Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Maldevious]

Start with the US or Russia... Actually, start with both, since you will want a few tanks to play (can only be in 1 battle per tank at a time). Don't rush forward blindly. Don't get too mad if you lose (it is a team game with varying levels of teamwork from match to match). Try and stick together with teammates. Enjoy!

[The Scout]

I like Germany. I still have the Traktor, and use it a lot. The auto-cannon on it wrecks other light tanks.

[Flying Dice]

The USSR is probably your best bet to start with. They've got good heavies, decent TDs, decent mediums, mediocre arty, and two of the best lights. But of course branch out; the US and Germany are both good as well, though the German mediums get very tedious and the US lines have a long test of patience in the form of the Lee. Any of the main 3 (Germany/USSR/US) TD lines are good; German ones tend to be well-rounded, Soviet ones have big guns but tissue paper armor, and many of the US ones are turreted. The Chinese line has some fairly good tanks as well.

Personally I play Soviet heavies, US and USSR mediums, German TDs, and lights from the USSR as my "keepers", alongside various lines I'm grinding through.

Just in general though, the KV-1 is as close as you can get to an unquestioned "best tank" of any given tier, and is essentially a license to print credits once you've got the top components for it.

[tryrar]

If you want an advanced line, the french are the way to go. They have a very frustrating grind early on, but if you stick with it you can get some very awesome tanks. My favorite tank, bar none, is my ARL 44 heavy tank. It has a beastly 90mm with 212 pen and 240 damage, and 120mm of frontal well=sloped armor(making its effective armor somewhere in the 170-180 range), meaning you can brawl in it if you want(just keep its front pointed at the enemy, since your side armor is crap!).

Do note, that frenk tanks are advanced due to being more support and long ranger attackers(especially higher tiers!), but they are the only line that gets consistent high damage autoloaders!

[Sirus]

Is very very high ping a common problem in this game? I just played my first match. 999ms of ping throughout the entire match, with my controls horribly unresponsive. I'm amazed that I even managed to hit anything.

EDIT: Okay, apparently that was a fluke. The other matches I've tried had much more reasonable ping. I even got my first kill and a victory!

[tryrar]

ouch, high ping like that is usually a network issue, not a game issue

[Wimopy]

There's an incomplete guide, but as before the common ones are the hull MG mounts, viewports, the commander's cupola, and the turret ring (if visible). Those are pretty much universal, save for a few tanks that don't have one or two of them for whatever reason. If you're really dedicated, you can memorize the ones for popular tanks beyond the universal weakpoints.

The best description I've heard for what to shoot: "Anything that isn't a flat sheet of metal." "Anything that sticks out of the flat metal surface."

What I normally do? Since I driver higher vehicles like the KV-3 and T29, I prefer to aim for the hatch on the turret. A Type decides to hull down using my own hull? Shooting the hatch might kill a crew member or two and it's a guaranteed pen. Also, the hatch is generally large and easy to hit, even from 50m with KV-3.

Seriously, anything except a second sheet of armour is a weakspot (and that's mainly just the PzIV and SuperPersh). Bonus of weakspots is that many are located near a module or crew member, you won't just do damage, you'll cripple them, too.


As for how to start? It doesn't really matter, the first few hundred (thousand?) battles are the most important to learn basic survival and how you play. I'd suggest starting any line and going for heavies first. It's probably a nice idea to go for the KV first, the paper armour will force you to be tactical, while you'll get decent weaponry and even meet derp guns where you have to be patient and line up shots.
The KV-1 also keeps with that, except you get armour.
After that, you can go for TDs and SPGs, yet you still will know generic approach routes and how an average player fights and reacts (because either you will be an average player, or you'll be able to see how others do things)

There are many guides, but it's 500-1000 battles of experiences that will help you, no guide can teach you better than spontaneous destruction because you made the wrong decision. Trial and error, like DF (except that DF has guides that you can follow because there's less randomisation, your basic layout can stay the same.)

Speaking about DF: Go into battle chanting "Losing is Fun." (to yourself) and make it true; even if you do lose, try and make the most of it.

P.S.: Damn, I love making long posts that have no point!

[Jopax]

Gotta love people with zero spatial awareness. So I'm in my Patton and I come up against a Super Pershing, he goes all "I'll angle my armor, that'll show him!" but he does it so that despite his front becoming autobounce I can now easily shoot his squishy sides from a 45 degree angle. So I kill him because he doesn't realize this and doesn't adjust his hull at all.

He then tells me that I'm using premium since there's no way I could penetrate his angled front with regular shells.

[tryrar]

Yet ANOTHER steel wall in my ARL, this time from a KV-1S with the crappy stock gun(didn't even have the short 122 howitzer you'd usually have unlocked from the KV!) that I facehugged to prevent easy weakspotting, and a t-34-85 that bounced a couple shots before I explodinated him, as well as a VK3001(P or H, don't remember) and an M6(granted, the m6 was shooting at extreme range, but that 90 did still get a couple pens)

This thing just passed my t-150 and is rivalling my KV-1 for number of steel walls!

[TheBronzePickle]

Got my third ace today in my Hetzer. I pretty much led a charge and blasted through every tank in my way. Nobody even managed to do damage to me.

[Sirus]

Had my first "bullshit!" moment last night

Here's the scenario: I'm in a tier 1 light tank (might have been the Soviet tank, or maybe the German). I have just bought and equipped an autocannon after some positive experiences with similar guns on other tanks. I'm rolling around just behind enemy lines when I spot an enemy light tank on a ridge below me, facing out towards an open plain and leaving its rear armor vulnerable. I roll down towards it, come to a stop just meters away, it hasn't noticed me yet. I proceed to unload 9 rounds into it...only for it to emerge with 100% health. 9 rounds. Point-blank range. No damage. And I know I heard my crew shouting things like "Direct hit!".

It hits me once while I'm reloading, I manage to get off another three rounds (which actually cause a little bit of damage) before its second shot explodes me.

Considering how I've used similar autocannons to snipe enemy tanks and even engage in a one-on-one duel and emerge unscathed, I have to wonder: WHY?

[The Scout]

...Maybe it had good rear armor?

[Sirus]

It was another tier 1 light tank, how good could it have been?

Maybe I just got really unlucky with the dice rolls.

[WealthyRadish]

Killed a T26E4 in a T-50 that was about to kill one of our T29s. It was pretty hilarious, considering how much damage I actually did to it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Weirder still, I had the most experience earned on my team, in a tier IX fight. God, I love this tank.

[tryrar]

Had my first "bullshit!" moment last night

Here's the scenario: I'm in a tier 1 light tank (might have been the Soviet tank, or maybe the German). I have just bought and equipped an autocannon after some positive experiences with similar guns on other tanks. I'm rolling around just behind enemy lines when I spot an enemy light tank on a ridge below me, facing out towards an open plain and leaving its rear armor vulnerable. I roll down towards it, come to a stop just meters away, it hasn't noticed me yet. I proceed to unload 9 rounds into it...only for it to emerge with 100% health. 9 rounds. Point-blank range. No damage. And I know I heard my crew shouting things like "Direct hit!".

It hits me once while I'm reloading, I manage to get off another three rounds (which actually cause a little bit of damage) before its second shot explodes me.

Considering how I've used similar autocannons to snipe enemy tanks and even engage in a one-on-one duel and emerge unscathed, I have to wonder: WHY?

Yeah. that's a real bullshit moment....unless it was a french light. French lights are stupidly armored at low level