I want the KV but mining for money is so time consuming.

11/8/2011 11:50:58 PM

Yea dunno if you have gone premium or what, but I just don't have time to devote to moving up as fast as you can! I did actually have a couple good rounds in my T-28 tonight. City maps with little or no arty with walls to hide behind. I used the T-28s speed to hit and run and ended up with the win and most kills in my first round. Got 1k+ XP. Only 12k more to go before KV. Oh yea, and 300k.

11/9/2011 9:35:50 PM

yeah... it's gonna take a month to get that damn kv. I might just stop playing this since it'll take forever to get anything higher than lvl4 without spending money for gold. If they released the other game modes, I might consider it...

11/9/2011 9:55:32 PM

^To minimize my time sink on this, I am only playing 2-3 rounds per tank. Specifically getting one win so that I can get that double XP award.

11/10/2011 5:40:22 AM

^Meant to say 2-4 rounds per tank per day. On weekends I roll through more, but during the week I don't have that luxury of time.

11/10/2011 9:21:25 AM

Finally got the KV. Wow it is one slow bitch. Have not done any upgrades on it yet.

11/19/2011 10:40:04 PM

It'll always be slow as hell, but get a big gun and use cover and it gets better. On low tier battles, I take the front, but on high tier battles, I typically hold back and play more like a midrange TD and it seems to work well.

11/19/2011 10:49:50 PM

Anybody else take advantage of Tanksgiving bonus XP/cash?

I have hit the shit out of it this weekend and reaped the rewards. My KV is now Derping. I moved up my TD to the SU-85 and have the 2nd best gun and now working up to the big boy. In the arty line, I have racked up a shit ton of XP and points with my SU-5 so that I am only a little bit off the XP necessary to move up to the SU-8. I just upgraded my A-20 to the T-34 as well. So all in all got a lot of shit done progress wise. It has indeed been a Happy Tanksgiving for me.

11/27/2011 11:24:58 PM

people will grind anything I guess..

11/28/2011 1:02:42 AM

Yea, this weekend I loaded it on my laptop and played when I was sitting around my grandparents house with nothing to do (we stayed there and aside from eating and visiting, had little else to do). The point was that I did not have to play a metric shit ton of rounds. I made sure to get one win in each, and then fucked around with the artillery to make some cash when I had the others victory out of the way.

[Edited on November 28, 2011 at 7:42 AM. Reason : ]

11/28/2011 7:21:05 AM

Missed out on the weekend bonus stuff as my laptop can't run WoT

Either way, I've been getting in a few good rounds here and there lately, but I'm starting to see that Tier 6 is where things really bog down - it's a huge drag in any tank type to get through to Tier 7 it seems, both due to XP for research and silver for purchases.

11/28/2011 11:51:35 AM

I finally got the xp for my first tier 8 over this weekend..but I haven't been able to farm up the credits needed to buy it. Need something like 2 million.

11/28/2011 3:07:26 PM

Just stumbled onto a post on the WoT forums about a free 750 gold + 1 day of premium promo code deal from some magazine, and each person can only use one. Fortunately, I used three emails to get three codes before I read this, so I've got two free codes to whomever sees them first:

GSTRMN8S9-33V7-KWM4

GSTRMF9P6-33P3-HBA3

Go to the WoT website, login, and in the upper right you will see your username - click it for a dropdown bar, click the "Bonus Codes" option, and enter the code and it'll automatically update your account. Free dollarbucks FTW!

I used my 750 for two garage slots (@300ea) and I'll be burning the remaining 150 as free xp conversions.

[Edited on November 28, 2011 at 5:42 PM. Reason : ]

11/28/2011 5:40:04 PM

^Wow I got the first one of those. Thanks man! That rocks. Probably do like you and get the extra couple of garage bays.

11/28/2011 10:25:03 PM

No problem! I figured I'd use them for garage slots as it's a permanent addition and I've filled the default 5 already and find myself wanting to hold onto some tanks as I move up the trees.

Also, just FYI, with the 0.7.0 update that's coming up in a few weeks, if you have a KV with the KV-2 turret, it'll get split into two tanks - the KV1 and KV2. To be fair, the developers are, if you have it in your garage, going to give you the new tank with 100% crew and add a garage slot to give it space, so free tank+slot FTW! This also applies for the KV-3, which is moving up a tier and getting something to replace it, so the same thing will happen and you can score ANOTHER garage slot+free tank with 100% crew by having it.

Therefore, if you've got the KV, hold on to it, and if you get the KV-3, hold onto it too! You'll get two free tanks, two free garage slots, and two free 100% crews for Russian heavies! There are a few other tanks in other trees that'll be tweaked similarly, but I know some included are the tier 9/10 US heavies, so they likely don't apply to us. Google can fill you in on more of the details, but I'm all for abusing patch changes to get free stuff.

11/28/2011 10:43:02 PM

Man, premium sure makes a difference in xp and credits! It's allowed me to actually start earning a lot on my slugger and now I've finally gotten the 90mm, which should be fun. Sad to know its only 24 hrs, but I can't justify putting real cash into this free game

11/29/2011 2:31:59 PM

^^Thanks for the heads up on the heavy line. I have one empty slot right now, but I will put one of the base tanks in that just to keep it full, and then use that money to add more slots later.

I am thinking about starting over in the German or US line. Is there any really great tanks that I am missing by not going through them? With those empty slots I am thinking I would have room to run up one or the other as well, but not both. One of them got some OMG great tanks that are worth going after?

Also jcdomini did you play through just the heavy tanks, or did you a light, medium, heavy & TD on USSR? Just curious what your experience with the T-34 was. So far it has been the suck with me. I have been on a horrible losing streak with my teams since Tanksgiving went out. Dunno why it has been so bad, but it seems to take me forever to get on a team to get my one win per tank each day. But the T-34 I can't seem to do much with. Half the time I get put on a team full of heavies and no arties to go scout out and destroy. Seems like it is only good for cannon fodder most of the time.

12/4/2011 9:46:35 AM

I'm currently running a few lines at the same time. Right now I have:

US Medium: Both the M4A3E8 Sherman (Tier 6) and I just bought the T20 (Tier 7)

US Tank Destroyers: The M36 Slugger (Tier 6)

German Artillery: Hummel (Tier 5)

Russian Heavies: KV (Tier 5, typically derping with the 152mm) and KV-3 (Tier 6)


As far as tanks worth pursuing down any of these lines:

I've been very satisfied with the E8 Sherman, as it's an excellent run-and-gun tank. It has great speed and maneuverability (once upgraded), and getting the crew to 100% is great too. It fires the M1A2 76mm and has 115 damage and 128 pen, which is pretty excellent for Tier 6, and it really shines in that it can pop off one of these shells every ~3secs, which is a wild R.O.F. when you're actually in battle. The only downfall is it's somewhat paper-y in the armor department, but if you prefer playing like a heavy, the M4A3E2 Sherman might be a better choice, as it's the sister tank to the E8 and gets better armor in exchange for lower maneuverability. If I would suggest one line to check out, it would be the American Mediums.

The American TD line is pretty satisfying as well - through the lower tiers (T40, T82) you get some BIG guns that can one-shot some of the lower tiers. The only drawback I found was that the T40, which was a great tank to play, had an absurdly high repair cost (like 4k for a tier 3-4 TD) which made it difficult to profit on if you had bad rounds, and sometimes would make a loss. Once you hit the turreted TD's (Wolverine, Slugger), they're fun with the upgraded guns, but can be frustrating otherwise. However, from what I understand, the reward is in the T25AT, T28, and T95, which are beasts on the battlefield.

As for German artillery, the Bison can be a pain, but I never played the Wespe, and the Grille is great if you ignore the fact that it only has like a 5degree field of view. However, the Hummel is very fun, and from what I hear, the GW Panther (Dracula) is even better, with a huge FOV and some great hard-hitting guns.

Beyond this I haven't had any experience, as I've only run the USSR heavies thus far, but I'm thinking of starting a light slot down the T50 line to the T-50-2, as I've always been impressed by it's scouting abilities.

Catch me online sometime and we'll run a few matches together if you're interested

[Edited on December 4, 2011 at 11:36 AM. Reason : ]

12/4/2011 11:35:17 AM

Half off equipment this week. Needless to say I have spent all my credits

Garage update:
Tiger - Tier 7 German Heavy. Not sure if I will keep this one after I get to the Tiger II
JagdPz IV - Tier 6 German TD . I like it but it will probably get sold after I get the Jagdpanther
VK 3601 (H) - Tier 6 German Medium. Working towards the VK 3002 (DB).
PzKpfw IV - Tier 5 German Medium. One of my favorite tanks and a go to for credit farming.
Grille - Tier 4 German SPG. I never play this anymore. SPGs never really clicked for me.

KV - Tier 5 Russian Heavy. Massive damage for it's tier. My other credit farming go to.
KV-3 - Tier 6 Russian Heavy. Just hanging on to this one for the free garage slot.
IS - Tier 7 Russian Heavy. Solid tank. Prob sell it and use the crew for the IS-3 though.
BT-2 - Tier 2 Russian Light. I love this little thing. Sometimes it's fun to play the lower tiers.

T-29 - Tier 7 American Heavy. Still mostly stock. Needs some time before I can say much about it.

Everything else up and down the tiers I have sold. M4 Sherman was pretty good, but I feel that the PzKpfw IV is superior.

12/4/2011 4:04:47 PM

Thanks for your take. I am much more interested in some new lines now as I have not spent that 750 gold yet and tank slots are 50% off. So I can buy 5 of the damn things now.

12/5/2011 11:30:15 AM

Tank slots probably are the best value for you at the moment. It can get frustrating when you don't have enough.

12/5/2011 4:46:16 PM

7.0 is out. Set it up to run tonight because it is a 1.2GB update.

12/14/2011 9:01:39 PM

God, that download was horrendous - worst part is, it didn't add a whole lot of content. However, I do have to give them credit, as they've finally straightened out resource-usage and the game runs like a dream now. Super smooth and like 50fps consistently, whereas before I would see 20-30fps and it would bog down to 10-20fps with the smoke effects of explosions and the like.

The KV1/KV2 and KV3 splits haven't happened yet either, so no free slots yet, but they're due in the next few months.

Overall, I think the update was a bit overhyped, but definitely needed. The two new maps are a nice change, but I feel like they're a little cramped and don't really have a whole lot of room for creative playing - sort of like Malinovka, where you can either die in the open field or spend the entire round looping up over the hill and dying there instead. I could go for more city maps where at least you can work the buildings a bit more, and neither of the new maps allow for that - hell, Swamps is literally a wide open swamp with some big rocks and a tiny little destroyable village.

[Edited on December 14, 2011 at 9:26 PM. Reason : ]

12/14/2011 9:21:49 PM

^Yea I have noticed that the game plays a lot faster now. And yes the download was ridiculous. I got really pissed because I remoted into my laptop that I left at work and told it to run the update. Fucking thing had it done in less than 2 minutes. Meanwhile took me a couple hours at home. Pwnt.

I have only had a couple rounds on each of the new maps and they have usually been brief encounters that ended quickly in a fiery death. I was on a run for about a week where my team could literally not win. I would go 0-6 and worse. Really pissing me off. I was still getting kills and stuff, but my team would blow up around me. Then last night I played all 7 of my tanks and won every game the first time. Sweet double XP run for me on that.

One question though. I have the KV and have gotten about 6k in XP. I have the DERP gun and want to know, should I buy the big engine (still just on the base engine) or should I save that up toward the purchase of the 107mm which is like 14k. Just curious your thoughts on this.

Oh and add me if you want to do the platoon thing. I tried it out this weekend with some little like 10 year old kid on voice chat. He was really annoying but it seemed pretty cool.

[Edited on December 20, 2011 at 3:33 PM. Reason : ]

12/20/2011 3:32:57 PM

^ It depends on how much you like the derp gun honestly. The upgraded engine will give you somewhat better acceleration, but the KV is inherently slow and you can't do a whole lot about that. IMHO, the 107 is an incredible gun and gives you many more options than the derp, as it has great pen and damage, and reasonable reload. I didn't use it until the KV3 and loved it, but I've found the KV3 handles it better because it can take more hits than the KV, as the KV is big and thin skinned and so benefits from peeking out, hurling a massive explosive into the enemy, and then hiding for a bit while others distract the enemy again.

All in all, I would definitely say get the 107 at least so you can mount it right away on the KV3, but you may find you enjoy it on the KV too. The engine doesn't hurt either, but don't expect big mobility changes.

I'm all for platooning, but I'm out of town through the new year, so look for me sometime after that.

12/20/2011 4:18:59 PM

I prefer the derp personally. However, I use the KV solely doe credit farming and the massive damage of the derp paired with it's ability to inflict decent damage on higher tier opponents makes it a good choice. The 107 is certainly more balanced. Your play style will dictate which one is better for you.

12/20/2011 10:37:10 PM

^I am more of a sniper so I think the 107 will be my favored gun of choice. Most of the time the DERP bounces for me. Just played a couple rounds and think I only had one round make it through. Worst part about that tank is getting paired with the much higher guys and you being the lowest guy on the map.

12/20/2011 10:49:35 PM

How are you bouncing the derp? You should only be using HE, as its only like a 30mm improvement in pen to use AP, and accuracy is too terrible to guarantee hitting a weakspot. Even with HE, you can still expect upwards of 400 damage.

12/20/2011 11:00:21 PM

^^ Yea, you need to use only HE (I carry 1-2 AP for killing other KVs). That is the beauty of the derp. With HE you can actually do a fair chunk of damage to higher tier tanks. Money and XP is based off of damage done and there is a bonus for damaging higher tier stuff.

12/21/2011 6:54:00 AM

^I will try again then. Seems like every round I get stuck battling the real big boys. I had been using AP and HE to see which one would do better. Was rather ineffective with both. Plus the accuracy of that gun blows.

12/21/2011 7:12:58 AM

Yeah, that's a pretty niche gun. It's essentially a mobile howitzer/artillery cannon, and the accuracy is just good enough to hit somewhere on an enemy tank, and thus the decision to use HE.

Also, fun little tip: with HE, you'll do about 65% damage to an enemy KV with a face shot, but I've consistently one-shotted enemy KVs if I can land a shot on the big flat side armor of the KV2 turret, so keep an eye out for opportunities like that.

12/21/2011 10:41:09 AM

Ok you are right I had a MUCH better round with my KV and HE. I got 4 kills, including another KV who I went point blank with.

And yes please check out the Christmas Special running now. Basically 5x XP for the first victory of the day. Now through Dec. 27th.

12/21/2011 5:30:45 PM

Also aside from Arty the derp is probably one of the easiest ways to get the Reaper Medal. While that doesn't really do anything for you it's cool to have

[Edited on December 22, 2011 at 10:49 AM. Reason : ]

12/22/2011 10:48:46 AM

I get the reaper metal being AT and sniping, but only if I get a good enough team to where I'm not flanked, which happens 90% of the time.

12/22/2011 11:17:22 AM

I had not really paid attention the medals before you mentioned this. Just checked and with my SU-8 I won Fadin's Medal. Basically kill the last enemy on the map with your last shell. I like that one.

12/22/2011 12:51:27 PM

Haha, yea that's a badass one. I haven't gotten it yet. I have managed to get Billotte's Medal a couple times. You have to kill at least one enemy and survive the battle with at least 5 critical effects on you and 80% loss of hit points.

12/22/2011 5:05:41 PM

Took advantage of ya'lls advice on the DERP + HE and x5 XP to rack up the experience. I got the T-34 loaded out now (was missing the top gun) and got the 107 on the KV. Quite a better gun for my play style. My SU-8 has the top gun, so the only one missing its high end weapon is the SU-85. Can't wait to get that carrying the 107 as well. Question though, does the 107 also recommend HE or is AP the standard ammo of choice with the KV and 107 combo?

12/23/2011 11:32:31 PM

AP is where it's at for the 107mm - excellent damage paired with ridiculous penetration for the tiers it can be mounted on. Wiki says AP does 300dmg@167pen, which is fantastic for a Tier 5 heavy. I would carry a couple HE incase you find a tank you can't seem to pen (which should be rare), but the HE shells only do 360 damage and have crap penetration (54mm), so you're really better off primarily using the AP with the 107mm.

Really wish I could get some gametime in over this break, but I'm at home with just my 5 year old macbook to entertain me, as I left my desktop behind Get some good x5 XP rounds in for me!

12/24/2011 12:13:21 AM

Yea I am just playing on my work laptop. Lenovo T61p with a Core 2 Duo. I did bring my gaming mouse from home so I am not trying to use the trackpad, but a decent laptop with a seperate mouse does pretty good.

12/24/2011 7:19:40 AM

Picked up the IS-3 yesterday after weeks of grinding for the credits. It's a beast..even without the best modules on it yet.

12/25/2011 2:21:38 AM

Had my best round ever a few nights ago.

9 kills

Im mostly playing the t29 i love the tank with the 105, but you need premium or you will shoot your load in shells.

Also,

Steel wall battle round before that 60 HITS and I lived (hull down on 29 as top tank and you own).

12/30/2011 12:55:41 PM

http://worldoftanks.com/news/933-update-v71-maintenance/

Quote :

"World of Tanks informs players that maintenance will be held on the game server starting from 21:00 PST January 4th (5:00 UTC January 5th), until approximately 9:00 PST (17:00 UTC), January 5th, due to the release of update v.7.1."

1/4/2012 9:53:29 PM

Just had an absolutely epic round in my KV-3 that I needed to share. I was playing Malinovka (the one with the big open field that leads to tons of camping) and started on the north side with just the rocks etc. I rolled in through the northeast field solo and cruised right into their base and just raised hell

Results:
6 Kills
4 Damaged
11 Spotted

Shots: 14
Hit the Target: 13
Hits Received: 72

Awards:
Sniper
Scout
Steel Wall
Top Gun

Even better - I came out alive with all of 2% health

1/23/2012 8:15:33 PM

Goodness grief. How does one get started in this game? I can't seem to do anything the FNG. The tank takes FOREVER to get moving, very slow still after it does... Too weak to kill anything... Should I just hang back and hope my teammates score victories so I can bank money until I can upgrade?

[Edited on January 30, 2012 at 1:22 AM. Reason : .]

1/30/2012 1:21:11 AM

Killed my first tank. Fuck yeah!

1/30/2012 2:35:23 AM

This game is addicting. lol. PZII is pretty cool.

1/30/2012 4:21:10 AM

Jesus Christ that was a crazy game. 96 shots, 65 hits. I spotted 4 guys. Killed 1, hit 3 more.

1/30/2012 8:10:41 AM

So i checked the forums and I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

It appears too much penetration is a bad thing. I keep getting "The shot went right through!" and no damage is being dealt. Then I switch to HE rounds and I'm still not doing any damage. WTF>? I've since switched to using guns with slightly less penetration and have had more luck.

[Edited on February 1, 2012 at 7:29 PM. Reason : .]

2/1/2012 7:29:16 PM

I think a lot of it is aming at the right spots.

If you hold your cursor over a tank, it will be
red (like 0% chance of penetration)
orange (10% chance)
green (90%) chance

You want to go for center mass when possible, or hatches and doors. I don't think over penetration is really a problem, its just sometimes it does no damage.

I hate that they nerfed the fuck out of the m4 105, but a KV with the 152 can still lay the slamn down.

2/2/2012 4:21:34 PM

Be careful where you aim - you can very easily get a "That one went right through!" but do no damage if you end up hitting the tracks/track wheels, as it may "penetrate" the tracks, but end up in the dirt under the tank.

Definitely take advantage of your sights and make sure they light up green to ensure you'll get a penetrating shot, and aim so that it'll enter the tank and at least travel to the interior and you should be in good shape.

In the lower tiers, this isn't as applicable as everyone is running-n-gunning, but as you get into the higher tiers, it's much more important to be considerate of weak points and strategically place your shots, so it's good practice to start learning them early.

2/2/2012 10:53:11 PM