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Hello! As many of you probably saw, we had a big server migration recently. Here's the low down of what happened: As I have disclosed in a couple of posts, the database server ran into an issue where it ran completely out of space. The biggest problem was that the database engine we were using kept all the data in a single file, and that file could never be shrunk even if you deleted older records. This caused that file to grow bigger and bigger and bigger over time, until it took up all of the considerable space on that server (1.5TB). When there was no more space left, the database server would crash and the website would go down. Fortunately, I managed to work with DigitalOcean to secure a great virtual server which meets all the needs of the database and the website in a single server. This is a 12-core, 48GB RAM server with 1TB of SSD space. The next step was transferring all the data over. This took the longest time. All in all, the database totalled around 5 billion records, and after removing the inflated space from the database engine, clocked in at around 500GB. It took 3 days to transfer and import all the records into the new server, which now runs the latest versions of PHP and MySQL for better performance, plus it lets me clean up old records that aren't used anymore in order to reduce disk space, meaning there will always be space available. Not only that, but as the website and the database are now on the same server, there is no more issue with the firewall tables getting reset, a problem which, despite a LOT of research, I couldn't actually fix. This was one of the biggest causes of the downtime in the past, as the database server started refusing connections from the website server at random. All in all, you can expect WoTLabs to be MUCH more stable from now on. Thanks everyone for all the support!

This'll probably be the last thread I make regarding improvement, the game is about as milked out in content it can be. I decided to do it now because EU tier 10 is 3 arties every game so I don't really feel like I'm missing out by writing this up instead of playing. I'll also start off by saying that any question you might have (to me specifically) about anything game related when it comes to improvement, preventing tilt, getting out of a rut and so on all the way to tank/map specific things (opening positions, counters, timings, you name it) are things I will do my best to answer in this thread, if it isn't then ask it here and I'll answer to the best of my ability. It's also very little concrete advice here as the meta game gets trickier the higher you go, if you have any concrete questions to give the bones some meat then please do so. I play this game with absolutely no regard for the outside economy as the account I'm using has 450million credits with almost as much in consumables and there is nothing to grind on the account, it's simply missing some premiums and rewards. I also have acceptable crews for almost everything, and if I don't I switch them out. I don't take outside factors into consideration in the game. I won't keep firing AP instead of APCR for some extra credits at the cost of performance. I give myself the best chance of having as good of a game possible before loading into battle, and if you care about performance then you should too. I am not in the normal position of a WoT player here, as these things really matter early on. A playstyle like this is sustained either through spending money on the game, or a heavy amount of skrims before hitting random battles to keep your economy positive throughout. This has very little to do with direct game performance but the economy in WoT is a foundation you should build solid as it'll help prevent the most basic problems for a tryhard mentality. Running out of credits has happened to many, many players before strongholds were a thing. Stronghold skirmishes also solves some of the issues for a good service record, if you want a good overall service record on a tank the crew needs to be good, all modules researched and the best ones mounted before loading into randoms altogether. Radios are debatable but to me it's a matter of principle, if it's better I will run it even if the cost/benefit of researching is incredibly low. Making purchases on sale, stocking up on rations and big kits and so on to the point where it will last you until the next opportunity to do the same is where you'll want to be at or further in your economy. If you can sustain buying all your consumables up front for the entire period when it's on sale and holding off on tanks if they'll be discounted in the foreseeable future, your monetary problems in the game go down by so much. It is a long road to set your economy up that way, as it requires a lot of grinding. You're going from being a customer of consumables and equipment to owning your own depot. If it didn't require a lot of work then everyone would be doing this in the real world too, but it really is the most sensible way of not running into monetary problems as it is one of the biggest issues regarding performance. Not in the performance today, but in your ability to perform in the future. I'm lucky enough to not have to play skirmishes or spend money on the game now. Premium time, clan boosts and personal reserves make for break even or better with discounted consumables in even the most credit hungry tanks (50B, SConq, E 50 etc) with acceptable performance on them. This is probably where the real thread starts but I felt like making note of how much your outside economy matters and how setting it up to supplement you in the future really makes a difference. I am at the end with no problems at all, all tanks bought, equipped and credits are in overflow to the point where I have my next 15k games already paid in advance. Not having problem with credits ever again is a really big thing. For most players seeking to improve however this'd translate to playing a lot of skirmishes, or buying it with real money. Regardless of what you choose, taking steps towards a more sound economic structure along the way is something I really recommend. Eliminating one of the core problems of having an outside economy (unsustainable costs) while still being able to reap the benefits (other people also have unsustainable costs, and as a result they will ultimately perform worse because of it). I think about my game in two ways. The battle I just loaded in to play on its own, and then all the battles I played and will play for the session. For the first, economy doesn't matter. For the second one it does. I'll go more into separating your gameplay into these two later, but it's important to remember through out. Time to start the topic for real: I'll be answering the most commonly asked questions I get regarding improvement, consistency and on keeping an emotional distance and a professional mindset towards the game. I cannot stress this enough: Having a worker-attitude towards the game fixes a lot of anger management issues the game presents you with, but in doing so you'll start sucking out the fun as well. I enjoy the game enough (although in periods) that I still get enjoyment out of playing with a pro-active mindset to improve. This is where a lot of people fall short and it's totally understandable. An improving mindset is a really boring one. You are playing with an improving purpose, and not an enjoyment purpose. I'd say that I enjoy myself the most in a game where I just play and zone out until the game is over. Back in reality, basically a small escape from the real world for a while until you're forced to do whatever the real world requires of you. Thinking of your game in a similar way takes a lot of fun out of it, as being emotionally invested is an obstacle to overcome to reliable results. Luckily I am a competitive person, so I get my enjoyment out of good results, and many people are similar. This means that you treat the game as you would an assignment from a school, employer or whatever. It already sounds a lot less fun. You are playing to improve. This means that every rambo-like feeling you get out of casually playing goes out the window just as fast as the aggressive emotions that many people already struggle with fighting off. You can't be emotionally invested either way, as your emotions will influence your decision making that you want to be as pure in logic and reason as they can. Because of this, you'll want to distance yourself emotionally from the game just like a bad habit in real life. The boss forcing you on overtime means you suck it up even though you're pissed. You are mad because things aren't going the way you wanted and there's no easy fix for that. A worker mindset of adapting to it to the best of your ability and getting better at accepting whatever comes your way to get over it as soon as possible is the best way of dealing with it. This means that everything in the game that is out of your control is something not worth investing into emotionally. This includes everything from being XVM-yoloed, arty-whored or RNG putting a consecutive 4 shots at the edge of reticle. What exactly does an emotional investment get you here? Only fuel to a fire you already want to put out, your emotions are counterproductive right from the get go. This means that you have to let things like these go. They do nothing for improving your current game and only raise the tension for the games to come. Bad experiences from your current game should be left there, with anything positive to take from it should be at least considered. When sporting a working mindset you'll simply structure your gameplay in a way that you keep refining and re-evaluating your decisions and replace your bad tendencies with good ones. This is how I do it: Step 1. This is almost always initial deployment. Make up and decide where to go on the map on the spot after you've read the line-up and estimated the general deployment. Step 1 should at least have some benefits of going there, if it doesn't your step 1 is not good enough. This is everything from favourable terrain, free crossing shots, vision, tank advantage on flank and so on. How much damage is there going to be at step 1? - Try to answer. If you were right, focus on step 2. If you were wrong, think about why. Sometimes this is not taking slow mobility into account, or trading poorly too early etc. Personal misplay is an answer you are going to have to admit a lot of times here, Step 2. What to do after the initial deployment period and the damage it gave. Step 2 and onward is more difficult to give advice on, as they differ much more from step 1 which will remain fairly similar until you decide on a different opening position. Something to consider here however is how aggressive it should be. I base my aggression on urgency. If there is plenty of damage to farm, there's no need to throw your own HP into the mix until you will start losing out on better situations without it or a better position. I think about step 2 as I'm doing step 1. Unlike step 1 it will vary a lot more depending on what is happening on the map, information is scarce early on so step 2 changes often. Having step 2 in place however makes for a pretermined decision to fall back on without any time loss. If step 1 yielded much then step 2 doesn't have to be as aggressive as I'm ahead of pace in my target damage zone. If step 1 yielded little then it'll have to be more aggressive as I now have to compensate. Overcompensating is easy however, and when doing so you need to recognise it as just that, and not teammates being bad. You don't get anything to learn out of your mistake if you blame it on somebody else. Step 3. Step 2 becomes the new step 1, and you think about step 3 the same way you did step 2. The only real difference is that more time has passed in game between them, so the urgency gets higher to hit your target game the longer you go. As you go further into the game the gameplay either ramps up in tempo or massively slows down depending on how the engagements went. A close game slows down, and recognising it as so will let you put the brakes and conserve your HP for enemy mistakes until the game is decided. A steamroll only ramps up in speed, so if you recognise it your need of staying ahead gets higher and higher with time so you adjust your aggression accordingly. Step 4. Use your remaining HP to get as good of a game as possible. I wait with step 4 until the game is noticeably won or lost. Good micromanagement skills net you better games during steamrolls against you with an extra shot or two. When the game is decided, you don't spare any expenses. Survival rate is arbitrary, and I can't recall the last time I saw a good player wish he had a 10% higher survival rate instead of a full shot extra in DPG. If you have a lot of HP to use at this stage then using it to outdamage your teammates is a good idea. When the game is decided, your own HP isn't more valuable than the damage anymore. If the game is won/lost in a seemingly decisive manner, the damage is all that you can get out of it. So squeeze the last drops of it instead of throwing a Hail Mary for the win that virtually never happens anyway. From personal experience I've found that the risky play to win the game is less beneficial to actually winning than playing for the damage. The amount of times you're able to farm your way back into an even HP pool safely are more frequent than winning a lost game off of a Rambo mission. A spot on the map generally takes 10-15 games for me to gauge if they're worthwhile or not, so this is quite a bit more of testing the waters than what people assume. The meta changes, so you can't have a fixed handbook for what to do on every map even if the initial deployment is similar. With it you find many solutions to the situation you're in right now, one you will be in later and eventually you come up with a solid enough answer to everything on that area of the map that you'll start consistently having good games throughout. The more the better honestly, but I generally play tanks with little to no armour, so my focus has is around having a good damage dealt/taken ratio. For people more seasoned in slower and armoured tanks this focus would be more on micromanagement and perfecting your initial deployment. Lower mobility means less ability to rotate, so getting better at prediction and foresight hold more value the lower mobility you have. I talked a bit about emotion and how it's an obstacle for improvement, but there's still more to it to add. Shifting blame. I do this myself and almost every streamer I watch do it too, because accepting blame is difficult. You won't get anything out of a mistake if you blame it on anyone but yourself. It really is a lot of excusing misplay with platitudes in WoT. Arty, XVM and so on screwed your game over for taking an aggressive position. A lot of people write these things off as arty just being arty when in reality they were overreaching. I had this problem a lot when translating from the 3k to 4k barrier. You need to take a breath, get some perspective and look at the situation again. Did you really die because of some BS or were you actually misplaying? If it's BS you can let go of it as those things really are out of your control sometimes, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you let a mistake to learn from go by unnoticed. It's important to hold yourself accountable for your gameplay and if you really do want to improve this is a barrier that is a must to get over or it'll hinder all learning past this point in a fairly cerebral game that requires an understanding of the game that is too complex to put into proper words. There's a fairly good reason most people plateau at some point, and while that plateau is lower in general I can say with certainty that close to every (already) unicum hit a wall because of this. You are fairly confident in considering yourself decent at the game at this point, and your ego is in your way of improvement more than anything else. Tilting's also very common and I envy the very few who seem to be totally unaffected by it. A good mindset really helps here, as you'll see some of the few people who can live off of WoT content that have to keep playing for their income learnt this too. Most people do have the ability to quit whenever their anger gets the better of them, but when you are literally doing your job while playing you don't. Tilting ruins the rest of the session unless you untilt which is easier said than done, so you do whatever you can from preventing tilt from happening from the start. As I said earlier you really have to give up your emotional investment in both performance and outcome. It just doesn't yield anything positive from a performance perspective. Finding a way to un-tilt is good though if you insist on keeping the session going. For me the session ends whenever I notice myself being emotionally invested, both good and bad. If I load up, have a killer game and felt like I really enjoyed that game then that game is it. I had fun, although for a very short time, and then this session won't be a pro-active one forward if I decide to keep on playing anyway. It's important to separate the two, especially when they're so closely linked together for elitists (performance and fun go very hand in hand for me). If you want to learn then emotions can't get the better of you. If you are having fun while playing that's great, but you're also zoning in and going autopilot which is the biggest single detriment to improvement there is. Unlearning auto-pilot is something that would do every online PC gamer a favour in their gameplay by forcing them to re-learn actively (and onward) instead of only learning periodically and then sticking to what they know. You can obviously enjoy yourself while being a productive learner, but it's much, much harder than it looks. If you want to become better at the game you have to learn, and "having to do" something generally makes it a lot less fun even if it's with your goal in mind. My ways of keeping my head straight when I had a bad game, am dead and waiting for my tank that are pretty simple and easy to do. They do the trick for me most of the time, and when they don't I simply quit the session and come back at it with fresh eyes later. I generally only play 1 tank at a time, so this works well for me since I have a game to wait out before my next one. I generally try and watch all my games until they are completed because there's more to take from them after dying. Timestamping - Track rotations and how long they take for other players. If you know how long a rotation takes you can estimate how much will happen in that timespan and how a situation will look when you get there. Just look at the timer at the start and then again when you have what you're looking for. If a rotation is 40-ish seconds, it is for example a perfect rotation for a BC25t after a clip. It matters more on autoloaders since you have a longer string of dead time without being able to deal damage. Knowing this in autoloaders make for much better predictability and an increase in effeciency. If your BC just went on reload and you see a rotation to make that could be good, you have the information on hand that you will be reloaded when getting there. You can deal damage right away. The time spent reloading was spent being useful because you rotated in a situation where you wouldn't deal any damage anyway. Track trading patterns too if you can. Some tanks are tricky to trade against because of their reload timers are off-sync compared to yours. Russian mediums for example can shoot 3 times at a Type 5 on reload before he's reloaded again. If you know this you know how hard you can pressure without risking taking HP back. If you are against a 5A in a russian medium however the reload is off-sync, as you'll be halfway through your third shell when he reloads his second. If he fires and pulls back there, you end up losing the trade at 980 to 640. This means that you don't really have a way to use your RoF as a means of engaging that 5A when there's cover involved. Find a different way or take the bad trade if there's no other way. This is where playing a single tank at a time starts benefitting as these things are much easier to keep track of comparing against the 1 gun (yours) than all tanks. You can do this for pretty much everything, but when playing tanks with higher alpha it matters as single shot trades get more beneficial. A JGPZ wins almost every 1 for 1 trade, so for it to take them makes more sense than a russian medium that will get outtraded. Backseat gaming. I do this to both streamers I watch and to team mates when I'm post mortem. It probably goes without saying that I don't actually tell them what I think, I just try to backseat them in my head to keep my thought process going to learn. You start noticing how big the gap is and how much skill expression there is in the game by doing this, as methodical decision making is so much easier to spot than someone auto-piloting. It's tricky because things don't play out like you want them to to check if you were right, but you can easily mess with ideas and try to emulate a reasonable outcome out of it. I've gotten everything from good openings (mostly from streamers though), to good counters and responses from random pubbies this way that I didn't think of. They probably didn't think of it either, but I saw it work out so I can make use of it. The biggest use of it is probably that I've identified a lot of bad choices and having been attentive during it you will end up avoiding a lot of mistakes you haven't made yet. WoT is a PvP game but I found that treating it as PvE makes more sense. One player and 14 bots against 15 bots make for a more sensible way of looking at performance which shifts the focus from a team effort to win, to a player effort in a numbers game. You are alone and your teammates are no good, now do your best anyway. Consistency needs a solid foundation to build on. and for me this is the general thought process of how I did it. It takes long, but eventually it adds up to being important. The step from 4k to 5k and above was the biggest leap in gameplay for me, and easily the most difficult to approach. The difference between it and the previous level of gameplay was mostly consistency. I'd say that an easy way to put it was that now my median and average game are similar. This wasn't true before, were my median game was almost always higher than my average because of a game here and there going pretty bad. What working through this did for me was raising my average game up to my median, simply having less bad games while the ratio of acceptable to great games stayed the same. This change isn't much more than 500 damage in tier 10s, but it still matters. For me it was the last bit to focus on in the game, and having experience with it - the improvement never ends. I see so many mistakes in my own play in hindsight that I'll keep working on to remove. To me the game isn't at its most competitive state right now, as a constant 3 arties make for much worse experiences in tier 10 where I generally reside so right now I can't say that my improvement has yielded very much recently, but it did lay the ground work for a better time to come. Consistency for example is the only reason I was able to 3mark the ISU-130. The tank on the EU server has 20 or so owners, with none of them playing actively. In attempting the mark over a year ago I just couldn't break past the 90 mark reliably. The damage requirement of a 3500 combined average was simply too high for me to keep with tank tank. I was the only one playing it until skill4ltu got his as well, so the EMA of the ISU-130 mark was set almost entirely by myself until then. We both wound up just waiting it out. The issue I had was with consistency yet again, as I was struggling with finding a way to get reliable damage out when your penetration is worst in tier. (It's a high DPM/alpha TD with okay gun handling and mobility, while having a non-existent gun arc and very low penetration for those of you who don't know of it). I eventually wound up getting it done, but after taking a very long break from it. Just like all of the challenging gun marks this game has to offer with their reward tanks the consistency is what breaks most players. Having to pressure the game for so much damage so reliably makes single mistakes ruin several hours of work, so you can't make mistakes at this level. A lot of players have been bashing their wall against the Chieftain mark lately, and it's because of the same thing. Consistency matters so much when you are basically forced to either have a good game or re-play your last 10 games getting back to where you were. That's what it did for me in the ISU at least, being more aware, having learned more and approaching the game from a PoV based in logic and reason rather than using your gut and autopilot made the push. There's plenty of small pointers here and there to improve your game, but IMO this is the big one that sets you up well. If you have the work ethic to keep learning, you'll become more consistent. Eventually more consistent starts meaning better.

I've been thinking about this, and theres no one real reason that I've been playing this game a lot less. Its a whole pile of different reasons that have added up to make the game as a whole much less fun, and I thought Id share my own thoughts and opinions on what these problems are. Spoiler alert: Artillery isn't one of them, yeah its annoying but Its been in the game since launch and I still found the game plenty fun despite it over the last 8 years I've been playing. NOTE: EVERYTHING HERE IS MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION, YOUR OPINION MAY DIFFER WARNING: MEGA GIANT WALL OF TEXT Vehicle Balance: Im going to start off with The biggest elephant in the room, and my biggest reason. Overall vehicle balance. IMO, balance between vehicles was at its peak around late 2015-mid 2016ish. Its been downhill from there really. Yeah back then the overbuffed E5 existed and the WTE100 was cancer. but those were two outliers, these days the whole game is out of whack. Each new patch consists of new tanks that seem more stupid than the last. (this section may not be in correct chronological order) The Type 5 Heavy with the derp gun was, in my eyes, one of the beginnings of this. Along with the mass removal of weakspots from everything. They Nerfed the E5 and then released the Super conq which was, and still is, as good or better in every single way to the overbuffed E5. the overbuffed E5 would still be considered pretty bad in the current meta. Now then, what could possibly be better than the Super conq? I know! A tank that is literally better than the super conq at everything, except It also does all the things the E5 could of possibly hoped to do better than the super conq even better than that! (like mobility) Enter the Chieftain. It being a CW reward is both good and bad. good because every mouthbreather can't get one and thus theres less of them. bad because it instantly became the meta in CW, pushed the SC out, and you have to have one in a top clan now. They then released the 268v4, which single handedly completely destroyed my desire to play this game. It has never returned to the levels it was before the V4 was released. Im sure everyone remembers, but clan wars became "whoever has the most 268v4s wins, regardless of strategy" it was the most cancer period I've ever seen in this game in my life. And then they nerfed it. barely. they gave it a slap on the wrist. Thankfully it stopped that retarded clan wars meta, however the tank is still grossly Overpowered and needs far more extensive nerfs. Fuck that thing. Meanwhile, I have a special hate for the entire swedish line. the entire fucking line is the most cancer, horrible to play against, gimmick tree they have ever released, and honestly IMO the game would be better if they just flat out deleted the entire nations tree. The Kranvagn is the least cancer, but is still more cancer than most other autoloaders. the STRVs are all absolute cancer tanks that can't do anything except camp and punish people for daring to be aggressive and try and push with their fuck you DPM, fuck you camo, and fuck anyone with a sub 120mm gun armour. They are still my most despised tank in the game. And now the new medium line is out. all of which are completely fucking flat, you can't hit them to save your live, and regardless of how objectively good or bad they are to play, they are just, so far in my experience, completely unfun to play AGAINST. The Wheeled vehicles. I knew, before any stats had even been released, just from WGs first ever description of what they were planned to be, they would be cancer. And they are. they flat out destroy the game IMO. they're disgusting. they're double disgusting for me, who has to try and hit the fucking things with 200 ping. destroying a wheel doesn't even slow them down. They may be fun to play but they're absolutely destructive for gameplay. They never should of been added. They're too fast, they get their own Autoaim+ (a banned mod lol) I've seen them regularly pull off shots doing 70kph that even in a 140/62A would never been possible, from ranges you'd almost never even bother taking on the move shots at. They're a pain in the ass. Lets add to this other honourable mentions, like the 430U/430 which both are stupid with heavy tank armour and medium mobility. The 257 which is unpennable from the side for no reason, the IS-3A and Progettos which are just annoying as fuck to fight. Its a running thing now, regardless of how objectively good or bad the tank is, none of these things are fun to actually play against. Premiums! Now, WG seems to have one or two stances on prems these days. Either its an extremely boring, meh tank, or its fucking OP as shit. its disgusting. the T26E5 was the start, the defender was the turning point. and nowadays, If you see a prem or any tank that has had supertest stats released, theres a 95% chance that tank is coming to live, with little to no changes. Its like the super testers aren't even testing these things. This doesn't even apply only to prems, its applying to everything, which is made even more ridiculous because any person can take one look at the prelimentary stats and immediately deduce that said tank will be OP as shit without even playing it. Which leads me on to my next topic... Rebalancing. Yeah, Im extra salty about this part for reasons Im sure you guess. WG can't just slightly buff or nerf a tank (but mainly buff it seems) they have to try and completely redesign how the tank plays. pointlessly. yes, you know what im talking about. the STB-1. Its already been said, but all it needed was some small buffs to make it more comfortable to play. a turret buff, a gun handling buff. boom done. but instead they had to completely redesign it. Right now, regardless of whether it is actually objectively more capable as a tank, what it is now is just more complicated, and less fun to play. This alone has killed off a large portion of my remaining desire to play the game, the STB was always my fun tank. Playing it for me was always just an enjoyable experience. (which is why I didnt bother 3 marking it for ages because 3 marking is for me, extremely frustrating and completely unfun, in a tank that I normally used to destress) The Currrent STB doesn't do that now. its slower and more complicated. Way less fun. Anyway, back to rebalancing. the STB isn't the only tank they've done this to. They keep revisiting older tanks that just need a small amount of love (although in reality is all the new OP tanks need nerfs) and instead try to needlessly redesign how they play completely. Which makes the game less fun because everything keeps getting changed. And then they bring out new tanks like that ST-II on supertest. that thing is gonna be disgusting, at least it will be to play against. I hope to god it doesn't come out remotely close to that, if at all, but with WGs track record over the last few years Im not optimistic. Maps Maps have gotten less fun as well. Each time they redesign a map It feels worse IMO. for example pilsen, which needed some work but wasn't bad, got redesigned and its current design is absolutely terrible. the entire field is a complete shitshow and is utterly pathetic, while it used to be a pretty fun place to fight. so more than a third of the map is now worthless ground. the middle area was already worthless and still is, so thats another third of the map useless ground. and now we have the 1-2 line in the factories, which isn't useless but they've made it way harder to push or be effective in it. So now its not a remotely fun place to fight. the entire map is a shit show. its one of my banned maps (along with paris) Along with this, Highway, a map I always liked, is now worse. the redesign in the NW corner with the field is worse and now massively favours the north, with souths defensive positions all being way more exposed to fire and getting lit than before, with norths not being changed. the buildings around the north aren't exactly fun places to fight, terrain based fighting is more interesting than building peekaboom wars. New Maps all suck as well. Studzikani needs no introduction, Minsk is like 80% unusable ground with only a few areas being pushable. Neither of them are very fun to play. Ghost town worked in CW, but doesn't work in pubs. Its not a very fun map to play in pubs IMO, mainly because of the coordination required to win it that just doesn't exist in pubs. along with this, the 1.0 redesign of a lot of maps just made them worse or less fun to play on. TD camping bushes or ridges added where they can easily punish anyone trying to actually push or do anything other than camp. Routes that used to be possible are now impossible. (things like dropping off hills and such which now just kill you) - I always hated boosts that allowed you into areas meant to be inaccessible. but going from one accessible area to another is okay IMO, It removed a lot of escape routes and made risk taking far more punishing. thus no one wants to take risks anymore. Clan Wars I can give you the tank comp for 90% of the maps we play in the next campaign right here: 260, Chieftain, 907, EBR, CGC. Sprinkle on the occasional STRV or T100, maybe an IS-7 or a 268v4. Theres little variation, or creativity any more. I mean of course there isn't those tanks are all the best and using any other will just cause you to lose. But its not very fun. This isn't the fault of the clans, its the fault of WG for making tanks so much better than the others. I can't even use my 140 in CW unless there are literally no more unlocked 907s because the 907 is just that much better than the 140 (needlessly I might add) WG was talking about changing CW. This is, IMO, the biggest change it needs. make creative tank comps great again. Even the batchat has been out metad, a tank at one point I never thought would be outmetad. Personal There is the next problem, because I don't play as often any more, I get rusty. so Im playing worse, which frustrates me, which makes me want to play less because Im getting annoyed that I can't play at a level I know I am capable of. Which makes me play even worse on tilt. I need to get over this just by playing more and un rusting but its a vicious cycle, and all the other aforementioned issues are also making me frustrated. so bleh. Thats about it for now. All of these things are, individually, fairly small. but together they just create a pile of compounding issues that generally make the game much less fun than it was. And the problem is, Even if WG started fixing them all right now. and fixed them how (for simplicity sake) I personally would like to see them fixed, It would take them years to get the game back into a good position. New Patches these days don't bring me excitement. they bring me dread as to what they've fucked up this time. So yeah. wall of text. This took me like 45 mins to write, I have an exam tomorrow, and I should be studying. go me.

This review is originally done for official forums and Reddit. While Wotlabs community is sadly dying, I am still loyal to this place, especially considering that my reviews and their formats originated from here . So I'll bring you the review here, as well. I copy pasted it from forums with some minor changes, so if the format seems crappy, let me know. Anyway, you kurwas, enjoy! The Polish line review Siema PL!!!!11 Since the Polish high-tiers were announced, my interest in this line immediately grew up. I adore high-alpha guns and slow, heavily armored tanks, especially if they look stupid and goofy. And that's exactly what the 60TP Lewandowskiego is. I already promised myself twice already that I would never make a "grind-marathon" like I did with Swedish HTs and French 2nd HT line back in 2016 and 2017, respectively. But I couldn't resist it. I had to get the tank ASAP and since I haven't done stuff regarding the "improved and expanded" Japanese tech tree in a long while either (although, slowly but surely I have been working on Japanese MT rework + 2nd MT line proposal, which is actually technically finished when it comes to all material, but there are things I want to improve and change on it. Don't expect it anytime soon in near future). Then test server came, I played more games in it than any other test server ever (this includes even the 9.10 test server that brought Japanese heavies). When patchday came, I grinded like a crazy. Literally non-stop. Ugh. I got the 60TP in Sunday - only 4 days after the patchday. I grinded all way from tier 5, although I did use free XP on modules and at one tank. And...here we are. Since there is going to a gigantic wall of text, a TL;DR is a reasonable option and I recommend to check that if you are not willing to sit and spend some time to read the review. Anyway, let's begin. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like I already said, I used quite a bit of a free XP on the grind. I skipped tier 1-4 entirely, skipped most of the stock grinds (only modules I grinded were the tracks of the tier 8 and turret + tracks of the tier 9) and skipped half of the tier 6 with free XP. However, other than that, I grinded the tanks without using free XP. I never played the tier 1-4, as lowtiers are well...lowtiers, I don't personally give a damn about them and generally haven't even featured them on some of my reviews, but I'll just say short impressions what I think about them when looking at their stats: 4TP: It's a tier 1. I can't even really rate it since tier 1 is such a mess and anyone has free XP to skip to tier 2, but it seems okay-ish for tier 1 so I guess it's something. 7TP: It has the biggest historical value of the line, but that's about it. Extremely generic overall, has pretty good alpha but pretty crap armor so autocannons will eat you from alive and it's not particularly mobile. It offers really nothing when it comes to gameplay so it's a pass. Weak armor without exceptionally good gun kinda hurts, though. 5/10 10TP: Much like the Chi-Ha. Has quite a bit better mobility but way worse gun (other than gun handling that is slightly better), worse view range and worse gun depression (although -12 is still great). It's playable, but it's mediocre at best. 5.5/10 14TP: Has two gun options - 40mm autocannon and 47mm single-shot. Don't use the 47mm, it's absolutely terrible - it's only a marginal improvement from the tier 3, which makes it just awful at tier 4. 40mm Pompom has good clip potential, but mediocre pen and awful aim time, especially compared to the Covenanter. In fact, this tank as whole is just a terrible Covenanter. Also the stock gun is absolutely abysmal - try to save free XP to skip past it. It has less than 40mm pen, at tier 4. Yes. 3.5/10 Basically lowtiers are bad and/or uninteresting so you can just skip through them if you want. You won't miss anything. 25TP KSUST II (tier V) First MT of the line, the 25TP is where the transition to later vehicles can be seen. It has good alpha damage, good gun depression angles and alright turret armor. It still has LT-like features such as high top speed, which gives it rather unusual combination of good top speed, high alpha damage and good penetration. Protection + Turret armor is surprisingly thick for it's tier. - Generally has no armor, hull is HE pennable - Awful HP pool like all non-premium tier 5 MTs. - Very large silhouette, easy to hit - Terrible camo for it's tier/class. Has around 10% base camo - which actually isn't that much better than Overall protection: 3/10 (very bad) Just like majority of tier 5 MTs, the survivability of the 25TP is awful. One mistake and you can die in seconds because of the low HP pool and lack of armor. Not just that, the 25TP is the longest of all tier 5 MTs and one of the tallest as well. Camo is also surprisingly bad for it's class. And while the 25TP has slightly above average armor for a tier 5 MT, it isn't enough to protect it from derps and arty (especially LeFH) pens, so it's easy to oneshot. Firepower + Above average alpha damage at 135. + Reasonably good penetration at 135 / 175. + Good shell velocity for a tier 5. + Great gun depression (-10) - Absolutely terrible aim time. - Bloom values are horrendous even for a tier 5. - Horrible gun elevation. Overall firepower: 6.5/10 (average) On paper, the gun seems really good. Good pen + good alpha, and the DPM isn't even that bad. It also gets good shell velocity and good premium rounds. Unfortunately, the gun handling is a gigantic let down. The aim time is abysmal, and the bloom is some of the worst in the entire tier. Since the 25TP is also very quick, the effective bloom is even worse. Combined with large size, the 25TP heavily struggles at close ranges because it takes far too long to aim your shot. By the time the you are fully aimed...you are most likely already dead. Because of this, the 25TP is forced to snipe most of the time. Fortunately, the gun isn't too awful at long ranges. However, while not bad, the base accuracy can be somewhat disappointing at long ranges. At least it has -10 gun depression, which nice. However, the gun elevation is +10, which is pretty awful. The gun is overall decent but a rather big disappointment because it seems very good on paper. Mobility + Very good top speed and reverse speed. + Great power to weight ratio, can hit +50 km/h on flat ground. + Excellent turret traverse speed. - Somewhat mediocre terrain resistances, which means that it will take quite long until the 25TP reaches the max speed. Overall mobility: 8/10 (very good) Mobility is great, among the best in class and very much like the T-34. It can reach positions very quickly, and relocate very effectively. It does have rather lacking terrain resistances so it still somewhat struggles to reach the top speed, though. However, going 50 km/h rather consistently makes it still more mobile than most mediums in the tier. Other - ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS STOCK GRIND - you need to gather 10k XP on almost unplayable configuration. Stock gun is the 40 mm autocannon with 52 mm AP penetration and 84 mm APCR penetration. Your premium round is worse than standard round of the Matilda IV and you see tier 7s. And you have to get tracks, turret AND then the 7.5cm to make the tank even remotely playable. And you need to grind almost 10k XP in that configuration. Nice meme. Equipment, crewskills, etc. Rammer + Vents + Binocs Rammer and Vents to boost gun stats, Binocs because the view range is lacking just like most other tier 5s, so running Optics is generally not optimal. 25TP is rather campy, anyway, so Binocs work just fine. GLD is a valid option over Vents, but generally the all around minor buff is more useful than aim time buff. You should get Sixth Sense ASAP, as the 25TP has poor HP pool so you WANT to know when you get spotted. Camo is also useful considering you are often sniping and it makes the crappy camo a bit less unbearable. Smooth Drive, Snapshot and BiA can make the godawful gun handling slightly less unbearable. How to play it I initially thought that you can play this tank aggressively - rush into ridgeline, poke and slap people for 135. However, I was wrong. The 25TP has simply too awful gun handling to this, and the durability is not good enough - you die far too easily because of the HP pool and huge size. Not to mention that while the alpha is good, you still have to shoot enemies multiple times. Because of this, you have to expose yourself way too often, so you can get killed very quickly. I figured out that playing this tank like a turreted TD is more effective, but accuracy and camo can be a letdown in this role. Still, I found that to be the most effective playstyle. The good speed allows you to take a position quickly. Abusing bushes is recommended, but keep in mind that that the 25TP is not a T67 so you are much easier to spot. Keeping the engagement as long as possible can somewhat fix this, but the accuracy can be somewhat wonky at these kinds of ranges. Fortunately, your penetration and shell velocity are quite good. If you see that there is nothing to shoot from your position, use your great mobility to relocate into another one. Of course, you still have a turret so a proper MT playstyle is "possible", it's just that it doesn't work as well and you need to be extremely careful with this kind of play. Generally at mid-end game you want to move up anyway to get some damage off. 25TP has very good mobility so this is certainly possible. Overall opinion about the vehicle Meh. I had rather high expectations for this tank, because it's really quick + has -10 gun depression + has good gun on paper. I didn't factor the huge size and godawful gun handling, so the tank was quite disappointing to me. It's just a tier 5 so it's not that big of a deal, but still. It's not terrible like some people say, it just can't fight up close at all. It's a sniper, or lets say, a crappy T67 with slightly better durability and alpha damage. It's not very exciting to play. Also WG, please fix the godawful stock grind. How the hell are you supposed to get almost 10 000 XP with a gun that has 52 mm penetration???? I understand that stock tanks have to be bad, but there's a big difference between "bad" and "nearly unplayable". At least the tank looks really hilarious. Overall rating: 6/10 (average) 40TP Habicha (tier VI) This tank is the perfect definition of "heavium". It takes attributes of medium tanks and heavy tanks and combines them together. ...the worst attributes, that is. I present you: the 40TP, or how I like to call it, the tier 6 AMX 65t. Protection + Turret armor is decently thick, can bounce lowtiers. + Frontal armor is good enough not to get HE penned and may bounce some lower tiers. - Frontal armor is flat; hull armor is quite useless against some tier 5s, and basically every tier 6-8. - Poor side armor, gets HE penned by derps, LeFHs and some higher tier large-caliber arties (so oneshots are possible). - Turret is flat, cupola is pennable by KV-2 HE and the turret roof is overmatchable by almost everything the 40TP faces so the turret armor is in reality very unreliable. - HP pool is fairly mediocre (750) - Large for a medium tank, easy to hit. - Mediocre camo. Overall protection: 4/10 (bad) Tier 6 MT's are not known for their protection. Most of them are flat out paper, and at best they have "troll" armor like the P43 bis. 40TP's protection isn't too bad for a tier 6 MT, but it's still overall bad. It won't bounce much at all, unless you're "somehow" facing tier 4s (I never saw them, unsurprisingly) and some tier 5s. HP pool is quite mediocre, especially considering most other big tier 6 MTs like Chi-To and VK 30.02 M packs +800 HP. Oh and poor camo doesn't make things any better. Protection is bad, but it's a medium, so it's all fine, right? Firepower + 240 alpha is very good for it's tier, best in class among with P43 bis. Can outtrade some higher tier MTs and LTs. + Reasonably decent penetration, which coupled with alpha does give a good punch for the 40TP. + -8 depression is solid; gun depression at least won't be problematic. - Poor accuracy. - Awful aim time and poor gun handling. This coupled with accuracy makes the gun atrocious at range. - Poor DPM and rate of fire. Makes the gun overall very unreliable. Overall firepower: 5.5/10 (below average) Alpha is always nice, you can outtrade most mediums and even some heavies at tier 6. 40TP's pen is solid, unlike on the P43 is (another tier 6 MT with 240 alpha), and also unlike the Italian, it's shell velocity isn't awful, although it's still not spectacular. However, the gun stats are a letdown - it's very wonky and can be frustrating, especially at long ranges, so it's best at close-range combat. DPM is significantly lower than on the P43 bis, which also hurts because the HP pool is poor, so you can get killed by tanks with higher DPM quite easily once they rush you. Alpha is king, but the gun stats are among worst in class so even with great alpha the gun is mediocre at best. Mobility + Top speed isn't too bad... I guess? - 11 hp/ton. Yes. 11 GOD DAMN HORSEPOWER PER TON. O-Ni, a giant fatass super-heavy with literally the worst camo in the game, has better hp/ton. Just let that sink in. - Top speed is a lie, realistic top speed is about 30 km/h. - Turns like a boat. Medium tank, you said? - Awful acceleration. Basically feels like a super-heavy when it comes to acceleration. Overall mobility: 3/10 (very bad) And this is what kills it all. The mobility. We are talking about a medium tank that randomly for no reason has HP/ton that is only acceptable on a very tanky heavy tank or TD. This mobility makes the other traits of the tank significantly worse in reality - the true survivability is very poor because it has no mobility to run away and it takes forever for the 40TP to relocate. It dies quickly when caught in the open as the armor, while good for a medium, is still overall poor. The poor HP pool compounds it's survivability even further. Similarly, the 40TP has the kind of gun that works well at close range and it would work well on either something that has good armor or something that is fast. Since 40TP isn't well armored, you would expect it to move well, but it doesn't. The gun just doesn't work on a platform like this most of the time, so the effective firepower is also awful. Other - Awful stock grind, EVEN slower when stock and it doesnt even get alpha when stock. - Poor view range. If it wasn't awful enough, it also has laughably bad stock grind. Since it gets the gun from the tier 5, it's arguably a downgrade. The 25TP would be a better tier 6 than the stock 40TP. Oh and view range is bad, too, because why the heck not. Equipment, crewskills, etc. Rammer + Vents + Optics or Rammer + Vents + GLD Rammer is mandatory for obvious reasons. Vents is helpful to boost the shitty accuracy and handling a little bit. Optics is preferred if your crew is very good and/or if you use food as well, since the 40TP, despite the poor view range, can hit close to max view range if you got everything. GLD is also viable since aim time is 2.7 seconds, which is just awful. Sixth Sense is mandatory like with almost every tank. Both repairs and camo are useful crew skills for the 40TP. Being able to repair tracks helps with survivability, but having camo can also be beneficial since sometimes you have no other options than snipe, and it's helpful just to make the shitty camo a little bit worse. Having view range skills and BiA is recommended if one wants to run optics and have reasonably decent view range. Because the top speed is okay and power to weight ratio is laughably low, running 100/105-octane gasoline is legitimately a valid option over fire extinguisher to make the mobility a bit more bearable. It's still by far the slowest MT with that...but at least you have higher hp/ton than the tallest tank in the entire game. How to play it If you have enough free XP, you use it to skip this piece of trash. If not, then try to play this thing like...a slow heavy with wonky gun, less HP and no meaningful armor. You can't play this thing like a medium or even like a heavium, just forget about that. Follow heavies, let them take hits, and poke only when they are reloading or are not focusing on you. This tank works best when you can use corners and just peek, shoot and retreat. Focus on tanks with poor armor, so you have to aim less and therefor expose yourself less. 40TP can just melt really quickly if it doesn't have cover, so avoid going into open areas. Using ridges can work, but arties can eat you for breakfast since you combine MT HP pool and HT mobility, and it doesn't help that the most dangerous arties in the game tier-for-tier sit at tier 5-6. If you get a match where you happen to meet tier 4s, you "can" play it like a heavy, but other than that...no. Support role it is. Oh and avoid KV-2/O-I at all cost. They can overmatch your side with AP, and the front is flat and can be penned by AP as well. Not just that, entire side is easily pennable by HE and the KV-2 can also pen your cupola as well with HE. Despite the fact the tank is terrible, it's rather simple to play, at least. Overall opinion about the vehicle Giant piece of fucking shit. It's a tier 6 AMX 65t. Poor hull armor, questionable turret armor, large size, gun that seems okay on paper but in reality flops hard because of the faults of the tank, and mobility that should be medium tank levels is barely better than super-heavies for no reason. Oh, fun fact (and small rant) - this tank used to have way better hp/ton on supertest at whopping 17 hp/ton. Hell, even the original supertest post had description "The tank is relatively fast as it can quickly accelerate to its maximum speed of 50 km/h and sustain it thanks to a power-to-weight ratio of 17.4 hp per ton." Other stats were more or less exactly the same as they are now. Why the heck it suddenly has godawful HP/ton for no good reason? This tank is literally balanced around the old HP/ton - if it had it, it would be a perfectly balanced vehicle. But it isn't. There's no way it would have been OP, not even close. Why? Simple - this tank is an intentional free XP pit. It's not an accident, it's BLATANTLY OBVIOUS. WG nerfed the HP/ton to make the tank sh*t and unfun to play, so people are more likely to free XP it. Not just that, it has an awful stock grind (also just look at the tier 5 stock grind and tier 4 stock gun). And as an icing of the cake, they put in a free XP conversion event right when the tree is released. This is the most obvious example in the game's history that you, WG, intentionally make some tanks worse just to make people free XP past it. Just no. Remember, greed is not good. I know you want money, but cmon. /rant But this tank is terrible. It's fucking awful, it's the worst tier 6 MT in the game by far and IMO a good candidate for the worst tank in the entire tier. At least Churchill GC has a good gun. This doesn't. Playing it reminded me from the same torturing experience that was the AMX 65t grind. Only difference is that it's shorter and it's not stuck in tier 8 MM, so that's something. To give a good perspective how awful this thing is, my DPG with Chi-To is 1200. Chi-To, IMO, is already one of the worst MTs in the tier. With this thing, my DPG is...900. I have higher DPG with several tier 5s than this thing. Jesus christ. Overall rating: 2.5/10 (extremely bad) 45TP Habicha (tier VII) First "heavy" tank of the branch, 45TP is somewhat similar to it's predecessor. It however gets an all around improvement, especially to it's mobility as the acceleration is now significantly better. In addition, 45TP has a gun with good alpha + pen, but poor accuracy and shell velocity, reasonably decent mobility with somewhat limiting top speed and armor that can actually bounce something. More or less a faster but otherwise notably nerfed T29. Protection + Turret is thick and well angled, can reliably bounce any gun with sub-180mm pen. + Upper glacis is well angled and can bounce lower tier vehicles. + Side profile is quite small for heavy. - Poor HP pool at 1200. Worst in class. - Hull armor is overall quite weak and is practically useless against guns with+170mm pen. - Very weak side armor, large caliber HE shells can pen it. - Turret is not perfect - 190mm penetration is enough to go through the area around the gun. - Somewhat prone to ammorack damage. Overall protection: 5/10 (below average) 45TP can bounce tier 5s, some tier 6s and if hulldown, tier 7s. However, outside from that, the hull armor is not very useful. Turret can bounce some shots, especially when hulldown, but some same-tier vehicles can still pen it. Side armor is just good enough not to get overmatched by most tanks, so you "can" sidescrape if you angle as little as possible. Other than that, though, the side armor is pathetic and some large caliber derps can still pen it. What hurts the most is the HP pool - 1200 is the worst in class. Japanese heavies can 4-shot, even 3-shot you with highrolls, IS can 3-shot you if he highrolls a bit (lol), and some hightier guns like 560 alpha 128/130 mm guns can 2-shot you with highrolls. HP pools also means that arties can wreck you rather quickly. Overall, the 45TP's armor can be bouncy, but is generally unreliable. The poor HP pool is what makes the overall survivability a letdown, especially for a HT. Firepower + Good alpha damage, outtrades any same-tier medium. + Above average penetration, enough to go through the front of the O-Ni + Reasonably decent gun handling. - Poor accuracy. - Awful shell velocity. This combined with bad accuracy makes the gun poor at long range. - Premium ammo has lackluster penetration compared to the standard ammo, giving only 30mm penetration boost while being APCR instead of AP, which means worse normalization. Overall firepower: 6/10 (average) Basically a slightly worse version of T29's gun. Slightly worse pen, worse shell velocity and gun handling (base values are better but the 45TP can't mount VStabs), for a bit better DPM. Alpha allows you to outtrade mediums and some heavies. However, 320 isn't amazingly special at the tier - there are other heavies with 320 alpha, and there are even some with 390 alpha. Penetration is at least decent and gun handling is rather decent so the gun works at close range, but is very mediocre at long range. All in all, the gun is suited for brawling and is very average for a tier 7 heavy. Mobility + Good power to weight ratio, accelerates very quickly and maintains the top speed reliably. - Top speed can be somewhat limiting; the tank would definitely go more than 35kph. Overall mobility: 6.5/10 (average) Mobility is overall fairly average for a heavy. It has great power to weight ratio and thus climbs hills well and has quick acceleration. Unfortunately, this isn't as useful as it is on paper because of the top speed. The tank is not quick enough to be a true heavium, hence why the high hp/ton is less useful in practise and the overall mobility is still fairly average. It has fairly average traverse speed and reverse speed as well. Other + Less harsh stock grind than earlier tanks. The stock gun isn't amazing but it's significantly better than what you had on earlier tiers. - Poor view range. - Can't mount VStabs like T29. Stock gring at least is easier than earlier tanks, though it's still not very good. View range, again, is lacking. The 45TP has better gun handling than T29, but since it can't mount VStabs, the gun handling is actually worse in practice. Equipment, crewskills, etc. Rammer + Vents + Optics (good crew) or Rammer + Vents + GLD / Binocs (bad crew) View range is rather poor so Optics is generally not worth it unless your crew is pretty good (BiA + at least one view range skill). However, first setup is no doubt the best if your crew is good. If not, run either GLD or Binocs. GLD isn't super helpful because the aim time is already rather good, hence why Binocs is an option. Combination of Rammer + GLD + Optics isn't recommended since Vents is just more useful than GLD because of the aim time. Basic heavy tank skills are recommended, I.E repairs, Sixth Sense etc, and camo is not useful at all. Get view range skills (Situational Awareness + Recon (Situational Awareness first!)) and BiA ASAP if you wan't to run Optics. Safe Storage is recommended because of the ammorack damage. How to play it Playstyle is relatively straightforward. Plays like the tier 6 (except it's actually capable of doing something). Follow more tanky heavies and support them. The 45TP does best when it has a meatshield that takes hits for you, since your own HP is limited, which means you have to use it wisely. Try to trade with tanks that have lower alpha than you. Don't really expect to bounce most of the time - armor is there just as an extra. Hulldown strats work well, but remember that you're not a T29 that can just go in, hulldown and bounce tier 9s cus lul T29. Your turret isn't that amazing. You can go with your mediums and support them, since opposing mediums are easier to outtrade than heavies. However, the 45TP has rather limited top speed. It can't really play like a proper heavium and the poor accuracy + velocity further hurts this kind of play. The 45TP can sidescrape, but only with extremely careful angling - overangle a little and you will get penned no problem even by lower tiers. When, and ONLY when you're top tier, you can play like a true heavy tank. The armor is very good VS tier 5s and some tier 6s, so you can just push and faceroll lower tier vehicles - just be careful with your paper side armor, since even tier 5s have no issues on penning it. KV-2 and Japanese HTs are still scary because your HP is low and your side is pennable by HE rather easily. Some hightier arties can pen your side and oneshot you, if they get lucky. Overall opinion about the vehicle Honestly, I expected another sh*thole but the tank was better than I thought. It's still not a great, though. I have rather mediocre stats with it (less than 1.4k DPG, although that is partially because of certain "complications" (such as playing on laptop during a cardrive without a proper table as well as disconnecting twice and doing 0 damage due to internet issues - I had over 1.5k which was my goal), but regardless, it's playable for sure. Ooor maybe it just felt good because tier 6 is just...awful. Regardless, the tank does need a buff to an extend - just buff top speed to 40 km/h and HP pool to 1350 or even 1300 and it's competitive enough. Overall rating: 5.5/10 (below average) 53TP Markowskiego (tier VIII) 53TP is a step-up from the 45TP. The tank is starting to be more like the higher tier vehicles - turret armor is now truly great, the alpha damage is starting to be especially notable and it has surprisingly good accuracy and gun handling. However, the 53TP retains the higher mobility of the 45TP - in fact, the mobility is actually improved. In addition, the hull armor is quite unusual to the line - the upper plate is weaker than lower plate. This means that the entire front is thick enough to make the tank completely immune to lower tier vehicles, but in return is quite useless against higher tiers. The 53TP is like a good mix of the IS-3, VK 45 02 A and it's premium counterpart, 50TP prototyp. Protection + Great turret armor, can bounce even tier 10s (especially when they don't fire premium). + Lacks the overmatch weakspot on the turret like it's main competitor, 50TP prototyp. + Turret is mounted very far in the front which enables you to reverse sidescrape when needed. + Lacks lower plate weakspot; front is immune to anything with less than 180mm pen. Excellent at bullying lowtiers. - Poor HP pool (1450). - Overall frontal hull armor is poor since most of the time you face tier 8, 9 and 10 tanks and they can go through it no problem most of the time. - Cupola is bigger than on the 50TP prototyp. - Side armor is still relatively weak and lacks the "blackhole" armor that many Russian tanks have on their sides - Rather tall and long silhouette. Overall protection: 6/10 (average) Frontal hull is very effective against lower tiers but lacks usability against same- and higher tier vehicles. Turret armor is great and can bounce even higher tier vehicles, which makes the 53TP very well capable of going hulldown. Turret is mounted very far in the front which allows you to poke corners effectively, or alternatively reverse sidescrape rather well. HP pool is lacking, though. This combined with long and tall silhouette means that the 53TP can die rather quickly if caught in the open. The survivability is an improvement over the tier 7, but it's still not particularly good Firepower + Great alpha damage of 420 blaze it .Can outtrade most heavies and mediums in the tier. + Great DPM, especially for the alpha. Reloads faster than the IS-3, even though the IS-3 has lower alpha. + Good accuracy. + Excellent gun handling for the alpha. + 122mm caliber allows it to overmatch higher tier Swedish TDs. + Good gun depression. - Somewhat mediocre AP penetration and poor premium penetration. - Aim time is rather poor, although it's better than other heavies with 390-440 alpha, and great dispersion values somewhat compensate it. Overall firepower: 9/10 (excellent) The gun is just amazing. You got great alpha, good DPM and good gun handling. You can not just outtrade people, but also out-DPM them. Outreloading and outtrading IS-3s is beyond hilarious. Gun has great snapshot capabilities as well, especially at close and mid-long ranges. Accuracy is good enough to reliably hit weakspots at close ranges, and unlike the 50TP prototyp, the gun rarely goes full potato mode. In fact, other than 20 less alpha (difference is barely noticeable since 420 alpha is still great), 53TP flat out trashes 50TP prototyp in terms of overall firepower. The only downside is (premium) pen which can be annoying thanks to tier 8 MM, but thankfully the 53TP has perks to work around with it and pen is way less problematic than what it seems like on paper, as long as you try to avoid fighting super-heavies head on. Mobility + Above average top speed of 40 km/h, just quick enough to play somewhat like a heavium. + While worse than it's predecessor, the HP/ton is still fairly decent and at least good enough to reach the top speed. + Good reverse speed for it's class (16 km/h), can get into cover pretty quickly. - Rather poor traverse speed. Overall mobility: 7/10 (good) Mobility is pretty good for a heavy. Top speed is among the higher end of the tier, and the 53TP has just enough hp/ton to reach it. 53TP can play like a heavium to an extend, although keep in mind that it can still struggle to keep up with many mediums due to the top speed. Reverse speed is also good, which allows the 53TP to retreat very well for a heavy tank. The traverse speed is fairly lacking, though, especially when compared to the 50TP prototyp. Other - Awfully long and tedious stock grind. We go back to torturing stock grinds with the 53TP. You need to research turret, tracks, a completely useless 122 mm D-25T clone, and only THEN you can research the top 122 mm gun. You have the 45TPs 105mm when stock, which while its not completely awful due to the improved gun stats, is still a bit lacking with only 220ish gold pen in current tier 8 matchmaking. Stock turret also has a lot worse armor than the top one so there's that. The 122 mm D-25T is literally worthless, it's inferior to the stock gun so don't use it. I seriously feel like WG literally threw the gun there to make the stock grind even worse, which would encourage players even further to buy gold and convert free XP. I mean, why else would they force you to research a gun that is inferior to the stock gun? Disgusting. Equipment, crewskills, etc. Rammer + VStabs + Optics or Rammer + VStabs + Vents. First two are mandatory on any heavy tank. As the 53TP has kinda average 370 m view range, whether you want to use Vents or Optics depends on your crew. With a poor crew, you struggle to reach good view range even with Optics, so you can just use Vents to improve gun stats. Optics is preferred once your crew is good enough, though. 53TP gun stats are already good, anyway, so Optics is generally more helpful than Vents most of the time. Repairs and Sixth Sense should be the first skills for obvious reasons. How to play it The 53TP is a very versatile tank and can pick up various roles depending on the matchup. There are some general rules in each one of them, though: use your gun depression and turret when possible, try to fight tanks with lower alpha and/or DPM and don't rely on your hull armor too much. When top tier, the 53TP's armor is actually quite scary and it can play like a true heavy tank. Unlike the rest of the line, the 53TP lacks lower plate weakspot - in fact, the lowerplate is slightly stronger than the upper plate. This means that the lower tier vehicles, especially tier 6s, are going to seriously struggle against you. In addition, your turret armor is great and while the side armor is still pretty poor, it is significantly better than on the 45TP. It is recommended to avoid sidescraping with this tank. Instead, just angle your front when fighting on corners. Your front can reach over 200 mm protection when angled a bit. Be careful, though, because overangling may leave your drivewheel exposed. The gun is absolutely brutal against lower tiers - you can 2-shot any tier 6 medium and even some heavies with a highroll. Good DPM and snapshotting capabilities further improves this trait. Most of the time you won't be top tier, however. The frontal armor is practically worthless against many same tier vehicles and especially tier 9-10s. With this in mind, most of the time you play like a 2nd line support heavium. The 53TP has rather lacking penetration, but thankfully, it's reasonably mobile. The 53TP is just fast enough to follow mediums (not really keep up with them, but at least follow them) to be able to play like a heavium. This combined with great gun handling, good gun depression and good turret armor compensates the lacking penetration to the point where it's a significantly smaller problem than it seems like a paper. Still, the premium pen is poor enough so that you are simply helpless against many tier 10 heavies. Generally you try to avoid tanks like Type 5 Heavy at all costs. The 53TP works best in ridgelines, where it can hide it's hull and expose it's turret that is strong enough to bounce even tier 10 standard rounds. You poke a ridge, shoot, retreat and repeat. The 53TP also has pretty good reverse speed so it can do this rather effectively. Furthermore, the gun handling means that you can snap your shot rather well, which is something the 50TP prototyp can't do very effectively. The 53TP works best against targets it can easily pen and easily outtrade with it's alpha damage, which is why it's very effective against opposing medium tanks. Not only you outtrade them, but you sometimes also out-DPM them. When fighting against heavies, the DPM is good to keep in mind. For example, you actually out-reload the IS-3, even though you have higher alpha. There are some heavies that have even higher alpha than you, but your reload is quick enough so you can easily put in a 2nd shot when they are still reloading. Keep in mind that your armor isn't very good outside from the turret and your HP pool is limited, so you have to rely on your gun to out-trade your enemies. Using heavier allies as meatshields can be very useful. The 53TP is just fast enough to relocate when a flank is collapsing. It can even snipe when needed. However, the penetration is somewhat lacking and the accuracy, isn't perfect, so sniping isn't recommended if it isn't mandatory. While the 53TP does have MT-like attributes, it still has bad camoflage like heavies generally do. It is capable of flanking stuff, but keep in mind that the traverse speed is lacking, so circling isn't really possible most of the time. Overall, the 53TP is a great, versatile vehicle. Tier 8 MM is harsh, but if played properly, the 53TP can hold it's own even when constantly matched against higher tier vehicles. Overall opinion about the vehicle First tank in the line that actually feels like a fun and competitive vehicle. Very comfortable to play for a tier 8 heavy. You get one of the most hard hitting guns in the tier but at the same time you have good gun handling AND good DPM. The gun is extremely satisfying to use even with the rather poor penetration it has. I feel like that in good hands this tank is actually stronger than it's premium counterpart. I do have slightly worse stats with the 53TP than the 50TP prototyp, but keep in mind that I grinded most of the 53TP like a brainless zombie during the night...so yeah :p. It's slightly harder to play because of worse armor and gun depression, but overall I would say it's a stronger vehicle. Which is great, since it somewhat confirms that WG is more or less moving away from the "slightly P2W" policy that they have had with a lot of tier 8 premiums introduced in last 2 years. Didn't keep it because I needed credits and tier 8 MM is still tier 8 MM...but this is one of the very few non-premium tier 8s that I could consider a keeper. And trust me, there really aren't many of those these days. I simply despise the tier 8 MM. Since they offered an extra commander for this tank...maybe some day I'll rebuy this thing and 3 mark it. Definitely a lot of fun, can recommend. Overall rating: 8/10 (very good) 50TP Tyszkiewicza (tier IX) Coming after the 53TP, the 50TP sits at tier 9. Oddly enough, it resembles the premium tank a lot more than the 53TP - both 50TPs have rather potato accuracy but great alpha damage and very similar armor layouts. Compared to it's premium little-brother, the 50TP trades extra gun depression at sides, great traverse speed and lower profile for being at a better tier, having a lot higher HP pool tier-for-tier and arguably having even more nasty alpha for it's tier. The 50TP is slower than the 53TP, which means it no longer can play like a heavium, making it a bit more dedicated as a trading hulldown heavy. Protection + Excellent HP pool at 2000. + Great turret armor, can bounce even premium rounds rather well. + Upper plate is very heavily angled and will ricochet basically every non-HE/HESH shell in the game. + Lower plate is strong enough to bounce tier 7s and some tier 8 mediums. + Exposed tracks, which makes the tank harder to track + damage at the same time since shooting the drivewheel most of the time results in a no-damage hit. - Driver's hatch weakspot is quite large and most tier 9 and 10s will go through it. - Unlike rest of the line, it has two cupolas instead of one. - Turret ring is exposed and a weakspot when angled, which makes sidescraping pretty hard. However, the turret is placed quite far in the back, which makes poking corners in return rather tricky. This combination makes the tank very awkward on corners. - Ammorack is prone to damage. Overall protection: 7/10 (good) The armor layout is very similar to it's premium little brother, the 50TP prototyp. Very resilient turret and auto-ricochet upper plate coupled with weak side armor, similar weakspots (cupolas, turret ring and driver's hatch). In addition, the 50TP gets 2000 HP, which is 3rd highest of all tier 9 HTs. The hull armor is more "troll" than the 53TP, but is also more unreliable - sometimes you bounce everything, and then next game it's just useless. The turret armor is great, but it has two cupolas that are bigger than on both the 50TP prototyp and 53TP, so be careful. When gun depression is used, though, the turret armor is very effective. What holds the tank back is the turret placement combined with the turret ring weakspot, which makes using the 50TP on corners a problem. It can bait a shot with its exposed tracks, but it's rather risky since you can still get tracked + damaged as long as the angle is right. Overall, the 50TP has holes on it's armor but the turret armor and HP pool make it rather survivable. Firepower + Excellent alpha damage at 560 - 2nd highest in the tier after the Type 4's 14cm gun. + Good DPM, especially for it's alpha. + High caliber of the gun allows the tank to overmatch Swedish TDs. + Good gun depression (-8). - Poor dispersion values and long aim time. - Sub-par accuracy. - Premium penetration is below-average, although it's better tier-for-tier than the 53TP. Overall firepower: 7.5/10 (good) The best feature of the gun no doubt is the gigantic alpha damage. 560 is the 2nd highest in the tier, with only the Type 4 Heavy having higher with the 14 cm gun. 560 alpha allows the 50TP to outtrade even many tier 10s, which makes it a force to be reckoned with. The penetration isn't special, but it's good enough to deal with the most targets the 50TP faces. In addition, the 50TP has pretty good DPM, having only slightly longer reload than 490 alpha heavies such as the E 75. However, the gun isn't perfect. The gun handling is significantly worse than it's predecessor, with aim time being longer and turret bloom in especial being much worse. It also has worse accuracy, which can make the gun rather unwieldy at even mid-long distances. Furthermore, the premium penetration is still somewhat lacking, which means that the 50TP can somewhat struggle against heavily armored targets. Fun fact - with the stock turret, the 50TP actually has significantly better bloom on turret traverse than with the top turret. Since this is only present with the 130mm gun, and as the bloom is identical to that of the stock 122 mm gun, I am fairly sure that this is an unintentional mistake. Then again, the Polish tech tree is full of suspicious things, soooo... Overall, the 50TP has punchy, powerful gun that can be very nasty at close range, but is generally a bit derpier than earlier tanks when it comes to the accuracy and gun handling. Mobility + Can reach the top speed and maintain it. - Poor traverse speed - doesn't have the amazing traverse speed like the 50TP prototyp. Overall mobility: 5.5/10 (below average) The 50TP is somewhat sluggish and it's mobility is just below average for it's class. Top speed, reverse speed and power to weight ratio are among the average in it's tier. Traverse speed is pretty lacking, though. The 50TP doesn't turn very quickly like the 50TP prototyp, which means it's easier to circle and flank. It can't relocate very effectively but can at least somehow do it unlike some truly slow super-heavies. The 50TP is quite average when it comes to the mobility, except for the acceleration and traverse speed, which are just slightly below average. Other + Can mount the 130 mm right away with the stock turret and tracks. - Mediocre view range. The stock grind is much more comfortable than the earlier vehicles. If you can save up ~60k free XP, you can get a tank that isn't that much worse than it's elited version. The stock turret is not perfect, though, as it has worse armor and the hard stats of the gun are worse (although weirdly enough, the turret bloom is BETTER). The stock gun has good combination of the stats like the 53TP, but the penetration is just awful at tier 9. Like most of the Polish tanks, the view range is below average. Equipment, crewskills, etc. Rammer + VStabs + Optics. or Rammer + VStabs + Vents. First two are a must on any heavy tank. The 3rd option is up to preference. Unlike on the tier 8, I actually used Vents on this one, since the gun stats are noticeably worse and I felt like improving those were more useful than improving the view range. Optics is still a perfectly fine option, though. Since the aim time is 3 seconds, GLD is also a valid option. Sixth Sense and Repairs should be the first crew skills, since the 50TP is a heavy tank. Smooth Drive + Snapshot are both very useful as the 50TP's bloom values are pretty poor compared to it's predecessor. View range skills are recommended especially if you run Optics to make sure you hit 445 m view range. Safe Storage is recommended as just like rest of the line, the 50TP suffers from ammorack issues. How to play it While there are still multiple ways to play the 50TP, it's bit more one-dimensional than it's predecessor. The 50TP is too slow to play like a heavium, and it cannot play mid-long ranges as well due to the worse accuracy and gun handling. With improved alpha and HP pool, the 50TP is more dedicated on the hulldown-outtrading playstyle. That being said, if you have the 50TP prototyp and have any idea how to play it, then the 50TP should feel just fine. The 50TP is literally like it but on steroids - it has very similar strengths and weaknesses, and the general playstyle is very similar. The tank is more efficient on ridgelines, where it can use it's turret armor and -8 gun depression. You poke a ridge, blast your opponent for 560, and you retreat. You can't snapshot like the 53TP, so aim a bit longer. Once you hit, though, it really hurts. Same rules apply here - try to focus on targets with poor armor and/or lower alpha than you. Fortunately, since your alpha is so massive, you can outtrade almost anything that is not a TD. Just like with any hulldown-based tank, arty is bane to your existence, so keep note where enemy arties are after firing you. The 50TP can work on corners as well; however, there's one glaring flaw that is also present with the 50TP prototyp: the turret placement combined with the armor layout. The turret ring seriously sticks out and it's rather obvious visually, too. It's basically impossible to hide when you sidescrape. Furthermore, both sides of the turret have a cupola, so there's no possibility of poking a side where you can hide your cupola. Because of this, the 50TP is a poor sidescraper and sidescraping should be avoided. The only case where sidescraping is recommended is when you fight tanks that can't pen your turret ring (tier 7-8s) or when you really have to bounce and then rely on your luck. On other hand, poking is tricky as well - turret is placed very far on the back. This can be especially awkward when coming from the 53TP which has the turret very far in the front. Because of this, it is best to poke when the enemy is reloading, or simply just trade with your own HP, especially if your target has significantly less alpha than you. When top tier, the 50TP can lead the charge, since lower tiers will struggle to pen you, sometimes even from the lower plate. Other than that, though, the lower plate should be always hidden when possible. It's huge and thus fairly easy to hit. The playstyle of the 50TP is fairly simple - it's clearly meant to trade with other tanks. It has great HP pool and huge alpha damage, with good gun depression and turret armor. It has just the right tools for this purpose. Overall opinion about the vehicle It's a good, capable tank. It's my best performing tier 9. Despite that, I didn't feel like it was super-strong or anything. I think the tier 8 is stronger tier-for.tier for sure, just because I consider the whole package to be better and way more comfortable. Just like with the 50TP prototyp, I dislike the turret placement combined with the turret ring the most about the 50TP. In fact, it's even worse with the 50TP, because the turret ring is more exposed when sidescraping. The gun's derpiness was rather annoying at times as well, but it is more than reasonable considering how brutal the gun can be in the right situation. I imagine this thing to be quite similar to the T30, just less polarized than it. Both have good alpha damage, good turret + depression but rather poor hull and derpy guns. That's the best comparison I can make, since the 50TP doesn't really play like any other tier 9 heavy. It resembles the ST-I, but in reality is completely different. It was still fun to play overall, just not as fun as the tier 8. Tier 9 is a quite good tier when it comes to both balance and MM, though. For most players, I imagine the 50TP being more fun and easier to play than the 53TP. If you are looking for a tier 9 keeper, this thing is not a bad option. However, I didn't keep it, since I needed the crew and credits for the next vehicle...and I just felt like the next vehicle is even more worth it. At least it's not a M103. Overall rating: 7/10 (good) 60TP Lewandowskiego (tier X) Crown jewel of the branch, the 60TP sits at tier 10 and is a naturally a logical continuation to the 50TP. It has a great HP pool, improved armor over it's predecessor, good gun depression values and passable but rather mediocre mobility. Most important feature however is the very meaty 152 mm gun with the highest alpha damage of all heavies in the game, tied with the E 100 and VK 72.01 K, and for such a big gun, it has surprisingly decent gun stats and DPM, which makes the gun very scary and very satisfying to use. 60TP fills the niche of hulldown-based semi-superheavy with a hard hitting, powerful gun. It can outtrade most tanks in the game, with exception of some TDs. Protection + Very high HP pool at 2600; 4th highest in the game after the Maus, Type 5 Heavy and E 100. + UFP is very well angled and will bounce practically everything. + Cupola and turret ring weakspots are notably less significant than on the 50TP. + Very strong turret armor, will bounce most things and it has very large areas that are immune to even JP E100 HEAT shells. + LFP, while weak, is small and not particularly easy to hit. - LFP is very weak, 183 HESH can pen it and even tier 8s can pen it. - While better than predecessors, the side armor is still weak. Overangling the tank easily results in penetration. - Retains the drivers hatch, cupola and turret ring weakspot from the 50TP, although they are significantly smaller and/or stronger. - Turret has very small holes which means 60TP's turret may sometimes (although rarely) get randomly penned even when hulldown. - Ammorack is prone to damage. Overall protection: 7.5/10 (good) 60TP is bulky and can survive for rather long. HP pool is excellent, which allows the 60TP to take hits even when it cannot use it's armor very effectively. UFP is strong and will bounce basically anything, which punishes poorly aimed shots. LFP is weak, but it's relatively small so it's hard to hit at long ranges. 60TP "can" sidescrape, but there are areas on the sides that can be penned with HEAT shells. Because of this, sidescraping should be done only when necessary (and that is when you have to bait a shot by yourself and you can't hulldown). Generally you can just poke and trade, especially against tanks with lower alpha. 750 alpha gun gives the tank fear factor which means that the enemy may panic and miss your weakspots when you decide to poke. Hulldown position is where the 60TP is the best. Turret does have some small holes, but overall the turret is very strong especially at long ranges. Despite the excellent turret, the 60TP is not as good at facehugging as it would initially seem like, as the 60TP has a driver's hatch and cupola weakspots. Facehugging is still recommended when you have no better options, though. Overall, the 60TP has a fair amount of weakspots and rather poor side armor. However, because of the great HP pool and turret armor, it's overall durability is no doubt respectable and it can survive for quite long. The armor layout rewards good positioning and somewhat intelligent play...which is something as many armored heavies these days have very braindead layouts. Firepower + Amazing alpha damage at 750, tied with E 100 and VK 72.01 K for the highest alpha of all heavies in the game (not counting HE). + Good turret bloom values, especially for a gun with gigantic alpha. + Relatively good accuracy and shell velocity for it's alpha. + Surprisingly decent DPM considering the alpha. + Great HE shells with good penetration (90mm) that allows the gun to function as a pseudo-derp when needed. + Very large caliber allows the 60TP to overmatch 50mm thick plates - this includes significant stuff such as big chunk of UFP of the Strv 103B. + Good gun depression and elevation. - Mediocre AP pen and poor HEAT pen. - While the DPM is rather decent, the reload is still pretty long. Bouncing or missing a shot can hurt a lot. - Rather long aim time, although good bloom values somewhat compensate it. - While the accuracy is reasonably good, it's not perfect and coupled with mediocre penetration, the gun can be somewhat wonky at very long ranges. Overall firepower: 8 / 10 (very good) This gun is just very powerful and no doubt the strongest feature of the tank. 750 alpha alone is a very strong tool on a heavy tank - 60TP can easily outtrade any medium and almost any heavy tank in the game, and even some TDs. One would expect other stats of the gun to be poor because of that - but that's not the case. 60TP also has good gun handling, relatively decent accuracy, velocity and even the DPM is relatively decent for gigantic alpha. The 60TP also gets really solid HE shells with relatively good penetration. They are strong enough to do a decent chunk of damage with non-penetrating hits, which allows the 60TP to function as pseudo-derp tank. Generally a well-aimed AP/HEAT shell is more rewarding than HE. However, HE shells can be especially useful in some matchups with a lot of heavy armor and long-ranged frontal engagement, such as Karelia. The only somewhat major downside of the gun is the lacking penetration, more specifically the HEAT penetration. This can make the gun somewhat let-down in head-on fights against other heavily armored heavies. HEAT shells may bounce from stuff like slightly angled E 100's turret and IS-7's angled upper plate, which are most of the time penetrated quite reliably by 330/340 HEAT. Among with that, the aim time is rather long, but it generally isn't an issue considering the good bloom, accuracy and gigantic alpha damage. While the reload isn't particularly bad for it's alpha, it's still long enough that misses or bounces can be relatively frustrating. Whenever the 60TP doesn't have to deal with super-heavies, the gun is just fantastic. It can be frustrating sometimes because of the lacking HEAT shell and long reload (missing our bouncing can be painful). Most of the time, though, the gun is pretty satisfying to use and is what makes the 60TP fun to play. Mobility + Better mobility than majority of the other heavies with this kind of HP pool. + Can reach the top speed and maintain it. - Rather poor terrain resists. - Poor traverse speed. Overall mobility: 5.5/10 (below average) Just like the 50TP, the 60TP is somewhat sluggish and it's mobility is just below average for it's class. Top speed and reverse speed are among the average of tier 10 HTs, as well as engine power. Traverse speed and terrain resists are pretty mediocre, though, so the 60TP feels overall quite sluggish but at least it's not dreadfully slow like true super-heavies. It can't relocate very effectively but can at least somehow do it unlike some very slow tanks like the Maus. Basically, the 60TP is a heavy tank and when it comes to mobility, it certainly feels like one. Other + Like most of the tier 10s, doesn't have a stock grind. - Inferior view range than most tier 10s, which means that it's harder to reach 445m view range without Optics. Unlike the E 100, the 60TP doesn't have a stock grind, so you get the 750 alpha gun right away. View range is worse than most tier 10s, which means that running Optics is generally recommended (the 60TP doesn't have major issues with accuracy, DPM or gun handling, anyway). Equipment, crewskills, etc. Rammer + VStabs + Optics. or Rammer + VStabs + Vents. First two are mandatory on any heavy tank. I prefer Optics since it's hard to reach max view range with Vents, and the 60TP doesn't have big issues with the accuracy, gun handling and DPM, anyway. The 60TP is a hulldown tank, so having a good view range can be particularly helpful. Vents is still a viable option at the 3rd slot if you don't care about view range, though, as all around boost is still nice. Since the aim time is rather long, GLD is also a viable option since the aim time is rather long but the gun handling itself is decent so GLD is overall inferior to Optics or Vents. Sixth Sense and Repairs are mandatory and should be prioritized over other skills. Safe Storage is recommended due to ammorack issues. View range skills are helpful, as the 60TP has below average view range. Smooth Drive, Snapshot and BiA are useful to maximize the gun performance. Since the 60TP has very big gun which means great module damage, running Deadeye could be considered to increase the chances of cheesy ammoracks, but not before more useful skills (basically anything mentioned before) are applied first. 60TP burns very rarely so running food consumable is a valid, rather low-risk option, as long as you can afford it. Since the HE is rather strong and can be helpful in some scenarios, I recommend to load a couple of HE shells. The ammo capacity is much lower than that of the E 100, but the 60TP still won't run out of shells very quickly. I personally run 6 HE shells, although running 4-5 is still reasonable if you're really afraid that you run out of the AP and HEAT shells. However, I recommend to load at least 4 of them. How to play it Playstyle is generally pretty similar to the tier 8 premium and tier 9 - a rather versatile, bulky ridgeline heavy with great alpha. Just like with the 50TP, playing the 60TP isn't all that complicated. 60TP works best at ridgelines. Just expose your strong turret and use your gun depression. Turret has some (albeit very small) weakspots, but the turret is very hard to go through when the 60TP is in hulldown position. Be careful with arty, though - 60TP doesn't take arty hits very well. Because on hulldown fights engagements are typically a bit longer, it is recommended to fully aim your shots whenever it is possible. You want to make your shots count, because your reload is long. 60TP has pretty strong HE shells, which means that it can directly take on other hulldown tanks such as Super Conqueror. Most hulldown tanks have much smaller guns which means much weaker HE shells, so a HE spamming 60TP will easily outtrade any other hulldown tank and eventually force it out of it's position. While the 60TP works best at ridgelines, it also can fight on corners rather effectively. It can sidescrape, better than most other Polish vehicles. However, it still has an exposed turret ring that gets rather easily penned by premium rounds. Because of this, sidescrape only when you're alone, you have to bait a shot and you don't want to lose your HP. Generally it's better just to poke from corners. If you have allied heavies with you, let them take hits if possible. When they are not focusing you or they are reloading - poke, slam them for 750, retreat and reload. After you have done this a few times, then you can simply just use your own big HP pool and just start trading. Your gun gives rather significant fear factor - a 60TP that suddenly comes out from corner will most likely cause panic on the enemy, which may make them miss. Nobody wants to take a hit from a 152 mm gun. You generally want to focus on targets with poor armor since the penetration is rather lackluster on the 60TP. The caliber of the gun is massive, which allows you to overmatch any armor plate that is up to 50 mm thick. This includes rather significant stuff such as the upper plate (except track links) of the 103B, sides of the Object 257, turret roofs of the opposing 60TPs, and sides of certain US designs such as T110EX-series. The poor HEAT penetration means that the gun somewhat struggles against super-heavies, especially when not at close range. 750 alpha + great HP pools means that you can still out-trade Type 5s like the E 100 can, though. However, E 100 has notably better HEAT, more HP and it takes slightly less HE damage, which means that fighting Types is a bit more challenging with the 60TP. Going to flanks where encountering a super-heavy is less likely is a viable option is harsh match-ups. Keep in mind that the 60TP is rather slow, so relocating can be tricky and crossing open areas is rather risky. When top tier, the gun is even more brutal - it deals more than 50% HP damage against most tier 8s, and the 60TP won't have issues with penetrating them either. HE shells are hilarious when top tier since they can oneshot some tier 8 LTs and TDs. Keep in mind that LFP is pennable even by tier 8s, however. Because of this, you can't brainlessly yolo them as easily as many other heavily armored tier 10 HTs. One thing to note is that the 60TP is not very heavy and it's not very fast, which makes it surprisingly disappointing at ramming. 60TP is still very powerful when top tier, just because of the brutal gun and great HP pool. Overall, the 60TP is a versatile tank, especially when you consider it's rather sluggish mobility. It can play both on ridgelines and corners. It can be a frontline tank, but it also can work very well as 2nd-line support vehicle. It has a couple of cool tools such as surprisingly good accuracy and good HE shells, which further improves the overall flexibility of the 60TP. Overall opinion about the vehicle I f*cking love it. That's all. I didn't have high expectations for the Polish branch when it was announced. My interest started to go up a bit when they made the first video about the Polish tech tree. I got truly hyped when the tier 10 was revealed. Something about both the stats and design of the tank was something that made me immediately hyped. I like silly, goofy heavies with bigass guns and I also like to have good gun depression. Not to mention the design is just 10/10 - it looks both awesome and retarded. Oh and it even can meme around with the HE. Absolute perfection. And then test server came - I wasn't disappointed. I played more than 100 games with the 60TP on test server, and I knew I had to have it as soon as possible on live server. That is exactly why I decided to powergrind this line so badly to the point I even grinded most of the tier 8 during last Friday night like a brainless zombie. Without the 60TP, I most likely wouldn't have grinded the line this quickly. I probably wouldn't have written this review, either. I find the tank very fun to play and I could just keep playing it forever. Well...that's what I've been doing past few days - I don't think I have touched any other tank outside from platooning . Of course, it can still bring frustration, because of long reload, armor layout, low penetration and ammorack issues. However, it is overall a lot of fun to me. It brings my weird satisfaction of playing a slow, goofy, armored heavy, yet it's surprisingly versatile and consistent. I've been looking for a fun go-to tank to play for quite a while now. O-Ho used to be my favorite go-to fun tank for a long while, but the tier 8 MM is too harsh to the point it's not fun to play anymore unless it's 3x O-Ho platoon or something. I think I finally found a new go-to vehicle to play with. I even slapped a Improved Rammer and Improved VStabs on it. It's a great tank. It's probably not very good in CW, because it's slow and has weak premium penetration, but if you are looking for a good pubstomper with a bigass gun, the 60TP is a great pick. The way to the 60TP is long and harsh - you have generic and/or crappy lowtiers, almost unplayable stock grinds at the tier 4 and 5, one of the worst tier 6s in the game and tier 8 stock grind that is pretty harsh and also ridiculously long - but it's worth it. For me, it's more than worth it. I would like to give it a higher rating, but I try to be as unbiased as possible. Even then, I think it's definitely a great, strong vehicle. One of my favorite tanks in the game for sure. I absolutely adore it. Overall rating: 8/10 (very good) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is the line worth it? It's a long and harsh grind. Lowtiers are between mediocre and terrible, tier 4-5 are practically unplayable when stock, tier 6 is beyond awful, tier 7 is not very good + frustrating to play, and the tier 8 has abysmal and long stock grind. The grind is certainly one of the worst in the entire game. That being said, the tier 8 and 10, when fully upgraded, are powerhouses and great fun. The tier 9 is also a capable, competitive vehicle. But are they worth the harsh grind? Yes... if you really like B I G G U N S if you really like the hulldown playstyle if you really like heavies in general and don't mind if your tanks are not amazingly mobile or if you just happen to really like/want Polish tanks for some reason If any of the points above are true, then yeah, it's worth it. I, personally, like big guns, hulldown playstyle and don't mind the speed at all, so the line was absolutely worth it for me. If you have free XP and want to use it on some line, this line is a pretty strong candidate for that. Terrible stock grinds AND some stinkers at low-mid tiers. This line is a great pick if you want to burn some of your free XP on something. If we go solely from the tier 10, the 60TP is a great, fun vehicle. I can't see it being very useful in competitive formats, but in randoms, it's a great pubstomper. If you're looking for a fun tier 10, the 60TP is a good pick. ------------------------------------------------------- TL;DR: lowtiers are skippable stock grinds suck tier 5 is meh, a fast Chi-Nu with even worse gun handling tier 6 is a giant piece of sh*t, skip with free XP if possible tier 7 is mediocre tier 9 is good tier 8 and 10 are great CAN WG STOP MAKING DEDICATED FREE XP PITS REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE o kurwa i like crayons That's all folks!.

Hello! Serverwide tank statistics are now available. On the front page you will now see an additional box next to the Server Stats with the top 10 tanks in average battles. Clicking the link below the list will take you to the full statistics page where you can sort and filter, as well as see a number of statistics related to the tank. "Complete Tank Statistics" will take you to the full statistics page: I'm still working on expanding this page to show graphs showing player preference by tiers, nations, classes, as well as the server's performance in each. Hope you guys enjoy it!

EDIT: Seems to be an issue with formatting in terms of spoilers. Unfortunately I do not understand why this is the case. If that could be fixed it would be appreciated. VK 72.01 (K) - The King of Heavy Tanks Introduction In a meta-game that has devolved from the historically dynamic gameplay of vision, flex, and map rotations to a primitive style of brawling in lanes and corridors, the relevance of medium and fast heavy tanks has severely diminished. As vision, flex, and map rotations became less important, the ability to survive, deal large amounts of damage in a single trade, and anchoring of positions has become paramount to dominating games. Many players still have conflicts as to which tanks reign supreme. The top 1% will argue that given the afore-mentioned parameters, the Object 277, Object 705A, Super Conqueror, 113 or WZ-111 model 5A are the optimal heavy tanks for this shift in the meta-game. I regret to inform you that none are correct. It is the VK 72.01 (K) - the King of Heavy Tanks. That’s right teamoldmill. Germans are #1. My Qualifications Literally the highest win rate by a large margin in the VK 72.01 (K) on NA/EU according to DPGwhores.com whilst having competitive DPG with the top 10 players and at least 150 games played (data is outdated on DPGwhores). No one comes close in terms of win-rate. At the time of writing the guide, I am currently at 240+ battles in the VK 72.01 (K) with a win rate of 75.83%.

Hello! As has been brought to my attention, the verification system is apparently faulty, meaning new users have been unable to participate in discussions in the forum for quite a while. I have done a complete validation of the system and I could find no fault. As far as I can tell, it's working as normal. However, as this appears to be causing issues, I have enabled access and posting rights to users in the default "Registered Users" category. Several functions, like rating posts, are still restricted to verified tankers. Cheers! Never Edit: I figured out why this issue happened, and we can thank IPS (the makers of the forum software) for it. Months ago, they introduced a "quick registration" feature and made it the default without asking. This quick registration screen ommits custom fields, including the mandatory "Server" field which the verification system needs in order to know which region to authenticate your account. As new users couldn't select this field, they could not verify. Fuck, fuck fuckity fuck. I have now enabled the full registration screen. Verification should be working normally again. This new access to unverified users will remain, unless we run into trouble. USERS WHO REGISTERED RECENTLY CAN NOW EDIT THEIR PROFILE AND SELECT THE APPROPRIATE SERVER, THEN PROCEED TO VERIFY AS NORMAL.

Hello! A new feature has been released on WoTLabs. Now you can see a detailed list of all the tanks that you played during the 24 hour, 7 days, 30 days, 60 days and Recent periods. At the last row of each column, you will see an option to show the breakdown for that period. Using this, players can identify problem areas more easily, allowing them to see exactly which tank is having the most impact on their performance. Hope you guys like it!

So, I went and did this for myself last year... And, since they're doing the same thing again, this year (II-V 100% off, VI 80%, VII 60%, VIII 50%, IX 40%, X 30%), let's see if anything has changed with the new nations. Please remember that all numbers will be what you net in profit unless otherwise stated. There may be tanks close to the leader/runner(s) up, but I'm using the rough rule of "close enough for Errants to mention", and not a hard and fast percentage for almost making the cut. Tier II - H35 - 2.1k - Still the winner, though the runners' up have changed... Runner(s) up - M14/41 @ 2.05k, and 7TP @ 1.975k. You also have the following all at 1.95k: Strv m/38, VAE Type B, Chi-Ni, LT vz. 35, FCM 36, Loyd GC, and UC 2-pdr Tier III - SU-26 - 26.5k - Unchanged Runner(s) up - Any other arty are 22.5k - 25.5k. Those vehemently anti-arty can lose out on at least 3k with the following: Type 91 @ 23.25k, Pz 1 C @ 22.9k, M15/42 @ 22.7k, and Chi-Ha @ 22.5k Tier IV - B1 - 92.5k - Unchanged Runner(s) up - D.W. 2 @ 85k, Type 95 @ 83k, VK 20.01 D @ 78.5k, St.Pz. II @ 78k, and SARL 42 or Luchs @ 77.5k Tier V - O-I Exp. - 222.5k - Unchanged Runner(s) up - T1 Heavy @ 217.5k, Type T-34 @ 215k, AT 2 @ 212.5k, and StuG III G @ 211k Tier VI - M4A3E2 "Jumbo" - 195k purchase, 487.5k sale, 292.5k net - Unchanged Runner(s) up - Churchill GC @ 289.5k, and Hellcat or O-I @ 285k Tier VII - O-Ni - 596k purchase, 745k sale, 149k net - Unchanged Runner(s) up - T29, IS-2, and 45TP all @ 145k, or Crusader SP, Chi-Ri, T-34-2G FT, and P.43 ter @ 144k So, for a total cost of 791k, you'll get back 1.5761m, or a net profit of 785.1k... Wow. Not that great, but making money. Again, we're already in the rabbit hole, so let's look at the higher tiers, and try to get the biggest savings (and see how much of our profit we lost)! Tier VIII - FV207 - 2.73m base, 1.365m purchase/sale, net 0 - Unchanged Runner(s) up (base costs listed) - SU-14-2 (2.72m); M40/43 (2.7m); T28 Prot., G.W. Tiger P, and AT 15 (all 2.65m); UDES 03 (2.62m); T32 (2.61m); 110 and 53TP (2.6m) Tier IX - 212A and Type 4 Heavy - 2.22m purchase, 1.85 sale, 370k loss net - Unchanged Runner(s) up (cost/loss following sale) - Foch (2.202m/367k); Obj. 704 (2.196m/366k); M103 (2.184m/364k); G.W. Tiger, Conqueror, Type 61, and Strv 103-0 all @ 2.16m/316k Tier X - They're all 6.1m, so 4.27m cost regardless. And if you're selling a Tier X... I dunno what to tell you, but I shouldn't be advising your actions. So, the new lines didn't shake up the best choices, but the ITL and PL tanks did make a showing, consistently, in the runner-up category. Might not be a bad option, in general, if you throw your discounts at either one of those lines. Assuming you've not started up them. Finally, we come to the reason I did this the first time, figuring where to spend my discounts on tanks I've not bought yet. Again, that shit will go into spoilers, because this thing is long enough as is.

Hello! As part of a larger update that will enable global tank statistics on WoTLabs, we can also now show the Marks of Excellence that you have achieved on your vehicles. In order for your Marks of Excellence to be displayed, WoTLabs will need to update your statistics, which can only happen after cache clears (usually after 12 hours after the last update) and if you've played one or more battles since the last update, so if your marks aren't yet showing up, this might be the reason why. Hope you guys enjoy it, and stay tuned for more!

Hello! So all that I'm gonna talk about here happened last night over a period of around 4 hours. This post is VERY wordy and somewhat rambly, so be warned. First things first, I'm working on a new feature that will let you see a "Period Breakdown" of each period, so for the period of, say, 24 hours, you will be able to see all the tanks that are counting in that column, along with each tank's individual stats for that period. But in creating this feature, I ran into a problem where there were massive discrepancies between the amount of battles that the Account Information method provided, and the sum of the battle count of your tanks. For instance, the difference between your overall battle count between the latest update and the one 24 hours ago might have been of 20 battles, but if took the battles played by each tank over this same period and added them up, the number would sometimes be different. Sometimes they were off by just a couple of battles, sometimes by 10 or more. This is obviously a great issue for a website that is supposed to provide statistical accuracy. I believe that what causes this issue is that not all of the methods of the API are updated all at once, so when the system grabs your stats, your overall battle count updated, but not your individual tank statistics. Again, that's just me throwing a possibility out there, I'd have to talk to someone who has access to the API to know for sure, and I have no idea who that might be. The way I fixed this was simple: We stopped relying on the overall numbers, and started deriving everything from the sum of each individual tank's statistics. That's what's used to calculate your WN8 already, so it's a logical step. As for potential issues, the only problem should arise in the fairly uncommon case where a tank takes a long time to be added to the API, so players would play several battles in a tank over a period of time that would all get lumped together under the "24 Hours" column once the tank's information got added to the API and WoTLabs could actually see what tank you were playing all along. But the thing is, this issue already happens! It's just masked because the numbers that were shown in the columns were based on those overall numbers which always get updated. The only place where you could see this issue happening was in your Average Tier and WN8 calculations, which several players have noticed and reported on this forum. WIth the now fully functioning system that automatically checks and updates tank information once a day and no longer relies on me checking for new tanks manually, this should be an even more uncommon case. With that fixed, the feature that allows you to see a detailed list of the tanks played during a certain period will be released very soon! Whew, that was a long one. Now, for the last topic of discussion: Why my Recent WN8 took a nosedive, and why yours (in very rare cases) might as well: Back in May 2016, we had to create a new table to hold all the detailed tank information (which is the data used to calculate WN8) since the original one could no longer perform its duty. The old table remained behind for historical queries, but as time went on and disk space became an issue, very old data started to be deleted, including those very old records that were no longer relevant... Or were they? Drama aside, if you're like me and you played very few battles between May 2016 and now, your Recent WN8 might have taken a nosedive. Recent WN8, as you probably know, is based on your last 1000 battles. When the system checked for the update made 1000 (or close to 1000) battles ago, it would take the timestamp and look for the tank information so it could calculate the WN8 for this period. However, if this update happened before May 2016, then there are no more tank information stored! This means that the system was actually using your overall tanks to calculate your Recent WN8, making them look very similar to each other, as was my case. The way this was fixed was to tell the system to ignore every update made before May 2016, and only look for those made after that point. If you played over 1000 battles between May 2016 and now, no problem at all! if not, then the closest update that has tank information available will be used. In my case it's my last 428 battles, which unfortunately encompasses the 370 battles that I've played in the past month since coming back to the game and sucking really, really bad. So yeah, RIP my Recent WN8, but at least it's not a lie anymore. That is all for now! If you made it this far, sorry for all the words. I really, really like to write. Cheers!

Hello! You can now see a complete breakdown of your WN8 by tank Nation, Class and Tier. Hope you guys enjoy it, cheers!

Official forums are that way, take your shitpoasts there.

I own a defender and they can nerf it as much as they fucking want if it means the game becomes balanced again. Thats not called ripping people off, its called making the game fucking playable so it doesnt die and leave you with NO tank to play with.

yeah but i have pretty much all your dpgs beat so who's really the champ here

I added this as a featured article on WoTLabs. The link to it will appear pinned at the top of every page. Great article!

This is a topic instead of an update simply because there isn't a thread on it yet and sharing information could be good on these mechanics so was thinking that it could be a general thread for this mechanic in particular. I don't actually have anything of value to share besides some trivia on how they coded it. I was watching Niall play the EBR, and if you activate the boost mode mid-air your speedometer increases but you don't actually accelerate. Obviously you shouldn't, but it does mean that they used IRL mechanics of a speedometer similar to cars where your speedometer is linked to your tire rotation, and that the km/h increase is because the tires don't have resistance during flight so they simply rotate faster. Also, boost on aggressive slopes and you'll easily clear 50m in air, you can make it from the Glacier ship into the water on the south side which is over a 150m jump to clear. This is absolutely ridiculous. At range these tanks also move too fast that to hit a shot with a slow shell velocity (E 100, FV4005 and so on) in x8 sniper mode your turret either moves too slowly, your bloom resets because of how aggressively forward you have to aim to lead, or you have to aim in x4 because your lead has to be so much that you can't actually see the tank in x8, and close up your turret rotation doesn't hold up to catch them. More gamebreaks, at least you make arty players quit arty by yoloing them into quitting the class altogether since nobody'll be able to hit you for shit. On test server I've made it to arty alive and killed it without the enemy being able to shoot me while driving straight through them all with some minor turns. There's also supposed rumours (have yet to see any myself though) that using this to boost yourself on top of buildings can break the game and make you clip into them xD 1.4 will be the patch that kills the last shred of competitiveness the game had you get stupid stuff like this, on the brightside doing races on maps and trying to do certain flips is kinda fun, but this is game is not WoT anymore when these tanks come into the game

I don't mind one bit. In fact, I'll cheer and sing praises if they nerf Defenders and IS3As and I own these things, because I am a fucking stupid idiot, like everyone who got these things.

Hello! Fixed a bug that prevented tanks from being recorded to an account if there was no tank WN data available (normal in the case of new tanks where the XVM guys haven't added it yet). Fixed a bug in the forum where a database issue caused some threads to show a "78", "77" or "80" error. Edit: More fixes Fixed issue where Patrons would see ads on the website. Fixed issue related to adding new accounts on the Russian server. Added GPDR cookie notice to website. Bunch of random, mostly cosmetic fixes.

I'm playing T49 so I don’t get it

To prove that arty is hard to play I've decided to run two WoT clients of test server and simultaneously play two arty battles. Never again. I'm not a super human to do it one more time. That focus, this skill. I've almost shit my pants because of stress. Check video and please, don't do it to yourself.

Due to the inflation of WN8-values in the recent years we decided to exclude polish tanks from the rating thus droping the global average wn8-rating back to what was considered "average" 3 years ago. This decision will most likely affect all newly introduced tank lines/premium tanks introduced after/including the polish tank line up until the point where the average WN8-level drops down to a more managable level. This way we will be able to make wn8 great again. -Fabunil, purple poaster/representative of the wotlabs WN8-commitee

Just throwing out a shout out to you all, I have played the game for a few games now and decided i need to get better so I came here to learn. i am always looking for a mentor to learn and coach me. If i am going to be in this game I definitely want to be the best I can. Thanks all, sorry for any future dumb questions

pm me

if only there was some way to look at win rate separately from wn8

It's like they finally added a vehicle branch specifically for the purpose of jumping the shark.

So I decided to see how audio modding is with the current version of WoT and decided to create a small mod that replaces the crew voiceover for killing an enemy tank with this little gem. The inspiration for this was shishx, who uses this effect in his videos; however, he does not use a mod for that but rather adds it himself during video post-processing. Since I haven't been able to find any mod that replicates this functionality, I decided to create this myself and upload it here in case someone else wanted to have a few laughs as well. The kill voiceover is replaced for all nations. Especially fun if you're playing: Large boomsticks, esp KV-2 AMX 40 artillery In general sound modding seems to be pretty straightforward nowadays and the engine is quite versatile. quack.rar

Hello! As users of PadderBot may be aware, he has been dead for quite a while. To be honest, he was doomed from the start. PadderBot was a bit of a hackjob using mIRC and mIRC Scripting. While this is fine for a single-channel bot, PadderBot was supposed to be in multiple channels at once, and once you pass the 30 or 40 channel mark, mIRC starts to get bogged down quite a bit. Eventually it became too much for the poor IRC client and small Windows virtual server to handle and things went down for good. However, I've created a nifty little alternative if you still want to have statistics functionality on your channel. Using Nightbot, you can easily add a custom command that will grab the player's statistics directly from WoTLabs and display them on your stream's chat in the same way that PadderBot did. You can add the command by typing the following into your channel's chat: !commands add !stats $(urlfetch http://wotlabs.net/padderbot/?query=$(querystring)) After that, all you have to do is type !stats [server] [player] and Nightbot will return the player's informations. Example: Supported servers are: na eu asia ru And that's it! Hope you guys enjoy it! Also, there will be new things on WoTLabs going forward. Stay tuned.

Command & Conquer intensifies

i dont see how extending a simple symmetry into a complex one has absolutely anything whatsoever to do with this but if you care to elaborate im all ears on what you wrote though it really doesn't matter, if you are good enough to 3mark them without gold you are good enough to perform well above with it so why don't you? this is the game and your attitude towards it doesn't make sense since 3 marking is a competitive element to the game, and if you dont want to load gold then you're gimping yourself which goes against every sort of competition in history lol if you care about 3 marks but still hold to your pub retard gold sucks values you are a walking paradox my friend

490 alpha, yet it has 1850 DPM (more than a lot of old 320-390 alpha heavies, more than VK 100, Mauerbrecher, Defender, MORE THAN SOME 240 ALPHA TIER 8 MTs) accuracy isn't even godawful for the alpha, it's more accurate than any of those 440 alpha tier 8 heavies wtf 0.19 / 0.19 / 0.14 bloom is pretty disgusting considering that it's pretty slow too, it has better bloom than VK 100 again and that already doesn't have THAT bad gun handling for the alpha, wtf good penetration as well, shell velocity is also less potato than other 128s in the tier turret armor, if it really is that thick with that shape, is arguably better than VK B at tier 9 it's also faster than VK B lmao. In fact, with actually rather decent terrain resists and 12 hp/ton, it's going to hit 30 easily, and it has that typical German 15kph reverse speed too knowing the armor layout of the VK B and Pz VII, it probably has strong LFP too so it doesnt even have frontal weakspots (and that cupola is probably going to be VK 100 v2.0 except its even smaller), and if UFP is 180 mm thick it's going to be around 270 effective or something It's a VK B that loses 20mm side armor, 20mm frontal armor, some penetration, tiny bit of DPM, accuracy and view range, to gain better shell velocity, better mobility, better bloom when moving (lol) and arguably better turret armor. It seems kinda fair at first, but the problem is... ...I'm comparing a tier 8 with a tier 9. Armor layout is going to ultimately judge how stupid the tank actually is but if the LFP is anywhere near 200 mm effective, then GG It seems so stupidly broken atm that I really, really feel like they are going to nerf it (at least the alpha...why does it need a 128, giga-alpha isn't even the main thing of the line, just give it Tiger II's gun or something). WG really hasn't introduced super-P2W premiums in a long time (especially now that Murazor is gone); their recent premiums (other than omegalul buffed IS-3A and possibly some other tanks too) are actually somewhat well balanced. I guess they need to fix that by introducing the next generation bullshit tank. Part of me thinks that this will probably be the next marathon tank; this or the new Skoda.

Well, I finally did it. After 564 games, I finally put enough good ones in a row to get the mark. Also, a screenshot with digi-camo, which I decided to put on it since it's my most played tank. I don't have a screenshot of the final battle since my game crashed while I was loading back to the garage, but it was 8.8k combined. Overall, it was quite a journey. I've learned a lot and become a lot better at the tank. When I first got it, I couldn't figure it out. Luckily, someone pointed me here, where I learned to play it. It is now my most played tank in the game, and will always be one of my favorites. Thank you to all here for the advice, information, replay reviews, and everything else.

This game is finally one of those old MMOs where you haven't played in years... and when you finally log in you're immediately showered with a daily crate, the returning player MEGA crate, 2 special missions reminders, +300 Cow Coins, A Quantum bonus to gem rotations, and +30% to all prestige points for 24 hours.

So I played a few... -Physics vastly improved, no more fear of flipping. -Arty can't drown themselves. -No gold ammo spam. -Shitlords can't snapshot you at 300m due to accuracy decrease; bloom matters a lot more. -Environments are nice and clean instead of cluttered where it's hard to aim and move. -Lower aimtimes across the board feels better. -Can't get gold so there's zero pay to win factor anywhere. -Extremely fast advancement as opposed to painfully long grinds to equip vehicles. -Lack of crew skill variety means no grinding for eternities to have a competitive crew. -Buffs to TDs countered by decreased accuracy and lower zoom which makes long range fire less effective. -No battle stats screen after game means you don't have to see how abysmal every one actually is. -Lack of mods keeps everything even. Now, there's a lot I think is a bad idea. Arty's too strong, tank balance seems rough, and I'm not sure why they changed graphic engines again, this one seems like a big downgrade. But overall, pretty good patch with a lot of overdue improvements.

I can't help but see this as an attempt to try to contrast the old game with the new to remind every one of all the improvements they have made. The problem is so many of the improvements weren't improvements. The old physics where you were stuck to the ground were actually way better for gameplay because while they weren't realistic you also didn't have to constantly worry about flipping, falling, suicide bombers, or some fuck on your own team shoving you into water. 1.0 looked nice graphically but smoothing terrain made flipping even worse, while all the new eye candy crap littering the maps makes it harder to see and shoot. A lot of changes they've made really weren't better, they just made the game look better.

I don't know what game people are playing when they talk about using HE or HESH, the game I play there's too much fucking 1.0 eye candy garbage littering most of the maps to get a shot on anything anyway. The last time a fencepost turned a 320 damage shot into 0 was when I stripped HE off virtually all of my tanks.

for you that have trouble understanding armor layouts of tanks, I have put together a small but helpful guide as to why your shells may not always do damage even when doing crits on low armor tanks! I have had to reroll 5x, and play tens of thousands of matches til I got hardly blue stats to understand the intricate system of armor in this game. Here we have a pubby pershing, a typical specimen of the game world of tanks. You as a slightly above average skill player think, oh boy lets get that damage! So where do you aim? lets aim at the lowest part of the tank and try to track him! good boy, you surely will track him and get your goodboy spotting points while damaging him. you fire, but oh no what's this? you not only didn't damage him, you didn't even track him! His track absorbed that module damage, and the shell had a trajectory below the actual hull of the tank. better luck next time fellow unicum.

Your list would be much shorter if you mark good players. Just assume everyone is an idiot until proven otherwise, because that's usually the case.

Rage post, nothing to see here. Played it enough to call it now: what a garbage map. The north is unpushable without a 2 to 1 turf advantage. If you try to advance past the center hill you're getting fire from the bushy hill TDs, the heavies in the center brick building, and long bombs from around the base all while fighting the tank on the other side of the hill in the open. Entire flank is a trap, once you go there you just sit and do nothing or you get bored, push, and die. Try to scout center and you may get some lights and do some useful work or you may just sit with your dick in your hand because, as per standard WG map rules, the center is useless so no one but the 45%ers who would never influence the match anyway go there. Enjoy the occasional retard yolo up the trench from the south flank where you now get to DPM each other until one of you dies for extra fun. Also, arty loves you 600m away without line of sight on them. Go south side and run into the church only to find another tank(s) on the other side and you've now prox spotted each other and can't ever move again, because snipers will barrage you instantly if you try. Get pinned down for minutes on end until some one relieves you or the other guy is stupid enough to try to go after you and gets killed by your snipers. Mop up is a Five Nights at Freddies jump scare game if there are TDs left because WG seems to have gotten over its fear of bushes and went nuts around the base with the paint brush. Typical game consists of taking lame peeking shots at each other until all the morons thin themselves out trying to be heroes, then pushing in with a numerical advantage, then getting that advantage whittled back down by all the bush wankers until one tank is left standing. 4/10 design, at least it isn't Province.

dont use xvm, dont support the biggest cancer that ever happened to the game and killed the competitive playerbase regardless for what use

Do you prefer hull down or side scraping?

Variant A) You get your ammo rack blown up. Variant B) While circle-strafing the Manticore, and laughing your ass off, you drive off a cliff.

The gold spam really started after the sigma nerf to accuracy. We don't spam gold for the pen, we spam gold to compensate for RNG. If we could reliably hit fully aimed shots on weak spots we'd go back to using AP again. Instead, after missing the micro weak spot on a Type 5 with an entire clip of AP from my 50B - and then getting blapped for 1K with an HE round, I didn't just switch the next clip to APCR - I quit carrying AP in it altogether. Make aiming great again.

Hello! If you have been in a clan's page in WoTLabs recently, you probably noticed a slight change in how the clan's WN8 is displayed. While previously there was a single number, now two are shown. The one shown in larger font is the pure average WN8 of every member in the clan, while the second, shown in smaller font directly under the pure average, is what was up until now the "default". This value which we call a battle-weighed value also takes into account the number of battles each player has. The goal of this was to prevent a clan from padding their average WN8 by including several accounts with a low battle count and extremely high WN8. As you know, WN8 as a metric is only really useful after a certain number of games, usually at the very least a couple thousand. Playing a few battles in low tier tanks and stacked with premium options could easily result in an unrealistically high WN8, which would then be weighed as much as someone with 20 thousand battles under their belt, thus skewing the clan's ratings. However, this method also caused a problem where players with very high battle counts could also skew the results, this time downwards, therefore showing numbers that don't properly reflect the clan's overall performance. To solve this, I have added both numbers to the page, with the most prominent one being pure average WN8, and the battle-weighed WN8 shown directly beneath. This should give players more information to make informed decisions when it comes to choosing a clan to apply to. That is all for now, cheers!

It's 2019 and this guy only complains now? The reason why win rate is weighed much less than damage is because of how common it is to be absolutely useless in any given match and still get carried to victory by good players doing all the heavy lifting. Your one single shot of 200 damage in a Maus and death within 3 minutes of spawn should be and is correctly weighed significantly less than the STB pulling 6k damage out of its ass and carrying your dead weight for a win. Likewise, if that STB was in a platoon with two other good players they will probably still win and likely have an easier time for that matter, but they might only be doing 4k damage each but still carry each other. The opposite is also true, in that it is also very common for bad players lose games that are otherwise very winnable, but because they are absolutely useless they manage to make everybody on their team lose instead. A platoon of 3x SConqs should be able to facetank and kill everything in front of them, but what if they all die at the 4 minute mark doing only 2k damage combined because they drove ass first into the enemy? Suddenly their whole team lose considerable chunks of health and firepower, and in the case that they lose the three retarded SConqs are to be blamed. If they somehow pull a win out of their asses, that's great but the SConqs were still inconsequential because they did absolutely nothing to contribute to the win. It is also right that a 140 that pulled 4k damage before losing (or winning) should be seen as having performed better than the SConqs. This is why damage dealt is a much more useful metric in measuring the performance of a player than win rate. Shitters have always been useless for one reason or another. Before performance metrics they camped to stay alive and avoid repair bills, or wanted to defend arty, or wanted to defend cap before anyone has driven past half the map. Shitters are shitters and will do everything in their power to play as shit as possible, that's why they are called shitters. You want to win more? Git gud and carry harder.

I am about to speak sacrilege. I don't really think prem rounds are all that much of a problem. The real reason they have become over used has as much to do with the great accuracy nerf. Today in my E75, I aimed standard ammo at a stationary Super Pershing's weak spots and missed aimed shots from ~100-150 meters 4-5 times. Gave up and started auto aiming with APCR. My 50B is a similar story, I run 40+ APCR because I just cannot sit in the open for long periods of time carefully aiming at the weak spots of a defender and an O-Ho while eating 1K damage from them in return - APCR is the only way I can see to solve that problem. A perusal of 50B 10k damage games on Youtube correlates that theory. First they took away the ability to hit weakspots, then they took away the weakspots, now they are taking away the ability to pen anything. If you think games are campy now, wait til everybody is still alive and low on ammo after 10 minutes.

Hello! As some may have already noticed, the player profile page on WoTLabs has been revamped and modernized! Along with it, now you can see the category for your WN8 score in each of the stat periods. Hope you guys like it, cheers!

been discussing this in the wotlabs discord and so far: Grand battles unlike front-line isn't a specific mode you can select to play, its an option you can enable for a chance of getting a grand battle match. which means you can still be thrown into normal 3-5-7 match ups They recently sold the Chrysler and are soon selling the Defender which means there will be lots of both vehicles populating the game mode forcing gold spam along with the typical skorpion and S1 hordes we saw in front-lines, but remember there are no re-spawns in grand battles. Still have the issue of the shitty map designs and the fact that there still isn't enough ammo or HP to carry such a large scale battle. The barley increased income compared to randoms often means you either barley make that much more than randoms, or even lose way more than you would in randoms. 4 arty is a thing in grand battles Overall its just a cheap knock-off of front-lines that nobody asked for