If you – like me – train your crew in a premium tank, there is one thing you should be aware of: Sometimes, the tank where the crew “usually” sits, have different tasks designated to the various crew members. This is most often the case when you train your crew in a premium tank with more crew roles than the ordinary tank.
Let’s say you have a premium tank with five crew members, but four of them “belongs” to a tank with only four crew members. In many cases the commander have more tasks in the ordinary tank, than in the premium tank. When you unlock a new skill or perk, place the crew in the ordinary tank when you decide what the new skill should be. There you will see what skills you actually have to choose from. Don’t keep them in the premium tank while you choose the new skill.
Of course, this means that the new skill you choose might be ineffective in the premium tank, but that is – in my opinion – a lesser problem than designating a skill that the crew cannot use while in the ordinary tank.
Most new players to World of tanks do not know how they perform. They don’t know if they are a good player, a decent player or a bad player. Trust me: Most new players are bad. They don’t know what to do in any given situation. Such knowledge comes with time.
Some players believe that cappingis the best way to win. Others do not know how bushes work. Anyway, they do not know how they are doing compared to others.
All players see the “end plate”, or the score from the game. Take a minute to study it. See what made the top players in your team the best players in that particular battle. But being the best player in a bad team does not necessarily mean anything. It is time to look at WN8. Continue reading →
Too often, I see new players playing light tanks complaining about being bottom tier. Light tanks are meant to be bottom tier, due to the characteristics of their tanks: Being sneaky/having good camo rating, being fast, and having a long view range. Light tanks now got normal matchmaking, and they see tanks of the same tier as themselves and as all other types of tanks (+/- 2 tiers).
Light tanks keep their camo rating while on the move, unlike any other type of vehicle in the game. And if you compare view range, it is very obvious: M24 Chaffee has 390 meters view range, while the Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. H has 350. 40 meters might not seem like a lot, but in the game, it is enough.
So, how should you play light tanks? Let’s first have a look at how you should NOT play them. Continue reading →
A while ago – quite a long while ago, actually – I wrote about how to use bushes. Recently, I discovered a great video tutorial by Sir Havoc, where you can see what I described in action. Here, take a look:
As a matter of fact, just the day before I found this, I used some of it’s “mechanics”, so to speak. I was playing on Prokhorovka. Our team spawned to the south, so I went on top of the hill to the east. I got there a while before my team, so I waited in a bush in case someone from a higher tier came up the opposite way.
Within seconds, an enemy Cromwell rushed towards me, but stopped halfway inside a bush, trying not to be detected from the west. He could not see me, just 60 – 70 metres away. I did NOT fire at him, because that would have meant that I would be detected. He got destroyed within a few seconds, due to my spotting. Just before he was killed, I took a shot and fell back. One important kill secured, and I got a lot of assistance damage.
A lot of newbies to World of tanks have understood one aspect of using bushes: If you stay inside a bush, you can be difficult to be spotted. Bushes are excellent for passive scouting. However, bushes are not entirely safe. Let’s see why.
Firstly: If you stay inside a bush, and only move your turret, your camo-rating isn’t affected. If you have mounted a camo-net on your tank, it stays active. However, if you move your tank, your camo-rating drops,and your camo-net disables. (The net will enable again after staying stationary for 3 seconds.) There is one exception from this “rule”, and that is with light tanks. They have the same camo-rating while they move as when they are stationary. For all other tanks, your camo-rating drops. Basically, your camo-rating on the move is about 1/3 of your rating when you are stationary. If you fire your gun, your camo-rating is about 1/4 of when you are stationary.
Therefore: If you stay inside a bush to scout, don’t do anything, except rotating your turret to look.
The reason why your camo-rating drops when you shoot, is because everything around you, within 15 meters turn transparent when you fire your gun. The bush turns “invisible”, so to speak.
There is one way to avoid this, that you have to learn: If you move behind the bush, and the bush is 15 meters in front of you, it will not turn invisible. Well, then, how do you know if you are 15 meters behind a bush? If you go into sniper view by zooming in with your mouse wheel, and view in the direction you want to fire, and you can see the scenery/landscape beyond the bush, you are less than 15 meters from the bush. If you move backwards, until you only see the leaves on the bush, you are more than 15 meters away from the bush. You will still see the outline of any tanks that are lit up, though, but not other scenery, like houses or rocks.
So: If you stay 15 meters behind a bush, and shoot at an enemy, that enemy cannot spot you.
However, one also has to take into consideration proximity spotting. If an enemy is less than 50 meters away from you, you will still be spotted, also through houses and rocks, and, of course, if you stay inside a bush.
A platoon is a way of playing World of tanks with one or two friends. You form a platoon by inviting your friends into a platoon that you form, or by accepting their invitation. A platoon consistes of two or three players. Here’s how to:
How to form a platoon
If you want to get full advantage of playing in a platoon, you should be able to talk to each other, either using Skype or Teamspeak or any other voice communication you prefer. This post is going to concentrate on a few basic principles regarding what tanks you should use.
As a general rule, you should always use tanks from the same tier. You can choose to let one player use a tank one tier higher or lower, but it is not recommended. This is because a platoon doesn’t dictate the matchmaking, or what tanks the rest of the team and the enemy team are using. It is perfectly okay if one member of the team is playing a medium, and the other a heavy tank, or a tank destroyer.
But be aware if you want to play light tanks. Some tanks are designated the role of a scout tank, and scout tanks are usually the lowest tier tanks on a team. So if one of the platoon members choose a tier 5 light tank, and the other(s) choose a tier 5 heavy tank, it is possible that the other tanks are tier 8. (This matchmaking is subject to adjustment by Wargaming.) As a thumb rule, a scout tank on a specific tier will meet tanks that are from one to three tiers higher. A tier 6 scout can meet tier 7, 8, 9 or 10. A tier 4 will occasionally meet other tier 4s.
These are the current scout tanks from tier 4 to tier 8. Some of them get “normal” matchmaking from time to time.
Tier 4
Pz. Kpfw. 38nA
Pz. Kpfw. II Luchs
M5A1 Stuart
T-50
If one of the platton members are playing any of these, it is recommended that the other members in the platoon choose a tank at least one tier higher, or maybe two tiers higher.
Just recently a played in a team where there obviously were some newbies in the same platoon. One platoon member played a T1 (tier 1), while the other played his KV-1 (tier 5). The rest of the teams played tanks from tier 5 and 6. A T1 has nothing to do in such a battle. (It cannot even play the role as a scout, because it is to slow and has a short view range.)
Therefore: You should use tanks from the same tier. I will write about some basic platoon tactics in a later post.
What is the “Accelerate crew training” option? When you have unlocked all modules on a tank, you get the possibility to tick the box called “Accelerate crew training”. The box is located right above your crew:
Accelerate crew training
This means that all the xp you earn on that specific tank is used to increase the skills on your crew. In addition, the crew member with the lowest skill will get trained twice as fast.
If you do not check this box, you increase the xp in the same way you do while unlocking modules and tanks, and the xp is locked to the tank in question. This means that xp you earn on a tank after you have unlocked everything is somewhat “wasted”. To use that xp you have to convert it to free xp, and to do that, you have to pay gold.
Personally I don’t like do that, so what I try to do, is to guess if my next match in a tank will be the last match necessary to unlock everything. If so, I use free xp to unlock everything, and check the “Accelerate crew training” box. By doing that, I can save gold and use it on something else. (At the moment I have about 170.000 free xp, so I have enough to use on unlocking modules and tanks like I describe here.)
Premium tanks are tanks you can buy for gold or for real money on the World of tanks website. They only have one standard set of modules, so you cannot unlock better modules than the ones they have when you buy it. The generate a lot of in game credits per victory, the increase in crew experience is higher, and you can put a crew from a different tank in it, as I explain below.
In my opinion, they are in some ways worse then their closest “sibling”. Take the Russian heavy tank IS-6 at tier VIII. It is in many ways similar to the one of the other standard Russian heavy tanks at tier VIII, the IS-3. However, there are several differences:
The gun on the IS-6 only has far worse penetration, at 175 mm, versus 225 mm on the best gun on the IS-3
The rate of fire is better, at 5,13 shots per minute, against 4,51 at the IS-3
The IS-6 has a lower top speed, at 35 kph, versus 38 kph with the IS-3
The armor is weaker, at least on paper, but in reality the difference is negligible
To make a long story short: The premium tanks have distinct weaknesses and strengths and have to be played accordingly. Take the “Dicker Max” as an example: It is slow, has a long reload time, but the gun depression is great, and the gun is quite good. A very popular premium tank is the german E25. It is very fast and has an excellent camo rating (is difficult to spot behind bushes). The gun has decent penetration and high rate of fire, but it has a low alpha damage (the number of health points the enemy loses per hit).
However: The point of using premium tanks is – besides getting more in game credits per battle – to increase crew skills on the crew from another tank. If you buy the IS-6 and also have the IS-3, both Russian heavy tanks, you can play a match in the IS-3 and get the “daily double” for the first win of the day. Then you can move the crew to the IS-6 and get the daily double on that tank as well.
You must NEVER put a designated crew in premium tanks. ALWAYS use a crew from one of your non premium tanks of the same type and nationality. You can mix crew from different tanks and put them in your premium tank, as long as they are of the same type and nationality.
Remember that playing in higher tiers is very different from playing in lower tiers. If you are new to the game, and have reached tier 3 or 4, buying a tier VIII heavy like the IS-6 or the German “Löwe”, you have to play in a completely different way than you do in a tier 3 medium tank. If you do not know what “sidescraping” is, for instance, you should probably not buy the IS-6 or the Löwe.
The way I use premium tanks is as I have described above. In addition, I often use premium tanks directly after buying a new tank. I recently bought the SU-152, a standard tier VII Russian tank destroyer. The crew was moved over from the tier VI SU-100. When you start playing a new tank, it is most often stock, unless one or more of the modules used on it has been unlocked in a different tank. Therefore, the tank is not as good as it “should” be, and performs significantly worse then when all modules are unlocked. I had a couple of matches in it to see what it was like, and decided I needed to increase the basic crew skills from 90% to 100% to decrease loading time, aiming time and so on. So I put the crew in my premium tier V Russian tank destroyer, the SU-85i, and played a number of matches until the crew had reached 100% basic skills. Then I put them back in the SU-152 and started to grind this tank.
Another way of using premium tanks to increase crew skills, is what I did with the Sturer Emil and the Jagdpanther, both tier VII German tank destroyers. Both of these two tanks have a crew of 5 (commander, gunner, radio operator, driver, loader), and this is also the type of crew that fits in the Dicker Max, premium tier VI German tank destroyer. On days where I wanted to grind one or both of these two tanks, I first played a match in the Dicker Max and got the daily double. I always put the worst crew member, position by position, from both the Emil and the JPanther in my Dicker Max: The worst of the two drivers, the worst of the two gunners, and so on. Soon I had very decent crews in both tanks, long before I had unlocked then next tanks.
When should you buy a new tank? This might sound like a stupid question, but it is really not. When grinding (opening modules like tracks, engines and guns) lower tiers from 1 to 3, it is not important. Play a few games, unlock everything and move on. I would recommend that you unlock every module, though. That is because many modules are used on different tanks.
Let’s have a look at the french medium tank D2 (click for larger image):
French medium tank D2
As we see, it is only necessary to unlock the Renault S6Bis engine to unlock the next tank in this line, the B1. However, this will make the grind of later tanks more difficult, because the gun and the radio are used on other tanks:
The french medium tank D2
The radio ER53 is used on several other tanks. It is therefore a good idea to unlock it on the D2. (If you have not allready unlocked it on other tanks, like the UE 57.)
The same goes for the gun:
The french medium tank D2
As we see, the SA37 is also used on the B1. Even though you have to unlock the D2 APX 4 turret to use it, it will make it much easier to play the B1 if you have unlocked the SA37.
Therefore: You should always unlock all modules on a tank before moving to the next. (There are exceptions from this rule, when a module is used only on one tank. These exceptions are very few, though.) You should at least make this a rule from tier 3 or 4 and upwards.
The other thing you should be aware of, is the skills of your crew. As I have described, you have to get to 100% basic (or “base”) skills before you can start to add secondary skills on your crew. If you are patient, and play a few games after you have unlocked all modules and the next tank (or the next tanks), you can start to add secondary skills on the crew you will use on the next tank.
When I started playing World of tanks, I was not aware of this fact, unlocked and started using the next tank with a completely new crew. The old crew was dismissed, because I didn’t want to pay to retrain the crew to a different tank. BIG mistake. So wait a few games, and increase your crews skills before you move on. But remember to check the “Accelerate crew training” box when you do so. Almost all you XP will then be used on 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.
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