Scorpiany Posted July 28, 2014 Posted July 28, 2014 For my second installment of my "A Guide to" series, I will discuss the intricate differences and intimate details of the various defense lines in World of Tanks. Newbie Ranking: 6 [intermediate] The 4 general categories of defense/support lines are: Front Line, Back Line, Support Line, Camping Scouting will be discussed separately in a different guide and will not fall under any of the above categories. For this guide, the map Malinovka will be used as an example. All images are borrowed from the World of Tanks Wiki Front Line: Vehicles Involved: Heavily armed/armored Heavies and Tank Destroyers, Agile Mediums, some Scouts General Overview: The Front Line of any combat situation is always the closest-ranged and most immediate form of combat. Most front line battles involve many heavies and some mediums battling it out face-to-face at very close ranges. Armored Heavies and some mediums should be the primary tanks involved in Front Line offensives, but any tank with an extremely powerful yet inaccurate gun (such as the KV-2 or SU-152) can also be used here. Map Locations: In order to display front line locations, I have outlined the primary front line battle areas on the map Malinovka. These are the areas where face-to-face confrontational combat usually occurs. Combat Tactics: [Armored Heavy tanks and TD's] When it comes down to close range combat, there are several things you should do. The first of which should be rather obvious... make sure that you have support with you; in other words, don't fight alone. If you are in a tank with a long(ish) reload time, try to shoot and hide... don't keep your tank revealed for too long, no matter how much armor you have. Every tank will eventually be penetrated in practically any area if your opponent has enough time to aim. If you have no place to cover your tank after a shot, try wiggling your tank side to side and forwards and back while reloading. This will ensure that the opponent does not have the crucial opportunity to aim for your weak spots. It will also provide random moments of armor angling, which will also increase the difficulty of penetrating your tank. Another option is to angle your armor, making it much harder to penetrate. This option is usually only employed in city maps or in regions where you have cover to hide half of your tank as you angle the other half. Examples shown in spoiler. The last option is to make usage of hills and/or bumps in the terrain. This will allow you to hide poorly armored parts of your tank whilst your show the strongest parts. Hills can also allow tanks with good gun depression to go hull-down, where a tank only reveals its turret and gun, while leaving the hull hidden on a hillside or behind a large bump in the terrain. Examples in spoiler. Hull down: Using bumps as cover: [Agile Mediums] If you are safe from enemy sniper fire, flank an isolated enemy vehicle. It is easy to get behind the enemy vehicle and circle it to avoid its gun. This way you can quickly take down an enemy vehicle. Example in Spoiler (pretend the enemy's turret is pointing away). You can also "shoot and scoot". This maneuver employs "hit and run" tactics. In other words, you speed out next to some enemy vehicles when they are not aiming at you, shoot them a few times while you run a circle around them, and then get back into cover. Fast moving Mediums can also be used to hide behind cover right next to an enemy vehicle, and lure it out of cover. As it does so, you quickly retreat to safety while allies nearby finish the enemy off. Examples in Spoiler. Back Line: Vehicles Involved: Mediums, inaccurate Tank Destroyers, poorly armored Heavies, some Scouts General Overview: The Back Line is primarily for tanks meant for close range shooting which may not have the armor to stay in the Front Defense Lines. The goal of Back Line brawling is to either a) Lie in wait for an enemy being lured out by Front Line tanks or B) provide close-ranged cover fire for tanks in the front line. This involves either popping your tank out of cover, shooting, and then hiding, or using Front Line tanks as protection from bullets whilst you shoot at enemies when Front Line tanks are reloading. Map Locations: The yellow zone is a place "up for grabs". In otherwords, the team that gets there first controls the area. Combat Tactics: [Mediums and Poorly-armored Heavies] Lie in wait for an enemy at the front lines to reveal part of its tank. As soon as you have a good shot, fire your gun and hide behind cover. This is also considered as a "peek-a-boo" tactic. Concentrate fire all times. If there are several vehicles revealing themselves, shoot at tanks in the following orders: 1) Tanks with the least amounts of health. The less tanks alive on the enemy team, the less guns shooting at Allies. 2) The easiest to penetrate targets. (This is for low penetration guns). If you have a one-time opportunity to shoot at an enemy vehicle, you want to make sure that your shot penetrates an enemy and does damage. 3) The most skilled player (for XVM users) or the largest threat in terms of firepower. If you can take down a KV-2, BatChat 12t, T49, T110E5, T18, whatever the case may be (depending on the battle Tier), you will greatly assist your team by shooting down a T18 rather than a T2 Light, or a T110E5 rather than a T32. In terms of player skill, shooting down a Super-Unicum is much more useful than shooting down a tomato... enough said. [inaccurate TD's] If you are in a Tank Destroyer with low accuracy (usually which is the case of Howitzers), you may want to play a Back Line defensive position. Even if you have low armor, if an enemy vehicle reveals itself, you will be able to deal massive damage to an enemy vehicle that shows itself on the front line, all the while not taking any damage yourself. If the enemy vehicles begin showing interest in your TD, relocate and hide behind cover. This way you'll be able to continue dishing out damage whilst protecting yourself from damage. This tactic is only recommended for TD's that can dish out massive damage with a large-caliber and long-reloading gun. TD's with fast rates of fire, even if inaccurate, should play a Support Line role. Support Line: Vehicles Involved: Tank Destroyers, Short-Range Artillery, some German Heavies, accurate Mediums General Overview: Support Lines usually involve poorly armored vehicles with extreme accuracy. When playing support line, you shoot at enemy vehicles on the Front Line and possibly the Back Lines at long ranges. This is also called "Sniping". There is controversy around using German Heavies for this however. Some people feel that with their extremely accurate guns they should be used for sniping at any tank foolish enough to reveal itself. Others feel as though they should play Front Line, or at the very least Back Line because of their high Health Pools and the fact that they are a heavy tank. The Tiger (P) for example may be better used as a Front Line or Back Line tank due to its high Frontal Armor. The regular Tiger is probably better used for sniping because it has relatively low armor for a heavy tank. The Support Line is also very useful for TD's with low armor and accurate guns. Map Locations: The yellow zones are places that are "combat victories". In other words, the team that wins the battle in the general area then also gains control of the area. Combat Tactics: [All non-SPG's] Snipe and aim at weak spots. Not much else to say. Use bushes and/or buildings to your advantage, in order to camouflage your tank or block incoming bullets, respectively. If spotted, haul your [edited]out of there! Most sniping locations do not offer actual cover from terrain or nearby buildings. This means that if you are spotted, you will need to hide and relocate as quickly as possible. [sPG's] Find a rock, small building, or anything that can protect your tank from incoming shots. For example, the FV304 has a very good, fast firing and accurate gun, but it has to fight at relatively close ranges due to its small gun range. This means that you will need some kind of cover to protect yourself. If spotted, move, move, and move! Get as far away from your previous area as you can, and then find a different piece of cover. If you keep going to the same spot, eventually enemy snipers and SPG's will realize that they should take blind shots at that particular spot, which could get you destroyed if you happen to be there when a barrage of bullets begins. Camping: Vehicles Involved: Artillery, "Garbage" tanks, "Emergency Base-defense vehicles" General Overview: Unless you are in an SPG, camping is usually bad... don't camp unless your tank is useless at one of the other Defense Lines, you're in an SPG, or the base needs to be defended. In the case of Malinovka, it is good if a few tanks stay behind and guard the base, as Mediums love to swarm along the sides of the two bodies of water and try to capture the opposing team's base. If your tank can easily be destroyed (low HP and numerous damaged modules), then camping may be your only hope of staying alive. If you are driving an AMX 40 on Malinovka, or an M3 Lee in a Tier 5 or 6 match, then the only place where you will really be useful is either in a TD spot or near the base. This is because your tank will not survive close range combat, lacks the view range to spot enemy vehicles on its own, lacks the camo value to snipe, and just does not have the fire power to be useful in close range combat. If you camp, when an enemy vehicle is spotted, if it is not very armored, you will be able to safely deal a steady amount of damage to it. Many people greatly dislike people who camp at base, especially when it's a heavy or tank that can be very useful in the battle. Only camp if it is appropriate!!! If your tank is more useful in a different location, then go there! An AMX 40 or an M3 Lee can be useful in other locations on the map... it just depends on your current situation and/or predicament. Map Locations: (I think this one is pretty obvious...) Combat Tactics: [All non-SPG's] Snipe, snipe, snipe! Be prepared to shoot down an incoming scout or a wolf-pack of mediums approaching your base. If you are camping at your base, you may as well do a good job at defending it. Sniping TD's in range should be alerted of an incoming assault on the base. Pack your marshmallows, bring some firewood, and have some nice campfire stories to tell! If you are needed elsewhere, go there!!! [sPG's] Just do your "raining death from above" thing. Make sure you shoot at stationary targets if you can. Also, choose priority targets. If you see a Toaster, SU-85, and a KV-1 staying still, all at full Health, who will you shoot at? If you have XVM, shoot at the most skilled player (if there is a significant skill differential). If your team is struggling the most with the KV-1, shoot at it. If none of the targets appear to be a significant threat at the moment, shoot at the Toaster. It has the lowest armor, and it's the largest, easiest to hit target, making it a very easy one-shot. The less guns shooting at your team, the better! If you are nearby the base, and it is coming under assault, relocate and concentrate your fire on the enemy vehicles approaching your base. Make sure you alert TD's about the threat as well. Just for fun, here is a map of Malinovka with all of the different locations highlighted. Yellow zones denote "up for grabs" areas, whilst blue zones denote "to be won via. combat" zones. The purple areas are scout locations. Rectangle = Front Line Circle/Oval = Back Line Triangle = Support Line Squiggle = Camping Purple Circle = Scout Locations 1
Almace Posted July 29, 2014 Posted July 29, 2014 Wish more ppl would get some of those basic concepts and thx for bringing some of this stuff here too. Alone the roles each class "should" play on the battlefield is often crucial. I mean, you can still win a fair amount of games if most tanks are completely misplaced but it just hurts the team more often than not. If you only look at heavies, which should put their armor to use and absorb shots and also just use so called "show of force" or brawl (basically, just be present some place and hinder the enemy from advancing, just by being in a certain location). Always makes my teeth grind, when I then see heavies camping somewhere in the back and let at least half their team die in the process. E: A bit exaggerated but this funny moment illustrates "show of force" too at 2:37-3:02. xD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfNOYugenoo (if you can't watch it, try out "stealthy" plugin for chrome) Also, regarding "If you have no place to cover your tank after a shot, try wiggling your tank side to side and forwards and back while reloading", this reminds me of one of Woras' vids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlKUYMlxSVo&list=UUDRPAE1JrdY3sXBHQqxvOeg 3:38-3:56 Some of this stuff is just genius, imo.
Scorpiany Posted July 29, 2014 Author Posted July 29, 2014 Wish more ppl would get some of those basic concepts and thx for bringing some of this stuff here too. Alone the roles each class "should" play on the battlefield is often crucial. I mean, you can still win a fair amount of games if most tanks are completely misplaced but it just hurts the team more often than not. If you only look at heavies, which should put their armor to use and absorb shots and also just use so called "show of force" or brawl (basically, just be present some place and hinder the enemy from advancing, just by being in a certain location). Always makes my teeth grind, when I then see heavies camping somewhere in the back and let at least half their team die in the process. Some of this stuff is just genius, imo. For some, tanking is rocket science. For others, it comes naturally. I make these guides for the former. And I always hope that someone who needs to read this will; because that will make game play a bit better, and it will help some players improve.
kat59757 Posted July 30, 2014 Posted July 30, 2014 This is really great, it's too bad people can't understand how to play efficiently <_<
Scorpiany Posted August 3, 2014 Author Posted August 3, 2014 This is really great, it's too bad people can't understand how to play efficiently <_< Which is why I make these guides. To try to help people player more efficiently. ;)
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