World of Tanks Advanced Tips

For those players who have moved past the new phase and the intermediate phase and want to continue to improve you can still discover small tips to help improve your game.  These tips while not exclusive to players who have played World of Tanks long enough to consider themselves “advanced” are generally difficult to implement on a consistent basis in game for newer players.

Using Your Gun as Armor

The gun module in World of Tanks as you should(I hope) know by now is not a solid object and the projectile is actually fired from just within the tank’s turret behind the gun.  However, the gun module can soak up shells and counts as spaced armor as well as not being able to receive any HP damage unless a shell passes through it to hit a different piece of armor.  Knowing this you can position your gun into an enemy gun and then when the enemy fires your gun module will “block” the shot.  This will potentially damage/knock out your gun, do nothing to both you and the enemy, or cause a HE/HESH shell to explode close to the enemy and damage them significantly.

Aside from using that method at close range you can also implement the same idea at long ranges.  Most guns have enough gun elevation or are long enough to block weak spots above the gun(mainly the cupolas on the top of tanks).  Simply point your gun up between reloads or before an enemy fires at your weak spots on the top of your tank and try to keep it in between your weak spots and the enemy.  Moving the gun a bit back and forth helps since in most situations it will not cover the entire weak spot but it will improve your chances.  The worse things that could happen is either your gun gets damaged or you cause your enemy to spend a few extra seconds aiming.  Both of those scenarios are better than taking a HP shot in a weak spot in my opinion.  Keep in mind that tanks with good gun depression and/or long guns can also do the same thing with pointing down to hide some lower weak spots as well.

Map Awareness

Most players who stick with World of Tanks are capable of looking at the mini-map(sometimes) but few can truly understand what all those green and red dots mean.  Knowing where you should be on the map based on the known locations of enemies and where you teammates are positioned is a difficult task.  There is no definite guide or way of telling you “where you should be” since every match is different and every map plays differently as well.  There are however a few small tips you can use as a rough guideline to sooth your mini-map woes.

In a scenario where you notice a hole in the enemies or your own team’s line you might be tempted to move to fill or attack that gap.  In some cases this can be a very good idea if you catch the enemy off guard or are flanking enemies already under attack.  On the defensive side by you moving to cover a hole you could possibly stop a scout or an advancing force from moving through unseen.  However, in most cases you do not need to move over to cover a hole in your line or attack that “wide open” gap in the enemy defense and here is why.  On the defensive side on most maps you do not need to move very far to “cover” a hole since you can use your view range to your advantage and cover multiple areas.  Instead of moving over to a location alone and then being torn to shreds by multiple enemies can be fixed by setting up further away and closer to friendly tanks.  This also has a benefit of enemies pushing to far and then being flanked from multiple sides when your other teammates realize.  

On the attacking side it depends on if you are alone and what tank you are in.  If you are in a scout tank or mobile tank then darting through an opening and getting behind the enemy can prove to be useful.  However, attacking with a non-light tank or less mobile medium can result in you being picked off quickly without accomplishing anything.  Generally if it looks open and to good to be true then it is.  Exploit these openings when you can help your teammates in an area nearby or if you know you can get in and out fast.

“Lemming Rushes” or more specifically your entire team pushing down one side of the map while ignoring another is a common occurrence in World of Tanks.  Choosing between covering the forgotten flank or going with the flow is a simple choice if you think about it this way.  If your team is rushing one flank to begin with it should hint that a lot of the players are not very “map aware” and will need help if they encounter any decent defending force.  Helping them by joining the lemming train *but* not fully committing to it is in most cases the best option.  Start out by telling them that “we need to push hard” and then push out to a spot that you can help them pick off the first few tanks and get the ball rolling.  Then you can start to slowly move out towards the weaker side and/or back to your base to prevent the enemy from capturing your base quickly.  This way you are not left defending against a hoard of enemies in the first few minutes while the “lemming rush” on the other side stalled at the first enemy tank they saw.

Playing Outside Your Tank’s Niche

As you learn more about World of Tanks and pick up small things to perform better you can start to push outside of the general play style of your tanks more.  This means that instead of sitting back in a tank destroyer since you do not have a turret, you could instead be more aggressive and take a few more risks.  This is because by now you can react to different situations better than the average player, know small tricks, and understand many tanks/maps by now.  By no means should you try to play as a scout tank in an E-100 or T95 but instead do things you normally wouldn’t expect to do.  Enemies think like you do and expect specific tanks to be in a specific areas at a specific time on each map.  While each World of Tanks match is different in most cases each map plays out similarly in public matches.  When you show up in a heavy tank where there should only be a medium tank it can surprise enemies and cause them to make mistakes.  Changing things up and figuring out what you can change and what you cannot compared to the norm will lead to you finding new things others do not know.  You can’t expect to learn and improve unless you think outside the box from time to time.