How much premium do you shoot? (Gimping myself because im cheap?)

[SkittlesOfSteeI 1,680]

If your tank has apcr as gold ammo there is no reason to have ap

[Jesse_the_Scout 2,098]

I wager a lot of purple players would have a stroke watching me micromanage my jew golds. I literally occasionally miss a shot because I was switching back to AP to shoot a paper target as the extreme gap in shell costs drives me crazy. I distract myself in brawls by trying to decide AP vs APCR at times and end up giving myself problems. I really shouldn't do it, but I'm very cost conscious with irl money too. 250 vs. 4400 or some bullshit is ridiculous, the cost-efficiency loving part of my brain can't take it.

In a perfect world the game would load me up exactly the shell I need to pen 75%+ odds every shot. You should always be using the shell that will do the job ideally, cost is irrelevant if the cheaper solution doesn't work pretty reliably.

[DirtyACE7 514]

It really depends on the tank and tier you are playing. What are the penetration stats for your standard shells and premium shells and what kind of targets do you expect to encounter? My premium load out will be anywhere between 1/3 to 4/5 of my overall load out depending on the variables I've mentioned.

And yes, you are definitely gimping yourself by not utilizing premium rounds in situations that call for them. They don't even need to be definite 100% situations. If you ever feel or have hesitations about penning a tank with standard ammo, then you should be switching to premium automatically. Ideally you want to make every single shot count which means penning every single time, however, due to the RNG mechanic that is not possible so you want to limit the effect of said mechanic as much as possible.

Keep in mind though, premium rounds will not magically make you a better player if that's what you're hoping for. This is one of the biggest misconceptions among a large portion of the player base. I don't know how many times I've been messaged after battles claiming that the only reason I've done well in a battle was because I was slinging gold at everyone. Don't be that person.

PS - I take great pleasure in ridiculing (putting it nicely) players like these.

[kolni 69,670,872]

the only answer you will ever need:

 

is apcr the premium ammo? load full gold, i don't see how it's not better than forcing yourself to take ap when its literally just worse

if heat is prem ammo then you spam heat until you shoot at tracks or spaced armour, shoot with normal ammo

 

if you have less than 40 heat in your t54 ur playing it wrong

 

[Strigonx 442]

1 hour ago, SkittlesOfSteeI said:

If your tank has apcr as gold ammo there is no reason to have ap

/thread

[RC_Tank 467]

I load a very generous amount of gold in my tanks, and if I need to fire it all then I will, I can make credits in premium tanks.

I fire gold if I can't afford to bounce, need to trade, need to take a position, and/or I'm shooting at something that I'm not confident I'll easily penetrate. There's more situations, but you need to learn to judge when you need to fire certain ammo. This doesn't mean go around shooting gold at everything, I try to predict what ammo I'll need to handle the situations that are required to win.

I'll take this E100 game I had lastnight on Lakeville as an example. It was me, an IS3, and a T71 up against an E100, IS7 (on ~400 HP), E75, and a T34. Against all of those except the T34 it's questionable whether I'll pen from the front with AP. The T71 and the IS3 were driving up the valley and I was going through the city. It was likely that I was going to be doing almost all of the work, and I was going to be trading against a gun advantage. I loaded HEAT because I absolutely can't afford to bounce. Click the shots to see the armor I had to shoot at. First shot: into the turret of the E100 while he ricochets AP off of my turret, already I'm at an advantage against their E100 because now I can possibly take 2 hits from him while he can only take one from me, my ~1600 against his ~650. Second shot: down into the IS7s UFP, killing him while he tried to close the distance with the E75 flanking me. If I had AP and bounced, I'd have two guns shooting me for 490 which is 980 against my 750, with the E100 unspotted and at risk of showing up. Now I can deal with the E75 (almost full HP). Third shot: into the E75s turret as he's trying to facehug me, he also pens but I do almost twice the amount of damage. He's on around 1100 while I'm just under 1200. Fourth shot: into his turret again after he ricochets off mine. He's now on ~250 and I'm still under 1200. I proxy light their E100 and he's about to come around on my side. If I'm hit by the E100 then I won't have the HP to finish him off while the E75 has at least two free shots into me. The E100 needs to die first even if I have to get shot by the E75 to finish him off. Fifth shot: into the E100s turret before he can fire at me. The E75 did hit me and I'm down to just under 700 now. Sixth shot: finishing off the E75 and now I can move to where I can hit their T34 who's killed our T71 and by the time I'm able to shoot him he's killed our IS3 too. I thought I could easily take care of him with AP, but there's not much time left and he needs to die because I might only get one shot off before the game ends. Seventh and final shot: into his turret while he's hull-down behind a dead tank with under a minute on the clock.

What's the point of that wall of text? I tried highlighting the importance of penetrating your shots, and the difference a penetration/bounce can make, every shot I took was a deciding factor in the game. Let's say I was firing AP. The first shot had very little chance of doing anything, meaning later I wouldn't have been able to take care of the E100 so quickly. The second shot might have penned, but if I bounced then the game would have ended there. The third, fourth, and sixth shots could have been done with AP by shooting his cupola, but that's time spent aiming which will be important later. The fifth shot would have been into the E100s angled hull or into the bar at the top of his turret, the time spent aiming at his weakspots would have allowed him the chance to put a shot into me while my shot had a decent chance of missing or bouncing. If I somehow survived, and if somehow there was enough time left to kill the T34, it's extremely likely that I'd have bounced unless I got a really high pen roll.

[Balthazars 210]

I am OCD and like groups of numbers that generally appeal to me visually, so this heavily dictates how many gold rounds per tank that I take, but generally I take 2/3rds standard and 1/3rd premium rounds.

In terms of selection, I tend to be a bit stubborn/stupid and probably switch to gold much slower than I normally should, but the advice you're getting here rings true - if you can't/aren't penning your shots reliably in the position that you are, and gold rounds will improve that, you should be switching. (the best players will know they can't and switch immediately, plebs like us will probably need to try and fail once or more with the standard round before switching to gold).

[Super_Rybak 40]

When the premium ammunition on the tank is HEAT i load 50/50, when it is APCR I load 20/80. 
There are exceptions to this however, e.g. if the AP pen is exceptionally high (Skorpion, Strv), the HEAT is exceptionally good (T-54, STA-2) or the AP is exceptionally bad (KV-5, T32).

Because of the millions of credits I have laying around from playing SH I always shoot the type of round that is most effective.

And then there is the most important factor which is

20 minutes ago, Balthazars said:

I am OCD and like groups of numbers that generally appeal to me visually, so this heavily dictates how many gold rounds per tank that I take

^^ This!

 

[Cronk 694]

I typically load no more than 30% premium and tend to save it for only when it's really needed. I'm often hurting for credits and try to make a profit every game.

I probably need to find a clan that regularly does stronks with credit boosts so I can afford to fire more of it.

[Fulcrous 2,073]

At tier 10, I will take enough gold ammo to kill at least 2 mice.
Reason? Super heavy meta sucks

[sohojacques 271]

40 minutes ago, Fulcrous said:

At tier 10, I will take enough gold ammo to kill at least 2 mice.
Reason? Super heavy meta sucks

I think the Maus/252U meta has tipped this game into unaffordable territory for me. 

[Wessmen 7]

Thank you for all the responses. 

This is not about spamming gold and thinking it will make me better but instead br able to identify and switch to gold when its really needed.

There is plenty of times I bounce 2-3 shots in a row that enables the enemy to back up the guy and this hopefully helps me to switch earlier to get the advantage and possibly change the outcome of the battle. 

[Gr1nch_1 257]

At the end of the day this is not World of Credits. We are playing tanks and we want to win and do dmg.

[stagnate 513]

If my opponent is shooting gold I always respond in kind, the rest of the time it varies.

 

For most tanks I just think about the average number of rounds I fire per game and make that AP with the rest premium.  If you run out of AP it's likely a close game and you want to be shooting gold to close it out.

 

this only applies for tanks with decent ammo capacity; you have to be more selective if there is klimited capacity.

[Hally 126]

It depends on the tank and what the gold ammo is.

Gold on tanks like fv183 is a given.

I hate tier 10 heat with a passion. Unless the credit ammo really doesn't do the job, such as against a superheavy, I will stay away from heat.

If the prem ammo is apcr, I will use premium ammo if credit ammo is not reliable against what I'm facing.

Finally... if the tank makes credits regardless, such as lowe or maus.. full apcr mode.

 

[Felicius 170]

13 hours ago, Hally said:

It depends on the tank and what the gold ammo is.

Gold on tanks like fv183 is a given.

I hate tier 10 heat with a passion. Unless the credit ammo really doesn't do the job, such as against a superheavy, I will stay away from heat.

If the prem ammo is apcr, I will use premium ammo if credit ammo is not reliable against what I'm facing.

Finally... if the tank makes credits regardless, such as lowe or maus.. full apcr mode.

 

Gold on FV 183 is a big mistake against quite a lot of tanks...nothing is better than getting 500 splash in a shitty tier 8 heavy (like O-Ho Ho) and then putting 2 shots while he reloads...

Tier 10 HEAT is great if the gun is super accurate, and the HEAT flies fast (1200 m/s in the E-50 M) - you nail not just the E-100 huge turret face, but also smaller weakspots, like pre-nerf E5 cupola, E4 whole turret, etc...

Maus full apcr is a given...Löwe not that much...when toptier...

[Hally 126]

3 hours ago, Felicius said:

Tier 10 HEAT is great if the gun is super accurate, and the HEAT flies fast (1200 m/s in the E-50 M) - you nail not just the E-100 huge turret face, but also smaller weakspots, like pre-nerf E5 cupola, E4 whole turret, etc...

I do a lot of sprocket wheel shots on tier 10s. It helps with winning significantly more than just doing dmg only. HEAT is abyssmal at making sprocket wheel shots, and hence my strong dislike for that ammo type in general. I rarely find myself in a position where I'd have to fight heavies head on. If I get myself into such a spot, I probalby f'd up somewhere in the battle beforehand.