How to win a battle?

In this post I will cover only two of the game modes in World of Tanks: Standard battle and Encounter battle.

Standard battle
Each of the teams start in or near their own base, and there are two bases on the map. You win either by killing all members on the enemy team, or by capturing their base. To capture a base, at least one tank has to stay inside the white circle for at least 100 seconds, without being damaged by a member on the enemy team.  The more tanks that stay inside the white circle, the faster you will capture the base. If one enemy tank manages to damage one of the tanks inside their base, the capture counter is reset.

But: Forget capturing (“capping”) the enemy base if you have the chance to kill all members on the enemy team. You will – as a team – earn more experience by killing all your enemies, and it is quite risky to rely only on capping. You can lose a battle while trying to cap the enemy base, but if your team protects your own base effectively, you can’t do any worse then a draw. Only focusing on capping is the newcomers biggest mistake.

You will also find out, that defending your own base, by damaging or even kill an enemy tank trying to cap your base, will increase your XP. However; this does not mean that you should only focus on defending. If you do, you might leave one team member unassisted somewhere on the battle field. How to balance this? You have two vital sources of information:

1. The Minimap
2. The siren, which you hear when someone on the enemy is capping.

The minimap is your best companion on the battlefield. Use it. Use it! USE IT! You will see your enemy marked as red dots on the minimap. Notice how they move, and act accordingly. If you see the enemy getting close to your base, try to go back to reset any attempt they might make to capture the base. Do NOT try to “counter cap”. You will most often lose the match. (But not always.)

Encounter battle

Encounter battle
On encounter battle, there is only one base, and both teams have to capture the same base. Both teams start the battle an equal distance from the base. If tanks from both teams stay inside the base, the counter stops. Do exactly as in a standard battle: Kill enemy tanks, and/or defend the base. And use the minimap.

For both game modes
Never go alone. Always ensure you go with a team member when you start the battle. But: Do not go where all the others go. Encourage your team to secure more than one area on the battlefield. If all team members go on one side of the map, and the enemy team divides into two or three groups, your team might kill a third of the enemy team, but they might be able to flank your team (shooting your team from the side), or capping your base.

And also: If you all go on one side, you will get a “traffic jam”, being unable to shoot at opposing tanks. Therefore: Spread out over the battlefield in two or more groups. (Scouts aside.)

Understanding secondary skills

Secondary crew skills

Secondary skills
When your basic crew skills reaches 100%, you can add secondary skills. These are specific skills, adapted to the role of the crew member. For instance, you can choose “Off road driving” for the driver. This will increase the speed of the tank on difficult terrain, by reducing the terrain resistance, by up to 10%. Your tank will then go faster in swamps, and accelerate faster on grass, among others.

Some secondary skills are effective from the moment the skill level is increased (more than 0%). Others do need to achieve 100% before they are effective. These last ones are called “perks”. In the picture you can see all crew members having the camouflage skill. This skill is effective from 1%. But do remember that the effect increases with the skill level. 1% camouflage skill has (almost) no effect.

In addition, the skills that can be chosen for all crew members, will increase their effect when all crew members have them. When five crew members have 78% percent camouflage skills, the average camouflage skill level is exactly that; 78%. If one crew member in a five crew tank has 100% camouflage skill, and the four others have no camouflage skill, the overall tank camouflage “level” is (0% + 0% + 0% + 0% + 100%)/5 = 20%

Which skill is the best?
There is not one single best skill. This depends on the type of tank your crew is assigned to, and the role on the battlefield. This topic will be covered later. But to simplify the overall picture, I will recommend the following:

• A heavy tank needs repairing tracks and damaged modules. When you get shot in the tracks, you do not want to remain standing still to long. The basic skills ensure some repairing skills, but adding repair to a heavy tank crew is wise. The heavy tanks should usually be in front of the field, and they are therefore vulnerable to damages where repair skills can speed up the repairing process. A heavy tank crew needs more skills, but repairs is a place to start.
• On a medium (and on a light) tank crew, there are – in my opinion – three types of skills that are useful: 1) Off-road driving (increase speed and acceleration) and clutch braking (increase the speed the tank can turn), 2) Snap shot (how fast you can aim and shoot after rotating your turret)  3) Sixth sense (you will get a warning signal 3 seconds after you have been spotted). These skills (and perks) are useful because medium tanks have a lot less armour than heavy tanks, so they are vulnerable.
• On a tank destroyer, I will recommend camouflage, snap shot and sixth sense. Most tank destroyers are vulnerable, and remaining unspotted (not discovered by enemy tanks) is vital.

Managing secondary skills
When you right click on one of your crew members, you can see what skills and perks can be assigned to the different members of your crew. Take some time to consider what role your tank will have on the battlefield, and chose your secondary skill accordingly.

When you first secondary skill is at 100%, you can add another secondary skill, but this will take even longer to increase. You will need more than 210.000 XP to go from 0% to 100% on your first secondary skill. To go from 0% to 100% on your second secondary skill, you will need twice that amount of XP, namely more than 420.000 XP.

Dropping skills

If you would like to change the skill of a crew member, you can retrain him. If you do not want to spend gold, you will have to use 20.000 ingame credits to retrain, but you lose 10% of the overall skill level. Be aware: 10% of the total skill level does not equal 10%-points of your secondary skill. If you have two secondary skills, and the second secondary skill is at 10%, the new skill level after retraining will be reduced so that all of your second secondary skill disappears. You will need about 40% on your second secondary skill to not have it disappear. When you right click on one of your crew members, you will see a button called “Drop”. When you click on the button, you will then be able to see the new skill level. Remember that perks have to be at 100% skill level to be effective.

 

Understanding basic skills

Basic skills for a crew

Basic crew skills
When you start playing WOT, and select a tank, you will see the crew of your tank in the upper left hand corner. Depending on your decision when you bought the new tank, the basic skills of your crew will either be 50%, 75% or 100%. If you select a free crew, they will start at 50%. If you pay 20.000 in game credits per crew member, they will start at 75%. If you pay 200 gold per crew member, they will start at 100%.

In the picture to the right, we have a crew of five, all of which have 100% basic skills. (Or “base skills”.) This means that they perform their tasks at a “normal” skilled level.  They have become as skilled as they can get before we ad secondary skills. More about that in a minute.

I strongly recommend that you at least pay the ingame credits to let your crew start at 75%. This will cost you 80.000 ingame credits, but you will soon earn those credits during normal gameplay. Depending on your own skills as a player, and how many games you win, this will usually take between four and ten games. So if you have the ingame credits, spend it on your crew when you buy a new tank.

Increasing basic skills
When your crew start at a 75% basic skill level, this level will increase as you play. Some of the experience (XP) you earn will be used to increase the crew skills. The rest will be used to unlock tank modules and to increase your free XP. The XP you earn from the matches are depending on how well you play. The more damage you do, and the more kills you get, will increase your XP earned for that match. However, the amount of XP you need to increase your crew skills vary. The closer you get to 100% basic skills, the more XP you will need. To increase from 75% to 76%, you will need about 1.590 XP. To increase from 99% to 100%, you will need almost 4.800 XP.