I can't seem to understand why players say that "arty reduces camping" when in fact it actually promotes it. Think about it if you play arty you stay in the back wait for enemies to be spotted then shoot at them from across the map and then relocate. Also if the enemy team sees an arty on the other team what do you think they'll do run out in the open and play aggressive? NO, they will use the map in any way possible in order to avoid arty. If you think about it arty plays by the exact same vision rules as other tanks do. If the only tanks that are spotted are the ones trying to fight and defend an important location who do you think arty is going to shoot at? There is absolutely ZERO statistical evidence that arty reduces camping, in fact, I have plenty of demos saved in which I was simply getting into position or fighting a position and still getting shot by arty.
Here's another argument people use "arty does not do a lot of damage anymore". This one confuses me the most. In lower-tier matchups arty just DESTROYS any tanks that are spotted as most lower-tier tanks are lightly armored. In higher tier matchups arty still does a lot of damage because the shell is hitting directly on your side, back, or mainly on top of your tank which isn't that armored. And even if arty didn't do that much damage there's that beloved stun mechanic they have in which in averaging every arty in the game the arty usually only needs to hit around 9m around your tank in order to give you stun effect in which lasts about 10 crucial seconds. As you may know the stun mechanic basically "injures" your whole crew for a certain amount of time. This means that your aim time, reload time, mobility, and others are temporarily much worse. The arty doesn't even need to try aiming at you in order to stun you and this stun mechanic severely reduces your ability to provide support to your team. So unless you use your medkit which has a cooldown of 90sec you are basically useless.
One last argument they use "just dodge the arty shells EZ". As you may all know there is usually a heavy side and a medium side for each map. The heavy side is the side in which multiple tanks have to battle it out in order to take an important chokepoint. These chokepoints are not that big and with the decreased mobility and traverse speed of tanks, it is almost impossible to dodge arty shells. These chokepoints with very few exceptions have open skies for the arty to simply shoot you. The medium side is no different either. While although the medium side is usually a lot more open there are also crucial positions that mediums want to take in which also have small areas (it can simply be a bush and a few trees for example). These areas are even more than likely to have open areas so that's easy pickings for the arty.
NOTE: I don't want arty to be removed just changed like instead of stun and damage they have smokes to stop tanks from being spotted, flares to spot other tanks, and others. They can still have their damage but the reload time should be increased to discourage this and stun should be removed or reduced.
Can anyone add to what I have said or want to change anything I have said I'm completely open to new ideas so please type away.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/fy9v3g/arty_rantargument/