Best and worst tanks by tier and type – worst tier V tank destroyer

There are eight tier V tank destroyers in WOT, as of patch 9.16:

• SU-85
• Pz. Sfl IVc
• Stug III Ausf. G
• M10 Wolverine
• T67
• S35 CA
• Archer
• AT2

These are very different tanks, at least more different than TDs at tier IV. The T67 is the best, I think, even if it has no armor. The AT2 is the opposite, (one of?) the best armored tier V’s in the game.

However, it is quite easy to pick the worst one. A tier V tank that is slower than the T95…. It is the Archer. It’s top speed is 12 km/h. However, the reverse speed is 32 km/h, so you can escape fast. But this one is hopeless. Really bad. Even if the gun is decent. But it’s speed, combined with the armor, is horrible.

Pros:

• You can escape quite fast
• Good gun, penetration is 171, and DMP is 1915,5
• Good gun traverse.

Cons:

• Bad armor, 20 mm everywhere
• It’s slow!

You have to snipe with this tank. You can penetrate everything you meet, but damage is only 150, so don’t get spotted. So stay hidden, and shoot at what you’re allies spot. I recommend you get clutch breaking on the driver, sixth sense on the commander, camouflage before snap shot on your gunner and camouflage on the rest of your crew. You should also choose camouflage as the second skill on your driver. But I’m confident you will not keep this tank.

Let’s have a look at an Ace tanker game:

Notice how the three heavy tank drivers on the enemy team doesn’t know how bushes work in World of tanks. Quite funny.

See all best/worst tanks here.

New to SPG/arty/artillery?

Here is an introduction to playing arty:

Best and worst tanks by tier and type – worst tier IV tank destroyer

There are eight tier IV tank destroyers (as of patch 9.15):

• SU-85B
• Hetzer
• Marder 38T
• StuG III Ausf. B
• M8A1
• T40
• Somua SAu 40
• Alecto

It was difficult to choose the best one, as I said a while ago. If you ask almost anyone, they would call me mad or at least an idiot, because the Somua is a hated tank among a lot of people. But I did very well in that tank. My WN8 rating when I sold it was 2,038. Part of this is because I played it somewhat recently, after I had learned a lot about the game. I played only 17 battles before I sold it, but during those battles I had a win rate of almost 59% and got (at least) one Ace tanker game. Even if I should declare this as the worst tier iv tank destroyer, I can’t, Or rather: I will not.

A few words about this blog

I have been writing here – on and off – for allmost two years now. Up until November 2015 the number of page views where quite low. But from December 2015 the number of visitors have increased, week by week and month by month.

The most popular pages are the best/worst tanks pages, but it also seems that this blog has a slowly increasing google rank. Which is nice.

I really hope that you, the readers, find the information here useful. Please write a comment if there are anything special you would like me to write about.

Best and worst tanks by tier and type – best tier VII heavy tank

There are nine tier VI heavy tanks (by patch 9.15):

• IS
• KV-3
• Tiger (P)
• Tiger I
• T29
• AMX M4 mle. 45
• Black Prince
• IS-2 (the chinese tank, not the russian premium)
• O-NI

Note: I have not yet played the O-NI or the AMX. But I am quite confident none of them are best in class, so it will not affect the verdict.

I am a bit strange, I guess, because I really enjoyed the KV-3. It is a nightmare when it is bottom tier, but when it is top tier in a city map it can be a monster. I might even like it more than the IS, which may be a better tank, all things considered. So in my personal opinion the KV-3 is the Russian candidate. I bought the “Berlin quartet”, so I have the IS-2 (russian premium tier VII heavy tank) in my garage. But was the KV-3 good enough to keep? No, I sold it once I unlocked the KV-4. (If I had had another Russian heavy tank crew, I might have kept it.)

The two German tanks are quite similar, but the Tiger I is in my opinion better than the Tiger (P). The armor on the Tiger I is not the best, but the gun is great, and the damage per minute is best in class. I have kept the Tiger I, but that is partly because I grinded it at the same time as I grinded the Tiger (P). The Tiger (P) was sold quickly and the crew moved on to the Tiger II.

The T29 has a lot going for it. The strength of the turret is legendary, and the gun is also pretty good, even if the gun on the Tiger I is better. I have kept the T29 and will keep it.

The Black Prince is a piece of shit, because of the gun. Low penetration and low alpha damage. In addition it is very slow. The turret is quite strong, but is easy the flank it, and get the side of the hull.

The Chinese IS-2 is almost the same as the IS, but the gun handling is worse because of worse gun depression and gun elevation. It also has less hull armor. The IS is definitely better.

So, which one is the best? 

Best and worst tanks by tier and type – best tier III light tank

There are fourteen tier III light tanks  (by patch 9.14):

• BT-7
• T-46
• T-70
• Pz. Kpfw. 38 (t)
• Pz. Kpfw. I Ausf. C
• Pz. Kpfw. II Ausf. G
• M3 Stuart
• AMX 38
• Cruiser Mk. II
• Cruiser Mk. IV
• Stuart I-IV
• (Cz10) LT vz38
• Type 2597 Chi-Ha
• Type 98 Ke-Ni

None of these get matchmaking as scout tanks. When I started to write this post, I noticed it would be difficult to argue for my choice. There are a lot of good tanks here, actually. As I have mentioned, I’m doing a reroll to experience these tanks without having decent crews. I noticed very fast that many of these are fun to play.

Best and worst tanks by tier and type – worst tier II light tank

There are seventeen (!) tier II light tanks in WOT, as of patch 9.14:

• BT-2
• T-26
• T-60
• Pz.Kpfw.35 (t)
• Pz.Kpfw.I
• Pz.Kpfw.II
• M2 Light tank
• D1
• FCM 36
• Hotchkiss H35
• Renault R35
• Cruiser Mk.I
• Cruiser Mk.III
• M2
• Cz03 LT vz35
• Vickers Mk.E Type B
• Type 95 Ha-Go

I am currently on a reroll to test these vehicles in order to identify the best and worst light tanks. I’ve yet to play them all, but I am quite confident I can say which one is the worst.

But first: These light tanks do not play like the high tier light tanks. They are not scout tanks,and they meet only tier I, II and III. Low tier tanks tend to have almost equal armor and penetration values. The difference between light tanks and medium tanks in the lower tiers is of limited significance.

And even if a tank is bad, you can grind through it in very few battles. If you win and perform well, two or three battles should be enough. So you do not need to stick with tier II for long.

Among the best in this category are the following: BT-2,  M2 light tank, both the cruiser tanks, Cz03 and Type 95. During my battles one tank stood out as especially bad. That is the T-26. It has got no good features when in battle, even if it on paper should be average or even better than average in this class. The gun wouldn’t behave at all and it was really slow. I tried it for quite a number of battles when I discovered how bad it actually performed, to see if I was correct or not. But no. It is terrible, even if I do not know why.

Pros:

• High ammo capacity – but who need 140 shells?
• High penetration – but all of these tanks penetrate their opponents…
• The next tank in the line (T-46) is quite fun, even in tier V and you do not have to play many battles in the T-26

Cons:

• To slow
• The gun does not behave. Even fully aimed shots can miss by a mile

I was surprised how bad the tank performed, compared to other tier II lights. The statistics do actually lie, it seems?

Here is how an Ace tanker looks like:

This guy also has some useful tips, so pay attention. (But I disagree with his verdict on the T-26…)
See all best/worst tanks here.

How to improve your tank

This post will cover how to improve your tank. I will use the tier VIII German heavy tank Löwe as an example, since it seem to be a popular premium tank for newcomers. Remember: Tier VIII is very different than tier I to III!

The Löwe isn’t a very easy tank to play, due to it’s low rate of fire, it’s low speed and it’s obvious weak spots.

Löwe, German tier VIII premium heavy tank

Once your crew reaches 100% base skill, the Löwe will fire 5 rounds per minute, which will give an average damage per minute of 1.600. (As long as you both hit and damage your opponent.) This is a very low number, but here is how you can increase it:

• Getting Brothers in arms as a perk on all your crew members. This will give 5% improvement on all qualifications.
• Mounting ventilation. This will give 5% improvement on all qualifications.
• Mounting a Gun Rammer. This will give 10% improvement on reload time, by decreasing reload time.
• Using a consumable. For German vehicles you can use Chocolate. This will give 10% improvement on all qualifications. This is, however, not recommended on a vehicle like the Löwe, where your normal equipment should be a repair kit, a first aid kit and a fire extinguisher (since it has got a 20% chance of being set on fire).

Let’s see how this will affect your DPM. All these values are fetched from tanks.gg:

1. Base DPM: 1.668,57 (this really should be 1.600, but I don’t know how tanks.gg calculates this number)
2. Brothers in arms: 1.706,29 (2,2% improvement compared to line 1.)
3. Ventilation: 1.706,29 (2,2% improvement compared to line 1)
4. Gun rammer: 1.853,97 (10% improvement compared to line 1)
5. Chocolate: 1.744 (4,5% improvement compared to line 1)
6. Brothers in arms + Ventilation: 1.744 (4,5% improvement compared to line 1)
7. Brothers in arms + Ventilation +  Gun rammer: 1.937,78 (16,1% improvement compared to line 1)
8. Brothers in arms + Ventilation +  Gun rammer +  Chocolate: 2.021,59 (21,2% improvement compared to line 1)

These values are estimates, and not correctly calculated. Using Brothers in arms in combination with ventilation gives a cumulative effect, which should be 5% + 5% = 10%. Based on this, the total effect of using all these ways of improving the Löwe, the DPM number in line 8 should be 2.080 (5%+5%+10%+10% =30% improvement), since these values are cumulative. (If they had been additive, it would have been  2.134,44, since 1,05*1.05*1,1*1,1*1.600 = 2.134,44.)

The only one of these improvements that only affects DPM is the gun rammer. All the other elements also improve the Major Qualifications of the entire crew and in any of the common Skills (Repair, Firefighting, and/or Camouflage).

Anyway: The best way to improve the tank is to play according to it’s strengths and weaknesses. The Löwe has got decent turret armor, although there are weak spots. It has a very accurate gun and high penetration, and the side armor of the hull makes it a decent sidescraping tank. So you should hide your hull and you can use it for sniping, but in tier VIII battles you can’t camp in the base…

Best and worst tanks by tier and type – worst tier VI heavy

There are eight tier VI heavy tanks in WOT (patch 9.14):

• KV-2
• KV-85
• T-150
• VK 36.01 (H)
• M6
• ARL 44
• Churchill VII
• O-I

I have already stated that the T-150 is the best tier VI heavy. It was a tough decision, but it is very easy to single out the worst tier VI heavy. It is actually the one with best frontal armor and highest DPM. You might ask why, but it is down to two factors: Penetration and speed. And the winner (loser) is the Churchill. The VK 36.01 (H) has even worse penetration, but it has got the speed to cope with it, either to escape from a highly armored tier VIII or flank and get around. The Churchill is to slow to do any of those things.

The cap circle is not a magnet

Take a look at this replay. Pay attention to what happens to the tanks that try to cap. The same thing happens in both cap circles. There is indeed something to learn from this: Capping while the enemy is close rarely goes well.