Being patient or rush through the tiers?

A lot of players are eager to play higher tier tanks. And so am I. But! I don’t like to play higher tier tanks with a bad crew. I am quite obsessed with crew experience, as I have written about here and here.

I have always enjoyed playing tank destroyers, so I have only recently started grinding the Japanese heavy tank line. At  the moment I am at tier…… III….., playing the Type 91 Heavy. Which isn’t a heavy tank at all, besides being slow. It has no armor and when I meet tier VI tanks, it is a mixed blessing. But the gun is very good. So when you play it according to it’s weaknesses, being slow and having no armor, you can do quite well.

I have a 64% win rate in the Type 91, and I have a WN8 of 1,906 in it.

My ambition is to ace every tank I play before eventually selling those I will not keep. I aced the Type 91 in my ninth battle in it, while still having a terrible crew. Now I have decided to get sixth sense on it before moving on. That means I have to play a lot more battles in it.

Now, having played 25 battles, I still haven’t got all crew members to 100%. But I quite enjoy playing a bad tank now and then. I guess I still have to play 20 battles or so before getting sixth sense. But playing the tier VI and V heavy tanks with decent crews from the beginning will make those battles so much more enjoyable.

So, what is my message here? Quite simply: Even bad tanks can be fun, and skipping to higher tiers with bad crews in your tank can be much worse than having to put up with the Type 91 Heavy. So be patient. And have fun while you wait…

RNG explained

If you are new to the game, the concept of RNG might be a bit confusing. You see a lot of numbers about your tank, and might think that “Isn’t this it?”

The simple answer is “no”.

RNG stands for “Random Number Generator”, and is implemented in the game to make it less predictable. It means that for certain data about a tank, the number will vary as much as 25%.

Type 4 Chi-To

Let’s take a look at a random tank. I will choose the Japanese Type 4 Chi-To, since I am grinding it at the moment.

Penetration

The penetration of the top gun is 155, according to tanks.gg (which I recommend). But if you check in the game, you can see that the penetration will vary between 116 and 194, which is 155 +/- 25%. The average penetration will over time will be 155, but you can get lucky or unlucky, meaning that the penetration will be higher or lower than that.

Damage

The same variation is to be expected when it comes to damage per shot. The alpha damage of the Chi-To is 130 hp, but due to RNG, you can high roll or low roll, getting from 163 to 97. This is 130 +/- 25%.

Other factors are not affected by RNG, such as reload time and the speed of your tank.

So, how do you use this information? I would suggest you ignore them, at least when you play lower tier tanks. When you play tier IX or X, you can start to play according to RNG. Let’s say your alpha damage is 390, and you see an enemy with 350 hp left, you can be reasonably certain you can kill him/her with one shot. You can take the chance of firing at him even if you expose your tank to him if you are reloaded and he isn’t.

If his remaining health is 485, you actually CAN kill him with one shot, if you high roll. But you can not expect to do so, and should play much more carefully.