BumbaX

About the Hellfire, as is the Tank unlocked playing the Griffin, I would say that is a very fun and interesting tank, very capable in all the modes. My main problem with it is only about the AGTM Targeting System: it gives a very fast burst as you can spam up to 8 missiles in a very short time, and in PvP it is awesome as you can punish hard every enemy error, but also makes the reload 17% slower, that in PvE maybe is less then optimal. I would have really liked the chance to equip the component but also to un equip it when you prefer slower burst but a faster reload. Still i think that it is a very good tank and if it does not unlock a T10 one i forgive it, I have anyway a lot of fun and good results playing it.

It can be somehow true at low tiers where the MBTs actually have big armor problems, and often a very long reload time with a relatively low alpha damage. But from mid tiers, and way more at high tiers, I disagree. With the same MBT in the same mission is possible to be destroyed really fast and also to do little damage in the short time you survive, but also is possible to bounce a lot, having at the end of some games like 40-60k mitigated damage, not necessarily driving an ADTU or an Object 490, while doing a lot of damage. The reload gets shorter and the alpha higher, but also the HEAT rounds are very strong as well is strong to aim to the right points to trigger fires and ammo rack explosions. The ADTU has a very long relaod, but when the 25-30% of the damage you do is due to fires and ammo rack explosions (using the green ammo) you are perfectly fine with that slow reload. Using only the more user friendly AP and don't aiming for the right points to set fires and explosions the damage done is surely low. The problem for the MBTs is completely on the player's side. When in a mission i see 2 players driving the same MBT and one do 30k damage and the other 12k it is very clear for me that the problem is only on the player side. The MBT class is probably the easiest to play (PvE wise) after the TDs used as long distance snipers, where you have only to learn where to place your tank in each mission then do pigeon shooting all the time, but is good that at least needs some skill. Both to protect yourself, the armor is good only if you are able to use it properly, an offensively, you have slow reload, but big alpha using Heat and a good chance to ammo rack and damage components with AP and the green rounds. With most of the T10 MBTs is quite easy to ammo rack a T15 with 2 shots and to set fire to a Bradley or most LT with a single one, a little research with the armor inspector should teach how to any one that is willing to learn and improve, just as one of the many examples. Imho MBTs with an armor that makes them almost invulnerable and a gun that has big alpha and pen while also reloading very fast would have been a very easy implementation for the novices, but also a boring and overpowered one. About the mobility surely a Kornet is way faster then the MBTs, but when i drive some LT or even some AFV like the Griffin I am not running at the double of their speed, Sure with some MBT in GLOPS you need a lot of time to go to the opposite side of a map, specially if it is a large one, but I remember how when Balance 2.0 was introduced the T14 speed was buffed, it could go faster then many tanks of other classes, was fun to play, but i am happy that not is no more like this. I feel that only at low tiers the MBTs are a weak class, slow, easily penned, low alpha and long reload, but from mid tiers on they start to become an interesting class, with its own power and that to shine needs at least some skills and an idea of how to play them. That is not climbing hills to snipe so the ones without armor have to do the dirt work for them.

Yes is a very strong tank, one of the few AC ones where you really don't suffer the lack of missiles. It is a big tank so as it gets a very good camo and is not wheeled i am fine with not having it also super fast, but all you tell about it is true. For the ammo rack i think that is more a PvP problem, in PvE as you have to live on the camo to survive to the many bots shooting at you and also probably because the bots are scripted to aim at the hull for maximum damage, i have almost no ammo rack fire or explosion. In PvP a good player knows that weakness and can exploit it, and there are also more situations where you use the terrain to cover the hull using your high dpm and reduced turret damage as there you are not supposed to do 30k dmg fighting in 5 against 40 dumb enemies, and 30k is an easy goal with it in PvE, but in PvP if you do 5k and face only some of the 15 enemies you do a pretty good game, so to trade reduced damage taken with huge damage done pays much more. So the weakness is somehow useful to balance it, as a player can use it like so, but an other player can counter it causing ammo rack damage. So even if my retros are the breach one and the 2 view ones probably in PvP the Reinforced Ammo Rack is the right way to go. As commander in PvE both Erin and Sabrina work well, possibly Erin is the better choice as you live more on the camo and to do damage to the bots components is somehow less important, you will do a lot of damage even without starting less fires, but you can risk more (if the dumb MBT sniper does not drive right next to you killing your camo) and get more spots and fire not spotted in more situations. In PvP damaging components, so tracking tanks, disabling their ability to shot or move the turret and setting fires and ammo rack damage is way more important so Sabrina shines more.

Probably to do like them and wait for a quick loss is the wisest thing, as the chance to lose anyway is high, but I can not force myself to do it, I play for the fun and I have no fun if I don't do what I can to bring the party to the victory. And if you are in a tank that can spot, so not a MGM and I would say also not a Mephisto, even if the Mephisto has the camo to do it, but in some good AFV or light tank with a good camo commander it can be very rewarding as you can farm a lot of spotting damage. I perfectly see the reasons why some MBT players that have no clue about how to play are scared of Harbinger, even with armor it is so easy to be wiped out fast at the beginning if you don't know how to use the terrain features and you over extend just a little, as you have the tanks near that house, but also others coming from the river, if there is not a good spotter on the hill to spot them and warn you, and the ones that come from the NE part of the map, so you have to face tanks that have cover while you are flanked from 2 sides. A player that does know how to play probably gets destroyed fast in his MBT every time he dares to do what actually an MBT is supposed to do, go forward and spot for the snipers on the hill, so they chose to become MBT snipers hoping that there is some other MBT that does the dirt work, and end to do it also when they are the only MBTs in the party. But if with your squishy you go, start to spot, have at least part of the first swarm of enemies cleared there is a chance that they will follow you as the main problem that pushed them on the hill is already partially resolved. Most of the time you fail anyway, but doing it at least i can have some fun. Never give up!

Yes in PvE when you are with some T15, GAU or other tank that can kill fast it is a problem, and even unlock the upgrade that make you lock the target faster helps only a little, as the missiles are anyway slow. Probably the best strategy is to choose wisely your targets, not the Bradleys that are often the first things that most tanks with high firepower focus on, and not those that take reduced damage from your missiles, but some MBTs that are not easy targets for them and maybe spare your missiles for who has not been hit by the T15 AGTM salvo. Also to use the very good mobility and camo in some maps helps a lot as well as the fact that if you lock a target you can fire at it even when is hulldown or in a position that don't let your allies damage him. Still it is not, and never will become if not completely changed, a damage monster, 10K on average or maybe a little more it what it should do, even if sometimes and with some luck it is possible to do better But its strength is as spotter, not as damage dealer, see how if in the match of the screenshot I pulled out a pretty good damage from the Crapjeep, but is when you spot well that you rank well, like in the match below. 23 spotted tanks and +40K spotting damage are well rewarded in this game, even with only 5K damage done I have been able to outscore a GAU

T14 is a coward dog... I have to say that I have won sometimes that mission without any MBT or Ramka like tank in the party, but when you see the MBTs going very fast to the sniper positions on the hill at the beginning of the match you probably know in advance that the game is lost. In such situation I had maybe won only one time, at least I can remember only it, but I was in a Murder, not in a Mephisto, and I had Erin as commander, I went to spot, was killed after some time, but i did respawn and the other squishy ones followed my example and made their part, I was lucky that was good players, then finally even the cowards in MBT joined to the party to help cap the town, when most of the work had been already done by us squishy, and at least was in the right place when we had to defend it. But it is the only time i can remember, way better to be 5 with no armor but the will to fight and at least some part of the brain working then having a couple of MBT snipers, that in your case was not even good at that...

Thank you, probably you are right.

@MK_Regular I agree with what you say. But some overprogression upgrades are relatively fast to gind, like the ones that improve the tank speed, while most of those that require a long grind depend on the player's style. I would say that the trophy system is always worth to have, at least if you like the Abrams, as you don't have to choose between it and other alternatives. For the others the play style matters a lot, if Defense is worth to have in most cases, as you can activate it when you don't plan to move fast and improves the rate of fire without affecting accuracy until you deactivate it Rapid Fire is only useful for those that like very close combat situations, as the accuracy becomes terrible, so if trade it for the mobility ones depends completely on the play style. Also as the overprogression upgrades are implemented on high tier MBTs those that have still some commander to grind can use the first battle multiplier to grind the upgrade and a commander on all the tanks he has still to grind. Finally even if 2M for some upgrades is a long road at least you grind a tank actually playing it, while for the upgrades of those Premium tanks that are given as reward you unlock the upgrade, so grind the tank, playing different tanks, and this is what I don't like. A daily mission that involves having the infantry can be used to grind one of those Premium tanks that has not infantry, you are actually compelled to grind a tank using an other one, a very dumb choice imho.

@Haswellplease what proxy-spotting means?

As I don't own both the 140 and Cortez i can not tell anything about it, but I believe that high tier Premium tanks should not be more powerful then the progression ones in any mode, as it is pay to win. At least for the CATTB the Altai and the Object the chance to win them in the battle path was given to anyone, but still the ones that could not play enough in those battle paths for whatever reason or the ones that come to the game now have no free chance to get them. I am fine with the concept that if you pay for a Premium Tank you grind credits, reputation and commanders faster, but this is pay to grind, not pay to win. One of the reasons why I play this game and I never touched an other tank game is because here the pay to win aspect is almost not existing, at least we don't have Premium ammo and similar crap. I was quite annoyed by the too strong frontal armor of the 140 in PvP, if in PvE it was a nerf or a boost it completely depends on where the bots are scripted to aim, now the 99A2 should be more resilient to the AGTMs even if less strong against AP as long as you don't expose your LFP so possibly it is not a nerf as in PvE the rockets are the main treat, a MBT can do you damage, but a T15 or a couple of Bradley can take away much of your HP in seconds.

If used properly then probably can be well rewarding in PvE as designating should have a priority over tracking and spotting.

Yep this new way to upgrade the Premium tanks you get as reward is quite annoying, I hope that the missions of the next battle path will count for it, it can speed the process quite a bit, but I don't see any other logic between it then compelling the players to care for the daily and weekly missions and maybe spend gold (aka real money) to complete them. Also some missions require to use tanks that have infantry, i am getting them way too often, and it happens that all the tanks I have that use infantry are with lev 5 crew and all unlocked, if not for the Type 89 that has a lev 5 crew and upgrades that i can not unlock by playing it, so to complete those missions I have to play 10 or more missions with tanks that I don't have any grind reason to play.

I don't think that if you rank high or low on a certain map changing map can change much your performance compared to the other players. Sure some maps are easier and others, let's say Tsunami, much harder if you don't know what to do and some missions can be better suited for some play styles and with certain tanks, ie Banshee is very difficult if you play with some missile tank that lacks of armor and have an offset between the rocket and the aiming reticle as you have often to fire trough little windows and the chance that it hits an obstacle is high, while with that same tank Perseus is a very easy mission as you have open lines of fire, plenty of bushes to hide and make good use of your camo, so your style and the tank you are driving affect how you do in a certain mission. But on average who performs well in a mission performs well in all them and who don't will not find a magic mission that makes him shine. So as the reward multipliers can go from 2.65 (xp) and 11 (credits) of Ricochet to 4.47 and 22.02 of Leviathan I think that playing the missions with the better multiplier is the most rewarding option both if on average someone performs well or not, the only other thing important is how a mission lasts, a very short one, that you usually complete in a little time, can give the same time/reward ratio of a long one with a better multiplier. I also think, and this maybe is OT here, that to play every time the same few missions only because are the most rewarding becomes boring, PvE is somehow boring in itself as the bots do the same things every time, the only variables are the tank you are playing and the teammates if you play with randoms, to restrict it only to the most rewarding missions makes it even more boring, transform it in a work where the only scope is the grind while we are playing an online game that will not bring us any glory or money in the RL, our main reward should be the fun we have playing. So while for the tanks that I really want to grind I play at least the time when the first victory of the day is active on a well rewarding map I also like to play most of the less rewarding maps, at least the ones that I have fun playing, I usually skip Ricochet because I don't like it as mission, but as I like Umbrella or Starry Night I often play them if i find them in the queue, even if are low reward ones.

@Baron_Georg reading your last post in this thread as well as other posts from you in other threads I begin to suspect that your main problem is exactly to " be supercritical and vocal about my own performance". It is perfectly possible that your willing to shine and being not capable to do it is actually the main thing that drags you and don't allow you to improve. Not all the minds perform better when frustration and the feeling to have to face something almost impossible are there, for some minds it is the fuel that make them perform better, but for others it is only paralyzing and the very reason why they don't become better. So try to focus more on the fun of playing instead of the result, the competition against the other players and it is possible that your mind will be less paralyzed and your performance will improve. I am not sure that it is the case for you as I don't know you, but you can give it a try, play some sessions with the attitude to have fun, without even caring of the results, maybe even without opening the team page of the battle results, so you don't know how you have performed compared to the other guys, take some risk, but try to don't overextend yourself, and see what happens. Before going to each mission self train your mind, repeat to yourself: "I will do well, I will avoid the stupid errors that I so often do, but the main and important thing is that I will have fun playing and doing my best in the battle, the outcome does not matter at all, as the fun I have is my only and ultimate reward". It is possible that you will be surprised by the results when, after boosting your fun and beginning to be really satisfied of what you do in some missions you finally start to look back at the results you had and start to open that team page in the result screen.

I believe that for some players the progression is not linear, but happens in steps. They score really low, do little damage then a click happens, and they can be not aware of the reason why, and they start to get let's say 7-10K more damage on average on a medium or high tier PvE, they are not destroyed as soon as they show their tank in Random battle and they start to get their blue stars often and even some gold medal sometimes. For some reason it seems that that click never happened to you, and I don't really know how to help you in having it happen. But i can tell 2 things: the first is that if you almost always platoon with your battalion mates and they are very good it is normal that you don't score so well, when I go alone I get a lot of blue stars as I am well over the average of the PvE player base, but when I platoon with my usual friends, as some of them are better players then me, i farm way less stars and damage, if you play only or mostly with your battalion mates it can be a part of the problem. The other thing is that not all the people has the right range of skills to shine in this game, you need sharp reflexes, you have to be able to perform more tasks at the same moment, like focus on the tank you are shooting at while also care if some other can flank you and this with a constant eye on the minimap, you need to be willing to learn the weak spots of so many tanks and have a good memory to remember them in battle, the same is true for the ammo racks and fuel tanks location, and you have to be able to take fast the right decisions, both about what is happening near you and for the whole battle/mission. If I think that with the right dedication every one can become at least an average player probably only few of us have the right set of skills to really shine, and it is true in so many other things, not all the people can become a top athlete or musician even if almost everybody can with enough dedication become not terrible at playing an instrument or run. And imo it is perfectly possible to have fun playing this game even if someone does not rank first every single match as long as he feels that he has done all what he could and he is not too much conditioned by the pressure of the modern society where competition and be the coolest one seem to be the only important things. I had fun playing this game when I begun, and as i did not had any previous experience in games that require the same set of skills, I grow up without the playstation or a PC, I performed very bad, I had fun when I was improving and starting to get my first blue stars and gold medals, I have fun now, that I am probably a pretty decent player, far from being an unicorn and i suppose that I will have also fun if i ever will become an unicorn.

Not solid barrels are an intended choice, for game play reasons, it would not have been difficult to code them solid at all. With solid barrels the game play would have been changed a lot, to face hug would become impossible and a tank with a shorter barrel could keep a tank with a longer one at the right distance where he can point the gun at the enemy but the enemy can not. And this is only an example. Being this game something very different to a proper simulator it is probably a wise decision as the way we use the tanks, the engagement distance and many other things are already very different from what happens in RL, ie the ammo rack on the front of the tank in the Leopards and other tanks works very well in RL as the typical engagement distance is much higher so the ballistic arch of the shell make much more unlikely that it is hit, while with the short distance in the game to have an ammo rack explosion is much more likely.

To grind arty in PvE is doable in some maps that are very good for them, like Leviathan or Phalanx. I have seen also players able to do fantastic things with arty in most of the other maps and in Spec Ops, driving them TD mode and attacking always, but they was players of superior level, I would say that for a good, over the average but not super, player it is something impossible, while being smart enough it is possible to be a good flanker with the multi clip ones. To play them TD style I find very useful to change the game settings choosing a smaller fow, it makes everything bigger in over the shoulder view and if the player has not a very large monitor helps a lot to aim correctly. As I play with a small 4/3 monitor and my eyes are "not so young" I find almost impossible for me to aim in over the shoulder if I don't do it.

To make it shorter to hold a cap more then the enemy team for 167 seconds matches the 500 points gotten by killing 20 more tanks in a whole match. If a match lasts 10 minutes, so 600 seconds it means that holding a cap more for a little more then 25% of the time is as effective as killing 20 more tanks, and also, as some players act in a very selfish way, caring more of their personal result, farming damage and kills, to cap is very rewarding for the player that does it. So often i see that the one that did the most damage and kills does not rank very high as other players with less damage was well rewarded by capping. And I believe that it is a very important thing to understand, that some players completely miss, not only no cap no win is true but also no cap no good personal result as usually who gets the gold medal in a won match is the one that did damage and kills, but also cared about capping, while i see often in the loosing time the iron medal having a lot of damage and kills but no points for capping. To focus on kills and damage is not wrong, but only if you do that to allow some other friendly tank to win the battle for a cap, a sniper that kills the enemy low health tanks and soften the high health ones while your front liners are brawling against enemy tanks to win a cap is as useful as the MBT that actually caps after winning the brawling, while a sniper that focuses on other not important points of the map, maybe killing some tank that is not doing anything to help his team to cap and win is not so useful for the party. Not all tanks are designed to cap, you need some armor or very good mobility to do it, but all the tanks can in their own way give their contribution to win the caps.

In PvE i am not so sure that i am so happy about the buff, as now if i drive a T15 or an other missile tank now my only hope if i face a 99A2 that has it LFP under cover is to hope to hit the very narrow turret ring spot. Driving myself the Type I don't know as with the previous meta I had very mixed results, sometimes getting blue stars, over performing damage monsters like the T15 and bouncing a lot, missiles included, but I had also very bad games, doing few and also being killed often. And I never play a MBT as sniper, I always go forward and play as frontliner as a MBT should imo do. So I think that the T10 Type had no need at all of an armor buff, was a perfectly capable tank, powerful in its own way, that only needed some finesse in its use, finesse that I was not able to have all the times. So a very interesting way of being unique, but still balanced and true to its class. In the PvP modes i was quite pissed by the frontal armor of the 99A2-140, it is a premium with a more powerful gun and higher reload time, and this is ok, but I never saw a reason why its frontal armor should perform better then the progression's one. So good that with some MBTs was almost impossible to pen it frontally, and that imo was to be a little too far in the pay to win side, as it was a Premium. Now probably against one driven by a competent player with an MBT you have more chance, but if you drive a missile based tank, both at short distance with a T15 or a Termi, or at long distance like with a Hellfire I wish you good luck... But at now I had only one game with the new (progression) 99A2, blue star in Leviathan, my opinion is mainly based on what i can see with the armor inspector. Playing it in the real game can prove my first impression completely wrong.

@knutliott you have to learn how to use PELE, it is actually broken and too powerful, as long as you learn where to aim. Not only it does more damage then AP, but is super useful on the well armored tanks,at least most of them. Lets say that a T10 MBT is facing you, exposing only the front, there is very little you can do to it with AP, use pele and aim at the right point, that usually is the upper edge of the turret, it works very well with the Abrams and many other MBTs, but ie for the merkava is the lower part of the turret, and your PELE will magically do a lot of damage. Some tanks like the PL01 and the Anders are more resilient to PELE, frontally you have to aim at the right spot and if they expose only the side are completely impervious to it, and this is why you should also carry some AP rounds that can pierce their sides without problem, but PELE is the way to go in 90% of the cases, is what let you damage most heavy armored tanks from every angle. AC is the main weapon of that tank, the top attack missiles are very situational and should be used only on certain tanks, ie against T15 the first one is blocked by the APS, but then you usually hit for full damage as long as the T15 is spotted by some other player, so remains your target, while you are behind some hard cover, while against the Terminator usually you get only at best reduced damage. AC is the main weapon and PELE is the reason why, it is almost broken as I told as let you do damage to tanks that an AC should not touch, like an MBT that exposes only the front, maybe when it is hulldown so the heavy guns of your team can not touch him, so easily and effortlessly as long as you learn where to aim. I suggest you some trips to Alabino and a little experimentation, you way to see how the PELE of the AS21 is useful and powerful will be completely changed, it is not against the Bradley that it shines, as every AC can do damage to a Bradley (but the one of the crapjeep that can only penetrate its back), is against the well armored tanks.

For me the Polish arty, the PLZ, seems to be the better choice, for the T9 one you have both the choices, multiple clip with a more arched trajectory, so can shot above hills and obstacles that with the single shot block the line of fire, but much longer aim time, and single shot with fast reload and very fast aiming time, with the right crew specializations and retrofits is not much longer then the one of many not arty tanks. I use both the configurations depending on the map i am playing and the role i intend to have, usually I play arty in a conventional way, but sometimes also in "TD mode". By the way @xxx514 what do you mean with "perform daily lose through all tiers of my steel herd", if it is what I suspect, going into battle with each tank you have then manage to be killed fast or go to garage soon to repeat with every other tank, happy to gain few from each mission as you do almost nothing in it, and you also compel the other players to play it in 4, so the win rate drops (but your 3x first victory multiplier remains intact), counting on the fact that that way you can play a lot of missions in a single hour of gaming please stop doing it. I can completely forgive a player that is under performing, as if there is an average player value as there are people way over that average there are also others that are way under, because they are learning, because their set of skills is not the one that make a person play well this kind of games, because maybe they have some impediments, like reduced sight, low speed reflexes or whatever other reason. They are a drag when you find them in the party, but still they have the right to play as this is not Olympic games, is a free to play online game open to everybody. As long as they are doing their best, even when their best is very few, I am fine with it, and many times when an under performing player invited me in a platoon, after I got my blue star, I accepted as I like to support who want to put some effort and improve, even if I am certainly not among the very best players. But as some unicorns was so kind to accept my friendship and play with me and I learned a lot from it I feel that I have to do the same with who is even worst then me at this game. But being a leach that sucks blood from the other players, uses their effort and time to gain without any personal effort easy credits and xp, is something that I will always condemn as a selfish and not ethic behavior. I condemn it even if many times I actually gain from having those players in the party, as I have more damage, more spots and more kills to farm. And I always report those players for inactivity at the end of the game, hoping that their behavior was not due to some real life issues, like a very important telephone call, even if I have no feedback about how using the report function is actually useful or only a waste of time. If you mean something different telling "perform daily lose through all tiers of my steel herd" I apologize. I am not sure of what you really meant and even in the worst case my intention is not to shame you, only to make you think again about what (maybe) are doing, there is a proper way to gain more credits in the game, a way that pay you more in the long run and does not create problems to the other players, and the recipe is easy: more effort, looking at the replays to understand your own errors and the reasons why others did so much better, using this forum and the other online resources to improve and be a better player.

Thank you, now i should be able to remove the dirt effect from my tanks!

I am still not able to locate it From what i understand from the screenshots you posted inside your Materials folder has been extracted from the gameui. pak archive, then inside it there is the at_materials folder. In my archive i can only find the libs folder, not the animations, levels and materials ones that i see in your screenshot. I post a screenshot of what the main directory of the archive is in my computer. inside the libs folder there is a nest of other folders each one containing an other, but none of them is the materials one, the last one of the nested folders is named textures, and inside it there are many folders, but none of them is called materials or materials_at

I did read that thread and also try to unpack the archive gameui.pak, but still i don't see any at_materials folder or archive in the gamesdk folder. But i also noticed that if i test the gameui.pak with 7zip the result is an error, it tells me that I have an error Headers (i translate from Italian as i use an italian version of 7zip) , beginning of the archive not confirmed and I also get a warning, some data are present beyond the data payload. I don't know if it is related to my problem, but unless I have to extract also all the many resources and textures .pack files I don't understand what i am doing wrong.

I am running Windows 7 and i am not able to follow your instructions. my Armored Warfare MyCom folder is in a different location, not in the C: main root, but in Oracle/MyGames. Then i can find the gasmesdk folder inside, but there i find only many files, most of them are some resources and textures .pak and only 2 folders: levels and movies. I don't see any materials or at_materials, not as folders not as archives, even with hidden files visualization enabled. What am I doing wrong?