Crew Skill Grinding – “In-Line” Tank XP Grinding & Credit Grinding – It’s that time again.

Now that we have a little breather between Campaigns & Clan Wars we can relax & get ready for the next big season. We may say, "My crew is not up to snuff," or "I could use some more credits," in between Frontline events.

Whether you're Crew Grinding, "In-Line" Tank XP Grinding (Combat XP) or Credit Grinding, focus on that w/o worrying about how good you're playing (sometimes, you'll get crazy results, but that's not the point). Let's focus on Crew Grinding, but the method applies to ALL XP grinds & credit grinding. XP grinds or credit grinds, not WN8 farming, WinRate farming or Gun Marking, focus simply on maximizing your XP. You are there simply in battle for the grind on your crew skills or credits. Therefore, approach it as such & focus like a laser beam…

1. Set up your premium tanks w/the crew(s) to be trained. (BTW, tiers 2-5 get a higher % increase to crew skills than do higher tier premiums, therefore it's prolly best to keep all those free tanks WoT gives at tier 2.) Train @ least 2, but having 3 or 4 crews to train in different premium tanks, means you can have more tanks in battle (this will make sense in a moment). Also, you can get the 2x/5x tank bonus on different class tanks w/the same crew your grinding on the first win, just switch 'em in, no matter the tank… MT tank crew into TD, HT, & LT tank, etc. will still get the bonus.
2. Turn on Personal Crew Reserve, free XP & credit reserve. (You want the biggest boost you can get, & if you have Premium time, you can get the 5x bonus on 5 battles (use these on your primary crew to be trained, but make sure you have Accelerate Crew Training turned on prior to battle). Run through all your premium tanks w/2x/5x & then use the top tanks of same class as crew for subsequent games, hence my MT crew plays through the bonuses in the HT/TD/LT & then goes straight MT all the way. Free XP is simply a side item in this regard. Mission Events prolly give better results for Free XP, but may as well use it, it'll be way higher than normal anyway.
3. This may be the hardest to fathom. Play your tank as fast as possible! Drive straight to the front lines (trying to get spotting damage, blocked damage, actual damage – HE may help depending on your gun since you'll be shooting at front armor primarily) & DIE in this position! Pushing for actual time to around 12 minutes left on battle clock or approximately 3 minutes maximum. Considering battle wait times, you want to battle to be in a new battle every 5 minutes or less. Average battle play times, typically, are around 6 minutes approximately, plus wait times.

BUT, you say, you get more XP for wins… just hope your team can pull it out based on your initial battle intelligence from pushing hard! Statistically, all accounts work down/up to 50% over time, even Unicums, btw, but that's a different discussion.

A rough estimate for Crew XP is 25k for Major Qualification (from 75%-100%) & Doubles for each successive Skill/Perk. So 50K XP for 1st SKILL, 100K for 2nd, 200k for 3rd, etc. This is APPROXIMATE, RU math isn't written in stone, just ask Laika.

My typical Crew Skill Grind looks something like this… After 100% Major Qual. > Grind SKILL (NOT Perk here) to 100% > 2nd SKILL (NOT Perk here) to 40% & then Reset for my first PERK (Usually BIA, but for Commander in MT/LT will be SixthSense)… ALL subsequent Resets from here on will be w/Gold for PERKS because losing 40K for the 1st Reset is doable, but for the 3rd is losing nearly the WHOLE 1st Skill in XP. Typically, always Reset for PERKS, because if you are "grinding" a PERK, it is totally useless until it reaches 100%, whereas SKILLS benefit you while you grind 'em.

This method maximizes your Crew XP per minute. Russian mathematics are fuzzy and tracking your actual crew XP in game will be perplexing at best, but tracking your XP per battle will let you see your crew boost in the easiest to track fashion. XP per minute is the name of the game… & works for tank XP on "in line" tanks & works for credit boosting. Keep track of your XP in both milking the game for all it's worth & speed grinding & see which you do best in.

My Results:

14 Total Battles (I got a little sidetracked.) Without Premium Time

1 Hours Credit Reserves @ 50% + Free XP @ 100% + Crew Reserve 100%

Credits Total = $458,696 w/Premium add 50% = $688, 044

Free XP Total = 756 w/Premium add 50% = 1,132

Crew XP Total = 9,906*2=19,812 (w/o 2x bonus per tank & w/o mission bonuses)

Here's the Juice

Totals Per Minute w/Reserves w/o Premium & NOT Trying Hard.

14 Battles = 29.54 Minutes of Actual Battle Time (Crazy, right? I think I was in queue longer!)

Credits Per Minute = $688,044 credits/29.54 minutes = $23,291.94 per minute

Free XP PM = 756 fxp/29.54m=25.59 per minute

Crew XP PM = 19,812 cxp/29.54m=670.68 per minute

Totals Per Minute w/Reserves w/o Premium & Trying Hard!

7 Battles = 51.23 Minutes of Actual Battle Time (Nutso! Who'd thunk?)

Credits Per Minute = $254,378c/51.23m=$4,965.41 per minute (Are you kidding me? All that hard work for that?)

Free XP PM = 574 fxp/51.23m=11.20 per minute (Less than half of above w/the reserves!)

Crew XP PM = 3,699×2=7,398/51.23= 144.40 per minute (NOT EVEN CLOSE!)

Don't take my word for it, try it yourself!

The biggest hurdle for most tankers, or gamers for that matter, will be the feeling of failure. They think they failed the team because they died or failed their clan because their WN8 dropped a hair. I haven't checked the Clan Reserves in Strongholds for this statistic, where everyone is trying hard to win, but there is a substantial boost to credits in that regard, talking 100k per battle w/short battle times. Absent a stronghold, this is your best bet to grind crews, credits & free xp. Hopefully, it'll make your grinds much shorter & you'll be able to focus more on stats because you have the right crew, the right equipment & plenty of credits.

Good luck & happy tanking!