World of Tanks: My Personal Top 5 Tips!

Now, before I get into the meat of this particular post just a quick disclaimer. I don't claim to be an incredible player, my personal rating hovers between 5500 and 5600 or so but the amount of silly mistakes I see people making even at tier seven or higher is a bit worrying. So, rather than slump across my keyboard wondering how they even got that IS-3 I figured I'd share a few of my own personal tips, if it helps one or two people do a little better then I am happy!

Tip #1: Use Your Map

Always, always use your map, this cannot be stressed enough not just to get an idea of where enemies are but also so you know where your allies are as well. It doesn't really matter what kind of tank you are playing, the map is always your friend. 

There is often little point charging ahead as a scout if there are no friendly tanks there to shoot at what you spot. Nor is there much point sitting on an empty side of the map for five minutes when the entire enemy team has been spotted elsewhere. 

Tip #2: Never Give an Enemy Free Shots

Never advance around a corner if an enemy already knows you are there. Seriously I see this one so often it's a little frightening, I know it's tempting to roll around that corner and do a bit of damage, believe me, even I used to do it. However, they are more likely to hit your front drive wheel and track you, keeping you in place and barring a few tanks with forward mounted turrets, you can find yourself unable to fight back.

It's usually best to simply try and pull back and go elsewhere or simply find another angle to attack them from that doesn't expose you. Failing that you can if your tank is capable of doing so effectively, you can attempt to side-scrape.

It doesn't just apply to rounding a corner though, if you know that an enemy is waiting for you to pop out. Don't. 

Tip #3: Never Be Afraid to Retreat

Tempting as it is to try and be the hero and fight off five enemy tanks by yourself whilst the rest of your team goes full lemming train on the other side of the map, sometimes it's best to pull back. Put yourself in a more defensible position, behind solid cover and preferably behind something that will shield you from artillery as well.

Make sure to ping the map to inform your team but only do it once every so often, if you spam it people will likely just ignore you. If they don't come to help you then it's on them, not you!

Whilst there are some tanks which can at least stall a flank by themselves such as certain hull down heavies or heavily armoured tank destroyers. It is usually best to just pull back rather than get overrun and destroyed as typically it'll be you against many and at best in my experience you will never kill more than one or two if they are even half-way competent.

Also if anyone starts pinging on you or trying to tell you to go cover that flank without themselves moving to help you? Ignore them. 

Tip #4: Know Your Tanks

I mean this in a very general way, not just for tanks you play but those of your allies and enemies as well. Whilst tanks are generally divided between the five classes that doesn't mean every heavy tank plays exactly the same as every other heavy tank, a Tiger I plays differently to an IS for example.

Play your tanks to their strengths and try to exploit the weaknesses of enemy tanks as best you can. I know that's easier said than done for the most part but it's a good thing to always keep in the back of your mind as you play.

Telling a thinly armoured heavy tank to push or expecting a tank destroyer to scout for you is not likely the best of ideas.

Tip #5: Don't Get Frustrated or Angry

Believe me I know this one is harder to do than it is to say, there are times even I get so frustrated I could bite my keyboard in half but in the end it doesn't help anyone. You are in the end only responsible for how well you play, if you get six kills, do 4000 damage and still lose that is not your fault in the end.

Getting angry or frustrated over it will make you just play a whole lot worse and more importantly, you'll stop having fun, defeating the point of playing the game in the first place!

A rule I started to follow about a year into my playing of World of Tanks was to always try and do more damage than the hit-points of my own tank. Following that one simple goal in every battle slowly saw my average XP and credit earning increasing and my overall frustration diminishing.

Raging, ranting and cursing at other players no matter how badly they may be playing from your perspective is never really justified. Also if you find yourself the target of someones frustrations, simply mute them or add them to your blacklist. Remember, don't feed the trolls.

If you see someone doing something wrong, then perhaps try to explain to them why it may be they just didn't know! (It is not as if the WoT tutorial is that comprehensive let's face it.)

World of Tanks: My Thoughts On Gold/Premium Ammo

Now, gold or premium ammo, whatever you wish to call it garners a lot of mixed feelings from players of World of Tanks and for good reason I think. Now, for clarification I have played the game for a long time, since the beta, back when gold ammo could only be purchased for gold. Though by that token it was also rare to run into and often just ignored as who would want to spend what amounts to real money for ammo in an online game?

I forget which version or patch it was but they decided to make it so you could buy the 'gold' or premium consumables and ammunition for (a lot of) credits technically giving everyone access to it. Now with the more recent addition of a shot tracker as the screenshot above shows, you see gold ammo flying around all over the place which brings it's own issues. 

It genuinely feels like my more heavily armoured tanks can't really use their armour the moment the gold ammo gets loaded up. People see my O-Ni and despite it having weak side armour and being pretty easy to flank, they just punch holes in the front with gold anyway. Okay, fair enough heavily armoured tank but then I see people spamming gold at my tier 7 Swedish TD, a tank with 15mm of armour, a tank that could be penetrated frontally by low tier HE rounds.

Personally if it were up to me I'd entirely rework it or just remove it as it is not much fun to be on the receiving end of. There is no in battle trade off to using premium ammo most of the time, sure it costs more credits but that should not be a balancing factor. To that end here are a few possible ideas I personally have had over the last few weeks.

• Make it do less damage: This to me makes the most sense as it gives a direct trade off for the increased penetration. This will at least mean players will have to make the choice of whether they want to risk more damage at the potential of bouncing or do less damage but have a better chance of penetrating
• Give it special effects: I know there are a lot of types of premium ammo from HEAT to HESH and APCR or even just standard AP. Just a couple of examples though, APCR might do less damage but guarantee module damage (not destruction.) So, you slam a shot into an enemies engine as they cross the open and boom, slowed to a crawl. HESH/HEAT may be more likely to injure crew and such but this would need additional balancing bringing me onto the next idea.
• Limit the amount of premium ammo a tank can have in battle: This would be the easiest one to add in. Simply make it so you can't carry a full load of premium ammo, limit it to 5-10% of the tanks ammo capacity. Will stop it from being spammed at the very least.

What about tanks that almost have to use premium ammo?

No tank in my opinion should ever have to fire premium ammo though there are a lot of tanks that do feel as if they need it due to their standard ammo not being very competitive. The Comet, the Churchill VII to name the two I have played that felt like they needed it but they should be buffed to be competitive. Also I am not asking for it to be removed as that's highly unlikely just changed and balanced like.. Well a lot of aspects of the game need right now! Yes, I'm looking at you, matchmaker. 

It's not an IWIN button though, you still need to know how aim.

Whilst you do have to be aware of the quirks of premium ammo such as HEAT (spaced armour such as tracks nullifies it completely) the point is more that it can make heavily armoured tanks feel pretty pointless. If they can't use their armour effectively due to getting pummeled with premium ammo and penetrated frontally anyway, then their biggest advantage is already gone. 

I also think it doesn't promote good gameplay, rather than outflanking that Ferdinand or trying to get around that KV-4. People just load the premium ammo and knock holes in the front anyway.

Final Thoughts

All in all I highly doubt they'd ever remove premium ammo but I do personally think they should change or re-balance it in someway. Every advantage needs a trade-off, that's a key component of balance, tanks with heavy armour move more slowly, smaller caliber guns fire faster but do less damage etc. Simply saying it costs more credits is a non-issue, economic balancing should not affect battle balancing. Anyone with a half-decent premium tank can likely afford the credits to run tanks with premium ammo. 

Is it the biggest issue in World of Tanks right now? Probably not but I do feel it's something that perhaps needs looking at. Along with the matchmaker but that'd be a whole other post to make.

World of Tanks: My Thoughts on Swedish Tank Destroyers So Far

Yeah, I know I took the screenshot a while ago now!

Tank destroyers have long been my favourite class of tank in World of Tanks so I'll likely be putting up a lot of blog posts on them. 

So, my thoughts on the Swedish tank destroyer line on the whole so far as I have played up to the Ikv 90 Typ B. So do consider I haven't gotten to play around with the whole siege and travel mode of the tier 8 or higher yet (soon!) I have another 40-50k or so XP and a metric ton of credits to go before I get there.

All in all they have some interesting low tier options, the tier 5 was a particular favourite of mine due to it's standard ammunition for it's howitzer being HEAT rounds. This meant it could really really ruin anyone's day if you could hit them. However like most of the Swedish line they have cardboard armour and HE rounds even at low tiers will usually just go right through them. It's incredible gun depression at least helped with poking ridge-lines that other tank destroyers can only dream of.

Tier 6 with the Ikv 65 Alt II sees the line moving away from howitzers and more toward long range sniping, which it did fairly okay at. It was helped by it's agility and ability to relocate as needed, but as with most of them it's armour was over-matched by everything. That said it felt very much like a Hellcat without the turret to me so it didn't take long to get to tier 7 which is where the brakes feel like they got slammed on progression wise.

I am currently sat at tier 7 as you can see above, this one feels like much more of a grind so far. It's not a bad tank in the strictest sense of things, the gun can pose a threat to even tier 9 heavies and if it gets spotted it's usually fast enough to escape all but the speediest of tanks. However the low damage per shot and the oddly slow reload for that damage can make it feel more like a chore to play. 

It's pretty sneaky given it's low profile but that compared with it's speed is literally your only defence. The complete lack of armour (15mm frontal) means anyone with half a clue will be slamming high explosive shells into you for devastating effect, artillery is especially deadly to this especially as it can see tier 9 artillery. I've had near misses from GW Tigers shave off half of my hitpoints. It really does the 'glass' part of a 'glass cannon' well that's all I will say on that part. All in all you should really do your best to avoid being shot at in the first place as even tier 1's would have no trouble punching holes into it's paper thin hull.

The top gun also doesn't feel as accurate as a thinly armoured tank destroyers gun should, I've lost count of the times a fully aimed shot has just whiffed completely or fired off to one side or the other and simply tracked a target rather than damaged it. Whilst on paper the 0.36 accuracy is pretty average given that you have to play this thing in the back line you feel it a lot more, especially with the fairly low fire rate for a 90mm gun. Despite the gun being mounted in the rear, the range of movement it has to the left and right as well as decent gun depression makes it fairly easy to keep your gun on all but the fastest targets without the battle with terrain the TD's like the SU-100M1 and SU-101 have.

All that said however I am definitely looking forward to getting into the tier 8 and higher Swedish tank destroyers and playing around with the siege and travel mode. I even have a female crew from the Christmas event waiting to crew the tier 8, so once I get to the biggest TD's I'll have a more in-depth look at them.

World of Tanks - My Thoughts on the SU-101

Since the Frontline mode has been running I have like most been playing a lot of my tier 8 tanks. The SU-101 is often what I have as my first choice running and moved it up from being moderately upgraded to fully upgraded pretty quickly. Honestly since this line was changed I've had mixed feelings on it given my initial draw to the line was their agility, making it hard for mediums and lights to flank. Rather than just rambling on for several paragraphs I'll organise this a bit more than my usual off the top of the head posts.

Firepower and View Range

There is no denying that the top gun is a massive improvement over all three of it's other guns, though I did enjoy using the 100mm D-54S as it's fast reload often took people by surprise. It's top gun however the 122mm M62-C2 I have some mixed feelings on, the penetration, rate of fire and damage per shot and reasonable aiming time for it's calibre make for a potent package let down by only two major flaws.

First is the lack of gun depression but this far into the line you are probably used to it but still it can get frustrating at times to find a suitable firing position. The gun isn't terribly flexible in it's mounting either but that is to be expected for a rear mounted gun.The second of the flaws is the low accuracy, now maybe it's just me but it feels wildly inconsistent, hitting the edges of the crosshair more than most guns. On more than one occasion I've had shots bury themselves into the ground or veer off to one side and merely track a target that would have been knocked out. On the flip side I've had partially aimed shots at 200 meters or more hit a commanders cupola, so, like I said, feels inconsistent.

The view range is a bit low for even a tank destroyer sitting at a base range of 350m, however as most of the time you'll be supporting your team rather than running off solo I've never found it a massive issue unless I am the only one left alive.

Other than that I think firepower wise the tank is very potent and not something you want to be in the crosshairs of.

Armour and Durability

The armour on the SU-101 is a bit of a mixed bag, it's fairly thick and very well sloped with a good gun mantlet but is riddled with weak-spots. At medium to long ranges a lot of tanks will lack the accuracy to hit the weakpoints front on so this is very much a 'front toward the enemy' tank destroyer.

The sides and rear as you'd expect compared to the front are paper thin by comparison and with it's slow turning speed getting around the sides of this thing is usually the end of you. Honestly this is why I tend to hang back rather than charge in with this despite it's blistering speed, keep it at range and waggle after firing and you'll likely bounce all but the highest calibre guns. 

Hitpoints wise for a tier 8 tank destroyer it's fairly middle of the road at 1100hp, it can take a few hits but it can't take the same kind of beating that an AT 15 or Ferdinand can.

I have however noticed that people really really really love firing premium ammo at this thing, like a lot. 

Mobility and Concealment

The mobility is another mixed bag much like the armour is, it has good acceleration and a top speed which allows it to keep up with all but the faster mediums but has one serious downside.

It turns like like a concrete block on stilts, with it's top suspension it's base turning speed is only 25 degrees a second. Now I know that is fairly middle of the road but it's basically only 1 degree a second faster than a US T28 which likely feels a lot slower than it is due to the lack of movement range on the gun. 

Basically try and stay reasonably far back and try to retreat if things turn south, even if a medium or light doesn't track you they will very easily get around you and feast on that squishy side and rear armour. 

Concealment wise it's one of the sneakiest of the tier 8 tank destroyers and when not moving or rotating it's unlikely anyone will spot you before you fire. The lack of any seriously flexible gun movement hampers concealment somewhat I find as you constantly have to adjust to rotate to keep the gun on target often breaking your camo in the first place.

Mobility wise it's fast if a bit sluggish in the turn, so don't try brawling with mediums as any half-way competent medium driver will tear you a new one.

Concealment wise it's good but a little tricky to make the most of.

My Current Set-up and Final Thoughts

I am not saying this is the best or worst equipment set-up but it is what I felt suited the tank best:

• Vents
• Gun Rammer
• Gun Laying Drive.

I felt it best to maximise the firepower and it's working pretty well so far, you could also make use of the camouflage net and binoculars but I find I rarely stay stationary for long enough to get full use out of them.

My crew skills are currently as follows:

• Commander: Sixth Sense - Brothers in Arms.
• Gunner: Camouflage - Brothers in Arms.
• Driver: Camouflage - Brothers in Arms.
• Loader: Camouflage - Brothers in Arms.

Overall I think it's a good if flawed tier 8 tank destroyer, if you can handle it's quirks and weaknesses it's very good at what it does. 

World of Tanks - My Thoughts on the New Frontline Mode

So World of Tanks recently got a new game mode (available only at peak times) called Frontline. I got the chance to play a few games of it last night with friends so I figured I'd post my thoughts on it so far!

Large scale battles have been something I think Wargaming have wanted to add for a while now but I can count on one hand the amount of Grand Battles I have taken part in. This was largely due to me rarely playing my one and only tier 10 tank (the Centurion AX) but I never really found them anymore fun than regular battles. 

Enter the new Frontline mode, 30 versus 30 spread across the largest map currently in World of Tanks. It's done quite cleverly with players choosing one of three lanes to spawn in with a tier 8 tank of their choosing (3 are provided free for use in Frontline so everyone can try it.) 

The attacking team has to push forwards through various capture points until reaching the far end of the map with objectives to destroy, the defending team obviously has to stop them from doing so.

There are other things present that aren't usually there in regular battles such as repair zones, artillery and airstrikes and more importantly, the ability to respawn.

Typically every 4-5 minutes you get another 'reinforcement' allowing you to choose to enter battle in another of your tier 8 tanks whilst any knocked out vehicle is repaired and thankfully, you only have to pay each repair once. So even if you play the same tank three times, you'll only pay for one repair.

The rewards feel worth the effort which was often my problem with the other game modes they experimented with in the past. It isn't without it's issues however, some of them aren't exclusive to the new mode however.

The framerate feels a lot more choppy likely due to the fact it's twice the number of tanks on a far larger map. Though I imagine when I upgrade my ageing rig it'll run a lot better but we'll see!

Also there really should have been some 'in-game' tutorial messages to guide people who didn't read the information screens about it. Even I didn't realise you could simply drive your tank into another of the three lanes to help until I actually tried it!

All in all I think it's a fun new mode that's far better and more accessible than grand battles and a far more coherent mode than past attempts. I do hope they add it in permanently and maybe even for other tiers too. A tier 5 or 6 version would go down very well with me and the people I play with as well!

World of Tanks - My Thoughts on Japanese Heavies So Far

A Very Large Gold and Artillery Magnet!

I may only be so far along in the Japanese heavy tank line as tier 7 but since getting the first of the so called 'Super Heavy' tanks at tier 5 I have noticed two things that seem consistent.

First off, on anything but a city map you are usually priority target #1 for any and all artillery in place which is much more irritating as you go up the tiers.

Secondly rather than trying to flank you most people just load up premium ammunition and render their decent frontal armour almost irrelevant.

Do I think they are bad tanks? Not really but they are very much all or nothing machines. You either creep forwards blasting away and running up a cricket score or you get spotted and pulverised by artillery and end up doing almost no damage. Maps that feature lots of hills or open ground can be particularly trying when there are 2 or 3 artillery on the enemy team but city maps are a lot of fun.

I have never really agreed with premium ammunition on the whole and feel that it should do less damage than standard ammunition to compensate for the increased penetration (as I highly doubt wargaming will go removing it.) That however is an entirely other blog post.