[MMO] World of Tanks

Page 60 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Liet

Golden Member
Jun 9, 2001
1,529
0
0
Roll a KV, you'll be mostly invincible in your tier. At least until tier rebalancing.

Side note: I HATE HATE HATE how many tanks there are in games that were either purely prototypes, or straight from blueprints. I'm finding it difficult to believe that this was the only way to do tier balancing properly, because tiers right now aren't even balanced! :)
 

stag3

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2005
3,624
0
76
lol i just saw armor (liet) in a game!

i try to avoid that middle island always, death trap there, i almost always take the long way around thru our flag --> their spawn --> their flag
we ended up winning that one, i flanked thru their spawn where the 2 su-85b's were hiding, we should get a platoon going for those that have premium tho, since i don't.
and vent!
 
Last edited:

Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
1
76
When people here talk about the KV1 and KV3 I kinda chuckle. In beta before they improved the Tier match ups everyone hated those two tanks. Especially the KV1. It was slow and a extremely easy target. Everyone pretty much picked on it. Even the little tanks had fun going after them. I played mine before the Tier improvement so after I got past the KV1 I sold it quickly I hated it so much it was such a dog. I did however learn to enjoy the KV3 once fully upgraded.

Now after release and the Tier improvement I see that they do much better. Especially against American tanks of the same tier or less. Even the PzIII and IV have troubles against them. The Russian T34 as well. The main reason I see is that often the KV1 is at the top of the list in many battles. Which is opposite of where it used to end up. Slow, yes but very hard skinned and the 107mm gun does do some serious damage for its class. And if it has that 122mm gun up close it does massive damage to smaller tanks.

One of the most hated to use tanks in game went form crappy performance to good performance just with a tier adjustment. Interesting and amusing I think.
 
Last edited:

cecco

Senior member
Jan 27, 2005
265
0
0
I finally purchased the Tiger II, and now grinding for upgrades. It's nice to actually have shots bounce for a change. I moved my toolbox over for now, but looking ahead at the first permanent module purchase, do you guys recommend the spall liner? i have yet to purchase this for any of my tanks. Have you seen any difference?
 

Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
1
76
I finally purchased the Tiger II, and now grinding for upgrades. It's nice to actually have shots bounce for a change. I moved my toolbox over for now, but looking ahead at the first permanent module purchase, do you guys recommend the spall liner? i have yet to purchase this for any of my tanks. Have you seen any difference?

Yes, it makes a difference. I have this rule. I will almost always add a gun rammer to my tanks but unless I plan to keep the tank I dont add anything more than the rammer. Saves me credits in the long run. So, if you plan to keep the KT after you max it out, then getting a spall-liner is definitely worth it. You will experience less tracking from close arty explosions. Some people will say its worth having whether you keep the tank or not and it does keep close explosions from tracking you but you will not get that money back if you sell the tank. Some still feel its worth the investment though. Comes down to personal opinion and whether you want to spend the credits to get it.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
Yes, it makes a difference. I have this rule. I will almost always add a gun rammer to my tanks but unless I plan to keep the tank I dont add anything more than the rammer. Saves me credits in the long run. So, if you plan to keep the KT after you max it out, then getting a spall-liner is definitely worth it. You will experience less tracking from close arty explosions. Some people will say its worth having whether you keep the tank or not and it does keep close explosions from tracking you but you will not get that money back if you sell the tank. Some still feel its worth the investment though. Comes down to personal opinion and whether you want to spend the credits to get it.

Just to add: You get half the credits back for any equipment when you sell the tank so a 500k item will recoup 250k if the tank is sold.

I kept my T20 (Tier 7 US Med) for 200+ matches and had a Rammer (200k), Vertical Stabiliser (500k) and Vents (150k) on it. When I sold it, I recouped tank value + 425k credits. You could say that these items cost me ~2k credits per game.

Laying it down in that way it actually sounds like a good deal to me.

Side note: Spall Liner... found it useful on my T29 and T32 in beta. I was an Artillery and HE magnet.
 

LurkerPrime

Senior member
Aug 11, 2010
962
0
71
well I was able to unlock my KV-3 over the weekend and work another 20k xp out of my VK3601 so I'm almost to my first german heavy. I would be further along but I got my brother to play and he just unlocked his KV and we started also working down the russian light/medium line.

Is the light/medium russian line any good? We got to the A-20 and find that while its fast, it can't hurt anything your ever matched up against. I feel I'd do more damage ramming the KV-3 at full speed than circling and shooting at it.

The BT-7s were fun, since you could still damage most things you got matched up against. In addition in some matches where we couldn't hurt stuff, we would wait 2-3 minutes at our base, then zoom over to the other base. Kill any unlucky arty and then in some cases actually cap the base and win, since most heavies couldn't make it back in time to do anything about it.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
An EU player (Darkburrow) has provided me with an illustrated SPG Guide. Hope you guys find this useful and informative.

@LurkerPrime - I played up to the T-44 (Elite except T-54 research) in closed beta.

A-20: Meh, fast but doesn't turn well. Does nothing interesting

T-34: Great little tank with the 57mm ZiS-4. Good penetration for the tier, machinegunlike

T-34-85: Mean mean tank. Not well armoured, decent speed, decent turning, damn fine gun for its tier (100mm D10T)

T-43: Meh again. An inprovement over the T-34-85 but not significantly so. Feels pretty mediocre even when maxed out.

T-44: Made of bounconium. Any gun below about 160mm penetration is likely to bounce on the hull, turret is slightly weaker. 100mm D10T is top gun again and has a nice RoF now. Prone to ammo rack damage and ammo rack explosions.

T-54: Godlike. Reasonably high armour with crazy slopes and a fantastic combination of speed, acceleration and turning. Great end-game guns. Considered OP but mainly due to the crazy amount of bounces you get on it, in a similar way to the T-44 but much more profound.
 

LurkerPrime

Senior member
Aug 11, 2010
962
0
71
Elcs, thanks for the breakdown for that Russian line. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting me and my brothers time going down that line. I guess we just need to survive the A20.
 

beni9n

Member
Jan 4, 2011
37
0
0
T-43: Meh again. An inprovement over the T-34-85 but not significantly so. Feels pretty mediocre even when maxed out.

I found that I do the most damage with the 122 U-11 gun. 10-15% off of a IS-3 per shot isn't bad at all. I've almost taken down IS-3 and IS-4s with it by hiding behind cover. Best match was when I held off 4 heavies and 2 mediums and a TD for a win.
 

wheresmybacon

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2004
3,899
0
76
I installed and started playing yesterday. I'm loving this game although admittedly I've only played for a couple hours and still don't quite understand everything.

One thing that's not clear is what's the deal with crew training and recruiting and such? I'm off to Google that right now but if some of you guys want to chime in that'd be cool too.

Oh, and I've been using the American light tank. I've upgraded everything except the gun to the 2nd rank so far.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
I just wish you guys played on the EU server and at the times I do.

We'd have so much fun :p
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,348
3,426
126
It was slow and a extremely easy target. Everyone pretty much picked on it.

Hehe - I remember constantly driving the circle of death around them. I think I even took one down with a PzIII by driving around in circles until an HE round set him on fire.

Now they dominate low tier battles. Of course since I am just about to get mine they are probably going to get screwed by the rebalancing work in the new patch

I just wish you guys played on the EU server and at the times I do.

We'd have so much fun :p

Thats what you get for living across the pond!
 
Last edited:

LurkerPrime

Senior member
Aug 11, 2010
962
0
71
Hehe - I remember constantly driving the circle of death around them. I think I even took one down with a PzIII by driving around in circles until an HE round set him on fire.

Now they dominate low tier battles. Of course since I am just about to get mine they are probably going to get screwed by the rebalancing work in the new patch

Thats what you get for living across the pond!

My brother and I have been duoing our KVs and now that he finally got the good gun on his, its just been domination. Even in games when we are middle tier, 2 KVs with the 107 can bring the pain to most heavies. In the games when we are top tier, its just pure domination with my brother and I having around 3+ kills each. We easily win well over 50% of our matches when using that tank.

Now on the other hand playing our A-20s is almost like a chore. The gun with the highest penetration can't reliably penetrate equally tiered medium tanks, much less other light tanks. At least we have less than 10k xp to go to get the next tank. I will definately not miss this tank one bit.

Elcs, once your crew max out one of the extra skills (say camo) do they get to continue on to learn another?
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
Elcs, once your crew max out one of the extra skills (say camo) do they get to continue on to learn another?

Yes., My M26 Pershing crew have 100% skill, 100% Repair and around 55% Camo skill.

My Panther Crew have 100% skill and 95% Camo skill so I'm looking forward to getting the Repair skill on them soon, during the 164k grind towards my Panther II.

EU Servers should be back up in 2 hours hopefully. v.0.6.4.0 isn't as exciting as I'd hoped but it'll bring through some good changes, if the Russian server is anything to go by.

Bring on my RoF boost for my 8.8cm L/71!
 

LurkerPrime

Senior member
Aug 11, 2010
962
0
71
As part of the patch are they suppose to be increasing the RoF for most of the German guns? An increase to the RoF on my VK3601 gun would make that thing a killing machine for sniping. I might have to trade out the rammer for the one that decreases aiming time, as I'm barely finished max aiming by the time I'm done reloading as it is.

Is there an ETA on when the patch will hit the US servers?
 

1ceHacka

Senior member
Mar 3, 2006
565
1
0
While on my grind to the KT and T32, I decided to start down the Russian medium line. I'm at the T34 now, and wow...its crazy good (after upgrading it). Once I got all the upgrades, using the 57mm, I took out a T1 Heavy, KV, and 2 arty in my first match. The two heavies couldn't keep their aim on me when I was right on them...so I just tore them apart with the 57mm. I hear the 34-85 is even better, so I'm looking forward to that.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
Patch is live on the EU servers. Some neat UI touches but I've taken a performance hit :(

Panther's L/71 is definitely firing faster :)
 

Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
1
76
I'm almost out of the Russian T34 tank. Need another 1500xp to research the T34/85 and move on. I just wanted to add some thoughts about the T34 and its performance post release. The 57mm gun is extremely accurate at short, medium, and long ranges. However the problem is that its doesn't do much damage against KV1s and on up. I usually can only get about 3% damage done to the big boys. Sometimes I can get 5% if I can get on their flank and hit their weak spot. This is nothing new for the T34. Great gun but takes many shots to kill something. And that is a problem. The big boys know you have weak armor so they can and will one shot you. TDs will love to hit you too because their guns are always better than what the T34 has and they penetrate armor quite well.

The T34 excels as a sniper. Stay back and plink at a target. If you are spotted however get out of there. Many tanks have a better gun so trying to dogfight toe to toe is not the T34s strong suit. It can be used as a scout but its speed is not exactly ideal for it. A slow methodical type scouting run is probably a better idea. Slowly scout ahead and as soon as you encounter something big, pull back and repeat unless you are unseen and then you could hang tight in good cover.

For arty killing I have found its best to wait for the battle lines to thin out. Wait for some of the enemy tanks to be killed off. See a hole in their defense and then head into it quick as possible. The Leopard or Pz III is better for this but the T34 can pull it off too when people are not looking. Like many scout tanks your chances of dying are quite high but if you can get a arty before dying its worth it IMO.

The T34 is also good as a support tank. Buy a gun rammer and lay back and just start blasting away at things. A tank that is being hit with a lot of shells, even if its only bouncing or low damage will confuse and worry him at times. Its what I call distract and harass. This allows bigger team mates to do what they do with one or two shots. Kill. Another thing I like to do, and this seems to tick off the enemy, is when they hide behind a house/building. Start blasting away the walls with your gun. That 57mm gun can make short work of walls thus exposing the enemy tank to open fire from everyone. Bigger slower firing tanks don't like wasting their shells to do this but the T34 has plenty of low cost shells and can fire them off quickly so it works well I have found. Your team mates will love this.

Wolf Packs. Get into an organized group of fast medium tanks and you can have a ball against the enemy. Its like swarming the enemy. You are just all over them. Keep moving though because the T34 doesnt have the armor bigger mediums do. I'm usually in the back of the pack and then once the pack engages I like to get around the target quickly and do my distract and harass thing. I'll look for other enemies nearby to keep them from lending a hand to the unfortunate team mate being swarmed. And if an arty exposes itself after trying to help I'll peel off and go after him. Or a TD for that matter. TDs are not too dangerous if you can stay behind them. Just takes a while to bring their health down to zero.

Just remember, the T34 has a weak damaging gun and it has thin armor so once spotted get moving and don't stop until well clear of hostiles. Its one hell of a fun tank to play though.

Update: T34/85 researched. I'll buy one soon as I get the cash for it.
 
Last edited:

beni9n

Member
Jan 4, 2011
37
0
0
However the problem is that its doesn't do much damage against KV1s and on up. I usually can only get about 3% damage done to the big boys.

In my experience, I've done way more than that per shot, at least on the KV1 with a box turret. Hitting them on the side of the turret generally netted me upwards of 10 to 15%. Combined with the high ROF and accuracy of the 57mm, taking down a solo KV1 shouldn't be a probably as long as you can get under the turret traverse as the box turret turns extremely slowly.