All of the redline campers should be getting this keyboard.

Given WG's heavy focus on monetization, tier 8 is where the cash cow starts. As a result, tier 7's ecosystem is, in my opinion, in an unusually healthy, balanced, and pleasantly historical place by comparison, which still contains some of the game's most iconic and historically intriguing vehicles. It is probably the highest tier you can reach that has more real vehicles than fake ones, and in particular, contains some critical prototypes. To put it plainly: If you want to play a strategic arcade tank game set in WWII, tier 7 is for you.

Of course the german tree is full of historically fascinating vehicles: Half of new players join to try out the Tiger I, then there's the Panther, Jagdpanther, and the Tiger P is the "what-if" performing beside the Tiger 1 which in real life got turned into the Elefant/Ferdinand. The Tiger I and P's respective downtiers at tier 6 are more historically accurate, but the tier 7 tanks remain legendary in WoT. The 30.02 D is germany's direct response to the T-34, intended as a copy but passed over in favor of the Panther, making it another fascinating what-if with one prototype built which survived the war. St. Emil was a real vehicle built from the obsolete 30.01 H, making it that chassis' only battle application.

Some premium examples in my garage right now:

- Eagle 7 is a historical downtiered Pershing
- Cent Gloriana is a historical downtiered Centurion I
- KTC and Tiger II Kuro. are historical downtiered Tiger II's which are extremely satisfying to play as heavy tanks, which IMO the tech tree Tiger I and Tiger II can't get away with
- Panther/M10 was of course a historically interesting tank
- VK 45.03, while terrible (no camo, limited mobility, Tiger I has a better gun, equivalent hull armor and superior turret armor) is itself an extremely interesting tank being a Tiger II prototype which still exists today
- FV201 A45 (while terrible) was a real tank which informed most of Britain's post-WWII heavy tank development
- The T23E3 is the crossroads which provided the late Sherman turret, and an early example of the suspension type which would later be used in the Pershing and onward, making it a link between the early and late U.S. tech tree--and by extension, the T29, T30, T34, and so on as well.

Additionally, as mentioned, tier 7 also contains many WoT classics. The T29 is still a beast (but not as broken as before), The IS and premium IS2's are one of the more iconic Soviet tanks for enthusiasts, the SU-152 and ISU-122S were also pretty important tanks of the war. SU-122-44 is an old standard which still holds up today thanks to its DPM and speed potential, and can still see occasional ricochets off the mantlet or from standard rounds.

Honorable mention, the T25/2 got an alpha buff a while back (it is now 280) which makes it a genuinely fun tank to play again.

I could go on for a while longer, but suffice to say, I enjoy tier 7 battles. When the lobby is full of tier 6's and 7's, maybe a few 8's, I enjoy the game far more than the new metas which have long taken over at tier 8, 9, and 10, where every new release seems to be a double barrel, burst tank, or autoreloader. Strangely enough I'm fine with tier 11, having fought against them for a while now.

TL;DR, tier 7 is a taste of old WoT which features many interesting vehicles, most of whom were either real or had significant basis in reality. A lot of the balance-destabilizing features responsible for 0-15 blowouts are absent, making it, IMO, the best overall tier in the game if you want a historic strategy experience set specifically in mid-late WWII.

Feel free to list other tier 7's you enjoy or find compelling to play!

The first time I played it back in May, I thought it was shit: trash mobility, very long reload, meh gun handling. But given that it has quite nice alpha and gun depression, I did not sell it after reaching ~70% when the grind to Borsig is done.

When later I picked it up again in Sep (AFTER i have marked the "fun" Borsig), it suddenly clicks for me - by running turbo+rotation to compensate a bit of the gun handling and mobility, and optics that gets its viewrange to a very nice level. For field mods I did 1, 2, 2, pretty standard stuff. I was honestly enjoying marking it. And luckily it became my first <100 games mark :)

So, I got my first ever tier 8, the Ferdinand, no idea if this is a good rank line to go down first but, the game was on mountain pass. At that moment I still had that tier 6 gun for the Ferdinand. Anyway the game progresses and it’s only four of us vs 11 on mountain pass, we were the top capture point. Most of the enemies and allies were dead scattered all over the capture point. So I just assume we were gonna lose. But by some miracle my Ferdinand super structure managed to hold up against half a dozen of them firing at me at once, granted I had no weak spots visible. We eventually thinned the horde while I took most of the brute force. Eventually dealing 3.8k damage that game with 5 kills. That’s very good considering it only does 200 damage right?

First session playing Sheridan after buffs. I can't lose.

What tech tree is more worth to open and research, FV4005 or Badger? I'm currently stuck at AT 2 and dunno what to choose between Achilles or AT 8.

We visited the tank museum yesterday in Dorset (UK) and my son and I played the game for the first time and loved it. Looking into getting into it when we are back home but had a couple of questions:

1. Is it fairly easy to get into as a newbie? My understanding is the museum have a special arrangement where loads of late game stuff is unlocked so just wondered how punishing it will be?

2. Is it an appropriate-ish game for an 8-year old? My eldest loved it and asked to play again but wasn't sure. Assuming there are ways to turn off voice / chat functions I wouldn't be too fussed but would be good to get a general consensus?

Thanks :)

Barely have any tier 11s so thinking of just getting the bond ticket.

I'm old and was thinking about my best rounds ever in all of gaming and I got 10 kills in a WOT match once. It's ridiculously hard and unlikely. Not only do you have to crush it but if the other 14 guys on your team get more than 5 combined kills it's not happening. I got a Pool's Medal.

Everybody has good and bad runs of RNG and MM.

Stop stressing about the last 10 games and focus what you're going to do for the next thousand.

It just clicks with me...

Imagine a Vz. 55 with rear turret and a double barrel instead of 2.5 intraclip or a Jagpz that has this kind of speed and a whole turret!

Yes it sidescrapes worse than tigermaus but i'll take that movement speed over that kind of armour any time of the day.

It is a good tank, don't miss it if u are f2p! Learn to shoot doubles preemptively from a sidescraping position while being unseen, entirely, initially. Strong entry (first double) is key, good luck!

Are these redundant? Better to have both of them, or the automatic consumable is rather wasted?

Now all Crusader SP players know.

You're welcome.

Somedays, I just want to play a few games but 2 draws outta 3 :/ it cant be just me, right?

Sometimes I take retreat from tier 10 where everyone tries to shoot everyone's pixel pimple in a hulldown corridor map and throw faults at each other, gold spam, and matches infested to the brink with Pz. Neu and more corridor hulldown maps to low tier where it's much more simpler.

My favourite tanks are ELC, VK 2801.105, KV-85 and G. Destroyer.

Hey tankers,

I recently watched a video by veteran game producer Laura Fryer titled "When Studios Stop Listening." In it, she delivered a brutal truth: Anger from your player base isn't your enemy—apathy is. Once players stop complaining and go quiet, your game is effectively dead.

Think about it. When someone takes the time to write a rant about matchmaking, gold ammo, or corridor map designs, it’s because they still care. They still log in, grind the Battle Pass, and want this game to thrive. But right now, the relationship between Wargaming and the community feels like a one-way street: we shout into the void, and WG responds with a canned "we are monitoring the data" in patch notes 8 months later.

Listening is only half the battle — Feedback requires a response

• Listening without responding breeds resentment. It makes the player feel ignored.
• In any healthy brainstorming session, the golden rule is:

There are no bad ideas. You put everything on the table—even the wild, seemingly dumb ones—and you break them down together to find the core issue and the best solution.

• WG doesn't need to implement every suggestion players throw at them. What we actually need is transparency on why certain ideas work and why others don't.

Proposal: A Bi-Weekly / Monthly "Dev & Tanker Roundtable

Why doesn't Wargaming establish a dedicated, regular Q&A column (say, bi-weekly or monthly) focused strictly on tackling community pain points?

• Dedicated Channel: A clear intake hub (Email: Wot_Idea@Somethings or a dedicated monthly Reddit mega-thread).
• Consolidation: The community team aggregates the top 3–5 recurring pain points of that month.
• Direct Dev Response: No generic PR speak. The developers openly explain their reasoning, constraints, or planned roadmap.

Here is what this format could actually look like:

Issue #1: "Why don't you just nerf Gold Ammo (Premium Rounds) damage by 20–25% to fix armor meta?"
Community Paint Point: Heavy tank armor feels irrelevant when opponents spam premium rounds, turning battles into a credit drain rather than skill-based angling.

WG Dev Response:
We hear this constantly. While a flat damage nerf sounds clean on paper, our internal simulations showed that doing so heavily buffs ultra-armored super-heavies (like the Maus or Type 5) on corridor maps, making them nearly unkillable for lower-tier tanks in +2 matchmaking. To fix gold ammo, we cannot just tweak bullet alpha; we also have to simultaneously rebalance weakspots across 100+ vehicles and open up map corridors for flanking. It is a massive systemic overhaul, but here is what we are currently testing on Sandbox...

Issue #2: "Stop giving us 3-minute 15-1 blowouts. Fix the Matchmaker!
Community Pain Point: Turbo battles are ruining the gameplay experience, leaving players feeling powerless regardless of their individual performance.

WG Dev Response:
"We analyzed thousands of turbo matches. Surprisingly, player skill disparity (WN8 / rating) accounts for only a fraction of steamrolls. The primary culprits are mobility creep, map chokepoints where losing one key position cascades into an instant flank collapse, and burst-damage autoloaders punishing early mistakes. Here is the data on average battle durations, and here is how our upcoming map redesigns aim to provide defensive fallback positions to slow down early snowballs."

Issue #3: "Why is +2/-2 Matchmaking still a thing for random battles?
Community Pain Point: Being a Tier VI tank facing Tier VIII premiums (like a BZ-176 or Skoda T 56) is demoralizing and drives newer players away.

WG Dev Response:
"On high-population servers (EU), +1/-1 is technically viable. However, on regional servers (NA, APAC), strict +1/-1 significantly inflates queue times during off-peak hours and starves light/scout tank classes of the spotting XP they rely on against higher-tier HP pools. Rather than an outright removal, we are testing dynamic matchmaking templates that strictly cap the number of top-tier vehicles to a maximum of 3 per match."

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When developers acknowledge the logic behind a player's frustration—even when explaining why a requested fix is technically unfeasible—it builds trust. It turns toxic anger into constructive partnership.

WG, stop fearing the complaints. Embrace them, break them down, and talk to us like adults. What do you guys think? Would a transparent dev column like this restore some faith in the game's direction?