mk56
3201
So I had my first personal TK tonite. There was a Pz3 Ausf A in my tier 8 match (he was in a platoon with high tier tanks, obviously), and he was ramming us from behind so we couldn’t back up away from fire. This was on Himmelsdorf, so there was no way else to go. After a little while of this, I turned my gun around and blew him away. It felt good, but I hate having that -1 by my name. Fortunately I got a kill later and we still won.
ShivaX
3202
I’ve been working on my Priest and… low tier arty is just broken.
I rarely get more than 300 xp (on a win) and it takes 40k to get the next SPG. I spent like… 2-3 hours playing and ended up making maybe 7k xp. You just don’t get any fricken xp in the things. Between sharing it with whoever is spotting and the range… its fucking silly, especially considering how much xp you need to hit Tier5.
Panzer IV -> Hummel
KV-2 -> S-51
US artillery progression is a cruel joke.
Yes, yes it is. I’m on my M41 and the grind is awful, though you can go M3 Lee > Priest at least now. The basic problem is the same overall though; you really have to use both premium and gold (to transfer experience) to effectively level arty. At least, I assume all those high-tier arty folks have been doing that because it’s so damn hard.
Still, I like arty.
To be honest, my first thought is “good, bad grind means less arty means better matches”. :)
Not that I hate arty (ok, I do :)), I actually think it plays an important role in the game, it’s just I hate matches when there are 4 of them on each side.
I just didn’t bother levelling past the SU-26. Whenever I feel like arti I have that to pop into; more fun than the bigger ones I tried during beta
SU-26 is probably the most fun arty in the game. I still love my SU-8 though. It’s my best money maker.
The turret on the SU-26 makes acquiring and engaging targets a breeze compared to nearly every over arty. Then again, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good kill on a moving tank with arty, which kind of makes it all worthwhile.
And yes, the game NEEDS arty. Without artillery, as it stands, too many matches would be slow-motion elephant wrestling or campfests, even more than they are now.
JoshV
3209
I noticed, that at least at the tier I’m at, that the amount of arty per side drops drastically. Instead of the typical 3-4 (or more!) small arty pieces at the lower tiers, it tends to be 1, maybe 2 per side.
Dave47
3210
I noticed the same thing. I have a M37 that I tried to level. It couldn’t hit anything, and took forever to aim or reload. So I decided to dump credits into bringing the crew up to 75%. It helped with the reload time and accuracy, but I still didn’t earn any experience points in the damn thing!
I have no idea how one is expected to advance up the tree. I gave up, and am focusing on the Heavy line.
I really want to know (or maybe, not) how all these folks are getting top-tier arty. Do they, literally, have no life beyond WoT?
ShivaX
3212
Pretty much. And they’re willing to spend vast sums of money to transfer xp from their Lowes in all likelihood.
I looked up a leader of a clan a week or so ago when I was messing with the clan wars. The guy had 900+ battles in the beta-gift Sherman. His other three vehicles were a Jagdtiger, an IS-7 and a GW Tiger.
I shudder to think of how much that cost. And how long it took.
Dejin
3214
I can’t speak for the beta-gift Sherman, but the regular M4 Sherman is a fun and very solid tank – good balance between speed, offense, and defense. For a long time, I was running it as my best credit earner, and I’ve got a good 400+ battles in it.
I just got my normal M4. I sold my beta gift M4 and bought a half-price Ram II (which I love) but I wanted to go up the Pershing line eventually, and I loved the Easy 8 in beta. So far the regular M4 is a solid tank, yeah. And of course now I also have the Lee at Elite status. Um, ok, maybe that’s not much of a benefit.
Having had a Russian S-51 (tier 6) and German Hummel (tier 5) in the beta, it’s actually not hard at all for those two factions. You play tanks to unlock them (KV-2 and Pz IV respectively), as I pointed out in a previous post, which is a hell of a lot more enjoyable and effective than playing the horrific M7 Priest or SU-5 to get to the same vehicles.
And once you get there, S-51 and Hummel are quite good at their jobs, which makes it relatively easy to continue on the artillery path. The really crappy experiences with artillery are in the lower tiers, but from tier 5 and on it gets so much better.
When it comes to US arty, however, there’s no way to avoid the M7 Priest (obviously). Here I suppose free XP and other special hoops are required. But not so if one wants to reach high tier German/Russian artillery.
I never liked the Hummel in beta; the trajectory was too flat for my taste I guess, though the vehicle itself was mobile. And the Priest with the upgraded gun is not bad, though it suffers from low damage. The M41 is a fine arty piece for its tier, really, so that helps. I only got to the SU-5 on the Soviet side though.
And I agree, the revised tech trees that allow you to bypass a lot of crappy lower tier arty are a good idea.
But…when are we going to get the Katyushkas and Nebelwerfers and Calliopes, eth? Rockets FTW!
Dejin
3218
Early interviews claimed they were experimenting with Calliopes. But the most recent interviews I’ve seen say no rockets are coming. Maybe they didn’t like the results of their experiments.
I’ll bet. “Oh, look, that barrage just traced every single one of our fifteen tanks at the start!”
kedaha
3220
Tired of the matchmaking. Barely play anymore and premium runs out in a week.
Every tier I reach, most of my battles are still against my tier+3. PZ4 fighting mostly T6/T7 medium and heavies, now VK3601 fighting almost always T7/T8.
