Straight Outta Supertest: IS-5 Changes, Crew Switch Price

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Hello everyone,

according to Storm, no more limited MM premium vehicles will be introduced into the game (save for extremely special cases). To that end, IS-5 (earlier, it was supposed to have limited MM) was changed to have full MM. This came with a penetration buff, from 175 to 221 of the 122mm D-25T gun.

Furthermore, the switch of crew’s specialization (radioman to driver for example) will not be cheap. The price was set to 600 gold and there is no credit option (it’s unclear whether this is the final version, but it seems so).

113 thoughts on “Straight Outta Supertest: IS-5 Changes, Crew Switch Price”

  1. So it will have special Ammo, or how is this justified? I mean they cannot buff all D-25T Guns…

    • This would require a buff to SU-122-44 and IS-6 too if they keep same gun…
      Btw,is it supertest or common test today?

      • Today is common test, and there won’t be any buffs to the guns on the 122-44 or IS-6, as the IS-5 will have a different ammo type(maybe APCR as standard?).

        • Like…wtf?
          No downloads available in my common test…Must be l8r
          APCR as standard shells?If it keeps same gun isn’t that kinda impossible or “awkward’ to have AP as standard in other tenk with same gun?

          • It just has munition of ‘improved quality’. I make it sound like bullshit by quoting it like that, but it’s not an entirely bullshit thing.

              • It’s entirely possible that a gun later got new ammunition of better quality, with better penetration or stronger explosive filling or whatever. How historical it is for IS-5′s 122mm gun? Fuck if I know.

                I wish they’d just rebalance the existing premiums with 122mm gun instead of making a new one, though.

      • Do you think they will rework “old” pref MM prems to buff their pen but remove pref MM?

        If so, I wonder what will happen to FCM 50t. Would it get it’s APCR shells as standard? Scary! :O

  3. Yes. Yes! YES!

    Finally rid of the pref-MM-scourge!

    I might actually buy the IS-5 now, in addition to my IS-6.

    • I will have to do it aswell :D And I’ll have to grind my ST-I to make collection of IS, IS-2, IS-3, IS-4, IS-5, IS-6, IS-7 and IS-8 :D

    • Why would you (or anyone) buy a tier 8 heavy that can see tier 10s ? i cannot imagine a worse thing than being in a tier 10 game as a tier 8 heavy.Might as well get the 112 or IS6.

      • Is8 armor with bl9′ pen(better dpm than bl9 of i3) and same mobillity with is6 at tier8, MM+2 it’s ok.

      • Um, learn to play?

        I actually prefer Tier 10 games in my T34. I can tank there just as fine as in Tier 8 (as in: not at all except very hull down), but I get alot more HP to farm to make money.

        And yes please, buy the 112. Someone has to!

      • I don’t understand it either.
        I have tanks with and without pref MM and I absolutely suck in +2 MM.

        With +2MM it suddenly becomes very very important which team has the best players. If you have tomato tier 10′s in your team you’re basically lost already.
        5 minutes after game starts, driving in your 10km/h T34, you’re being swarmed by BatChats or (almost) one-shotted by an E100.

        I can’t even imagine the ‘fun’ I’ll have driving a medium tank like the Panther88 with about half the hitpoints into any tier 10 game. Every shot from everything will pen and almost cut your hp down the middle.

        It’s like driving a stock tier 8 in tier 10 games.
        Never understood what people liked about it.

        If it were up to me, WG makes 2 versions per tank.
        IS-5 with 175mm pen gun and pref MM and IS-5 with 221mm pen gun and normal MM.
        Both costing 10.000 gold, buy whatever you like.

      • And then you just use it in skirmish battles to farm credits. No MM problems, and sufficient pen to deal with anything that comes at you. Unlike the IS6, which struggles quite a bit.

      • Why? One reason, off the top of my head: Tier 10 gives you a possibility to earn better credits by damaging higher tier enemies … provided you have enough pen to do so. IS-5 seems to have enough pen for the job.

        I’m not saying I would buy it for that reason, but you asked.

        Edit:

        Another reason – tier 8 stronghold for super credits. I’m not sure about attacks and defences, but skirmishes have increased credit rewards. Pair that up with a premium tank and you have great boost to your budget. And of course better pen of “regular MM” prem tank will only help, as you wont see anything above tier 8 anyway.

  4. Have WG stated the reason for this change?

    I presume it’s so they can sell all premium tanks at higher gold prices (10-12K rather that 7-8K).

    • Nope, that does not make sense, since IS-6 and co also have limited MM and are selled for 12k… aren’t they?

        • Have you sat down and looked at the tier 8 premiums that have special matchmaking?

          Most of the tier 8 premiums fall in this category(Same with tiers 3,4,5, and 7). As seen with the Panther 88 debacle, it’s THE make-or-break selling point to have premium matchmaking. So WG cuts the option out and issues replacements that they believe(yeah yeah, whatever) can handle the job without special matchmaking so other non preferred matchmaking premiums maintain their value better

  5. Furthermore, the switch of crew’s specialization (radioman to driver for example) will not be cheap. The price was set to 600 gold and there is no credit option (it’s unclear whether this is the final version, but it seems so).

    Nice little bit of pay-to-win…..

    • Uh… how is a retrain guaranteeing you a win? Even if you have a lone 7 skills radioman in barracks – it’s still a guy you had to train through thousands of battles and that’s more important than the retrain.

      • It’s not p2w, but it’s a fat Russian middle finger shown to all. You have a radioman with 3 skills, but can’t afford 600 gold etc? WG says fuck you, because why not.

        • considering how easy it is to either buy/earn gold, 600 isn’t that much.

          My skirmish team generally makes ~3k a week.

      • Yeah, I can see that people will rush to retrain those radiomans for 600 gold. ;)

        Unless you can do it by credits, I am not going to use it ever. I’d rather buy new crewman and train it.
        It would work only if you had 2 or 3 skills on the crewmember but such crewmembers I have as whole crews. I would retrain the whole crew for a new vehicle. Why one crewmember? The rest of the crew will still differ.
        This is so pointless idea.

      • P2W isn’t about guaranteeing wins, that’d be flat out silly and no one would play that game. Giving an advantage that leads to more wins is enough.

        Now, where this does give an advantage is being able to split up your crews and left overs to retrain them to commanders with sixth sense. Basically, aside from that first crew, you’ll never need to play without sixth sense again.

        If you think that won’t lead to more wins than playing with 75% crews, well…

    • Unlikely that they woudl change the premium tanks that already exist. IF they do that. It would be such a massive nerf that they would probably offer to sell the tank for gold as they did with the SP.

      • If the IS-5 is any good, I wouldn’t mind to trade in my IS-6 for it. Now that I got the WZ-111, I can’t see 175mm pen guns anymore and found myself playing the T34 again. :)

      • Screw that, I don’t want gold in return, I want hard cash, don’t want to give anything to them with their current “fukka u” attitude.

      • Why not? Just change pen for this ammo/gun combination. Done.
        Don’t tell me about historical…

  8. Pingback: Supertest: IS-5 zvýší penetraci na 221mm

  9. no more limited MM

    WG have to get some fancy umbrella before shit storm hits :D
    btw im curious how it affected their tier 8 premium sales prognosis

    • If they will introduce capable tanks like this it should be no problem. But if they continue with tanks like STA-2 then bye bye sales.

      • If they buff its mobility a bit, it’d be perfect, as its gun is average and not many tier 8 meds even have armor.

  11. rly WG 600g for changing roles of crewman..wow ty very much that is how u treat your costumer milk it all the way ”ballz deep” wright..and accuracy nerf means all this time u were the ones that were fuckin up go figure

  12. A) Everything to get you to grind longer, are they losing customers or so? ^^Nothing pay-to-win if you ask me, btw
    B) Removing preferential MM, lets see how their premium sales will go and how long it’ll last till they introduce special MM again.

    • Yeah, the three biggest lures for having most prem tanks = more credits, crew training aaaaaand… pref MM. What a bunch of noobs, honestly.

  13. For me, limited MM is by far the best feature of premium tanks. Without it, I would rather just play regular tanks.

    • This.
      Buy a Lowe? Nah I’d rather play Tiger II (and did).

      Why would I want to play SP with it seeing tier X?

      Had been thinking about IS-6 but now have wz-111 so I now have a premium tier 8 HT (as well as my Jg88 and SP at tier 8). If I want money I’ll play one of them.

      Prem MM was a draw to buy prem tanks, and not forcing them to be competitive in +2 games means they can be more different to normal tanks and provide a different playstyle that standard tanks cant.

      No point buying a premium when you can play a better tank for free twice to make the same profit.

      • Although I own a lot of premiums, most of them for novelty value, what you are forgetting is that the premiums with limited MM have it because on their own they are incompetent.

        And of course nobody would want a Super Pershing with normal MM, it’s too useless. Even in tier 8 it struggles because every other tank is statistically better. Why would you buy a tank that sucks and needs to be given handicap bonusses?

        • Exactly, this is why I tend to grind more money in mt T34 (most played tank) and my newer Lowe.

          Pref MM can be fun, but the pref MM comes with significant drawbacks that can be frustrating at best.

          And no, simply firing premium isn’t a fix, as it’s reducing your moneymaking capabilities (one of the 2 major benefits of premium tanks).

      • You are the perfect customer.
        They make a fantasy price, but when there is discount: hurray, buy it all, its so cheap!!

        • In fact, i’m not. I invested 50 euros in over 3 years of WoT. I’m an esl player so tiny amount of gold isn’t a problem.
          300 gold (at discount) for retrain a 3-5 skill radio commander to any other crew member is ok.

    • Dismiss?

      Maybe we get a Sims-like minigame where he can clean the barracks and cook and please the female crew members in some way?

      That 9.6 is a hit in the face, almost no content, just nerfs and trolls…

  17. Is8 armor with bl9′ pen(better dpm than bl9 of i3) and same mobillity with is6 at tier8, MM+2 it ok. Dont know why people keep moaning ?

    • Yeah, this tank could be just as good as the IS-3 (or even better in tier 8 games). It is an IS-3 with better front and massively better sidearmor, worse gun depression, slightly better viewrange, better dpm, bit worse accuracy and BETTER mobility (top speed of 42 vs 38 on IS-3 and better hp/t ratio). Man, it could even be OP as hell

  19. One of the big selling points of premium tanks is their credit making potential.
    Now, with new tanks, you will have no preferential matchmaking, meaning if you are to succeed in top tier games, you’ll need to use premium ammo, greatly reducing your profits (or even end up in negatives).

    The most popular premiums have been the ones with pref MM, so from a financial point of view, this is a big mistake from WG. As you can see above, people are already stating they will not buy the tanks of they have no pref MM.

    The only way WG can combat this is by increasing the credits earned on these new tanks, which they have said they have no plans of doing.

    Personally, I’ll probably still buy them (I buy most prems), but they’ll not sell anywhere near as many as they think.

    • Umm that’s kinda what already happens. Take Is-6 for example – how much you can do with 175 pen against tier 9 tank, such as T-54, IS-8, or, God forbid, E-75 and ST-1? Not much. Even gold ammo is not enough to penetrare E-75 lower glacis with 100% reliability.
      Or Super Pershing – how much you can do with 170 pen against, for example, IS-6? Or KV-4? Not a lot. so this is essentially will be the same, only a level higher.
      The main problem is MM itself, whch likes quite a lot ot put 3 tier 8 tanks with 6 Tier 10 and 6 tier 9, or something alike.

      • The difference is, at tier 9, the IS-6 armour is more effective than the IS-5 armour is at tier 10.

  22. Everbody talks about tier 7 and 8 tanks, but what about tier 5 and 6 prems?

    Excelsior and T14 will be useless.

    I also own a Churchill III, which I absolutely adore, but in tier 7 games, it will suck.

    Same for the TOG, which can be allright in Tier 7 games but what about tier 8 games? Those can be awful.

    • They’re not taking away limited MM of existing tanks, they’re just not going to make more of them… and probably pulling the old ones from shop.

  23. How funny. I actually asked Storm at world of KWG LJ about this and suggested use of BR-471D or BR-472 from 2A17 (M62T2) gun. And he indeed replied that this would be the case. Looks like I guessed right.
    http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/309591.html?thread=64667223#t64667223
    http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/309591.html?thread=64761687#t64761687
    As for BR-471D, its not an APCR. It’s a post- war APCBC.
    As for ammunition for 122-mm D-25T after war, its a rather interesting topic, and unfortunately there is scarce information about it.
    What can be certain that there was BR-471, BR-471B, BR-471D APCBC, and 3BK10 HEAT (3BVK6 is full designation of shell+charge) but then about APDS and APCR things are vague and uncertain.
    For example, there are mentions about APDS (or APFSDS) for D-25T with muzzle velocity of 1400 m/s, and was called most likely 3BM7. Yet there are no mentions about it in service.
    HEAT had penetration of 400 mm at 0 deg angle.
    And there is issue with compatibility of shells (not charges and cartriges) with 2A17 from T-10M. I found a mention of D-25T firing Br-472 APCBC from 2A17, though I don’t know how true is it.

    Cheers!

  25. So now IS-5, which is a premium supposed to be inferior to a standard elite tank, is now more powerful than KT and VK45A, not to mention Lowe ? Sure, no soviet bias here.

  26. Wow there is a lot of upset over nothing.

    There are currently plenty of tanks with limited matchmaker available. I suspect that most of the posters here, me included, have at least one. None of those are being taken away, nor is their matchmaking being changed. They might, however, stop selling them. That doesn’t effect anyone who already has one, unless they want to reroll later and farm XP/WN8 in an IS-6.

    The reason tanks like the IS-6, 112, T-34-3, and WZ-111 have limited matchmaking is that their guns simply cannot perform at tier ten, 175 pen won’t even get you through the sides of a lot of tier ten heavies. Wargaming has stated on multiple occasions that tanks are balanced based on AP pen, not premium ammo pen. The reason the T34 and Lowe don’t get premium matchmaking is that their guns, particularly that of the T34, have no problem dealing with tier 10 targets.

    Wargaming doesn’t seem to have any problem selling either the Lowe or the T34. I don’t care for the Lowe, I think its boring to play. Too slow, too long of a reload for its alpha, unreliable armor. However, I won’t argue that the gun can’t be made to work in tier ten matches, because it can. I really enjoy the T34, it doesn’t have any problem penning high tier tanks with AP, and it makes pots of money. Yes, you have to be more cautious in tier ten matches, but that is true of any tier 8.

    I think with the pen buff the IS-5 will be fine with regular matchmaker. The IS-8 doesn’t have fantastic armor for a tier 9, but on a tier 8 that will see as many tier sixes as tens, it will be something else. Plus, being a tier 8 it will be usable in team battles and strongholds, being basically an IS-3 that makes lots of money. 221 pen is perfectly workable in a regular tier eight, and I would expect it to have premium HEAT ammo with pen around 300.

    I don’t get all the upset.

    • 221mm APCR on a is8 kinda plattform is very good at tier 8 and even at tier 9 and 10 considering it is a premium. 221mm APCR is I think equivalent to 210mm AP on sloped areas and that is good. Think about the VK45A that has 200mm AP and T32 with 198mm AP, these meet tier 10 regularly.

      • I guess they have reached a moment in the game where it is time to look over the balance of the tanks and their guns. Wouldn’t mind to have an IS-5 in my garage, seems like it will be a premium version of the IS-3 which is the problem, why play the IS-3 if I can buy a tank that is more or less the same.

        The problem the game has now is called power-creep, new tanks are stronger to motivate players to grind them or buy them if they are premiums, but WG doesn’t balance the old tanks to follow this power-creep which leaves us players with tanks that we almost never play due to them being almost obsolete in now. Same with the new Proto-T-54 premium being a copy of the elite T-44 and Panther 8.8 being nearly as strong as the Panther II…

        Problem is called power-creep…

  27. Hmm, 221mm APCR pen on a tier 8 premium heavy? That is fucking good, on angled areas that will probably be equivalent to what? 209-212mm AP pen? Isnt that kinda good to be honest? I would like this premium fucker to have equivalent to 200 AP pen not more!

  28. tbh the is-5 looks like it could be pretty good now. IS-8 hull with a gun thats a bit worse than is-3s? Why not. It could easily replace is-3 in strongholds/cw/team battles, as long as the speed and agility is similar to is-3s

  30. I’m interested in the IS-5 simply because I am one of those strange birds that likes the IS-8. I know it gets a bad rap, but its armor is better than most think, the mobility is good, and the gun is fantastic. Making it a tier 8 with a slightly nerfed gun will just make the armor more useful.

    • The armor from the front is undoubtedly awful, but the tank itself is quite good. The problem with it is that the WZ-111 1-4 outclasses it in most aspects.

      • The 111 1-4 outclasses most tier 9 heavies in many aspects, it just doesn’t see a lot of play because the Chinese tree isn’t that popular (I have no idea why, perhaps because of the clone nature of lower tier tanks everyone thinks the whole tree is simply green Soviet tanks). The 111 1-4 has better armor than the IS-8, mobility that is at least equal, and a more powerful gun with only a slightly longer reload. I much prefer the 111 1-4 over the E75. It is hard to argue with a tier 9 toting around what is basically the gun of the IS-7, but with a better aim time and a reload about 1.75 seconds faster than the E75.