World of Tanks

[Marko Dash]

it should be a faster, up-gunned chaffee. what we got is a faster, unarmored slugger.

[Highlord Laan]

It's a shame they had to bring the M18 down so much, considering the real thing can turn out 80 kph on a flat road surface or 65 kph going uphill offroad in any dry surface. I've seen a Hellcat in person with a restored engine with the same ratios and they are nimble as hell both in accelerating and decelerating.

It would have made them a very deadly threat to the all important heavy tanks.

[xthetenth]

It already is a deadly threat. I've taken two of the damn things with an E8 and driven it through the field in Siegfried line, blasting a KV-1S in return for coffee's M18 taking one shell, then getting back up to speed and driving right up to a KV-5 and punching its R2 unit through its nose and we hurt some other stuff. If it had the real speed it'd need to be a tier 7 and that'd mean seeing a lot more huge tanks. It'd be a tank destroyer with a medium's gun, and that just isn't enough damage to play with.

[Zinegata]

Any suggestions which crew skills are actually good?

[xthetenth]

Depends on the tank. The radio range ones are totally naff though.

[Zinegata]

Depends on the tank. The radio range ones are totally naff though.

For a T-34 (US heavy premium) specifically as I just bought one and hope to use it to earn money

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Depends on the tank. The radio range ones are totally naff though.

For a T-34 (US heavy premium) specifically as I just bought one and hope to use it to earn money

What gun does that get? My roommate has ground one all the way up to the top engine and gun and has hated every minute of it. If it sticks him with the 105 or worse yet the 90 he'll probably uninstall the game.

[xthetenth]

120. At tier 8. Yes, it's absolutely vicious.

I'd recommend repair first on everyone, the old skills are kinda still the best. If it weren't 1 AM and I didn't have to wake up early tomorrow I'd be a lot more helpful. I'll try to get to you in the morning. The viewing range ones are worth somewhere around dick all when you aren't minmaxing for clan wars, radio range is a non-factor at high enough tiers to have the skills, brothers in arms is arty only because it takes the whole crew having it, breaks when crewmen get knocked out and doesn't do much. Mentor is actually probably a good bet if you're in for the long run because fully trained it gives +10% to xp for the rest of the crew and accelerate crew training will keep the commander up to speed, and you'll walk out with a hilariously elite crew for a US heavy. The Commander, Driver and Gunner seem to have the best skills, the Loader and Radio op's are situational and/or bad.

[Zinegata]

Is Camo still any good?

[Nephtys]

The key ones seem to be..

(Situational)
Sixth Sense
Eagle Eye

(Kinda Important)
Sharpshooter (The bonus crit chance)
Bonus Traverse (Turning notably faster)
Bonus Traction (Accelerates quite notably faster)
Reduced Gun Dispersion (Equates to half an extra VStab)

And the rest are more or less whatever.

[xthetenth]

Sixth sense seems important and can be useful but its utility is severely limited by it taking five seconds to get you warning.
Eagle eye can be nice, but yet again, you need to aim at a target for five seconds, which hurts its utility severely.

Sharpshooter seems to be good, as do the rest under kinda important.

Designated target is also quite useful for scouts, because as far as I can tell if you light it it'll take 2 seconds longer to become unspotted, which is really useful when you're doing dives to light tanks. Nothing else springs to mind as being really useful.

[Hawkwings]

Brothers in Arms (bonus to skill if everyone is alive) looks useful for artillery and camping TDs. For a tank though, I'd probably still go with repair as the first skill, then probably Expert, Cruise Master, Steady hands, non impact ammo, and sonar.

[Nephtys]

Brothers in Arms seems like it sucks.

You get at most, 5 percent skill bonus total for each member. Basically, if everyone has the skill, you have vents installed. And Vents already are marginally useful, TBFH.

[Hawkwings]

Yeah, and that skill bonus improves everything about the tank. Fire rate, bloom, traverse, acceleration, sight range, etc. That's pretty damn good. Of course, if we got some numbers on these skills we could actually compare.

[xthetenth]

Brothers in Arms seems like it sucks.

You get at most, 5 percent skill bonus total for each member. Basically, if everyone has the skill, you have vents installed. And Vents already are marginally useful, TBFH.

I use vents on nearly everything I run. I only don't take them on terrible soviet heavies because they need a vert stab and a gun laying drive. The bonuses to horsepower, aiming, loading and so on are faint but noticeable and I like that extra little bit of responsiveness.

[Nephtys]

The effect of vents from what I've seen are so incredibly minor, that I'd much rather have a bonus in one big thing. You gain something like 1.5 percent faster RoF, which is within lag margin, much less anything useful. You gain like 6-8 meters of view range, so whatever. Turning rate is nearly imperceptable.

With vents, this isn't a big deal. You always have a 3rd slot to fill after your mandatory Gun Rammer and Vert Stabilizer/GLD. But I think coated optics or the repair box will have a greater positive effect than the Vents most of the time. Possibly even Spall Liner for some tanks.

[xthetenth]

The bit about vents I like most is the horsepower boost, which I notice, especially on hills.

[Vanas]

I made two discoveries yesterday: Firstly, that a T20 fighting a Churchill can end hilariously badly for the T20 and secondly, that I was deeply wrong.

I'd thought that tier 9 would be less fun than tier 8, owing to the increased expenses, etc. I was deeply wrong. Even without full upgrades and the 128, it's nice to be able to put IS-4s and T34s in their place... most of the time. The E-75 really is a very fun little ride and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is worried that a King Tiger just isn't armoured enough. The turret is made of American-grade Fuck You and the front hull is fairly monstrous as well. And has that german feature of being a single slab so you can actually manually angle it as well. Can't wait for the 1200HP engine, undecided about if I'll like the 128 so far.

[Zinegata]

I'm personally a vents dude also - but lagely because it's one of the few ways to get reload time faster .

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I made two discoveries yesterday: Firstly, that a T20 fighting a Churchill can end hilariously badly for the T20 and secondly, that I was deeply wrong.

Never underestimate the Churchill, I went 8 kills in mine the other day.

[White Haven]

As long as no one with a real gun ever shoots you, you're fine, If that unhappy ever occurs, however, well, game over, man, game over. I really should megapatch Tanks and start playing again until I get bored again.

[Vanas]

Never underestimate the Churchill, I went 8 kills in mine the other day.

Oh, I never underestimate the Churchill. I just wasn't expecting to kill a T7 medium head on with relative ease with it. Easy 8s, maybe.

[Nephtys]

The T20's a very interesting tank. It's so fast and well armed. Yet the weapon has a terrible RoF, and the tank itself is only average in maneuverability. It's lack of armor actually lets the T20 get killed by skilled E8s, so any sort of rapid fire thing can really be devastating.

The Church has a 6pdr which has a good DPS, so not surprising. Plus, I don't think the 90mm can reliably penetrate the Church from the front.

[Zinegata]

T20s have any armor at all? Why wasn't I told? :p

In all seriousness though, the T20 does need a bit of finesse to get it to shine. Going head to head with some lower tier tanks, it can actually lose because of its weaknesses.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, this is mostly a problem against Tier 5 and 6 tanks with high DPS, especially at short range (since the T20 benefits from the accurate 90mm gun, as a rule).

Although I have one fond and proud memory of stopping a T20 dead in its tracks and blowing it to hell and gone in my M3 Lee; I had the vast, unfair advantage of being able to tuck most of my tank behind a boulder with just the sponson gun sticking out, and I suspect something was wrong with his tank to prevent him from outflanking me.