World of Tanks New Player Tips

Here you can find all World of Tanks new player tips found on WoT Guru.  These little tid-bits of useful information might not be as in-depth as other guides or articles but can prove to be very useful.

NEW PLAYER INVITE CODE!

Use “WOTGURU” to receive the following..

3 Day premium time

T14 Heavy Tank

1,000 Gold

4x +25% credit boosters for 1hr

2x +100: experience boosters for 1hr

Why You Should Not Drive In Front of Friendly SPGs

I recently picked up playing SPG’s(artillery) again in World of Tanks and find that even in high tier matches that players do not understand that driving directly in front of a friendly SPG can spell doom. Why?

Usually when a SPG player is sitting there they are in the overhead mode and not paying attention to their direct surrounds unless a scout breaks through or a flank falls.  Therefore, driving directly in front of a loaded cannon that will fire at any given second is usually a bad thing for both the passerby and also the SPG user.  I have a few screen shots of what happens when a JagdPz E-100 decides to cross a T92 while firing…

Oh look a T54 driving right into my aiming circle!

WTF?!?!?! RRRRAAAGGGEEE

**JagdPz E-100 tries to escape before being seen**

Granted he did end up apologizing and probably learned his lesson….especially since he did not end up going up the hill but rather went back down it.  So always keep in mind this is mind while out there folks as im sure most of you do not want a gift basket of SPG goodness in the side or back of your tank.

Critical Hits Can Be Your Friend (Sometimes)

Critical hits are a feature of the game you wish that would not happen for your tank but on the other hand happen to every tank you are shooting at!  Learning weak spots helps with doing damage to the HP of a tank, but going even further you can learn the basic areas for knocking out modules to improve your chance of survival in specific situations.  Knowing that shooting someone’s gun(aim for part closest to turret or shoot the hole that the gun comes out of) has a good chance of either damaging it effecting accuracy or even knocking it out for quite sometime can be the difference in living or being torn to shreds.  As a low tier tank facing a higher tier this is sometimes your only option to survive since it will buy you time to scurry away.

Learning to shoot the tracks is also very important. It might not always do HP damage but it does immobilize that enemy allowing your artillery and support to focus in on them to dispatch of them easily.  Knowing that for most tanks shooting the rear of the tank does engine/fuel damage that catches them on fire and also slows them down is very important. Instead of shooting the front half of their tank if you are on their side, aim for the rear section in the engine area.  For German tanks you can usually shoot through the frontal lower hull as well and do engine damage as the transmission is on the front of the tank on most German tanks. Smaller things like sights, turret ring, radio aren’t as reliable or easy to damage reliably but learning to use the gun, tracks, and engine/fuel tanks more often helps more than you would imagine. 

Doesn’t having your driver or loader die really suck? I thought so especially if you already used that med kit.  Learning the crew locations of the tanks you face the most is easier than you would think.  This website has models for essentially all World of Tanks tanks that show module and crew locations.

http://gamemodels3d.com/

Keep in mind that doing module damage can help you out but also hurt you if you need to do HP damage.  Knowing when to go for a module hit is important since it can come back to bite you.

Returning to Base

“Always return to base”

This saying 95% of the time will hold true.  If you see a flank failing or enemy tanks already closing in on your flag then most likely you should head back!  It makes no sense to continue pushing on if the enemy is already in a position to start capturing your flag or over run your flank and then flank you from behind.  You don’t have to turn directly around and head back, but instead of continuing forward simply pick a route that leads you back to help. Whether it is the way you came or the path the enemy tore through it will make a difference.  Your selfish teammates sitting on the enemy cap congratulating you as you reset or your SPG/failing flank who you save thanking you is your reward.  The only situation that I would not head back is if you absolutely know you and your team can out cap them without a draw which would mean you have 3 tanks on their flag and they only have 1 on yours. Even then heading back is still a viable option!

Carry Consumables!

Consumables are the final three slots at the bottom of the screen to outfit your tanks with what shells you want it to carry into battle. Yes they might eat into your credit earnings slightly, but isn’t the goal of a game like World of Tanks to win the match and beat your opponent? This is an online competitive multiplayer game after all. So pony up and spend that extra 3,000 silver to fix your track might just win you the match!  Also, by using consumables you might spend a little more per match but at the same time you gain more experience and credits for winning so it pays off.

Know Your Ping (Latency)

I see countless amounts of people fail to grasp the concept of lag(ping number at top) while aiming and firing at other tanks. Under 90m/s ping you will not notice any lag and while aiming the round will go 95% of the time where you want it to. Get up to the mid 100′s in ping and then you will want to let the aiming circle “settle” on your target or even lead your target slightly more to compensate. Once you get over 200m/s ping you’ll want to overcompensate much more. By keeping ping/lag in mind you’ll avoid getting frustrated over shots “magically” firing where you don’t want them to.  If your ping/latency is over 100 m/s I suggest that you enable the server side aiming circle in the settings since it will show you where the server thinks you are aiming.

Don’t Be Selfish

Kills do not net you any experience or silver but rather doing damage does. So “holding” your shot for a few seconds to grab that kill might make your stat line at the end of the game look better but it decreases your team’s chance of winning. Why? Because the enemy might get another shot off or be able to escape from your greediness. Plus you actually gain less silver/experience from holding your shot since you will be doing less overall damage finishing someone off compared to doing full damage.

Along with holding shots comes the hard task for most to “soak” up damage for others when needed no matter what tank you are driving.  For example if you are driving a Pershing and are with a T34 facing a IS-8 that is at 75%HP and your T34 is down to 150HP. If possible jump in front of that next IS-8′s shot or two, save your T34, allowing both of you to finish that IS-8 instead of the T34 dying and then you following shortly after. Of course in every situation it might not be the best idea to do this, but I find most of the time it is a critical turning point in a match especially if you are in a lower tier tank protecting your higher tiers.

Look at the Teams

Glance at the teams at the start screen of each match.  I wonder sometimes why teams do somethings when their team isn’t suited for the task.  
 
Have a ton of mediums on our team? Better not camp.
Are you the top tier and the only heavy? Expect to hold back their push and soak up damage for others
A lot of SPG’s? Stay near cover and always keep moving when out of it.
 
Every match is different and should be played that way, not only should you adjust where or how you play based on your team but also where you stand. If you are a top 3 tank expect to lead a push or do a lot of the work. If you are low on the list don’t consider yourself useless, expect to support other tanks or to fill a hole in your flank.  The same goes for the enemy team. If you see their team is heavily favoring heavy tanks or medium tanks you will want to adjust accordingly.

Auto-Aim!

Never….ever….use auto-aim on a regular basis.  It usually aims at the strongest point of a tank(glacis/turret/frontal glacis).  Manual aim at all times aside from the few occasions where you are focusing driving and simply engage auto-aim to keep your turret pointed at whoever is shooting at you.

Do Your Homework

Learning weak spots and specifics about tanks is honestly half of this game.  You can plonk away at that IS-4 or T95 all day long and say it’s impossible to hurt them. But if you spent 5 minutes on Youtube or the World of Tanks forums(or even my blog!) you will see where to shoot and when.  Even the most “overpowered” tank can be absolutely useless if you don’t know where to shoot.

Avoid Stock Tanks 

Avoid stock tanks as you will struggle no matter how good you are.  If you use gold simply use it to free-exp past the stock configuration and you’ll find yourself being less frustrated.  If you don’t use gold save all of your “free experience” until you reach tier 6 tanks.  This is when matchmaking gets very brutal at times, and by then you’ll have a good 10k+ free experience you can use to at least get 1-2 upgrades off the bat.

Keep Your Elite Tanks 

Keeping your elited tanks provide you something to fallback on when you are having trouble with a new tank and also earn free experience.  Just because you want to hit tier 8-10 as fast as possible doesn’t mean keeping a few tanks along the way is a bad idea.  You may not enjoy higher tier matches and then be stuck with nothing.  My advice is to keep at least 2 tanks from tier 4-6 to fall back on especially if you do not have a premium account. Not only are these the prime tiers to earn silver but they also provide a nice break from those high tier games.  For a premium account you will generally earn the most in tiers 6-8 in standard non-premium tanks.

Carry Different Shell Types

Starting out you might be limited to only one shell type with some of the low tier guns that only use AP shells.  As you move up you will notice that for most tanks you can choose between three different shells to carry into battle.  Don’t just limit yourself to one shell type and instead carry a nice mixture of all three and with the most expensive “premium shells” but them with credits and use them against strong opponents.  To learn more about shell types and shell mechanics see the page linked below.

https://wotguru.com/world-of-tanks-shell-mechanics-shell-types/

Participate on a World of Tanks Forum

Participating on a forum focused around World of Tanks will help you improve by reading other’s tips, let you get questions answered quick, and keep you aware of what is happening in World of Tanks.  Each World of Tanks server has its own forum due to different languages and the regions they cover.  There are also several other major World of Tanks forums located either on clan websites, fan websites, or on social media websites.  My favorite is sticking on the official forums if you are starting out since you get a wide range of different players that bring different knowledge to the table.  I still find things on an almost daily basis on the forums that I either did not know about World of Tanks or found helpful/intriguing.  Below are some links to different World of Tanks official forums.

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/

http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/

http://forum.worldoftanks.asia/

http://forum.worldoftanks.ru/

World of Tanks Mods

There is an endless amount of mods for World of Tanks from visual ones to others that add information to “help you” while in a match.  Personally I use almost no mods since most simply add clutter and useless junk in my opinion…but then again that is just one person’s opinion.  One thing I suggest is that you reach at least tier 5 before deciding to add anything to your game as far as mods go.  Don’t worry about your stats, don’t worry about having the latest mod that helps you do “x and x”, and instead play the game using the stock game set up.  After getting a decent amount of battles under your belt then go ahead and install some mods if you feel the need to do so.  If you start out thinking you need many of the popular mods to enjoy World of Tanks you can find yourself playing the game for the wrong reasons or spending a lot of time wondering why your game won’t function properly with each update.