164 replies to this topic

[Greneral_Maow]

Grisbane, on Apr 16 2012 - 08:23, said:

actually, i started and ground the german line first before ever thinking of going up russian..  so i am far from spoiled in that remark..

spoiled german tanker then

[General_von_Nuben]

I will definitely NOT say that the IS-4 is weak.  But I WILL say that it is not as beastly as it was pre-7.2.  In 7.1.1, I routinely bounced shots from every gun in the game with a little rocking and angling.  Now, I get penned far more often, and not just by the new mega-pen American guns.  Even a T7 French heavy penetrated my lower plate (not the driver's hatch!) at some range yesterday.  I'm not sure what changes have been made to the armor in 7.2.  Some one told me that the effective sloping was reduced because the IS-4 had been "shrunken" to meet its historical dimensions.  What I do know is that it's easier to pen the IS-4 in 7.2.  I'm not playing any differently, and experience confirms that I'm getting penned much, much more.

Still, I'm not complaining.  I've amassed a very nice record in the IS-4 and I continue to do well in it.  I think it's about tied with the E-75 as the best T9 heavy.  The S70 gun with 260 pen is incredibly powerful for Tier 9.  

I also agree with many posters that it's not just the changes in the IS-4 that cause concern. It's the fact that nothing is ever settled in WoT.  One tank is OP in one patch.  Everyone rushes to get it.  Then it gets toned down into worthlessness.  Or some new tank tree appears that inalterably changes the balance.

7.2 introduced lots and lots of direct/indirect gameplay balance changes.  I think the IS-4 has suffered as a result, but not to the point of total worthlessness.  It's just more "middle of the road" now.  After all, think about what IS-4 drivers must face in 7.2 that they never had to face in 7.1.1: M103s and T110s with their mega-pen and space-ship like sloped hulls, T30s at Tier 9, plentiful T34s at Tier 8 that can easily pen your front.  And the income changes pushed more people to play Tier 10s than Tier 9s, so the IS-4 winds up in more Tier 10 matches than before.  This leads to more games with income-buffed Tier 8 arties, which is death on ANY heavy.  Combined with the obvious armor changes, this all has made the IS-4 less than what it was before.  Still formidable, just not OP.  

There's nothing wrong with that.  It's just that you can never get used to anything in this game.  Add the influence of money to game development, and you can forget about predictability.  You need to keep buying the next OP tank, at least until it gets nerfed in the subsequent patch.

My main fear is what's going to happen to the poor German tree once 7.3 hits.  Russian T9s and 10s will have 260 and 270 pen.  American heavies will have 269 pen.  The Germans will be stuck with their subpar 246 pen (Maus, E75, VK4502B), and their even worse 235 pen E100 derp (which is unreliable even running gold rounds).  And what good will armor be when every opposing gun has Tier 9 TD penetrating power?  A crisis in balance is coming.

[Nichts]

This thread is evidence of Russian bias by glorious Russian devs.

[cRommels]

Its because more and more guns are 260+ pen. I dont know what devs are trying to acomplish with this....

Before it wasnt the french rape gun SA-46 with 267pen available on two tanks, it wasnt M58 269pen. And soon we are going to have a new 122 gun with 270pen. Inb4 testing has to be done,not final, i doubt the devs are going to lower that gun pen.

And the IS-4 surely has to be that tank with no benefit from armor normalization since patch 7.0 which turned IS-7 into a bouncing shells machine. It was better before.

Now IS-4 front takes shells from another S-70 gun at insane angles. it simply goes through with no problems. The damn shoulders bounce a bit more than it's front. At least it did before all super pen guns have surfaced. What the heck, ARL44 top gun can pen IS-4 front...atm this tank is dead. Sluggish as hell, gun misses more than ever and on top of that theres the 0 damage pen shots. Cant wait for IS-8 so i can sell this piece of garbage from my garage.

Garnett101st, on Apr 16 2012 - 14:07, said:

IS4 was obsolete once the E75 came in.

IS4 doesn't need worse side armor, no matter what GERMAN drivers think.

IS4 already has

4.A hull that can be penned by tier 8 heavies

Dude, ARL44 DCA 45 gun can pen IS-4 from the front. Either aim at the driver port or lower down at that long horizontal joint. Thats a T6 tank LOL! feel free to try it out if you dont believe me.

[MistaPlug]

sRommels, on Apr 16 2012 - 18:01, said:

Its because more and more guns are 260+ pen. I dont know what devs are trying to acomplish with this....

Before it wasnt the french rape gun SA-46 with 267pen available on two tanks, it wasnt M58 269pen. And soon we are going to have a new 122 gun with 270pen. Inb4 testing has to be done,not final, i doubt the devs are going to lower that gun pen.

And the IS-4 surely has to be that tank with no benefit from armor normalization since patch 7.0 which turned IS-7 into a bouncing shells machine. It was better before.

Now IS-4 front takes shells from another S-70 gun at insane angles. it simply goes through with no problems. The damn shoulders a bit more than it's front. At least it did before all super pen guns have surfaced. What the heck, ARL44 top gun can pen IS-4 front...atm this tank is dead. Sluggish as hell, gun misses more than ever and on top of that theres the 0 damage pen shots. Cant wait for IS-8 so i can sell this piece of garbage from my garage.

ill refer you to my post on page 4....it tells the armor and mobility changes planned

[Fazar]

Invincible turret, moderate and unreliable hull armour.  The best thing about the IS-4 is it's about 1/4th the height of like a E-75.

[Mizar_Panzer]

Fazar, on Apr 16 2012 - 18:22, said:

Invincible turret, moderate and unreliable hull armour.  The best thing about the IS-4 is it's about 1/4th the height of like a E-75.

Which can be a disadvantage if a KV5 managed to facehug you  

[Drseckzytime]

General_von_Nuben, on Apr 16 2012 - 17:14, said:

My main fear is what's going to happen to the poor German tree once 7.3 hits.  Russian T9s and 10s will have 260 and 270 pen.  American heavies will have 269 pen.  The Germans will be stuck with their subpar 246 pen (Maus, E75, VK4502B), and their even worse 235 pen E100 derp (which is unreliable even running gold rounds).  And what good will armor be when every opposing gun has Tier 9 TD penetrating power?  A crisis in balance is coming.

Put a fork in them is what's going to happen.  They'll leave them to sit and rot like they did the old German heavy line, "something-something outclassed, outdated, fighting stuff years newer so suffer and deal with it".  I mean look at the German TD line that's been suffering since launch, never really "buffed them" to match the other nations.  They did "bug fixing" on armor and modules and that's it.  I'll continue to play German vehicles predominately for the challenge like I always have.

[Mow_Mow]

sRommels, on Apr 16 2012 - 18:01, said:

Dude, ARL44 DCA 45 gun can pen IS-4 from the front. Either aim at the driver port or lower down at that long horizontal joint. Thats a T6 tank LOL! feel free to try it out if you dont believe me.

M103 can be penetrated from the front by tier 5 tank Chaffee/T-50-2/SU-85. Boo hoo, my tank can't bounce 200 penetration guns from its weak spot, it has no armor!

[Fazar]

Mizar_Panzer, on Apr 16 2012 - 18:23, said:

Which can be a disadvantage if a KV5 managed to facehug you  

I did notice myself just shooting through the top of the turret of IS-4s this weekend...

[TheDawg]

Grisbane, on Apr 15 2012 - 23:01, said:

i just got it a few days ago, have all the upgrades already..  even then, i'm already sick of it..

I have 219 battles in mine,and it WAS more fun prior to the last two patches.
I only take it out when a bud says 'hey, lets rock some big tanks'.
I can handle the games where I kill 4 tanks, but took two dozen shots to do it, and lose money after repairs...I got a 59, but
T-29 for same big tank feel and some joy!
+1'd ya

[Patton5150]

There is something wrong since the patch.  I took out my IS4 for the first time since 7.2 for the x5 xp.  My first battle, I ammo racked another IS4 from the side.  First time I've ever done that before.  In the same battle, a Patton and a Tiger were both penetrating/damaging me from the front every shot.  I died after about 6 or 7 shots.  Again, each of those shots penetrated and did damage.  No shots bounced or failed to penetrate.

[Pendan]

I got my IS-7 a few weeks before 7.2 came out so I was not playing it as much anymore. Then with 7.2 I was having troubles deciding what crew skills to play. Then I read about the armor changes and it made me want to play it even less. Another reason I have not been motivated to play the IS-4 is I really don't do that well in it prior to 7.2 and don't enjoy the style of play it takes. This morning I was looking at my stats at http://wot-news.com/.../stat/single/us for the first time since 7.2. Previously the IS-4 was one of the few tanks I have that I performed under the server average. It was only like .1% but was my only tank with over 100 games played that I was under. Today I found I am now 1.09% above the server average even though I did not play a single game in it. This is a big change in a two week period for a tank that has been out for so long.

Additionally, the stats Snib does on the EU server got updated today with data for the last 2 week. http://forum.worldof...ver-statistics/ It shows for the last two weeks of data the win percentage of all IS-4 games is -2.07% compared to the last months data. This is nearly the same drop in win percentage as the French tanks which had well documented in patch notes nerfs.

This shows that the changes to the IS-4 really are having a performance change and is not just in people imagination. Worse of all it was not made clear in the patch notes.

[Ducman69]

Pendan, on Apr 16 2012 - 21:57, said:

This shows that the changes to the IS-4 really are having a performance change and is not just in people imagination. Worse of all it was not made clear in the patch notes.

I probably single-handedly dropped the North America server statistics a point or two... lol!  

[Ezz]

Ducman69, on Apr 16 2012 - 22:22, said:

I probably single-handedly dropped the North America server statistics a point or two... lol!  

Or even perhaps all the good players who were driving it pre patch were given something shiny and new and american to drive, so they all jumped ship. Those who stayed were probably the late arrivals.

Speaking of which, I'm about 100k CR off starting to lower that server average a bit further as well. Don't have anywhere near enough free XP so it'll be stock (with BL9) so not sure how great it will be.

[ShivaX]

Ezz, on Apr 16 2012 - 22:28, said:

Or even perhaps all the good players who were driving it pre patch were given something shiny and new and american to drive, so they all jumped ship. Those who stayed were probably the late arrivals.

Speaking of which, I'm about 100k CR off starting to lower that server average a bit further as well. Don't have anywhere near enough free XP so it'll be stock (with BL9) so not sure how great it will be.

It suffers a bit with the BL9, mostly because you have to face off against another Tier9 which you'll often struggle to penetrate while he'll penetrate you if hes upgraded.  The BL9 is workable though.  If you're lucky you'll run into another IS4 who also has it and you can bounce each other repeatedly.  If you're unlucky you'll run into a IS4 with a S70 and he'll eat you alive.

[X32Wright]

The IS-4 always felt weak (yes I have the S-70 gun) vs my E-75 and I didn't have this impression when I was in my IS-3 (which I kept).  Although the side armor are nice that Driver's slot is just its Achilles's heal and a big one at that just like the small turret on the KV-5 while the E-75 only has the hatch issue which is very hard to hit. I want to love the IS-4 but the way it performs is nothing like the tank I experienced during CBT (Closed Beta Testing).

I have the Gun Rammer, Spall Liner and W.A.R (Wet Ammo Rack) with it just like on my IS-3 with 100% crew.

[XxAMERICAxX]

I'm still confused at the fact that the IS-4 has 8 degrees of depression....same as Americans lol.

[Ducman69]

XxAMERICAxX, on Apr 16 2012 - 23:44, said:

I'm still confused at the fact that the IS-4 has 8 degrees of depression....same as Americans lol.

The two new Americans aren't hull down tanks anymore, that's why.   E-75 has 8 degrees as well.

The T30, T32, and T34 have 10 degrees of depression.

[Bore]

my IS4 is still the bees knees