Some thoughts about HE changes

First things first: I don’t wanna piss anyone off and I recon this post might be controversial in a way, so let’s just stay polite and have a friendly discussion about what I’ll write.

If we limit our analysis on HE shells only to tanks, so we for the moment leave spgs out of our considerations, changes WG proposed are really sentencing death for many tanks such as KV2, T49 and FV4005 (basically every tank that up to date has been played by slinging HE at its opponents without really caring to aim properly, ‘cause everyone knew would still deal a great amount of damage); on this matter I think there are two possible opinions:

• the one that really enjoys playing that type of tanks will think these changes are basically destroying his game experience and dooming his favorite tanks to oblivion

• the other player, the one usually on the receiving end of the shot, that might think “finally my armour will start to work as intended”

Someone said at some point that the fact that new HEs may only deal a couple hundreds hp of damage is ridiculous, cause some 10/20 kg of TNT should totally wreck a tank; I say is ridiculous to think so: 30 centimeters of raw curved metal won’t really be affected that much by 20 kg of TNT exploding near by, so I don’t as well see why in game my tank with great turret armour should suddenly become butter against hot knife when hit be HE.

I get there are some tanks like S. Conq. that are virtually impossible to be taken down if they manage to get properly hull down, but really that is the strength of that tank and to take away this advantage basically means to nerf it: If my tank is supposed to be played hull down, I might as well wanna be able to play like so without getting pissed by random exploding stuff…

On the matter of crap tanks like 279e or Chieftain, I don’t see a direct correlation between HE nerf and a buff to them; of course you’ll be able to deal way less damage to them (but who really even bothers to shoot at them? Me personally when I see one in game I just change my tactic to completely avoid them), but the problem is the fact that WG in the first place designed such bs tank with such unbalanced strengths.
Really isn’t fair that any average to good hull downer or sidescraper gets pissed by this HE mechanic just because “this is needed to counter those tanks”; as said early if tanks are designed to play in a certain way they should be played like so, and skill should be searched not in dabbing the 3 key but in finding a way to overcome the advantage.

Now we take into account arties…

THIS IS WHERE THE FUN BEGINS (joking, but am I really?)

When you start to consider the fact that with this new mechanic spgs will no longer be able to wreck you without really even hitting you (how many times per game you get a direct hit from arty compared to the times you get damaged at all? Once? Twice?), suddenly mood shifts: no more hell fire raining from the sky coming from uncertain position without any effective counter to it.

I’m more than willing to make this trade, I’m more than willing to trade my ability of countering hulldowning and sidescraping beasts to just cut the legs of redlining arties.
I know it’s lame but lets be honest: who really thinks arties are a great addition to the game and deserve to stay? You might as well completely delete them and things on the matter of gameplay would only improve; and someone might say arties are necessary to counter high tiers hulldowners for example, but I might as well answer to you asking how often arties really focus on doing what they are supposed to instead of just dumping shells on the poor idiot easy to damage? Me I’ll go for the latter option: they just farm damage and rarely have a decisive influence on the game (I know I have a really bad opinion of arties, but I feel they just ruin this game with their ability to compromise your game while sitting in base safe and protected by a whole team; most of the times they just don’t do really much more other than aiming at key positions of the map and shooting when something gets spotted).

All and all, I’m satisfied of the changes of HE: some tanks will certainly be doomed (but will they? If you’ll aim to cupolas you will still deal great damage and this is true only for low calibers, big calibers still have enough pen to go trough sides if aimed properly), but vast majority of all other tanks will get a quality-of-life buff in terms of “my armor now works on par with its raw metal value” and “finally the damn pig (again not intended as an insult: be honest, everyone of us at least once shouted in chat “kill the goddamn pig fgs”) won’t be able to do s**t against me”.

I reckon this post came out a bit more controversial and lamer than what I thougt it would, but again I’m not writing this to piss or insult anyone: just giving some thoughts to see what the others have to say; some opinions I came out with are a bit strong (especially about arties I know) but this really is what I think and how I feel about the whole stuff so why lie about it, but since I don’t want this post to become a source of problems in the community if majority of you think I’ve gone too far just tell me and I’ll promptly delete it.