So I've been playing the type a ton ever since I managed to get it out of the large boxes , and I've noticed some people are still not quite sure what the tank is like. So I figured I might as well write a little review about it.
After 70 games I managed a DPG of 2326 with 513 average assistance damage and a 68% WR (I imagine this will go down as I play it more). For comparison , I managed 2.5k dpg on the renegade & 703 v2 and 2.7k dpg on the hilariously broken skoda t56. So it's a little on the lower side compared to those tanks , but not by that much.
First of all : I think the tank will not be enjoyable for people who are quite new and/or just not quite good at the game. Why? Well ;
- The hull armor is tragic. So bad that you can't even bully tier 6's with it. This means you really need to be extremely smart with your peeks because if you make a mistake , you're taking a hit. I've also noticed the engine and ammo rack get knocked out quite a lot , so you really want to avoid taking hits to the hull as much as possible.
- Low hp. This just makes having terrible hull armor worse. Cause you will of course make mistakes in this tank , and be punished for it. Which will just hurt even more when your base HP is 1400 (1450 with field mods). You find yourself being a one shot VERY quickly.
- Low dpm and low alpha. Combined with aforementioned downsides , means trading is pretty much always a bad idea. So you can't side scrape , can't trade , and can't bully tier 6's.
These 3 factors make it so if you're not a very skilled player , you're probably not going to have a very good time. But is it a bad tank? Well , not quite.
It's actually turning into a favorite of mine because of how reliable the gun is.
- Sure , your DPM might be on the lower side , but if you're hitting nearly every shot that doesn't matter all that much anymore. Even when you're not using the cooldown mechanic , it's still very accurate.
I find myself not caring that much about whether I'm up against tier 8's or tier 10's.
- With good aim , patience , and 290 heat ammunition hitting and penetrating weakspots is not all that hard to do.
And for credit grinding against tier 8's and 9's you can often get away with not shooting gold and just aiming for their cuppola's or other weakspots. The 230 AP pen is sufficient for this too.
It also has 12 degrees of gun depression and a great turret against anything that isn't tier 10 gold ammo.
- This makes it a great ridgeline fighter which also has the mobility to get to important hulldown positions quick. Though I wouldn't recommend just sitting still for too long. There is a weakspot right around the gun and very high pen can still go through your cheeks.
It is worth mentioning that the 12 degrees of gun depressions is achieved with a hydropneumatic suspension which is definitely inferior to the "real" gun depression the emil tanks get. It can mess up your aim and I've personally even missed shots because of it and the 12 degrees is only from the front. From the sides , when the suspension is not active , it's actually 8 degrees of gun depression.
For equipment I've been running vents/turbo/rammer for larger maps or for getting in important hulldown positions quick.
The tank has a good base speed limit of 40 and the engine power to actually stay there relatively comfortably , and with a turbo in a mobility slot it actually feels more like a medium then a heavy.
On smaller maps like ensk I'll throw out the turbo for Improved hardening because the extra HP can come in clutch. The tank does not need vstabs in my opinion , the gun handling is good enough without it. And optics can be avoided too if you're running a premium consumable and have a good crew. I managed to get it up to 457 VR which is great for a tier 8 heavy. Although not quite a Renegade!
So final conclusion ;
A good , but well balanced tank. In ideal scenarios it's actually ridiculously hard for the enemy to deal with , but apart from those rare moments it's a tank which often requires a lot of strategizing to play well. If you enjoy the lowe or the 122tm I think you'll enjoy this one too. Personally , I can definitely see myself gathering a couple hundred games in this thing.
All in all a great job from wargaming this year. All tanks seem to be very well balanced but still offer something other tanks don't quite have.
Oh and , don't buy boxes specifically for this tank please. Your odds are so ridiculously low to get the exact tank you want that you might as well just burn your money. I'm sure it'll be on sale sometime the next year and I hope this review will come in handy to someone considering buying it then!
Cheers.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/18cy1ua/type_63_review_after_70_battles/
