I recommend trying all the roles out, seeing what you like best, then concentrate on that tank line until you get it leveled up. Then use the credits you earn from that line to build/buy other lines. I did NOT do this but I wish I had.

I like to do a little bit of everything, so I decided to go USA for mediums, USSR for lights (currently running T-50 and enjoying it, though if planning to do light tank work long term the French line is a must IMO) and German for everything else (heavies, SPGs and TD). ETA: I have a Tier 4 French heavy but I rarely play it, the gun is awful and I get frustrated trying to grind past it.

One cool thing about the tech trees is that you can sometimes skip a lot of the lower-level grind to get mid-tier vehicles from a different line. I found this out when I bought the M4A3E8. If I want (and I probably will) I can get the Tier 6 USA tank destroyer (M36 slugger) straight from the M4A3E8 line, even though I have never played a single USA tank destroyer.

Also, if you plan on playing the game seriously, go ahead and get a premium account, it is much faster and easier that way.

Also this site is the holy bible of World of Tanks, bookmark it, you will refer to it often: http://wiki.worldoftanks.eu/Main_Page

awwwwww fuuuuuuuuuu the sale... I spent all mah monies on the 3601H would have taken the JagdPz instead :/

btw, i got the t-50 unlocked, is it cool? might buy it today I have an elite leopard tho, so gotta decide if it's worth it...

If you like the scout roll, and are good with it, then the T-50 and T-50-2 are pretty sweet lights. Very versatile and great acceleration. If you get frustrated in a scout roll, and do not play that often, I would say skip it till later on. If you are in an active clan, that does CW, it is always nice to have an elite scout in your garage.

Stoked on the sale. finally got my KV-3. Why is that when I get a KV-3, I am always bottom tier, but when I am in my KV, every match has me at the bottom with KV-3's on top. I just want a fair shake at top tier lol

i found out that matchmaking is programmed to screw you sistematically over...

This. Not sure how it compares to the French lights though, other than the obvious fact that it only goes up to Tier 5. I have fun on my T-50 but I regularly am placed on the bottom of the totem pole in matches. If I get any kills at all it is typically arty that I've scouted.

The french lights are more like mediums. They have less top speed and acceleration than the other lights, but WAY better fire power. I have not played the AMX's yet, but a few of my clan mates have them, and they seem to be their own skill set to drive. I would not consider them a scout, but also not a medium.....

wut? They have better firepower because there are no tier5+ light in the other trees. They are slower than lights and less powerfull than meds. And they have 40mm armor ( !!!! ).

top is german med, bottom is french light.



I find them terrible. Over-armored and under gunned in low tier, VERY under-armored and under gunned in higher tiers.

I think you are missing the DPS factor of the cannister. They rapid fire make their guns awesome. Watch some of the amx-120 vids on youtube, they are animals!

The french tanks are very good DPS machines, but everything has to go just right: no one can see you, and you have to be relatively protected and/or hidden, and artillery can't get a single shot on you or you explode.

In pubs, where your average Lowe will hide behind a tier 5 medium, it's very difficult to use the French tanks. I can see them being great in platoons or company wars.

I got my account locked for 24 hours. =D

On El Halluf, my entire team is camping our base. I have 3 of our 7 kills in my IS because I dared to venture into the scary beyond. There's 4 minutes left, and we have a 3 tank lead on them but no one will move an inch.

So I warn them that I'm coming back to base to start shooting them, and they better get moving by the time I get there. I make it back to base, and kill 4 friendly tanks in 4 shots. After the game, I get locked out. Lulz. ><

lmao, I am glad someone did it! It had to be done.

Here is a fun vid of one of the amx's. Pandy actually has a few of these on his cahnnel, including one where I think he gets 10 kills in one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEmpO...69FUAAAAAAABAA

Eh, that's just a roflstomp vid.

The french medium tanks are getting nerfed next patch. The lorraine and batchat are scoring 56% winrates, which are 4-6% higher than their counterparts. Some have thought that it's because only those who are more experienced would have the free experience saved up to get those tanks right away (or dedication to grind them out so quickly). Others think that it's because armor doesn't matter when you're in a tier 8+ battle for a medium, so there's really no downside to them.

Also, I re-bought my T34 so I can get a free premium tank(!). =D

Yea, it was for sure a quick hit vid, but it does briefly show the power of the tanks, as they are very maneuverable and sling such large burst damage. I think the problem is that if you look at the math of the gun, it does not look all that great, but the math is in a vacuum. If you put an AMX 120 in a battle vs an IS4 and had them sit in front of eachother, of course the AMX would lose. But in reality there is cover and movement and tactics. Having the burst canisters make them a little OP IMO.

Here is a great strat video made by a pretty dedicated WOT player. Some of it is pretty basic stuff, but there might be some small bits of info in it that people may not know (I did not know about the movement thing in the settings)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQbSG...69FUAAAAAAABAA

The top medium frenchies at least are fast, they can scout agreesively and get away with it.

Was arty that took out the KV-5 there tho, not the AMX.

I have been playing for several months with no issues on a Win XP machine. I bought a new hard drive last week and upgraded to Windows 7 Professional 64 bit and now the game will not start for me. Whenever I click the "Play" button the game shuts off, no error message. I have uninstalled and reinstalled 3 times, clean Windows 7 install and latest Geforce drivers installed.

I used to have this issue too... but I forget how I fixed it.. Surf the WoT forums, I am pretty sure there is a solution there. I am pretty sure for me it was a driver thing, but not 100% sure.

I am actually getting a little frustrated with the game right now. I may lay off it for a bit until they fix matchmaker (which I doubt they ever will) In the last 34 games in my KV-3 I was in the top 6 2 times. Never top 3. I was vs. at least 1 tier 9 in 28 of those matchs.

I appreciate that people will say that you can still make a difference, but that is just not me. It sucks to play a game where you grind and play smart and put yourself in a great spot to be one shot (in a tier 6 tank too) or have you shot bounce of the side. I am not looking to be the top tank every time, but having all tanks within 2-3 tiers would be nice.

Anyways, hope all that are still into it are crushing.

I received a reply from one of their techies. I can already tell that this one is lazy (I worked for years in IT and I can spot lazy help desk personnel from a mile away). Here's what she sent back to me after I sent her my dxdiag file she had requested:

Apparently she either missed or completely ignored the fact that I have been playing the game since October of last year with no problems with the exact same CPU I am using now. I made it clear when I first contacted them that I've been playing for months without any problems and that the only changes that have been made were the installation of a new hard drive and an upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. Idiots.

That said, my mobo and CPU do need to be upgraded. My GF bought me Skyrim for Valentine's Day and I can't even play it because my CPU is only 1.86 ghz (duel core) and the minimum to run Skyrim is 2.0. I've had this same mobo and proc since 2007 so I am due for an upgrade. That will introduce a whole bunch of new headaches probably because I have an OEM version of Windows 7 Pro so when I change out the mobo and CPU I could very well run into licensing problems. We shall see.

Wow that's an unhelpful reply from tech support. I had the same problem as you (Win 7/64 as well), and solved it through re-installing old versions of .NET. .NET is weird because the new versions don't encompass the old ones.

Basically, go through this thread and install/update these.

I understand that you're frustrated with the matchmaker (who isn't?), but the KV-3 should still do quite well even against T8's which is why it's going to be moved up to tier 7 in 7.3. The gun is roughly the same as the IS and KV-5, which is definitely under-powered but by no means useless for tier 8. Don't angle the tank; try to take all the shots straight-on.

Maybe it's just a small sample size, but I've noticed that certain tanks seem to be near the top more often. Others always seem to be near the bottom.

My tier 5-6 lights usually get stuck near the bottom. While I have a tier 7 medium that seems to either be always be near the top (unless it's a tier X match where I'm stuck at the bottom) - rarely middle. Maybe the KV-3 just gets sucky matchups, like my tier 5-6 light amx's. How much XP are you until your next tank?

Also, does the game seem somewhat laggier than normal? Or is it just my comp?

It's not your comp. It's a known issue that's being addressed in the next patch (mid-March).

Tier 5-7 lights are designated scout tanks: their normal game will be with tier 8/9/10 and their role is to light up the enemy for sniping and artillery. Shooting your gun is reserved for against artillery against a flank when no one is watching you. Yes, I wish this was stated more clearly somewhere. Official battle tiers per tank.

Your tier 7 is near the top due to the distribution of tanks played. US server statistics thread.

Tier 9 and 10 tanks are just difficult to get and not totally easy to pay for, even with premium, which keeps the numbers down. Tier 8 premiums artificially inflate the numbers of tier 8 battles.

^^^ good info here thanks.

BRAG: Also, I got a new mobo and proc and re-installed Direct X and re-installed .net and I'm back in business! The i5 proc is sweeet, super fast. I'm getting framerates I've never seen in any game, ever.