The things you directly need to buy–like special ammo, for instance–don’t directly require cash, just in-game currency. Indirectly, yes, the best way to get that currency is to buy a premium tank and have a premium account, but again those are indirect. In game, there is nothing you can go right out and buy, that you can’t buy with in-game currency, that will give you a direct, immediate battlefield advantage. Premium tanks certainly don’t, as their value is long term for money making.
I disagree. The fact that you can theoretically buy gold ammo for silver does not mean you will afford it without paying some real money first. The fact that you can grind 10 games to afford 1 uber game (using all gold ammo and consumables) also doesn’t really mean that you get to “win” without paying.
Here is a sample pay-to-win strategy. Obviously, it’s not the only one, just one of many.
Create a new account. Buy a premium T8 with 100% crew. Heavies - Lowe or T34 - will make a bit more silver but JagdTiger 88 or M26E4 will allow you to use (and level up) the same crew on the tanks you will buy later. Play a couple of dozens games in it. Pay to transfer exp to free exp. Get yourself a Hetzer or M4 (or Stug or M4E2 or M4E8, depending on the playstyle and tier you prefer), pay for 100% crew (if you got heavy premium) or use the crew from the premium (if you got the correct type). Buy modules, gold ammo and consumables with either real money or the silver you earned on the heavy. Enjoy one-shotting your enemies and your 70% win ratio. It’s a lot of fun too.
Anyone can do it and get to the “win” part within a day. To maintain it, either continue paying for gold or play the premium tank once in a while to get silver. If you have a premium account you probably won’t even need to do that, the uber tank will pay for itself.
There is simply no “free” alternative to the above for a new player to achieve the same results without paying. None. A new non-paying player simply will not have enough silver to sustain running uber tanks with gold all the time. If that’s not “pay-to-win” then I don’t know what is.
Though I have to say, even in my relatively competitive clan (VPG) there are people who compete very well with standard accounts, though I think everyone has premium tanks.
Sure, if you are already in a good clan, if you are not that interested in leveling up new tanks, if you already have a bunch of tanks you like or have to (for clan wars) play, if you already have considerable experience with the game, then sure you can do fine with no premium because you basically don’t need exp or credits. I did that for a couple of months until I decided that I get bored without trying out new tanks.
But when talking about whether the game is pay-to-win or not, we are not really talking about people who’s been playing the game for years, acquired most of the tanks, have gold income from their clan, etc. We are talking about an average Joe that starts playing the game and whether he is able to pay real money to quickly get himself significant advantage over someone who didn’t pay.
And in these terms, yes, WoT is still very much pay-to-win, no matter all the marketing BS from Wargaming.