3081

And ventilation. I dont know what your crews eat, but mine live on beans and onions. Ventilation is an absolute must in all of my tanks.

3082

Absolutely and thank devs you can demount the rammer and move it to another tank now.

What sucks though is that JgdPanther is using the medium caliber rammer, which is cheaper (good thing) but is not transferrable to the Ferdinand, which is using the large caliber rammer. It sucks having to come up with 500K after spending 2.5 to buy the Ferdi.

In this sense, Soviet (and I think the US) HT’s are in a better position - although you have to come up with 500K at tier 5 to buy the rammer, you can pass it over to the next tank as you level up and having the rammer on a stock tank does help to somewhat alleviate the “stockiness” issues.

Edit. I am not sure sure about the ventilation though. I always like to have the rammer and the binocs, so I had to choose betwen ventilation and liner. Vent adds about 2.5% to a bunch of stats, IMO it’s too negligible and I think it’s better to have 15% damage reduction against the HE.

3083

Thanks for all the info StriderG. I’m surprised about the liner. You find it makes a lot of difference?

3084

I think so. The arty is without a doubt the worst TD’s enemy (especially true for the Ferdi). Plus the lower tier tanks often use HE when they face a TD (again especially true for the Ferdi). The liner certainly is not going to help you against the high tier arty’s direct hit (nothing will) but it reduces the effect of the nearby explosions.

Every time I am alive with about 10% hps left, I thank my liner. :) It happens often enough for me to always equip it on my German TD’s. For Russian TD’s, it probably makes sense to replace it with the net, not sure (you are still a christmas tree when firing, net or not).

One thing to remember though is that the liner increases the weight of your tank thus slowing it down. A fully upgraded JgdPanther with a liner is about as mobile (only slightly more so) as a JgdPanther with a top-1 engine and no liner (I noticed it with my friend when he was a bit behind on the upgrades).

Of course, the heavier the tank, the less impact the liner has on its mobility. I don’t really notice it much with the Ferdi.

3085

I can definitely see the liner making a difference with the Ferdi. I can imagine the Ferdi is a major artillery priority target!

3086

The ferdi and the jagdtiger are prime arty targets because its so much easier to hit them than most targets on account of how tall they are. The SU series have such a lower profile that shots are more likely to just fly over them. As arty i tend to prioritize TD’s to begin with because they have a higher firepower to HP ratio than tanks, but those tall TD’s attract the most fire from me.

3087

US heavies use medium rammer until the T29, where you have to swap to a large rammer.

I’m finding the T-29 to be a pretty solid tank. I need the engine upgrade, at least the first one, because it’s so slow, and it’s a long grind to the 105, but it can take good damage and the 90 is a fine gun.

3088

I’ve never heard people complaining about hacks. In fact, most of my games tend to be silent affairs, which is sort of frustrating in the context of a game like World of Tanks, which cries out (zing!) for communication and planning.

I suspect the problem has something to do with always needing to hold down the “w” key to move. Typing slows you down, which is often problematic…

3089

Most of the time the height of the tank is not a major factor in arty’s target prioritization due to the arty’s trajectory. ISU and Object 704 are just as much targeted as Ferdi and JgdTiger, probably even more so. The biggest factors are the target’s speed, general mobility, affinity to bushes, difficulty to be destroyed by “regular” tanks and damage potential.

High tier TD’s are slower than most HT’s, tend to “stand and shoot” more than TD’s, tend to “hide” in the bushes while shooting for extended times (due to the pre-6.4 habbits), TD’s don’t really spearhead the attacks, so they expose their soft sides more rarely compared to HT’s, they have better frontal armor than most HT’s and (if handled properly) are a bitch to kill from the front. At the same time, their accuracy, penetration and damage allow them to kill most tanks with ease.

That’s why arty loves TD’s and TD’s hate arty. Well, everyone hates arty but TD’s do it with a passion. :) It’s a very passionate love-hate relationship. :)

3090

Use “R” and “F” keys and you don’t have to hold “W”. Double hit R to get to top speed.

3091

Yeah, I’d love to hear more actual tactical discussion but all I hear is bitching and the inevitable twit who screams “PENIIIIIIIS” into chat at the start of the match.

3092

Maybe this is just because the other multiplayer game I play is LoL, but to me, the WoT community is actually fairly nice and friendly. Sure the lower tiers are a bit hopeless when it comes to coordination. But at tier 5, I’ve actually seen several instances of medium tanks responding to calls and plugging gaps in the line.

3093

For me, it varies greatly. Some matches are mature and very team-oriented. Some are full of player killers, foul-mouthed twits, and idiot AFK’ers. I can never predict which I’ll get.

3094

Good to know. I’m currently finishing up my grind through the T1, and have heard that the M6 is a letdown. Which I suspect it will be until I unlock that 90. But really, the T1 wasn’t nearly as bad as I worried it would be. It can’t go toe-to-toe with a KV (or, heaven forbid, a Tier 7 heavy) but can fill a lot of other roles. And now that I’ve got my crew up to 75%+, I’m finding myself able to do a lot of damage in any game where I’m near the top of the lists. That 76mm gun had a great rate of fire.

It’s pretty clear to me that I should save the extra 120,000 credits to start my M6 crew at 75%. Even though I don’t plan to keep the tank forever, grinding is both quicker and a lot more pleasant when your gunner can land his shots.

3095

Went up the German heavy tree in beta to the Tiger 2, it was alright. Once it was upgraded, that is.

Now in retail I’ve gotten up to the IS.

Yeah, everyone was right. :)

With the engine upgrade in it and the 122 on it, I can cruise around Himmelsdorf with the mediums and ‘oh hey surprise I’m a heavy with a big gun’. Which usually ends up with me getting some ridiculous xp.

In the Tiger 2 it would have been ‘I’ll park beside this wall and hide as much as possible and hope something I can hurt peeks around the corner up ahead.’

And yeah I picked up a Lowe, it really is a silly easy way to make credits to slap your other tanks full of modules. I like it. And since I have experience with the Tiger tree, I just play it like that, occasionally you can make an absolute killing.

Still enjoying it, but burning myself out since I joined a clan and they keep pressuring me to get up into an IS-7. Geez, guys…takes a little while.

3096

Personally, I’d think a match full of nothing but IS-7s would be boring as hell, but it takes all kinds I guess.

I loved the IS and IS-3 in beta; very strong tanks. I like the look of the Tigers better, but I only got through the first cat in beta. One of the problems with this game is that the iconic tanks are generally lackluster and the real killers are weird ass stuff that barely or never existed, at least within the definition of “actually fielded by an army in WWII in battle.”

OTOH, what the game does get right is the different feel of each class of vehicle, more or less. Lights, mediums, and heavies, as well as TDs, play differently from each other, and require different approaches. It’s fun when you get the right combination of tactics and equipment for your vehicle.

3097

I am not sure sure which tank(s) you mean by “weird ass stuff that barely or never existed” but, in that paragrapgh, it looks like you apply it to the IS and IS-3. Which is weird because both of these tanks were produced in great numbers, greater than Tigers. With one caviat - for the tiering purposes, the game rolls two “real life” tanks (IS-1 and IS-2) into one and calls it IS. Same as it does with KV-1 and KV-2.

And IS-2’s most definitely were “actually fielded by an army in WWII in battle.”

So yes, while the IS-1 was mostly a prototype (well it was a production model but it had such a bad gun, they cancelled it very early), the tank we are driving in the game (with the 122 mm gun) was called IS-2 and they produced over 3,000 of them, most of them during the WW2.

IS-3 was also a production model, they produced over 2,000 of them, however, officially, they did not fight the Germans. Some of them may have fought Japan in the summer 45 (I guess there is no proof for it or something).

As for the Tigers, about 1,300 of Tigers were produced and about 500 of Tiger II’s.

As for the tanks’ in-game performance, it’s not really fair to put Tiger and IS-2 in the same tier and keep (more or less) their historical stats. The same applies to KT and IS-3. IS-2 was created as Soviet’s response to the Tigers, naturally it was more powerful.

But that’s when realism and games don’t go well together. Countries did not develop their “tiers” of tanks at the same time in perfect harmony making sure similar tier tanks would have similar “fair” stats. To put it simply, Tiger was created to beat Soviet KV’s, IS-2 - to beat Tigers, KT - to beat IS-2’s and IS-3 - to beat KT’s. Every iteration is supposed to beat what the enemy has, otherwise what’s the point.

3098

Ehh, I think TheWombat’s paragraph structure was confusing, but his general point is dead-on. high tier German and Russian Heavies (along with the entire American Heavy line) are based on either prototypes, blueprints, or insane fever dreams. I suspect that for most of us tanks like the IS-3 would be the “margin tank.” Sure, it was produced, but it never saw battle; it’s inclusion is thus defensible, but awkward. But the IS-3 is the only Tier 8 heavy that moved beyond the prototype stage!

It’s too late to fix it now, but it’s a shame that this was the path the developers took. This game would be more compelling if it used more real tanks. (Although as a US Tank player I’m probably super sensitive to this.)

3099

Um, no, I mean the US line beyond the Pershing (and for that matter the T-20/23 never saw service either), the VK German stuff, the Panther II, Maus, the SP arty beyond the Hummel, and the Soviet stuff in droves–the IS-4 and beyond, most of the weird KVs, the Object, etc. The IS models are fine, as are the Tiger, Panther, and King Tiger. The US never fielded an operational heavy tank beyond things like the Sherman Jumbo during the war, and most of the high-tier German stuff was either drawing-board only or one-off engineering prototypes.

But I do agree, realism doesn’t mesh with the tier approach.

3100

Yeah, sorry, I’m writing this stuff in between waiting for WoT matches (had the day off). So my paragraphs aren’t exactly Shakespeare.