lavawing

I don't understand why tanks/armoured cars being hard to hit is a bad thing. There are 5 or 6 'sniping' tanks at tier 10 that currently have no point since shell velocity and accuracy barely make a difference. IMO tho it remains to be seen, this will probably punish TDs/SPGs a lot more than meds and non-brick heavies. If this somehow manages to cull TD/SPG numbers (nothing has, so far), I'd be happy with them.

And here I was wondering whatever could be taking WG so long to fart out its latest powercreep of the week..........

One other problem on the 50TP that in my experience has prevented getting consistent results is the baddish gold pen. 303 is not terrible, but it does mean there will sometimes be engagements that you simply cannot win due to not having the raw pen needed (340-ish) and cannot avoid being a normal heavy. Against good players in armoured tanks who don't make many mistakes, the 50TP feels limited. I generally prefer running the tier 8 50TP with food since that's so much more flexible while not being any worse tier for tier at trading.

actually doesn't make much difference except at sniping range

@leggasiini O Ho will literally be god mode if it gets through these 'rebalances' unaltered

'became'

imo playing like a medium in the current tier 10 climate is even more cancer than playing like a normal triple r(etard) heavy. besides, the IS-7 already has enough mobility and comfort to flex. the armour advantage that the IS-7 has isn't just for facetanking gold (which the 277 can also do pretty well thanks to angles + turret), but for mitigating otherwise unavoidable HE damage from arta focus and 4005s. the ability of the IS-7 to not get fucked for 500-700 damage HE shots and the slightly more generous HP pool makes it much easier to play and also play aggressively (which in turn helps mitigate the poor gold pen). I might and probably would take the 277 over the IS-7 if I were fighting mainly meds and 'normal' tenks, but atm I wouldn't go into tier 10 without the insurance I won't be double/triple tapped by 183s, which is not something the 277 can offer. Then again I suck in the 277 - worse stats than on the M4 54 so ymmv

I can't say about the rest, but re: numbah 4 since I play punchy heaviums semi exclusively, it's because the meta favours heaviums with big alpha before mediums. People are running a lot more big alpha TDs and heavies, peek every 10-15 seconds, and play more passively in general, so doing damage in a tank that fires every 6 seconds is naturally going to be harder. On the flip side, performing in something like a 50TP (both of them) is easymode.

Just buff standard ammo and be done with it

IMO it's equal to the 277 despite the 277 being faster and having a much better gun, because of the 4005/Type 5/Arta meta. HE spam is more of a thing than ever and having 120ish spaced sides + 2.4K HP makes the IS-7 very survivable despite all those tanks that would normally negate armour and hulldown.

277A

IMO it's hyperbolic to say that it's an IS-3 with an autoloader without drawbacks. It's a worse IS-3 with an autoloader, and it is the autoloader that it has no drawbacks for. It's like giving the T-10 the 257's gun but with an autoreloader - sure the autoloader would make it stronger - all things considered, but there are quite a few situations when just having a better single shot gun would actually do the job better. I'd rather fight a red player in a 3A than in a Defender, and it's only past the blue mark when I'd fear an IS-3A more than a Defender.

By taking snapshots (don't.) and expecting your magical IS-3 agility to save you. IMO the normal IS-3 is much, much easier to play since the whole mid range game becomes easymode with the sheer amount of comfort you get from the BL-9, while being slightly better at flexing. That said I get about 450 damage more on average in the 3A, so that clip is monstrous. The 3A is easymode compared to other autoloaders, but the normal IS-3 is easier still and not even that worse at carrying.

Played a few games in this post buff. It's like a T-54 and a NATO med had a baby. NATO accuracy with Soviet bloom is a great combination and spamming 330 pen HEAT and actually hitting shots is orgasmic. The hull is trash and the turret isn't very good, and the gun depression is still annoying, but it's definitely one of the best snipey meds at tier 9 esp against armoured targets (while not being retarded at being a med).

The normal IS-3 has a best in tier turret. The IS3As' is slightly better in that it has better cheeks which are proof against guns with around 250-260 pen. The turret weakspot does not stop the IS-4 from blocking damage and the IS-3A is no different. Besides neither the IS-3 or the 3A are brick heavies, their ability to sit and block damage is not really the point. Unless you're trading fire in really static slugfests the weakspot is just not going to be a problem.