I feel like I am a pretty good player, above average, until I hit around the 11.0 mark in GRB. After that, the game feels like a coked up ADHD game where the only thing that matters is reaction speed. Currently playing Leclercs and because they have no armor the enemy can click me literally anywhere and 1 tap railgun me from any range. I am having trouble finding the niche these are supposed to occupy since the armor on them is paper and their low speed mobility is bad despite their high horsepower. Meaning it takes ages to actually get to the gear in the transmission where gaijin allows them to actually utilize the horsepower.
Like, what do you do in a Leclerc on city or corridor maps? What is the niche its supposed to occupy?
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Best way to play any tank on that high tier is not to get hit in the first place . Play slow check spots don’t be too aggressive use your 5 sec reload to your advance against leopard and russian tanks . Try to hide your hull as much as possible and keep moving your tank while peaking to or while even showing turret so it is harder to aim for weak spot
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The Leclercs are good tanks it’s just that they are not good for all playstyles, these tanks have good gun handling, a fast reload, and good mobility (although it can be a bit crappy sometimes). Since these three things are the tank’s strong points, you basically have to flank all the time and avoid getting hit, just like a light tank. Because you have almost no armor, anything that penetrates will just nuke your crew (and it’s even worse now with the new additions on the dev server). Flanking is the only available playstyle that can consistently get you good results.
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Use them in eccentric routes, places near out of bounds or unexpected paths. Mobility is the Leclerc’s biggest ally, its pretty much an aced Abrams without its turret armor and basket bs (up until next week)
Another thing you can try is to what I may call is flanking hull-down, like on Mozdok. Find hills facing a route sideways and exploit that positional advantage.
Again, the Leclerc was quite okay with its 5s reload and mobility, the armor/survivability will prob be the biggest letdown going forward.
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People will tell you to flank, take advantage of mobility, and things like that.
But you need to remember that about 80% of the top-tier tanks have the same, or almost the same, stats as the Leclerc.
The Leclerc reloads in 5 seconds.
It only has 3 crew members.
And the round isn’t even one of the best.
The speed is very good, but everything is fast at this BR…
And only one Leclerc has thermals in the commander’s sight.
An Abrams has everything the Leclerc has, but with more crew, better penetration, and more armor.
I don’t know where people got the idea that the Leclerc is an improved Abrams.
The Leclerc is a tank that’s neither good nor bad. It does what any other tank (except the Arietes) does, but worse.
If you’re a good player at this crazy BR, you’ll do well with it, but that’s entirely because of your own skill in mastering the tank.
But here on the forum everything is good and wonderful, so they’ll definitely say (like they already have) that this tank is absolutely amazing…
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This is outrageously false btw, Merkavas, T-80/90s, Challenger 2/3s and Arietes are objectively slower under most of RPM and gears than the Leclerc series, the rest of tanks may have particular stronger gears like the ZTZ and the VT4A1, but the only vehicles faster than Leclercs are some Leopard 2s, Abrams and Japanese MBTs.
It is fairly a decent tradeoff.
But you realize you have to pay over a million SL + hundreds of thousands of RP to get just exact reload time?
At least AFAIK I never said its an improved Abrams, quote the part where I said that if you tried to mention my comment in particular.
Except that it actually is a decent to good tank curently (without its updated modules)? With a decent base mobility and a fully meta reload time without crew training at all?
As someone who plays alot, and has every nation to top tier. Leclercs are some of my absolute favorites. Great mobility, fantastic gun handling. I play it the exact same way as literally every other tank inclusing t80BVM.
Top tier is about situation awarness, and map awarness. My first nuke i ever dropped was with the Leclerc sxii. Plus, the Rafale is a beast to do CAS with
Not having any armor at all and always being a 1 shot hinders my gameplay a lot
I have big issue with their low speed mobility
Sadly that is something you must begin to get used to from 11.0 onwards (unless you’re in a Russian vehicle, they’re known for being more forgiving, especially the ones w/ERA sideskirts), don’t rely your gameplay on protection, and only appeal to it against light tanks (and even then, be careful and quick to take them down).
This isn’t true for the Leopard 2a5 in the same lineup I’m using the Leclercs in. I can consistently be armored when utilizing terrain. If I do the same in Leclerc I get railgunned through my turret cheeks from 2km away
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You’re not getting breached which fairly says a lot more about your enemies than your playstyle in particular 🤷♂️
The breach on the 2a5 is about 7x smaller than the total surface area of the entire leclerc’s pennable turret. The breach on the 2a5 also:
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Often fully absorbs APFSDS meaning a certain death just becomes a 20 second repair session because I literally still have all 4 crew.
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I might lose a few crew, but I’m still alive and can repair and re-engage.
It’s extremely rare I die to a 1 tap.
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Again, you don’t play Leclercs for their survivability as a possible feature, you play them for their 5s reload + mobility
Comparing them against one of the most meta turrets at top tier is basically unfair lol
Yes, but it’s basically the only MBT at top tier that physically can almost never do anything but die if an APFSDS hits on your tank. It’s incredibly limiting in engagements where you aren’t just shooting people in the side who don’t know you’re there, and WT maps are often corridor maps.
but you said:
So I said the Leopard 2a5 in my same lineup can bounce shots easily
To which I reply that both 2A5 and 2A6 have 2A4 hulls, those without extra NERA or spall liners, they have basically the same survivability than a Leclerc hull-wise except for the situational UFP ricochet depending on angles.
And that’s why its an excellent tank for flanking with limited brawling potential, I’ve never said anything remarkably similar to have excellent survivability or something along those lines. I mentioned that its volumetrics may save you from time to time, but that happens more or less on any vehicle.
But I digress. As a flanking tank, the moment you get an opening it becomes one of the best tanks in the game to snowball at top tier (imho, of course. And before the upcoming nerfs).
You don’t use Leclercs, plain and simple.
If you don’t wanna loose, you don’t use Leclercs. If you wanna win, you use russian MBTs. And if somehow you’re in the situation where you’re not playing Russia… play a Leo.
You don’t play a t-serie/leo in this game ? You don’t have the META, thus you don’t win.
Balanced, isn’t it ?
yeah, but just as you say:
I also don’t drive around hoping my hull bounces shots. I just move from hull down spot to the next hull down spot. if I have to move in the open to shoot someone I do it the same way I do in leclerc where I just pray I don’t get shot at.
The reason I bring all this up, is because one of the most common situations I find myself in at top tier (or pretty much any BR) is you and an enemy both having cover between you but both of you also being aware of the other and pre-aiming at the other tank in 3rd person. In the 2a5 I can be the first to look over the hill/cover and have a decent chance to bounce his shot while moving aggressively and firing quickly after being exposed. In the Leclerc, I am forced to do the waiting game where we both stand there literally stopped 0kph waiting for the other one to make any sort of move.
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