Balthazars

Rrawr! Claws in pussy-cat. I know not everything done in lab conditions translate to clinical practice, but just because he's a lab scientist doesn't mean he should be dismissed out of hand either (although I will agree that he's almost certainly wrong to say that Covid-19 itself will not be capable of being attributed as the cause of death in any cases). Let's be real - some people are going to be dying because Covid-19 sufficiently weakens their immune and other systems so that something else ends up finishing them off and being the actual 'cause of death'. Some people are going to die because Covid-19 does the typical respiratory tract illness thing, and kill people as their lungs stop working properly. As we're in the middle of this crap right now and people likely aren't being especially careful about recording the cause of death (particularly in places like Italy or China), I doubt we will get a good handle on this until well after the fact. For the record before you get too tetchy: my sister is a medical practitioner and a clinician (what you'd call 'front line' in this current crisis). My dad is a microbiologist specialist in virology (background is all lab work) who heads up a pathogen safety division for a large multinational biotech firm. They talk about this kind of crap, including lab v clinical all the time.

Yes, which is completely in line with the old naming convention. To name the virus typically after the location where it is first identified (which is usually the place where it first makes the jump to humans). There are actually 4 known strains of the ebola virus. All of them are named after their areas of first outbreak - Bundibugyo (a town in Uganda where it was first discovered), Sudan, Tai Forest (a national park in Ivory Coast where again, first discovered) and Zaire Ebola virus (Zaire is now Congo, where Ebola was discovered for the first time). As Florb noted, Ebola is a river in the country that was in the region where it was first discovered. Ebola itself is closely related to the Marburg Virus. Guess what that is named after. They are both hemorrhagic fevers. It's not rocket science. People have been naming viruses like this for a very long time before the WHO decided to get all politically correct. Yes, people are going to politicise the naming of viruses in this day and age, but let's not assume everyone using these older style naming conventions (and "Wuhan Virus" is what people called it, including in scientific communities, before the WHO gave it it's official scientific name) is being political about it.

Just to clarify, the standard practice used to typically be to identify the virus in respects to the location in which it was first identified as a specific, unique strain (typically where it makes the jump to humans for the first time). Or of course sometimes the person that identified it. This is of course useful in some contexts because it easily identifies particular strains of a virus in a very specific context as opposed to relying on its scientific name, given those can be very similar for some types of viruses, and let's face it, a lot of people get confused by those complex-sounding (and often long-winded) scientific names. However, for political correctness reasons, the WHO has been trying to move away from that type of naming conventions for some time now, hence things like H1N1 instead of 'bird flu' and SARS instead of 'Guandong virus' (which is where it was first identified).

Basically nothing has changed. Light tanks, wheeled bastards and Progetto dominate. After that, it's TDs and Heavies which can do at least 35-40kph, which means things like the 53TP, E75TS, IS3 (not IS3A because it's too damned slow), Defender, Skorp, WZ and SU130PM. Everything else is because you are grinding it or just sick of being meta. Engineering is still the best consumable, although I note they made it worse on defence as it seems you can't just yolo the cap and block it for a few seconds and then get defence points (now it seems damage reducing the cap needs to happen while you block it to get defence points?). The 'new and improved' airstrike sucks massively for paper tanks (enjoy that 800-damage hits in your Skorp). Still the same two maps, except they seemed to make them even better for attackers, continuing to pile the misery if you are stuck on defence because of the greater ability of attackers to swarm a particular lane. I had limited time to play this week so didn't quite manage to finish all 15 levels (I'm basically just short of level 14), but got bored after the 3rd day. I still continue to play it mostly because it is just such a good forum for grinding credits - 250k profit for a 15-minute game is just too good to ignore. I only use Prog, Skorp, 53TP and Blackdog, although have taken my WZ-132 on occasion to grind it if I derped in the Blackdog but needed another light.

Not clear at the moment. There were some reports in Wuhan back in Feb of possible re-infection, but not confirmed if I recall correctly.

Yeah, the money-grab is obvious with this one. The cost is also just ridiculous high, almost the cost of a full-price game for a 3-month set of missions with some benefits (I mean, you still have to do missions, the fee only gets you the right to get extra goodies!) is just ridiculous.

You have no idea, here in Australia we have had people in literal punch-ups over toilet paper in the supermarket isles. Even worse, Australia manufactures its own toilet paper too, so it's not like it's going to run out anytime soon. We've not cancelled major events or closed schools on a mass scale although in my state (Victoria) apparently the education department is debating whether to do so within the next 24-48 hours. Given we are now in autumn and heading into our typical flu season, it is going to be super difficult for authorities here I think to manage case-flow because if panic grips, every man and his dog with any kind of symptom is going to want to be tested. Heck, I might even have it, my wife was sick with fever and blocked nose all of last week (likely got something from school), and I have had mild fever for a couple of days (nothing significant) - although chances are very low.

I'm definitely in the Standard B > Skoda camp, although hilariously even though my DPG is slightly better in the Standard, my win rate is an appalling 46% Given they are both squishy, high mobility meds with clips, the Standard is just so much more comfortable, and the auto-reloader just gives a lot more flexibility compared to the autoloader. I agree with what @lavawing said in his reply to me, in that if I were recommending one or the other to a new player in 2020, I would not recommend the Skoda. I've only decided to grind it out because I made it a personal objective to grind at least 1 line for every nation out to tier 10, and obviously there's only one line for this nation!

So I recently just finished off the Skoda T50 grind as well. It's pretty good, but I think it really shows that I'm quite bad at playing large, squishy autoloaders. Those are the main weaknesses, you're quite big and fat for a medium with zero armour so will get penned by people looking at you the wrong way, and arty does a lot of damage. You get excellent mobility as a trade-off however. The gun is pretty awesome, striking a nice balance between the clip potential and not having huge periods of down-time. The intra-clip is that sweet spot for autoloaders, but gun handling as ever can be an issue. I find trying to snap shots led to a lot of bounces/misses and wasted potential in the clip. It's definitely a strong tank, so I'll hang onto it for now, but will see how it plays compared to the tier 10, given they effectively look like exactly the same tank. 100 games, 57% win rate, 1,839 DPG with 584 assist (damage is on par with my M46, assist is lower which is explained by worse view range and the fact you can't really expose much to spot).

So, the M46 Patton in 2020. I like it, it's an excellent all-rounder medium. It's not the fastest, doesn't have the best turret armour (although the buff it received in that regard certainly helped a lot), doesn't have the best penetration, but it has excellent DPM and view range, is very comfortable in terms of the gun (although final accuracy lets you down a bit at long range), gun depression and just enough mobility to do what you want to do. It just doesn't have major weaknesses which makes for an easy-to-play style that is just great fun. Definitely a keeper. Stock grind is a bit on the painful side however, so be mindful of that as you pretty much need everything to be fully competitive. 100 games, 71% win rate (extremely high for me, by far my highest win-rate for any tank that I have 100 games or more in), with 1,844 DPG and 751 assist, which is par with all of my mediums except the Obj 430. Stock grind in my opinion hurt my DPG (even though I was winning, a lot of >1,500 damage games in the stock grind) and I suspect it would go up if I kept on playing.

The biggest benefit of Frontline is the credits that you can make playing premium tanks in it. Even without a premium account (which I was for all of last year), it is an unparalleled earner. It was a must-play just to keep my credit balance broadly in the black as I was also grinding some crappy tanks that needed a lot of gold-spam. The mode itself however became super stale after a while because the meta is so fixed with just 2 maps, given that cap points (attack or defend) are the best way to level up it leads to some very predictable moves, and also the situation where if you missed out or screwed up the session was almost a bust because it was not a guarantee to get to General rank. It was also far too grindy, I knew straight away with my schedule and limited play-time I would never get the top level of rewards, so I have zero incentive to push for it - hence it became just about credit grinding for me.

This seems pretty typical of WG when it comes to major balance changes. At some level, there is some sensible and smart stuff, but they tend to overreach and try to do too much at one go, so it ends up being a bit of a steaming mess. Simplifying the tech trees is a good idea, and removing a lot of the low-tier clutter (which let's be honest, most players don't play) is a decent enough idea. I'm 50-50 on the branch-swapping points, in some cases it meant you could avoid certain tanks you didn't like but it does make the grinds more straightforward. Not too big a fan of removing tier 8 tanks and above, but I understand why they're doing it to simplify the branches. Also not a fan of removing historical/real tanks while leaving some of the made-up ridiculousness in the tech trees just for the sake of 'line consistency'. But on balance seems okay. Then you get the HP changes, and that is a real problem. They want to nerf gold rounds without actually nerfing them, so they 'buff' HP instead while keeping gold round damage the same. Okay, sure. I get it, and in of itself, not stupid. But just straight out flat increasing HP is stupid if they don't make other adjustments for the reasons @Jesse_the_Scout has articulated. HE changes are dumb, personally I think the current mechanics are fine if they are balanced around things like the Blackdog, T49 and HESH on the Cent tanks, as opposed to the Type 4/5d and HESH on the Deathstar. There are many tanks with perfectly fine HE mechanics that are going to have fun gimmicks removed, but then you have the KV2 untouched "for the memes". What's the point? This is a big risk for WG, the changes here have the potential to fundamentally change how the game plays, which might turn off a lot of players as opposed to bring in new ones. The main reason that's happening is because they're trying to do too much at once. Again.

The Tiger I will definitely struggle more now because there are a lot more tanks at tier 8 that have bigger alpha, which makes it much tougher to trade effectively and leverage its DPM advantage given it's awful armour, but I imagine you can still do very well with it given the mantlet is strong enough to bounce and it can sidescrape. I mean, I was able to do pretty well in the Tiger P which is far worse than the Tiger I when I ground the former last year. The Borsig is still a good option, and has the added advantage of having 2 perfectly legitimate playstyles on offer: either use the 128 and kemp bush, snipe long range with 490 alpha and great pen, or run the 150 (which is lighter and thus gives a noticeable mobility buff), run with heavies and slap things for 750 alpha, while still maintaining the ability to kemp bush if really required.

True, most tier 7 lights are pretty ugly, but the WZ-131 isn't awful to look at in my opinion, which is another plus in its favour.