4Game

Wall of text, be warned 🙂

During Team Clash on EU and Dynasty Wars on NA (and I guess the same would be true for SEA and RU, respectively), us BB players (and WG, of course) got a lot of criticism to give everyone a tier X tank even if they were brand new in the game. I can certainly stand behind the criticism for the most part, I even told a guy – very politely I might add – that with less than 200 battles tier X may not be the best place for him. Nevertheless, not all BB players are created equal and I hope I’m one of those who were more often than not a positive influencer. I got to level 11 to make sure that I get my Dragon commander as WG’s wording left it up in the air whether you need to be at level 10 or get to 11 (probably the former but who knows).

On the other hand, I’m thankful for WG to give us this opportunity to participate, earn rewards and also test drive some interesting tanks I’m on my way getting anyway. I don’t have any regular tier X tanks in my garage. I have the Kranvagn researched but I spent my silver on consumables and equipment during the recent sales and bought a few tanks like the Pantera or the IS-2-II. Also, I’m at best an average but rather a below average player: after 4663 battles I’m at 49.2% win rate, 558 average damage and around 900-1000 WN8 (depending on the stats site). After my return to the game (rroughly after a year) my stats are improving but as you can see, I’m not exactly stellar. To be frank, I played a little over 1800 battles on console (62.7%, 1200 WN8, Xbox) and almost 11k battles on Blitz (also NA, 55%, 1880 WN8, 4 tier X tanks in the garage there) but those experiences don’t always translate to PC. My in-game name is the same as my Reddit name on all platforms, you can look it up if you want at your preferred site. The BB stats are only available in-game as far as I know.

Now, onto my experiences: as I played quite a few battles in tiers 8-9, I wasn’t completely new to the tier X scene in terms of tanks, weak points etc. Nevertheless, it felt good to be finally on the top of the food chain, no matter what. I also would like to share how I ran the BB tanks and with what results to convince the veterans that not all BBs were bad 🙂 All tanks had camo and were fully equipped with rammer, vstab and optics or vents depending on the tank. I also used food on some of them and directives. As you can see below, my results are anything but stellar, yet I don’t think I was really worse than many regular tier X players.

Panzerkampfwagen VII: played only 2 battles, 50% win rate, 3453 maximum damage, 1726+905 average damage and assisted. I like the look of this tank in general and I like my heavies but it was way to slow for me to play more than those 2 battles. I retrained my VK3001H commander (Twitch commander) to have sixth sense but otherwise used the crew it came with. These 2 battles certainly didn’t convince me to grind the line although I may go for the VK3001P at one point as I liked it in Blitz and it seems a solid tank.

Progetto 65: played only 2 battles, 100% win rate, 1834 maximum damage, 1258+1488 average damage and assisted. I was really negatively surprised by the reload on the tier X Spagetto. As I only retrained my Buffon commander (the first one you could get back in the day), I didn’t have my full BiA crew from the Pantera but had rammer, rammer directive and food but it was still abysmal for my taste. I enjoy the Pantera and the premium Progetto and of course, sometimes I wish for a 4th shell but the 3 shell mag seems to work better for me (side note: I like my Emil II and IS-3A with 3 shells and tried the Lorraine – rental – but it didn’t work for me). I still wanna get this tank, I wanna be on the receiving side of enemy rage when the upper front plate bounces but not gonna rush it – although I’m looking forward to the Standard B for sure.

Object 140: played 19 battles, 535 win rate, 2647 maximum damage, 1340+640 average damage and assisted. I was looking forward to this tank, saw it in many streams and videos. I researched the T-43, so I’m going towards this and the 430U. Using food, rammer and directive the DPM was great and liked the mobility but having played at least somewhat similar tanks (T-62A on Blitz, T-44-100) it wasn’t my focused tank. I also retrained my T-34-85 crew: ex-Rudy crew with 0-skill BiA and on their 3rd regular skills, I guess that also helped. Ultimately I wanna get this tank but the 430U has priority.

WZ-111 5A: played 82 battles, 60% win rate, 4736 maximum damage (personal record at that time), 1912+617 average damage and assisted, first MoE (yes, I’m aware expectations were extremely low). Used the crew it came with although could have used a better one, used food and sixth sense directive until I got the first skill, and got to 80% in the second one. Wow, where to start with this? I like the Soviet heavies like the IS-3, IS-3A or the double barreled ones, so it wasn’t a surprise that I digged this one. I knew that it’s a strong tier X and it certainly proved it even with me. For me 2k+ damage in any tank is already a great result and I had quite a few 3k+ and even some 4k+ games – I’m at the Type 58 now and it’s no question that I wanna get the 5A. It also convinced me to go for the Object 277 first instead of the IS-7 (plus I have good memories of the IS-8 (T-10) in Blitz).

UDES 15/16: played 39 battles, 54% win rate, 5108 maximum damage (my current record), 1684+717 average damage and assisted. Another tank I was very happy to try. I’m at the tier 8 UDES 14 and quite like it, as such the suspension wasn’t new, the good turret was though. I retrained my UDES 14 crew (Twitch prime commander with 4 skills, another girl from the time when Swedish tanks were released with 4 skills and a regular dude with 3 skills including BiA) and used the rammer directive and food for some time. Then I realized that it likes to burn more than my T-34-1 in Blitz and put on the automatic fire extinguisher… Nevertheless, despite a really hard start with it, the tank grew on me, loved it. Sure, it’s a bit awkward but I’m happy that I decided to go with it – and probably the most important thing: it looks dope AF :)))

In total I played 144 battles at tier X with 57.6% win rate and 1763 average damage. I know my damage output is rather inconsistent, hence the low number but I certainly feel that for the most part I was an asset to the team and not just ballast. Sure, I had my typical rage moments, some bad streaks but a lot of memorable battles with decent, good or even really nice results, at least on my level. As you can see, I invested quite some gold in crew retraining, a lot of silver for directives and food, used gold equipment (and of course was not shy to use prammo, although as much as possible, I tried to shoot regular rounds) to make sure that I don’t drag down the teams more than I would in my regular tanks otherwise.

TL, DR: as someone who doesn’t have tier X tanks yet (just one researched), I played the rental tanks and tried to be useful. Ultimately, thumbs up to WG for the event, the rental tanks and the rewards.