Saturday, April 20, 2013

World of Tanks: Maneuvering

As requested by a clan mate, I'm going to write a little post about moving around the map, especially in related too moving your little tank butt in relation to other tanks on your team. Now this might seem silly to devote a whole post too but way too many people don't seem to grasp how close is too close to an allied tank and will start hampering mobility. Generally in relation to team mates I follow two simple rules. The first is that you don't hamper back and forth movement by being directly behind a tank so they can retreat after taking a shot or pulling forward so they can take a shot. The second is to give enough side to side room so they can wiggle their tank.

Rule 1: Never be directly behind someone!
This is very important and covers a lot of situations, the first being is that if you are on a corner and three enemy tanks start pulling around it and you take your shot, you'll be backing up as fast as you can so they can't hit you back or lure them into your teams range of fire. If a tank is blocking you from pulling back then you're stuck with bullet holes in the side of your tank. Worst of all for the guy behind you is that if your tank isn't blocking the shot, your body pushing against theirs will sure make them more likely to miss making the damage you're about to take all the more pointless.

Another situation is you're driving to a position and the tank in front is going the same way, for whatever reason he decides to stop such as taking a shot or because he was hit by artillery the last place you'll want to be is sniffing his tail pipe. For one if he's lining up a shot you'll ruin his aim, and for two anyone shooting him has perfect shots on your stationary tank. (Also artillery is less likely to miss two targets)

Rule 2: Give tanks wiggle room!
I'm sure we've all been there where someone parked so close to your side that when you moved to angle your armor you've been blocked by doing so, or even when you turned your hull a little before pulling back and being stopped because your new angle caused you to grind up against the tank next to you. This is a bad situation to be in since you can't protect yourself as usefully as you'd want due to all the reasons listed in the last section, but also because side hugging an ally means that artillery will have an even easier time to hit one of you, and also the entire time you grind you'll be ruining accuracy. Generally I give about half a T-50's width or more depending on the tanks.

Taking that corner
Now with those two rules out of the way lets go into different situations and how to best move in them. To start that out lets talk about swinging around a corner to shoot someone or to push on them. Most tanks can just pull straight out, shoot, and then pull back but doing so will expose your weak side armor at a horrible angle meaning they'll more then likely deal damage to you or even track you in that very vulnerable state. This is why you always want to take a corner at an angle along the lines of 30~50 degrees so that more of your front is exposed then your side. This is especially true for tank destroyers, you want your barrel facing them as soon as possible so they should take a wider turn to compensate for not having a turret. (when you poke out you're barrel will be closer to the target compared to hugging the corner and turning after you expose yourself)

Driving past the Enemy
A lot of times when I am in a close up battle I tend to drive past the guy I'm brawling unless I can easily win in a face to face match. This is because not only do they have to turn their turret to hit me but unless they want to give me an easy shot into their side or rear armor they'll start angling their tank so their aim will be as disrupted as mine. Also if you have allies following your push either you or them will have beautiful shots on the side / rear of their tank or turret since they'll have to choose who to shoot at.

Being circled
Besides backing up to some wall / cover if a tank is moving fast around you, you'll probably have to turn your tank along with your turret to hit them. The best way to get their tank in front of your barrel if they insist on circling you is to imagine their path as a circle and your goal is to make that circle as big as possible so they have to travel a longer distance. If they are driving past me I go forward and turn so they have to make a sharper turn to get away from my gun while. Mix it up with whatever makes your barrel turn toward them the fastest like standing still or moving forward / backwards. Just make sure your barrel is NEVER rotating in the opposite direction of your tank, it will crawl slowly and take way longer then it should. A hellcat turning left and rotating its barrel right will actually make the gun slowly turn left because the turn speed is faster then the turret rotation speed.

If artillery can see you
First of all, do not sit still unless you have enough vertical cover to block artillery shots, like a 100 story mountain or hugging a 3 story house. The next thing is to move and don't do it in a straight line. As an artillery player the only thing easier to hit then a stationary target is one that is moving in a straight line. All I have to do is guess where your tank will be in 1~2 seconds (based on range) and BOOM splash or direct hit most of the time. If you veer slightly to the left then right, then right again artillery is much more likely to miss since just a few degrees of a turn can mean you're a whole tank length away from where the artillery is aimed at. Also being on the opposite side of a hill is good since there is less are for the artillery shell to splash near you since a little bit low means its hitting the top of the hill while a little bit high means it is hitting the bottom of the hill and no where near your tank on the middle of the slope.

TL;DR
  • Give people room to back up
  • Give people room to rotate their tank
  • If you think you're spotted, don't stand still and don't move in a straight line
  • Use hills for cover and to make it harder for artillery to splash you
  • Turn your tank while something is circling you
  • Drive forward / backwards to try and make the tank circling you take longer
  • Don't turn your barrel and your tank in different directions.
  • Finally, don't touch allied tanks, especially if the are shooting something.

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