Monday Musings - 3/27/17

Good morning, it's another lovely Monday and here are a few thoughts from this weekend's games.

Timing

So I've been testing out my "timing" theory with mixed results. It does seem to be true that with fewer players on the server that the lower tiers get slightly less favorable matchmaking - but the effect is not as dramatic as I predicted it would be. Even in the evenings my Tier III/IV tanks were getting into a few Tier VI battles...but maybe slightly less often than in the mornings.

It does seem like my Tier V tanks get into more battles with low tier vehicles in the morning - whereas in the evenings they seem to get into more even or higher tier battles.

I should be quick to add that this is purely anecdotal and I haven't been keeping any statistics on this - so it's just my opinion and not a scientifically established fact.

The Garage

I'm making pretty good headway on my garage. I managed to XP out of the Tier III tanks I was driving early this weekend and THANK GOD for that. The AMX 38 is a dreadful pile of crud - slow, lousy gun, no view range...just about it's only saving grace is that it has at least a little bit of armor. 

The M2 Medium is just about as bad - it trades a little more speed for a lot less armor.

The T-46 was o.k. It's not good, but at least it's balanced and can do a little something here or there if you get a fair matchup. The tough part is those games where you're trying to face KV-1s and T67s in a T-46. Either of those tanks can out run you, out shoot you and just generally overpower you.

Now I have the AMX 40 (The Duck) which is pretty slow but does have some decent armor so it will bounce some shots. And with the upgraded gun you can actually do a little damage here or there. It's still not much of a match for Tier VI tanks but at least you can do a little something if you ever manage to get to the battle. If you're grinding up the French line and end up in the AMX40 though I STRONGLY recommend getting the upgraded gun. It seems to make a big difference.

Unfortunately I earn fairly low experience in the AMX 40 and I'm still a good 10K XP away from the AMX ELC bis light tank that I'm working towards.

On the Russian side I've gone from the T-46 to the T-28 which might actually be one of the best Tier IV tanks I've had. It's got some mobility and can mount the same 57mm zis gun that the T-34 carries. If I wanted to keep this tank and took the trouble to fully equip it (optics, vents, etc) and train the crew to skills this would probably be a pretty good Tier IV. Unfortunately Tier IV battles are pretty aggravating to play once you start to know a little about what you're doing and even fully equipped this tank is overmatched by Tier VI opponents. Still, I'm doing fairly well in it and should have enough XP to move into the KV-1 in a few days.

Finally on the American side I got out of the M2 Medium and into the M3 Lee. The Lee, especially with the upgraded gun, is a lot better than the M2 though it's still not very good overall. It's got some mobility, but still nearly no armor. The view range is terrible so you can't really scout and the biggest problem...no turret. So it's basically a TD with no frontal armor and a mediocre gun. That makes it fairly useless in the city since you can't really poke around corners, and the lack of view range means you're easy pickings in the open terrain since enemies with any view range will spot you before you can spot them. My tactic has been to identify our team's best medium tank during the countdown and then shadow and support him. I try to hang back a bit, and focus fire with him on whatever gets encountered. Sniping with the M3 Lee is about the only way to live very long in Tier VI battles, but the gun dispersion is poor so don't expect to rack up 1000s of points of damage. I was pretty excited to do 540 points of damage in Karelia Assault this weekend. The benefits of low expectations I guess.

I have splurged on some upgrades for the Lee since I'll be in it for a while. I plan to grind the XP on this and move to BOTH the M4 and T1 Heavy from this tank. That's almost 30,000 XP to get to those and I have to do it 200-400 XP at a time, generally. That means I could easily spend 80-100 battles in the M3 Lee just to get enough XP for the upgrades. I'm only up to about 8,000XP right now so I might as well get at least a little comfortable.

I will say that in some ways playing these Tier VIs might be making me a better player. I can't rely on having a good gun, good armor, a faster tank or even a great crew (since these crews are fairly new, trained to 75% base, few skills...) which means I have to think a lot harder about how to play it just to survive two minutes in the higher tier games. Yesterday morning I even had a battle where I managed to kill a KV-2 with the M3 Lee. I was stunned. It happened because I noticed a teammate nearby was engaged with the KV-2. I came over to help, found an advantageous position, and saw that the KV-2 was focused on my teammate and was presenting me the side of its turret. I proceeded to put FIVE carefully aimed shots into the side and rear of the KV-2s turret - finally killing him.

I'm sure he was surprised too.

In the next few days I'll start "graduating" out of these Tier IVs. I can only hope my win rate hasn't been knocked too far down by then. My next goal is the race to 50...as I hope to get my win rate over 50%. (I'm at 49.15% currently)

Don't be a jerk

I had a game this weekend when I took my VK 36.01H out. We were the defenders in Karelia Assault (Tier VIII) and the 36.01 is a heavy tank so I was in no hurry to roam the countryside. I had an advantageous position behind a rock on the north side of the cap and was taking some shots at mediums that had ventured into the middle. Then I noticed a couple of our other heavies were in a brawl at the K0 corner with some enemies. Recognizing that I was an HT, albeit only Tier VI, I decided I should get my armor and gun more directly into the game and go help those guys. So I lumbered up the 0 line.

By the time I arrived the brawl was down to just their Tier VII Comet vs our Tier VIII super heavy VK 100.01P. I figured between myself and the Tier VIII we should have no trouble finishing the Comet who was at about 70% health. As it turns out I ended up trading shots with the Comet, who I knocked down to about 10% health, while the VK 100.01P just sat there. I even took the angle I did so that the Super Heavy was on the Comet's flank. While the Comet was focused on me, the VK 100.01P had the side of the Comet's turret and if he'd driven even 30 or 40 meters he probably had an easy butt shot on the Comet. But he just sat there and did nothing.

 The Comet finally managed to kill me...and the VK had the balls to call me a "noob" in the chat.

Did I make a brilliant play? Maybe not. Maybe I could have angled slightly better, maybe I could have micropositioned a little better. Maybe I could have timed my reloads a little better. I probably wasted a shot or two when I didn't properly target the Comet's weak points. Nonetheless I drove up there to help the VK, traded fairly well with a better tank and got zero help from the Tier VIII super heavy. If I'd known I'd have been trading with the Comet one on one I probably wouldn't have even gone there - I pushed the Comet because I expected to be two-on-one.

Really VK should have just said "Thank You" and been on his way. Instead he had to pretend to be superior. Like a lot of people who need to be jerks in chat, he was dead 30 seconds later.

Where does the word "Unicum" come from?

In World of Tanks you often hear the top players referred to as "Unicums". Yeah, it puzzled me too. It's from Latin and it means "Unique specimen." In context, a rare player.

Go be epic!

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