What is the one thing that pushed you from blue to purple?

[X1thebeast29X 19]

Is there one thing you can attribute to pushing you over that last hump? Improved tactics, knowledge, a multitude of factors. Did you learn by platooning? 

Tldr: how did you git good?

[KnobbyHobbGoblin 1,002]

The one tip that got me from blue recent to light purple recent was this: Never trade damage.
 
Of course, in practice, not never - there are many scenarios when it is crucial to take a bit of damage to land that hit or take out a tank.  The analysis of what is and what is not a good trade is something that really needs a multi-paragraph response, so for simplicity I'll leave it at this: Always play with the thought that your hp is more valuable than the enemy's.  400 of your hp =/= 400 of an enemy's.  By not trading damage you'll stay alive longer and thus will be able to have more impact on the battle.  Of course, this does not mean to red-line snipe the whole match - I hope you see what I'm saying.
 
As you get more experience, you'll be able to decide for yourself when to trade or not.  Avoiding trading completely should be enough to get you to improve your play a bit, and will hopefully get you thinking more about how you can keep your gun active and in the fight for the most amount of time possible (essentially what being a unicum is all about).  Of course there is more to improving and getting good that just this, but I think this one tip is useful because it's rather simple and easy to understand how it helps.  It will at least tighten up your play in one area and hopefully get you in the right mindset for implementing the same philosophy in others.
 
Happy tanking!
 

[The_direwolf 167]

I found that getting from 2000->2450 was just about focusing on staying alive and keeping the gun active. even on low % shots.

From 57%->60% was harder IMO, you really have to focus on those 50/50 games and make the impact happen yourself.

[Cunicularius 4,543]

The Tactical Retreat and knowing when to do so.

[Crossfader 1,142]

stet pedding... playing tier 9 mediums

[AnonymousHobo69 4]

using consumables

Also learning to retreat and not going to flanks by yourself

[X1thebeast29X 19]

3 minutes ago, Crossfader said:

stet pedding... playing tier 9 mediums

Have the the t-54 3 marked.

 

1 minute ago, AnonymousHobo69 said:

using consumables

Also learning to retreat and not going to flanks by yourself

Yeah those small repair kits. Lol silly ruthless.

[Fulcrous 2,073]

Two words: Critical thinking.

[Animactus 217]

Thinking about what the enemy is going to do rather than just what you're going to do.

[HabNab 134]

31 minutes ago, AnonymousHobo69 said:

not going to flanks by yourself

This more than anything has improved my games so much recently, making sure that there is enough on the flank to play off of and not getting caught out. Lemming trains win games. and do it faster if you're there to lead them.

[Casas5591 58]

Blue to Faux Purple is about being proactive, not reactive to 90% of all instances with a few bad habits that exerts itself in aggressive play. 

Faux Purple (I wish) to True Purple (I'll never...no) is based on the proactive mindset beyond posistionals and values but more into maximum efficiency in damage through smart aggression and comprehending the macro deployment as thoroughly as micro. All bad habits are absent in a true purple including all levels of impulse super attack rush everything all the time in a bad flank mode.

Please correct me if I'm wrong though, real purples. Just a food for thought.

OP, I think there's thread or article somewhere here that distinguishes faux purple with real purple really well if you're interested in checking out. I think it might help you out a lot.

[Fulcrous 2,073]

23 minutes ago, Casas5591 said:

All bad habits are absent in a true purple including all levels of impulse super attack rush everything all the time in a bad flank mode.

Please correct me if I'm wrong though, real purples. Just a food for thought.

Since purples are human, that part is not always the case.

[X1thebeast29X 19]

33 minutes ago, Casas5591 said:

Blue to Faux Purple is about being proactive, not reactive to 90% of all instances with a few bad habits that exerts itself in aggressive play. 

Faux Purple (I wish) to True Purple (I'll never...no) is based on the proactive mindset beyond posistionals and values but more into maximum efficiency in damage through smart aggression and comprehending the macro deployment as thoroughly as micro. All bad habits are absent in a true purple including all levels of impulse super attack rush everything all the time in a bad flank mode.

Please correct me if I'm wrong though, real purples. Just a food for thought.

OP, I think there's thread or article somewhere here that distinguishes faux purple with real purple really well if you're interested in checking out. I think it might help you out a lot.

Yes that would be a very interesting read. I find that I platau at about 3k recent. I feel I could achieve more if I become smarter about my aggression. I would say that translating that knowledge of when to be aggressive would be better if I did it 100% of the time, rather than say, 75% of the time.  

[Casas5591 58]

1 hour ago, Fulcrous said:

Since purples are human, that part is not always the case.

People are not perfect but they can certainly get close to it. The margin of error in bad habits definitely correlates with skill level. Look at reds who never sidescrape or bad blues who pad DPG at A1.

1 hour ago, X1thebeast29X said:

Yes that would be a very interesting read. I find that I platau at about 3k recent. I feel I could achieve more if I become smarter about my aggression. I would say that translating that knowledge of when to be aggressive would be better if I did it 100% of the time, rather than say, 75% of the time.  

http://wotlabs.net/articles/eliminating-assumptions/

I'm not qualified nor informed enough to explain deeply what deep purples do and how but you can definitely see the difference.

[1n_Soviet_Russia 1,299]

TBH for me I found that head knowledge only goes so far. I have ruined many 4k wn8 sessions by playing on tilt or peeking the corner for that last shot of damage. 

[zapyoug 2,141]

5 hours ago, Casas5591 said:

 All bad habits are absent in a true purple including all levels of impulse super attack rush everything all the time in a bad flank mode.

Please correct me if I'm wrong though, real purples. Just a food for thought.

If I count as a purple then you are defiantly wrong. I mean I do occasionally tactically retreat or decide that maybe I shouldn't push those 8 tanks in front of me alone but most of the time it is RRR until I an sufficiently close to beat the enemies with a stick. this does rely on me being obnoxiously hard to kill though and still sometimes leaves me with only 1 or 2 shots of damage as I get fucking destroyed. There are also those games where I just do something fucking retarded and die and some teal shitlord complains about it for the next 10 min in chat and makes a forum post about how unicums are shit at the game.

 

And as far as the actual post goes, I didn't have any difficulty going from blue to purple (wn8 wise) I just consistently platooned with the best players in my clan (I believe it was buneh at the time) and tried to learn from each of them and see which strategy I liked best. that actually left me at just just barely 59-60% though with 3400 wn8. Basically still a baddie. From there, I learned on my own to stop trading so much of my own hp away to get damage and some basics of -this is how you carry games- and was able to get my win rates up.

Edited January 27, 2016 by zapyoug

[rabidmonkey679 26]

3400 is still basically a baddie?  just got up to 2500 recent thinking hey perhaps I'm not a total numpty all the time :D. I sure as hell don't count as a purple but any recent improvement has actually been due to playing for fun again. Took like a week break after having a couple of sessions of almost throwing my laptop out the window, now I've come back to it and I'm so more relaxed. I still durp out quite regularly but it doesn't cause me to go full tilt anymore so the next game isn't a guaranteed fail. 

Also something that I often forget is that everyone can have good and bad games we all screw up so don't sweat it if your team donkeys out, perhaps the next game you play with them they will carry you 

[Snoregasm2 646]

Shoot a lot and stay alive. It sounds incredibly easy, yet it is actually incredibly difficult to pull off.

Tactical retreating, critical thinking, use of consumables yada yada - they all either maximise staying alive or shooting more. If you can do both well, you will be purple in no time.

From my perspective, I am trying to take the leap from uni to superuni, and the trick there is consistency. Everyone has bad games or play on tilt. The trick I have learned in the past 2k games or so is to make your bad games 2.5k WN8 games, rather than 145 0 dmg WN8 games.  If you can raise your 'floor' enough so that playing incredibly bad is 2.5k WN8 to 3k WN8, your 'ceiling' and overall numbers will be pushed up too.

[Assassin7 4,351]

its been a long time since my recents were blue, wow, I can barely remember.

I *Think* for me it was learning micropositions. little areas to go that people who don't know any better would just assume you are there because that's where you ended up, but you are actually there for a reason, spots that give you a small yet significant advantage - where you can spot enemies at the start of the game, or you can camosnipe enemies without getting lit no matter what tank you're in (Malinovka bush at the top of the hill from the south spawn, if you get there uncontested you can fire double bushed at all the heavies climbing up literally as much as you want and stay dark, no matter what tank you are in and they have to get to about 100m away before they can spot you) or get into the tiniest little dip that makes you completely hulldown and absolutely invicible, or spots that get you flank shots.

 

and then there was being able to do it consistently. many pubbies never understand that a lot of the time, a purple isn't in a spot just because, he is there for a reason, because it provides him some sort of tactical advantage to be in that position. Being able to analyse the battle and ask yourself "is it worth moving there, what will it benefit me, how will it hamper me" or digging out an enemy tank that is in a position "is that enemy going to hamper me later on if I move, does he need to die before we can do anything else on the map" if not, you can leave that enemy and surround him later, and then you can move to a different flank and clean up there

[MeVersusPing 1]

pre nerf t-54 with a good camo crew. just play a tank you really really like and are comfortable with!

[AirG 1,089]

The satisfaction of doing well.

my first tank that crossed 1k avg exp. was about 3 years ago.

[MonoPanda 31]

I only managed to get purple recent but im on my way to conquer uni status. Basically everybody agrees that doing Dmg while staying alive is the key. Although you need several skills to pull that off. I always estimate how much risk I have when moving somewhere or taking shots at a tank. When you are consistently thinking like this you get consistent results. You can even try to cope with arty but sometimes you get a 1850 GC hit on your E100 in the first minute like me ...  and we all know how well arty fits into a good match of WoT.

[vernl 255]

Two main reasons.

1. Keep track of what enemys can hit you, and where they aim. Keep shooting the guys that don't pay attention to you. If they start to focus you, start shooting other guys.

2. Keep checking the map to make sure you have enough allies to keep the enemy from rushing you or to use as meatshields when you need to gtfo. (note: you should usually be in front of those allies, not behind them.)

[CraBeatOff 5,741]

2 hours ago, Assassin7 said:

and then there was being able to do it consistently. many pubbies never understand that a lot of the time, a purple isn't in a spot just because, he is there for a reason, because it provides him some sort of tactical advantage to be in that position. Being able to analyse the battle and ask yourself "is it worth moving there, what will it benefit me, how will it hamper me" or digging out an enemy tank that is in a position "is that enemy going to hamper me later on if I move, does he need to die before we can do anything else on the map" if not, you can leave that enemy and surround him later, and then you can move to a different flank and clean up there

This is prob the closest to my answer, In fact, its a very good answer, summed up in my first thought reply which was "knowing where to be and why at all times"

Now, OP, please don't imply this as hubris, its simply n=1 analysis. I have been "purple" as defined by per-tank WN8 for a very very long time now. Sorting my tanks on the WoTLabs.net mainpage by WN8, of the 175 tanks I've played, 95 are "purple" and 20 are "blue". All the blue or less ones date to a 2012-early 2013 (except the E-100 which is another story entirely) or are arty.

So when I look back and try to remember what I was doing during that time period...I was trying to put into practice every Garbad wrote (official forums, this was pre-wotlab forum) about where to be, and why. Garbad rarely wrote about penning shots, or trading hp, he wrote about flanking, positional dominance and scouting. He wrote about making your team better (via flanking, positions and scouting), and about giving teamwork to your hapless pubs. Trading hp is something you do for position. And there were no premium rounds (for credits, which is all I've ever shot) for some of these blue and purple tanks. 

I see my Easy 8 in this era. A tank I was very very proud of, because I had been studying Garbad and @CarbonWard and trying to put what they wrote about in perspective. I won 60% in that tank, almost entirely solo, pre-sprem. I did a ton of scouting and hill peeking. I remember working very hard to try to get flanks that either punished those hard fronted 7s and 8s, or which stalled their advances. And trying to use the mobility of the E8 to dog pile into brawls where I could use my plinky DPM effectively. 

I see my T-34-85, a tank I played 300 games in to practice, because Garbad said it was a good medium to replicate high tier styles. Decent punch, good dpm, ok but not great armor, pretty good mobility, acceptable vision. Another blue 60%+ winrate tank. Some platooned, a lot lot lot of solo. 

Now this is backwards. Most people learn how to pen their shots, discipline themselves not to poke badly, how to make sure your loaded flank rolls hard, and all those skills and they learn that quick. I am a special kind of dumb and learned how to do that much much later. My first "dark purple" tank was the T32 sporting my first 70% winrate and 1k xp/game average. Another one I am proud of. I got this mostly by scouting, I shit thee not. @jacg123 and @Wazoo117 can attest to it, because they were there. I would ridge poke and hold ground on old Serene Coast (the REALLY hilly 1.0 version) and Dragon Ridge (the 2.0 version) and just vision pin and and area deny and light for arty. As is the recurring theme, my damage output was only ok (I only learned how to win more games via crushing damage output in the last year or so) at 1931 dpg in this tank. For comparison sake, I recall @Veril playing the T32 about a year later, using the 90mm (see the higher hit rate) all APCR and winning 82%, with 2500 dpg 1200+ xpg. But lower spots per game :-D and you asked about how to go from blue to purple, not purple to super purple :-D

Anyways there's a ton of people who can teach and show you how to farm hp without losing your own, so you can trade your own later. And thats the quickest and a perfectly effective way to go from blue to purple. But it CAN be done "backwards" where you learn all the positional, teamwork and game-reading stuff first, and then learn to farm damage later. 

Some maxims I try to share and have gleaned from others

Your job is to make your team better -from Garbad

Give teamwork, but expect none -me

Some tanks trade HP for position (T-54 style) others force enemies to trade hp for their positions (M46) -from CarbonWard

Your platoon (or team) takes up key positions in the map and squeezes it to a win -also CarbonWard

Never rely on a pubbie for the game winning reset - everyone ever, but oft repeated by @sr360

[Aside - I had to finally learn to output superior damage because I wanted 3 pretty marks on my tanks. I was perfectly happy to win 70% and be merely a purple until they made the pretty marks and sat in that space for almost 2 years. Damn those pretty marks]

[Snoregasm2 646]

19 minutes ago, CraBeatOff said:

-snip-

It's remarkable how people can reach purple stats in world of tanks going down that route. You mastered the tricky stuff that makes you 10-15% better (and became uni mastering that stuff) then mastered the stuff that adds on 20-25% to your performance (damage farming). Even in that first stage you must have still been good at doing damage purely by having the superior positions.

19 minutes ago, CraBeatOff said:

Some tanks trade HP for position (T-54 style) others force enemies to trade hp for their positions (M46) -from CarbonWard

Your platoon (or team) takes up key positions in the map and squeezes it to a win -also CarbonWard

Where did @CarbonWard write this? I've seen a lot of Garbad's older stuff (I don't agree with all or even most of it, as a lot is vision meta-oriented), but I must have missed Carbon's stuff.