75 replies to this topic

[Aknazer]

I hated my T71 when I first got it, but knew I had to try it fully upgraded to really judge it.  Starting off the gun was meh and the engine was even worse.  In fact I think I upgraded my engine over the gun because I couldn't stand how slow it was for an LT.  Fully upgraded it can go 65kph and pen most tanks out there from at least the sides.  And it does well at hill surfing to light up the enemy and get back down before they have a chance to fire at you.

[Chiyeko]

Just done my first few battles in it, after the first I knew I wasn't going to keep at it without fully upgrading it so grinded some more free exp and did just that.

It is great fun to drive and I am doing alright in it, still I feel like I have a lot to learn.

[JLK_250]

I got my new T71 upgraded except for radio over the weekend.  I used free experience for the best gun and ground the rest during the 5x event so it was pretty easy (though with stock engine and tracks it is slooooow).   The tank has a lot of potential but I am still figuring it out. On my T71 I have vert stab, optics, and binocs but plan to swap binocs for GLD because I'm too impatient to passive scout and the aim time bugs me a little even with the vert stab.  The T71 is definitely a good tank but so far I do not see why people bag on the T21 and rave about the T71.  After having both, I would tend to think that if you suck in the T21 you're going to suck in the T71 and vice versa.

Edit--also considering vents instead of binocs.  The big reason binocs are on right now is I wanted to see how much it needs the GLD.   If aim time bugs me a lot, GLD.  If aim time doesn't bug me much, vents or keep binocs.   It does not bother me enough to say that the GLD is for sure worth it, but it's at least close enough that I may do it.

Edit again--got GLD instead of binocs or vents.  Do not regret, but YMMV.

[Aknazer]

I wouod get vents over the GLD.  Doing so allows you to increase your camo, aim time, view range, reload speed, etc.  This gives you better flexibility and will let you do better overall.

[Chiyeko]

Slowly getting more hang of this thing, just love how people overlook it, specially when all they see is the minimap and think meh light I get heavy in front must kill that one. Dropped a black prince like that the other day, drove down a clif behind him and nuked him in his rear putting him on fire and never did he even look around just kept firing at well covered targets ahead of him :P

I love this thing, but damn I have to do better in it I feel.

[indigowhale]

I just got this thing yesterday and grinded out a crazy 35 battles so far.  Only had 12 of those as wins.

The tank has some serious flaws, namely an insanely weak stock engine.   Literally every other game I lose my engine, not just damaged, but completely destroyed so then I roll to a halt and then get finished off easily.  Also frustrating is the nonsensical choice to make the M1A2 the stock gun for this tank. Its a good gun, and works well on the E8 and T21.  But the thing has zero business being in an autoloader.  It is a total waste.

But the losses are hardly the tank's fault.  It still gets up to speed reasonably well, and can passive scout well enough, but I've had some atrocious teams, and it is very hard to contribute to damage with an autoloading M1A2.  A bad grind made worse by terrible luck.

[Aknazer]

Stock tanks are usually bad, so the gun makes sense.  I wish the engine was a bit better for stock, but whatever.

[Chiyeko]

I slowly get more and more out of this little death machine, it just puts heavy tanks to shame as you nuke them down in no time. Had a KV-1s and no where to go, head to eat 1 sot of his and well that was the last shot he would fire, this acpr ammo is just tracer stuff put him on fire quite soon and he was done :)

Some battles go badly though mainly as I use the speed to see if I can get to certain places in time with this tank which means I find out at times I can't :P

Overall just a fun tank to play, just paper armour and a weak ammo rack, I get ammo rack damage on the first hit I take like 1/2 times, still not going to waste a crew skills or mod on it, as long as it doesn't blow the repair kit does the job.

[JLK_250]

indigowhale, on May 18 2013 - 15:06, said:

I just got this thing yesterday and grinded out a crazy 35 battles so far. Only had 12 of those as wins. The tank has some serious flaws, namely an insanely weak stock engine. Literally every other game I lose my engine, not just damaged, but completely destroyed so then I roll to a halt and then get finished off easily. Also frustrating is the nonsensical choice to make the M1A2 the stock gun for this tank. Its a good gun, and works well on the E8 and T21. But the thing has zero business being in an autoloader. It is a total waste. But the losses are hardly the tank's fault. It still gets up to speed reasonably well, and can passive scout well enough, but I've had some atrocious teams, and it is very hard to contribute to damage with an autoloading M1A2. A bad grind made worse by terrible luck.

Use free experience to get the best gun if you can.  That's what free experience is for and it's only 6500 XP so hardly worth messing with the M1A2, especially since the M1A2 is heavier so you get a little extra carrying capacity in addition to the big bump in pen.

If you're getting your engine taken out regularly, you are probably being too aggressive with it.  You do not want to take fire since you won't bounce anything and don't have a big health pool.  Often that means you can only dump one or two rounds of your clip before getting back to cover.  In other words, don't feel compelled to dump your whole clip into a tank.

[Aknazer]

Personally I found the upgraded engine more important than the second gun as a first upgrade.  I can make the first gun work to some degree (after all it's the same gun as the T21 who gets similar matches), but that stock engine was just too slow for me to do much in the tank.  With the second engine I was able to actually get places and flank enemies where the lesser gun could still pen a lot of targets.

[KaeseEs]

To concur with JLK, my biggest improvement in performing with the T71 has come from looking at the enemy team's comp during the countdown.  Eg. if we're playing on Prok and they have a couple of Types or a batchat, doing a "half court" spotting run is out of the question.  Getting 6th and maxing out the camo skill of the crew was also a big bonus, the vstab skills (smooth ride + snap shot) a little less so but still worth it. When you're playing in a tier 10 or 11 game you may be a bullet magnet - people are familiar with your capabilities and the moment they see you they're liable to have a reaction like that of a twelve year old girl with a spider crawling up her arm - "SHIT SHIT SHIT KILL IT WITH FIRE FUCK", and before you know it you have four arties gunning for you and three mediums in hot pursuit (if your teammates are paying attention they can get a bunch of free kills on your pursuers and pretty much win the match right there; le sigh).  The solution to this, of course, is not being seen ;)

When everything clicks the T71 is my favorite tank, bar none.

Edited by KaeseEs, Jun 11 2013 - 15:38.

[wethog]

Really can't say enough about how awesome this tank is.  I love it.  Arguably, pound for pound, the best tank in this game.  I use it as a sniper/flanker and I have so much fun in it.  And whenever I see someone else in a T71 immediately rush scout for arti I get pissed because its such a waste of a great tank.  I only scout in it if I am the only med and below tank on my team and even then I am hesitant.  It can pen any tank at any tier.  If I could have relations with this tank I would.

As for camo, I have never had a problem with being spotted that I can remember.  And all I have is the gold paint jobs.  I just go for nice cover, and this tank can hide behind anything, and snipe anything I see, then wait for some nice flanking opportunities to help out teamates.  If I get spotted I use its great speed and look for another sniping spot to piss off bigger tanks.  I made the mistake of selling it when I unlocked the T69, but I bought it back soon after.  I have not used the T57 yet, and probably never will based on the ultimate suckage that is the T54E, but I feel confident saying, IMO, that the T71 is the best tank on its line.  452 battles and counting.

I run Vert, GLD and large repair kit.  As for crew skills/perks:

Commander:  BIA, Sixth, Fire Ext.
Gunner:  BIA, Snap, Fire Ext.
Driver:  BIA, PM, Fire Ext.

I guess I could try camo net or Vent in place of repair kit, but I guess I am afraid if I did it would make the tank better than it all ready is, and then I wouldn't play any of my other tanks.  ;)

Also, I did the grind all the way up to the bat chat and the T71 is far superior to all the French auto loader light/med tanks, even the bat chat, IMO.  When I really got into a groove with the T71 I took my bat chat crew and trained them for the 1390 again thinking I could have as much fun as my T71.  That didn't work out and I sold the 1390 after a while.

Finally, if this tank ever gets nerfed I will uninstall WoT from my computer.  Note to the Wargaming folks, don't **** with this tank.

Edited by wethog, Jun 13 2013 - 23:38.

[Aknazer]

wethog, on Jun 13 2013 - 23:32, said:

Really can't say enough about how awesome this tank is.  I love it.  Arguably, pound for pound, the best tank in this game.  I use it as a sniper/flanker and I have so much fun in it.  And whenever I see someone else in a T71 immediately rush scout for arti I get pissed because its such a waste of a great tank.  I only scout in it if I am the only med and below tank on my team and even then I am hesitant.  It can pen any tank at any tier.  If I could have relations with this tank I would.

As for camo, I have never had a problem with being spotted that I can remember.  And all I have is the gold paint jobs.  I just go for nice cover, and this tank can hide behind anything, and snipe anything I see, then wait for some nice flanking opportunities to help out teamates.  If I get spotted I use its great speed and look for another sniping spot to piss off bigger tanks.  I made the mistake of selling it when I unlocked the T69, but I bought it back soon after.  I have not used the T57 yet, and probably never will based on the ultimate suckage that is the T54E, but I feel confident saying, IMO, that the T71 is the best tank on its line.  452 battles and counting.

I run Vert, GLD and large repair kit.  As for crew skills/perks:

wat.  Large Repair Kit is a consumable and not equipment.  Do you mean the Toolbox that increases the repair time by 25%?  I seriously hope not as that royally sucks for this tank.  You should be running vert, vents, optics.  If you're more of a passive player and don't move too much you can change out optics for binocs (personally I do a bunch of shoot-n-scoot so I go with optics).  Also you can change out the vents for something like a GLD, but I personally wouldn't given how the vents help you in all areas and thus make you better at flexing to a situation while GLD only increases your aim time (which imo is something that is fine without it).

Quote

Commander:  BIA, Sixth, Fire Ext.
Gunner:  BIA, Snap, Fire Ext.
Driver:  BIA, PM, Fire Ext.

I'll be honest.  This is absolutely HORRIBLE for skills/perks.  Here's a better setup:

Commander - Sixth Sense, BIA, Camo, Recon
Gunner - Camo, BIA, Deadeye, Snap Shot
Driver - Camo, BIA, Offroad Driving, Clutch Breaking

Now here's a breakdown of the skills and why you should go with what I have listed and why your choices are so bad.

BIA - This is a good skill but should be taken second.  the reason for this is because Sixth Sense is more important than this skill and by taking Sixth Sense first it lets you take Camo first on the other people which I'll get to next.

Camo - Camo is going to save your life.  It reduces the range that enemies can spot you, and if you're not spotted then they can't shoot you.  As you're already taking Sixth Sense on the Commander this on the other two guys is just makes sense.  Another nice thing is that BIA is going to improve your crews' Camo skill so having Camo first increases your survivability and plays off of BIA later.

Recon - you're a scout, you need view range.  This increases your view range.  You could change this out for Situational Awareness on the T71, but I personally wouldn't since when they come out with new LTs if they have a radio operator it will make SA on your Commander useless while Recon will still be useful and doesn't require you to use gold to retrain.

Deadeye - This skill increases your chance to cause critical damage by +3%.  The thing here is that modules have a 45% or less chance to be crit so a +3% is actually a good improvement (6%+ total improvement).  And since the T71 fires so many shots that means this skill is going to activate that much more.

Snap Shot - This is nice, but Camo/BIA/Deadeye are all better.

Offroad Driving - You're going to be driving off the road the majority of most matches.  This improves your ability to do so.  Improving your ability to drive improves your ability to stay alive.  Enough said.

Clutch Breaking - This increases your turn rate.  It's nice and as an LT this helps you live by letting you make better turns.  Not as useful as the first three listed, but still a very useful skill.

Now on to the two skills on your list that aren't on mine, why they are horrible, and why your ordering isn't the best.

Preventative Maintence - The driver has a ton of very useful skills and this isn't one of them.  You typically don't catch fire as it is and if you're that worried about it just use an automatic fire extinguisher.  Personally I do use an automatic fire extinguisher as it lowers fire chances and has saved me on multiple occasions.  Of course the 20k cost of the auto ext sucks, but I maybe use one every 20 battles.

Fire Ext - This is a HORRIBLE skill.  Should you catch fire then this is only going to reduce the number of ticks you take if you let it the thing burn out.  If you stop the fire before what would have been 50% of the burn time then this skill did nothing for you.  If you're this worried about fires then again, get the auto fire ext as it puts the fire out after only a single damage tick.  Personally I've never been lit on fire twice in a battle so just the consumable will be fine.

Quote

I guess I could try camo net or Vent in place of repair kit, but I guess I am afraid if I did it would make the tank better than it all ready is, and then I wouldn't play any of my other tanks.  ;)

You wouldn't want the camo net on this tank.  This tank is pretty hard to see as it is, with the camo skill it's even harder, and the camo net only works when you've stood still for 3 seconds.  As such it's regularly going to be inactive given how much you drive around in this tank.


I'm not trying to be mean, but you could do so much better if you had a better skill/equipment setup.

[wethog]

Aknazer, on Jun 14 2013 - 01:32, said:

I'm not trying to be mean, but you could do so much better if you had a better skill/equipment setup.

I don't take what you said as mean, different strokes for different folks.  I don't put a lot of effort into researching crew perks/skills.  I guess I should, but with the limited time I have to play on a weekly basis due to real life comitments I make quick decisions.  I've been around since beta and I think this is my 15th post.  I just came in here to express my love for this tank.  Having said that, I will look over your suggestions in more detail and see what works for me and post the difference, if any, I notice.

[Aknazer]

wethog, on Jun 14 2013 - 19:45, said:

I don't take what you said as mean, different strokes for different folks.  I don't put a lot of effort into researching crew perks/skills.  I guess I should, but with the limited time I have to play on a weekly basis due to real life comitments I make quick decisions.  I've been around since beta and I think this is my 15th post.  I just came in here to express my love for this tank.  Having said that, I will look over your suggestions in more detail and see what works for me and post the difference, if any, I notice.

As you have three skills listed I'm assuming that you have three skills.  trust me when I say you will notice a HUGE difference when you drop firefighting (which is effectively the same as having no skill on this crew) and get camo.  This makes it so much easier for you to get around and not be spotted, thus increasing your life expectancy.

[wethog]

Aknazer, on Jun 14 2013 - 23:33, said:

As you have three skills listed I'm assuming that you have three skills.  trust me when I say you will notice a HUGE difference when you drop firefighting (which is effectively the same as having no skill on this crew) and get camo.  This makes it so much easier for you to get around and not be spotted, thus increasing your life expectancy.

Well I took your advice and changed my crew set up and my level of ass kicking with this tank has gone up noticeably.  I do appreciate it, and I guess I need to put more effort into researching crew skills/perks moving forward.  ;)

Commander:  Sixth, BIA, Camo (93%)
Gunner:  Camo, BIA, Snapshot (93%)
Driver:  Camo, BIA, Off-road (93%)

Chose snapshot because its a skill and I can use it now, but I will retrain for deadeye once I get my 3rd skill to 100%.  Just did a battle where I connected on 30 of 36 shots fired.  Killed four and got confederate.  Really pissed off a T59 I hit in his ammo rack to boot.  Man I love this tank.

Edited by wethog, Today, 10:04 PM.