I'm throwing in my 2 cents about the tank for those who are on the fence about buying it, if it is still available at all. I'm mainly a heavy tank player, non-pro, average-ish.
Let's take a look
Firepower
I think this is the main selling point of the tank, mostly. DPM is nothing special, maybe even below average. It makes up for this with good alpha and great gun handling. The gun handles similarly to the 277, on paper soft stats are also nearly identical, but the 780 has better base accuracy which makes the gun handling better than on the 277. With Field Mods it's also possible to further increase Accuracy and Dispersion stats. Overall the gun is reliable, will hit, can snipe, can snapshot well. No complaints here.
The AP shell is great, the APCR isn't. Both have good velocity for their respective types, but the APCR has low penetration, only 311. Not much of an increase over the AP overall. HE has quite good penetration with 65mm, useful in certain situations.
Armor
I haven't checked, but the tank feels to have below average HP, but not terrible. With my selection of Field Mods I have 2230, no Hardening.
Armor is trollish. Sometimes it will troll you, sometimes the enemy. Turret is decent, with weakspots. The front supposedly can be penetrated with high penetration gold shells. I personally haven't been penetrated there. So far… The central cupola can be hidden with the gun depressed, the side cupolas hold up against almost all standard shells, gold shells will go through, but a bit of aiming is needed, so rocking back and forth, wiggling a bit will help. The hull is well armored, but relies on angles. Frontally the upper plates are autobounce angles, lower plate has around 250-ish effective thickness. Shoulders are easily penetrated if you overangle, but if you peak at lower angles, the shoulders isn't overangled, but the frontal plates are angles well enough to offer protection. Use this with care, better find hull-down positions. With care the armor can work, but it's not the strongpoint of the tank. The IS-7 is much better armored, but I prefer the armor of the 780 over the 277.
Mobility
45km/H going forwards, 15 backwards. You can reach top speed on hard ground, even if you improve it with the Field Mods and that's it. Ground resistance holds the tank back on other ground types, but 40+ top speed is achievable on medium ground. Average speed, will take you from A to B in reasonable time, but not a racecar. I didn't like the turning speed, it felt clunky, but the 277 is 2 degrees/sec slower when turning, 5A has more comparable stat in this regard. Going backwards is average, you can play ridgelines relatively well, nothing special here.
Concealment
It's shit.
Seriously, it's a heavy. What did you expect?
Spotting
Good base view range at 410m, so easy to increase over the threshold. With both VR skills and BiA you are at 441m, so from here you can get a nice VR with either Vents, the Field Mod or Food. I recommend the Field Mod instead of Vents so you can assign an equipment slot to something more useful. Food is optional.
Equipment I run: Modified Config, Rammer and Stabs. I may change the Config with something else. No burning, no ammorack so far. I may try it with Hardening then see what happens.
Verdict
I love this tank, it fits my style really well. It has decent turret armor and enough gun depression to make relatively good use of it. It's fast to not be the last guy to reach important points of the map. The gun serves you very well. DPM is not good, but the gun hits reliably and with the nice alpha damage you can have decent performances with it.
A 279e or a Chieftain will eat you for breakfast almost every time, a Kran will shit down your neck over ridgelines. I had no problems fighting any other tank, tho. What is important for me is that a tank to be able to fight its way out of situations and I could reliably do this against most opponents.
Overall props to WG for the tank (not so much for the release…). I like to say about the 60TP that it's one of the best designs in the game with a clear role, clear strengths and clear weaknesses. I could say the same about the 780. It has a nice blend of things going for it, other things going against it and the tank is fun to play. It's close to the 5A/277/60TP in overall power level. If I would have to choose between the IS-7, 277, 5A and the 780, I would pick the 780.
