waaaaaah gaijin waaaaaaah why can’t i be immune to everyone else???
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waaaaaah gaijin waaaaaaah why can’t i be immune to everyone else???
Immune to everyone else??
I was specifically talking about LIGHT tanks being able to front pen heavy tanks from kilometers away. Light tanks in a (full) uptier at that, which that other guy didn’t agree. How is that wanting to be “immune to everyone else” ? You making stuff up now to prove a point or are you having reading comprehension problems?
Also being able to withstand front shot != being immune. See that’s what I’m talking about. Y’all can’t fathom the possibility of having to actually flank heavies. Requires too much brain power I guess.
I don’t even have a horse in this race, I don’t play ground battles anymore, just tired of seeing new wave of players trying to noob-proof this game in Air, Ground & Naval.
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What heavy tank is suffering right now?
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Barrel damage is more of a detriment for gameplay than it is a benefit, in my opinion. Heavy tanks and heavy-armored TDs already give up a lot of other strengths for having that armor - to have even the weakest possible SPAAG be able to simply ignore that armor and cripple said heavy anyway kinda defeats the purpose of the armor, does it not?
Large-caliber machines, machines with normal calibers for the tier but massive muzzle brakes/fume extractors, and turretless slow machines are the ones most-punished by barrel damage. All of these are already punished by the swarm of light tanks with time-traveling rounds that ignore the heaviest armor and maps forcing close range random encounters.
Barrel damage from the guy you’re looking at, in addition to all these other drawbacks, just adds insult to injury. Yes, removing it will make the poor Jumbo suffer (and eventually drop in BR because of it), but far more tanks in far more nations will benefit.
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Same question for you. What heavy tank is suffering right now?
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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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Every single nation has several prominent examples.
Any vehicle which plainly throws away all functional mobility for its armor (and sometimes also firepower), who gets still rendered mostly irrelevant thanks to literally even the weakest opponent being able to brain-off barrel damage their way to a victory they don’t deserve.
IS-3, IS-4M, Maus/E-100, Jagdtiger, Ferdinand/Elefant, Tortoise, Black Prince, T32/T32E1, T29/30/34, T28/95, the list goes on and on and on.
Armor should be able to be used aggressively sometimes, not just passive “haha you aimed bad!” like it currently is. Yet if someone so much as has a passing thought about using said armor aggressively, your barrel is already out.
I personally think barrel damage is sometimes far more of a problem than certain folk love to think CAS is.
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Most maps force every one of these cases into short range clusterxxxxs none were designed for. Most maps do not have good places to go hull down to mitigate weak LFPs. And the Conqueror/M103/AMX-50 series can at least move decently well.
The moment you are playing something that is a rolling armor brick with zero mobility, and even the weakest opponent you could ever dream of fighting STILL one-taps your barrel by shooting the tip right before you were about to get it on target to delete him, what then?
We need barrel damage gone. Aren’t there already enough means to deal with rampaging heavies as-is?
- CAS
- let them get over-aggressive and side shot them
- 150mm+ artillery platforms
- HEAT-spewing light tanks
- APDS-spewing light tanks
- traditional derp guns with very strong AP for their tiers (Sturer Emil, Nashorn, QF 3.7 Ram, KV-2 ZiS-6, for a few examples)
Do you really NEED “mUh p0oR jumBO” or whatever poster-child that doesn’t fit in one of those above categories to ALSO be able to one-tap ANY heavy into irrelevance? The machines which suffer most from barrel knocking usually have huge muzzle brakes, and the longest barrel repair times in general, while often also seeing the worst gun handling speeds, slowest mobility, and sometimes no turrets at all.
All I am wanting is the following:
When I actually by some stroke of luck get a full downtier or close to such in a decently-protected heavy tank, and I spot an opponent which cannot pen my frontal armor carelessly who is camping in an annoying spot, I want to be able to aggressively shove him out of his camping hole with no ability whatsoever for the camper to frontally cripple me.
Let me use my armor occasionally in more than simply a passive last resort wholly dependent on the opponent aiming badly!
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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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Just removing barrel damage frontally when I am aiming my gun at someone is enough.
If I am foolish enough to stick my gun around a corner and someone shoots clean through the barrel’s side, well that is my own fault.
The ability to frontally disable gun barrels is what unfairly punishes all nations’ heavy tanks and heavy armored TDs.
Maps force the worst possible situations for said heavies, though. If a map is 100% city, where exactly isn’t there a strong possibility of your barrel being shot out, especially if you’re something with a big muzzle brake like a T32.
Turret wiggling only works on some American tanks with great gun handling, the rest just try and usually fail. Then of course you have armored slow SPGs with no turrets at all like the T95, T28, Jagdtiger, Ferdinand, Tortoise, etc - those can’t really “wiggle” at all.
The only “alternative” is to pretend you have no armor at all and play like a fatter medium, which again only American heavies truly can do well. And if “playing well” in a heavy tank means pretending you have no armor in order to avoid the idiocy of frontal barrel damage, why even bother using a heavy tank in the first place if that “armor” only serves to delay inevitable death? If your “armor” can be ignored by even the weakest opposition to still frontally cripple you, after which the opponent can just charge around to your side while you sit there repairing, seriously - what is even the point of playing heavy tanks?
Not that you would actually understand, however, since by your comments you’re probably a Jumbo player overly reliant on barrel damage.
They all can be good. But even then, the T34’s and IS-3’s muzzle brake/fume extractor size means their “best” playstyle is pretending their armor doesn’t exist in the first place by acting like a fat medium. Even when running into something that can’t frontally pen either (particularly rare in the IS-3’s case) you can’t use your armor in even a remotely aggressive manner to push someone.
The KV-1E/B/ZiS-5 are more akin to the Jumbo Shermans, Excelsior, and Tiger 1s than they are to the truly suffering.png armor bricks. All of those have actually pretty good mobility for their BRs. None have obnoxious muzzle brakes. KVs have exposed gun breeches (and I see no problem at all with someone shooting that out, since they have to actually pen the armor to do so). Jumbos have the age-old (if a bit unreliable) MG port and to a lesser extent the overlapping UFP that quite a few guns cut through easily. The Excelsior has painfully bad reverse and British Forehead Syndrome. Tiger 1s are flat boxes. Those are all prime examples of “fat mediums.”
The sort of machines I am more referring to are Churchills, B1s, Black Prince, Ferdinand/Elefant, Jagdtiger, Maus/E-100, IS-3, IS-4M, Object 268, Ho-Ri Prototype/Production, T29/30/34, T32/32E1, Super Pershing, etc.
All the HEAT, derp HE, and sabot spammers are annoying enough when trying to play a high-BR heavy tank, but to then be told on the increasingly rare occasion you run into someone who can’t carelessly pen you that your armor STILL means xxxx all because that someone can delete your barrel in a single shot? Really?
That is what I’m getting so annoyed about - you can literally never use your armor to push unless the opponent aims badly.
No class in a video game should be 100% reliant on the opponent making a mistake. Doesn’t matter if it is a vehicle game like this, an infantry shooter, a traditional fighting game, etc.
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I get your argument 100%, just thought this was funny while reading it.
Indeed. If any heavies “benefit” from close range maps, it is solely the lowest-BR ones with terrible main armaments. Even the likes of the often-cried-about Jumbo 75 work better on a map allowing it to use its surprisingly good mobility.
This is exactly my point, too. My proposal to remove at the very least the ability to frontally barrel damage someone who you’re aiming the gun at is intended as a reaction to how annoyingly common close range city maps are.
All us experienced players have hopes, but remember that the change was said “it will be decided by community poll,” and thus we cannot really know whether or not APHE will actually be gutted down to its historically correct levels or not.
Historically correct APHE would cause a lot of BR upheaval, particularly for Russia but also for much of Germany, much of America, much of Japan, all of low-BR Italy, and a handful of cases in Sweden.
A high BR armor brick heavy like the Maus might see its BR drop due to the gun no longer being quite as fearsome, but then again it might go up (which it certainly does not need) due to the APHE change in a vacuum further increasing its survivability. The same story holds if you consider the IS-3, IS-4M, T32, T32E1, and many other cases.
Glad you see my point.
Most heavies can be broadly classed as either “Armor Bricks” or “Heaviums.” As far as I am concerned with my arguments in this thread, as well as those of the original poster, most of the complaining seems to revolve around the former category being increasingly unable to function.
I got so sick of barrel damage when spading my T95 that I literally proceeded to flank with it. At 12kph. And that literally worked better than trying to use it as the supposed “breakthrough tank” it was designed to be, because the glass barrel means it can’t shoot back while absorbing all that gunfire.
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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