothers Grim continues to wreck face in Clan Wars.

[Rogue 9]

Last man standing on Lakeville. My team mostly threw their lives away bumrushing down the goat path and valley, taking an early lead, but rapidly throwing it away as the enemy rallied and enfiladed the goat path from the town while sniping tanks as they crested the valley ridge. We were down to a KV, STuG, and my T29. The enemy team was composed almost entirely of mediums and a KV-1S with a smattering of TDs, who were fairly well organized for a random battle, and rapidly overran the position our KV and STuG had taken in the woods behind our base, though they made a good accounting of themselves against the wolfpack before succumbing. So what did I do?

I made like a Tankbuster. I killed them all.





I love the T29, incidentally. I also got Steel Wall with minimal damage; shots just bounced off my turret like they were made of spring rubber.

[Vanas]

One of the nicest things you can hope to meet is a deeply stupid enemy. We're in Ensk(I think, can never remmber map names) I was in my Löwe, supporting two of our mediums as we trundled up the right hand side of the map, in the fields. We encountered two meds that I couldn't get a clear shot at. There was a kerfuffle, we lost a med, as did they. The surviving enemy, a VK3002 took the opportunity to ping a shot off of my front and withdrew.

We next saw him scooting down towards our flag behind the train sheds. And there was nothing behind us at all. A derp-toting KV saw what was going on and went to defend, so I figured we had a 50/50 chance of losing...

But then I saw the 3002 turn and make a beeline for me. He burst through one of the walls and we exhanged fire with him missing. He circled me, hit a wall and... stopped. Broadside on to me. My next shot killed him. Thus always to fools. What was that rule? Always die usefully?

[Hawkwings]

Alright, finally started playing this game. My name is Hawkwings, look me up.

[Hawkwings]

...and I'll finish off my first good session of gaming with a pretty decent match. T1 Cunningham, 5 kills, 4 of which were solo last man standing, as I came around the back of their HQ and destroyed all the defenders. Then of course one of their frontliners came back and one-shotted me.

Can someone explain crew training? I want to train up my T1 crew and then upgrade them, how much experience is lost, and is that a good idea?

[PeZook]

Can someone explain crew training? I want to train up my T1 crew and then upgrade them, how much experience is lost, and is that a good idea?

Don't bother. The exp is better spent contributing to the outrageous upgrade costs later on. You actually earn exactly the same amount of exp whatever you drive: wasting even a point on crew training is useless. As you fight more and more matches the crew will go up really fast anyway.

[Tritio]

Can someone explain crew training? I want to train up my T1 crew and then upgrade them, how much experience is lost, and is that a good idea?

Don't bother. The exp is better spent contributing to the outrageous upgrade costs later on. You actually earn exactly the same amount of exp whatever you drive: wasting even a point on crew training is useless. As you fight more and more matches the crew will go up really fast anyway.

True, unless you have enough XP but not enough silver for a particular tank and want to focus on a specific tank crew so as to transfer them to another tank in the future. I've encountered this particular scenario only once. Most of the time, you'll need all the XP you can get for tanks and upgrades.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Crew training isn't worthwhile until Tier 4. Before that, you'll get your next tank before your crew gets anywhere significant. T4 has some good tanks, though, and that's when it starts taking longer to get the next tank up, so your crew can accumulate more experience naturally.

[White Haven]

I'd argue tier 5, but 4's close enough that it's not a huge mistake either way.

[Highlord Laan]

Match was on Lakeville, myself and three PzIV's are the ones going up the valley where we meet a few of the enemy scouts in the form of two M7's, two T-34's and a RamII. Shots are exchanged in a medium weight brawl that claims one panzer on my side, severely damages the other two, but somehow leaves me unscathed, bouncing shells off my M4's front armor. All enemies are killed, and we move on.

Further up, we take fire from a pair of Stugs, killing the last two Panzers, but not before the kill one Stug and I finish off the second. I continue moving up alone when a shot from the aforementioned KV3 barely misses me. I roll back down the hill and wait, chambering APCR. KV3 crests the hell, and I blast him to hell with a shot to the belly, knocking off the last 25% of his health in a single blow.

I was branded a hacker in all caps. I am content.

[spaceviking]

I would say it is always worth it to pay to upgrade your gunner when you are playing as a spg.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

It always pays to upgrade your dudes. Unless you're just starting out and haven't reached a T4 yet, you should never, ever be using 50% crews.

[PeZook]

Yeah, compared to prices of later tanks, paying an extra 100k to upgrade a five man crew to 75% is small change

[Tritio]

True; I'd estimate that before Tier 4 or 5, it isn't worthwhile to accelerate crew training. From Tiers 6 and 7 onwards, you're stuck for so long in vehicles playing so many matches that you're likely to end up with a highly experienced crew anyway, and at that stage, XP requirements for modules and tanks are so high that you need every scrap of XP you can scrounge. So I'd say the sweet spot at which accelerating crew training is really applicable would be between Tier 4 - 7 or thereabouts.

Indeed, there's no reason to start with anything less than a 75% crew from Tier 6 or 7 onwards.

[Hawkwings]

Wait, so I need gold to turn experience into free experience?

[Tritio]

Wait, so I need gold to turn experience into free experience?

Yes you do. It converts at a rate of 1 Gold per 25 XP. This is one of the main reasons why people need gold. To convert XP accumulated with their 'grinding' tanks into free XP to move up their desired trees.

[Broken]

Well, finally got my Panther back, fully upgraded, now just need 164k xp for the Panther II. Next is likely the Tiger II, just because its a fun tank. I have a T29 so might go further up the American heavy tree until the months and months down the road E-series comes out for the German tech tech.

On the other hand, the 152mm derp cannon KV is awesome once you get a high 95%+ crew. On the camperville map with the huge open space between the lines I can hit a stationary tank across the map 2 shots out of 3, which makes for some hilarious 500 meter one-shots.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Going up as far as the T-34 in the American Heavy Tree is worth it if you can get up to the T-34 before the July patch. On the July patch the US tree will be revised, and if you've got a T-34 you also get a fully upgraded M103 on top of that. I'm currently aiming for that myself, got the T-29 fully upgraded and about a quarter of the way to the T-32. On top of that though I'm also gunning for the M4 Easy Eight, Grille, PzIV and T-44

[Vanas]

I've been enjoying the Lowe, but I've just gotten my hands on the 3601 and upgraded it with the Money Pit.

Good Lord.

It just chews everything up. Everything. I've added a Lowe and a KV-5 to my killcount since getting it. It's a keeper, that's for sure. And gets me in good practice for the high-tier sniper tanks. Like the Lowe.
Hm, maybe I've not thought this one entirely through. Oh well, it's awesome nonetheless.

[Agent Sorchus]

Hahahahah! I remember why I love the U-11 on the KV so much. Being able to get into a gun duel with an M6, IS and IS-3; killing both IS's while the vk-3601 takes the other just leaves me feeling happy after a long run of no kill matches vs things like IS-3s.