How to Get Better at Steel Hunter – A Guide

So this was originally written as a comment to another post but I decided to make it an entirely new post instead. I figured, I am qualified to write this with 202 battles and 109 wins on record at this moment.

Steel Hunter is so, so much about situational awareness and decisionmaking. In that area there is a lot of skill involved if you want to perform well consistently. It's just not quite the regular World of Tanks skillset. It's pretty much a different (p2w-free) game with its own learning curve. Understandably, that leads to a lot of people not liking it, but personally I really, really like it.

So here are my tips:

Take drops in an efficient manner (go for clusters of drops). At the same time know your surrounding. Zone closures, drops, but most importantly enemy tanks. What type and what level are they? Use your (big!) radar. Watch out for hostile activity like drop-despawns, shots fired, kills, and scenery destroyed. For this, use overview camera (a lot!) while driving around. Keep track of how they move so you can get a look at them. What are your chances fighting them? Confident? -> Engage. Not confident? -> Move away, don't loiter around as they could jump you.

Also check what tanks are left in the battle both via the TAB-menu and the killfeed. This can help you make decisions as you level up.

Avoid going blindly into a fight unless you are way ahead of the curve.

And when you do eventually get into a fight, keep control of the engagement. Know your and your enemies strenghts and weaknesses. Play your cards right: When to heal, when to use your abilities, while also avoiding the enemies abilities. When to push and when to hide (to get a levelup, reload, heal or disengage). But be on the watch for 3rd parties trying to steal the kills (Radar!). If that happens, change position to not be the one in the middle getting hit by both enemies. Again, Always try to be the one in control of the engagement.

The element of surprise is also very strong. Attack enemies from an unexpected angle (keep out of their vision cone until you are ready) and get the first shot(s) of (maybe also one of your abilities). Often, this can swing an otherwise even engagement in your favor.

And lastly, you obviously need to know your general World of Tanks basics: How to hit and pen your shots and outtrade/ outdpm the enemy, depending on your gun. Also, how to use the terrain and obstacles to your advantage.

Generally, the heavies are harder to play as their lack of mobilty (and worse gun handling) decreases their ability to do many of the things mentioned above. The Walküre in particular was done dirty by WG in this patch.

~Concinus