Some nice pictures of the vehicles and illustrations of armor profiles old and proposed from Wargaming plus the usual explanatory text. From Wargaming.
What’s Changing?
The AT 2 was quite formidable thanks to its armor. Opponents below Tier VII could hardly get a scratch on it. We took some of the AT 2’s frontal, side and rear armor to keep it from being OP. It’s now far less bouncy from the front. However, it’s not all bad news for those who fancy this Brit: changes to side plates should give it an edge at sidescraping.
The large thinly-armored section on the right side of the AT 8 made it extremely easy to cripple, even for low-tier opponents. Add to that three barely protected cupolas on its top, and there you have it—a soft target living on borrowed time. Update 9.21 boosted its efficiency by eradicating the massive weak spot to the right. Cupolas received better protection, too.
The AT 7 and AT 15 had little hope of soaking up damage from the front or when their gun mantlets and cupolas were targeted. We increased armor thickness for these weak spots to gear up there two for a more active role in close-quarters fights.
Feeble frontal armor and a thin gun mantlet made the Tortoise a soft target for Tier IX and X tanks. Update 9.21 improves both and gives the vehicles a thicker superstructure roof. It retains a vulnerable main gun cupola though, with a glaring weak spot at its center.
The Churchill Gun Carrier was underappreciated because of its low alpha and unimpressive-for-its-tier penetration, often leaving players thoroughly underwhelmed in the heat of battle. After feedback, we went through the 32-pounder parameters. Alpha damage and pen went up, while DPM stayed as is. This Brit literally exists to carry a gun, and now it can carry it proudly! The AT 15 and Tortoise that equip the same 32-pounder benefit from greater pen stats and alpha strike too.
Why Replace the “Death Star?”
This revision won’t be complete without a rewarding experience at Tier X. With the entire line redesigned for close-range assault and support, we wanted the top tier to incorporate all the line’s distinctive traits. This way, you can figure out whether it’s worth the grind soon after you start the line.
No one would argue that a FV215b (183) staring at you is just about the worst thing any tanker can see on the battlefield. It’s universally feared for its gun, capable of one-shotting most Tier IX and X tanks. However, its alpha damage comes at the cost of low speed, a long reload, limited accuracy and sub-par ammo count, which is nowhere close to the line’s overall narrative. This is where the all-new FV217 Badger steps in, forcing the FV215b (183) to retreat as a special vehicle. Unlike the Death Star, it inherits a combination of decent armor, solid DPM, and excellent rate of fire from its brethren down line, but gets more of these in every department. Capable of dealing a whopping 4500 DPM, the Badger won’t fail to put a round downrange with true British composure. Then, it’ll move on to rain devastation on the next unlucky tanker…
How Will It All Work?
The FV217 Badger might be yours for the taking, no grind required, if you have the FV215b (183) researched and purchased when 9.21 releases. Read the transition details and look forward to a detailed overview!
If you don’t see the animated armor models go here
So time to dump my AT-2? The thick armour was the only thing making up for it’s lousy popgun…
I kept mine for the “x3 your hp blocked” missions.
ya should have dumped it long ago. the guns make it not worth keeping at all
look at tanks gg its still a frontal beast at its tier. As it stands right now its armor is comparable to a tiger 2 frontally it needed a nerf
IT WAS PERFECT
Still thickest at its tier.
that may be, but all the other parameters were left untouched and the only good thing by far was its armor. the gun selection is really bad. yes theoretical high dpm, but the pen on the fast gun is abysmal. the mobility itself is so bad, that it just needs the armor it had.
this is not only an unnecassery nerf, but also an unfair one.
“changes to side plates should give it an edge at sidescraping.” uhm, riiight…
side armor gets nerfed and also it has no turret and a shitty narrow gun arc. have fun sidescraping, especially with all the nerfed armor.
it already was dodgy driving this thing in tier 6 and 7, but now you ar basically an autopen for most tier 7s and many tier 6.
Eheh, Wargaming is getting greedy by the minute. With all these guffs, one needs premium ammo or HE to pen or do some damage. Well, they’re in this for the money, right?
IMHO this is a direct reaction to gold spam, because nothing is more frustrating for heavy armor players than some faggot noob with a gold round
So with gold becoming the only valid option when it comes to ammo type in some cases, how does this change things? Unless they are changing it so that not even gold has a chance at going through, increasing the armor just increases gold spam. I still stand by the claim that reducing alpha on gold by around 10% compared to normal ammo would be a good choice if they actually want to reduce the amount of gold flying through the air. From a profit perspective for the company however, I’m not so sure if they actually want that.
Wasnt a better answer to just nerf Premium rounds?
i can agree to gold shell nerf, since APCR isn’t supposed to do more damage than AP, IIRC. HEAT is already balanced, but APCR gold shells are currently 140% overpowered
Why wasn’t something similar done for the Waffenträger auf E 100??
Because at the time wargaming didn’t do that. This all started with the foch 155 Transfer
So German player base are left damaged with nerfed replacement,and also shitty Grille.While other replacements get two tier X’s
and why is that? I spent just the same amount of time grinding up to Wf E100 vs Foch 155 or any of the rest tier X vehicles. WarGaming SHOULD compensate players just the same for each tier X vehicle they replace.
Basically yes stormermp, it’s German so wargaming says fuck you we praise stalin
The FV4202 wasn’t given out for free after it was replaced at tier 10 either. It was downgraded to tier 8 and you had to complete some stupid mission thing in order to retain it.
Because the WAFFLE needed to be removed. It was cancerous. A disgusting abomination that should have never been in the game.
It def did need to go. As far as I could find, it didn’t exist on paper other than as a suggestion. So the design liberties were taken to the extreme. Now with that being said, I really miss shooting that thing with HE. 🙁
Because it was broken and any version of it would be bad for the game. If you want it back buy one on the Chinese server.
As if HESH on 183 is not broken?
Foch 155 replaced as free tier X premium tank..
FV215b replaced as free tier X premium tank..
FV 183 reaplced as free tier X premium tank..
but
Why didn’t players with Wf E100 received a free premium tier X tank when it was replaced with Grille 15?
FV4202 is waving at you.
I hate the fact that this didnt happen with the FV4202.
Wish they wouldn’t call it the Badger, it doesn’t even fit British naming convention!
can’t even find out anything about it too. all i got abt the Badger are WoT mentions
The name is fake but the design itself (turretless assault vehicle based on the conqueror) is real.
The bit about the Churchill Gun Carrier is ridiculous, it has best pen of all tier 6 vehicles. Yeah, alpha is good to have, but even then they only buffed the pen by like…6. Fucking WG think this makes up for terrible everything else. This dumb thing should stay at tier 5 with the second gun as top option.
These tanks are not unappreciated due to ‘feeble armor’, they’re unappreciated because they’re slow and clumsy. If their mobility and view range were buffed then they’d be able to play with much greater autonomy and without having to rely on the frustrating dilemma known as armor in WoT.
Whenever armor is relevant, the opponent often has no choice but to rely on code 22. As much as we’d like to rely on flanking instead, the corridor maps just don’t allow it. And lately WG has had a ridiculous vendetta against weakspots. If code 22 defeats the armor, then the armor (and any tank that relies on it) becomes meaningless. If code 22 doesn’t defeat the armor, then the armor is game-breaking. There is very little middle ground between these two equally disastrous outcomes. In fact, it could be said that there is no middle ground at all- ebola is guaranteed for either one party or the other.
So in short, rebalance premium ammo, bring down armour to sensible levels.
dunno what code 22 is, but armor does feel “Feeble” when you have to deal with gold shells on an almost per-match basis (especially tier 8 and up, which are filled with cavemans with thinking capacities less than a tier 2 player)
Code 22 = typing 2 and then 2 again to change ammo load to premium
Another way to do it would be to increase the size of the map, so that tanks with mobility actually could use it. Just keep the flags and spawns at the place they are, but increase the area around them
Gold ammo says hello new AT armor changes. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I’m sure this is all shocking news to WG.
You should tell them it will encourage players to buy premium accounts and increase their income. They probably don’t know!
What about the AT15a?!
at-15a doesnt really need a buff, the only lacking parts are mobility and the gun
the capola is stronger than the AT-15’s at the front, with 152mm, while the tier 8 is still only 127mm
IMHO WG should consider the gold shell factor in next time they balance. I’m still for banning them in randoms and severely nerfing gold APCR damage. funny how HEAT is treated properly in a “oh that makes sense” manner, but APCR isn’t. i mean, look i get it, you need to make money, because devs with no money works the worst, but as an interning game designer i think monetization shouldn’t interfere with gameplay. TF2 proved taht it can work ,so why not follow their model on making cosmetics the primary means of income?
I’ve said it for years. I’ll say it again. Armour in this game will never be balanced or be an effective balancing factor as long as gold ammo exists how it does currently.
It needs complete rework or removal.
Armour mobility and firepower make up the tank triangle. The 3 most important factors both in real life and in this game.
WG choose to ignore this.
Buff at15A
It would be interesting if they rework APCR and HEAT.
Personal Suggestion:
APCRs do 0.5 times module damage compare to AP, damage reduced 25%, higher velocity. Cost reduced 25%(From current cost). Penetration increased 20-30%.
HEATs do 1.25 times module damage compare to AP, damage increased 25%, lower velocity. Cost increased 25-50%(From AP cost). Penetration decreased 20-40%.
APCBCs do 1.25 module damage compare to AP, damage is the same as AP, slightly lower velocity. Same cost. Penetration reduced 25%. (Not really necessary to add this, but could be a new thing :D)
Ofc this game is rated as PG 7, so WG would think this is too much information for “majority” of the players.
Interesting, but people will still spam apcr because they’d opt to deal almost guaranteed damage, albeit smaller amount, as opposed to taking the risk of a bounce.
With that heat logic, it’d be very similar to British hesh, albeit no chip damage from explosive.
I don’t know much of apcbc, but could work as a module breaker with your suggestion. Just hoping that the ammo rack occurence won’t jump that much though, and maybe it’d work.
My suggestion is to give apcr just a slight penetration edge over the regular ap, 20-30mm pen will do. It’ll give an edge in contesting heavily armoured machines without completely nullifying its armor. The downside of apcr will be in the current pen drop at long distance.
Regarding heat, might as well replace all heat with hesh mechanic. Sure, British will lose one of its unique perk, but it’d fit well in terms of loss-gain balance.
Some fans favorite (or loathed) tanks will lose the heat shell, but they’d gain even higher dpm against medium / light tanks, but at least armour will be of use again. (Which will probably incite rage against WG for giving HT the protection they deserve.)
sounds good, but would work against WG’s plans to dumb down their games. After seeing WoWp 2.0 it wouldn’t shock me if WoT would become the next Panzer Elite Action…
Ctrl-C Ctrl-V of new already on main site?
With all those changes at the britisch at line i miised the AT-15A premium; What about that tank?
The tier 7 premium, AT15a was not changed in the patch
But I was checking the armour it has right now, in some places its better than the buffed AT15 one tier above it. (The sloped cheeks are ~300mm on the AT15a and ~250 on the AT15).
In fact, why should it get buffed armour?
The AT15 at tier 8 has a 101/127mm gun mantlet with nothing behind it. That was buffed to 101/127mm with 152mm behind it.
The AT15a at tier 7 has nothing behind the gun mantlet but its mantlet is 203mm thick…
Again note the tier difference.
The AT7 @ tier 7 had its cupola buffed to 152.4mm which is what the AT15a @ tier 7 already has. AT7 has 14 degrees of gun movement while the At15a has 50 degrees, enough to angle the front plate to autobounce.
Essentially, the AT15a already has armour for tier 7.
“Decent armor” Kappa
Poor AT2…
I don’t think it is entirely necessary to remove the cupola weakpoints on these tanks and so i’m thankful that they haven’t. They simply made it a smaller target which is fine to me. I really liked the AT 2 and the AT 7 for a couple interesting reasons, First, the AT 2’s weakpoint is much smaller of a target and the armor is actually useful. The AT 7 is great because the gun is positioned as far to the right of the tank as possible (at least i think it is the right side) which hid the glaring cupola completely and make the AT 7 a much smaller target. Additionally, the section that is exposed to enemy fire is quite strong indeed making the AT 7 great for city combat.
In contrast, the AT8 has the gun much closer to the center and the armor is all but useless making it one of my most hated tanks to play. The AT 15 is in a similar boat, but I didn’t hate it as much. Due to its high rof, u have to keep the gun singing to be useful in battle. However, a low damage per shot and weak penetration coupled with pretty useless armor makes it horrible and only marginally better than the AT 8.
The tortoise is riddled with the same issues as the AT 8 and AT 15, however, the gun is actually useful as it has decent standard pen and exceptional gold pen. Combine this with good accuracy, damage per shot, and a crazy rate of fire and you can kind of forgive the weak armor and poor speed. Oh, and gun depression/elevation angles and the gun arc is far superior than any other tank in the line, which are welcomed features.
Overall, this line gives me very mixed feeling post badger patch. Some excel at their roll while not having invulnerable armor and are quite fun to drive. However, others just really don’t perform well at all. I welcome this armor buff update as it doesn’t eliminate the glaring weakpoints, but make the part of the tanks that are designed to soak up damage actually useful. The only thing that disappoints me is the nerf to the armor on the AT 2. The nerf is quite substantial and I personally feel it is quite unnecessary. The tank is super slow and feels like the rest of the line anyway. Its like saying they should nerf the T95’s armor because its is the best at the tier. Doing so defeats the whole purpose of the T95 as it relies on its armor. Idk, i just don’t think the AT 2 armor nerf is necessary. Anyway, looking forward to the changes and hopefully ill get the 183 before the next patch! 🙂