World of Tanks

[Norade]

Well, 28,000 silver would be better than the average of 8,000 that my Valentine gives...

[Vanas]

I find it's a bad match when my Löwe doesn't get about 50k Money. I mean, I've been AFK for a match and gotten 30k.

It's very much a sniper tank, like the other German tanks, but I've really not had many problems with it. Against other T8s, I've had no real issues with going up against IS-3s. KTs vary depending on upgrade level, but they're more threatening than the IS-3. Up against a Löwe, it's a traditional slap-fight, there's pretty much nothing you can't penetrate on it. It's the US one that's more problematic, if only due to the armoured turret. (T32? Whatever, they're all the same.)

Main issues are the fact that the Slow Löwe is, well, not agile. 100t of tank trying to go up hill isn't going to end well. I'm not seeing Coffee's issue with the gun depression, though. My main comment on the Löwe to a friend was 'Hey, look! A German tank that can aim down!' The downside is the gigantic shot trap under the gun, really. It *is* huge, though and knife fighting isn't really it's forté.

Armour-wise, there's better. I can't say I've had too many issues with it, as I'm not brawling usually. I've certainly not had any fires, though the engine seems fragile. Still, the Löwe's job is to hide somewhere and poke people with the Finger of God while it pours Money out of the back.

[Mr. Coffee]

It's the US one that's more problematic, if only due to the armoured turret. (T32? Whatever, they're all the same.)

Yeah, the T32. It's lower to the ground then the T29 or T34, which gives the Lowe trouble nose to nose.

I'm not seeing Coffee's issue with the gun depression, though. My main comment on the Löwe to a friend was 'Hey, look! A German tank that can aim down!' The downside is the gigantic shot trap under the gun, really. It *is* huge, though and knife fighting isn't really it's forté.

Yeah, up close it lacks enough depression to hit anything but turret on the US heavies. I see a Lowe I get up on them fast and ball punch them up close. Works like a charm. Failing that I try to manuever into a side on shot and aim for the engine compartment and giggle when I set the Lowe on fire.

[Vanas]

If you're up close with the Löwe, they're doing something wrong, really.

And, seriously. I've never really encountered fires often in my German tanks. Save the Tiger, but the entire internals of the Tiger are made of nitroglycerine filled porcelain so it's really not an issue.

It's not a tank to lead an attack with but it's certainly a good tank to be just/a very long way behind the leaders. One of my favourite matches ended up with just me on the hill overlooking the enemy base on Campinkova as our meds ran in the front. I just settled in and sniped the hell out of all and sundry.

[Zinegata]

I think the 40K+ silver per round figure comes when you're on premium.\

And the Lowe is definitely not brawler tank. It's a sniper. My Sherman killed its second Lowe last night because he made the mistake of going into the town area of Ruinberg. It really pissed the Lowe driver off .

[Agent Sorchus]

Has anyone actually tried the KV-5 to see how it compares?

[Zinegata]

Not me, sorry. From what I've seen though, the Lowe is generally better simply because of the gunpower.

[Tritio]

Thank you everyone for the information! Not worrying about Silver again sounds really good.

[atg]

I think the 40K+ silver per round figure comes when you're on premium.\

And the Lowe is definitely not brawler tank. It's a sniper. My Sherman killed its second Lowe last night because he made the mistake of going into the town area of Ruinberg. It really pissed the Lowe driver off .

Yeah I remembered that I wasn't on premium... I've had to get up close an personal with the Lowe a couple of times, mainly at the end of a round, and yeah its pretty much insta death.

[White Haven]

The KV-5 would be an Unstoppable Wall of Devastation if not for R2. That little MG turret is an easily-targeted glaring weak point that doesn't even make a whole lot of sense, as a shell ripping through it is going to pass out the backside of the little MG turret thing and hit the rest of the tank's armour in any sane model. Ah well.

[Mr. Coffee]

The KV-5 would be an Unstoppable Wall of Devastation if not for R2. That little MG turret is an easily-targeted glaring weak point that doesn't even make a whole lot of sense, as a shell ripping through it is going to pass out the backside of the little MG turret thing and hit the rest of the tank's armour in any sane model. Ah well.

Another good weak point is the main turret right around the the gun. With a long 105mm or bigger (US or German, doesn't matter), you'll reliably penetrate and have a good chance of landing crits on the gun, ammo rack, command, loader, and gunner. I actually managed to one-shot a KV-5 with the 122mm on an IS with a lucky critical that blew up the guy's ammo rack. Rest of the KV you better be packing a teir nine or better gun to reliably penetrate. Even the ass end of that beast can bounce 105 shells all day long.

If you're up close with the Löwe, they're doing something wrong, really.

Well, it's usually a case of the Lowe driver being a newbie that doesn't understand how to drive high teir German heavies or I managed to sneak up/out manuever them and get into knife fighting range. At long range I try my best to either get hull down or just not be in line of sight of a Lowe. Couple of weeks ago I had a Lowe driver zap my IS from damn near 6 grids off. The gun on that thing is insanely accurate and combined with it's "fuck you, Jackson" sight range the Lowe makes for one of the better sniper tanks in the game.

[Vanas]

The first time I fought a KV-5 in my Löwe, I died horribly. Knife fighting bad.

Since then, though, they're tough bastards, but not too bad. I tend to aim for the turret's sides as you really can't miss and you penetrate more often than not. (In the Löwe and the 3601 with the conical.)

The KV-5's gun seems to have decentish penetration and damage. It's pretty much a slight upgrade to the KV's own horribly silly railgun.

All in all though, I think I'll stick with the Löwe.

[White Haven]

I'm curious, how is the KV-5's accuracy? I know the KV's is pretty abysmal over long range.

[xthetenth]

Usually I'd say http://www.wotdb.info/ is your friend and come back with the answer, but it isn't listed.

Instead, http://wiki.worldoftanks.com/ is your friend. It's barely more accurate (.38 instead of .39, where the bizzarely bad US 105 is .37 until the T34) with a faster rate of fire and 2.5 second aiming time instead of three (because it's russian and russian tanks wait forever for aim). The real problem is that it still has 167 penetration, which is just not good enough for a tier VIII, hell the 198 on the US 105 isn't really good enough.

Oh, and back to the notion of credit costs being a main factor in camping for a second, how does that explain camping in tier 5s, the most profitable things on the map? Stuff's even longer ranged and killier at 8 or 9.

Also, you guys should see Coffee drive an American heavy, it's priceless. He means what he says about gun depression on heavies. We were running our tier VIII heavies (his T32 and my IS-3) when we round the corner on the far north of westfield. What do we see but a Maus and a collection of TDs including an Object. I pull back to our side of the hill to move to flank, and he straight up bulldogs the Maus and uses it as cover from the TDs. At this point I've gotten into position and between him firing HE at the turret and me crunching his side, we run a train on the Maus, with me undamaged and him barely dead.

[Mr. Coffee]

It's all because I refuse to be your average timid ass heavy driver. Most heavy drivers are sissies that like to hunker down and camp or advance at a pace best described as glacial because they're afraid they might get the paintwork scuffed up. I drive my shit like I stole it and the only time I take cover is so I can go hull down and beat the living snot out of someone from range while laughing at their shells bouncing off my massively over-armored American heavy turret. When in doubt, be aggressive and attack.

[Zinegata]

The difference between smart, aggressive play and timidness is really like the difference between day and night. I wouldn't have been able to kill three Tigers in one round as a Sherman if I had camped: I had to sneak behind those three Tigers and a Lowe (and avoiding a T-34/85 on the wings) before I could kill them.

As a Sherman, while I actively avoid making first contact (because I'm probably not going to survive multiple hits), I make it a point to always be where the action is and lend my fire to where it's most needed. A medium tank has the speed to switch from one front to another.

Heavies don't have the luxury of speed and can't really spend too much time switching from one front to another. But that doesn't mean they should sit still - rather, they should focus on advancing along their chosen axis of advance and carry it through. It's grating how many times one can lose at Karelia because the heavies all went one side and refused to press the charge forward despite having only a handful of tanks as opposition.

[Tritio]

I've just gotten the Lowe! Here are my initial observations after one night of play:

-Moneymaking: With premium, the silver earnings are consistent and sustainably higher than other tanks. I'm regularly getting 20-40k profits on every match, win OR lose. My lowest so far has been like a 10k profit, when I fired off 2 rounds and only hit with 1 and died. So I'm completely satisfied with its primary function, printing silver.

-Mobility: This thing is slow. The written max speed is something like 35kmph, but I never hit that unless I'm going downslope. A more typical range is the mid to high twenties whilst on flat ground. When climbing uphill, this drops drastically to single digit figures. It also loses speed quickly while turning at any speed. On flat ground while going at 25kmph, tapping the A or D keys for 1 second will result in a 1-2kmph drop in speed, which takes a few seconds to recover. I played a match where I had a damaged track and engines. Oh boy, that was horrible. My upslope speed was 4kmph and level ground speed was something like 8kmph.

-Firepower: It's great. Statistically speaking, it has the highest penetration and accuracy among the Tier 8 Heavies, and I can feel it work. Ranges up to 300m mean that I can pick which part of the tank I'd like to hit. Ranges 300-500m are perfectly within reach of my gun. Ranges above 500m are still viable depending on the target profile. I can reliably penetrate all Tier 8 tanks in a variety of sitatuations with few exceptions when I know where to aim, and I feel that I have a good chance of penetrating Tier 9 tanks as well. The reload is manageable with a rammer installed. In fact, paradoxically, the slow speed of the Lowe keeps the aiming circle small and helps with aiming. Therefore, shooting on the move becomes a viable option and I can do 'shoot and scoot' tactics around corners while maintaining good accuracy, although I will be exposed for a longer time because of my low speed.

-Armour: It has the armour to withstand a lot of punishment provided I do not expose the lower part of the front hull or any of my sides or rear. I find that I bounce a good number of shots when hull down, and I have the HP to take a few hits while I kill the target I choose before backing off. I cannot lead a charge from the front (unless I'm the top tier in a match), but I feel that I make an excellent second-line tank with enough HP and Armour to stay alive long enough to make a difference.

-Matchmaking: I have so far been placed in good matchups where I am occasionally in the top tiers, mostly between the middle and top one third of the match tiers, and seldom near the bottom. As a result, I always find myself useful, having same-tier or lower tier tanks to kill, or higher tier tanks to damage.

-Overall Result: If you can afford it, buy it before the price increases! I have no regrets.

[xthetenth]

I've finally well and truly gotten farther in release than I did in beta. I never had a tank with a top tier gun. I just got the 120 for the T34, and it just punches faces like it's nothing. It's nice being able to shoot at a Löwe without aiming löw(e). It's even nicer four shotting the things. It's nice being able to penetrate an IS-4, even if it sucks because it's a jackass on your own damn team pulling in front of you and the fine costing you any profit you made. It just makes the T34 awesome.

I wish they told you how much damage you've taken in a tank so you can compare how much you take to how much you do. The stats you get can say some interesting stuff. For example, I'm more accurate with my Russian heavies than my American. My IS-3 is a dead nasty 87% accurate. However I know I shoot better in my American ones, it's just that I'll take longer shots. I still have the awesome 84 marksman streak in my T32 and a 54 in my T34 though, so despite them being less accurate overall, I have much longer streaks. It may just be that I have time to take more marginal shots.

Also, interesting note, the Pershing is great for credit grind for folks like me who don't have a Löwe (Why bother, my T34 will be the same eventually). Compared to what it's shooting, its ammo is practically free, and its repairs are actually pretty cheap. Just make sure to be on premium.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I've been folllowing this thread since it was in Testing, and I finally decided to try it out, I'm installing it as I type. I'm generally a coward in games, so I prefer to stay as far away from my enemy as possible, so tank destroyers and arty both look interesting to me. I'm probably going to go American, at least to start.

[xthetenth]

If you're planning on staying way back, then American TDs aren't necessarily for you, they're all more aggressive than their counterparts in some way. The Russian ones are probably the snipiest. They have really good camo and guns that pack a real punch. Arty's kinda fun, but I find it gets boring eventually. Then you'll have a nice bankroll though, so it's probably a good idea anyway. American arty generally rocks though, it's a solid choice, although you may want to see if the German stuff aims faster, which is real nice.

[Zinegata]

I would also recommend the German TDs, except that they get rather bad at higher Tiers after the Stug since they lose camo bonuses.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I'll play around with them, see what works for me, I've only played three or four matches so far, so I'm pretty much still learning to drive at this point.

[Vanas]

It can't hurt to jump into the SDN channel as well. We'll point you in the right direction. Or not, but it'll be fun.

[Mr. Coffee]

Just remember, you never go full retard. Unless it's campinovka. Seriously, fuck that map.

[Norade]

I had forgotten how nice premium is.