Another five things good players do more often than average players

No pages on this blog get as much reaction, and feedback, as "Five things good players do more often than average players" and "Five more things good players do more often than average players." So...I figured it was time to do another one.

Let's think about each of these habits, then spend a little time trying to build these habits in our own play.

11. Right-Mouse the camera

It's pretty common in World of Tanks to need to look around. You're on reload, or you're just waiting for something to get spotted, and you want to check the left or right. Most players will just mouse that way, which turns their turret to face it. The problem then is if a target suddenly appears where your gun was (hopefully it was already pointing in a direction you thought would be useful) you have to rotate the turret all the way back to take the shot.

When you watch good players play, however, what they usually do is hold down the right-mouse button when they just want to look left or right and not necessarily shoot that way. That turns the CAMERA but not the turret.

When you do it that way you aren't constrained by your turret traverse speed; your camera can usually go left or right faster than your turret can. And if a target appears where your gun is already facing you can quickly bring the camera back and take the shot without having to wait for the turret to traverse back. AND, If the turret didn't traverse you don't get the traversal penalty to your gun bloom, so you don't have to wait as long to aim in and your shot is more likely to be accurate.

Tip: If you turn the camera to one side or the other and decide there's something there to shoot, just stay focused on it and let go of the right-mouse button. Your turret will automatically traverse over to where you're already looking.

To Do: In your next battle, consciously use the right-mouse button to pan your camera left and right as often as you can. Something spotted off to the side and you want to see if you have a shot? Right-mouse and look.

When you're first getting the habit, look around a lot. More than you normally would, just to build the muscle memory. After a few battles it will hopefully just be instinctive to press right-mouse before you turn to look.

12. They have patience

Good players rarely need to YOLO and they don't get too edgy if they're sitting still for a few seconds with nothing to shoot. Watch Skill4LTU play and he often sits in a location, takes a drag on his vape pen, says "We have all the time in the World of Tanks fellas", and is often rewarded a couple of seconds later when the enemy he was expecting appears in front of his gun.

A less patient player might have given up after a couple of seconds and driven out, only to find that enemy tank (and maybe his friends) with his face. Ouch!

Note: Patient doesn't have to mean passive. Being patient doesn't usually mean camping the same bush the whole battle. It means don't feel like you have to be constantly driving around looking for trouble. There's a time to pause and give things a beat; and a time to relocate...see the next tip.

To Do: The next time you're in a location, you feel like you have nothing to do, and you think maybe you'll just press "W" and drive out to find something to do...wait. Count to 5 before doing anything. Sometimes just giving it a couple of seconds lets things develop and you find you have a better play.

13. Relocate - don't go to the well too often

One mistake you see average players make (and I make it too) is getting a bit greedy. You've just hit a shot on that Tiger I in front of you; you pull back to reload. Then you pull out and hit him again! You pull back to reload...and, you poke to take that third shot and get hit by him AND two of his friends.

You see this a lot with players in autoloading tanks. They feel like they need to get their entire clip out - so they pull out and start firing, and rather than recognize when it's a good idea to get back into cover they'll sit there and keep trying to shoot, even though they may start to take a lot of return fire.

Worse still is when that autoloader gets tracked by the return fire, and has just emptied their clip. So now they're sitting out in the open, on reload, just hoping to get their tracks fixed before they get sent back to the garage.

A lot of average players have a hard time switching targets before killing the target they were already shooting. You hit a shot or two on them, then you sit there and stare down the straw at them waiting for your next shot; or you just keep poking the same corner over and over.

One of the things that always surprises me when I watch good players play, is that they're willing to switch targets if they sense that "one more poke" is going to be one too many and they're likely to get punished for it.

Sometimes the best play is to get one shot, or two shots, then pull back and look for your next move. Yes, even in an autoloader.

To Do: In your next battle, if you've taken two consecutive shots on the same target, and you're spotted, pull back into cover and think for a moment about what your next play should be. MAYBE it's pull out and take a 3rd shot. But maybe you'd be better off moving a bit to the east and putting a shot into the enemy SkorpG that just got spotted. 

This one may take a while to get right, learning to identify the right moments. But if you try out pulling back and taking a beat to look for an opportunity to relocate (even if it's just to get a different angle on the same tank you've been shooting) I think you'll find that you take less damage, and have a bigger impact on the battle overall.

Caveat - If you're unspotted in a bush and the tank you've been shooting is still the highest priority target, you can just keep shooting them. 

14. Know where their support is

This one is tricky because it sometimes requires trusting pubbies - and we've all been let down MANY times by pubbies that we counted on to hold an angle, cover our flank, come with us...or just not get spotted right behind us in the bush. But...good players know where their support is. They know that they've got two TDs behind them who should have shots, or that their Object 252U is one building to the south and if they push up to the next street he may be able to support. (Whether those TDs TAKE those shots, or the 252U is even paying attention is a different matter.)

This is especially important when you're in a fast tank. It can be really easy when you're in a fast MT or TD to get way out ahead of your team and find yourself isolated and in a 1vMany situation because your team just doesn't drive fast enough to get in position to support.

Same for light tanks - this morning my team's EBR, with only 100HP left, drove over a hill into three enemy tanks. All we could do was watch, though, because the tanks that shot him were on the other side of the hill where none of us had shots.

Good players know when they might have support (and when they probably don't) and factor that in before they make a play. That EBR would have been better off to stay in the bush on our side of the hill and force those enemies to crest the hill to shoot him. They still might have killed him, but at least all of us would have had shots on them so we could at least have made them pay for the kill.

Don't tunnel vision just on yourself and the enemy position you're looking at. Before you make a play glance at the minimap and see if you have teammates who are likely to be able to support you. Maybe ping the map first to let them know where you plan to go so they can be ready for that play ahead of time.

BONUS: Good players also try to be aware of what support the enemy tank is likely to have. If the enemies in the game this morning were good players, they probably sat back and waited for the EBR to come over the hill because they KNEW that if the EBR comes to them he's 1v3 and none of his team can help. But if they push over the hill to him, they're likely to be 1 or 2 v Many and they could take a lot of damage.

Before you make a play after you look at who/where your support is, take a moment to check the minimap and the other team's lineup so you have an idea what you might be driving into. Pushing into a Type 59 might be a good play. Pushing into a platoon of them might not be.

To Do: Next time you're planning to make a play, pause and look at the minimap. See if you can identify at least two teammates who should be in a position to support. If you can't identify two teammates consider if this is actually a smart play, or if it's a YOLO move that is likely to just get you killed.

Step 2: Once you're comfortable with identifying your support...make a conscious effort to predict who on the enemy team you might find on the other side of this play. Is it JUST a wounded T92? Or might there be a Badger 100m behind him that wasn't spotted.

15. Let it go

This is a tough one for me, I sometimes get salty or frustrated and that can put me on tilt. But you will struggle to win the next battle if you're still fuming over the last battle. When good players have a bad battle, or take a hard loss, they may reflect on it for a moment - perhaps consider if they could have done something differently, but by the time they click Battle again they've let it go and aren't dwelling on it.

Always fight the battle in front of you, not the battle behind you.

To Do: Next time you have a bad battle, or a bad team, or just bad RNG, try to leave it on the battlefield. If you find yourself in the garage still upset about that last battle take a few breaths, maybe a sip of beverage, and see if you can clear your head. If you really can't let go of it get up and take a couple of minutes to walk around - maybe get some fresh air, take a bio break, refill your beverage, get a snack. By the time you sit back down see if you're clear and ready to click Battle.

If you're STILL not ready to click Battle, maybe you need to step back for a little bit longer. One thing that sometimes works for me is to open YouTube and find an enjoyable video (maybe a favorite song, a comedian, cute animals...anything other than tanks) that I can watch for a minute or two just to try and reboot my mindset.

If nothing else, maybe switch over to your favorite tank and try to play a fun/casual battle in that.

Got any other tips that we haven't shared so far? Leave them in the comments below!

GLHF!