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Hello all, since the new USSR tree got posted I started thinking about their TD line(s). Personally I always found that the BL-10 is rather overpowered at tier 8. Yes the ISU has paper armor and the BL10 somewhat counters that weakness, however, 750 avg damage combined with the highest penetration in the game is a bit too much for that tier if you ask me.

I've played the ISU a lot (yes, it's not in my own stats, I know), and I really never understood why the BL10 was kept on it when the 704 was added. OK, historically there were a few ISU's equipped with the BL10, but still, for balance purposes it should have been removed when the tier IX TD was added.

I started thinking about the general balance of the TDs and I must say that honestly see the American T95 with respective buffs at tier 10 too, but that's a story for another time. Personally in general, even on the 704, I find 286 pen combined with 750 avg damage too much to be balanced at all. I think it would be an unique change to lower the pen of the BL10 to 276 and increase the Jagdtiger's L/61 to 286. This would create that the JT can fully make its role as top sniper in the game, but lacking high alpha. And it would keep the BL10 and 155 T7 with high alpha and still high pen anyway. Besides this, the USSR TD lines only have 1 tier X, while all other nations get 2.

Now for the concept of the Russian TDs, I thought of the following:

Tree 1:

Tier VIII: ISU-152

Guns: 152mm ML-20s (stock), 122mm D25s mod. 1944, 122mm BL9c

Tier IX: ISU-152-2 (the model that historically mounted the BL10)

Guns: 152mm ML-20s (stock), 122mm BL9c, 152mm BL10

Tier X: Object 704

Guns: 152mm ML-20s (stock), 152mm BL10


Tree 2:

Tier VIII: URALMASH-1

Tier IX: SU-122-54

Tier X: Object 268


Along with this, the BL9c would need a penetration buff, as it is the TD version of the BL9, to be an equal to the Ferdinand. If you look already, the DPS of the BL9c is higher than the 128mm L/55, it just lacks high enough penetration power.
However, I think when removing the BL10 from the ISU152 at tier 8, it can use a health and traversing buff, but anything can be done with it, it just does need some rebalancing then. Same for the 704 being moved to tier 10, which would get respective buffs.

The ISU-152-2 obviously needs to be properly balanced to be a working tier IX TD, I have no idea in what way but it should be a fair counterpart to the T95 and Jagdtiger. Most likely rather high health combined with good ambush power and the common ISU mobility with better traverse. This would make the T95 slow but heavily armored, the Jagdtiger averagely armored and mobile and the ISU152-2 very mobile but relatively lightly armored.

It is just a concept I though of for a while and thought of to share to see what the rest of the community thinks about it. I see both nerfs and buffs to the tree, and in my eyes a better balanced tree in general.

Thoughts? (and trolls, please don't instant neg rep)

 Celestial, on 10 July 2012 - 08:51 PM, said:

No

OK, very nice contribution, thanks.

I absolutely HATED the BL-10 on ISU. Found it to be very unreliable. The amount of simple detracks, misses or 0-damage crits was insane.

If they buff the BL-9s with more accuracy, rof & a lot more penetration, I'd use it on the ISU-152

well, i think it is ok like it is now

because alpha damage is not all, if a isu shoot it has to reload nearly 20secs
the other t8 td´s have a lower alpha damage but they got a hhigher firing rate


dpm isu : ca 2600-3325
dpm ferdinand: ca 2709-3483
dpm t28:   ca 2760-3553

and jagdtiger-gun is one of the best guns ingame, penetration is more than enough and if you compare the dpm with the other t9 tds
object:      ca 2600-3325
t95/t30:     ca 2460-3116
Foch:       ca 2856-3677
Jagdtiger: ca 2940-3675

and as an example isu vs ferdinand 1vs1
both td´s shoot, but ferdinand reloads faster and kills isu with the second shot

so all in all the the isu is not really op

Its a nice gun, but very unreliable, i never think of ISU has OP on the battlefield. It dies very quickly. paper armor, and not very agile.
  It looks very good on paper, but one miss with that gun in that TD against other tier 8, and game over mostly of the times.

Nooooooooooo, I just bought bl-10 yesterday, and now u want to take it away from me? No, no chance. WG If u do that before i get 704, I will ...bfdsd... aww ... I dont know what, but it wont be pretty, I can guarantee that!!

P.s. Did I maybe kill u today Celestial, is that the reason for this thread?

Lol no, I haven't played WoT today except for 1 battle in my VK45A ^^, which I survived. I don't make such threads to whine or because I get killed by something. I have been thinking about a lot of balancing issues that I see in WoT, and yeah this is one of them..

 Celestial, on 10 July 2012 - 09:41 PM, said:

Hehe, I was joking, but seriously a lot of people are angry on me today.. especialy that kv3 that got one-shooted from front.. and that e-100 that end up on fire and lost 1200 hp.. and that is7 that i killed with 3 shoot from bush..

Well, when I think about it, I do agree with u on this issue of bl-10 and ISU, it is too strong. I just hope they wont change it till i get to 704.

I doubt they will change it anyway, especially considering that many people consider it 'fine' anyway..

Love both the isu and obj 704 as they are now, so no changes please. They have their weaknesses and I've been owned a lot by good players, but all in all, they are effective is used properly.

BL10 on the isu was the point where I finally got to enjoy a russian td for the first time, and the obj made the whole grind worthwhile.

This is what I like to see in the tech trees, grinds that result in a worthwhile result. It has an uber gun, but all in all I think it's pretty fair.

Well I find it pretty weird that you only started enjoying it after the BL10.. The Russian TD line starts to be awesome after you get the 107mm on the SU85 (which finally will be removed now), after that you get the SU100 with an awesome sniper cannon (100mm) or huge damage (122mm) depending on your taste. Then the SU152 derp is hilarious with the stock derp gun and completely destructive with the 2nd 122mm (the Mod. 1944). Only the ISU can be a bit of a grind until the BL-10 due to lacking penetration on all but the BL9c..

 Celestial, on 11 July 2012 - 08:41 AM, said:

I get what you're saying, but everyone has their comfort zone and my gameplay style is more conservative (in a non camping way) and I prefer more of a close support role to the front line tanks. Played a great game with an unknown e50 the other night, he spotted, I dealt damage, he finished them off.

Couldn't get comfortable with the lower tier russian td's before the isu, but as mentioned, that's just my experience with them in the same sense that I found other tanks extremely enjoyable at the lower tiers compared to others who didn't. It may have been that many of the battle's I played in with them were unlucky with bad teams.

You say that a tank with 16mm more penetration than a tier 9 heavy, no armor, and which has to turn it's whole hull to shoot something is fine as a tier 10 TD.
This is not just wrong, it's racist and offensive.

BL10 stats make it look like it could be good gun but it ain't. Or maybe it's ok for tier 8 but for tier 9 - 10 its too unreliable. In example if I use T110E5 I can can usually hit IS-7 like 90 % of the shots and from those hitting it 80 % penetrates. With obj 704 and BL10 I can probably hit 70 % and penetrate 50 % of those. If unlucky those penetrating hits are 0 dmg. It's a true lottery gun and that is not OP even in tier 8.

 Spyware, on 10 July 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

No, ferdie will need 3 shots to kill the ISU, ISU only needs 2, since the ferdie wont cream out 2 straight shot with over 500 hp and of course with the system that the gun always leave 40-50 hp left even at  sure kill, will lead to the conclussion ferdie will need 3 shots fired within 20 secs, which I dont think it will...

 Stokkolm, on 11 July 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

wait what?

Play the ISU first, then announce a plan to make people play it twice.

Compared to how is was during beta, the ISU is now somewhat shite, didn't take more than a moments thought to get rid of it as soon as I had unlocked the 704.

I'm referring to this to be more precise.

 Celestial, on 10 July 2012 - 08:51 PM, said:

Object is by no ways OP now, not compared to jagtiger but compared to tier 9 mediums and heavies which have 270 pen along with armor and turret. If you want to replace it with another tier 9 it has to be just as good if not better. ISU-152-2 has a worse hull, so it needs a big mobility or rate of fire boost to compensate and be a decent tier 9 td.

Now about moving object 704 to tier 10... 286mm penetration for a tier X TD is simply a joke when the new tier 10 mediums will have guns with 270 penetration and BETTER DPM than the BL-10.