Chinese Server Player Explains: How Is WZ-111 Doing in Random

Hello everyone,

today, I am going to have a guest – Whiskeydog, a Chinese server unicum, who will explain to us how WZ-111 is doing in random battles on Chinese server – and whether it’s worth getting it or not. Because there’s noone better to explain than someone who actually played this vehicle in random battles, yes?

So, without further ado, here’s what Whiskeydog has to say about this tank. Enjoy!

Before going about the tank’s performance, I think it should be clearly known that WZ-111 HAS limited matchmaking. I would say a 75% chance of standing atop of the team, 20% middle of the team, 5% or even less in the bottom (in which it can still fight).

Overall situation: WZ-111 is the most popular tier 8 premium heavy in Chinese server, and one of the most popular tier 8 premiums (SS: it’s possible that I mistranslated Evilly’s earlier quote that WZ-111 is the second most popular – in fact, the actual meaning is probably “it’s second in armour toughness – bouncing shells – only after the IS-6) .

Thanks to its good economic characteristics and 150% base exp gain (It needs well over 2,400 exp to obtain the “Ace Tanker” mastery badge for it), it’s very active in random, company, stronghold and team battles. Calculated from the rankings provided by XVMCN Team: about 150,000 players obtained WZ-111s , in contrast to 25,000~30,000 112s, about 120,000 IS-6s, 100,000 T34s, 65,000 Lowes and roughly 450,000 Type 59s.

For Mobility:

WZ-111 is better than the 112, though just marginal advantage. As for tier 8 hvy, 8/10 for WZ-111 and 7,5/10 for 112. The terrain passability of WZ-111 is in fact even better than an elite T-54 [WZ-111: 0,959/1,055/2,11; elite T-54: 1,0/1,1/2,2] which help compensates the lacking of engine power, and it CAN (though rarely) get close to the top speed of 50kph that needs a very, very long run, or to strafe down a slope. For tactial movements, not as good as IS-3, but I suppose mobility like this is already outstanding for a heavy tank.

While 112 has a bit worse passability, the engine boasts 60 more horsepower that makes tight turning or short-range movement advantageous. But the 5kph lower top speed is sometimes annoying. Especially when fighting team battles/stronghold battles/company battles that often required long-range relocation of heavy team, you can fall behind by a little distance from the IS-3s/WZ-111s.

Take an example: In the map “Mountain Pass”, when spawning in the lower base, you may actually try running all the way to the left side valley without losing too much HP if you can start moving quick enough. But in 112, you better not. I’ve lost my mind once in a 7/42 team battle, and our T1 Cunningham had more HP than I had when I finally arrived there.

For Armor & Survivability:

WZ-111 has vastly better survivability, 112 has better UFP. Both have almost the same turret, Practically impenetrable in the front (230 or 240mm may look not that strong, but it’s very curved and round enough to withstand their own 300mm-pen HEAT), tricky sides and weak rear housing ammunition.

But the hulls are just too different:

The strongest part: UFP. WZ-111′s UFP can only resist BL-9/10,5cm KwK 46/20-Pounder with much reliability, as long as you don’t angle it or get shot from above. But those tier 8 TD guns of 240mm+ penetration AP shot can go through it without much difficulty, not to mention the 300-pen HEAT itself uses. In contrast, 112 has insanely angled single-plate UFP instead of pike-nose. In team battles/stronghold battles/company battles where everyone spam gold rounds, 112s are frequently used as “shield of the team”, cracking HEAT rounds and bouncing APCR rounds while slightly angling the hull and hiding the LFP.
It comes to the biggest difference of WZ-111 and 112: the LFP and hull sides. 112 had the worst-design-of-the-century: a FUEL TANK placed in the bottom of the hull. It means when you unfortunately got LFP or lower hull sides penetrated, there is a considerable chance of fuel tank damage, and the next shot a fire. If you already used up your fire extinguisher or didn’t equip one, you must act very careful or get burned down to dust. When playing TB/SB/CB, that’s not a very serious problem. You can have many guys covering you, and move in the tail of the heavy group if badly damaged. But in random battles, you just can’t really count on teammate’s support. WZ-111 simply had nothing special behind the already weak LFP, so the worst outcome when getting shot at is a dead driver.

WZ-111′s spaced armor is worth noticing, too. It covers almost half of the vehicle’s upper hull sides, the inner plate is also very invert-angled and eat shells occasionally. Most of the skilled players would avoid shooting the upper hull unless close enough, because no one really likes making uncertain shots. 112′s spaced armor can’t stop everything anyway. So, the side armor of WZ-111 is also better than that of 112.(though 225mm+pen AP shells can still stably go through when the impact angle is proper). That’s another advantage for the random battle players: less shells can go through the sides when compared to 112, so you may face multiple opponents with less dificulty, or at least you can hold out longer when getting flanked. Also, less side shots taken means less module/crew damage or fire. Well, it really has less ammo-rack detonations than the IS-3. This can be a recessive economic profit, since you don’t consume that much repair kit/first-aid/fire extinguisher in WZ-111 as you would in 112.

Oh, and the additional 50 hitpoints may sometimes save your life. For example: average damage of 4 penetrating AP shots from 122mm guns: 4*390=1,560. 112 are most likely to get killed with 1,500HP, but WZ-111 with 1,550HP can survive by chance.

For Firepower:

Same D-25TA gun, but WZ-111 have better aim dispersion and RoF. As your article already said, WZ-111 has 4,8RPM, and 112 has 4,55. Also, WZ-111 has the aim dispersion of 0,23 by rotating or moving the hull, while 112 has 0,24. A tiny bit of advantage for the brawling players. If you don’t use that much gold rounds, D-25TA gun may seem nothing interesting, perhaps no better than IS-6. But with full load of HEAT, it pwns. The infamous “破-471″* (means “HEAT model.471″) delivers 300mm of penetration that makes armor useless for tier 8 and most tier 9 vehicles (SS: keep in mind that this shell was nerfed to 250mm on main servers)

For example: When both are hiding LFP and spotted at the distance of 350 meters, most players in tier 8 heavies would flee instead of fighting, because such a fight would look like this: WZ-111 simply landing its HEAT almost anywhere on target he likes to make damage (e.g Kingtiger’s UFP, KV-4′s cheeks and sometimes even a T34′s mantlet), when the other guy struggle under fire to aim for the cupola.

Conclusion:

WZ-111 acts like “Jack-of-all-trades” heavy-medium hybrid. Those faster tanks don’t have the hard-hitting 122mm and/or the armor you have; those heavier armed/armored tanks can’t maneuvre as quickly as you can. If you would rather act like pure heavy, you can still defeat most equally tiered opponent in a head-on dogfight. Though not immune, it has better all-around protection and more top speed than its brothers, thus allows more flexible strategies. Outside the battlefield, it earns you nice amount of both experience and credits.

It’s brothers 112&110 play the role of Cuirassier. Having some of the strongest overall front armor of its tier, they have the capability to lead a swift charge or defend a certain sector from a certain direction without taking too much damage, but dies rather quickly if encircled or flanked, and have more serious weakness that could vastly weaken their combat effectiveness. They also cost a bit more to run, because of 112′s frequently damaged fuel tank and 110′s shells having worse damage-cost ratio.

Overall, I (and many of my clan’s unicum members that made 2k average damage per battle on theirs) suggest random battle players to consider the WZ-111, that can suit the ever-changing combat situation better than its brothers; TB/SB/CB players just stick to what you’ve already got, this thing isn’t the best one you can get.

Some of my comment about the replays: These with WZ-111 were filmed when one of my clan member paid me to help him farm credits, so I were all about dealing enough damage while putting victory down to the 2nd goal. It’s really sad that almost everyone plays always quite selfish here. That one with 110 is an ordinary tier 8 stronghold skirmish battle. Note that while defending the cap cirlce, one of our WZ-111 didn’t penetrate the enemy WZ-111′s spaced armor.

And don’t be too surprised by the predictions, pre-aims and precised shots through foliage ;) Kongzhong don’t even care about any mods or plugins. People livestreaming with bunches of illegal mods are too many to count. Common sense of the community is:” If you see someone using (illegal) mods, you may blame him idiot. But if you don’t use them (illegal mods), you are the real idiot.”

Replays:

http://www.ulozto.net/x5P9nzCz/20141127-1427-china-ch03-wz-111-34-redshire-wotreplay

http://www.ulozto.net/xzRXjn13/20141201-1814-china-ch03-wz-111-84-winter-wotreplay

http://www.ulozto.net/xwSQTBZw/20141203-2252-china-ch03-wz-111-01-karelia-wotreplay

http://www.ulozto.net/xzP1JWpc/20141213-2259-china-ch11-110-23-westfeld-wotreplay

* Chinese players refer to that 300-pen HEAT as “二雷弹”, which means”Leilei-Shell” or “Idiot-Lei-Shell” named after the CEO of Kongzhong — Wang Leilei. It costs only 3,600 credits or 9 golds in game, and people can buy 1,350 rounds of them in a bundle of 30 CNY (4,85 USD). Low cost and high efficiency of this HEAT shell made both WZ-111 and 112 both great credit maker and killer-of-heavily-armored-noob. Even the poor T-34-3 had also salvaged a little reputation as a flanker running full-HEAT: gun depression and aim spread problems are not that serious, when most landed shells are guaranteed penetration. I think maybe this shell made the difference between Chinese players’ attitude to WZ-111 and foreign players’ attitude toward it?

52 thoughts on “Chinese Server Player Explains: How Is WZ-111 Doing in Random

    • dont know, either way they all play Wz’s or smth is wrong. here in EU I play Is6 and I letter is way more up than W :) and I cant say Im “I would say a 75% chance of standing atop of the team, 20% middle of the team, 5% or even less in the bottom (in which it can still fight).” more like 30% 50% and 20%

    • “Before going about the tank’s performance, I think it should be clearly known that WZ-111 HAS limited matchmaking. I would say a 75% chance of standing atop of the team, 20% middle of the team, 5% or even less in the bottom (in which it can still fight).”

      Well, the guy clearly doesn’t know what limited matchmaking is. :) Maybe the distribution of tanks over tiers is different on Chinese server, or maybe he plays in “high population hours” etc., but whatever the reason is – if it lands in tier 10 battles, as the guy himself confirms, it clearly DOES NOT have limited MM.

      • (To clarify a little: when I wrote “whatever the reason is”, I meant the reason for that player’s apparent luck with battle tiers in WZ-111, of course.)

      • This. If the WZ had limited MM, it would get only into T8 and T9 games (thus, it would be always on top or in the middle of the team). The guy contradicts himself saying that WZ can be in the bottom of the team. I’d risk a suspicion that those 5% T10 games were while platooned with regular T8s (or T7 scouts), because it’s impossible for a vehicle with regular T8-T10 MM to land in T10 games so rarely.

        • Actually there is no contradiction there; If a tier 8 tank ends up in a team with 14 tier 9 tanks, he is at the bottom too. You don’t need a tier 10 for that ^^

        • @NitanPL

          Good point, I forgot about platooning, maybe it does indeed have a limited MM – then again, you would expect a unicum to take that into account. ;)

  1. I thought the 112 also had the same HEAT shell as the wz111? If the wz111 is using the pre HEAT nerf shell than wouldn’t the 112 also have the same pre HEAT nerf shells?

    But that Pay to win with the WZ111…

  2. Interesting… ran into a WZ-111 on ASIA today, think he just bought it, but the guy was firing nothing but HEAT rounds. Even at the front of a Super Pershing -_-… it’s like he doesn’t understand that spaced armor eats those shells up.

    • People who buy the tank on the first day will most probably have no problems buying shitloads of HEAT shells and no idea about HEAT mechanics anyway ;)

  3. I’m starting to feel the need to no-life my way trough the WZ-111.. I already have one tank from every nation because of the Super Pershing grind.. so we shall see.. the tank might just seem worth it enough..

  4. I’d recommend all of you to download tank inspector and look closely at the values.

    The effective armor of “pike nose” is 210mm to AP. It cannot bounce BL-10 even on its lowest roll. As soon as you angle it, it starts getting weaker. 20 degrees of angle drops the pike to 190mm on the side that’s more exposed to the enemy.

    • It depends on the angle and the distance from the shooter. For example, if you’re using your max gun depression, you can get like 240 mm on the upper plate, and from 400 m it can bounce here and there – if you look just at the numbers. But you can’t really know how it will perform if you don’t play it. Like the IS-6, it has pretty bad numbers, but the armor can troll even big guns due to good angling and the fact that terrain can really mess things up in both ways.

    • I can’t even download them without registering to that website, which I won’t do.

      Could someone upload them to wotreplays.eu/com/ru?

      • There has always been this problem of incompatible replay files between CN server ans elsewhere. Some replays work, others don’t. I can’t say why but it’s a problem for ages now.

  5. yeaaa, with recent news of WoT replays being able to execute malicius code, i don’t really feel like downloading replays coming from chinese server and stored on 3rd party sharing site.

  6. So why WG nerfed the HEAT shell of 112? what’s the result? it’s an underpowered flamable crap with a gun that makes A-44′s zis-6 look like a sniper..

    The 300pen would have only made it balanced. But im pretty sure they simply nerfed it not because the tank would became OP and all that nonsense crap. But because it will only make the high armored tiers cry and rage about getting pen’d by a crappy T8.

  7. A week ago there was notice of the replay leak. Advice was to only download replays from the formal wotreplay site.
    Now you offer these replays from a shady download site? ….

      • Can u upload them to wotreplays.com/eu/ru?

        I can’t even download them.

        On the side note I am sure SS tested it or at least trust his source to that level that he made them available to download for thousands of his readers.

        Please tell me I am right, SS.

  8. This tank IS hands down better than the 112.

    Better firepower and a LOT better side armor (its IS-3 like as stated here, check it in the armorinspector) make this tank nothing but superior.

  9. Somehow all are diminishing the 111 lower frontal plate.

    From my experiences as a driver of tier IX WZ-111 1-4 that I think might be penetrated from the front even by tier V even without gold (Super Pershing penetrates it for sure, been on both sides), is that every noob and his mother knows about 111 1-4 LFP and aim there (or just skins show that, because 1-4 isn’t so common after all).
    And there are a lot of situations, that LFP is exposed and you can’t do anything to hide it.

    Since you can’t angle, LFP is probably only to keep water away while driving through puddle.

    And that will be the most shocking thing that all no-life 111 owners will soon realize, and I bet they will be happy with such time or Euro investment.

  10. Its still has 300 pen on Chinese server? Kongzhong is not pay-to-win at all… lol

    Actually, I’ve noticed a lot of these Chinese gaming companies are crazy pay-to-win. Anyone ever checked out Chinese Plants vs. Zombies 2? xD

    • That’s the CN MMO market in a nutshell. You don’t do that, you don’t survive the competition.

  11. tank seems okay-ish… if only it wasnt chink.
    I have exactly zero chinese tanks in my garage, enjoyed none of them and all crew members were sold for body organs…

    So it cant be a crew trainer and it doesnt have gun to make credits…
    And please dont tell me 0.46 accuracy + 3.4s aimtime is a gun. That’s lowtier arty level of numbers…