Tier 9 foch

[lavawing 498]

19 minutes ago, hazzgar said:

Ok. Small update. Had a few games with worse maps and the tank got shit again. It should have way more DPM or better gun arc, dep and stats and a faster shell. It sucks at sniping so the best way to play it is around 200m or to bully tanks that you kill before they kill you. I hoped I will 2 mark it since I went from 60% to 80% in my shitter account but without even 6th sense my progress stopped at 80% when i finished the grind

would apcr help?

[hazzgar 730]

1 hour ago, lavawing said:

would apcr help?

Using ACPR helps with shell speed but it is super annoying the gun is both low speed, low pen (for a TD) and low alpha. Funny enough playing the tank like an autoloader kinda works - ie. being an assassin who looks for tanks it can quickly kill.  So the changes might actually work for it. 

[FavreFan4ever 281]

Yeah, the Foch is a weird combination (like the rest of the tanks before it) of poor alpha, below-average pen (for a TD), and low dpm. Couple that with a chassis that has some armor but also has weakspots even 45%ers know, it can be an incredibly difficult tank to play because the gun and armor layout require two different playstyles. It can bully low tier stuff pretty effectively, though.

[hazzgar 730]

18 hours ago, FavreFan4ever said:

Yeah, the Foch is a weird combination (like the rest of the tanks before it) of poor alpha, below-average pen (for a TD), and low dpm. Couple that with a chassis that has some armor but also has weakspots even 45%ers know, it can be an incredibly difficult tank to play because the gun and armor layout require two different playstyles. It can bully low tier stuff pretty effectively, though.

DPM isn't that bad. Better than many heavies. 

[FavreFan4ever 281]

8 hours ago, hazzgar said:

DPM isn't that bad. Better than many heavies. 

Good point, but IIRC it's middle of the pack for tier 9 TDs, which would be fine except that it has the lowest pen and alpha among its counterparts.

[hazzgar 730]

13 hours ago, FavreFan4ever said:

Good point, but IIRC it's middle of the pack for tier 9 TDs, which would be fine except that it has the lowest pen and alpha among its counterparts.

Yeah but a ton of high dpm t9 tds are shit so that's how they justify it. Imho it should have Conway levels of DPM. 

[Bavor 266]

Its one of the worst tanks in the game.  Its the same pile of shit the tier 8 was, but it sees tier 10's more than 50% of the time and mostly on corridor maps.

Also I'm 100% convinced the dispersion values are a lie.  There is no way it has 0.32 dispersion with how many close range, fully aimed, shots miss.  It plays like it has 0.40 dispersion at best.  My in game ping is int he 25-35ms range and I don't have packet loss issues, yet it seems that every fully aimed shot I fire in the thing misses.

I think Wargaming won, I was going to grind through it to the 155, but its such absolute shit that its not worth the grind.  The TD is so map and team dependent that you are at the mercy of matchmaker much more than any other TD I played.

Why do I keep getting Ensk, Kharkov, Stalingrad, and Himmelsdorf when playing this thing?  Give me an open map for once matchmaker!

[Kymrel 185]

I rage-sold this tank a long time ago, long before it had an autoloader, and now that I have nothing interesting left to grind I decided on a whim to buy it back as it is in the top of the tree line. 

I'm not saying it's good. It isn't. But the four-round autoloader can be neat. I would prefer a 3-round with a quicker reload, but a 30 second reload for a 1600 clip isn't too horrid. Of course, being a TD you can't abuse the autoloader like you can in actual tanks, but when people drive into an ambush you usually hit three out of four and feel OK about it. Somehow hitting and penning all four feels like nirvana. But it rarely happens. One always derps into the ground, it seems.

The negative part about having an autoloader on a TD is also to do with aim time. You are usually shooting at medium to long ranges, unless you are being super-aggressive as top-tier. Now, 2.4 sec between shots is nice and all, but if you are at long range and not shooting at a convenient cluster of unarmored tanks you'll need to aim in for an extra second or two between shots. Like all sniping tanks it's not accurate enough to track anything reliably at long range so unless your enemies are in the open you have to choose between shooting half-aimed or not shooting at all, gambling on RNG to guide you. It rarely does.

The front armor sort of works at range, and at shorter ranges against complete morons who auto-aim and hope for the best. Four time in a row, while face-hugging like one Cent did in a game this morning, allowing me to reload and then clip him. Perhaps the tank is rare enough now that some people don't remember the weakspot in the heat of battle? Side armor is a joke, obviously, and arty loves your roof long time without rubber, so there is that.

All in all, for sure wayyyy out of the meta and far out of my light/medium/fast heavy comfort zone, but not as boring as some other TDs to play. 

EDIT: The clip is pretty nice when you lose a game. Instead of getting one last shot off you can sometimes get an entire clip. It helps with the average damage, although it is "useless" damage.

[Expendable_Lad 753]

Just ran 50 solo games in this thing for the on-track having never run it before. Took me 20 games to get my stride (and try to recover my WR) and stop making (too many) shitty mistakes on the platform. Ran basic optics / bounty aiming / purple vents. A few notes:

Pros

• My setup gave me ~485 VR which helped with the self sufficiency and providing vision
• Easy stock grind - just need to research the tracks - I didn't spend any free xp
• Same armor setup as the tier X means more when scaled for tier 9
• Fast - this thing can haul and 20/30 moving/stationary camo is fine for getting around
• Front armor is pretty solid. Combined with above bullet, the brown alert-factor when you  jump 1-2 tanks you can finish off with the clip is pretty satisfying -the rams are great too
• Gun can shave 1600 hp off most anything you will face with the 325 APCR- snapping up isolated tier 8s is great. 
• Waiting for the right moment and executing like a boss breaks open a flank (be sure to pubbie whisper)
• Speed+burst means you can get to key positions like a medium and make important early-damage plays, esp. in the heavy brawl zones

Cons

• Just cannot do ridges/hills/varied terrain. Like no. A LOT of frustrating moments figuring this out where my all-cupola top just gets shredded and I can do anything about it. 
• Like french autoloaders, having a teammate close-by is almost a necessity
• Can get circled easily - it's big, flat, and gets torn up by arty
• Gun can be troll - personal thing, but need to be careful lining up shots and letting it aim in - especially when you really need to connect the shot. 

It's pretty simple to play - and I like that. It punishes hard. Moves fast. Has the armor

Wait for an opening - play the TD role and then punch in where you are needed. Had some hilarious fails too since it can be a little derpy, especially against smart opponents. In 50 games got 3k combined average - a lot more in the last 20 or so. Wish it was a prem so I could keep it.