World of Tanks

[Agent Sorchus]

Ouch, the valentine really took the shaft in this. It's one of the few tanks that really needed it's MM to be small. Now it'll see T6 TD's heavies and mediums occasionally.

Although the AMX40 gets the same MM, I think the val suffers more for it. At least the AMX can lob 75mm HE to be effective.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Exactly, WoT seems to model your transmission as just part of your engine, which sucks for those tanks that have it mounted in the front.

The aforementioned issues with the Lowe are not unique. I see them with other high tier premiums, especially KV-5s. Whenever my friend and I run our Ferdis, we rejoice if we see them on the enemy team because they almost always suck. Easy kills.

When I'm driving my KV-5, I generally will not engage a Ferdi unless he's facing away or I absolutely have to, man, I hate those things.

I sometimes like to play the KV-5 like I'm tanking in WoW, keep the enemy focused on shooting me so my (usually better armed) teammates can get around to the sides and rear wreak havok. It doesn't always work, mind you. The KV-5 has a frankly underwhelming gun and a huge, glaring, "SHOOT ME!!" sign on the front, one of my clanmates has taken to driving his into combat backwards so people can't shoot at the R2 unit, he claims to be having some success like that.

I just got my KV-4 unlocked, now I just have to raise about two million credits for it. Does anybody have any opinions on it?

[xthetenth]

YES. Shame for my Valentine, but that looks yummy as hell overall. Tier 4 lights getting one shot is going to be something of a rarity rather than business as usual.

And that's why the soviet tanks whose main appeal is being able to uptier well are getting rebalanced. Same for the low tier TDs. I am so freaking excited for the rebalancing and I just got the test patch. I will be back in a bit to say what I think. Unfortunately low tier tanks on the test server are rare as hell so I'll mostly be checking the new tanks out.

[Darth Wong]

When I'm driving my KV-5, I generally will not engage a Ferdi unless he's facing away or I absolutely have to, man, I hate those things.

There are weak spots on the front of a Ferdinand. I killed one in a few shots from my IS, playing peek-a-boo. I think it really pissed him off. Aim for the extreme left or right part of his front hull plating.

I sometimes like to play the KV-5 like I'm tanking in WoW, keep the enemy focused on shooting me so my (usually better armed) teammates can get around to the sides and rear wreak havok. It doesn't always work, mind you. The KV-5 has a frankly underwhelming gun and a huge, glaring, "SHOOT ME!!" sign on the front, one of my clanmates has taken to driving his into combat backwards so people can't shoot at the R2 unit, he claims to be having some success like that.

The trick to making the R2D2 harder to shoot is to just keep moving back and forth. If you stay still, everyone will zero in on it.

I just got my KV-4 unlocked, now I just have to raise about two million credits for it. Does anybody have any opinions on it?

I have a KV-4. I much prefer driving my IS-3 to be honest, but the KV-4 isn't bad. I've had some good wins on it. First, its gun is vastly superior to the 107mm on the KV-5, as you've no doubt noticed from the research tree. Its gun can simply punch through the front of a Ferdinand, without having to worry about hitting small weak spots. Second, while its armour is not quite as indomitable as that of the KV-5, it is still a very tough tank to kill. If you angle it properly, you can bounce plenty of shots from tier-9 tanks.

One of the most hilarious games I ever played on my KV-4 was an Encounter mission on El Halluf. We had a little T-50 hiding behind the rock capturing the flag and I knew the enemy would send someone down to kill him shortly, so I decided to drive into the circle and draw enemy fire. I drove in, and of course all the enemies could see me, and I think they thought I was the one capturing the flag. It felt like a rain of hits came down on me; I could hear pinging and clanging sounds all over the place. But they shot at me from afar; they didn't charge in like they would have if it was just the T-50. I kept moving back and forth, throwing off their aim. I got tracked a couple of times but I got moving again. By the time all was said and done, I absorbed an untold number of hits, got a Steel Wall (of course) and we won the mission because the T-50 quietly captured the base while they were all shooting at me.

[Vanas]

When they rebalance things, can they please have anyone who may have been on my team for the last 3 hours shot? Seriously. Not one double yet. Fuuuuck that.

[Rekkon]

Eh? It does not look like the Valentine's tiering has changed from 7.3.

The column headers are battle tiers, not vehicle tiers. In some instances an increase in battle tier just means an increase in the proportion of top tier tanks without increasing the actual tier cap. They should have used different vocabulary like "battle level" or something. It will certainly suck if my precious Valentine now gets tiered above 4, but at the moment it just looks like they reduced the AMX 40's spread to match it.

[Agent Sorchus]

Look again, the battle tiers haven't changed for the val, but what else is in battle tier 6 has changed thanks to the reordering of the match maker values for all tanks.

[Rekkon]

Well crap. Of course, by the 7.3 chart, the Val could have been seeing some T5 vehicles, but I never did.

Anyone know why they did the big restructure? Were there actual problems or did they just cave to all the vocal idiots?

[Nephtys]

Soon to be introduced Tier X Mediums and Tier X TDs now mean that all three of these 'main lines' are roughly equivilent at their same tier. With only Lights and SPGs taking weird specialist roles.

So they all got balanced in turn.

[Skywalker_T-65]

That chart is beautiful...I actually can be happy about having the PzIII/IV now. I won't run into tanks that are horribly bigger than me...that is such a relief. But it does look like the AMX 12t is still going to be a painful grind. Oh well, better than it used to be...now I just have to wait a month or so for the update to go live.

Oh, and if anyone wants to platoon tonight, I'll be on for the next couple of hours...just shoot me a line and we can go from there...just bear in mind I only have the PzIII/IV (almost have it rather...one or so more battles with the III still to go) and the AMX 12t for T5 tanks...everything else is T4 or lower.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I've offically found my most hated tank...the freaking T-50. That thing is a sports car with a tank gun...I really hate getting into battles with that thing. It can circle me and pump shells into my tank while I sluggishly (even in a Stuart!) try and turn to shoot it. Really freaking annoying.

[Nephtys]

Wait until you meet it's big brother, the T-50-2. Imagine better armor, a far better gun, more speed, and the ability to turn like some sort of hovertank and violate physics.

[Darth Wong]

I actually had a T-50-2 for a while. It's a helluva fun tank to drive, and when you have a great mission in it, you feel like a boss. But there are downsides too; you need to be very familiar with the maps in order to do a good job with a T-50-2, because so much of your job is the ability to spot the enemy and get out of there so you can do it again (suicide scouting into the middle of the enemy base in the first 30 seconds of the game is usually a total waste). For this, you need to be able to circle around and find avenues of escape without stopping and starting, because stopping usually means death. You need to know where you can make a big turn and then scoot away through undulating terrain. You need to know where you can't go because you don't have a clean route out.

I've never been one for building an encyclopedic knowledge of game maps, especially when they keep bringing out new ones and retiring or revising old ones. Therefore, while I could be very good on some maps, I was often terrible on others. I actually felt kind of guilty about having a bad performance in a T-50-2, because I know how important the performance of the top scout is to a team's overall chances of victory. I found that I wasn't really enjoying the T-50-2 that much, ie- I didn't really look forward to playing a mission on it. It may be fun to drive, but it's not fun to feel like I need to carefully study all the maps just so I can figure out what scouting routes to take. So I sold it.

Favourite moment in a T-50-2: running into another T-50-2 in the centre courtyard area of Himmelsdorf and then having a long dogfight with him. We were turning in circles, blasting at each other. It was great, and we were evenly matched in our T-50-2 deathmatch, until a couple of heavier tanks from both sides spoiled it by killing us both. The other T-50-2 driver actually got on the chat to say how disappointed he was that we didn't take our deathmatch to the end. I had to agree.

[xthetenth]

I love my -2, but that's partly because I've run it enough in clan wars that I know how a lucky shot can end it's day really early and I've picked up enough skill reading terrain to be able to read a map and the terrain I'm in to get a lot of advantage getting spots and dropping right behind a ridgeline for line of sight cover.

[Agent Sorchus]

Victory!
Battle: Prokhorovka Thursday, July 12, 2012 8:07:59 PM
Vehicle: T20
Experience received: 2,090 (x2 for the first victory each day)
Credits received: 25,815

Solo kill on a T34 while taking no damage, then headed back to cap to kill the ARL-TD that was capping before going on the glorious arty hunt. Though yes this was defense on the Assault version of the map, and that isn't really fair it was fun. And that's not counting the M36 that I spotted that got nailed by an ISU shot.

[AniThyng]

I got a jumbo. Oh man it is so fun having a Sherman that is nigh invulnerable from the front.

Playing peekaboo with it and the 105 is hilariously fun. It absorbs damage evn better than my 3601. And it's awesome when I manage to nail a light at range because I have time to aim without being blown up

[Zinegata]

When is 7.5 coming? Need to tell my buddies to buy AMX-12s

[xthetenth]

Relatively soon. The test server's up. Make sure you buy the 12t, the AMX ELC or whatever is hilarious. It's got a 90mm at tier V, but on a tier V light chassis that can really move and turns well. Thing is, it's got about 10 degrees of gun traverse to either side. It's like someone made the T-50-2 into a TD or something.

[Zinegata]

Relatively soon. The test server's up. Make sure you buy the 12t, the AMX ELC or whatever is hilarious. It's got a 90mm at tier V, but on a tier V light chassis that can really move and turns well. Thing is, it's got about 10 degrees of gun traverse to either side. It's like someone made the T-50-2 into a TD or something.

Glorious.

[PeZook]

I've offically found my most hated tank...the freaking T-50. That thing is a sports car with a tank gun...I really hate getting into battles with that thing. It can circle me and pump shells into my tank while I sluggishly (even in a Stuart!) try and turn to shoot it. Really freaking annoying.

Pah. Learn to lead your shots and 50s die

[xthetenth]

If a T-50 or T-50-2 is getting in close he's taking a serious risk, make him pay. It's just a matter of figuring out your lead and you can drop shots into them pretty easily.

[PeZook]

It will eat a KV-2 of course, but I never have trouble getting into knife fights with them while I'm driving a medium. Smart T-50 drivers will of course tear me up and GTFO.

[Hawkwings]

My Sherman Easy 8 is the best T-50 killer I have found. Quick, with a fast turret and a fast gun, and plenty of damage and penetration. I honestly find it easier to hit T50-2s, but harder to kill them due to their better protection.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Yeah, well, my main problem with them is when I'm in my Lee. Kind of hard to lead them in a tank that is that slow at turning.

[xthetenth]

If you're in a fixed mount tank back against the nearest hard cover you can so he can't circle you. Also, the Lee has the fastest turn rate of any tank with a fixed mount gun. Any tank destroyer is going to be worse.

The best -50 or -50-2 killers I know of are the Chaffee, the E8, the AMX 13 series, and Pattons, especially the M48. Accuracy and refire rate are great especially on a mobile chassis.