5541

Brothers in Arms and Ventilation together provide you with just 11% crew bonus (from 110% base to 121% with them both). That sounds significant, but actually only gets you 4.4% increase in tank stats (because the stat increases are not linear). That’s 4.4% faster reload, acceleration, aim time, reload time, detection range, etc.

Is that worth it for an entire skill slots used up on ALL the crew members and an invaluable equipment slot? Not to me. Not when compared to 100% repair or camouflage on them all.

Here’s the thread I was talking about. Note how the poll reflects the general perception of the skill/equipment effect, and how as you read the thread eventually it comes out just how small the effect actually is.

If you’re a Russian heavy tank in particular, with their abhorrent aim times and slow reload times on the 122mm guns, you’re going to use Vertical Stabilizer, Gun Laying Drive and Rammer. You can’t fit in Ventilation. You also desperately need Repair (and Sixth Sense for the commander). After that Snap Shot, Smooth Ride, Safe Stowage and Offroad Driving all provide greater benefits than Brothers in Arms, without taking up 3-6 crew skill slots.

A Russian medium tank wants Sixth Sense, Camouflage and Repair (also Safe Stowage on T-44 is a must). Then for equipment Vertical Stabilizer, Gun Laying Drive and Binoculars/Something else. Again no room for Ventilation or Brothers in Arms.

The exception to this would be artillery, where every little bit that helps with aim time should be taken, especially since they don’t get Vertical Stabilizers.

The difference in tank stats between a 75% (82.5% with commander bonus) crew and a 100% (110%) crew are pretty large. Not so between 110% and 121%. The benefits of Ventilation and Brothers in Arms are deceptively small, and especially considering their opportunity cost, it isn’t worth it in my opinion.

5542

Good info Supper Ready, Thanks!

I wasn’t sure what to pick for my second skill on my Hummel crew, I have them all training on camo except for the commander who is working on Sixth Sense. I was thinking of taking Snap Shot for my gunner, since the GW Panther almost has a turret, but maybe it would be better to train them all in BIA; what do you think?

5543

What’s funny is that there’s math, and there’s the game reality. And for me, it’s pretty night and day, in that my (few) crews with BIA all seem to perform better - and not just by a little bit. And it makes no sense if the difference were only 2%.

For demonstration, let’s look at my KV-1 and new KV-2. My KV-1 was one of my favorite tanks, a solid gun, a solid crew. The stats I have on it(mostly as KV, perhaps 3 battles as a KV-1): 395 battles, 57% win ratio, 287,374 damage, 506 kills and 68% hit, make it an average 1.28 kills per game and 728 damage. The crew has 100% BIA, and about 78% in misc secondary skills.

The KV-2 has only several games under its belt (and I know these results are not statistically significant - but it’s the only example i could pull from to illustrate my point), but its stats so far are 4 battles, 50% win ratio, 900 damage, 0 kills and 78% hit. The crew has no assigned secondary stats, but is at 100% training. That’s a pretty large drop off in terms of damage and kills, with what should be(AFAIK) the same setup. I know there are other factors in play(averaged higher matchmaking for example), but at the end of the day, the new 167 pen gun doesnt seem to be penetrating for me anymore. I’m clearly hitting targets. I know my way around the battlefield. So I don’t get it. I know you say it’s ~2% and the math says that too but…It doesn’t feel like it. Nor does it feel like it when my crew is 96% versus 100%. So I dunno.

My other tanks with BIA have a similar ‘feel’ to them. Arguably, i’ve got my best crews in my best tanks, or at least the tanks I like the best, so it stands to reason i do better in them(like my GWpanther and IS-3). But i’m really at a loss to explain it. It might be 2%, but it ‘feels’ like 10-15…

5544

Pyrhic, you really can’t compare a tank with 4 battles to a tank with almost 400, it just isn’t useful.

As for how it feels, people have measured the effects of BiA and Ventilation using the reload time mods, and they reduce reload times by a fraction of a second. Consistent with only a couple percent worth of improvement.

When the new skills first came out, I experimented with them a lot on my Patton, which had Ventilation and BiA until I learned how small the bonus was. After removing both I don’t notice a thing. It’s not really possible to notice a less than 5% increase in tank stats, and one’s perception is just that.
Honestly, a lot of these news skills are completely useless, or nearly so, and exist only as gold sinks as people experiment with them (hence the extremely vague and unhelpful descriptions in-game). But some are extremely useful - like Sixth Sense.

Is Brothers in Arms really that useful for tanks (as opposed to artillery)? Well, the math and the in-game testing says it’s less than 3% improvement in tank stats (see the wiki for why that feeling is just a feeling). If I could use ONE crew member to achieve that, it would arguably be in consideration. But we’re forced to use EVERY crew member to get that less than 3% improvement. Perhaps others can justify it, but I cannot.

I’ve removed Ventilation and BiA from my Patton and never looked back.

Current skill set up is:

Commander: Sixth Sense 100%, Camouflage 100%, Repair 80%
Gunner: Snap Shot 100%, Camouflage 100%, Repair 80%
Driver: Offroad Driving 100%, Camouflage 100%, Repair 80%
Radioman: Camouflage 100%, Repair 100%, Situational Awareness 80%
Loader: Camouflage 100%, Safe Stowage 100%, Repair 80%

Equipment:
Binoculars
Enhanced Gun Laying Drive
Vertical Stabilizer

I couldn’t give up any of these, realistically, for a 4.4% increase in tank stats (actually a decrease in many areas, since many useful enhancements would be replaced).

Now if I had played the tank for some 1000 battles (as opposed to only 465) and had four skills to choose from … nah, still wouldn’t take BiA.

I don’t play artillery anymore - not for some time, but the people who do all say one thing: take anything that improves aim time. Repair is also important if you get splashed during counter-battery, that one I know from my own experience, but on artillery Brothers in Arms is a good idea because, well, where else are you going to get increases in aim time? Even 2.4% is better than nothing.

Same goes for Snap Shot, it’s not just turret rotation, it’s all gun movement.

On a small artillery like a Hummel or GW Panther, camouflage is also very useful. But as you move up in tier, and arty gets bigger, their camouflage rating drops to almost nonexistent, so you need not bother with camouflage anymore (or the net).

Beyond that I would ask dedicated artillery players who have a lot of experience since 7.2 came out.

5545

I’m not going to argue the statistics, since I don’t trust the spreadsheets after driving both without BIA and with it. For something that is supposedly only a 2% difference it has a huge improvement in the feel of a tank, especially mediums that get a lot of use out of a small bonus across the board to all tank stats. Taking my Patton out on to the backbone of the hill on Redshire made it obvious with how much better it handled.

The opportunity cost on BIA is a lot higher on heavy tanks with more crew, however. You’re missing out on more unique perks, and not utilizing all the mobility advantages of BIA. It’s still considered a standard pick on tanks like the IS-7 and T110 in my circle, I assume our Maus drivers take it too.

Arty is BIA 100% for the first skill, Sixth Sense/Snap Shot/Off Road Driving + stuff for the second 100% skill.

Full disclosure: my stats

edit: I think this really is a matter of opinion thing, Supper, since from your equipment load out you probably drive the Patton far differently than I do. I bet you have a far higher survival rate in it too!

5546

Okay, I reworked my T-54 per your suggestions, and I’ve gone 5 for 6!!! I also earned a Master Badge Class I with 56,964 credits earned and 1650 xp!

Hopefully I haven’t jinxed it by posting about it, but if I can keep this up, I should get my T-54 out of its losing percentage (now down by only 9 losses over wins).

I’m having mixed results on hiding and sniping. There was one game where I was hiding in the bushes right below the hill on Prokhorovka where I was blasting away and clearly no one was seeing me. But on El Halluf I’m still getting spotted from the other side. But as you say, since Camo skill always works, whether you’re sniping or charging, it always benefits.

The tank does fell a bit sluggish without Brothers in Arms. I also took of my vertical stabilizer to make space for a camo net, and it does take a bit longer to aim. I kept on the combat optics, since I don’t have any binoculars handy. I wonder if it makes sense to dump the optics and put on the stabilizer. It seems like about 80% of the time I’m using other people’s spots anyway.

5547

On my T92 I’ve found that after switching to all crew with BiA, plus the gunlaying drive and rammer, that I can get shots off in <40 seconds with reasonably short zoom-in times. It ain’t fast, but it’s faster than it was before BiA. But then, there aren’t that many skills worth taking for an arty crew anyhow.

5548

Camouflage is what I train my arty crews in, and if 6th Sense does what it’s supposed to, it seems a logical choice.

5549

Well after untold number of battles (tank tracker says I’ve played a rather remarkable 126 battles in the past 24-hours), I got within 4 battles of even and then it slipped away and I’m back where I was on my last post :-( I did manage to win 2 Boelter’s Medals (7 kills in one match) both in the last 24-hours, which does seem rather remarkable given I’ve only earned 5 total in 5597 matches.

Question for you guys, have you had any technical issues since the last upgrade? Since then I’ve had this problem where after I play for a while the sniper mode (SHIFT) instead of taking me to sniper mode I get the entire screen turning orange. Quiting the application and restarting gets me out of it. The only times I get it is during sniper mode, and then one time when I hit the tab for the player list just the player list window turned orange.

I thought it might have been my device drivers (which did turn out to be old), but after upgrading, now not only do I get the orange screens, it also sometimes just completely crashes the app. This probably happens maybe every 15-20 battles or so.

5550

Congrats, ydejin. :)

And I’m glad to have been able to help a bit.

If you want to get back that “feeling” that Brothers in Arms gave you, install Ventilation instead of the Camo Net (which isn’t that useful as it only works while stationary and doesn’t help at all if you’re behind a bush or three).

I’d also highly recommend running both Gun Laying Drive and Vertical Stabilizer (the latter is a must). Without them the aim time on that Russian gun is too slow, which leads to missed targets of opportunity, worse peekaboo performance and longer exposure in general. You’ll notice the difference it makes after a few battles with both.

Oh yes, had this a number of times - except in my case the screen goes completely red. Restarting the client also solves it for me.

Also had far more crashes during map loads since 7.2/7.3. It used to never happen during beta and before the 7 series of patches.

Disconnects are fairly frequent too, once or twice during a play session is guaranteed.

Well, do keep in mind that you’ve dramatically changed play style. It can take 200+ battles to “click”.

Another thing to remember is that you are not relegated into one particular role (in this case sniper). As a medium tank you can transition from that stealthy sniper to a flanker to a brawler pretty much instantly. Whatever the situation dictates as more advantageous.

Lastly, I probably wouldn’t keep track of stats like that, it’ll just psych you out. If you’re having fun playing in this new way, then push the stats out of your mind and just have fun. A few weeks from now check your stats and you might be pleasantly surprised. :)

5551

I’m not sure what the vast majority of clans do, but mine likes to run a T-54 with two batchats in a wedge formation with the T-54 in front, with the theory that it takes fire and acts as a battering ram to cripple the first target for the batchats to take apart.

5552

We run a bat chat and a T-54 as scouts on most maps. They cover separate map routes, always moving and scanning for targets, rarely engaging except to intercept enemy scout tanks or to provide fire when the main force is already stuck in. We’re often on defense, however.

5553

For those that are interested, the current gift shop promo for the T-14 + 1k gold is the cheapest way to buy gold, by far, if you already have the T-14, since if you do, you get 1.5k gold for it. So that’s 2500 gold for $8. Compare to normal price of 3000 for $15 upwards to 25000 for $100. This doesn’t even figure in the value of the extra tank slot if you could use some.

If you don’t already have the T-14, it may be worth it to you to buy the package multiple times for a good deal on gold anyway, and the tank is pretty fun to play, nearly always getting top-of-heap matchmaking, and only one below top when it doesn’t.

Buying the T-14 package six times, if you don’t have the T-14 already, costs $48, and gets you 13500 gold, 6 tank slots, and the tank. By comparison, the $50 package gets you 12000 gold.

As an added bonus, while this promo runs, 75% of the cost of it is donated to charity.

5554

Sweet! I had just about run out of the $100 of gold that I got with the original game pre-order, so this was excellent timing!

Okay now that I have a premium tank (I sold my pre-order M6A2E1 for credits since it was too ugly to drive!), what’s this you guys have been saying about premium tanks and crews? Do crews in premium earn more xp than regular crews, or was it something about being able to transfer crews to and from the premium without any xp hit.

5555

I have Camo and BiA on my T92 so far. I don’t play it enough to build up crew skills that fast, though, as it costs 2500 per shot, and the reload time is slow so you you really need to hit with every shot and do gobs of damage to break even–oh, and not die, which in a public match is problematic as Tier VIII arty. Sixth Sense might be good, but I find on arty that it’s pretty clear when you’re sighted–you’re dead.

5556

You can place any crew into your premium tank, without having to retrain, as long as they are of the same nation and already trained for that class of vehicle. Its a great feature that allows you to swap your crews back and forth from your premium tank to their original tank without a penalty.

5557

So, the whole feeling vs stats thing left me unsatisfied, and I decided to test it out. I placed Ventilation on my BatChat instead of Binoculars.

Based on the game clock, regular reload time for 100mm gun without Ventilation is 40 seconds exactly.

With Ventilation, based on the game clock, reload was 39 seconds (maybe a fraction less).

Without a stopwatch or one of the reload mods I cannot be more precise. The results are however consistent with a 2.5% improvement.

There is no reason to believe that Ventilation (or Brothers in Arms, which functions the same way) operates differently for other tanks stats (acceleration, aim time, etc) than it does for reload time.

Is that worth it? Well, you decide.

5558

Well we all like using the rammer for -10% reload time right?

If vents is +2.5% to reload time, aim time, spotting distance, turning, acceleration, top speed, radio range (lol) then that seems like 15% of usefulness

5559

Well, no, actually, depending on the vehicle. With the singular exception of the Hellcat, none of my tanks have Rammers on them. They’re useful for heavy tanks and TDs, so as a medium tank and French heavy driver (autoloaders can’t mount rammers) I have no real use for the rammer - that slot is needed for other equipment.

Top speed is not affected, only acceleration (which is what either allows you to reach the hard-capped top vehicle speed or not).

An additional 2.5% radio range is irrelevant. Arguably 2.5% improvement in spotting distance is as well, since even on the best view range vehicle in the game, the Patton, you gain literally 10 meters of view range (420 to 430m).

Traverse (hull and turret), acceleration and aim time remain as seemingly useful, but at 2.5%? The opportunity cost of using Ventilation is getting a bunch of small, mostly irrelevant bonuses, instead of a bigger boost in an area where it really matters. You’re giving up Binoculars or Coated Optics (25%/10% better spotting), or a Gun Laying Drive (9% faster aiming at all times) or a Rammer for a heavy/TD (10% faster reload). On my medium tanks, I don’t see how 2.5% better acceleration, turning (which is already insanely fast on them all), reload and spotting range would outweigh my standard equipment choices (GLD, Stabilizer, Optics/Binoculars).

For Brothers in Arms, the comparison is even worse. Giving up a crew skill on every crew member means the opportunity cost is 50% faster repair or much better camouflage (vehicle dependent). Not going with Brothers in Arms and already having repair and camouflage opens up choices like Sixth Sense (tremendously useful), Snap Shot, Smooth Ride, Safe Stowage and Offroad Driving (5%/10% improvement).

Offroad Driving, by the way, is particularly interesting, because you get no bonus to pass-ability from either Ventilation or BiA. You can only get it from additional grousers (which most vehicles can’t mount) or from Offroad Driving. My medium tanks all have it (aside from the BatChat, it doesn’t need it) as it is useful everywhere aside from pavement.

Is repair/camouflage or any of these other skills worth giving up for 2.5% faster acceleration, aim time and reload? A better question is, is it ever worth taking an entire skill away from 3-6 crew members for a 2.5% boost to anything?

5560

What a difference a gun makes. Just upgraded to the top Patton gun. In El Haluf a Type 59 and my Patton both head into the seaside alcove area. An enemy E-75, M103, and Type 59 all head there too. We manage to take out both Tier IX heavies and the Type 59, although the Type 59 died in the process and I got splattered by artillery before I could get under cover (I went to the unsheltered side so I could flank the E-75). We did have some fire support from the higher ups, but I ended up taking out the E-75 by myself (since it ran under the cliff), as well as taking a good chunk out of the M103. There is no way I could have done that without the penetration of the upgraded gun.