On Upcoming Tier 10 in 9.5

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Hello everyone,

as you know, 9.5 will bring the “Firefly line” of medium tanks, combined with a load of British turretted tank destroyers. Yesterday, Storm announced that it was decided this line would have a new tier 10 after all. Well, it’s the end of October and all deadlines for modelling are gone already, so it can really be just one candidate: FV4005 Stage 2

fv4005_stage2__001

So, here’s a short post to tell you, what are you going to get for a Christmas present. Because, you know how everyone moaned about oneshotting vehicles? Well, here’s another one and this time, taken to extreme.

You see, the FV4005/2 carries the same gun as the FV215b (183). Only it is just as sluggish and it has no armor whatsoever (in brackets, FV215b for comparison):

Turret front – 14mm (254mm)
Turret sides – 14mm (101,6mm)
Turret rear – 14mm (76,2mm)
Hull front – 76mm at 57 deg (152mm at 55 deg)
Hull sides – 51mm at 12 deg (50,8mm)
Hull rear – 32mm (76,2mm)

And no, it does not have an autoloader. The vehicle weighed 50 tons and was powered by a 640hp Meteor Mk.IVB engine, giving it power-to-weight ratio of 12,75 hp/t. Its maximum speed was historically 34,6 km/h. All that in a package, that’s just as tall as the WT E-100 (which implies it will have just as bad camouflage, as camouflage factor is generally derived from vehicle height).

If we are to compare it to the FV215b (183) in the game – the armor comparison is above. To be completely fair, only a small part of the FV215b turret front is actually 254mm thick, but still, it’s quite a difference compared to the 14mm of turret. FV215b is powered by a Meteor 800hp engine, but it’s 10 tons heavier than the FV4005. Still, it has better power-to-weight ratio of 13,4 hp/t with the same speed (34,3 km/h).

What I am trying to say in this post is that the hard stats (armor, speed) are just really, really bad. That means they will be compensated somehow – and I think that “somehow” will be gun handling – accuracy, rate of fire and other balance characteristics. In the end, what I fear we will get is yet another one trick pony, a derp version of the WT E-100 – no armor, no speed, sluggish, but with ridiculous gun performance. Because, you know, that’s exactly what the game needs, a crossbreed between WT E-100 and FV215b (183), another balancing nightmare, that will always either be OP, or useless. Well, good luck to the guys, who will balance this thing.

128 thoughts on “On Upcoming Tier 10 in 9.5”

  1. 7 ROF
    1 Second aiming time
    0.21 Accuracy
    350 Hesh pen
    Object 140 on the move accuracy while moving.
    2000 Base damage, and 2600 Hesh pen

    Calling it right now. I’m only being half sarcastic here. I Wouldn’t be surprised if it has just as good gun handling as the Waffle E-100 Does. since every new line has to be superior to the old one, going by WG logic. in 1 Year the amount of power creep is going to get beyond being able to Deal with.

    • I dont think that they will overbuff it so much. They saw how the FV 183 fucked up battles with the old HESH pen, which is now gone.

      I think it will have a 10% better gun handling, a little more rof (3-2s faster reload) and will be a bit more mobile (soft stats can solve everything). Couple this with no armor and no camo and it seems balanced

      • I have spoken with Challenger on gamescom and he told me that there are in fact plans to keep the FV215b heavy ingame but reclass it to TD. (fate of the old T30, some might remember)
        the FV4005 is according to him not really intended to be implemented because they dont want another oneshotting tank.

        my guess: upcoming T10 TD: FV215b with nerfed HP, traverse, turrettraverse and limited gunarc maybe, but buffed ROF to about 7,5-8 shots (yes, buffed).

        • I certainly wouldn’t mind if they just copied the current FV215b 183 and changed the gun to the Tortoise’s gun (120 mm AT Gun L1A1) with an appropriate buff to RoF and handling stats.

      • “They saw how the FV 183 fucked up battles with the old HESH pen, which is now gone.”

        > Looks like you haven’t played the FV 183 much since the nerf. Decreasing Hesh pen from 275 to 230 changed absolutely nothing tank performance-wise. Average damage per shot to tanks with heavy armor (Maus, IS-7…) – when NOT hitting a weak spot – remained at around 500-600, damage to weakspots still goes up to 1400 and sometimes above. As to Tier 8 tanks, you still one-shoot them even with 230 pen which is more than enough to pen them almost anywhere (except, say, IS-3′s turret front). I have a FV 183 myself and, despite the fact that I switched to AP as my primary shells a while ago, I still cary 4 Hesh rounds and I can assure you they still outperform any tank armor, just as they used to 2 months ago. In a nutshell, 183mm Hesh is all but gone.
        If they really wanted to nerf it, they should have decreased pen to 210 and even below (maybe 175-185). This way, yeah, you would definitely have a hard time dealing 1400 dmg/shot to anything other than T8 + French tanks, and even then you would have to hit the weak spots (especially given that you’re not helped by the awful gun accuracy and aim time). But WG just decided to “pretend” they nerfed it so that everybody is happy.
        And now we’ll have just another useless-but-still-troll tank with a ridiculously overpowered cannon acting like a T10 KV-2, and I really don’t think that’s this is what the game currently needs, either in terms of content and balance. But since we players have no control over that kind of stuff, all we’re left with is – wait&see.

        • The problem is that they nerfed the penetration. That was totally the wrong approach and if you look at the damage calculations was never going to change the damage it did in either of the scenarios you show. All it does is shift the percentage of rounds that inflict the 500 damage shots.

          Really they should just set the pen to 0 and balance the damage value appropriately. Would give far better results from both a gameplay and realism perspective.

          • I actually agree. No tank should be able to deal more than 1k damage per shot at the utmost (850 at T10 is actually more than enough imho), with the appropriate accuracy and RoF rebalances. The KV-2 is a troll tank indeed but it has weaknesses that can be exploited and therefore it’s rather balanced for it’s tier; tanks like the 183 however have nothing to counter them apart from focused team fire (good luck with that in random battles…), so they are free to deal as much damage as they can to as many tanks as they can see until they eventually die (actually, arty is what they mostly fear). At least, the WTF100 can die in a couple of seconds given its paper armor, so we can consider it can be countered more easily…
            I would agree on a rebalance of the 183 to an alpha around 1000, 0.37-0.38 accuracy, Hesh pen around 180 and a reload in +/- 20s. But nope, WG just cut the pen which changed nothing given that Hesh are basically HE with better pen (ingame at least).

  2. Since I left WoT this abomination has no value for me.

    For those who will try this… They have no value too.

  4. I’m glad we are getting this in game but I had hoped they might replace the current FV215 (183) blueprint tank with this instead because it actually existed; we don’t need two tier 10 British TDs with the exact same gun.

  5. I really hate these High Alpha damage tanks in this game, tanks like the waffletraktor line, derp gun tanks and pretty much whole of rusek tree need a cereal damage nerf…
    I mean….these high damage numbers are basically like noob tubing some one on CoD….not cool u gais…

      • Yes, derp guns are so hard to play with that retarded HE. Please tell us more how you not suck at WoT.

        • For every tank in the game, there is a tactic to counter its advantages. Not knowing how to do it makes you a noob at tier 10.

          • How do you counter random meteor dropping randomly ingame?
            How do you counter unspotted WTF100 and HESH183?

            • Learn to count. Locate it. Avoid it. If you’ve not been under a rock and watch your surroundings, you should have a good stab at guessing where the tank would be if it was shooting at you and accounting for that. Or if your teammate on the other side of the map gets chowdered, THEN you know where he is. Play carefully until you have ID’d it, then you immediately get operational freedom unless you are right under his gun. 183s are not scouts. They’re fat, ugly, and slow. It doesn’t take a genius to figure where a Maus will be, it takes even less skill to understand where a massive squishy deathgun with terrible gun depression will likely set up.

              I’ve won against 5 183s and a Waffledragon this way in a tier 9 heavy platoon.

              Making contact with the enemy is one of the most important parts of the game. Don’t spoil it by assuming contact is just the bit where you get to shoot.

              • You need to realise the issues here and not just think you’re so smart that you know exactly what to do.

                The problem still is that if you get hit by the artillery’s first shot and it kills you or wipes out most of your hp and damages modules you’re severely crippled, forget the second shot. This issue needs dealing with but it’s not something you can just change so easily without causing other problems, either way there is no counter to arty unless it misses it’s first shot which is likely if you’re moving a lot.

                tanks like the 183 are avoidable and able to be dealt with yes but only if the opportunity is there, otherwise the only thing you can do is a). risk getting hit and fight your way around it or b). fight the rest of the team and hope your shitty team doesn’t run at it and die.

                more one-shot tanks being introduced in the game makes it less friendly and fun for those who aren’t in them, especially if it’s going to be a pre-nerf improved 183.

                • >You need to realise the issues here and not just think you’re so smart that you know exactly what to do.
                  He asked for ways to counter it, and I replied. Even then, the death star has to have his moment to shine in order to be viable in this game. Somebody eventually has to take an HE round or the tank isn’t just worth it.

                  >tanks like the 183 are avoidable and able to be dealt with yes but only if the opportunity is there, otherwise the only thing you can do is a). risk getting hit and fight your way around it or b). fight the rest of the team and hope your shitty team doesn’t run at it and die.

                  Considering the game requires someone to take a hit to advance, this is actually a viable strategy, especially with wrecked medium tanks or the awfulpanther (it’s actually pretty good at that). Cherrypopping a corner with only a death star and minimal support is extremely viable in the right circumstance, especially on the NA server where so many just aren’t aggressive because of a big and scary gun (which reloads incredibly slow). If he’s holed up with support, you have other options, but some of those involve waiting, getting shot at, or leaving. Sometimes, the defense is too good.

                  Furthermore, opportunity is hardly rare, as you implicitly suggest. Yes, sometimes you get stalled out. Good on the other player. He found a good position and exploited it successfully. Sometimes you need to realize when to call it quits on that flank. You’re not gonna continue.

                  Likewise, recon in force is sometimes a necessary option, damn getting hit. I have had plenty of times where I advanced close enough into enemy fire and forced them to light me up just so my team could get a good whack at them. Sometimes this fails, but I’ve had plenty of successes that I can’t rule out doing it.

                  The underlying question behind all of this is whether or not tanks such as artillery and the death star get too many situations where they come out with an advantage. Not that they get an advantage at all. TDs help teams to camp, artillery surgically suppresses and removes emplaced tanks. Does either do their job too well? I don’t particularly think so. The only one that is legitimately a concern to me would be the WT E-100, and that’s mostly because it spots way too damn well for a fast, heavy hitting behemoth of a tank. Even then, it’s supposed to be a tank which is all about that incredible gun. Even the WT E-100 needs a chance to shine.

            • >to the clicker thing<
              I love it when I'm playing T92 and oneshot an 183 (from some clans special SEAL, OM and others who think they are the realpro's) and then the word clicker appears although it was an long aimed shot because they were camping like the most time I see them.

  6. Pff… Not what the game needs. Gun calibres should be capped at 128 mm with tanks and 150 mm with artillery.

    Let us hope it gets so nerfed that no ones bothers playing it.

    • Realism > your bullshit. You noobs ruin games. Stop bitching or stop playing, we don’t need you noobs in the game.

      • How is he noob for wanting more balanced game without powercreep shit? You fucking asshat. You’re that kind of cancerfaggot that likes to click on people or play exclusively retarded tanks such as 183 or waffle because you suck at anything else so badly.

    • What a poisonous string of replies. Disappointing. I am just stating my opinion and thoughts, if yours differs, great! Let’s discuss!

    • Nah just put the cap at 150 for all unless you plan on giving the E-100 the JTs 12.8cm L/66 gun with the same rof as the JT.

  7. is it confrimed that it gets 183mm?i think its possible to give it 120mm too and make a british WT it would be OP but not as OP as the death star

    • The Deathstar isn’t OP. The JG E100 is more OP than the FV. And unless this gets a 24 second reload time, the JG E100 will still be more powerful.

        • Except he’s right. The 183 is the worst Tier 10 TD in the game right now by a significant margin. It NEEDS a buff to make it good for anything other than 1% chances to get a HESH pen when the planets align, let alone giving up other stats for it like this tank might.

          They just need to focus it more on its AP round and not on the gold one.

          • Yes, it’s so horribly underpowered because it can’t 1shot T9 tanks that easily anymore. When you learn the difference between OP and broken we can discuss further.

  9. Whit those turret armors and zize it must get quite superior
    gun handling compared to fv215 (183)
    Reloading time must be least 5 sec less and aiming bloom
    much less than in fv. Before i see any point in that
    tank.

  12. The fact that this tank actually existed is a major plus over the 183 but I wouldn’t make it a tier 10. Yeah, that’s right. I’ll make it a tier 9, before the 183 and promote the Tortoise to tier 10. Total overhaul of the british TDs. With the introduction of the Firefly, it would be possible.

  13. I’m imagining that with the crap armor, the gun handling will be better…and it should have USEFUL ammo rack, unlike the FV’s 14 rounds (one tank that has no prayer of carrying a team of donkeys alone, since it will run out of ammo before it runs out of targets).

  14. It looks like I am the only one who isn’t bothered by the “power creep”.I mean,unless you’re driving a Maus,I find it very interesting to have all these different types of tanks.
    What bothers me far more is the fake vehicles and since this one is actually real,I have nothing to complain about.
    Besides,how boring would battles be if all Tds would have 750 Alpha,all Mediums 390 and Heavies 490.
    No autoloaders,no huge alpha/slow reload Tds,no high dpm low dmg mediums,etc… just boring.

      • I don’t have the Jpanzer E100 but I played it on the TS and it’s quite a good tank.Very sturdy even with all the gold flying around and the gun hit’s like a truck.
        I really like it more than the Obj. 268 or E4 or Foch 155.

        • For me the Jagdtiger is much better choice than the JgPz E100. Or even the tier 8 Ferdinand facing towards tier X.

          I just don’t like the JgPz E100 somehow.

          • Also,what I forgot to mention is I can only imagine how awesome this tank is against tier 8s.On the TS all you see is tier 10 tanks but I can only imagine playing this tanks in a tier 8 battle.

            But,yeah I get your point,I guess we have very different play styles.

      • I mean, shit in the way that most of people think it is. Personally, I love mine. I have 1k++ battle on my JPE. It just, well, underrated compare to other TDs.

        WG, when will you buff its reload speed?

    • It is entirely dependant on its team to win a game.

      I modestly like mine, but the thing requires a platoon to cover you. Everyone hates you, and it’s not that hard to get that lower glacis if you try advancing in the open. Taking cover is an art in it. You also have the choice of taking a fire extinguisher or a second repair kit, because you’re likely to be set on fire from artillery and you’re always going to run out of tracks.

  16. I have just one question to the Firefly line, but I doubt that there is an answer as for now. Will there be a link to the line from other lines (Cromwell/Crusader, or the AT one)., or will it be separate?

            • M2A3 (LL M2 light) is the tier 2, M3 stuart (they should really take the British Stuart name away from the American ones which were not called that but they will probably use the “honey” nickname to differentiate them instead) is the tier 3. Then it is the Grant, Sherman II, Firefly, Challenger (point where td/medium meet, which the Challenger/Avenger will be idk), Charioteer, Conway, FV4002. Initially it was implied that there would be low tier tds as well and the line would merge at tier 7. That would have Achilles tier 6, Archer tier 5 but lower tiers were never mentioned and the whole sub line seems to be dead atm.

            • The tier 7 and 8 looks like the sweet spots and of course my Favourite tank ever produced the Archer :)

              • Actually, the Archer (Tier 5) and Achilles (Tier 6) aren’t going to be part of this line, but they could potentially be a cross-branch from the Alecto if they’re not introduced as premium TDs.

        • SS mentioned Archer somewhere, but then the initial impression given was that there would be a td line and a medium LL line that merged at tier 7. The low tier tds seem to have dropped off the radar however.

          I would like to think Archer and Achilles would find their way in, being actual ww2 tds. Achilles can also represent LL M10 when stock, would be a shame to see it as a premium. Archer on the other hand is quirky enough to make a nice premium.

  18. It could be given Centurion 7′s 950 hp engine, better stabilization to compensate for increased mobility and very limited turret traverse (more so than FV 183, the bloody thing would tip over if the gun pointed to the side). And the gun looks like it can depress some 10 degrees.
    This would make it a relatively mobile TD that could either take a longshot and run for it or drive into the enemy’s face and kick him in the balls.
    Would work way better IMO than a WT/FV 183 hybrid that Silent proposes.

    • Nope, it’s 5 degrees depression. Furthermore, the only hope of this thing being mobile is ground resistance. Wargamming won’t give unhistorical engines to top tier tanks.

  20. another balancing nightmare, that will always either be OP, or useless
    ________________
    On point. This kind of shit is what ruins/ruined this game.

    • Considering it oneshot a Maus, an IS-7, and a third tank with 2 shells in a supertest game, yeah.

  22. Question: People talk like this will be the Tier 10 tank, but I’ve found this piece of info on 25/09/14:

    ” FV4005 Stage 2 was indeed scrapped, Storm confirms, they don’t want more “oneshot” guns”

    Is that info out-dated? Because I couldn’t find any announcements that it will be implemented or even reconsiderd.

        • There’s a signficant difference between the 183mm gun that is already underpowered in game and a 380mm rocket launched doomcannon that can one shot Maus’.

          • This. The T92 already has 2250 HE damage. If I extrapolate from there, I easily see Sturmtiger having 3500. And that’s average, so on a lucky roll you’d see up to 4300. Plus a massive splash radius.

  23. To be honest i will feel precisely no guilt when i one shot baddies sitting still in their paper tanks with the death-star while arty are also able to far more reliably one shot baddies sitting still in their paper tank from satellite view ….

    Personally i think they should just overbuff tortoise to tier 10 (more hp, even better gun handling) give AT15 the 120mm at tier 9 (it will just be tortoise without the gun mantle really) and add the AT14 as tier 8 (its a cross between AT7 and AT15 and fits pretty well). Then have the death-star as the top tier for the turreted td line instead of crow barring it into the assault td line. But i guess adding FV4002 is just easier.

  25. Best feature vs the deathstar = Gun depression, aimtime and perhaps even accuracy though I dont see how/why that would happen…

  26. Just f****** s*** up with these death stars, I want a real TD as T10, something with insanely high pen, over-the-top DPM, adequate armor and good camo. Something more like Obj. 263, which is my favourite overall tank in the game.

    I was looking forward to the new TD line, until now, I’m completely disappointed. Once again.

  27. They implement this, WT E-100 and FV 183(b) and they are too dumb to implement a properly balanced Stumrtiger.
    Idiots !!!

    • Noob tank i get but for cowards? What is cowardly about putting all your eggs in one basket with one shot of terrible accuracy and aim time which will be intercepted by any cover (sign posts, always sign posts) it happens to meet and will do (considerably) less than half damage if it meets any spaced armour, external modules or decent angling and results in your death whenever anything goes wrong since everyone knows you will be reloading for eternity. Oh and you only get twelve such shots even if you do somehow survive that long.

  29. WG is really ruining the game and they wonder why people are playing it less.

  31. Pingback: Nová desítka: FV4005 Stage 2

    • You would need to severely overbuff the AVRE to get it to even tier 9 never mind tier 10. In practice its firing a marginally less massive HESH shell than the deathstar or FV4002 with way less muzzle velocity, way less accuracy, with longer reload and is mounted on a weaker hull.

      Really its the tier 8 equivelant of the death star.

  33. Wait, they can balance this, but can’t balance the Sturmtiger? What kind of retarded bullshit is that?

    • Because its way the hell easier to balance than the Sturmtiger obviously ….

      One is fitting the same gun already in game on a weaker hull and buffing some gun soft stats to compensate.

      The other is creating a rocket propelled 380mm shell containing 5 times the explosives of the death-star which needed a crane to reload and mounting it on a heavily armoured superstructure.

      • Or they could give the Sturmtiger it’s original gun which was a 21cm mortar (the 380mm rocket mortar was just the biggest “gun” it could mount)

        Now the Germans current 21cm gun on their arty has 105/303/105 pen and does 2,000/1,550/2,000 damage, it’s also a hell of a lot bigger gun than the Sturmtiger’s original 21 cm mortar.

        Now does that sound hard to balance?

  35. So we’ll have yet another WT. Oh great, just what was missing from this game.

    How about you remove all T10 TDs, meds and arties and go back to how it used to be, only T10 heavies ? That was the most balanced version of end-game there ever was and will ever be.

  36. its a british tank, he will sucks, they wont put a british tank with good stats.
    they absence of autoloader the prof of this.