World of Tanks: Tank Companies

Since non-premium accounts can create tank companies in the upcoming 0.8.5 patch I think it would be a good idea to talk a bit about the basics of creating and operating a tank company. To start out you'll have four choices of tank companies to run, Junior at tier 4, Medium at tier 6, Champion at tier 8, and Absolute at tier 10. Currently most tank companies that are running are mediums, however when the patch comes out we'll probably see a lot more junior and champion tank companies popping up. Now before I get started I'd like to state that I'll be focusing on medium tank companies the most with this post since I know them the best.

Starting A Tank Company
To start a tank company you need two things. The first one is players which you either get from clan and friend invites or from random players joining while the tank company is open. The second thing you need is a caller who directs your troops into battle. Without these two things you'll be losing a whole lot more then you'll be winning. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is forming a tank company without either yourself or a friend / clan mate being the caller as tank companies need organization with the smaller number of tanks and more organized teams out there. Tank companies are not random battle and if everyone goes off and does their own thing then you'll be grossly outmatched.This is why I say you should NEVER form a tank company unless you are going to call the battle plan. Also if you are going to call you'll need a microphone since typing in orders will be too slow.

Layouts
Besides having a caller and getting people you'll need to fill up your point limit (60 for mediums). To start it out lets go with your 10 heavies and then subtract from that to fill in the different types of tanks that will benefit the callers and the tankers play styles the most. You can run with just 10 KV-1S's however you'll be handicapping yourself a lot unless your team can make up for the one sided approach and lack of synergy.
  
Besides your main force you'll want some sort of flankers or reactionary force such as two or three hellcats. Their tank destroyer benefits to camouflage along with their more poke you in the side attitude works well with a KV-1S blob. The can be passive scouts behind bushes or sit to the side and hit targets in their rear.

Another thing you'll want depending on the layout is some artillery and a scout to not only light up targets but to have that constant added pressure. Generally you'd sacrifice two heavies for a pair of artillery and a scout. The artillery can reach out and touch someone by providing needed damage to a target while the scout keeps the team updated on enemy movements and lets them take a lot more shots then they could before.

However you decide to build your tank company figure out what roles you need and pick the tanks based on that such as an artillery to hit those dug in tanks or maybe a T-50 if you losing because your tanks never have anything to shoot at.

Calling
While in battle and your calling the match with your microphone remember to ping the map with ctrl + click to better show people where to go. Seeing G5 light up while you tell the heavies to go there makes it easier for them to know what you're talking about. Your job as a caller is to get tanks where they need to be when they need to be, if the drivers can't kill their target then its their fault but if they don't have a target or are in the wrong place, it is solely your fault. Lets say you have your whole tank force push the valley on Lakeville while leaving the city and center open and a T-50 gets into the base and kills the artillery, it is your fault for not stationing some defense there. However if the whole team gets stopped by a single tank destroyer and completely fails to push through the valley even though you're telling them too, it is their fault. However instead of just being a single tank destroyer but a heavily entrenched force that stopped and massacred your push, then it was your fault for not calling that properly by ordering it, or not reacting to it properly.


The goals to winning is map presence and awareness along with the application of force. Knowing where the enemy tanks are lets you position your tanks to counteract what they are doing. For me the biggest thing while calling is having a better application of force by having more guns pointed in the same direction then the other guy. Lets take an example with assault on Sand River. If you place all of your tanks on that dune while attacking so you can see the enemy cap and you send your scout to get lights (which hopefully he'll be smart and light up 1 or 2 tanks and book it to safety instead of driving onto the cap and dying) You'll have all of those tanks and artillery ready to fire on the one or two tanks that are spotted / ready to fire back. If that one or two volley of shells kills or injures a few tanks and your team barely gets touched, then you're ahead. Now lets say half their team went up the hills and towards the 8/9 line of the map to defend from there. If you push all your tanks along the 1/2 line and have all those guns pointed at the small number of defending tanks on that side of the map chances are you'll wipe them out before the rest of the team can get enough barrels on your troops.

Anyway I hope some of this has helped some of you, and for those of who who don't want to read it all...
TL;DR

• If you start a tank company without already having someone as a caller, you better be calling yourself or you should not have started a tank company.
• Have a microphone for calling.
• When calling remember to have map presence / awareness and use a greater application of force then the other guy, aka more putting your tanks in positions where they're fighting 2 on 1, or even better 5 on 1.
• If you join a tank company and the leader says "Okay who's calling" leave.

World of Tanks: Artillery Explained

After being fed up with how often I see people complain about artillery I think I should explain more about their dynamics beyond the perception people get that they are just 1 shot killing machines. Artillery may not require as much "skill" in certain aspects of the game but to be truly effective you'll have to master a very frustrating skill, relying on your team. Artillery by itself unless it knows where you're coming from and can funnel you in front of its barrel will almost always lose a 1 on 1 engagement. Artillery has to be an ambush tank when facing off in head to head matches because of their extremely low accuracy unless you are too close to miss. Most people see artillery as free kills when they are spotted because generally they are.

Where artillery really shines is shooting long range thanks to their arched trajectory and the strategic map. However this comes at a price because of the ranges involved and the reliance on team mates to not only spot targets, but having them spot the targets you can hit and where you need to hit. Because of the lower muzzle velocity of the artillery shells they'll arrive slower meaning that the tank you just shot at normally has over a second to move, and that is generally how long it takes for your shot to completely miss. To better go on about this without adding lots of bias and long winded paragraphs, I'll try to break it up into aspects of the artillery and say the good and bad of them in a sentence or two.

Shell Trajectory
Good : It can hit tanks behind obstacles that block direct fire.
Bad : If a tank moves backwards or forwards your shot will miss a lot more often unless you compensate for it because you are aiming at a location, not a direction.

High Damage
Good : You can generally deal more damage then other tanks your tier per shot
Bad : This is balanced by long reload and aim times meaning you'll generally do less damage in the long term unless you're given the time and the targets to make each of your rounds count.

Splash Damage
Good : Even if you missed which 50% of the time you'll probably do, you'll at least do some damage and hopefully track the tank you're shooting or even hitting multiple tanks. This is very nice since it helps balance out the inaccuracies of trying to hit a tank by picking a spot on the ground to shoot.
Bad : Because of the bad accuracy at range, the splash will generally see a lose in vital damage you need to deal. And if a friendly tank happens to get too close to your target you could end up paying for his or hers repair bill.

Long Range Support
Good : Due to the mechanics you can sit far away from the battle and contribute to the war effort along with being able to shift your support across most of the battle field in under half a minute.
Bad : Because of the mechanics and the range, you'll see your shots increasingly miss due to accuracy, the target moving, or even your team killing them in the two seconds it takes your shell to hit the ground.

Close Encounters
Good : You can set up a trap and whamp someone when they run in front of your barrel
Bad : Unless you can pull off a 1 hit kill or you have team support, you're dead.

Tiering
In Game : SU-26 is tier 3, grille is tier 4, and an S-51 is a tier 6 artillery.
Actual : Due to special matchmaking these artillery are actually tiers 4, 6, and 8 respectively. So when you see a Tier 5 artillery, think of it as a tier 6~7 instead.

Anyway is artillery overpowered? Yes when viewed in a bubble however an artillery in the game has very little power to influence how a battle can turn out unless it can take out those key tanks at the key moments. So now I'm going to go onto a short list of general artillery tips to hopefully make yourself better at it.

• Use the X button, it will save you a lot of potential damage since that hair breath of a degree can mean the difference between your reticule blooming out and you getting that shot on a tank.
• Learn how to lead targets with positioning of your tank's hull and crosshair. The best way is to pick a spot where the target will be and zoom in there instead of following the tank.
• Reposition often, especially when there are more then two artillery a side. The chance of someone counter-artying and finding an artillery's tracer is drastically increased. Also due to your low health they generally just have to land that shell near you instead of directly on top of you. You only have to move a few meters at a time.
• Focus on damage over kills, this is side tracked by those tanks you need to kill because they'll tear up your team.
• Check the minimap often! if you see that scout coming for you prepare for him, he'll probably spot you and shoot you before your team can even hit them. A lot of times you'll get enough time to at least throw a shot at their face before they wrap behind you and kill you.
• T up your target before you shoot it, (the "I'm shooting this guy key") hopefully your team mates will keep that guy lit / not instantly kill him so your long long reload is ruined.

World of Tanks: 1 on 1

To best explain the every day one on one engagements I'd like to first boil down an average battle into the different parts that brings us to these engagements. A better title wound be something like 1 on 2 since the only two tanks you'll ever be actively worrying about on a second by second basis is the tank you are actively engaging against (shooting at) and the next tank that will hit you. However I must hold this train of thought for a moment to get down to those two crucial targets.

The Flanks
At the heart of every battle there exists three flanks that all tanks who leave the base / deployment zone go which is either the left, right, or center flank. A few examples include Enks where there is the city (left), Rails (center), and Field (right) while Himmelsdorf has Rails (left), Courtyard / Tank Alley (center), and hill (right). Now from watching you might think certain maps, especially some encounter ones don't have flanks because of the positions of the spawns like steppes but they do (1/2 line, field, cap). Also please keep in mind that certain flanks like the mountain pass in Lakeville where you're between the mountain and the lake is a valid flank, but due to survivability it is seldom used for more then two or three tanks total.

Engagements
Now out of the 15 tanks on your team lets say three are artillery meaning we're bringing down the total count of tanks that can be on your side of the map down to 12. Out of these we can safely guess (based on map) that about three tanks will head to the center flank, these are generally faster scouter tanks since they want to get early lights (detections) and stop the other scouts from an early base rush to kill artillery. So knocking down another two tanks brings us to a possible 10 which we'll balance between the two exterior flanks (right and left). So lets say your current engagement will be a thrilling five on five (or 8 on 8 if you include artillery)!

Micro Engagements
Even though the current engagement is 5 on 5 due to cover (buildings, terrain, bad gun depression) and reload rates that 5 on 5 can realistically be broken down to 2 on 1 or 1 on 1 micro engagements with just a few seconds between each encounter as another tank reloads or pulls out of cover to take another shot.

So after boiling the battle down to the moment by moment action lets go into the finer details of going through the motions of your tank against theirs. The main thing is keeping your tank from being hurt followed by dealing damage. The longer you live the more you can do so positioning your tank will be your utmost priority, this involves getting into cover, angling your tank, and moving to get a shot.

1 on 1
 The easiest way to die is to have your weak spots shot such as a commanders hatch and the back of your tank. To best protect these and stay alive you'll need focus on the position of your tank in relation to the tank that's shooting you. One of the easiest ways is to use the environment to cover your tank such as being behind a building or rock, or even being on the part of a hill where the enemy tank's gun depression can't reach.

However you'll always be put into the position where your tank will be hit, and in order to minimize the chance of being damage you'll have to angle it. In general my goal while angling is to have the round bounce which generally happens when they hit a piece of armor too thick for their penetration or angled enough that the round actually skips off the side of the tank like a pebble. Besides having this lucky scenario happen my other goal is to have them hit my tracks so that the kinetic energy disperses through my tracks enough that it can't penetrate the side armor. In general this means about a ten degree angle facing slightly away from the enemy tank.

In situations where the enemy tank is behind me however trying to get my front to face them might not be the most viable tactic since they'll get a perfect shot on my side where there are no angles steep enough to induce a bounce. When this happens I try to angle my tanks butt as best as I can so that hopefully they either bounce off my side or disperse in my tracks, it doesn't always work but it is way better then a 100% chance of taking damage if they have a full side shot.

Also remember, always move aka wiggling. The only time to sit still is when everyone that can shoot you can't due to cover or their reloading, otherwise you'll want to continually shift forward / backwards and side to side since if you are sitting still they can aim at your weak spots a lot easier. If you've ever tried hitting the commander hatch on a Super Pershing while it is rocking back and forth from 100m away compared to when it is sitting still you'll see the difference.

So besides using cover (terrain and tanks), angling, and wiggling to protect your tank lets talk about damaging their tank, this will be a bit shorter since the finer points of fighting one on one battles exists in staying alive over dealing damage. Besides sitting in front of the tank and trading blows one of the easiest ways of dealing damage is to just rush past them to get side / ass shots. Of course they'll turn around and shoot you in the side as well if they aren't reloading when you get to that point but especially if you have back up to take advantage of their inability to angle against two directions at once. I do this a LOT against tanks like Super Pershings with my IS-6 since in general it is easier to damage them in the side and I can generally get away with it since they'll focus on getting shots on my side so I can re angle while their busy either focusing on shooting me or re angling themselves.

World of Tanks : Simple Basics and Tips

So there are some basic tips and information that some newer people would definitely benefit from learning. Hopefully I can contain myself without delving too much into the what and how so people won't get confused by too much techno-babble.

Consumables
These include things like ammunition, repair kits, fire extinguishers, and chocolate. They are one time use items that you have to either manually purchase or set up to automatically reload after you have use them on your tank (My suggestion is to always turn on automatic resupply). In essence for ammunition I suggest a split of 60~90% regular (default), 10~30% gold (switch it to "buy with credits"), and 0~5 rounds of HE (if it isn't the default).

For the other fancy consumables (4,5,6 keys) I suggest the first aid kit (4), repair kit (5), and a fire extinguisher(6) on every single tank. Believe me that this load out is worth it even on a tier one. The amount of exp and credits you'll lose compared to that 3,000 credit cost for an extinguisher is silly. The first aid on the 4 key to fix your driver fast is great for fast tanks where mobility is life, and the repair kit on the 5 key to fix your tracks fast is also a life saver.

Please note to always turn on automatic resupply, you don't want to enter battle with just 1 HE round loaded.

Your First Gold
So my recommendations on how to use it...

1. Get about 5~10 tank slots to start with (you'll use them all up fast) 
2. Get a premium tank
3. Train a crew to 100% on a tank you use a LOT (preferably one you won't sell for a long while and is higher tier like 4~6)

Converting gold to exterior effects like camo or converting gold to exp / credits is not worth it when you are new. The tank slots will be used and since you can hold more tanks you can grind more different lines while keeping your favorites. For a premium tank it all depends on what you are willing to put into it. A T-127 is a good tier 3 premium since it can bounce pretty much anything auto-loader it will see.If you want something larger an IS-6 or a T34 are great tier 8's while a Ram II is a decent Tier 5. Anyway the reason I say you should get a premium tank is that due to having a credit bonus and cheaper repair costs you will be able to make a lot more credits then with a regular tank. As a note tier 8's generally see 40,000 to 80,000 credit profit per battle with a premium account (50% bonus to credits and exp if your account is premium)

Staying Alive
So you want to stay alive longer so you can deal more damage and earn more exp and credits. My biggest advice is hang back for the first minute or two of the game. Don't just hide in a corner but slightly back from the front lines with a place to hide behind so you can deal damage to enemy tanks while you figure out where to go to deal more damage safely. Never rush straight at the enemy without an advantage like across the field on Malinovka.

One of the easiest ways to stay alive is to not be seen in the first place. If you are shooting in some bushes please remember that all bushes within 15 meters will not hide your tank when you shoot. So if you want to snipe at someone without them seeing you the bush in front of you has to be 100% non-see through. So as long as you can't see through the bush, it will pretty much always grant you a cover / camouflage bonus.

Also when you are spotted and there isn't much physical cover such as buildings you'll probably want to start moving. Unless you know you are not spotted constantly moving is one of the best ways of making sure you don't suffer the shell end of an artillery. I can't count the times I see people just stand still to shoot a tank 2~5 times giving my artillery enough time to zoom all the way in for that perfect shot on their engine block. Rocking back and forth a bit, maybe turning a little to the side as you rock so you're not going into the exact same place every time and keep in mind that artillery might be focusing on you can keep you alive a lot longer.

Angling your tank
Since you have the most armor on the front of your tank you'll want that end facing the guy shooting you. You'll want your tank facing almost directly at the guy shooting you, not directly facing since a 5 to 10 degree angle will increase your effective armor making you slightly harder to kill. If they have a good angle on your rear / side your best bet is to move as you rotate since they'll have to turn their turret as they aim at you giving you a little bit more wiggle room since they'll be just that much more likely to miss.

Some one off tips

• If someone is moving around you fast, remember that you can turn your tank and your turret at the same time.
• Remap the fire extinguisher to an easy to reach button like on the mouse so when you are set on fire you can put it out FAST
• Remap your shift button to an easier one, you'll use to zoom in/out feature a lot and scroll lock sucks.
• Never run anything under a 75% major qualification crew, the performance difference is just too large.
• Equipment (vents, rammer, etc) is worth the few million credits, especially on tanks tier 6 and up since you'll be keeping them longer then an hour.
• If you are camping, do it where you can get shots in. It isn't worth sitting somewhere that won't see action until the battle is over.

World of Tanks: XVM explained

XVM stands for eXtended Visualization Mod which is a fairly large modification for World of Tanks. Because it is generally bundled with a lot of accessories it can be hard to distinguish what is just XVM and what is not. In my book XVM is solely the part of the mod that tells you about a players Efficiency and Win Rate in battle. Besides the core of XVM and the settings for displaying player stats there are other things attached to XVM which can be handy. These include the ability to modify what is displayed over a tank (I only count the player lists, tab list, and loading battle list by default), an advanced capture timer, and an improved player statistics. Also completely ignore the chance to win numbers while loading into battle, it will only hurt your chances of winning if you lose hope due to a low chance of winning or you don't take the game seriously because you have a very high chance to win.

EFF and WN6
To start it out I'm going to have to talk about the general metric used to gauge a players competence called Efficiency and WN6. These two metrics use the different things you earn each battle like kills and damages and determines how effective you've been in helping your team to victory. I'm not going to explain the formulas since the only thing that matters is if you play naturally and deal / spot more damage then a top tier heavy or two you're doing good. The rule of thumb that I see it as is based on is the worst a player's efficiency is the more likely they are to rush shots, exposing their weaknesses more often, and all those other little things that makes them easier to kill like not using a fire extinguisher. Please note that this is just a personal view based off in game experiences so this list of about how I rate people should be taken generally.

• 0~400 Easy to kill
• 400~700 Can put up some fight
• 700~900 Below average, take seriously
• 900~1200 Can kill if your drunk.
• 1200+ Don't be stupid, they know what they're doing

Base Capture Timer
My favorite part of the XVM package is the base capture timer redesign. It shows you how long you have until the base is captured in seconds. It also shows you how many people are on cap such as 1, 2 or 3+ since the capture speed does not increase past 3 people. This can be extremely handy since knowing how long you have until a base is captured can completely change how you play. If you know you have 9 seconds and your reload is 10 you know you can't afford to rush your shot. Likewise if there is still two minutes and a half until the base is captured you can take your time killing the guy near you before returning to base. Also for those who don't keep track on how fast bases capture across the different maps and game types knowing for sure that 2 are capping then you know where two of the last three enemy tanks are.

Modifying XVM
For those of you who want to modify the different things XVM can display like showing a players efficiency next to their name above their tank then I suggest going to this XVM Editor, opening the xvmconfig file from inside your mod folder (res_mods/0.0.0/gui/flash) and saving your modifications to that (I keep a copy of a working version handy encase I really mess some stuff up). In general the only things I really touch there is the above tanks icons (Markers), and the Tab / Loading / Player Panel sections to show WN6 or Efficiency based on your preference. Some suggestions I have for what to keep for these four spots are...

• Battles, Winrate and some efficiency calculation (even if it is just colorizing the players name) for the tab and loading sections.
• Show a players efficiency over the tank when you press alt, this is where you can place all the fun information like tank tier, player name, tank type, etc that would just clutter up the default.
• Be minimalistic for above tank markers except in tab mode, just showing a player name (ally) or tank name (enemy)  and their health bar is generally enough.
• Play low tiers after you edit your XVM to see if you like the changes in battle, you don't want to be in a Tier 10 game with something that makes it harder to play.

Installing XVM
The first thing you want to do is install the Dokan Library and restart your computer, if you have Windows 8 use compatibility mode. XVM uses this to display user statistics like Efficiency and Win Rate in battle. After you have that installed download XVM and place your xvm-stats.exe and xvm-stats.exe.config files in the World_of_tanks folder. The world_of_tanks folder should be in your C:\Games\ folder (get to it by going to My Computer -> C Drive -> Games -> World_of_tanks). The next thing you should do is go to your res_mods\0.0.0\gui\flash folder and paste your xvmconfig file here where 0.0.0 is the current patch number for wot (currently 0.8.4). After that all you'll have to do is make a shortcut to your xvm-stats.exe and run World of Tanks from that file (I have it pinned to my start menu) and XVM should be working.


Why XVM can be good or bad
Have you ever seen people who say that the chances of winning is bad so they kill themselves at the start of the game? This is because of XVM and them giving up before they even tried because based on the tanks and tankers driving them stats it says that they have a bad chance. However time and time again I've seen teams with a 5% chance to win decimate another team. This is because the application of one teams forces may not be appropriately placed to take advantage of the other teams positions.

Using XVM as a loose gauge instead of a set rule can be beneficial by helping with target priority and anticipating actions. When I see a red player (low efficiency) I know that they'll probably pull out of cover too far so I can have a nice shot on their side before they can return fire or pull back. Likewise if I see a unicum (highly skilled player) I know he'll probably be in a position where he can deal / spot the most damage while taking the least amount. The unicum might go somewhere and just get blasted before he can do anything or the red guy may be in a spot where he can just blast people in the side.

World of Tanks: Gold rounds and you

So we've all know that gold rounds can be purchased for tanks with credits making them widely available to the masses. However there seems to be people who don't understand gold rounds based on the complaints I see thrown out in battle and the lack of them during competitive play. The first is that using gold rounds is not cheating. You can use only gold rounds in your tanks and get all the penetrations you couldn't before so aiming becomes less of an issue, however due to the cost you'll probably be losing credits.

You can also decide to use no gold rounds at all, however when facing a heavily armored tank and not being able to penetrate it can cost you valuable experience due to the lack of damage because of missing weak spots.It is a balance since too much gold rounds will lose you credits, and not enough can see you facing up against opponents you can't hurt easily enough when you have to hurt them. However I can not go into just gold rounds without talking about the other kinds of ammunition.

AP / Standard Ammo
So the standard ammo for your tank which is usually AP though some tanks have APCR (T71) is your bread and butter ammo. (Artillery's is HE) You'll want to load most of your rounds in this ammo type, probably about 65% depending on how much ammo your tank holds. (swings from 50% to 80%) The reason why you want to have it loaded the most is that it costs the least amount of credits and is generally up for the job vs most of the tanks you'll fight against. For tanks you can't hurt easily we'll be getting into what ammo to use for those later.

HE
High explosive rounds are best used on Artillery and Derps. A Derp gun is an artillery gun on a tank like the KV-2's 152 mm M-10 which does 910 damage with 86 pen on the HE rounds. For most tanks out there HE is worthless to bring except for a small handful of rounds if you are not using an artillery gun. This is primarily for making sure you deal some damage (even if it is just track damage) to someone who is on cap. You'll probably never use them, but hey they are there in case you have troubles dealing damage to a guy capping who is angled.

Gold rounds (Anything round you can buy with gold)
For normal tanks I generally run with about 30% gold shells (APCR or HEAT). A lot of times I won't need them like in a KV-1S in a Medium tank company however when I meet up with something that is harder to pen I like to switch over to gold rounds. My best example is my IS-6 vs another IS-6, I can pen him if I try but due to angling, wiggling, and the low pen of the gun I'd prefer just to switch to gold rounds and hit him on the flattest surface. (IS-6's armor can still easily bounce another IS-6's gold rounds) Now for artillery since they are so different then normal tanks I'm going to talk about their gold rounds separately.

Artillery

• HE : Increases splash range which is very sexy and will probably be your main gold rounds in artillery. This is because you're more likely to deal higher damage through a splash hit vs your regular He rounds because of the way splash damage is calculated.
• HEAT : Great for low tier high accuracy artillery like the SU-26, it has no splash damage so you need to hit hull to deal damage (sometimes you get those annoying track only hits) however compare the damage between an SU-26's HE and HEAT rounds on a KV-1S (20 and 200 respectfully) you can see the merits of it. For my SU-26 I load about 50% gold or 75% gold depending on if I'm playing Pubs, Medium Tank Companies, or Junior Tank Companies.
• AP : Your regular AP round but with crazy pen and damage. It is mostly only useful with high accuracy artillery like HEAT since it does not splash. I load a few (4ish) in my Obj.212 since I have shell room while I don't load any in my S-51 because of its very limited shell count and accuracy. However when those hit you're pretty much killing anything in 1 to 2 shots.

TL;DR

1. About a 66% standard, 33% gold, and 1% HE is a very effective split.
2. HE or Gold rounds should be used to reset base. You do not want to lose because of a bounce. on that 99% captured base
3. Gold rounds have different tracers
4. Only load gold rounds in tournaments, I bet you the other team will have them loaded.
5. Even though they are expensive, you don't have to use them. But having them will definitely help you.

World of Tanks: General mods everyone should use

So World of Tanks allows you to modify how pretty much everything in the game is displayed. You can change textures, models, and the gui (graphical user interface) which is your hud. Just press V while in a battle to see what the game is like without it and you'll instantly know what a gui is.

This is however not cheating except modifying tracers (only think I know of that is frowned upon by war gaming). This is because s all the "if you hit and is that guy visible" calculations are done server side. So even if you changed a tanks model you'll still only hit it if the server says you do.

The three mods I suggest most of all before getting into the optional ones are the following...

Jimbo's crosshair mod (or any other ones). You'll know exactly how long it takes to reload in seconds (like 2.40) instead of guessing based on that bar filling up. Another nice feature includes things like about how long an artillery shells takes to travel and your health in % encase you forget to check, which I do. It is also fun to watch your reload speed drop as your crew levels up.

Accurate Damage Indicator is a mod that changes the visuals for when you are hit so instead of a vague area you'll see exactly what direction you where hit from. This is nice because when you line the indicator to the top of your screen, the guy who shot you was directly forward (it doesn't tell you vertical position) so with a good guess, you can hit them back without even seeing them!

Damage Panel. This is more preference and harder to pin down but it offers some HUGE features that makes your survivability a lot greater.

• When you are set on fire, the "YOU'RE ON FIRE" message can be moved and enhanced so that you'll notice right when you are hit (I have it right below my cross-hairs and large enough that I can't miss it)
• It will record the damage you suffer from each impact so you can see if you are getting hurt badly or not (When you die in a single second and you're wondering WTF hit me and you see 6 different impacts, you'll know half their team just wiped you off the face of the earth.)
• Module repair speed in seconds (oh hey my tracks will be fixed in 2 seconds exactly, I have time before that guy reloads)

Finally a Mini-map mod that have a few select options. For me there are certain aspects that makes it extremely handy for artillery and getting into range of certain things.

• Artillery range Circle which shows you the maximum range your artillery can hit on a level plain.
• Max Draw Distance Circle, which shows you how far you can actually see an enemy tank.
• Max View Range Circle (445 or something) which shows how far view range will calculate up to.
• Tank direction line which shows a line that points from the front of your tank, mostly for angling.
• Look direction line which used with the accurate damage indicator can show you an exact line between you and that guy somewhere along it that hit you. It is also good to help with angling in sniper mode
• Gun Traverse lines. This is nice for artillery and TD's as you can line up your tank so you can hit an enemy easier by showing you where they'll be outside of your firing arc.

 
Others
Beyond these three mods there are many different types that can be helpful such as making dead tanks white so living tanks don't blend in with them as much, removing the black borders while zoomed in, and xvm. All of these can be helpful but they do not influence the game as much as the above four do however I will talk about XVM before I wrap up this post.

XVM is a mod for the game that tells you about how effective people are in world of tanks and allows you to view information about them and their tanks differently in battle. One of the neatest features in xvm that seems to be bundled with it is a cap timer display that shows you how many seconds is left until the enemy or you captures the cap. The thing to keep in mind is a players Efficiency is just a gauge and will not show you how badly one player could be and how good another can be in this match. This is one of the bad things about XVM is that it can make you over or under confident and more likely to lose because you wouldn't be playing the best you can.

I wouldn't recommend XVM to everyone mostly because it is not needed and will hinder them more then it will help them until they understand the game and how to use XVM as a gauge instead of law. I've seen XVM rate teams with only a 5% chance of winning and we've rolled the other team with only losing two to three tanks, and I've also seen people drown themselves because it was a 5% chance of winning. I'll probably be writing up a post solely about XVM shortly to help explain about its finer points and why I love it.

World of Tanks: Crew Skills

For many who are new to World of Tanks you'll probably not know a lot about how crew skills work and what ones to get for your tanks. Hopefully this guide will help educate most of you on what the different skills actually do for your tank and help you prioritize the order you want to achieve those skills. So without wasting any more time let me start. Some small single sentence things before I do though. Use gold to drop skills, the battles it takes to catch up isn't really worth it. Also when you drop a skill it will reset all of your skills so you can switch their order around or pick completely different skills to take their place. This is good to train perks when you have more then 2 crew skills since you can use a normal skill up to 100% and then switch it out with a perk so you're not wasting those thousands of battles.

Types of Crew Skills
The first thing I should talk about is the different types of crew skills, which there are three. The first type of crew skill is a skill which take effect when you have at least 1% training. So if you have a skill that increases your guns accuracy by 10% when it is fully learned, at 25% training your guns accuracy will be 2.5% better. The second type are called perks and they only come into effect when they reach 100%, so if you have a perk that makes you reload 10% faster and the perk has only been trained to 99%, you'll reload speed will still be the same until you reach that last percent. The final crew skill is Brothers In Arms, it is defined as a perk in the game however due to special rules I classify it as its own type. BIA only takes effect when every crew member has it trained to 100%, so even if a single crew member has only 50% BIA it will NOT WORK.

How long does it take!
The second thing to consider is how long it takes to get each skill. If you get on average 700 experience for each battle it will take you 300 battles to max out your first crew skill, 600 more battles for your second skill, and 1,200 more battles for your third skill. So reflectively to get 100% on four crew skills you'll need about 4,500 battles at 700 average experience (not including the battles it takes to finish your Major Training to even pick your first crew skill). Technically you can get every single perk and skill your crew member can learn 100%, however the amount of battles it will take is makes that goal unrealistic to most crews so the best idea is to plan for your first three / four crew skills. I'd also never train a perk that I wanted from 0 to 100% unless it was one of my first two crew skills.

Default Layouts
These will go up to the 3rd skill since beyond that is mostly situational.

Brawlers

1. Brothers in Arms
2. Repair
3. Smooth Ride / Off Road, Snap Shot, Sixth Sense / Jack of all Trades
4. Camouflauge / Fire Fighting

Your goal is to increase effectiveness of moving and shooting, most of the time you wont have the luxury to take aim while wiggling your hull or peek-a-booming around a corner. Because being tracked in the open can mean a death sentence for you since most of the action you'll be facing involves having multiple tanks within spitting distance. A single tracking can allow a tank to get behind you or allowing multiple tanks to hit you while your exposed (mostly because you poked out of a corner to get a shot before backing up to reload). For me I usually save repair for my 3rd skill and my commander / driver train something different.

Snipers (TD's)

1. Camouflage + Sixth Sense / Brothers in Arms
2. Camouflage + Sixth Sense / Brothers in Arms
3. Clutch Breaking, Designated Target, Repair
4. Off Road, Smooth Ride, Snap Shot, Dead eye

Your goal is to stay hidden and increase your accuracy and damage. Since you'll mostly be sitting behind the front lines and with tank destroyers camo bonus you'll want to take full advantage of it. A TD in the woods is a scary thing to face since you'll have to be practically be on top of them before they are spotted. For the 3rd and 4th skills you'll be focusing on things like dealing damage and turret-less weakness, not having a turret. Off Road and Clutch breaking on TD's since you'll want to turn as fast as you can to shoot that guy circling you in the ass. Dead eye and Designated Target are also nice editions since you'll be able to keep that guy who was spotted lit two seconds longer and that 3% better chance of dealing critical damage is especially nice when considering that is per each module your shell hits, which can be more then one!

Artillery

1. Brothers in Arms
2. Camouflage + Sixth Sense
3. Clutch Breaking / Off Road, Repair
4. Off Road / Clutch Breaking

So besides that sexy increase for Reload and Zooming in from BIA you'll want to increase vehicle rotation rate / movement. Everything else is kinda moot as you'll probably die in the first shot anyway. Turning the tank faster though means you can start zooming in at a new location faster. I might say smooth ride and snap shot would be interesting too, especially with an SU-26. Just remember that things like Dead-eye and Designated Target do not work in Strategic mode.

Scouts

1. Camo + Sixth Sense / BIA
2. BIA / Camo + Sixth Sense
3. Repair, Recon + Situational Awareness, Designated Target
4. Off road, Call for Vengeance

You want to spot and know when you've been spotted. To this end anything to help you keep spotting is great! I say camo fast because light tanks keep their camo while moving so with a 100% camo crew they'll be able to spot a lot more often without being shot at. Call for Vengeance and Designated Target are just little bonus things to help prolong spotting since those two extra seconds can mean the difference between an artillery / sniper getting a shot or not. Sixth Sense is a god send since knowing when you're spotting means you can turn your ass down that cliff, get an idea where tanks are even if you didn't spot, and if you are seen while passively spotting behind a bush with binocs means the difference between being killed and living long enough to help your team even longer.

Situational / Other

• Preventative Maintenance if you get tired of being set on fire.
• Safe Stowage and Adrenaline Rush are both decent loader skills, I don't list them as they are more a preference but I do have one or both on most of my brawlers in the 2nd slot.
• Eagle Eye is just a waste of time since it doesn't add as much benefit as most of the stuff a commander can get. It can be cool to use to see if someone's ammo rack or turret is busted so you know you have more time to work with between him shooting you, but it is just a gimmick really.
• Recon and other signal and sight boosting things unless on a scout doesn't really need it unless their signal or sight is naturally too low for you. Boosting your snipers view range can make you hit people sooner or when you normally can't see them, but it is more of a 4th / 5th skill.
• I think Intuition is pretty rubbish since I don't want to try switching a round and losing my loaded one in the process. It might be worth it in an auto loader if it reloaded all the shells in a clip at once from a half empty one but other then that...
• Controlled Impact, Sexy on a KV-5 but the conditions are kind of obtuse.

Too Long; Didn't Read

1. Plan for your first three / four crew skills, everything after that is unrealistic on most skills.
2. Perks only work when they are 100% trained while skills work the second they are 1% trained.
3. Pretty much the holy grail is BIA, repair, camo
4. Sixth Sense is amazing, and Jack of all Trades is my next favorite for a commander
5. Snap shot and Dead eye are my defaults for my gunner if I don't use repair first
6. For my driver usually Smooth Ride and Off road, controlled and clutch breaking usually takes second place to camo and repair for me.
7. Radio guy gets situational and that is about it, generally I don't care about radio range since I'm brawling most of the time and I'm close enough most of the time.
8. For my loaders I just pop on safe stowage just to drop that chance of being one shot and then go straight for repair and camo and fire fighting before bothering with a 2nd loader only skill.
9. I'm going to be adding more to this post later.

World of Tanks: Equipment

So some of you might be asking yourself, "Gee I wish I was as tank savvy as Serge is and has his amazing alcohol to blood ratio!" Well yo are in luck since I shall treat you to a completely different statement, "Gee Willickers I have no idea what equipment to put on my tank, woe is me."

Please note that this is mainly based on your needs, pick the stuff based on what you decide is most important.

Default Scout

• Suspension (less chance of being tracked for T-50 mostly)
• Coated Optics (Spot things further and faster)
• Toolbox / Binoculars (Repair tracks faster / spot more no matter if you are moving or sitting)

Passive Scout

• Binoculars (you're sitting in a bush just close enough to spot)
• Camouflage net (Don't want to be seen)
• Optics (While driving to the bush, you can see if someone might spot you)

Brawler

• Rammer (More damage)
• Vents (More Damage and Accuracy)
• Vertical / Toolbox (Easier to hit crap / Less being tracked)

Sniper

• Rammer (More Damage)
• Vents (More Damage and Accuracy)
• Camonet / Binocs (Don't get shot / Spot tanks for yourself while sitting behind yer bush)

Artillery

• Rammer (My devil the reload speed bonus is AMAZING)
• Gun laying (My god that aim time reduction)
• Camo net / Spall liner (half a second safer from scouts / less likely to be killed due to country arty splash)
• BONUS: If your artillery can get vents, get it! (Obj. 212 as an example)

 Breakdown of each module

Image	Name	Role	Modules	Why
	Net	Sniper / Passive Scout / SPG	3rd	+25% for camo rating while stationary, best on TD and snipers supporting behind a bush.
	Binocs	Scouts / Campers	3rd	The biggest disadvantage is that you have to stay still to get the view range bonus. In heavies and meds you'll be moving too often to be useful.
	Toolbox	All but SPG's	3rd	+25% repair is AMAZING on all tanks and until you need the 3rd module this is highly recommended just because that 25% could be the difference between a fatal blow to your side and backing up behind that building.
	Spall Liner	Big Ass Tanks and SPG's	3rd	Decrease (counter) arty damage from splash / Derp protection / decrease ram damage for those silly buggers.
	Wet Ammo	Certain Tanks	3rd	If your tank gets ammo racked and blows up a lot and you have not learned safe stowage then you'll want this.
	Engine Filter	Certain Tanks	3rd	+50% engine health so it helps stop it from being set on fire or killed as often.
	Fuel CO2	Certain Tanks	4rd	+50% fuel tank health, Same as the engine one, get if the fuel tank gets set on fire a lot.
	Suspension	Scouts and certain tanks	1th / 3rd	Suspension can mean the life or death of scouts, and certain tanks like a Churchill where your tracks are very far out there can benefit greatly from this.
	Gun Rammer	Anyone Shooting	1st	-10% reload rate will boost your damage, experience, kills, and survivability a great deal. That 1~10 seconds boost to reload is a blessing.
	Enhanced Aiming	SPGs	2nd	SPG's LOVE it with their 30 second aim times. It can be put on other tanks but should be the 3rd module as a lot of tanks can use something better.
	Vertical Stabilizer	Brawlers	2nd	If you do any kind of moving and shooting get this if you can, that 20% less movement penalty will mean you are incredibly more accurate when moving like during a peek-a-boo
	Coated Optics	Scouts and 3rd module	2nd / 3rd	Amazing for scouts and those that decide to use their 3rd module slot for spotting the enemy that small amount further.
	Grousers	Certain Tanks	4th	So you have better traction, maybe good on the artillery but meh.
	Ventilation	All Tanks	2nd	+5 crew efficiency means everything is better. This includes Mentor.

World of Tanks: When to Zoom in and out

So throughout my World of Tanks travels I've noticed that a lot of times I've missed easy shots due to using the third person camera. It happens a lot more then I'd like due to certain situations like when I'm rubbing tanks. There are also times when I've missed a shot because I've tried using the sniper mode when I could have just looked at my target in third person and shot. In a lot of situations you'll know when to trade off the area awareness of being able to see the area around your tank and the precision of being able to select the exact spot for your cross-hair to hover over. Before I get much further however I'd like to make the distinction of the different phrases I'll be using in this post.

• Sniper mode = Zooming in using the mouse wheel or shift so that the camera is now centered where your gun's barrel is pointing.
• Third Person / Normal mode = This is the state where you can see your tank from a third persons perspective.
• Strategic View (Arty) =  This is the top down view that SPG's get when you press Shift in one of them, it is very handy to use and I generally stay in this view mode 90% of the time.
• TD Mode = When an enemy tank gets a bit too close I like to leave Strategic View so I can see my artillery in third person (normal mode). Generally I prefer shooting tanks that are close to my artillery in third person instead of a top down perspective since I can see how much of the reticule the tank takes up instead of a ring on the ground around / behind him.

Shooting someone around a corner
In situations where you're pulling around a corner to do a quick peek-a-boom (drive out of cover, shoot, run back behind cover) it is best to zoom in. It could be a building, a large rock, or even those annoying trains that you can't shoot through. This is because of how World of Tanks handles where your barrel should point based on where your cross-hair is pointing on the map from a different view point. I'm pretty sure a lot of you have noticed when you are close to certain objects your gun stays trained on it for a few seconds as you pass it or looks up into the sky for some odd reason (I believe it has to deal with collision boxes).

Pretty much when such time sensitive subjects comes up as poping around a corner between a guys reload. Think of those few seconds it takes for your barrel to turn towards the target, where if you where zoomed in you could already aim directly at where the tank is as soon as you can see it. Those seconds could mean the difference between getting shot / killed and living long enough to get that next shot off. Several times zooming in before I turn a corner has saved me, especially when I notice that my tank decided to look at the second story window instead of where a tank would actually be!

Hugging a Tank
Now I'm sure at some point you've been touching the tank you are shooting at, be it side hugging a tank destroyer to going face to face with another brawler. A lot of times it doesn't matter if you zoom in or out since it is almost impossible to miss, however when your tank is tall and the other tank is short you'll have a pretty good chance of actually shooting over them! When zoomed out you can't really tell if your gun is looking at the tank, or just over it. However when you're in sniper mode and the tank covers all of your reticule you'll know you can hit it unless someone suddenly moves. Too often have I missed easy shots because I didn't bother zooming in to make sure my gun was elevated all the way down to guarantee a hit.

Now after you have shot though you'll want to zoom out as fast as you can. In situations like these angling and where you are can be very important. In a lot of cases while driving a TD a scout or medium decided hugging my side was a good idea, however they didn't pay attention to where we where backing up too and they ran into a house allowing me to scrape them off directly into the path of my gun. Another good part is that you can see where the other tank that is shooting you is looking so you can hopefully turn just enough so his shot bounces off an angled section of hull or is dispersed through your tracks. Since you're reloading anyway knowing what is happening around your tank and its angle is more important then staring at a wall / weak spot when you still have over 3 seconds to reload.

Running all over the place
Now in a lot of maps, especially the new ones there are a LOT of bumps on the ground. For fast tanks or people shooting on the move it becomes increasingly difficult to hit anything while your camera is bouncing up and down on the screen. In situations where I'm running over terrain other then smooth roads I like to shoot from third person. It is easier to keep my cross-hair centered on the middle of the tank I'm shooting at so my chances of hitting him increase compared to clicking the trigger when my tank suddenly dips an inch (and my cross-hair dips a mile).

TD Mode
Now there exists a magic distance in which I switch from strategic view to third person for my artillery. This distance changes a bit based on the terrain around me. Generally though this range is about a map square. You can also avoid those frustrating cases where you happen to hit a parked car or a destructible wall that you couldn't see on the top down view while focused on that tank. Just yesterday I one shot a tank hunting for me in TD mode which I'd probably miss in Strategic because of a destructible object that was in front of me that I just noticed and shifted my pre-aimed location to avoid it of before he came around the corner and died to an arty round to the face.

However TD mode is less reliable the further the enemy tank is since you'll want to see how far you may overshoot him or under shoot him. In cases where I get a chance to pre-aim or he's around a grid square away or further I'd stay in strategic. The chances of overshooting is higher but with pre-aiming I'll KNOW if I can hit him when he walks over that completely zoomed in circle.

Finally
And then there are those obvious occasions when zooming in to sniper mode is a good idea. These include when shooting over 100m (sniping), aiming for specific weak spots like the commanders hatch, and other occurrences where you need to hit a certain spot. As you play the game you'll notice the different situations where you'll need to enter sniper mode to get a hit, and then there are also those times where you have to zoom out into third person to focus more on maneuvering your tank.

World of Tanks: Premium Tanks

Welcome Tankers! This will probably be familiar to most of you but several people do not know the glory and amazing versatility of a premium tank not only for earning credits but to also train crews in.

This is an image of an IS-7 crew placed inside a premium KV-5 without any retraining or penalty added.

Which Premium Tank to Buy?
This is an interesting question that depends completely on what you want to do with the tank. If you want to grind credits like a fiend then your choices are more limited to the Tier 8 tanks. This is because they have the highest credit per game return since even on a lose unless you shoot a ton of gold rounds you'll be making 10,000~30,000 credits easilly.

However if your primary goal is to train a crew line which I'll get to a bit further down then you'll choose a tank of the same nation and class. If you want to go up a heavy line like the IS or KV line then getting an IS-6 would be a good idea. Not only does it earn credits but it also earns your crews experience.

Finally and the most important is that pick a tank based on its play style since if you hate the tank you won't be having fun and making credits / exp in it. It could be the best credit grinding tank in the game and you could hate it so much that you just play poorly in it.

Credit Grinding
Premium tanks can grind credits faster then other tanks of the same tier for two very good reasons. The first is that their repair is lower then other tanks of their tier and the second is that they naturally gain additional credits as well. This grants most premium tanks Tier 5 or better a nice boost of income compared to their counterparts. Tier 8's will see an average of 40,000 credits and will break 100,000 credits on a good game.

Training Crews
One of the biggest things about premium tanks is that you don't need a dedicated crew for premium tanks because you can use the crews from other tanks of the same type like an IS-3 crew for your IS-6. This is because premium tanks don't suffer penalties to reload speed, aim time, acceleration, and everything else when a crew that is not trained in that tank is in it.

As a reference the penalty of having a crew trained in another tank inside of non-premium tank is around 25% (a 100% crew will act like they are 75%) and they won't use their skills or perks. This penalty is also greater for crew in a different class of vehicle from which they are trained is closer to 50%. Also placing a tank destroyer crew in a heavy premium tank will have a penalty to their abilities as well, but it is not the full penalty.

This is why my premium tanks along my Russian line (I have a lot of Russian tanks) have no dedicated crews since I will just place a crew from another tank of the same class like my KV-1 into my IS-6 or Churchill III or my SU-100 in my SU-122-44. This is extremely effective when credit grinding since I can train my crew for a commonly played tank and make money at the same time. So instead of two crews with just one crew skill each, I'd have a single crew with two skills on them.

Preferred Matchmaking

A cool thing about certain premium tanks like the IS-6, KV-5, and T-127 is that they don't get normal matchmaking for their tiers. Instead of getting the standard plus / minus two in matchmaking where a Tier 8 will see Tier 10's, these get something closer to plus one / minus two (so a Tier 8 IS-6 will only see up to Tier 9's). This is nice since you'll be more likely to fight against weaker opponents so you'll have an easier time scoring damage and kills. However this is offset due to low penetration (they can't hurt tanks two tiers higher without a gold shot to the ass) so it is balanced out nicely.

In Short

• Don't have a dedicated crew for premium tanks when you can use a non-premium crew in it since you'll be making both tanks better at the same time. If you do need a dedicated crew, have it trained for a tank you want to get eventually instead.
• Pick them based on what you want out of them, Credits, Crew, Fun.
• You do not need to retrain a crew that you place into a premium tank, you just send them to the barracks (right click and send crew to barracks), and then on the premium tank select the empty crew slot (in the garage) and click on the crew member you are transferring to that tank. Nothing else is involved.
• This is a short list.

Well Known Premium Tanks

IS-6

• Russian Heavy (4 crew)
• Preferred Matchmaking
• Role: Brawler
• Weakness: Driver hatch

Lowe

• German Heavy (5 crew)
• Role: Sniper / Support
• Weakness: Relatively weak armor on chassis

T26E4

• American Heavy (5 crew)
• Role: Hull Down Brawler
• Weakness: Commander hatch under the two barrels on the turret, don't bother hitting the front chassis unless you know you can pen it easilly

JgTig 8.8cm

• German Tank Destroyer (6 crew)
• Role: Damn his front armor!
• Weakness: triangle on the front and sides / rear.

KV-5

• Russian Heavy (6 crew)
• Preferred Matchmaking
• Role: Big ass Tank
• Weakness: R2D2
• Extra: Side-scrape for increased effectiveness of fighting on corners (wall is covering R2D2). Ramming is the most fun you'll have, but do it where you'll come out better for it. Laugh at T-50's that try to pen your ass.

Type 59

• Chinese Medium (4 crew)
• Role: Wolf pack / That guy that shoots you in the side / ass
• Weakness: Sides and Rear (not much on the front besides the commander hatch)
• Extra: You're a jerk.

Tog II*

• British Heavy (6 crew)
• Role: RR and go off to watch tv until it gets to battle, then just mouse over an enemy and shoot
• Weakness: Slow as dirt at 14 km and fairly weak armor when not side scraping.
• Extra: Amazing side scraping abilities and has HUGE health, also so special it has a star next to its name.

AT-15A

• British Tank Destroyer (6 crew)
• Role: Assault Tank, push the enemy and use your high gun traverse to angle that armor.
• Weakness: The angled plate on the front of the tank under the gun.
• Extra: The gun traverse is HUGE, use that for your advantage.

Examples

• To level my IS-3 crew faster I will send them to barracks and then play a x2 game in my Churchill, IS-6, KV-5 so if I have a good game in each one I'll make 8k exp off doubles on just one crew. (without accelerated on.)
• In a nice battle I'd get 100,000 credits off my KV-5 before taxes. (making 60,000 to 80,000 after taxes)
• In a great battle in my IS-6 I can make over 100,000 credits.
• They're already elited so you could train your crew, get credits, and get convertible exp to get that next tier.
• I grabbed a Matilda IV so that every so often I can pop my T-34-85 crew in it to level a smudge faster when I feel like playing Tier 5's with a platoon mate.

Penalties
So you might be wondering why not place my MEDIUM crew into my HEAVY premium tank, well lets go over the side effects of why that is a bad idea. By effectiveness it means your 98% crew will act like they where a 73% crew. 

• premium to premium of the same class = 100% effectiveness
• non-premium to premium of the same class = 100% effectiveness
• premium to premium of a different class = 75% effectiveness 
• non-premium to non-premium of the same class = 75% effectiveness
• non-premium to premium of a different class = 75% effectiveness
• non-premium to non-premium of a different class = 50% effectiveness