Centurion 7/1 - post 9.17.1 buff

[ThomChen114 291]

Thoughts on the post 9.17.1 buff on the Centurion 7/1?

The most significant change of course has been the top speed buff from 40 kph to 50 kph.
And its a refreshing change of pace to not be outpaced by every other medium tank and lag behind some of the heavy tanks. Now I can afford to take more aggressive positions early on (the fact that you can contest the center hill on Mines (replay) within the first minute is a major change), have the option to change position and flank faster than before (prior to that i'd felt committed to whichever lane/flank I was in). The decent p/w of the tank with that speed makes it feel just that bit more reactive and allow it to cover distances faster (as you'll see at replay below)

Another perk of being able to go up to 50 kph that most other faster tanks may take for granted is the end game. I've had recent games in the Centurion 7/1 were I could actually pursue and chase down enemy tanks that prior to the speed buff I would never have been able to do so (Example: http://wotreplays.com/site/3418507#siegfried_line-thomchen114-centurion_mk_7_1)

Yes, the Centurion still is one of the slowest firing among the 105mm gunned tier IX medium tanks. The slight RoF increase isn't drastic, but from barely 2k to just under 2.2k base DPM is a welcome change.

 

Now if they could just either buff the aim time/gun handling or the turret gun mantlet armor and this tank would be randy dandy (and actually competitive nowadays). 

[KenadianCSJ 666]

Dpm is slightly less trash tier and it's got decent speed now. Handling is still ass.

[ThomChen114 291]

3 hours ago, KenadianCSJ said:

Dpm is slightly less trash tier and it's got decent speed now. Handling is still ass.

slightly less trash DPM is unfortunately still trash compared to the other 105mm gunned tier IX MTs, but with the increased speed there's more options opened for the tank.

the Centurion 7/1's ass gun handling was WG's old excuse to balance the high penetration of the standard APCR, but then you have the exact same gun on the Leo PTA (with 330 penetration HEAT), and the decreased toughness of the Centurion 7/1's turret front in the face of all the hyper pen TDs and HE/HEAT spam nowadays, its taking WG a long time to update some of their older tanks to keep up.

feels like they're concerned about accidentally making something not Russian become OP

[ComradeHX 45]

1 hour ago, ThomChen114 said:

feels like they're concerned about accidentally making something not Russian become OP

TIL Maus is Russian.

[MacusFlash 2,270]

13 minutes ago, ComradeHX said:

TIL Maus is Russian.

It's in Russia now so it's Russian 

[Monkey 325]

12 minutes ago, MacusFlash said:

It's in Russia now so it's Russian 

USSR see OP tank. USSR take OP tank.

[Balthazars 210]

I've not taken the 7/1 out for a spin since the buff, but I did enjoy it when I grinded through the line (generally I enjoyed the entire line, and have quite decent results in each line for my level).

While all of the buffs are welcome, they don't unfortunately address the two biggest issues for the 7/1 - the fact that they trashed the turret when it went HD, and the awful gun handling. When the turret was at least semi-reliable, you could at least afford a bit more exposure time required to give you more chance to land the shot, as opposed to it burying itself in the dirt. After the turret became awful, you can't afford to sit there because you can get penned by pretty much anything, which makes the bad gun handling even worse - this is also the biggest difference to the tier 10, which actually has manageable gun-handling.

Yes, improved DPM and top speed are good and will make the tank more flexible, but I think while the gun handling remains awful and what used to be the only useable armour gone, it will remain weak in the class/tier.

[MagicalFlyingFox 1,022]

I would have much much much rather WG buff its completely retarded bloom on turret traverse over a DPM buff. Fuck me the bloom makes it retarded. Buff the CAX bloom on turret traverse too.

WG why must you make the centurions' turret traverse bloom so so trash? Might as well play fucking arty.

[tajj7 560]

Still needs a dispersion buff or buff to the turret armour (looks at Swedish Centurion with 254mm of turret armour...), probably both in fact

One of my most played tanks and recently 3 marked it, the buffs are welcome but the tank is not competitive. If I wasn't British and it hadn't been one of the tanks I joined the game to play I couldn't see much reason to play it. It's purely a hippster tank IMO, when you have the AMX 30, buffed PTA, T-54, M46 Patton, Skoda T50 and of course the mighty E50 on tier, it's going to be low down on the list of tier 9 meds. 

Why the hell it gets 0.17 turret dispersion bloom and an IS3 gets 0.08 is beyond me, should be dropped to 0.10 at least. 

[favorius 35]

Wow my old love is buffed when I was away from the game.

In the good old days, it had a glorious turret and accuracy meant reliable hitting enemy weakspots. Today these buffs can only relieve pain of AX grinders not restore the 7/1's old 'unique' glory.

 

[RGM79GM 12]

I really want this  Centurion as it's kinda the tank that originated the MBT concept and it has the sacred L7 and I absolutely love the ingame 105mm sound but it just seems so naff statwise compared to it's rivals the armour may as well be equal to the Leo PTA and AMX 30 for all the good it'll do against tier 9 and 10 guns. Maybe it's worth using my free xp on this just for the CAX at the end of grind.

[ThomChen114 291]

5 hours ago, tajj7 said:

Still needs a dispersion buff or buff to the turret armour (looks at Swedish Centurion with 254mm of turret armour...), probably both in fact

One of my most played tanks and recently 3 marked it, the buffs are welcome but the tank is not competitive. If I wasn't British and it hadn't been one of the tanks I joined the game to play I couldn't see much reason to play it. It's purely a hippster tank IMO, when you have the AMX 30, buffed PTA, T-54, M46 Patton, Skoda T50 and of course the mighty E50 on tier, it's going to be low down on the list of tier 9 meds. 

Why the hell it gets 0.17 turret dispersion bloom and an IS3 gets 0.08 is beyond me, should be dropped to 0.10 at least. 

I remember back then they reasoned that they gave the Centurion 7/1 ass gun handling as a balance to its standard APCR pen. And that was fine since it had that generally trollish turret front armor, and there weren't that many tanks it faced that 268 APCR pen couldn't handle. And HESH was a novel feature.

 

Flash forward today, with all the superheavy tanks that have practically impenetrable armor when angled (or not), and the number of doom cannons behind every bush

Literally the only saving grace is the 210 penetration premium HESH against some of the glass cannon and Swede TDs, but thats very niche as it is.

[KenadianCSJ 666]

13 hours ago, ThomChen114 said:

slightly less trash DPM is unfortunately still trash compared to the other 105mm gunned tier IX MTs, but with the increased speed there's more options opened for the tank.

the Centurion 7/1's ass gun handling was WG's old excuse to balance the high penetration of the standard APCR, but then you have the exact same gun on the Leo PTA (with 330 penetration HEAT), and the decreased toughness of the Centurion 7/1's turret front in the face of all the hyper pen TDs and HE/HEAT spam nowadays, its taking WG a long time to update some of their older tanks to keep up.

feels like they're concerned about accidentally making something not Russian become OP

Honestly with the lack of HEAT, they could literally half the dispersion stats across the board and the Cent wouldn't be OP. Sadly they won't.  Once I'm done the CAX grind it's sold for credits.

[Matross 145]

Thanks for the post, I was thinking about buying back the 7/1, NOPE. The DPM increase doesn't justify the gun handling. The speed is interesting, but still... that aim time... also when RNG is in full effect and your shells go no where where you aimed... reminds of trying to snipe with M46 Patton at times.

[Reppic27 78]

I sold the 7/1 before knowing of this update. Read the update, still glad I sold it.

[ThomChen114 291]

19 minutes ago, Reppic27 said:

I sold the 7/1 before knowing of this update. Read the update, still glad I sold it.

I'm sort of chained to the Centurion 7/1 because I made the hasty decision long ago to put my first female crew set in the tank. 

If and when WG comes around to bringing in the Chieftain then i'll probably transfer the ladies over there.

[lordawesome7 34]

3 hours ago, ThomChen114 said:

I'm sort of chained to the Centurion 7/1 because I made the hasty decision long ago to put my first female crew set in the tank. 

If and when WG comes around to bringing in the Chieftain then i'll probably transfer the ladies over there.

you could move them to another, better British tank (like the conqueror)

[ThomChen114 291]

12 minutes ago, lordawesome7 said:

you could move them to another, better British tank (like the conqueror)

i have a dedicated Conqueror crew w/ BIA and just recently got their 4th crew skill (repairs)

i might transfer the ladies to the FV215b (already unlocked, just waiting on tier X sale to buy it)

[tajj7 560]

17 hours ago, ThomChen114 said:

I remember back then they reasoned that they gave the Centurion 7/1 ass gun handling as a balance to its standard APCR pen. And that was fine since it had that generally trollish turret front armor, and there weren't that many tanks it faced that 268 APCR pen couldn't handle. And HESH was a novel feature.

 

Flash forward today, with all the superheavy tanks that have practically impenetrable armor when angled (or not), and the number of doom cannons behind every bush

Literally the only saving grace is the 210 penetration premium HESH against some of the glass cannon and Swede TDs, but thats very niche as it is.

Yep essentially the same balancing reasons that have held back the Panther & Panther 2 for so long and probably the Cent 1 and now FV4202.

'Good pen' for a medium tank seems to have been an excuse for WG to make the rest of the tank pretty crap and then that 'good pen' gets power crept. 

What I always found funny is the tank clearly got a nerf going into HD, it's turret became much worse but it got no compensatory buffs, WG even admitted the nerf but apparently it was performing statistically 'fine',

And then the M46 Patton went into HD, got it's armour nerfed, and even though it had useless armour anyway, it got several buffs. Even though it was already much better than the Cent 7/1 anyway. 

WG logic, tank that uses it's armour gets an armour nerf, no buffs, tank that doesn't use it's armour gets an armour nerf, let's buff it 3 times. 

 

[Balthazars 210]

21 minutes ago, tajj7 said:

Yep essentially the same balancing reasons that have held back the Panther & Panther 2 for so long and probably the Cent 1 and now FV4202.

'Good pen' for a medium tank seems to have been an excuse for WG to make the rest of the tank pretty crap and then that 'good pen' gets power crept. 

What I always found funny is the tank clearly got a nerf going into HD, it's turret became much worse but it got no compensatory buffs, WG even admitted the nerf but apparently it was performing statistically 'fine',

And then the M46 Patton went into HD, got it's armour nerfed, and even though it had useless armour anyway, it got several buffs. Even though it was already much better than the Cent 7/1 anyway. 

WG logic, tank that uses it's armour gets an armour nerf, no buffs, tank that doesn't use it's armour gets an armour nerf, let's buff it 3 times. 

 

Honestly it seems like WG really hates the Cent tanks, which is a pity, because I like the look and the (original) general playstyle of the line (I did far better in the 7/1 than I did in the E50 for example).

I still keep mine in the garage without a crew in the faint hope it might get buffed properly one day and I'll have a tier 9 medium to play every now and again (I am so bad in said E50 I've kind of sworn off it). The recent buffs are welcome but it still needs more love.

[MagicalFlyingFox 1,022]

Yeah, i would love a Cent7/1 with good gun handling. It's all it really needed in the first place to make it competitive. APCR pen is good enough and the HESH is just pure hilarity when you get top tier or meet many squishies.

WG have shown they are able to rebalance tech tree tanks with the German rebalance this patch (apart from the Maus and type fuckyou) so hopefully they continue this trend of fixing up powercreep? 

[Reppic27 78]

8 hours ago, ThomChen114 said:

I'm sort of chained to the Centurion 7/1 because I made the hasty decision long ago to put my first female crew set in the tank. 

If and when WG comes around to bringing in the Chieftain then i'll probably transfer the ladies over there.

My first and old female crew was originally on the 7/1, soon as I got the AX, switched them over. Mind you this was recently...

[Felicius 170]

8 hours ago, tajj7 said:

'Good pen' for a medium tank seems to have been an excuse for WG to make the rest of the tank pretty crap and then that 'good pen' gets power crept.

One word: 416

[MacusFlash 2,270]

Even HD Centurion 7/1 was nice, at least for me. Somehow I could handle terrible RoF, gun handling and speed cap. Right now it's much better than it used to be but without turret armor it's still 2nd line tank. Give old turret back and it will work even with these bloom values.

BTW When we talk about crippled Brit meds why no one mentions Firefly? 

[ThomChen114 291]

4 hours ago, MacusFlash said:

Even HD Centurion 7/1 was nice, at least for me. Somehow I could handle terrible RoF, gun handling and speed cap. Right now it's much better than it used to be but without turret armor it's still 2nd line tank. Give old turret back and it will work even with these bloom values.

BTW When we talk about crippled Brit meds why no one mentions Firefly? 

As did everyone who played the Centurion 7/1 got used to its deficiencies. The speed buff gives it some life, but its very much a 2nd line tank. The Centurion 7/1 used to be regarded as one of the best ridgeline fighters, mostly due to that turret armor, meaning you could afford to take the risk to aim just that split second longer. They gave other tanks like the M46 and Leo better snapshot capabilities since they had supposedly squishier turrets and then they took away that turret armor from the Centurion 7/1 while leaving its gun handling relatively the same (as in terrible)
 

 

depends on how you were expecting the Firefly to be played. 

8 hours ago, Felicius said:

One word: 416

thats what it feels like nowadays. Russian tanks seem to be among the best at hulldown positions, with tiny weakspots like cupolas on top that are mere slits compared to some of the big commander's cupola on some NATO tanks (RIP T110E5)