A quick tip about crew skills

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.

How to get sixth sense fast?

If you – like me – feel sort of naked when playing without sixth sense, you always pick it as the first skill on the commander. But what if you’re grindning a new (or old?) tank, with a fresh crew and would like to avoid playing without sixth sense? There is one way to do it, but it will cost you a lot of gold.

Take this example, which I am currently facing: I have bought back the M4 Sherman, since I want a standard tank in every tier and in every class (except arty): I want to keep a tier V TD, a tier V heavy, a tier V light tank and a tier V medium. My previous American medium tank crews have been moved up the line, and are currently sitting in the T 20, the M26 Pershing (for a while) and in the T54E1.
I am hesitant to playing the M4 Sherman without sixth sense, since it’s aim time with the derp gun is quite long, but I have no commander with sixth sense to put in the tank…

Here is what I can do if I’m willing to spend the gold:

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…

Advanced crew training

When you buy a new tank, and put a crew in it, it performs rather bad. This is because the crew is not fully trained, and because the stock modules on the tank more often than not are rather bad. The gun, the engine, the turret, and so on, make the tank perform badly.

As I have said earlier, you can use free XP to grind a tank before you use it in your first battle. This solves one of the issues, but not the issue with low crew skills. I will now explain how I do this. But first, let’s talk about the commander. As you have seen, the base skill level of a commander reaches 100% before you can unlock a second skill (or perk). On the rest of the crew, however, they will have to reach 110% before you can unlock a second skill (or perk). This is because 10% of the commanders base skill automatically is put on top of the skills of the rest of the crew.

When the commander reaches 100%, the gunner (or any other crew member) get a “bonus” skill from the commander. So the base skill of the gunner is 100% of his own skill and 10% of the commander, giving him a total of 110%. 1/10th of the commanders skill will be assigned to the rest of the crew. If the commander only has 90% base skill, the gunner will get 9% bonus skill from the commander.

As you can see, the commander is clearly the most important crew member. As a consequence, I often pay gold when I move a commander from one tank to another. If you can afford it, I recommend you do it. For the other crew members I pay in game credits, 20.000 “silver” for a 90% skill level when I move them to a different tank of the same type.

If you buy a new tank, 20.000 silver will only give you 75% base skill level on the crew. This is also the situation when you move a crew from a tank of one type to another, for example from a medium tank to a heavy tank.

The method I use to train my 90% crew for a new tank is based on two assumptions:

1. You have another tank of the same type and nation
2. You have a premium tank of the same type and nation

If you take a look at the tech tree, you can see that for many nations there are often two different lines of tanks. Let’s look at the russian tier V tanks:

Russian tier V heavy tanks

If you plan to go along both these lines of tanks, leading to great tanks as the IS-3 tier VIII or the fun beast at the same tier, the KV-4, it is kind of time consuming to first go along one of the lines and then the second line. One way to do this is by putting your T-28 crew into the KV-1, spending gold on the commander and silver on the rest of the crew. When you get into the KV-1, you can choose to unlock all the modules on it with free XP or by playing it. As soon as you have unlocked all modules, you have the option to unlock three different tanks:

KV-1 and it’s succsessors

If choose to unlock the KV-1S first, as I would recommend, you have a heavy tank, but no crew. When you have unlocked the KV-1S by playing the KV-1, your KV-1 crew should all have reached at least 100% base skill. If you then buy the KV-1S with a brand new crew with 75% base skill, you will have these two crews:

KV-1:

• Commander (100% base skill)
• Gunner (110% base skill)
• Driver (110% base skill)
• Radio operator (110% base skill)
• Loader (110% base skill)

KV-1S:

• Commander (75% base skill)
• Gunner (83% base skill)
• Driver (83% base skill)
• Radio operator (83% base skill)
• Loader (83% base skill)

Needless to say, the KV-1S crew will perform very bad. Aim time, reload time, view range, traverse speed and so on will affect your matches in a very bad way.

Enter the premium vehicle! There are at the moment three different premium russian heavy tanks to buy for gold: The Churchill III, the IS-2 (only for a short period) ant the IS-6. (Remember: If you have only played low tier tanks, it may not be a good idea to buy a tier VIII heavy premium tank. You should really have played about 2.000 matches before you try a tier VIII heavy.)

So even if the Churchill III is not a very good tank, it will get the job done: To train a new crew. Let’s say you now have the above crews for the KV-1 and the KV-1S, and you have bought the Churchill III. What to do?

The answer is to be a bit patient. Put the first four crew members from the KV-1 (commander, gunner, driver and radio operator) in the Churchill III, and put the loader from the KV-1S in the last spot. Premium tanks can use any crew from any tank, as long as they are from the same nation and same type. And you can use crew members from different tanks. Check the box “Accelerate crew training“, and go into a battle. Since the KV-1S crew member has the lowest skill level, he will get a double amount of skill points from the battle. In addition to this, a premium tank crew get 50% extra crew XP for a single battle.

If you follow this method, your crew as a whole do not suffer to much from having to “drag around” the KV-1S crew member, and this crew member will quickly reach 110% base skill level. Once you are done with the KV-1S loader, you can start training the radio operator, and then the driver and so on, until your KV-1S crew have reached 100%/110% base skill level.

One way to do this even faster, is to play only the daily double with the Churchill III. This will take more days, but fewer battles.

Accelerate crew training

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.)

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.