World of Tanks Mark 2

[Imperial528]

I just don't get arty-haters. I was playing on Ruinberg with my M37, and I killed this Churchill I that was advancing on my position. Now, he was at 11%. Most of that was from an M18, and some from my own fire. He gets into practically point-blank range (for arty, at least. Basically if I can see him myself, and he can see me, it is point blank) and I wait until the aiming circle gets as small as it can, and send a shot right through his side armor.

Then he says "What you lack in skill, you make up for in artillery. Have fun in chimp mode."

I just, seriously? He exposed his side to an artillery piece he knew was there (not to mention the TD that would have killed him otherwise) and he has the nerve to call me stupid?

Yeah, being killed by arty sucks, especially when the arty itself is far removed from the battle. But he's calling me stupid for attacking what is a direct threat to my tank?

[Alkaloid]

Man the D-25T is a game changer for the KV-3. it's only .8 more rounds per min than the D 2-5T, but it's enough to turn it from an ambush style predator where you have to pray the first shot cripples the enemy so they cant shoot you to death before you reload to a serious brawler that can tangle with any same tier heavy or multiple enemy mediums at mid range.

[Nephtys]

You haven't played top tier arty yet. That's why the hate exists. It's actually incredibly bad at high tier.

Imagine you and your opponents. You have powerful medium and heavy tanks that take perhaps 6 penetrating hits to destroy and need to aim carefully at each other's armor, as each tank has a strong bounce probability if you don't aim carefully, wasting that 10s reload shot. Suddenly, you're one-shot or nearly so by an arty shell that landed a whole tank's length away, it's blast stripping both your tracks, 3 systems and a crew member as well.

This is the issue. At high tier, arty is super accurate, super damaging, and has an absurd blast radius. It turns the very careful game of maneuver, aiming and teamwork into hiding in fear and camping very specific spots, else you'll be destroyed. Even if you're on the move, that's not a problem for end-tier arty due to the horrifically huge blast radius of stuff like the T92.

[The Vortex Empire]

You haven't played top tier arty yet. That's why the hate exists. It's actually incredibly bad at high tier.

Imagine you and your opponents. You have powerful medium and heavy tanks that take perhaps 6 penetrating hits to destroy and need to aim carefully at each other's armor, as each tank has a strong bounce probability if you don't aim carefully, wasting that 10s reload shot. Suddenly, you're one-shot or nearly so by an arty shell that landed a whole tank's length away, it's blast stripping both your tracks, 3 systems and a crew member as well.

This is the issue. At high tier, arty is super accurate, super damaging, and has an absurd blast radius. It turns the very careful game of maneuver, aiming and teamwork into hiding in fear and camping very specific spots, else you'll be destroyed. Even if you're on the move, that's not a problem for end-tier arty due to the horrifically huge blast radius of stuff like the T92.

Now imagine you're in a E-100 or a Maus. Too big for arty to miss, too slow to evade. It's camp or die. I really wish I had a tier 10 other than a fat kid.

[Vendetta]

This is the issue. At high tier, arty is super accurate, super damaging, and has an absurd blast radius. It turns the very careful game of maneuver, aiming and teamwork into hiding in fear and camping very specific spots, else you'll be destroyed. Even if you're on the move, that's not a problem for end-tier arty due to the horrifically huge blast radius of stuff like the T92.

And there are six of them on each side

Fortunately, many artillery players are terrible, and top tier artillery fires about once a week.

[Agent Sorchus]

High tier players whine a little to much about arty. Mostly arty is useless, but so are heavies. Rather the low tier players have the most reason to whine, especially with the BS and it's prefect accuracy round every 2 seconds. (Okay BatChat155 is a little too accurate, I've seen them get sniper, and the T92 is a little much, but I've rarely seen high tier arty dominate the same way low T pieces can.

[Nephtys]

High Tier arty dominate because any non-idiot can destroy the most expert player. It's not fun, since you just basically have a 'random possibility of death', even as you are annihilating the enemy team with smart play and positioning.

It causes the game to become stagnant as everyone cowers in the same arty-shadow spots. It makes armor meaningless, as a direct hit from a T95 or Obj causes instant or near instant death to any tank, even from full health.

Low Tier Arty is usually full of non-100 percent crews, less map awarenss, and almost no games where there's 6 arties per side. Also, the vehicles are smaller, faster, arty is less accurate and has effectively no blast. Not the case at Tier 8 Arty.

[Darth Wong]

The problem is the quantity, and the BatChat arty. A single arty on each side (or even two) would be acceptable because they shoot and aim so slowly, but when you have six, it's Rain of Death. And the BatChat arty is ridiculously overpowered, with every conceivable advantage built in: turret, high accuracy, autoloader.

[The Vortex Empire]

The problem is the quantity, and the BatChat arty. A single arty on each side (or even two) would be acceptable because they shoot and aim so slowly, but when you have six, it's Rain of Death. And the BatChat arty is ridiculously overpowered, with every conceivable advantage built in: turret, high accuracy, autoloader.

And when you have 10 on each side, which I have seen, may FSM help us all.

Man, I'd honestly pay for a no-arty option.

[xthetenth]

No-arty leads to camping too, it's just with more spots. At least with arty you can take time to dig people out of most camps.

I find low tier arty far worse than high tier. Oh yay, it can just about one shot me, these stupid guns take so long to aim in that to snipe someone down I need enough time for the arty to aim and his next shell is coming up before my tracks. Marvelous. High tier arty is a manageable risk where if you get hit by a T92, you done fucked up or someone did something exceptional. Then again, when you get used to playing CW where people have dedicated scouting and do timed barrages with gold shells for extra splash, random battle arty seems faintly adorable. If arty weren't easily very well dealt with as a threat by a good knowledge of arty cover, my Maus wouldn't be the only tank I drag out for random battles with much regularity.

If any arty has my enmity, fuck Su-26s and the people who have them practically clan wars fit. Just as proportionally devastating as a high tier piece now with all the joy of a reload faster than a lot of tanks' treads get back up. Joy. Low tier arty is balanced around bad crews.

Oh and Neph, about that example, if you're at long range, why aren't you in cover unless you're brawling, in which case why aren't you maneuvering for an advantage? Sitting in the open and mad minuting is probably the worst way to fight another tank even without arty. On the subject of super accurate, super damaging and absurd radius, pick two, possibly one.

The Churchill is the only tank I've really hated arty in because for some reason a tier five churchill next to an equally immobile T20, which will take more damage from the shell and hurting it will help the other team a lot more, will get shot instead nine times out of ten. I asked an arty why he shot me instead of the more useful T20 which would give him more xp and help the team more, and he just said "churchills are easy targets" as if an immobile medium isn't.

[Simon_Jester]

The T20 MIGHT move while the shell is still on the way- I've had that happen and it's irritating. So shooting for heavies is tempting, when I expect it to work.

[Imperial528]

And there are six of them on each side

Fortunately, many artillery players are terrible, and top tier artillery fires about once a week.

I hate arty parties. Hate hate hate. And it's because of your second point. I've said "Okay, guys, it's a waste if we all aim at the same spot on the map. I'm aiming at X place" and low and behold, five shells beat mine to the same place as soon as we see a tank. Mostly because I actually took time to aim, and they all turned to look at it and fired as soon as possible. Because all they want are kills, when artillery is supposed to perform a support role, like taking out enemy tanks that are sniping from afar and not currently engaged by your lines, or damaging heavy tanks at the front so your heavies have an easier time of killing theirs.

Oh, and I just looked up the T92's fire rate. Damn, 1.28 shells per minute? That's a maximum of only 19.2 shots per battle. Man, I'd probably spend more time making sure I actually hit the target than I spent reloading. Though it's less than four times (3.6 to be precise) slower than the M37's stock reload time, which is pretty glacial as is.

[Skywalker_T-65]

That's why I don't play Arty. And I probably lack the patience

Also...the A-13 is a BEAST...

[Nephtys]

No-arty leads to camping too, it's just with more spots. At least with arty you can take time to dig people out of most camps.

I find low tier arty far worse than high tier. Oh yay, it can just about one shot me, these stupid guns take so long to aim in that to snipe someone down I need enough time for the arty to aim and his next shell is coming up before my tracks. Marvelous. High tier arty is a manageable risk where if you get hit by a T92, you done fucked up or someone did something exceptional. Then again, when you get used to playing CW where people have dedicated scouting and do timed barrages with gold shells for extra splash, random battle arty seems faintly adorable. If arty weren't easily very well dealt with as a threat by a good knowledge of arty cover, my Maus wouldn't be the only tank I drag out for random battles with much regularity.

If any arty has my enmity, fuck Su-26s and the people who have them practically clan wars fit. Just as proportionally devastating as a high tier piece now with all the joy of a reload faster than a lot of tanks' treads get back up. Joy. Low tier arty is balanced around bad crews.

Oh and Neph, about that example, if you're at long range, why aren't you in cover unless you're brawling, in which case why aren't you maneuvering for an advantage? Sitting in the open and mad minuting is probably the worst way to fight another tank even without arty. On the subject of super accurate, super damaging and absurd radius, pick two, possibly one.

The Churchill is the only tank I've really hated arty in because for some reason a tier five churchill next to an equally immobile T20, which will take more damage from the shell and hurting it will help the other team a lot more, will get shot instead nine times out of ten. I asked an arty why he shot me instead of the more useful T20 which would give him more xp and help the team more, and he just said "churchills are easy targets" as if an immobile medium isn't.

I play American Mediums and heavies all the way to 9/10. Cover is life. It's satisfying as you maneuver around reverse slopes, seeking them out with experience and a sharp eye, minimizing your profile as you squeeze off shots at chumps that've exposed themselves. That's not camping, it's using smart cover and mobility. Only an idiot bumrushes open fields and relies on speed to stay alive, since it doesn't work. However, this smart gameplay style is countered utterly just by an arty shell landing within a tank's length of me, stripping my tracks and wrecking the tank.

Because of this, I'm DISCOURAGED from playing cleverly. Instead, I'm encouraged to stick next to a handful of arty-shadow rocks and play corner peekaboo. Who cares if it fires one shell every 30 seconds, when even a miss can wreck a tank, and a direct hit is an instant kill at a tier where every tank can take ~60 seconds of solid fire head-on from a peer? At least when someone wants to take me out of my intelligently acquired cover, they need to play smart instead of just letting a reticle zoom in.

Yes, Low Tier arty fires faster. It's balanced by poor accuracy, smaller and faster targets, and a portion of targets utterly immune to it (Ie, KVs vs M7 Priests)

[Vendetta]

What do you get if you stick the French, US, and Soviet tech trees in a blender and set it to chunky?

Update 8.2 and the Chinese tech tree.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I love my arty, all of your tears are delicious

The thing is, I have an M40/M43, and granted, I don't have the big gun yet, but I have never one shotted anything of an equivalant tier with it, unless they were already hurt, and I have to smack a Maus at least three or four times to kill it, my average damage there seems to be about 300-400 hp.

Also, the KV-1 is NOT immune to fire from a Priest (my favorite arty) though it is pretty resistant, for a tier 5.

[PeZook]

"Pretty resistant" = guaranteed steel wall.

I once drove across an open field while an M7 landed shell after shell after shell after shell on me, taking 5-10 HP per hit (and usually knocking off the tracks).

He finally had to run away and hide because I STILL trundled up to him eventually like a huge, angry glacier of doom.

KV moments are great.

[Imperial528]

I love my arty, all of your tears are delicious

The thing is, I have an M40/M43, and granted, I don't have the big gun yet, but I have never one shotted anything of an equivalant tier with it, unless they were already hurt, and I have to smack a Maus at least three or four times to kill it, my average damage there seems to be about 300-400 hp.

Also, the KV-1 is NOT immune to fire from a Priest (my favorite arty) though it is pretty resistant, for a tier 5.

I suck in the Priest, but rock (yes, even against KVs, I've killed or seriously damaged plenty) in the M37. Of course, it very rarely gets placed against things it cannot at all penetrate. Like the Lowe.

The trick with arty VS heavies is that you have to aim for the side and hit something more than the track or try to get the shell to land on top of it. If you just keep firing at the front or the track they will find and kill you. Or die eventually when a TD or allied heavy sees them after you've wasted ten shots. You can also try and land a shell underneath their tank, I've done fifty or more HE damage that way, by luck.

Of course, trying to hit specific parts of a vehicle in the M37 is at best an optimistic quest. Especially since its aiming circle is larger than most vehicles, including (ever so slightly) the T1 HT and M6.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I was wondering when the Chinamen would be added...that should be interesting...

[Nephtys]

I love my arty, all of your tears are delicious

The thing is, I have an M40/M43, and granted, I don't have the big gun yet, but I have never one shotted anything of an equivalant tier with it, unless they were already hurt, and I have to smack a Maus at least three or four times to kill it, my average damage there seems to be about 300-400 hp.

Also, the KV-1 is NOT immune to fire from a Priest (my favorite arty) though it is pretty resistant, for a tier 5.

See, you're not using T8 arty yet. So it's not bullshit yet. You're hitting the heaviest armored tank in the game, with a sub-tier Arty... yet doing 400 hp to it? That's not bad. Considering those end-game ones will do over 1500 with a direct hit. And cripple less armored vehicles on a miss.

Doing 6 damage to a KV-1 is effective immunity. I've hit a KV-1 with an M7 Priest a half dozen times, and it just shrugs them off. That doesn't happen endgame.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Just had a funny moment in my T49. I was charging up the enemy flank at the start of the match, along with a PzIIIA. The Pz pulled ahead, and went around a hill. On the other side was a Stug, that turned to shoot the Pz, not knowing I was there. So when I rounded the corner I had a nice shot of his rear armor. Pumped a shell in, and lit him on fire. The next one killed him.

And the moment he died, he typed 'It was a trap!!'.

Which was hilarious since it was entirely an accident, and I got one-shot by a Derp-gun using Hetzer right after that

[Darth Wong]

I love my arty, all of your tears are delicious

The thing is, I have an M40/M43, and granted, I don't have the big gun yet, but I have never one shotted anything of an equivalant tier with it, unless they were already hurt, and I have to smack a Maus at least three or four times to kill it, my average damage there seems to be about 300-400 hp.

Also, the KV-1 is NOT immune to fire from a Priest (my favorite arty) though it is pretty resistant, for a tier 5.

See, you're not using T8 arty yet. So it's not bullshit yet. You're hitting the heaviest armored tank in the game, with a sub-tier Arty... yet doing 400 hp to it? That's not bad. Considering those end-game ones will do over 1500 with a direct hit. And cripple less armored vehicles on a miss.
Doing 6 damage to a KV-1 is effective immunity. I've hit a KV-1 with an M7 Priest a half dozen times, and it just shrugs them off. That doesn't happen endgame.

Who needs tier-8 arty? My SU-14 school bus routinely one-shotted tier-8 tanks. I one-shotted a T95 with 1700 damage once.

But at that tier, arty can be frustrating. With the exception of the overpowered BatChat arty, all of the higher-tier arty takes an eternity to reload, and an eternity to reduce its aiming circle, which never does get small enough to guarantee a hit. Playing high-tier arty can be just as frustrating as playing against it, especially when the random number generator is not being nice to you. I've had four shells in a row land on the outer edge of my aiming circle in my Object 212, and anyone who's played that type of arty knows that by the time you've targeted four tanks, focused your aim, and fired, the game could be almost over already.

[Imperial528]

It's not often that I feel good about a defeat:

Defeat
Battle: Himmelsdorf Wednesday, November 07, 2012 10:13:09 PM
Vehicle: M6
Experience received: 595
Credits received: 21,571
Battle Achievements: Sniper, Master Gunner, Sharpshooter

http://www.4shared.com/file/WuZUNvcW/20 ... immel.html

Had I survived I probably would have gotten steel wall too. Watch the replay, I found it to be a very, very satisfying battle.

[Darth Wong]

I can't feel good about a defeat no matter how well I did individually. On not one but two occasions, I've had nine kills in a battle and still lost, and I was still annoyed. Once was in my SU-26 (yes, the same low-tier arty people were complaining about a few posts up), and the other time was in my IS. Nothing satisfying about it.

I enjoy it much more when I personally make the difference between winning and losing, even if I don't get a lot of kills. I think one of my favourite wins had to be in my damaged IS-3 when a Type 59 (with only 5% health left) had captured more than 50% of the enemy flag and we were the only two tanks left on our team. The enemy had three other tanks coming to stop the cap: a JagdPanther, a T34, and an M7 Priest, all at full health, and I knew they were all coming from one direction, since I had just come from the other one. I knew that if I tried to help the Type 59 with the cap, they would just come around the corner and reset us, so I moved out aggressively, to delay them and keep them from getting a line of sight on the Type 59. I found the M7 Priest and one-shotted him, then I found the T34 and face-hugged him to death. The JagdPanther would have gone around me to stop the cap, but I turned my turret and loosed a shot at him while I was face-hugging the T34, so he got spooked and stayed long enough to shoot me in the side several times and kill me just after I finished off the T34. Now our Type 59 was alone, and the JagdPanther rushed to the cap ... but he got there too late to reset, and we won, thanks entirely to my holding action. Now that is satisfying.

[Imperial528]

Well, to elaborate, I feel good about the battle, despite it being a defeat. We started off quite well (took the hill and got a perfect flanking/enveloping maneuver) but alas they got the upper hand on our south group, and soon enough it was just I and an M3 Lee that was afk.

Though I think my biggest regret from the battle is that I went to chase a Priest when I could have gone with the rest of my group. Our strategic flaw in that match though was that everyone split up (our south was never really grouped, though); had I gone with our Churchill we may have killed their ARL 44 and then swept the cap. Or maybe they would have capped before we got there, it probably would have been close.