Balthazars

Poor financial decisions 2022 edition report:
Went for 80 boxes (the 20 for each type package) which is all I can spare this year to drop on this game.
$4,500,000 credits.
29,850 gold
58 days premium time
Skins for the Object 268v4, FV 4005 (last year), the Super Conq, the new Strv one, and the Rino.
1 SU-2-122 (the double barreled low-tier TD)
1 PZ.38H
1 PZ.KW1
2 M3 Light
2 Harry Hopkins
3 'big' premiums - got the Char pretty early (within 20 boxes), then the Iron Arnie with my 50-box pity mechanism, and then the BZ in the last set of 10 boxes, so pretty lucky.
Overall better than last year, on account of nailing 3 of the main premiums. I also got about 2k more gold compared to last year, although less premium time (although this doesn't really matter as I still had over 300 days on my account as it keeps getting topped up by Battle Pass). I'm also pretty happy with the skins I got, the Super Conq and the FV one are very nice.
The event itself this year is way worse though - far more grindy and with a lot of dumb/useless gimmicks that I'm not interested in. Not a fan.

Poor financial decisions 2022 edition report:
Went for 80 boxes (the 20 for each type package) which is all I can spare this year to drop on this game.
$4,500,000 credits.
29,850 gold
58 days premium time
Skins for the Object 268v4, FV 4005 (last year), the Super Conq, the new Strv one, and the Rino.
1 SU-2-122 (the double barreled low-tier TD)
1 PZ.38H
1 PZ.KW1
2 M3 Light
2 Harry Hopkins
3 'big' premiums - got the Char pretty early (within 20 boxes), then the Iron Arnie with my 50-box pity mechanism, and then the BZ in the last set of 10 boxes, so pretty lucky.
Overall better than last year, on account of nailing 3 of the main premiums. I also got about 2k more gold compared to last year, although less premium time (although this doesn't really matter as I still had over 300 days on my account as it keeps getting topped up by Battle Pass). I'm also pretty happy with the skins I got, the Super Conq and the FV one are very nice.
The event itself this year is way worse though - far more grindy and with a lot of dumb/useless gimmicks that I'm not interested in. Not a fan.

Obviously it's just a quirk of statistics, but sometimes WOT really feels like you end up with 'cursed' tanks - for example, AMX 50-120, crappy tank. DPG worse than a whole slew of my tier 8s. 52% win rate after 220 games. AMX M4 51 - great tank. 12th highest DPG tank in my garage, higher than a good chunk of tier 10s. 45% win rate after 100 games.

So interestingly it seems that WG has decided that WoT needs a bit of love and attention after not doing very much other than churning out lots of special modes for a while. All of a sudden they're going whole hog - lots of vehicle balancing changes, map balancing changes, a new map (and a second on the way early next year), and a new tank line. I wonder what changed...

New single-game xp record: 1954xp - BT8, 11th game in the p43 grinding the two Italian lines. 
>4k damage >1k spotting. What a shitshow. 

Christmas Lootboxes 2021 edition report (because I don't really have much else to spend my gaming budget on). 75 boxes for the following results: 5,400,000 credits, 27,550 gold (although this includes gold from duplicate premium tanks) and 76 days of premium time.
1 tier 8 premium - the Swede heavy - probably the least interesting option (I was hoping for a Skoda or 122TM as I don't have either, or at least the Caliban as that has meme potential). I got this after 45 boxes, so did not activate my 'pity mechanism'.
12 of the tier 5 premiums (including 6 of one of them, lol) which really is where my gold value of the boxes went up.
3 of the styles, although only 2 of the new ones (Sheridan and ST-II, got the Maus one from last year).
A second relatively disappointing year for me, although to be honest that's partially because the tier 8 selection is quite underwhelming this year. I feel the gold result was pretty bad to me, it only gets over the raw dollar value because of repeats on the tier 5 premiums. But again, once you throw in the other goddies, they still represent the best value if you're going to spend money on this game - and if you get lucky with the tier 8 premiums, that value significantly jumps.

Yay, so after going close several times (a couple of 5k + damage games) I managed to do 6k damage in the M48 Patton (man I love this tank) to finally clear MT13.3 for the Obj 260 missions, which thankfully also finally cleared the stupid Alliance 1 for the Chimera which needs you to do 25% of your team's damage in a win, so can move on to the 15 mission for that set as well (now at the 15 missions for every group except for Bloc for Chimera). Slowly making progress.

So after many years, the first of the 15.3 missions for the Object 260 has been completed... and it's LT15.3 - probably the last one I would have thought I could complete back when I first started out. 2k damage, 7.6k spotting courtesy of the stealth build on Ghost Town encounter mode. Got it with honours too, which is nice. I have TD15.3 unlocked but realised that 8k damage is just insane and I have never done that in a TD before (that I can remember) so that could take some doing. I'm stuck on the 3x HP blocking mission (with 3k damage) for HT, which is usually my best class and in the past the set I usually finish first, and stuck on a 6k damage medium mission (also very high performance for me in a medium tank, only hit that mark in a handful of meds). Could take some doing, but it just shows I think how powerful the stealth build is given it made LT missions feel very attainable with the right map.

Had a bad day with horrible teams making me constantly drop on marks but then the MM rewarded me with Prok + 1 light + 2 arty... Made back the 2.5% I lost recently.
http://wotreplays.eu/site/5986135#prokhorovka-norbar-t-100_lt
 
Kinda hoped arty wouldn't drown itself as that would take me over 17k

So the HE changes feel like they have made the vast majority of HE rounds absolutely useless. Take the WZ-111GFT, which before this change had 3 very viable rounds: standard AP, 395-pen HEAT and 1,100 damage, 90mm-pen HE which was very reliable in doing chunk damage to hull-down tanks or just straight-up deleting stuff. Since then, I have tired using HE on several occasions (because with new Intuition the reload goes from 11+ seconds to just 4.5 seconds) but it is close to worthless. 200hp damage on hull-down tanks just isn't enough, and the amount of absolutely stupid zero-damage HE bounces on the side of low-health tanks is just ridiculous. Yes, they made HE more reliable. Reliably bad.

Sr360 pointed out that i was dumb and didn't plan ahead to cheese the 121B 3 mark this week before the reqs went up. Not because of the dpm increase though - but because with bond vents, CVS and bounty LNES it's a camo torturer.
http://wotreplays.eu/site/5935103#el_halluf-crabeatoff-121b
http://wotreplays.eu/site/5934834#cliff-crabeatoff-121b
Watch these replays and tell me it's not hilariously broken. 493 VR without optics. 35.5% camo on the move. More when sitting. What do you all think? Am i just a doddering washed up uniscum sticking to a dead meta - or does this look fun and advantageous?

OK, full stealth build is LEGIT. Just raked up an insane session with a full stealth WZ-132A for another easy 3 mark.
Here's a sample game-- I uploaded this with my first try at commentary.
 

Playing the Italian tier 6 again to get XP for the new heavy line. Fucking hell the arty shitters are everywhere. Three per game, 90% of those are M44, with thousands of games in this cancer-spreader. Wargaming still has its thumb up its ass and does nothing. Tier 6 used to be fun.
/rant

Wow, think I just had my highest ever assist tally - 10,446 (vast majority of it spotting), to go with 3.3k damage in a 1.33k base XP mastery badge (my first, I'm only 10 games in) in my M48 on Studzianki. I guess 510m view range is kinda good? XD

Whee, realised I finally saved up enough bonds for a second piece of improved equipment for my T49 (improved optics). Now a long grind to go for that third piece...

Whee, realised I finally saved up enough bonds for a second piece of improved equipment for my T49 (improved optics). Now a long grind to go for that third piece...

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.

AFTER ALL THESE YEARS...
MY DREAM... IS FINALLY COMPLETE!

...Full O-Ho teambattle (plus an O-I).
All of my yes.

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.

Satisfaction... a 5k damage, 1.7k spotting (1,33k base xp) mastery badge tier-10 game in your T49, including a 800+ damage pen on a DeathStar who in the previous game was on your team and accused you of being a shit LT driver.