8.9 impressions – part 2

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Hello everyone,

this is part 2 of the 8.9 test impressions. As before: all tests took place with a 100 percent crew, camo net, binoculars and an optional third equipment piece. I used both silver and golden shells for comparison, standard silver consumables. I also used optical camo.

Waffenträger auf Panzer IV

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Well, it’s not every day you get to play with something that has four guns, all of them tier 10.

This vehicle is the ultimate glass cannon. It practically lives or dies by its ability to remain hidden, because for tier 9, it has absolutely negligible armor and you can expect to be one- or two-shotted by pretty much everything.

Unluckily for you, theis vehicle is about as stealthy as a rhino in a cupboard. Notice one thing: we do know that guns with muzzle brakes tend to reduce the camo factor more when firing than guns without muzzle brakes. In this case, you have a choice between two 128mm guns and two 150mm guns – the 128′s guns do have muzzle brakes and from what I could tell, they do demask you more than the 150mm guns, so you gotta be extra careful with those.

You have a choice of two guns, basically one is the Jagdtiger’s top gun and the other is the E-100 150mm:

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The 150mm is completely dependent on gold ammo and as such it’s practically pointless for random: at tier 9-10, 235 pen is a joke. Strangely enough, it shares the same gold ammo with the previous 150mm (L/29,5): 334 penetration (unhistorical, but whatever). If you consider gold ammo only, this new gun isn’t actually that much of an upgrade over the older one: 20 silver pen bonus, 0,02 accuracy, all that for whopping 64,8k XP:

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That means one thing: unless you aim for clanwars and know you will be massively using gun ammo, equipping 150mm guns is IMHO completely pointless on tiers 8,9 and 10 of this line. Luckily, researching this gun is entirely optional.

For random battle, the 128mm gun will probably do better. The longer version is freakishly long (it looks ridiculous), so you have to be careful where you stick it. It has nice elevation, but somewhat bad-ish depression, so again you have to be careful where you position yourself.

The vehicle itself is quite mobile, you will run around 35-40km/h fast and the turnrate is excellent for its tier. The turret rotation is as one might expect slower than on a tank, but definitely fast enough. Two things however make this tank really good: first, very long view range. You’ll spot tanks on longer distances than with other tank and if you manage to stay cool and undetected (I cannot emphasize that enough), you’ll screw up your enemies badly. Second advantage is the fast shell velocity of the top 128mm shells. It’s like a laser: point, shoot, it hits – or misses, but you get the point. No 150mm “I have time for a coffee before the shell lands” effect. The gun is also very precise. The ROF is also excellent, higher than on the Jagdtiger (5,61 compared to Jagdtiger’s 5,26 RPM). Furthermore, ammunition amount is more than enough.

Overall, I think it’s a great machine. I was kinda afraid of the “terrible tier 9 to grind to tier 10″ effect, but it’s all good. The only thing that sort of annoys me is the fact that while the 128mm guns are identical to those of the Jagdtiger, you’ll have to unlock them all over again, but I can live with that.

SS rating: 8/10

Waffenträger auf E-100

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Well, this is it. The long-awaited WT E-100, the monster, the destroyer, the dream come true. Or, is it?

It certainly is a strange vehicle. Unlike with the tier 9 one, here, you can “feel” the rear gun setup, you have to be careful where you stick your hull. And what a hull it is! Minus the sideskirts, it’s the E-100 hull: upper frontal plate is very durable, if someone actually bothers to shoot at it. The problem is, they don’t, because the gun superstructure is very, very thin. Every shot goes thru, even the HE ones.

Another strange element is the equipment. What should you mount? It’s open topped, so no ventilation is available. It has an autoloader, so no rammer is available. In the end, I rolled with binoculars, camo net and spall liner. The spall liner somewhat mitigates the terrible vulnerability of the vehicle and – believe it or not – the camo net actually works.

This is the point where I should mention that I tested this tank with my trained 100 percent 3-perk crew (100 camo), visual camo and camo net. It’s actually quite stealthy for its size! Of course, the massive hull will try to seduce you into advancing as a spearhead (the was Ferdinand and Jagdtiger sometimes can) – don’t do it! The superstructure is paper and you get torn to pieces. Instead, hide in the bushes and snipe, full camo setup will allow that.

But for sniping, you actually need a decent gun. The WT E-100 has two: the E-100 150mm (L/38) and the top Jagdtiger gun, both with autoloaders. Unlike the Foch 155mm, the WT E-100 150mm gun is not usable without gold ammo: it’s basically the same thing as with the E-100:

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Puny 235mm pen won’t cut it on tier 10. In other words: just like with tier 9 – if you plan to use this vehicle in random without burning thru the gold ammo (like in Clanwars), don’t bother with the 150mm, the 128mm is superior.

Of course, as you can imagine, the burst is brutal. You can literally kill anything on one clip. The time between rounds for the 128mm is 2 seconds (3 for the 150mm), that’s more than sufficient to chew even the heavies up. Talked to Treborn (from Kazna), he confirmed that this vehicle would have place in clanwars due to its amazing burst ability.

Of course, the 155mm Foch gun is better, but Foch 155 is going to get nerfed in the upcoming patches, so I wouldn’t count on that too much. There’s however also the 8.9 HEAT nerf (3 caliber overmatch won’t work for HEAT), that actually speaks for the Foch. So we’ll just have to see. Here’s the comparison for now:

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The depression of both guns is okay, elevation is good too, so that’s covered. The 128mm is VERY accurate and its gold shells fly with laser-like speed, so that’s also excellent. Perhaps the last really amazing moment is the 128mm 1,5s aimtime – this gun aims extremely fast and it doesn’t bleed much accuracy when traversing.

For its size, this vehicle is also surprisingly mobile. 30-40km/h is no problem and it turns well too. Oh yes, and the amazing viewrange, just like on tier 9. To illustrate: on Abbey map, if you take the east road by the river (or whatever that is), if you manage to park near the wrecks on the south side, you (yourself) will spot (with binoculars on) the enemies as soon as they drive down the slope from the base.

Overall, I am happy about it. It’s not historical and it doesn’t even pretend to be (check the description), but it’s fun. I expect them to do something about that firepower because the burst is ridiculous, but if it is kept like this, I will try to unlock it.

SS rating: 8/10

Part 3 will be about premium vehicles

90 thoughts on “8.9 impressions – part 2”

      • Yes, because a tank with a 10mm thick turret is the same as the E-100. Grats on making yourself look like a tard.

      • Watch out. We got a badass here. Everyone knows that 235 is okayish if you can hit weakspots, but please fucking enlighten me how many times you had time and situations to calmly aim at weakspots and even if you did how many times shell derped into some sturdier part of the tank. And with tank that relys only on it’s gun every shot counts because you are dead meat otherwise. So stop being a fucking smartass.

        • ” Everyone knows that 235 is okayish if you can hit weakspots, ”

          Winning barely more than half your matches in WoT will put you in the 99th percentile of players.

          When “everyone” sucks, saying “everyone knows” something isn’t a ringing endorsement.

      • Considering that most of the players in the test are also running WT E-100s with 15mm of turret armor, yes hitting weak spots is no problem but come full patch release when there will be a lot more armor rolling around, you’re going to have a lot more trouble with that 235 pen, I guarantee.

      • With a vehicle that can be two-shotted by anything it encounters (one-shotted if hit by arty), you don’t have TIME to aim carefully unless you’re at REALLY long range with your team spotting for you (which, in random battles, isn’t something to count on, even at tier 10).

        • Having a ton of fun murdering these new td’s with my invisible 155 right now, And even if they spot you all they can do is bounce rounds. 183′s are doing full damage rolls everytime against them as well.

  2. Yesterday in my second battle i got Ace Tanker and Top Gun with 5900+ dmg with the Wt E 100, using 128 mm gun. But still overall is a very situational tank, if ur alone ur probly dead.

    • I mean these tanks are a fucking joke I must say. I see no freaking reason to have such accuracy and low aimtime at all, specially on a autloader. The problem I can see with these is problably people using gold ammo and derping 590 damage shots even 2 seconds and that is totally bullshit. If foch 155 is one iof the strongest TDs now, gets nerfed and this fantasy pos TD gets better, then something is fucking wrong. What germans needed wasnt a TD like this, but a TD that is more in line with the others at tier 10, a mobile one with relative good armor, that is also stealthy. Dont know if germans even did such a TD, but it doesnt matter since most 2nd line TDs are fictional anyways.

      • They DID have TDs on the Panther hull that would have been suitable at tier 10, but WG wanted to keep the German trend of “E-X Giant Box of Steel on Tracks” that they’ve done for all of the end tiers (the Leopard 1 being an exception to the rule).

    • It’s already a monster gun on JT, but on this thing it’s freaking ridiculous. 0.29 acc, 1.5 sec aimtime and 6 fucking shells autoloader!!! Yes please!

  5. The 12, 8 cm gun on wt e100 cant stay as it is, it is simply overkill.
    As for the 15 cm pen: never had a problem with that one…

    • Same here, aside from toying with Maus’s front , I had no problems in penetrating tanks. Though I’m used to frenchies so I guess it’s natural for me to flank stuff and attack distracted enemies rather than go for duels.

    • You dont have a problem with that amount of penetration because the E-100 actually has armor to rely on ergo, it is capable of brawling and getting at the juicy weakspots.

      The WTE-100 has a massive 20mm tumor, so it cannot get in close to exploit the harder to hit weakspots. For a TD that needs to snipe in order to survive, 235 standard pen is terrible.

    • If I understand u want from WG to nerf only good german vecihle
      P.S. sorry for my bad english

    • It’s no problem when your tank is either A) well-armored enough to be able to bounce incoming shells between shots (which the WT E-100 isn’t) or B) fast and small enough to flank and get out quickly (while fast, one thing the WT E-100 ISN’T is small).

      You MIGHT be able to make 235 pen work if you’re sniping at range, but seriously, NOBODY’S gonna do that with an option to use the most accurate gun in the game, which ALSO has higher pen. The only time the 150′s superior Alpha might come into effect is at close range, but if you’re that close to the enemy and you’re NOT dead, then you’re gonna be running for cover, and you won’t have TIME to aim for weakspots, so 235 pen isn’t gonna cut it.

    • if you send 4 HE on the tank, you have a good chance to kill all crew and disabling the tank even without killing him, regardless of its armor. in theory, i mean…

        • Good point. How about it gets SPG hitpoints then?

          Seriiously, I drive medium tanks. If this fantasy tank can kill me in 4 seconds, why does it take me 4 rounds of HE through thevturret to kill it?

          Im also less than thrilled that these things can move almost as fast as a Brit medium. Its a joke.

          • How can it kill you in 4 seconds? Am i missing something here? And how the hell can a T9 TD with T5 hull be OP?

        • Well with a gun elevation like that, who’s to say that it couldn’t be improvised as an AA gun provided the right-caliber flak shells are available?

    • Do you know what is the definition of insanity (elevation)? If not, look at Pz.Sfl. IV. elevation.

      • That was totally meant to fire its AA guns at aircraft. The sides fold down to create a fighting platform that would allow the gun to be turned 360. The elevation is fine.

    • I think they intended for it to be used as arty as well (just like Object 263), considering it could mount 150 mm gun.

  8. Is the Foch 155 gun really better?

    The Foch’s burst is 2550 but the 6 rounds of the WFT E-100 can eat up a Maus (3360 burst) and come out faster than the three rounds of the Foch…

    • He is just basically saying “don’t nerf it, ill grind it”.
      This tank is yet most overpowered of all TDs in the game.
      Reload time is ridiculous, not even modern autoloader tanks are capable of shooting as fast.
      Trading 3k damage for one shot.
      Worst players will be capable of doing 2-3k damage in one game.
      Great players and unicums will go over 5k average, I expect 15k+ damage records for game very soon.

        • To be fair, this isn’t strictly speaking a “revolver” – the shells seem to be stacked in a sort of hopper above and to the left of the breech. Point still stands though, the whole concept and purpose is different from modern “autos”.

      • You’re just looking at the gun and screaming “OP” it’s got things going against it that balance that out. Easy to kill due to a practically no armour turret AND a very long reload time between mags.

    • but Foch is well armored from the front, has low profile and BOTH penetration and damage per shot is superior..

    • Yeah but the Foch is faster, AND it has the armor to bounce shots, whereas everyone will know to shoot the WT E-100 through the turret, which can’t bounce ANYTHING.

  9. ss, you must be really tired today working flat out already you’ve put out 4 or 5 things.

    go to bed for a few hours then make some more articles.

  10. forgot to mention that the waffen tragers 128, even when damaged, is VERY accurate. damaging the gun won’t cripple it like some other tanks

    (and i hope they leave the burst damage as is, it’s the only thing going for it)

  11. I tried one battle with WTE100
    128 is amazing, depression is good, very good infact, looks better than E4 to me
    turret traverse is fast compared to some heavy tanks, and it’s faster and more agile than E100

  13. SS: “To illustrate: on Abbey map, if you take the east road by the river (or whatever that is), if you manage to park near the wrecks on the south side, you (yourself) will spot (with binoculars on) the enemies as soon as they drive down the slope from the base.”

    Seriously?
    Every tier 10 tank has 500m viewrange and 445m spotting range with binoculars on.

      • Spotting Range – the game mechanics limitation to spotting, i.e. “lighting up” a target yourself. Maximum is 445m.
        View Range – a tank specific value only used for calculating spotting range, without any relevance of its own. No theoretical maximum.

        There is a difference between max spotting range and View range. Wiki is the mother of knowledge.

  14. Tier 10 is too OP, i dont know what super testers doing, how the fuck they testing, WTE 100 is OP as hell, and will be 100% nerfed.

      • the WT E-100 is not OP. I find it’s balanced (Great gun vs no armour and very long reload). Unfortunately, in good hands it can be a serial killer and might skew the stats of it.

        • Expect a lot of noobs to grind the line for chance to play it. They will off set the unicoms’ scores to a great degree.

  15. Holy cow! 1.5s aim time, 0.29 accuracy, 6 round burst with 560 avg dmg? That’s over 3k dmg in 12 s… Omg

  16. This is a real beast… took out an IS-4 in 10 secs flat. I was surprised, as silent says, about the camo and I only had a 75% crew and a camo net.
    The 60 sec clip reload is obviously an issue but this thing can move pretty quick.
    In the new 7 player one of these at the back will be awesome along with 4 heavies and 2 meds for protection…

  17. I only played it once, and in that match I got one shotted by another wt e100, can someone explain how I lost all my hp from a single-shot? and no ammo rack explosion!

    • HE or HEAT shot from a 150 mm gun…or you were simultaneously hit by multiple enemies, but the WT E-100 got the credit for the kill.

    • All german are glass cannons, if the enemies are competent and aim….hell the lower glacis on the jagdpz e100 is as huge as the whole fucking foch front. In other words, the bad armor on these new TDs doesnt matter because with the tiers those tanks face, even the 1st line wont survive for that long, not to mention that the 1st ones dont have turrets at all, making them less usable in brawling if you have to.ö

  19. I have one question SS, please answer: it is confirmed that the MarderII is rebalanced: Is this the 4th nerv of the Marder? and could you say what exactly changed?

    btw: they removed the 3 times heatovermatching rule, but on the other hand, they reduced the angel of autobounce vs heat shells to 85°, so we have to wait to see whether its a buff or nerv

  20. Hoe come you never mention depression? 2 degrees for the T9 I believe, 5 for the T10. Makes it very hard to get in to positions.

    • for t9 you get more depression if you turn your turret side ways.. which I found annoying..

    • Its the again with the stupid limited arcs, the guns usually have 5° depression (which is already bottom tier) but the WT 4 gets 2° beetwen +50° and -40° (sideways) with the 128mm guns and 4° with the 150mm guns.

      Tbh thats what kills thw whole line for me, no armor, no camo, no speed or agility could be forgiven when you have gun depression and a good gun.

      But this… everyone beyond T7/Emil is bleh, a big xp piniata, nothing more.

  21. Why do people scoff at using the 15cm L/38 with gold ammo at randoms? At those tiers you’re not making money in the first place, the whole point of getting in competitive matches like these (random or CW) is… to compete and win (duh). If gold ammo in the 15cm L/38 increase your chance of winning, then one should just use it.

      • GLD is pointless on WTe100 because aiming times are already low on both guns, specially on 128mm(1,5sec aimtime) My best suggestion would be, camo net, binocs and tool box. This tank suffers a lot if being detracked for too long. So tool box combined with good repair skills and you should be on your tracks in few seconds. And best part all three pieces of equimpment are demountable.

  23. If you don’t have armorer on your gunner, you need it for this tank. Getting your gun knocked out twice in a round is pretty commonplace.

    And yeah, the foch’s 155 is not as “good” as this thing’s 128, which is the best gun in the game at T10, period. It doesn’t have zomg alpha, the aim time, shell velocity, inter-drum reload, and accuracy gives it the title of best gun in the game. Like, “I couldn’t see that thing and it killed my maus in 10secs” best gun in the game.

  24. Actually 3x overmatch rule remove for HEAT is not a nerf on itself. Ricochet at higher impact angel is a buff on the other hand (to HEAT).
    If 2x overmatch rule would be removed for HEAT, that would be a nerf.

  25. Not sure why so many people think the gold 150 is better then the gold 128,i find the 128 to be the better gun with silver and gold ammo.

  26. an autoloader with that aimtime and accuracy?

    I understand its a sniper and I suppose the accuracy is fine but 1.5 aimtime?
    Why not make it a little uncomfortable to shoot since it already has so much accuracy and burst potential.