I like the CR2s too, but they are underperforming or lets say they are not really competitive. Same with the Leclerc. Both vehicles dont get love from Gaijin. These Vehicles have moments where they shine, but not often. In my opinion.
I can respect that, to me they perform well enough to keep play with them.
Especially Black Night, that APS saved my skin countless times from numerous shots, in fact it lets me play much more agressive which catches enemy off guard.
Everybody gangsta until Black Night shows up with Iron Fist.
Being pessimistic is fully justified, yet we should not give up on this matter. Period.
US mains pushed their agenda and Gajin revised their decision, being afraid of backlash. It’s not a lost fight, not for Leclerc’s, not for Challenger 2’s.
Leclerc despite being in sorry state, received a massive nerf, while others got nation-wide armour and reload buffs, volumetric rings, better darts.
To keep game anyhow balanced, buffs are very likely to come. Sending the message that we are ok with enormous FCS tied to optics, and SHARD will do, is a tactical error.
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They’re like the Soviet tanks, the issues are baked into the design and outside of specific variants that may adress one, but not another, they’ll always be more limited compared to the leopard or Abrams.
If the average match setup was different said issues might be less crippling, back in the days there were France/UK against Soviets as a recurrent matchup and it was usually a competitive match, and pretty enjoyable one, even on maps that were already suboptimal back then.
I really hate to be a downer here because I agree that the Leclerc should receive multiple buffs, however Gaijin really doesn’t care too much about balance and them Gaijin revising their decision on the SEPv3 also had nothing to do with balance.
Gaijin only cares about revenue (makes sense of course since they are a business), the only reason that they revised their decision on the SEPv3 is because the US playerbase is large and earns them a lot of money.
5 Likes
There’s got to be some sort of metric they have going on behind the scenes that fails to account for how unsupported trees don’t generate as much revenue
Because otherwise I really can’t figure out why France was the last tree in the game to get a rank VII premium tank, and when it did, it was just a copy-pasted German tank, instead of anything actually interesting and French
France is one of only 2 trees where the most games played by premium tanks every month isn’t top tier, but it’s instead Rank V.
I’d expect that if France got a little more support in the 8.3-11.0 range (maybe a stabilized ERC variant) + an actual domestic premium, a lot more players would being playing the French ranks VI-VIII
While in a perfect world bug fixes and attention aren’t tied to revenue, there’s likely at least a level of correlation, and until France has some actual French premiums, it’s unlikely they will be as appealing as premiums from other nations.
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Exactly, you nailed the point. Also, better top tier would bring new people which means better sell for premium time and premium vehicles.
I believe same goes Japan, their top tier don’t need to be meta, it’s decent enough, unique and interesting. On top of that Fuji is a very good tank and Gajin takes profits out of that.
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They probably were hesitant to drop a premium Leclerc that would have been a literal buy-in to top tier, and ended up falling back on the 2A4 as a basic but reliable choice.
As much as I dislike the leopards, you can’t take away that they are accessible. Also the premium need to be appealing both to people that are already playing the tree, and the others, and in that sense a Leclerc prototype wouldn’t be ideal imo.
In the end, the Senrai Maidens packs might be the best shot at getting an actual French premium…
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If France didn’t have anything between 10.0 and 12.7 that would make sense, but there’s the whole EPC family of Leclerc prototypes (6 models), which I’ll posit are more interesting to players than you think.
Because they were produced prior to the use of OFL 120 F1, they should only have access to OFL 120 G1, like with the MSC. This would give France a half dozen potential tanks with the armor and fire rate of the standard Leclerc, but the shell of the MSC, making it analogous to the Type 90 from Japan, which is clearly very popular (hence why I think a Leclerc prototypes would have been a reasonable option).
That’s plenty to choose from for TT, Premium, Squadron, and Event vehicles, and 11.3/11.7 could get augmented with vehicles like the VEXTRA P.O.L.E. and Panhard Sphinx.
9 Likes
Not like Leclerc in it’s current form is anywhere close to top tier material. I don’t understand how it’s a wole 1.0 BR above sme of it’s actual equivalents
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11.3 also has the advantage of haing everything but a good SAM (with options that exist, such as early Crotal, which would be analogus to the OSA in terms of range). Good heli, excellent CAS, 1 light tank (with potential for more), the MSC, Leopard 2 just belllow…
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Rather simple answer, statistics based balancing, prior to people picking the Abrams back up in droves, the Leclerc was running very good stats (and still is), to Gaijin that signals the tank is fine (which is not true obviously) so they have no real interest in changing it.
Maybe someday Gaijin will place the S1 and S2 at 12.0-12.3 and then give Shard to S21 and AZUR keeping / moving them higher, and adding in the EPC Leclerc models to fill in the gap from 11.0 to what would be 12.0-12.3 but that’s just my cope
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Thats easy. It’s french ☻
and doesnt have a premium version of it in the game. Literally the only top tier/high tier mbt in the game that doesnt have a premium version or event version of it in the game. Together with the top tier merkavas which id bet are equally suffering.
Bit weird though that theres premium challys now that still suffer through their arbitrary 4 round first stowage ammo. That must have slipped their minds somehow to change that as soon as they introduced premium challys
5 Likes
At least Israel has the rank VII premium Merkava
France is the only tree that doesn’t have a domestic premium for rank VII ground (and same with air at rank VIII)
For whatever reason the French tree keeps getting new naval additions, but ground and air is more than 50% copy-pasted imports
Just wait for a premium Leclerc to come that is 12.0 but better than the 12.7 tech tree versions. Just to rub some salt in the france players wounds. And to carry over what they started with the addition of the Jean Bart in naval into the ground tech tree. Id not be surprised in the slightest.
TBH i completely stopped playing france with all the changes, constant buffs to other nations tanks but introduction of turret baskets to leclercs. Not worth it. Why should i? To face better tanks at 1.0 BR lower when i’m in a full downtier? To spade a leo 2a6 to finally have a usable tank playing france at 12.7??? well, leclercs are “usable”, but u get what i mean. A 11.7 type 90 is also usable at 12.7. And its got some serious advantages over lots of the top tier tanks…Yeah, nah…im not willingly putting myself at a disadvantage for fun.
EDIT: Actually…now im wondering why i used all that time to spade a slow af t90m Arena…maybe im just a bit stupid
Yeah I have spaded literally every tabk in the french tree except the leclercs. They are just not fun to play anymore when literally anything you encounter will be better than you.
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In most things at least, yeah. And even in full downtiers. Youre just a worse type 10 but with better maneuverability bc the type 10s turning is still botched beyond belief. And slightly better armor. So still paper everywhere from the front but some selected spots. Meaning you cant really engage in sniping hull down duels on long range maps.
It can still be good in brawling due to the reload and some capability to reverse sidescrape. And then you die because that damn round doesnt deal critical damage in the one important situation where the other tank would have died to basically any other top tier round. That round being as inconsistent as it is (thats the way i feel about it) makes it so no matter how good you play it, you can basically die in any situation because the round might just decide to not do what youre expecting it to do, making lots of shots dicerolls that shouldnt be. Especially if russian era comes into play. Thats not such a problem with other higher penning top tier rounds.
If the only advantage of playing a leclerc is having -on average- better or very good teammates, at least the 2 other guys in your team that are still doing it to themselves to play france top tier, then im afraid thats not enough to keep lots of players interested in playing france top tier.
2 Likes
Slight adjustment to that
And it doesn’t help that France hasn’t gotten a single unique or French ground design since November 2025, so it’ll have been about 10 months since the last one (assuming this update actually has a French ground vehicle)
A lack of new content + Imported (non-domestic) Premiums + large gaps in the TT = a tree that’s not as appealing to new players
A tree that’s not as appealing to new players results in two things:
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less revenue to the tree (premium time and premium vehicle sales); and
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a higher than average level of experience for players in the tree (which results in overtiered vehicles)
It’s cyclic, and unless the devs make an intentional push towards supporting the tree and attracting new players, it’s going to keep going as is
5 Likes
They heard you. Abrams for france sob
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Kinda feels like France is back to the time where the Lorraine 40t reached 24K SL repair cost.
Way too long without any major addition (only EBRC jaguar has been really worth someone searching the entire tree since the Leclercs arrived) and we are back to the ground tree becoming worse and worse.
Only highlights right now are the 6.0-7.7 BR and (imo) 11.0 with the MSC
7 Likes