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…

Best and worst tanks by tier and type – best AND worst tier III heavy tank

There are only one tier III heavy tank in the game by patch 9.13:

• Type 91 heavy

So, what’s it like? For a heavy tank, the rate of fire is very, very high, by 27 rounds per minute. The penetration is ok, when it’s not bottom tier in the match, so the damage per minute is quite high, by 1909. However, it’s got thinner armor than the tier III Japanese medium tank (Type 97 Chi-Ha). So it’s quite the opposite of the Matilda, which is actually a heavy tank classified as a medium. The Type 91 is a slow medium classified as a heavy.

Pros:

• High damage per minute
• You won’t have to play it many matches to grind it
• If you have the patience to play this tank for some matches after you have unlocked the next one, your crew will benefit from this, since the rest of the line are all heavy tanks

Cons:

• Paper thin armor for a heavy tank
• Noe a very precise gun
• Very slow
• Weak engine

I guess an Ace tanker could be quite easy to achieve on this one. This match is a good one, with some lucky shots now and then:

See all best/worst tanks here.