Matilda, the Early Churchills, the M6s, The late heavies like the M103 and Conqueror.
Yeah they can do okay in good hands, BUT they still are suffering from powercreap.
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The Matildas do pretty well at 2.7 I’d say, a beast in downtiers and a viable support tank in uptiers. I’ve never enjoyed the Churchills, mostly due to their sluggish mobility and conpletely flat, slighly lackluster armour. Neither the M6A1 and the T1E1 have any heavy armour to speak of, and on top of that the armour profile is rather flat, meaning you have to play it more conservatively to make it work.
The M103 and the Conqueror on the other hand are in my opinion powerful tanks that should be played like tank destroyers. The M103 has strong armour overall with few weakspots, while the Conqueror has strong armour as well except for the big LFP weakspot and the commanders cupola. However, the thing is, both of them have nearly unmatched firepower at the BR, being able to kill any enemy in one shot usually. Don’t be fooled by the M103s HEAT-FS, take the AP shell with far more post-pen damage instead. The Conquerors 120mm APDS paired with the full stabilizer allows you to stay hull down, spot an enemy, peek up, and quicky shoot to kill.
But sure, played like “invincible heavy tanks”, all of these do in fact suffer.
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So you want barrel/track damage disabled?
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Or perhaps heavy tankers shouldn’t get into situations where their barrel is easily shot out. The barrel being destroyed is usually a result of staring directly, completely still, at the enemy after a missed/non-damaging shot. Wiggling the turret, paired with network delays, is often a very effective tactic for preserving the barrel. If an enemy camping around a corner, manages to pinpoint the barrel of a heavy tank barging around the corner, they deserve to get the kill.
I’m just saying, when in any vehicle, despite how much armour it has you need to be aware of the fact that your barrel and tracks can be destroyed by anyone. Play and position accordingly.
Also, with new modules arriving for ground vehicles, I find it highly unlikely that barrel damage would be abolished or even reduced, even though “mUh p0oR tigER” or whatever poster-child that fits in the heavy tank category is suffering from it :)
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The T34 is a very good tank and the T95 isn’t bad either. And I never heard anyone complaining about the IS3’s performance apart from players who said it’s too good.
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Some time ago I thought that the KV-1B/E was OP. But that’s what a heavy tank is supposed to feel like.
On the other hand, I feel crazy when I can take an M24 into 5.3 battles and still be able to deal out nasty slaps in the face.
We just need better maps.
I’m only at 4.7± uptier right now, and already it is hilarious how big of a difference what map you are spawned on makes for usability of certain nations and tanks.
Linear Objectives/Single Caps (from a WW2 german/british perspective)
Generally, I feel the “linear objective” map design (such as ardennes, new holland, likes) are horrible for the game. These matches always end up utterly boring and uninteresting as it funnels every tank into a small area. Sure, you can flank and even do so effectively but there isn’t a lot of dynamism to it either. At the end of the day, linear objective maps seem to always devolve into one team stomping the other, spawn pushing and farming respawners.
A map with 3 caps equally difficult to get to for both teams, with varied environments and engagement ranges would benefit everyone. There being 3 caps would allow every tank to play to their strengths, or play smart and surprise enemies that won’t expect them. Battle is also a nice objective type as it also engages the entire map.
Ironically, I find the Tunisia pretty close to this ideal despite its flaws for spawncamping sightlines. If those were amended, it could be a map allowing many tank types their own niche. Frozen pass is another enjoyable map, even if some objectives feel too close to the spawn - it still has varied environments that let you pick your engagements to your strength. Severks is another map I found myself enjoying a good bit. Abandoned Factory is fun, but I won’t claim it would benefit heavies at all - it’s perfect for WW2 mediums at least.
Normandy, Sinai, Iberian castle are promising, but need better spawn set-ups and hillier terrains.
Issue with only single-“biome” maps - consequences of CQC/Urban
Combine this with emphasis on urban/cqc environments, and it’s no surprise heavy tanks get into situations where their barrels get shot out. I don’t play heavy tanks, I play firefly/avenger and yeah, heavy tanks in urban environments are surprisingly easy to cripple because: short range = you can surgically tear them apart and they cannot do anything about it. It’s fun for me, don’t imagine it is for them.
So, close range means it’s easier to aim specifically for rack/gunner/weakspot. It also makes armour much less effective. Many shells lose a lot of penetrating power over longer distances - firefly pens 190 mm point blank, 170 over 500 meter and 150 at a click out. 30/60 degree angling makes the dropoff even harder (and subsequently, easier to pull off for the heavy as you cannot aim that well with just a 6x scope to nullify it as trivially). And this is british ammo, which while bad at post-pen - is kind of optimized for good ballistics and high pen. Looking at t-34-57, the effect is much more drastic.
You might say - but aren’t mediums more affected by this - since their armour is completely meaningless in such cases? Yeah - but mediums (depending on nation) got stabilizers, good reverse speed, smaller profiles that make them better at popping out, taking a pot shot and reversing out before you can counter them.
APHE rework
I’ve also mentioned in the past the difference current APHE mechanics make. APHE means a side shot can total-kill a spacious heavy tank, while solid shot either rakes just the turret or the driver, or you need an ammo rack hit. This however, looking at both the roadmap and what was already mentioned, will likely be addressed.
The sphere of death, as is, allows for exploiting weaknesses in armour that would not be considered weaknesses with the real deal (even if tank crews would bail even in event of no module/crew damage IRL).
I have hopes for this roadmap item. I will likely be disappointed.
If I wanted to make an inflammatory statement, I would say that the current sphere of death makes the game more like WoT, since the main selling point when ground forces came out was that you need to aim for crew/modules for the kill, rather than shoot anywhere than pens and win.
Summary
So!
In my opinion as a WW2 tank enjoyer of german and british flavours, I trust that the following would make heavy tanks more viable:
- Maps with spread out objectives that allow players to choose ideal engagements for their tank
- Maps with varied “biomes” that work together with said spread out objectives, a number of maps with examples of matches I found enjoyable were listed. Care must be taken though, and spawns and their egress points reinforced with cover, or so many ways of egress must exit as to make spawnsniping non-viable.
- APHE sphere of death nullifies some of the spacious designs’ advantages.
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I get your argument 100%, just thought this was funny while reading it.
They are good and don’t need a buff.
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Heavy tanks are already very easy to play. If your heavy tanks are fodder th
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I am against historical matchmaking. That said…
People really need to pick one.
There is a weird short circuit going on in these discussions. People who want heavy tanks to do better will ask for historical matchmaking so their Tiger II can stomp everything. People who don’t want heavy tanks to do better can also use the same fallacy and say that it’s historically accurate for heavy tanks to suck.
I don’t care about historical accuracy, WT is balanced by performance. So, if we look just at performance, what do we see? Some heavy tanks perform above the average for their BR, Gaijin specifically singled out the Tiger II and the T29 as an example of this. But in more general terms, mobility is the meta and heavy tanks underperform.
Those that suffer the most are slow, turretless TDs however.
Rather than focus too much on this or that heavy and this or that BR, a good starting point would be to think about how we can make mobility less powerful in matches - or alternatively, how we can make lack of mobility less punishing.
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But we can in-fact have both: heavy tanks feeling scary and not being OP.
Want to know how is this possible?
First: raise the base SP cost of all heavy tanks/SPGs to about 300 SP, so that you can’t spawn then at the beginning of the match, you have to play with a medium/light first and gain points.
Second: as you might’ve already realized, lower the BR of all heavy tanks in the game by 0.7-1.0 BR. This way whenever you see one while driving a medium tank, you feel like you’re facing a dangerous threat and might consider retreating and flanking it, or ambushing it as it drives by, instead of pushing it frontally and relying on taking out his barrel, because gaming logic.
Third: reduce the effectiveness of air bombs aganst well armoured AFVs in this game. Make it so most bomb explosions, other than direct hits, only take out external modules like tracks and gun barrel.
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Tiger II at 5.7 with a chance to get to 4.7. Also what about the nations without heavys/ heavys behind a pay wall?
Fighting a Tiger II at 4.7 and I can’t even bomb it.
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Well, I say it’s an acceptable solution, even if some nations would become less desirable at certain BRs dues to lack of heavy tanks. Don’t forget: with their SP costs increased, you’d be able to spawn twice in a medium instead.
Fine, I guess, there is no need to nerf bombs.
Dealing with a Tiger II at 4.7 is not so bad. Yes, it would be frontally immune to any weapon, but it still has only 80mm of mostly flat side armour. A lot of tanks at that BR can take it out if they don’t mindlessly push it from the front.
If anything I say a KV-1 at 1.7-2.0 is a much more terrifying sight than a KT at 4.7.
So, the exact BR lowering is not final and subject to balancing for every specific vehicle.
This is actually some crazy talk lmao
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ikv 103 would like a word
Imma be real you are mad insane if you think this could even remotely work, Tiger II at that BR is insanity.
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Is this just not another era separation post? We have 3 running or rather three separate posts than equate to and became about era separation.
My 4.8 tiger 2 p kd is gonna just skyrocket eating 4.7 lmao, yeah heavies are in a pretty good spot for a lot of them.
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To be fair 99% of peoples complaints about heavy tanks being too weak come down to that argument lol
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Exactly : )