Here we go:
Tier 1 Recommendations
- First, have some fun. Go blow some shit up. Pretty much do anything that strikes you as fun, and interesting. Indulge your curiosity.
- When that phase wears off, try the following: Count to ten before moving your tank once the battle starts. Your teammates are going to go off and make a big mess. Start trying to think as the cleaner.
Tier 2 Recommendations
- Try to stop using the spam cannons as soon as possible. You won't be able to completely avoid them, but in my opinion they form bad habits and the sooner you leave them behind the better.
- Try a tank destroyer
- Try an artillery
- In general, try to get a sense of what kind of player you want to be. The only way to do that is to try all the options in tanks. When you start getting to higher tiers, it's probably better if you focus for a while. Personally, I recommend medium tanks because I believe they make learning flexing, situational awareness, and map knowledge essential, but it's up to you.
Tank Recommendations:
- I had a lot of fun with the Pz35t, but I recognize it might be a harder tank to drive.
- All the american tanks are pretty good at tier 2
- BT2 for speed
Tiers 3-4 Recommendations:
- Start focusing on trying to live to see the end of matches
- Start reviewing replays, especially in games where you die, and understand WHY you died and what you might have done to avoid it
- Start looking for the important tactical locations on each map, for each tank type, and under varying situations. This includes the artillery "shadows".
- Resist the temptation to buy a premium tank at this point
- Depending on your economic situation, you can start experimenting with modules and equipment. Understand what each module does and how they should be used on different tank. Personally, I would avoid investing too many credits in modules and equipment at this point, but you should know what they do so you can avoid bad purchases.
Tank Recommendations:
- Marder II, even after the nerfs
- T82, to learn the challenges of low velocity guns, and the joys of one shotting enemies
- Chi-ha
Tiers 4-5 Recommendations:
- The crazy, free for alls of the lower tiers should start settling down and even the least aware players will probably understand generally where to go on most maps. It's time to start asking yourself: What do I think the enemy is going to do in this battle? Do this at the start of every match. See if you can anticipate them.
- I would generally recommend avoiding scouts until you have a couple thousand games under your belt, they're just that hard to play well, but you should at least try one scout for a while. Maybe you're a scouting prodigy. I don't mean try the tier 5, end-game scouts. I mean the beginner scouts.
- You should start trying to learn the weak points on tanks by this tier.
- At this point, you should also understand crew skills, how to generally start a new crew, at what points to retrain, and what skills to use in which tank types
Tank Recommendations:
- M8A1 and T49. Lesson: stealth play with TDs. Highly recommended.
- Grille and SU-26 for artillery
- T28. Lesson: Fast, weak tank, with good gun.
- T1 Heavy. Lessons: Hull down play, artillery avoidance.
- T-50. Lessons: Fast scouts
- AMX elc, M7. Lessons: Camoflage management, learning the idiosyncrasies of the sight model
Tier 6 Recommendations:
- Start joining some medium tank companies, even if you have to join bad ones. Even with the bad ones, you'll find the organized play teaches a lot of lessons, too many to list here.
- You may start to feel that you're getting the hang of things, especially if you've managed a win rate > 50%. You may start to get clan invitations. You may have even received them earlier. My advice is to politely decline. Anyone who's going to invite you to a clan at this point is just dredging for numbers. As far as the social aspects of a clan, virtually any clan offers that. You'd be hard pressed to find a clan completely filled with assholes (this is where someone jumps in with an objection), so you want to make sure you're joining a clan that can teach you things. Basic rule of thumb: Don't join any clan where the field commanders or officers don't have tier 10s or aren't as good as you are.
Tank Recommendations:
- KV1s, OP for the tier
- Hellcat
- Cromwell. Lesson: Fast tank, weak gun.
- VK36.01. Lesson: Trade off between the guns, premium rounds, economics.
- AMX12t: Lesson: Autoloaders.
Tier 7 Recommendations:
- It's probably time to decide which tier 10 you'd like to get first. Unless you're heart is set on heavies, I would probably recommend the Soviet medium line, for the T54, and the T62a, which is, in my opinion, the most balanced, flexible tier 10 medium
- If you are set on heavies, I'd recommend the T110e5, again for flexibility.
- Warning: You're going to hit a bit of a wall in tier 7. The match making will generally see you fighting tier 8s and higher, money is going to start getting tight, and the grinds get longer.
- You can start considering buying premium account time at this point. I would try to avoid it earlier than this unless money is not a concern.
- You can start considering buying a premium tank at this point
- By this point, you should know your tanks, their weaknesses and strengths, and the maps. Start looking for similarly skilled players to platoon with. Avoid the temptation of platooning too often with players of significantly greater skill that you. Being carried will boost your short term stats, but you'll also be able to avoid learning some important lessons and that's going to hurt later.
- Start reviewing some of your replays to critique play, especially rounds where your damage < tank hit points.
Tank Recommendations:
- T29. Generally recognized as OP. Lessons: Hull-down play. Slow firing, slow moving heavy tanks.
- T71. Lesson: Playing a fragile tank at high tiers. Autoloaders
- Tiger P. Lesson: Playing a tank with strong armor.
- SU-152: Lesson: Tanks with high alpha
Tiers 8-9 Recommendations:
- Start joining champ tank companies, whenever able. Again, the idea is the lessons you can learn about organized team play. Also, medium tank companies tend to be pretty narrowly focused in terms of tanks allowed. Champ TCs tend to be a bit more varied.
- Consider a premium tank for credits. Recommendations: IS6, Lowe, SU-122-44
Tank Recommendations:
- IS3. Generally considered OP. Lesson: Highly mobile heavies. Dealing with poor gun depression.
- T69. Lesson: Managing magazine reloads in an autoloader.
- AMX 13/90. Lesson: Managing magazine reloads in an autoloader.
- T54. Considered OP. Lesson: Premium rounds and managing money.
- Tiger II. Lesson: Slow heavies with high probability of fire
- AMX 50/100. Lesson: Autloading heavies
- WZ 120. Lesson: High alpha mediums.
Tier 10 Recommendations:
- You can begin considering clan invitations. Look for clans that are actively involved in clan wars and, ideally, are capable of holding some land and can field multiple teams. This is assuming that clan wars is something that interests you.
- You can begin to seek out better players to platoon with. By this point you should not require a lot of hand holding and are able to recognize and absorb some of the subtleties that top players can show. Be polite and don't pester them.
- Read the posts on the forums by purple players on tactical play, etc.
- Join absolute companies, especially if not in a clan or participating in clan wars
Tank Recommendations:
- T62a
- Batchat
- T110e5
As you can see, the roadmap gets a little fuzzy after tier 7. The assumption is that, by that point, if you are serious about playing well, you should have most of the fundamentals down. All that should be missing is experience with higher tier tanks and play at higher tiers. You should be a thinking tanker at this point and, given that, a roadmap becomes less useful. Use your head.