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Alright, so since I've been a part of WoTLabs for so long I thought I'd share my story on how I got here. About WoT, going pro, being the best and the wonderful and not so great times I've had because of it. This is just a personal story, for some it can be entirely pointless but some people might enjoy it. (This is purely my experiences that made me the player I am today,, so if you're not interested in that type of thing this probably isn't for you.) Let's start off at the very beginning. I was 12 or 13, my uncle introduced me to this game. After an hour of playing or so I got kind of hooked, but as I was kind of underdeveloped in some areas at the time I started focusing on very different things than what my reasoning now will never see. I got a code with a T2 Light Tank, and it made money! Great, I could spam the OP round day in day out and earn credits along the way. T18 was also a stupidly strong tier 2 so I kept myself to playing those two. I liked being in charge, dictating the game. 2K games later (yes you heard that right) I got bored of the T2 gameplay, and decided to try something a little higher tier. I made my first forum post on the official forums frustrated about players rolling me over, and I was lucky enough to have Poltto (old EU Legend) answer me there. He gave me some great advice on how to think about the game that I still carry with me. Being sure and confident in your ability aids you just as much as perfect mechanics will. That belief had some sort of value. I am diagnosed with autism, so I found this very soothing. Then I looked at Poltto's stats and was amazed. How in the actual fuck? At the time I had just gotten my first tier 9 (M46 Patton) with about half his outputs in everything. I got curious about player skill, something I hadn't really considered as games weren't competition to me. Now they were. It felt like I had figured it out, getting to enjoy the satisfaction of improvement. I started off by watching various streamers (not RU streamers though as their meta lets them get away with way too much stupid shit) to both find openings and rotations mostly, I always liked low armoured assassin champions. I picked up Shaco in League and climbed pretty high in the first season, getting into the real mindset of the drive you need to actually improve to the point you want. Taking this process into WoT wasn’t really difficult, it almost came naturally. Fast forward about 6 months: I found WN8 and WoTLabs from two OM guys that just crushed my entire team and frustrated as I was, flamed in all chat. They told me to look up WotLabs and the Elitist+Stronk Pluton channels in game to meet some stronger players.. I looked at it, and the metric seemed pretty good. I thought... is this what people use to measure their strength in? Probably not. I saw myself on that ladder, very far down. I played ranked solo queue in League where people try harder, so I improve. II had the same feeling for tanks, I needed to go up the tiers. Once I felt improvement, I couldn't stop. That was it. The urge, and while I had a career in music production right off the bat in high school.. This was what I really wanted to do.. I started looking into the numbers, who the great players were; emu87, zzlzxzzlzx, espanol and unknwn comes to mind. You are not there yet, but you can be if you improve is what I told myself.. At this point I had about 2 years of playtime, not doing anything else but s3alclubbing in game every game I played since higher tiers were going so poorly. 1 year later I decided to move up the tier trees again for another try. I wanted to become good at the game. It felt like a good challenge, and I like a good challenge. I also started platooning with some better players, Draz_H from S3AL in particular had a 6K game in his Type 59 on Kharkov the very first game we played together so I was just blown away. He offered to give me some pointers and explained that preserving HP and a good opening is normally enough to have a good game. The trick to this according to him was reading the line up according to the map state. I never really figured this concept out until then. Time to find more information to build my gameplay upon. (Now about at 1500-1600 WN8) Here comes the next contender: Hellcat (pre-nerf). I watched EJ play it in an interesting way I’d never seen before.. Concepts like vision and kiting were easier to put together as parts of the game's inner workings while watching someone else. I was 1500 WN8 56%WR at the time (s3alclubbing buffed my WR, as I said.). of this happening.. I grew something inside of me, I wanted to improve. And today, that desire still hasn’t gone away, It’s fueled much, but also caused much frustration along the way. I was learning now, reviewing my own retardation in replays for months to get a better sense of right and wrong and I finally felt some clarity. A long and dark path, probably lonely too. Perfect for me. I am going to be the best at this video game. Period. I decided this in high school. Hellcat spamming was a great teaching tool for understanding vision that I still appreciate today, even if I refuse to play anything below tier 9. My high school years were spent producing beats and sampling old disco songs into EDM, honestly a very simple thing to do if music theory is something you master. I was really going my own way and already carving it out before adulthood. However, this game. World of Tanks… Something about it made me always want to play.. Eventually I started playing over composing in my free time instead of balancing the two. Seeing one’s work come to life is something truly special - but WoT filled another void within me that I honestly liked better. I had fun, was confident and started to make sense of it all. Streams like EJs and advice from the many players on here (X3N4, _KT, Patient0, Poltto, Kewei + plenty of other of you) really helped me grasp the more difficult parts of the game and as such, I started improving rapidly. My period as Unicum before Super Unicum was the shortest between the cutoffs on the spectrum, and I really started liking the game. I played well, got into some stronger clans at the time (KITTY and S3AL) where I could regularly play with players of the same caliber and continue evolving. Then WoT introduced Marks of Excellence. I was still on a shitty MacBook Pro using a Wine wrapper that couldn’t load 4 maps at all and crashed every 3rd game, but I managed to 3mark the E 50. That was a very big milestone for me, but I felt that my PC really kept holding me back. My parents were nice enough to support me in gaming as my diagnoses hadn’t been discovered yet (although they were most definitely there and parents were aware) and that doing something I simply genuinely enjoy might be worth spending some money on. My parents were musicians growing up so they always supported that path. Gaming was new and something my mom especially had trouble seeing as anything more than a time-sink until I got good and showed her my Paypal after 2 months of non-stop boosting later on .I’m jumping forward in time here but I don’t think family stuff has a place here, but I’ll at least say that this was eventually resolved. I got a decent PC, a GTX 970 which was brand new at the time and other fairly solid components making the game suddenly run very smoothly on high quality. It took me a few days but past that? What an improvement. I went from barely being able to mark the “easy” marks to doing moderately hard ones in 75 games or less. The jump in DPG went from scratching the 2K region to reliably hitting the 2500-2800s in tier 8s. I felt ready to move up to tier 10 and get good there now. I spent most of my time with tier 8 as it was so much easier, and I liked marking premium tanks for their income during the challenge. I was never much for skirmishes until I actually joined S3AL a while later. During this time I had just left KITTY to join WaterWar’s clan LAVA and this is probably where I had the most personal growth as a player, KITTY’s Commander (GetLucky) was also swedish and liked playing with me a lot, as he was a 4k player and I was hovering at 3k wn8, I paid a lot of attention to his play. He played very passively to my surprise but eventually explained that patience tends to lead to better decisions as long as you don’t take too long. In LAVA I started playing Ranked TBs and skirmishes as they were so good for credits, and I also got the hang of organized play. Randoms were still the thing I enjoyed most until I joined S3AL after LAVA died and we were doing T6 fastbois. So much banter, soundboards and genuine fun on the TS that included a social aspect of the game I didn’t really experience until very late in my career. I found it fun, but randoms were still my jam. We had tons of fun with T-22 memery, tons of top clans coming together to.. Uh… complete missions, and all that stuff. At this point in time I was very much a platoon player, me and Constie (remember him?) pretty much played everything together. but 3 man platoons always felt like cheating to me. As I was now drowning in credits, I could finally buy and play tier 10s without issues. I really liked the BatChat, and spammed it until I 3marked it (1700 games.. lol) until I moved to the next. I realised that mostly what I was searching for was a challenge, more particularly one that fell in line with something I’d taken interest in. The 3MoE hunting ensued. After having done one tier 10, I believed I could do them all. That’s what I set my goal as, the DPG hunt got pushed aside in favour of marks. I think this would be late 2016, as I started topping DPG charts on tier 8s and finally hit the 7k combined recent/overall cutoff FAME had to get into the clan. I asked X3N4 and he sent me an invite. I felt like I made it first time I joined FAME, best clan in the world so I am one of the best players. It wasn’t until here I discovered ESL and found that super interesting. After a few months in FAME I got a Whatsapp message from Knäckebröd asking me to try-out for their team mid-season as genghiswolves had been accepted to his uni and couldn’t play anymore. Placing wasn’t great either as they were already so behind that we couldn’t get back into the league despite having a positive record past my joining. In this environment I was still pretty new, everyone was a better player than I was used to so the tricks to beating bad ones didn’t work since they wouldn’t fall for them. Cohesive gameplay and real time strategy became the big thing to focus on as flawless mechanics should be a no-brainer here. Boosting became a thing and I really went in for it to provide some extra value to my team, we were 8 and 7 people could play so as the new guy I’d have to fight for my spot if I didn’t do well. Luckily I never had to. But the boosting (climbing) times, me, Xaneleon and Failware (all on Knäckebröd, now Xane works for WG and Failware is considered FAME 1st team and one of the best players in the world in organised play) we all spent 20+ hours on Steppes and Mines to figure out new stuff for strats for the map. I really liked FAME. The motto of “it’s not personal, you’re out if you don’t have what it takes.” really groomed me. I wound meeting some of them in Katowice during the -16 EU playoffs, had a great time and I think there’s still some legendary clips from Dakis stream from when we were there. I graduated high school around this time, and started boosting on my free time. WGL training + boosting was basically what I spent my day on, earning enough to get by and fund my music stuff (studio time isn’t cheap) and we set our eyes on playoffs in KB that’d mean a decent piece of prize money. We trained 3 times a week, sometimes against EU or RU teams in 3 hour blocks of perfecting strats, after they had their turn trying their strat - we had ours. Sometimes the team would want us to adjust strats to counter to see if we could beat it and sometimes they just wanted a standard defense to fight against so in general the training varied heavily from team to team. The russian teams always went full yolo every single game no matter what so you barely gained anything from the games if you didn’t just crush them in fighting them before they started applying any sort of strategy, funnily enough the EU silver league was MUCH better training partners than the russian ones, even some RU WGL teams were a complete mess to talk and organize with. We weren’t a top team even if KB placed 5th the season before so we mostly got practice times with EU teams and silver RU/EU teams as the top EU teams trained vs eachother and russian top teams most of the time. As I joined, the relegation was already dangling over our heads so I could pretty much play without pressure. I really liked the 7v7 7/68, the attack defense + boosts made it all about strategy and very little about RNG as the better team actually won most of the time compared to randoms. My very first ESL game was against KAZNA, the #2 team considered by pretty much everyone as DiNG was stomping most teams. I played out of my mind, and we were up 4-2. Sadly they were prepared for our Ghost Town strats (4th map) and we found ourselves in a tiebreaker, here the stakes were insane. We were expected to lose this match and even had a W/L route planned to remain in the WGL if we did and we went in kinda uncoordinated as I had only been practicing the game-mode for a week and was pretty fresh. If we won this match we would surpass The Lucky Bunch, putting us outside the relegation risk zone. KAZNA sadly had a better Cliff strat than we did and won the game 4-5. As my first WGL game, the comeback really made a dent in my confidence. After that loss, the team sort of lost its charisma and the rest of the season was depressing. After the relegation there was a major league in between silver and WGL where we played, but most players moved on after KB got relegated. I focused on streaming after this point. 3MoE hunting was my jam, and I was getting good at it. Aim_Drol eventually released a spreadsheet of the top 100 markers on the servers and I found myself on the top 10. I decided to mark every tier 10. That was my goal. So I did. It was a long grind, the STB-1 especially almost broke me. Once I had hit that, I felt completed. What now? I was already good at the game, with Daki and Jostra shaping me competitively and much of the WGL training made me a much more consistent player. However, I didn’t really know what to do. Quit playing? I have completed what I set out to, but I’m too good at this to quit. Then I remembered; I want to be the best. I looked at my service record and saw the demise that the play4fun me caused before I started taking the game seriously - so I sent a ticket in and resetted the account. I got to keep all rewards so I had a 260, 907, T-55A and all my premiums along with enough 907 ammo/consumables for 1K games. Account was resetted, and I wanted to wait for the right time to start playing randoms on it. I grinded regular TBs and Skirmishes to get a good enough crew for the 907 in randoms. I had already marked it twice before so I wasn’t too worried, but I need at least 3-4+ skill crew if I want to challenge the top DPG players. On this account, every game mattered. I could not autopilot or not take it seriously, so I invested very heavily into performing. I was streaming most of this and it grew a bit, and the 907 grind was kinda funny. Reserves or FL didn’t exist then so you had to actually grind the crew you wanted from scratch, otherwise I had to complete the first set of Stug missions to get a female crew - which would require playing random battles. I wound up starting my 907 grind with a 100% crew at 80% on BiA in randoms once the reserves came as 50 games let me hit 3 skills if I used x5s and boosters right. Still, the first 150 games got me to 94% on the mark. I thought to myself that hmm.. Maybe it’s just really OP? But then I had 1k games straight of bullshit where I fluctuated between 80-90 and just couldn’t get a good enough streak of games to complete it. But I wouldn’t give up. I was the number one 907 player on Hall of Fame 4 months in a row, without the third mark completed. That really frustrated me. I was the fucking best player of the tank, how can I not get it? The mark req was at it’s peak (6600) and I was playing out of my mind. There were like 2 players on the server at the time with a higher DPG and they didn’t have anywhere near the battle count (100 vs 1K) so I couldn’t fathom how I couldn’t get it. I decided to put it off after hitting 1k games and started playing other stuff and really saw how much that I’ve improved. I had gone from a typical 3k 50B player to topping the DPG chart with zero time on it in between, and the same applied for many other tanks. Tier 10s were getting marked before 100 games. I was really peaking. At least I thought so. Carbon was basically the only guy who reliably beat my DPGs at this time and as Luna (not Wotlabs Luna) knows Carbon, and me being in the same clan as Luna both in S3AL and FAME, I got some advice and replays to learn from. I inspected them very closely and learned a lot. Carbon’s greatest strength that I gathered from his replays was that he always knew what was going to happen and positioned in time, in every tank. Timing and gameflow became something I inspected more closely and I really developed in consistency even if my median game went down slightly, my average went up because of the insane carries coming more consistently once I had Carbon’s mindset down - coupled with my own. This is also when I started boosting a lot. I had been boosting 2016-2018 and faired well, but when I really competed for the top is when I got a lot of offers. I made a living out of boosting after having rerolled, some stream donations and the boosting money was enough to pay for the crucial stuff. I didn’t mind gaming all day, I still liked the game. I still do. This meant that I drifted away from music, lost touch with a lot of my friends in the business as I dove into gaming. I wanted to be number 1. This account was a fresh start and I was going to make sure of it. At 5K games it would show up on the leaderboard, so I needed a 5500WN8 overall to take the spot. I didn’t want to cheat my way there by abusing light tanks, or cheat WN8 by the tier average bug so I went straight for the tier 10 DPG tryharding again. I watched some movie, can’t remember which (sorry), as I was trying to fall asleep but couldn’t. The day before was awful as I had gone from 93 to 82 on the 907 mark. Something there just really inspired me. I went for a walk at 4:30 in the morning for about an hour and then just got to it. I decided that this is it. I’m completing this right now. I turned on the stream, feeling torn if I should stream it (I always play like 5-10% worse on stream, never been able to shake it) or just grind without viewers over my shoulder. I decided to stream it, and my god if that wasn’t the best session I ever had. 7,2k average combined across 25 games. The most tilting thing happened though, as the game that shaved off before apparently was a big one meaning I had to do 7.8k to get mark from a 94.95 across the finish line. This was the third time I had the mark in the 94,9X range, and I wasn’t going to choke this time around. Incoming triple arty full tier 10 Karelia. I was so tilted as it’s one of the worst maps to get the REALLY high results on even if it’s decent at getting adequate ones - especially the three arties. Luckily the enemy team just runs into my gun and my team doesn’t do much but take damage for me. The mark mod told me I was across the finish line, at 8AM I could finally let this challenge go. The rest of the game I played out perfectly with the pressure gone, wound up turning it into a 95,7 percentage once the mark actually completed. With it, I also went over 5K games and finally took first place on the WoTLabs WN8 leaderboard as the only 6K WN8 player on any server at the time. This was also during the time I boosted 3MoEs for days on end, getting into it eventually lead me to just watching movies on a second monitor and autocompleting everything non-tier 10. The last thing I did was join Majstoras silver team FAME 7x7 where we literally crushed everyone and still stomped WGL teams in the qualifier - but as Majstora (our FC and a WoT mastermind) was moving to England with his brother Maresca (also on our team) our team started falling apart. We still had the WGL slot, and some players decided to stay and formed a new team, Savage Squad. I decided to leave because without Majstora I didn’t think we would compete with the top teams. We were scrimming them and going evenly, but doing some trainings without voicecoms (training personal decision making - it’s a trick to make players better on initiative so the FC has to micromanage them less and can focus more on big picture) Now I felt burned out, that grind really took a while and our effort into the ESL kinda was the last I had in me. 6month hiatus ensued where I got back into music again as it’s a hobby I felt I had neglected for so long. I quit boosting too so I could distance myself from the game. Coming back to WoT casually afterwards, the game changed a lot. Maps were remodeled much to my dismay and so many gimmicky things made the game harder to play. Coming back I definitely felt washed. Playing on cygaN_’s account as I didn’t have my own, a great polish friend of mine from S3AL. I also used User’s account for some challenges, like the ISU-130 (also almost broke me) and the T-44-122 to complete some of the rarer marks in the game that I wouldn’t have access to otherwise. After that, cygaN_ gave me an account from a great friend to play on. Wujaszek, an account that had ground out everything, 500mil credits and about as much invested into consumables. He said that he was done with randoms and that I was free to use the acc as I wanted as long as I just don’t log in when he’s online playing FL or skrims (having to check the clan website page before logging basically). I was really happy he’d just give me the freedom to use his acc for whatever I wanted. I missed out on all the ranked stuff but he didn’t, so I had 4 full sets of improved equipment I could put on. I also had every tank in the game available outside of the low tier premiums, and nothing was 3marked. This felt like a really nice time-sink, but the game changed so much that I had to relearn much of what I already knew. Tempo sped up a lot and lights were figuring out better bushes and I had to adjust. For very long I wasn’t anything special, I could still 3mark any tier 10 with ease but the reward tanks kept giving me trouble. 121B wasn’t more than 100 games to do after the buff, but the rest took a while. It was my first M60 attempt and while I had the M48 playstyle down the mobility really changed the way to play the tank. 800 games later I took it and wound up really liking the M60. High mobility, high pen and a strong gun felt like the perfect combination to me. I wanted to repay him for letting me use his account, but as I’m marking pretty much everything I play - he considers that enjoyment enough since he can only play on weekends anyway. Great guy, we can’t communicate very well as he’s polish and can’t speak english but nevertheless he is one of my best internet friends anyway. This meant I had to change the way I played the game, from a more aggressive approach to map control to a mistake-capitalising once. Surprisingly this came very naturally, and once able to combine the two I really started having pop-off sessions like never before. 4K+ing tier 9s, nearing 4500. At this point I kept feeling burnouts after 2-3 weeks of playing the game, realising the fun only lasted for a week or two. So I modeled my gameplay after this. I decided to play casually, but well. Plenty of breaks in between, playing mostly once every other week if at all but I was still able to showcase some good gameplay. I started the engineering programme at uni at this time, so now I had studies, WoT and music to juggle. WoT just fell short of the other two at this point my life, so I barely played at all during 2019. Studies came first and music was finally going well again, started doing live shows (DJing) and having fun without gaming. WoT slipped further and further away. Whenever I wanted to waste time, League was my choice of game - or I’d go back and speedrun Mirror’s Edge (still top 20 on two maps xD) rather than having to learn the changes of WoT. But every now and then, I pick WoT back up - generally for a challenge to see if I still got it. This is how I play the game now. I spam games under a short time period and put it off afterwards, it works for me but I’ll definitely admit that playing WoT is freshware, you need regular exposure or you’ll drop in skill. I like WoT now. Wheelies and arty can still suck a dick but I am having fun playing this way, trying hard enough I am definitely able to keep up, but there are no stakes - I have other things I should be doing if WoT goes poorly, so I can quit without anger and move on to the next thing right away. I managed to 3mark the Chieftain which was the last very, very hard reward to do for me. I enjoyed the grind, even though it was 300 games long between 85-90 until the 90-95 happened right away with perfect maps and not a single game drop. Past that I also felt it left some void, DPGs on this account doesn't matter because these tanks have all been played by someone before me so it’s not something to shoot for, but I think that’s a good thing. No pressure. I can play the game, have fun and not care if things don’t work out. I am very willing to admit that I am washed up from my prime (I’m a 4800 player now, not a 6k player) and recent CWs with FAME have shown that I really got more to learn. I missed Daki flaming me in some weird way so feels good to be back in something recognisable. 3 weeks ago however I broke my hand, initially it looked very very bad. Right hand too so no mouse use. This also meant I’d miss the campaign which I only joined because there’s just so few things to do in Sweden during COVID that I found it to be something I might enjoy. I missed the FAME guys anyway after meeting them in Katowice. (70% of the WGLEU was FAME, and all playoffs teams had at least majority FAME players + one or two russians so it really was just like meeting the best players of the best clan). Most of them are really nice, Barry and Skarium especially were super fun to meet and hang out with. We did a smaller S3AL meetup in CPH a while back too, but it quickly turned into a who can beat Fosco in a drinking contest that the weekend is a bit of a blur Luckily my hand is healing well, I played again yesterday and with a brace I can use a mouse to about 90% accuracy which is enough for WoT. Also had my first tier 9 10k game, super rusty.. Oh the irony. Now I just play to perform, and when I don’t.. I just quit. I feel like I’ve escaped the clutches of this game's addictive lure. I’m really happy I can still perform, and I’ll keep trying until that’s no longer an option I think. But now I am in charge, not the game. There is no “go next” after dying early, that is an ALT F4 and I can leave WoT behind without dwelling on it. This may just be pointless rambling, but I thought I’d write it up. As I said, there is absolutely zero gameplay advice here, simply my story on how I got to where I am right now. I’m still not peaking I believe, as I’m reaching higher highs than when I literally played this game for a living well over a year tryharding my ass off. Development really is a fickle thing and I really do think peace of mind and critical thinking is a bigger part of improvement at the top than anything else. I’m going to end this on a more sombre note. I was genuinely addicted to WoT. I never got help, but I valued games over things like sleep, food and socialising. That was a big mistake I made, and the one bit of advice I’ll give in this thread is to not let the game take you over. Yeah, you will likely be great if WoT is all you ever think about - but then the game is really just playing you. Improvement is slow but concentrating it into shorter timeframes really doesn’t do you any favours. Taking things from past games is what helps you improve, and a replay review will give at least 10x the information than just “going next” will in that game. Today I like WoT, I have fun playing on my own terms and I can look back on my WoT days as something I enjoyed. There’s no hatred, but the game really didn’t do me any favours outside of the game. I have many regrets and going down this path is honestly one of them, even if I achieved what I wanted in the game I think pursuing other goals outside of it would have made me happier. I’ve accepted this though and it’s not bothering me. I don’t know where I would be without WoT though, it really ignited the grinding and improvement spark that I think can be well put to use if you find something interesting enough to keep it alive. I haven’t found that IRL yet, but I’m gonna keep looking. It also showed me how an elitist attitude necessarily isn’t a bad thing, and that competition means making hard decisions and having a strong mental. There are definitely things I can take with me to help me in other areas. The strive for being the best, actually getting there and feeling the relief of completion is honestly astounding. When that endless drive is fueling you, why pump the brakes? Take your shot. I’m conflicted about what happened when I did mine, but talent/hard work pays off if you lean into it so I think it’s a good idea to shoot your shot when you finally see an opening. I'm especially thankful for knowing that I am able to power through no matter how bad things feel, the 907 really had me in shambles but sheer will is enough to set things straight sometimes.

As of now, every viable tier 10 tank either has some sort of gimmick to leverage or just an overtuned kit in general. The gimmicky ones usually have flaws to play around when facing them, but the ones with overtuned kits tend to simply roll you over as a lower tier, and you rarely get to pressure an advantage in full tier 10 games as the terms seems are generally unbalanced and hard to estimate. Hull down snipefights is one of the most common aspects of the game and it is absolutely terrible gameplay, just an example but you get the point. Some examples of the first would be: Autoloaders High alpha guns Super high mobility vehicles These are fairly simple to play around because you know what they are going to do every game. Niche vehicles tend to go into set plays per map much more often than not and as such they get much easier to predict and counter. EBR’s really suck but I’m simply going to flat out tell you that if you can’t hit them reliably, your aim is bad. Their wheels are complete BS game balance wise but at this point you should be able to adjust to it. It’s part of the game now so the thing you can do instead of whining (it is valitaded, I know) you should be focusing on what you can improve, in the EBR case that would simply be aiming. It’s a terrible introduction to the game but don’t let that stagnate your progress. On the other hand we have tanks like Chieftain, 907, 430U and such that are just statistically overpowered vehicles in most metrics. They are never easy to fight and you’re going to have to learn that the hard way. Even the dumbest monkey in a Chieftain has a real chance to win duels against considerably better players because of his tank selection. Which leads me to the topic at hand: Tank selection is everything in tier 10. Playing off-meta means you directly disadvantage yourself against everyone playing meta before you even click battle. If you want to learn how tier 10 works in its current state you need to spend time with it, and you generally want to be in control and figure out what works and what doesn’t. How do you do that? Pick strong vehicles. You want to develop that decision making ability but you won’t get to make many decisions when you constantly have to let the enemy make its move because you have a worse tank. Since the full tier 10 MM is by far the most common, this gets more important. You don’t have anything to free farm to inflate your DPG, you have to work for it. This means no auto-piloting whatsoever because there are too many guns that have big enough impact to ruin your game entirely of one mistake. Aim for non-losing gameplay rather than winning. I don’t find the meta particularly different, just the tank balance being off. I generally try to avoid the stuff I don’t want to fight until I have to, even if that means giving up where I initially wanted to go during the countdown. If you care about performance in games then tank selection is going to have to be a part of it. I find the meta to be increasingly faster and faster, compared to 4-5 years ago where playing full games at 500 meters was a legitimate viable strategy for most mediums. In that sense, yes, there’s more aggression today than before because people are fighting not only against their enemies but teammates for performance. This means people are going to cut corners and find ways to do this more efficiently, which leads to higher tempo gameplay. When do you play aggressively? When you have all the information needed to make that play. How likely is it that this play is going to work? Estimate it, try it, re-estimate the value of the play in said situation. I am mostly a passive player, so my play is almost exclusively reactive. I deploy to positions I know well, damage to farm and most importantly have a fall back option. If I’m wrong I don’t want my game to end so I never purposefully do plays that are questionable but “would be good if they paid off”. That type of “what if” thinking needs to work the other way too. What if this goes wrong? What should I do? Have an exit strategy ready so your game doesn’t end because of a misread earlier on. I’d say the meta is fairly different too, arty being the main difference as there’s basically always 3 of them. Not much you can do about that sadly, once an arty has decided that he’s going to kill you there’s basically nothing you can do to prevent him from singling you out. The advice I have there is to go dark just before arty reloads so that he just might switch to another target. It’s a harder game than any other tiers for sure, but you also learn the most from it. If I go back to tier 9 again I’m fairly sure I’d just roll over everybody because I’m almost able to do that in tier 10 too. Tier 9 doesn’t have so many gimmick tanks to be constantly be aware of, and has less variables which makes it an easier tier to play. This is the place you want to be at, comfort means a lot and you should be playing where you are performing the best, perfecting your gameplay in a more comfortable setting makes it easier to take those with you and apply them to more nuanced concepts and situations. Keep doing what works, try and up the difficulty every now and then and see if your skill set holds up. If it does, great; if not then you can just go back and practice more. The meta itself of tier 10 isn’t very different, people still play the same positions and the game flow works the same, just at higher stakes. If it gets too complicated you simply have to accept that you’re not quite there yet. Self-criticism is the biggest part of improvement and the more you do it the higher chances are you’ll end up a better player afterwards. Blaming external factors doesn’t help you. Arty sucks, EBRs suck, unbalanced maps etc etc. You can’t do anything to change those, so focus on playing around them. What can I do to simplify these problems for myself? For pure aggressive play I’d recommend starting out small. High probability actions that still are dictating actions. Try to control the engagements, think out ways to achieve whatever it is you actually want to do, before you do them. An enemy tank needs to die that’s hard to kill? Find out ways to do it safely, and if you can’t figure one out then you have the options of gambling or thinking of something else. Take the latter option. You can still control areas without putting stakes into it. Don’t know how? Try something. I will always recommend safer play when stakes are high, but when you really are at a loss it’s not like you’re going to end up with a great idea anyway, so try any idea. Sometimes they work out, great. You didn’t learn shit but at least you saved a game that should have been bad. I also recommend studying the minimap a lot, especially at decisive points of action. See a push happening? Then you want to know how it develops from there, is it common? Can you use this experience for something useful, like assuming it normally happens (after it has happened enough times). This lets you skip steps both in decision making and focus, letting you be more concerned with what’s happening on your screen rather than the map once you understand it. You need to understand the map before you can start making aggressive plays reliably, because most players react the same way to the same things. Knowing that, you know what said aggressively play will result in, how the enemy will react and now you can build upon that knowledge to think even further ahead of that aggressive play. More foresight leads to much more stable gameplay, so the biggest piece of advice to your questions (even though I didn’t really answer any of them in concrete terms) is that you should understand other players better. All the 48-52% players are bunched together anyway, they don’t try to get into other players’ heads at all and react exclusively to what they see happening on their screen and not the minimap. No foresight whatsoever, meaning you can abuse the living shit out of it and simply win over them by playing big picture. Similar to GMs beating mathematically perfect playing computers in chess. Or the macro concept in DoTA/League. It’s a super advanced concept that doesn’t really apply until you are comfortable enough mechanically to beat anyone you come across. You want to be at that point mechanically, because mechanics don’t require thinking once you are comfortable enough with your game knowledge to keep your head in big picture, all the time. You shouldn’t be considering things like “Where should I aim to pen this tank?” or “How much do I need to lead my shell?”; those things should be etched in your skin and happen automatically, because then you can start playing the map which is what tier 10 is all about. You don’t have any substantial mechanical advantages in tier 10, so your theoretical advantages are what you’re going to want to leverage. A good place to start would be staying at least 1 step ahead of what you’re currently doing, while simultaneously having a fallback if it didn’t work out. Try sticking to that rule at every point of the game, and if you find yourself drifting away from it, you failed. Try again. Once that becomes routine you can add more variables into the mix, like managing HP in ways to prevent pub monkeys yoloing you from actually succeeding, and the more questionable parts of what in reality should be possible know and not. The point is that if you are unaware of something you can’t prepare against it, meaning you have stopped being in control of your gameplay. Try and stop letting that happen and you will find yourself having much more stable games. This is all in very broad terms, but concepts like this are hard to verbalize unless you make them super specific which usually only applies to the specific situations and little to actually draw from. I don’t really feel that I properly answered your questions, more guiding you in the right direction of becoming comfortable with how tier 10 works. The hard truth is that there’s no easy fix to somehow getting better, it’s a grind that takes time and constantly humbling yourself enough to accept that even if the result of something going bad wasn’t directly your fault, you can’t dwell on that since it doesn’t improve you as a player. It happened, so it was a bad decision. Could you have known that? Try and figure those things out and start playing the game ahead of time. A good rule of thumb that has been working for me is always staying 30 seconds ahead of the map and checking if my assumptions are right, and why they were/weren’t. You need to get into the heads of other players and pull mind-gamey shit to be the protagonist player of every game, which is what everyone wants. When you are in control you can do whatever you want, but at a loss of what to do, take the backseat and let the game develop more until you start to understand what’s happening. This doesn’t mean doing nothing, just simpler gameplay where you have teammates to play around and good amounts of information to make the easier assumptions. TL;DR - Take the blame for mistakes, even if you feel they weren’t yours. What could you have done to improve the situation, regardless of what actually happened? Do this every game and you’ll be improving. Tier 10 is all about eliminating mistakes rather than improving positives.

Hello tankers! We here at WoTLabs understand and sympathize with the difficulties suffered by players struggling to maintain their statistics during this period of unusually high player activity caused by the COVID-19 outbreak quarantines around the world. To provide World of Tanks players relief during these trying times, we're proud to announce the introduction of the Universal Basic Padding (UBP). The UBP will guarantee that every player will receive an extra +1000 WN8 and +10% Win Rate to help alleviate the pain and suffering of degrading statistics. Before: After: In summary:

What do we want to do? Simplify the choice and use of all equipment "Now scroll down to form 7C marked, 'light tanks tier 4-6' and write in your gross credit total. Reference chart B13 to find what your base camo value within a bush is and divide by improved camo net values to find your net camoflague values while in water while being observed with improved binocs from a tank destroyer."

Hey, I just thought I'd make a list of all the current (IMO) best players at the game and their streams, both for them and for you. CarryBarry ^ - legit 3marked Chieftain, one of the best players on the server, great music and chill vibes and first and foremost a really chill stream - and barry's a qt insane player at basically everything. i don't think i've seen him struggle in a single tank - just seems like a natural for the game and has incredible decisionmaking The only NA player I usually end up watching with my sleep schedule, plays very differently from me and when he genuinely tryhards he is absolutely an amazing player (regardless of NA server LUL) so I enjoy the gameplay, it's high quality. i personally don't like this guy because of his 50B rigging and other stuff, but despite it he is undoubtedly one of the best players on EU and rivals Decha in mechanics IMO - there is very much to learn from how he plays the game and usually he'll explain his thought process if you ask him which i think is super valuable to people eager to improve. https://www.twitch.tv/stanlock_mercy/ (wouldn't embed) The best player in the world, period. You won't find better mechanics than this, russian streamer though so if you aren't capable of reading gameplay yet then this might be too difficult for you. Nevertheless, incredible player. Probably the strongest mechanical player there is right now, great decisionmaking and just in general great at reading enemy intentions. There are more russian streamers out there doing insanely well, but Stanlock is still a cut above and this is the stream you should be watching if you want to learn from the best. https://www.twitch.tv/decha__/ (wouldn't embed) Decha is probably one of the most aggresive players on the server, he is a bit washed but still amazing at the game. You won't find his gameplay boring, even if his playstyle has become sub-optimal he is still by far the best at it. Nobody dogfights better than Decha. Legit 3marked 279 - met him in GO-IN and we were the primary BC players together during whatever the campaign was and I've seen first hand how good this guys decisionmaking is. The first to 3mark a 279 after the mark update I believe. 3marks tier 10 rewards and so on, just in general a super strong player. Niall's got a stupid aspect ratio but he's a very talented WoT player. Very interactive with his chat. you will learn a lot from watching him as he generally tries to explain his thought process and I think that he is very good at doing just that - the way he approaches engagements and situations and describes his thought process throughout is very valuable for people trying to learn. Has a very reactive playstyle, an emphasis on consistency here as well. One of the better streams to watch if you are looking to learn. https://www.twitch.tv/4az__f/ (wouldn't embed) New guy I hadn't heard about for pretty long but he is incredibly talented. I'll be watching him more to learn because this guy is whopping my ass in DPGs as of right now just look at that shit ^ he's a prodigy These are the ones that I watch when I can, there are plenty of russian monster players as well as other server. I didn't link Val because last time I talked to him he sold his PC, so now I don't know how SEA server looks statwise. https://www.twitch.tv/kajzoo/ Super strong player, really fun guy too to meet - a little maldy but absolutely a top 10 player, probably top 5 right now https://www.twitch.tv/jaeckefa/ also a super strong player, aids aspect ratio and he he plays very irregularly - nevertheless a definite top 10 player when he's on his game Great russian player, only watched for a lil bit but he's 5k+ing tier 10s which is always impressive

Here's one to trigger a lot of people: Despite all its flaws, WoT is actually a really good and fun game, which why despite all the complaining from people here on the forums, you all keep on coming back to play it time after time. It's either that, or you're all addicted harder than a 3-bottles-of-cheap-win-a-day alcoholic and should seek professional help.

Hello! First bugfixes of the new decade are in: Fixed issue that prevented tanks from being added to the overall tank table (located at the bottom of your stats page). This requires a stats update, so it might not show up in your page right away. Updated Twitch API for the sponsored / community streamers. Still waiting to validate that everything is working (requires someone to be streaming Tanks), but theoretically they should, which is why they probably won't. Minor database maintenance. Cheers, and happy new decade!

I'm going to fucking fix your 0s and Os from now on, because fuck you.

My first tier 10 3 mark. I know, pretty shit, but i've had a mental block for years - thanks to the community here for all the tips, and in particular to @kolni for his great feedback and analysis.

The public have spoken.

Hello! Probably one of the most requested features of all time, dark mode is now available on WoTLabs! To toggle, click on the lightbulb icon to the right of the player/clan selectors: Your preference will be saved within local storage in your browser so you can continue to browse WoTLabs in dark mode! There might be one or two CSS problems I still have to sort out. If you see anything that looks off, let me know in this thread! (And no, I don't know when or if I'll be implementing dark mode on the forum. That's a whooole different ball game.) Cheers! Never

You and your fucking zero key.

introduction of the non-pref premium era was a mistake tier 8 premiums should have always remained slightly worse versions of their tech tree counterparts. CW/Reward tanks of any kind were a mistake, especially above tier 8.

Finally did a thing, broke the 10k damage barrier. Almost 11k but adrenaline

messing with other tanks' numbers through messing with your own really doesn't sit well with me.. if my hard stats in game were nerfed (camo rating shredded>i get spotted and die despite not moving in solid foliage and closest enemy is 300m+) and I didn't get to see why then i won't learn how or why i died as it couild just always be that over and over.. camo shred is a really bad idea because it'll just nullify the entire skill on large tanks (that still can run it) and hardly affect the vision bullshit we have already in wheelies. there's too much vision atm, ppl cover too much ground and play too safe as a result, you can't do this or this or this because if an EBR comes and lights you, you die.. end of innovation cycle i think making 445VR much harder to achieve is a place to start, not considering all the buffs that upping the crew with improved stuff would further boost it - at least for higher tiers, td's capped at 400, 435 with binocs, 420 with optics, they still have render obv but their VR circle'll just be smaller, not able to run both binocs and optics at the same time - gives light tanks more wiggle room in dealing with said bushwanking when you have physical space you know they can't use against you unless they come closer, raise avg HP of TDs by like 5-10% lights - basing the VR stat on performance and nothing else so it just gets tweaked between the tier 10 lights as the weakest one in performance will have the highest VR of next balance cycle and just tune them all into they feel fine against the field> hard nerf EBR > nerf T-100 VR, give it a high pen AP gold round (280 or so) and a 1,1x modifier for lights to how damage translates (not assisted) to compensate the already other shitty T10 lights and how they perform, it's an outside the game buff to all tier X lights in XP/credit/whatever gains people think are important. now as the only class able to stack vision the old way > lights are relevant again, but confined to the very small specific role the light tanks should have in game. More similar to the tier 8 LTs belonging to tier X days of actually focusing on recon rather than being first to the place on the map you want to fight. could also buff their HP but i think that's counterproductive no matter how you slice it when it comes to actually balancing them combat ability wasn't a big thing in lights until they started becoming better at it, and if you funnel lights into similar areas of a map like normal they will still mostly just fight.. themselves anyway.. as long as all the lights take part/gets buffed/nerfed unbiasedly no one will gain an edge on another there, but the light vs rest of the tank classes dynamic isn't good now and was imo much better when lights were intendedly weaker than now, back then WN8 farming was their only real purpose so if you want to be viable within the game created then I doubt we share views on the rest, but back then playing a light tank meant you had to do recon, while i don't like the ridiculousness of not being able to fight back at all the light tank aspect of the game still worked better in 5-X than 357.. lol... meds -> lower VR cap by 15m, lower either mobility or armour if the tank has that + good gun, raise HPs 10%, +10 points added to every statistical piece of data for the E 50M to make it less weak heavies -> superheavies +10% HP - hybrids no changes - hulldown heavies +10% HP and more hatches/cupolas to deal with the imperviousness of hulldown tanks, post 2018 releases all VR nerfs unless they follow the nations general trend regarding the topic also no JoAT tanks, E5 in 2016 was the first to do it and just nooope make camo more reliant on the base camo of the tank and not so much the crew,: buff to everyone playing without camo skill and nerf to everyone who uses it on everything, vision needs to be given more room to play around or it's eventually (like seen here by WG themselves) going to die if it's not kept as a core foundation of the game mechanics - tanks intended to use vision can do it, but stifle that element from everyone else not intended to to breathe more life into it in game open topped vehicles recieve automatic ventilation bonus (5%) as compensation for taking the VR advantage from them, give them at least some edge for being pennable to arty and everything else that sets their sights arty capped to 1 lights capped to 2, LT MM along with SPGs get separate queue for a map pool where they aren't fodder just for choosing to play a role, nobody in their mind would send 5 EBRs total from both sides to recon Himmelsdorf in a whiplash until you RNG them down.. doesn't mean the overall map pool still won't be adjusted - increase bans to 3, include assault/encounter and balance team starts gathering information on the most banned maps to rework/remove what isn't working HP buff is to inflate gametime, making steamrolls more tedious but close games much more thrilling and down to the wire - consider upping max game time to 20min and 15min respectively if it doesn't slow the game down by force rework how capping works, unless you need the game to end - nobody wants to cap over taking the drive for damage, and almost all good players have this in common: they don't use the mechanic. needs adjusting to have some sort of value that isn't just "oh, forgot to check the cap" when the clock starts ticking sandbox mode with shooting range and proper game guides on mechanics, basically just tanks.gg. wotlabs and customiseable practice rooms along with making sure the player understands the underlying objectives of what the game is intended to be about, incentivise influencing the game positively (permanent top tankers contests with in game rarities or something, idk) no gamebreaking climbs (out of bounds) but reinstall shortcuts that reward you for being familiar with the environment ESL 7/68 back on, use pro players' strategies to solve map problems > more clever map design Tuning RNG by nerfing it to 15% on HP rolls and 10% on penetration rolls, there's no point in adjusting the spread if you are just going to slap another "what if?" on top of that before it actually connects, having very little to do with any decision made by anyone other than that some numbers have to come out. 0 RNG would make the game very predictable, the point of a large HP pool is to dissuade this from being such a big problem, a 390alpha gun firing at your 400HP tank will always feel risky, as it should. fixing the game isnt very hard when every exit feels like a solution

In h0n0ur 0f the m0st kn0wledgeable and c0nsistent c0ntent creat0r we have ever seen 0n this forum. I am ann0uncing his pr0m0ti0n t0 the new title 0f: "#0 BESTER P0STER 0N INTERWET" As a result, he will need a suitable new avatar to accompany his esteemed title. Please assess the options and cast your votes my good people.

I can answer these right here, won't dive too much into each but some need a little more explanation than others. Player Situation Awareness: One's ability to take in information quickly, so the better you understand the information the easier it'll be to translate them into ideas and react. Requires experience to work properly, too many variables present itself naturally. Once you're able to take information in quickly you will speed up your decisionmaking and I just think this works for your reactive decisions too, mine improved at about the same rate now that I think of it. Short of that you need to comfortable enough with the game and probably understand the game's mechanics to develop enough player habits to be able to play awarely. Focus is required to be aware, so unless the game is all you think about you will have distractions. Fill your head with stuff wot wot wot wot wot wot wot wot and nothing else to keep focused, and your awareness really improves. I rarely play with something drawing attention from my screen, and when I do it's twitch chat. That's about a 600dpg difference everything I turn the stream on, so as you can see distractions really don't work for me. If you just ask "what if" before deciding stuff you can be aware without vision too. That's a really big step but your awareness goes to learning every angle from a position you use pretty fast meaning you get a better map sense. Map sense leads to easier decisions, better reactions. More stuff like this. Awareness is mostly focus but experience can autopilot the things you don't need to focus to do. You can't read MM without focusing, be critical, or you're never going to learn how to read them. You also can't autopilot initial deployment, but movement patterns push/retreat and set plays are fine to auto because they work the same every time anyway. All this type of stuff builds up to better awareness, you see what happens > understands what happens > acts accordingly more quickly when you know what it's supposed you should be understanding and woopdidoo a game sense has emerged After that you just keep honing it like normal, what is good and what is bad > refine the bad> what is good now and what is bad > refine the bad > what is good now and what is bad > That's how I go by getting my awareness back after long breaks at least. Analysis of enemy team lineups: Questions you should be asking yourself during countdown and preferably have answers for: As a 1-5 (out of 357 teamplates +full tier 10) top tier where you have a distinct advantage over most tanks you face: what can i fight that can't fight me back well?> how do i fight it/them, where does it go? > predict where is the most damage? > what is my purpose this game? do we win where the most damage is?> if yes, go there; > if no, look for the 2nd best option: usually the winning flank, unless your team is too attrition heavy and can defend the (generally) third and lowest probable damage early, flank that will go evenly as it will be the last place you'll be able to survive as those teams give up too much map control. highest impact play? do i need to actively push to win? can i stall the game for more damage? this is where you do the tryhard plays because here they work more than anywhere else, hard aggression works best here but obviously not a great idea all the time As a midtier in +/-2 and bottom tier in +/-1: what can i fight that can't fight me back well? how and where do i fight>predict where do i get the most damage safely? where do people cross, and at what parts of the game? what can i leverage to win against stronger tanks than me? stick to core of the team without a set play, kite them to prolong your game alive if you can lategame your disadvantage means much less, you are stronger than you realise with hp As a -2 bottom tier: can i get any free damage? go there early use either mobility to rotate into as much free damage as possible before committing to a play, or with slower tanks play behind the main engagement, wherever you can get any free shots off before committing yourself to a play avoid risktaking, mistakes here usually mean you die fast time is definitely your friend, take lower close to goal damage games over risking high damage games for trash, so never allow yourself to trade poorly when aware of the trade being bad When it is a good idea to fight and when it is better to fall back.: It's usually a good idea to fall back, but fighting works better sometimes. You need certain things to line up for it work. You need a defense that can deal damage without taking any, generally a defense in randoms consists of fewer defenders than aggressors, so you need to be sure there's a chance you actually come out of it alive before taking that risk. You still have defenders on neutral ground, but knowing when to hold them and risk swarming takes time, you generally can hold one at bay forever, two for a while but never 3 or more. If 3 tanks get close to you, you will die almost no matter what. You don't want that. The fighting games like that though are the ones absolutely most fun to play, and generally very strong performance wise. You learn more of a game if you fall back to keep yourself alive for as long as possible, the trick is knowing how long you can fight before falling back and trying to cut them closer and closer, which really just comes down to experience. The value of a working 0 key and how people who have them are superior to people who don't: Compare my sig with any person without a working 0 keys and you have your answer How to get the most out of face roll games where one team rolls over the other with minimal losses: Recognise which side of it you're on first, and try to see it coming as soon as possible. Take measures if you get that gut feeling it's coming and learn to trust your intuition. Winning end: Get ahead of your team, not by much, but enough to set up whatever you want to do before the team can touch it. Trackshots on superheavies, full autoloader clips, and stuff like that are much easier to do if you're ahead in tempo and have more time to assess the engagement before poking Losing end: Fall back, as soon as you feel pressured you should be falling back. Open maps are worse because you need to fall back earlier, but city maps generally require 50-100m tops to create a new chokepoint. Steamroll losses are played by staying alive, take any free damage and reserve HP for the last 2 minutes of the game, fight the place that won't swarm you then, fight the swarm Fighting wheelchairs: (EBR's) My trick is just slightly more lead than I think it should be, and it tends to connect more often. Wait for them to line up straight either horizontal or vertical to you, vertical makes them easy to autoaim and just adjust one axis, works decently well How valuable is view range beyond the 445 meters? It's mostly to ease your risk of getting outspotted past the camo skill, better view range means people outspot you and if you spot them first you get to make the first move it also gives the camo piercing that really helps to see through bushes and negate camo skill (an m60 with improved optics can spot the td's in the back crossing into 1 line on prokh for example, incredibly abuseable) i find it together with situational awareness make for a much more able vision game than what i'm playing against, and that's an advantage i really know how to use, as i feel other do too

@kolni has nothing to prove to you. Also, please stop reporting users if only because 99% of them you bring upon yourself. In return I offer these 2 droids...no wait thats not it. This RO. Take a breather, relax and come back with coherent arguments about tanks. Oh and you are NOWHERE NEAR the level of Garbad or Valchio. That you even think you are is being delusional. You are closer to Mr. Rogers of Wotlabs infamy more than anything else. FYI - @Diriz0n has been RO'd for now. Penalty Given 5 points which will never expire. Restricted from posting - 2 days and 23 hours I know he brings this shit on himself, but to the rest of you, please try to keep it as civil as possible. Thanks,. \ /

i don't think you understand what kind of forum this is, stupidity really doesn't have a place here and you're spreading yours like aids in the 70s. People can disagree on things, that's fine. Telling people they are wrong however requires that you prove you're right. You have yet to be that. Do it and the arguing stops. Maybe the arguing is what you want, I get that. I'm bored too sometimes. But you aren't right. You're a pubbie who does not know how the game works. Here is a great place to learn, and if you are open to learning the forum will treat you accordingly. Now however you're not doing anything of any use to the forum. Think real hard. Has your presence on this forum created any valuable content? Maybe, but not by you. Just get your shit together and realise that other people might know better sometimes. Accept that and you can become better. If you don't care about your performance and don't want to improve, what the actual fuck are you doing here? Go to exposingwot. You'd be a great fit.

Arty is worse to play against with stun and rof than it was with higher damage.

Hi everyone, I recently found out about stats 1-2 weeks ago, and seeing mine, I really want to improve. My main goal right now is to get my overall WN8 to above 2000, not even sure if this is a hard goal to push for, but it's something that I find reasonable and obtainable. Hope everyone has a great day!

Aight, it's Corona times and I'm out of things to do so might just kick this thing up full time again and do as many as I can. I've been doing this type of thing for years, hopefully my reputation should vouch for the concept. Format: 3-5 games per player, players might get more if there's a lack of interest Tier 9 and 10 only Reviews will be YT videos with commentary Can be privately uploaded (so only you can watch your commentary if privacy is of interest), will otherwise be uploaded publicly. No artillery gameplay. If there's anything specific you have questions about regarding your games, please say so beforehand and I will do my best to keep it in mind during the review Will be doing as many as I have time for, starting from first poster to last - until I run out of steam to keep doing them or a new patch hits. Post your replays in this thread that you want reviewed, they need to be of the current patch and if a new patch hits and I'm unable to finish the recordings in time I will just ask you for new ones. There are no other requirements for this, every player is welcome to post and hopefully learn. Previous reviews for the interested: Gameplay Review Playlist If people want me to review my own gameplay, that's something I could do too. What are you waiting for? Post your replays!

Depends on what you want to learn, sounds like a douchy answer but it's kind of important as you pick up different things from different vehicles. Your experiences and subjective playstyle also mean you pick up different things than other people will from the same situations. Start off with if you want to get better at a gameplay element or just a specific tank. The first is much more useful as you can apply those to many more tanks but they don't come with experience as you often have to actively play towards your goal to learn from it rather than focusing on playing as well as possible which is something that very many have trouble letting go of (myself included). Autoloaders for example gives you a lot of practice playing as the center of attention, as you deal burst damage people focus you and that focus is exactly what you can take with you and apply to other tanks as well, having 1k autoloader games banked will end up mattering when you're playing as a top tier single shooter in a 357, again as the center of attention, especially with multiple arties. This should help connect the dots that you can learn something elsewhere than where you want to apply it. 357MM as top tier is much more rare and doesn't let you practice controlling the game very often, but you can spam autoloaders days on end and practice this specific thing for as long as you want, and then apply it to the tank you feel just gets too much focus for you to play well. OP tanks tend to get more focus, so this is what I did to bypass that problem and get better. You'll also pick up other things meanwhile practicing specifics, and don't pidgeon hole yourself into only that specific thing but remaining aware of the other positives you experienced during the practice of what you want to improve to speed up these processes. This is not the only things autoloaders are good for when it comes to practice, but it's one that is hard to practice anywhere else. As I previously mentioned you want a comfortable practice environment that generally means going down tiers to simplify gameplay to get good practice. Good practice doesn't mean easy games though, you don't learn from easy games. You want to be challenged but still be in control. That's a thin line to walk but where you're going to learn the most. You want as many of your games as possible to be fruitful for the future, which is different from playing for performance. Performance means no risk-taking, but learning generally means the opposite as you want to expand your options and as a result will end up being having to try new things and see what works. This is a lot of stupid dying and derpy games, but that is fine as long as you take something from them. Just remember to toggle this off once you feel comfortable with the topic you decided to practice though and go back to risk-averse gameplay with your newly refined skillset. The thing is you want to get a feel of what is actually a risk and what is not and you don't really get to that point without testing your limits. Risk-averse mean something entirely different for a 50% player and me. Playing passive in my eyes would still be considered aggressive to most players because they don't know that the decisions I'm making have sound reasoning behind them and thus less risky to make than meets the eye, they are totally safe because I ran the numbers before making it. So risk is percieved as subjective, and you want to make it as objective as possible meaning you want information and really nurture your ability to interpret the information. There are many "close calls" that were nothing of the kind, and there were also situations where I really fucked up but no one was aware enough to catch my mistake. When that happens I try my best to recognise them as mistakes still, it's hard but mistakes usually don't go unpunished in tier 10 so remembering it for next time has generally been a net positive over letting them go for the sake of my ego. Start off with figuring out one of your bigger issues in gameplay for a certain tank. Try to figure out a setting that makes you practice this, whether it's something simple to work on like dying less or more nuanced like getting better at reading enemy intentions etc is totally up to you. The important thing is to determine a gameplay aspect that could use improvement and simply doing something towards that goal as you play. If DPG or stats is of any concern then you want to limit test in a different tank than the one you want to improve, I couldn't care less about my service record so I generally just spam the tank I want to get better at directly. I rarely practice specifics like above anymore as I tend to focus on the specific tank for a pretty substantial period of time if my performance isn't what I want it to be yet instead. (M60 would be a good example, I was nowhere close to 3marking it at the start but after 500 games or so I had the highest average on the server by like 900 for the last 50 of them because I just stuck to it and really got the playstyle locked down on every single map, starting at sub 4k DPG for first 50 and 5,8k for the 50 at the end which is a HUGE difference considering it actually had very little to do with good/bad sessions). This is probably because I tend to pick these things up by sheer game quantity over quality practice. I don't really practice in that way anymore because when I do end up playing again I tend to have a specific goal in mind and only playing towards that. (Generally a T10 reward tank 3MoE or DPG challenge). I tend to stick to one tank until I am satisfied and that's what works for me right now with how often I play the game these days. Doesn't really matter what tank in the end, go through your replays if you're struggling to find what you're doing wrong and inspect them until you find a lapse in judgement, be more precise and nitpicky as you get further into this and you'll eventually find yourself becoming a better player.

I'll be writing these two up today! Maybe not finish but they're topics at least. I'll do one more, later so just keeping shooting suggestions edit: i didn't know it was culturally appropriate to be drunk on a tuesday, i do now tomorrow then

Whenever I think I'm full of myself I'm going to come back here and read this quote.

the thing is, you almost always are? as someone who has played this game for a living i'm pretty sure there is absolutely zero, zilch, nada you could teach me in this game which should make it simple to understand that when i say you are, you are

quick review in case anyone's on the fence about funding Serb's moon base support heavium historically a medium - conventional non-autoloading version of the T54E1 was once tested as a tier 10 med a loooong time ago now dusted off the shelves for the moolah: https://tanks.gg/tank/m48t54e2/stats doesn't actually feel like an E5 gun a m a z e b a l l s meaty 360 alpha with sub 8 reload, good (226) pen and hitscan APCR good accuracy and best in class bloom with .10 base turret bloom - better than a Progetto -10 gun depression aim time only decent at 2.4s, though mitigated by bloom APCR 255 only means you struggle against heavily armoured targets basically the gun of a tier 9 medium overall: all-in-all best in class firepower tied with the Caern (less alpha, more DPM) and the 53TP (more alpha, less DPM). arguably even better than the above two if you fire full gold armour bad to unreliable tumour ~180EA large LFP ~150EA weak-ish UFP ~200EA tall hull larger than the E5 no beak - f no magical drive sprocket turret: 230-250 frontally, prominent shot trap and turret ring overall: more comparable to the Patton than the E5 does not get significantly better with angling or when using gun depression - will bounce some glancing shots 0.4 - 0.5 armour use efficiency which is armoured med territory - snap more for best results - wiggle when reloading mobility 45 top speed, 17 reverse (which is more than the tier 10 patton) 16 hpt baddish terrain resistances with particularly bad soft terrain stats - 3.26 decent traverse + neutral steering 35 degree/s turret traverse <3 gear ratio stuff (needs testing): nippy between 0-30, average heavy acceleration between 30-40, sluggish above 40 overall: goes 40-ish on most terrain but not otherwise significantly faster than a 53TP or an IS-3 good for taking positions and relocating but far from ideal for brawling - things like 50TPs and Chryslers are inexplicably more agile verdict good crew trainer in case you wanted two irrelevant tier 10 heavies decent earner but loses out to Paytriot/Lowe/240 alpha things, goldspam not necessary but addictive again, does not actually play like the E5 - if I had to describe it feels more like the 5A with the Super Conq's gun ridiculously gud at farming - even I can maintain 2k DPG without too much trouble winning potential: tied to Chrysler IMO but you win games by damage whoring and not tanking everything fun factor: as a heavium player this is the most fun I've had in a premium heavy value: IMO worth it if more than 50% off, YMMV OP? https://imgur.com/gallery/R5KFqZM

Remember when this forum used to be a chill safeplace from all the idiots from official forums and in-game? Good times... Also this Dirizon dude really should fix his zero-key

IMO if they made the wheels part of the hull hitbox and they took HP damage when hit in the wheels, the tank would be almost balanced. I actually agree with that. Mine has ~450 VR, that's too high for something that does 95kph with more reliable damage blocking ability than the E100, not to mention how it spits in the face of the laws of physics when it turns.

K BRO,,, THESE GUYS GONNA BS U, TRUTH IS NO ONE GETS OVER 2400 WIN8 WITHOUT HACKS. FIRST U GET WARPAK TO START AND LERN THE BASICS, ONCE U GET GUD @BASICHACKS U LEARN 2 WRITE UR OWN HACK CODE 2 MATCH UR PLAY STYLE. PM ME BRO PEACE

This week, on the EU forums, following a video by a Youtuber that's either thick or knows his audience well, the favorite conspiracy theory is that WG rigs the losing team, as proven by the fact that in the post battle stats, the losing team performed less well than the winning team, and does so consistently. I think that says enough about the forums, and about the average player. People are more and more frustrated that they don't win or do as much as they want. And they seek excuses. When you point out to them that it's easier to improve that chase ghosts, they blow their top.

I have some free time, and I think this will get buried in status pretty easily so I'm making a topic that I will remove once this has settled. I'm going to make some content. Video or in text here on WoTLabs, but I'm drawing a blank on the content I actually want to write up, so I'm leaving the question to the floor and letting you decide the topic(s). What part of the game do you want more information of? There are no wrong answers, it can be simple or very very meta, that's up to you. I'm down for a good writeup once you decide. I feel like a poll might be in order but then I'd have to add the topics, so I'm just going to do it this way: the two answers that get the most upvotes are the ones I will write up. Upvotes are green, not blue (see below), I'll count blue too but make it easier to see thank you I am open to doing replay analysis and map analysis, but keep in mind that I have zero editing skills and will be keeping most of the content purely theoretical. If that's what you want then so be it, but I won't be doing too many reviews in that case as they generally only seem to help the individual unless there are some universal problems. I'll try to answer anything asked here too, but focus will be on the topics at hand. There might be a chance I end up doing some of it on video to simplify the explanations. Some examples: MM reading (prediction) Decisionmaking processes Off Meta gameplay Inner workings of specific mechanics (autoloader, italians, siege, vision and so on) Micropositioning (plsno) Troublesearching gameplay flaws and fixing them Tryhard stuff Adopting an improving mindset and the list goes on, I'd rather the community that's still alive thinks of something on their own but there are no wrong topics, whatever the community feels the area that needs improving in content is the most is the ones I will do, so up to you. Shoot your ideas friends

The short version of my opinion is that I went into the sandbox server expecting Wargaming to completely screw everything up and expecting that it will take 2+ years for them to fix it if the changes go through. Wargaming did not let me down. About the ammo changes: In reality the problem is not the ammunition. The problem is many corridor maps that forces tanks to fight frontal with limited or no flanking opportunities and a lack of frontal weakspots that can be reliably hit with fully aimed shots on stationary tanks at any distance further away than ~50 meters. Instead of fixing the cause of the problem, Wargaming is focused on fixing the symptom of the problem. Taking HESH penetration away from the UK tanks removes some skill from the game in my opinion. Knowing when you can use HESH and do more damage than the standard ammo is a skilled decision. Also, removing HESH penetration takes away a unique aspect of gameplay in the UK tech tree vehicles. Reducing the damage of gold/special/premium APCR ammo compared to the HP pool of tanks is a buff to wheeled light vehicles. Its much easier to hsi them at 300+ meters with APCR and now players will need more penetrating hits to destroy them. Removing HE and HESH pen is a buff to wheels light vehicles. Now I can't time my shot properly at closer range to have a higher likelihood of penetrating and doing significant damage. I don't think the ammo changes will reduce the gold/special/premium fired by many players because they will still choose more reliable damage over the possibility of higher damage. About the tech tree changes: Wargaming is removing many low tier tanks that had different or unique aspect to their gameplay that were funa s a new player. I have no idea why tier 10's are being removed. The 113 isn't bad and was worth the grind. It just has been power creeped. Now it seems like a worse(slower less armor worse gun handling) 430U. Wargaming is screwing up the game because they don't even know how to play the game and never listen to above average skill players. I bet if Wargaming asked the top 5% of players what they would change in the game, the answers would be different than the proposed changes.

when Dirizon is shitposting so hard he woke up Badmin SR360 AND badmin Pityfool from their eternal slumbers

unironically calling Gasai a great player in 2k19

We should all just have teams of heavies meeting in one corridor shooting each other hull-down and sidescraping with HE. That would be fun. Heavens forbid that someone try to play a mobile tank.

If these go live and my 152mm T49 becomes unplayable i'm unironically quitting the game permanently Fuck this

I think every competent player who fundamentally understands the matchmaking why premiums should be worse. (When’s the last time you had a full tier 8 without a Progetto?) I think that shouldn’t have to be considered controversial as it should be common sense. I have some serious ones too: - Credit inflation (while a result of good things, like SHs and FL) made the game worse. It’s an easier time for everyone, that’s why it’s worse. - serB was good for the game - Tier 10 should be more expensive to play, doubling the cost of dying but survived damage repair and ammo costs being the same - tier 8 needs an MM nerf (it is like playing tennis with the net down guys, admit it) - every third of what would be a full t8 game right now as a t8 player should be 357 (7-8-9) tier 10 isn’t bad, just hard - mechanical prowess is finite in wot, turret rotation and bloom bottlenecks hand-eye and reaction time - it’s a tank (i get it) so it’s a necessary evil but intuition (to anticipate and make up for the fact that it is a tank) isn’t something you can build gameplay reliably upon and i think it’s much of the reason the game is in it’s current state pretty much the entire playerbase is blaming way too many of their own misplays and chalk it up to arty when it’s not HE ammo as a concept might have done wonders IRL but in game it is literally in 99 of cases a big old ”let me feel relevant so i can feel as a better player button” - removing it and everything that has to do with it (tanks that can fire other rounds can stay) games should be 20 minutes, 15 on assault garbad ban killed forum activity (Guy had to go, but I still think it’s true)

That first Unconventional Opinion topic is so old Garbad's posts are still sane.

Now all WoT needs is M3 Super Lee

While Id still much rather see nerfs to the newer tanks and slowing down of power creep, Im highly doubting Ill be getting my wish so I guess its at least nice that they are finally giving some sort of love to older tanks. My fear is making the E5 too sameish to the SC. But when I think about it, other than just making it faster, how CAN they buff it so its not made more sameish to a tank that has more armour, more DPM, and better gun handling, when gun handling and DPM were originally the E5s strong suits... Dammit to me it still feels like things need nerfs because in my mind, the E5s current power level is what they SHOULD be aiming for in terms of vehicle balance, when instead its currently basically a tier 9.5...

get good nerd, it's relaxing to squash peasants

Didn't read, but good for you. If you replace wot with something else life becomes a bit more enjoyable. It sucks when your hobby is rage inducing and rarely fun or relaxing.

snoregasm's topic posted, didn't quite hit the mark i feel like but i'm too medicated to make more coherent thoughts and conclusions right now anyway i'll try and miros' tomorrow and depending on how my weekend looks i might just have time to finish the third that i haven't decided yet also stop the bickering or i'm logging onto enrohs account and IP banning you both for good

Jesus. I just logged into the test server and looked things over. If this is the end result, what a disappointment. No apparent nerfs to anything that needs it, they just scaled everything almost flat. At high tier everything has +20% HPs and +20% to damage. Even the arty nerf just basically boils down to forcing people to shoot gold arty shells in order to keep their current damage output. So costing more credits and removing stun is basically it. They haven't changed the cost of ammo at all, so gold ammo appears proportionately more expensive than ever. They haven't even scaled up how much ammo you can carry past tier 5, so the fucking T67 is fine but something like the Type 64 is stuck with even lower potential damage against the hordes of power creeped tier 8 heavies. Basically low tier gameplay might improve because the HPs scale up better, but the three tier spread is actually going to be worse than ever because your gold ammo is weaker. Without compensating for it elsewhere (such as by scaling HPs by class) this is going to make heavies the dominant vehicle and make fighting up suck even more. I was optimistic they had come around, but they really are just steaming forward with the shitty original sandbox plan for World of Red E-100s. EDIT: The more stats I look at the more triggered I get. For a lot of the low tier changes they just moved shit up a tier and gave it some more HPs, maybe +10 view range, blam, this fine. I kid you not they took the Valentine AT which is already bad at tier 3 and just made it a tier 4 with a few more HPs. Same guns, same view range, same everything else. A-20 is now a tier 5 with a few more HPs and +20 view range. Crusader is now a tier 6 light with a few more HPs and maybe +1 RoF. It goes on like this. Amazingly half-assed.

This is stupid. I have a number of issues with this. Removal of content which will later be issued as rewards or purchasable in game on special occasion (perhaps for inflated prices). It feels like they are removing previously unlock-able stuff to give themselves more to work with and encourage monetization. Removal of more iconic tanks and generally quite historical ones. Like it or not, one major draw of WOT is in the tanks. What does it say when tanks like the firefly or the hetzer are being removed? Some loss of mobility on a tech tree. As an example, from the Pz 4H you can research 4 tier 10 tanks currently. With the changes you can only research 1. Tiger P, 3 to 2. HWK 12, 2 to 1. Panther, 2 to 1. Just to pull examples from the German tech tree. Removal of tier 10's. Besides the obvious, this is absolutely horrible to players who aren't so aware of changes being made to the game. Some poor sod somewhere is working towards the AMX 30 as his first tier 10, and then fines that suddenly his tier 9 with 150,000 experience is made a reward vehicle and leads nowhere. (sorta) Are players who have researched the tanks going to recieve the tanks even if they don't have them in the garage? If you want any of the removed tanks, and they don't receive any tank (or don't offer experience refunds) seems like great way to sell some garage slots for those who don't have a ton of them.

Hello! This morning we had an issue which caused periodic stats to stop appearing. Long story short, server ran out of space again. This has now been patched up, bad records have been deleted and the cache cleared, and your statistics should again be appearing normally! Apologies for the short downtime and inconvenience. Cheers! Never