Tier 10 heavy tanks/armor useless in the long run?

Hi,

I'm a new to the game but I have been reading/hearing that when Wargaming announces a patch with new tanks, the tanks tend to be better than the existing ones so people would play them (and make more money to WG) Soon they will run to a dead end, since you simply cannot add just more and more powerful tanks to the game without braking it in the end.

With the latest British TDs introduced I have seen that their tier 10 TD can take away quite a chunk of health from a tier 10 heavy tank, sometimes killing them in 2 shots.

Also I have read about debate that armor is "nowadays" useless because of the golden ammo you can buy for credits. I have been wondering would it be wise just to focus just on medium and light tank grinding now that I'm still on the lower tiers?

Hi,
Certain tanks are definitely a poor choice at high tiers, but mediums are NOT the only big players either.
T110E5 is currently the most reliable tier X heavy as it carries respectable DPM (2900 ish), close to those of Patton MK3 and FV medium, while still boasting very powerful armor. Maus on the other hand, is fairly useless in the face of prem shells because while tanks like T110E5 is vulnerable to prem shells on its usual weakspots, its mantlet is made of spaced armor thus "absorbs" prem shells fairly easily wheras the flat turret cheeked Maus or E-100 cannot.
In terms of ranking tanks atm...

Tier X heavies:

-T110E5 (good combination of great handling, great gun and great frontal armor, the mantlet is capable of abosrbing very heavy shells and upper glacis is capable of bouncing almost all shells. Tumor weakspot on turret makes the tank somewhat poor at hull down compared to most US tanks)

-T57 (Heaviest burst on tier X heavies, highest DPM of all heavies, better armored and fires faster (2 sec between each shot rather than 2.5) than 50B, fairly arty resistant)

-FV215B (Highest non-autoloader DPM, overall better gun performance than T110E5 except gold shells, not very armored, but fairly mobile, high HP for its dpm)

-IS-7 (Known for nightmare front armor, impenetratable turret to non-gold shells, almost impossible cupola to hit, close range monster, medium DPM, poor gun accuracy performance and poor hull turn speed.)

-E-100 (High DPM, requires gold shells to pen reliably at longer distances, highest alpha of tier X heavies, very high HP, slow, turret armor is decent, excellent angler.)

-IS-4 (Medium DPM, accurate gun for soviet standards, slower than IS-7, more HP than IS-7, armor universal capable of bouncing tier 8-9 guns, but fail to impress against tier X guns. Good turret, but roof is very thin.)

-AMX 50B (Faster version of T57, but much bigger, way less armored and worse gun performance, 30mm side and rear armor means almost guranteed HE pen from artillery, takes heavy damage from any nearby splashes due to weak side/under armor)

-Maus (Requires patience and knowledge to play, slowest tier X, worst DPM (abyssmal 2390 vs 2900 on T110E5) and 2nd worst pen on both AP and APCR. Impossible to attack without exposing easy to hit weakspot, angling made obsolete with certain gold shells. Biggest size in game makes tank arty priority in random battles due to its huge EXP reward)

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Tier X mediums

Batchat 25t (Fastest medium, combined with highest burst potential (average 1950 dmg per salvo) makes batchat 25t the choice for a scout and hit n' run. 38 seconds reload time, worst armor, bad aimtime and lowest HP makes the tank vulnerable after its salvo is unloaded and makes the tank a poor choice for sniping armored tanks, lowest DPM but made up for by burst)

FV4202 (Best gun depression, good turret and excellent gun handling makes this rather slow medium tank a great tank for long distance sniping or terrain combat)

E-50 Ausf M (Best accuracy and medium DPM while capable of sidescraping extremely well makes ausf M a serious contender, with 6 degree gun depression the tank is fairly acceptable)

T-62A (Highest DPM among medium tanks, but lowest alpha. While its DPM is high, the armor is not, the hull is thinner than its predecessor T-54 and its speed likewise. Due to heavier weight and weaker engine than T-54, the tank has great handling but poor acceleration, making this tank very slow while climbing hills, combine this with an abyssmal 5 degree gun depression and you have a tank with a high DPM sniper gun with poor flexibility.)

Patton MK3 (Was a top medium before its major nerf. It's bigger than T110E5 while being less armored, thus the tank, while having great handling, has top speed that's somewhat bad. Gun performance is the least accurate, but great stabilizer, however, the tank is let down by poor DPM for its accuracy compared to ausf M and FV4202)

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Tier X TDs:
No clear good one... they're extremely specialized.

Very weak to arty (very high chance of HE pen) all very fast TDs:
Foch 155: Best burst - high priority target killer, easily unleashes hell before it dies, team dependant, long aimtime.
Object 268: Annoying (very low shell velocity) but very accurate gun, great DPM, best camo during movement and while staying still. Highest pen in game, but not very noticeable.
Object 263: Frontal armor is comparable/better than T110E3, lowest alpha but same DPM as object 268, open cabin means if it gets hit inside by arty, tank is gone.

Medium arty ressistance (safe on front and mostly on sides) medium speed TDs:
T110E4 (turreted TD, well armored, lowest DPM, very flexible TD as it can fight in place of a heavy tank)
FV 183mm (T92 in TD mode, 1750 +- 25% dmg gold shells, capable of 1 shooting almost every tank in game, but longest reload time and worst accuracy/aimtime)
T110E3 (Arguably most armored TD, debate between T95, object 263 and this, higher DPM than T110E4, but slower)

High arty ressistance (almost never get HE pen):
Jagdpanzer E-100 (2nd highest alpha, very good upper superstructure, slow as hell and long aimtime. Worst mobility, considered by many as the worst tier X TD.)

I would not suggest to make your decision what tanks to grind on estimations about how the game might be balanced in tier 10 in future, because

1) new game features and constant 'rebalancing' of tanks is part of the WoT business model to keep the game interesting and what seems to be a powerful tank today can loose a lot of it's potential within a few patches, e.g. Maus, Marder, T50-2, etc. Even whole tank classes can be buffed or nerfed, e.g. introduction of physics in 8.0 resulted in a nerf of tanks relying on mobility and effectively buffed tanks relying on armor as protection. Now, it's the other way round with premium ammo.

2) It's a long way to tier 10 (unless you buy your way through the tiers) and hard to play from the economic point of view. It's quite possible that one day you decide not to advance to tier 10 at all for this reason.

Why deciding between lights/medium on the one hand and heavies on the other? Not focusing to much on a specific tank class gives you a better understanding of the enemy tanks you are dealing with and thus improves your overall game play. And finally, I would rather chose what fits best to my playstyle and what I have most fun with.

Hi .

You dont need to worry about tier X atm , as you are already at start of the game , and your likings might change . If you want my opinion , tier X atm is overrated . I consider most tier Xs as trophy/ Cw specialized tanks that nowadays are hard to play in randoms because of stupid teams . Imo you should ask yourself what tier 7 you want first , and from then see how you will proceed . You got a long way ahead of you , and if you start thinking now about tier X , then you wont enjoy the ride to it

Have a read of this http://blog.noobmeter.com/2013/01/patch-83-january-tank-winrates-and-op.html

Plenty of info up to 8.3

War, I enjoy my tier X quite nicely. But that might just be me.

Very informative, clear and to the point reply to OP.
Most welcome and helpful to me too. Thanks Kawa .

Kawa covered the tanks already I think (kinda hard to miss). But I would like to say that I like to play my t10 also, and my first t10 was E-100, considered among the worst t10 tanks. And I still like it, even though I don't use gold all the time. I save that for those that piss me off by using gold on me, then I hold nothing back! IS-7 I enjoy very much also, has quite fun "in your face" playsyle, at least for me. And can't wait to have enough money to get my E-50M.

Kawashiro wrote:War, I enjoy my tier X quite nicely. But that might just be me.

Well , Im not saying that high tiers are bad , far from it , they have a certain beauty that lower tiers will never experience imo . But at least to me , playing the few tier 9s I have , is more of a dissapointment because of not only fail teams , but also because of arties , gold ammo spam at times , stuff like that . I play this game to relax and have fun , but also kinda miss nice high tier battles . So I prefer playing either tier 8s , or some of my tier 7 scouts .

Vallu01 wrote:Kawa covered the tanks already I think (kinda hard to miss). But I would like to say that I like to play my t10 also, and my first t10 was E-100, considered among the worst t10 tanks. And I still like it, even though I don't use gold all the time. I save that for those that piss me off by using gold on me, then I hold nothing back! IS-7 I enjoy very much also, has quite fun "in your face" playsyle, at least for me. And can't wait to have enough money to get my E-50M.

Since its buff, E-100 is now considered mid tiered (mainly because E-100 is a firepower reliant version of Maus with better spaced armor making it way more effective than Maus in face of gold spam). IS-7 is considered on the low end, but I'll be honest and say that's because the propaganda that IS-7 is OP just reaches newbies ears and make them play stupidly. I still maintain maus and 50B are the two "worst" due to them having the lowest gold pen shells, and their armor dependent strengths made somewhat obsolete with gold shells.