World of Tanks (Vol 2)

[Beati Dogu]

I see the Steel Wall medal as a bit of a failure really and it's the one I never try to get.

It depends on the tank and what you're facing of course. With something tough like the KV-3 and KV-4, I'll happily sit there and trade shots with people I know have little chance against my armour. For most tanks it shows you got lucky, were too exposed and weren't using cover effectively.

[Mastodon2]

I get most of mine by sidescraping, or reverse sidescraping, seems to be a pretty good use of cover.

[JustinF]

You need need to bounce 1000 HP for a Steel Wall, you just need to receive that much potential damage across 11+ hit received, so penetrations or bounces count, with the TOG's HP pool you can get Steel Wall, by soaking damage and living, not a skill indicator imo.

[Mastodon2]

It's potential damage, not damage received, over 11 hits minimum and you have to survive for it to count. If I had a steel wall for every time I'd taken over 1000 damage received over 11 hits and survived the battle I'd have scores of the of the things.

[bstb3]

Personally I think with Steel wall its a good medal providing you are in the right tank to earn it. Heavy tanks, typically, should be at the front attempting to use their armour and HP pools to absorb the enemy fire, allowing the meds to flank, TD's to snipe and arty to fap click. If thats your role then yep, steel wall is a badge of honour.

If you are getting it in a TD, for example, then probably not so good. Sure you have done well to get it (or the enemy hasn't a clue where to shoot), but typically you shouldn't really be getting shot.

Obviously there are exceptions (the AT series TD's, JagdTiger etc), and it's always better to not get shot at all than shot at, but some tanks are there to be shot. E75 is a great example, or the Maus, or the KV3/KV4 line.

I think WG are looking at a way of bringing 'tanking' more into XP rewards, i.e. using your armour effectively. This is fair, I think, stopping the enemy doing damage to your team by absorbing their hits is (almost) as useful as damaging them.

[RobDickinson]

I got a 3rd class badge in my ducktank for putting 2 shots into a hellcat then getting blown away. That gets me a 3rd class badge. boy this tank is terrible. Not long to go now. 13500xp need 14900

[Mastodon2]

I unlocked the E-75, time for one of the most staggeringly painful grinds imaginable. I understand that on the PC, upon unlocking the E-75 you can mount any of the Tiger II guns on it immediately, as you've already researched them. Not so on the Xbox version, where you get the option of an 88m stock gun from the Tiger II, or the 105mm KwK 45L/52. Both these guns are comically st against tier 9s, let alone 10s. I've just spent a match bouncing 105mm premium ammo off the turret bar of an E-100 while it laughed at me. Only about another 100,000xp to go until I can upgrade to the 105mm L/68 gun in the process, which was a serviceable gun on the Tiger II but I think will feel anaemic at tier 9 and fairly st against tier 10s. From there, a further unspecified amount of XP (somewhere in the region of 80,000 or so) and I will unlock the 128mm gun this tank was designed for. Oh joy of fking joys.

The armour of the E-75 seems good, which it needs to be to counteract the fact this thing has the grace of an elephant, but at present the turret is one giant weakspot, and even worse, as soon as an enemy sees the st short 105mm Tiger II gun, they know they're practically impervious to anything but APCR, so they attack mercilessly, safe in the knowledge they'll lose a track and a a few hundred HP at the absolute worst. I think I'll have to follow other players around for the next 100,000xp or so, as this tank can't go anywhere alone in this state. WG's attempt to streamline the module system into packages strikes again as a giant fking mis-step.

[bstb3]

Yikes that sounds horrible Mastodon. Thankfully the PC version isn't so cursed. The fully upgraded E-75 is a beast though, very much worth a nasty grind.

Does the Xbox get the maps at the same time as the PC? Today is the first time I have had to really play in earnest in the last few weeks, certainly since 9.4 came out, and must say I've really been having a good time on the new Stalingrad map. True its only been 6 or 7 games on it, but I really like it. Love the attention to detail the designers have gone through. Seems like it might suck for a turret-less TD (like most new maps seem to) but otherwise looks like something for everyone in it.

http://wotreplays.com/site/1338093#stalingrad-bstb...

[Mastodon2]

We're getting the maps in monthly updates. While the rotation makes it feel like we only have 4 or 5 maps at times, most of the key maps are in the Xbox game now. The ones we're missing are Southern Coast, Airfield (confirmed in the next update), Kharkov, Ruinberg, Murovanka, and the new Stalingrad map. Some less well-known maps we're missing are Steppes, Swamp, Tundra, Dragon Ridge, Fjords, Highway, and Severogorsk. I call these "less important" as I forget these ones exist at times as I hardly ever see them in replays on Youtube. All the maps are coming, but they've focused on getting the tanks to us before maps. Once we get the French arty, Porsche and IS-4 lines in, we'll have the same tanks as the PC prior to the latest American lights that were just added.

We do get one map the PC doesn't though, Port! Oh wait, that's nothing to be happy about as it's terrible.

EDIT: We got Karelia and Pearl River in the last update. Karelia is ok, not an amazing map, Pearl River is dire. It looks nice, but the layout of the map promotes boring gameplay. I hate getting that map when I'm in anything other than a heavy, it's hard to do well in anything other than top tier heavies there as it funnels tanks into head to head fights with little opportunity to snipe or flank.

Edited by Mastodon2 on Saturday 15th November 23:34

[JustinF]

Mastodon2 said:

It's potential damage, not damage received, over 11 hits minimum and you have to survive for it to count. If I had a steel wall for every time I'd taken over 1000 damage received over 11 hits and survived the battle I'd have scores of the of the things.

Re-read what I posted, potential damage is BOTH damage taken and deflected, it had that potential whether it successfully passed your armour or not.
Case in point, just had this game in my cruiser II

http://wotreplays.com/site/1338212#karelia-jayfish...

Note my HP pool is 240, and by the end of the match I have 90 remianing.

here's the end game results



Damage blocked by armour 95, damage taken 150, see bottom right, pot damage received 245.

The reason you don't have umpteen million Steel Wall's, is you have to have received the highest potential damage in the match as well as the other criteria, even being the last survivor isn't sufficient if someone else racked up higher potential but died.

[Beati Dogu]

I've only got 72 Steel Wall medals after 19K games. Maybe that's because I play fairly conservatively (mostly) or I play mainly mediums and tank destroyers. I survive 45% of the games I play in, which is pretty high.

I don't think damage eaten by tracks counts as potential damage blocked.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Sunday 16th November 00:46

[Mastodon2]

Ok, I've tired of E-75 punishment for now, I will go back to it when the rage of being stuck with a peashooter to fight E-100s has worn off. I decided instead, to get some arty games in, the highest tier SPG I've ever had was the Hummel, so I really need some practice. I may or may not have a run at the French line which is rumoured to drop soon, word on the Supertest leaks is that we're getting the 105 leFH18B2 as a December premium, which I'll definitely pick up.

I decided in the mean time to troll myself something rotten, so I'm going down the Brit (st) line. The Birch gun and the Bishop are utterly dreadful and will troll my soul into oblivion. I've picked up the premium Sexton I with some spare gold I had lying about, and bought a Loyd Gun Carriage. After 2 matches, I have enough Xp to get rid of the LGC, hooray. An SPG with no splash damage, what a fking rotbox! In my second match, I did one-shot a H35 and a T2 Medium, killed one T18 and damaged another, earning me a Mastery Class 1 with a whopping 303 damage and no spotting. Good lord.

I know the SPGs have been subject to all sorts of moves and switches over time on the PC game, but I think it's fair to say that a good SPG is a massive threat to any tank up to two tiers above it's own, and probably still does enough damage to make a tank 3 tiers up take note. What a shame then, that the Birch Gun and Bishop don't have this luxury, with their pathetic guns. Throw in pathetic gun ranges where enemy TDs can spot and shoot them within their own firing arcs and you've got a recipe for pain.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Lawd have mercy.

[jimmyjimjim]

Remember to drive the bishop up on to a ramp for more range.

[PanzerCommander]

The E-75 is well worth the grind, the 12.8cm gun makes that tank. You very rarely need premium ammo with it because of the good pen (sometimes its worth loading a round to ensure that you can take out the tank bearing down on you). Fully upgraded its actually quite mobile for a Tier 9 heavy too.

[Mastodon2]

PanzerCommander said:

The E-75 is well worth the grind, the 12.8cm gun makes that tank. You very rarely need premium ammo with it because of the good pen (sometimes its worth loading a round to ensure that you can take out the tank bearing down on you). Fully upgraded its actually quite mobile for a Tier 9 heavy too.

The E-75 has been purchased and mothballed, it will be upgraded one day. The Maus has just been shown on the Xbox website as a tank preview, as soon as that download drops I'm grinding that line hard. I've already stockpiled the XP I need to get straight onto the first new tank in the line when it arrives. Murovanka and Airfield confirmed too. Such excitement, many wow!

The Brit arty line has proven surprisingly fun so far, I'm up to the Birch Gun now, it's limited one-shot potential has not been too much of a downer, I did one shot a Panzer III yesterday, on my way to getting a Mastery Class 1 in my first game. I also got an Ace Tanker in my Sexton II. Still dreading the Bishop though!

[Mastodon2]

Ok, the Bishop has arrived. This is a legitimate contender for worst tank in the game - the DW2, AMX 40 and M3 Lee could all have more influence on a battle than this thing. Let's weigh up the positives and negatives. I'll start with the negatives.

- Terrible gun range
- poor damage per shot
- one of the narrowest gun arcs of any vehicle in the game (TDs would consider this a terrible arc)
- Huge, boxy structure makes it easy to spot
- Poor mobility
- low shell velocity

+ Decent amount of health (a fairly useless trait in a TD, especially one as slow as this)
+ Accuracy is ok, but negate by the tiny arc, meaning you have to traverse the hull a lot, making accuracy and aim time moot.

This thing is an enormous step backwards after the Birch Gun, which is a brilliant vehicle. The Bishop, is big, slow and largely useless, and I think to get all of the packages as Bert prep, and research the Bert itself, I'm looking at 40,000xp to earn in this stbox. It will be utterly dreadful.

I did have a good night platooning arty with Z06George, I used the Birch and he was in his M41. We completely dominated some of our matches, and others were complete flops, particularly where we had very passive team mates unwilling to scratch the paint on their expensive tier 4/5 tanks. The Birch proved able to at least bother tier 7s, tracking and knocking out modules, if doing precious little actual damage. The Bishop, I consider it a success just to hit something. Still, I do love playing arty from time to time, nailing a light tank speeding across the battlefield is a joy. I definitely feel a lot better at arty than the last time I played it about 2000 games ago, I disagree with anyone who says that playing arty needs no skill. The best SPG players know where enemies will go before they're even spotted, they can predict movements and lead shells and pin the enemy in place, or nail them when they think they're in cover.

Still, the Maus has been introduced on the Xbox WOT website, so I know what I'll be doing my main grind to when it drops.

[Beati Dogu]

If I wanted the Maus, I'd have to start at tier 2 as I've not done any of that line.

[All that jazz]

Mastodon2 said:

Ok, the Bishop has arrived. This is a legitimate contender for worst tank in the game - the DW2, AMX 40 and M3 Lee could all have more influence on a battle than this thing. Let's weigh up the positives and negatives. I'll start with the negatives.

- Terrible gun range
- poor damage per shot
- one of the narrowest gun arcs of any vehicle in the game (TDs would consider this a terrible arc)
- Huge, boxy structure makes it easy to spot
- Poor mobility
- low shell velocity

+ Decent amount of health (a fairly useless trait in a TD, especially one as slow as this)
+ Accuracy is ok, but negate by the tiny arc, meaning you have to traverse the hull a lot, making accuracy and aim time moot.

This thing is an enormous step backwards after the Birch Gun, which is a brilliant vehicle. The Bishop, is big, slow and largely useless, and I think to get all of the packages as Bert prep, and research the Bert itself, I'm looking at 40,000xp to earn in this stbox. It will be utterly dreadful.

I did have a good night platooning arty with Z06George, I used the Birch and he was in his M41. We completely dominated some of our matches, and others were complete flops, particularly where we had very passive team mates unwilling to scratch the paint on their expensive tier 4/5 tanks. The Birch proved able to at least bother tier 7s, tracking and knocking out modules, if doing precious little actual damage. The Bishop, I consider it a success just to hit something. Still, I do love playing arty from time to time, nailing a light tank speeding across the battlefield is a joy. I definitely feel a lot better at arty than the last time I played it about 2000 games ago, I disagree with anyone who says that playing arty needs no skill. The best SPG players know where enemies will go before they're even spotted, they can predict movements and lead shells and pin the enemy in place, or nail them when they think they're in cover.

Still, the Maus has been introduced on the Xbox WOT website, so I know what I'll be doing my main grind to when it drops.

You should know by now how WoT works. Each tank line generally goes good tank, bad tank, good tank, bad tank. The reason for this, of course, is that you burn your gold - or XP if you have any - and "free XP" your way straight past it to the next one. It's done deliberately to get you to spend your money.

[enjo]

The FV304 is worth it! It feels more like a top down TD rather than arty in some ways.

My post above looks a bit silly now my W/R has dropped... need to play my SU-76I some more

[JustinF]

All that jazz said:

You should know by now how WoT works. Each tank line generally goes good tank, bad tank, good tank, bad tank. The reason for this, of course, is that you burn your gold - or XP if you have any - and "free XP" your way straight past it to the next one. It's done deliberately to get you to spend your money.

Except that after the Bishop it goes, quirky tank, quirky tank

Love the FV304 even with the nerfs it is so easy to rack up damage.
The SP 5.5 that follows is unloved but it's actually excellent once you get used to driving backwards, it can reposition flank to flank if your side collapses, it's damage is acceptable, reload and aim time are both good, range is back to what you'd expect from an arty too. Currently have 54% winrate in mine over 201 games.