BR 5.3 American tree is borderline unplayable.

[McLOVIN]

What the title says. Trying to grind USA to get Cold War tanks and 5.3 is just a nightmare.

I've got 2 76mm Shermans and the Jumbo. Occasionally you manage a good match but for the most part it's just getting rocked by Tigers, Panthers, and KVs.

The 76 Shermans have an *alright* gun, still not as good as the German tanks, but get penned easily even at like 900+ meters by most everything at that BR.

And the Jumbo can take a punch but the 75mm is pretty much a peashooter at BR 5-6

Doesn't help that the 76 Shermans don't feel as mobile as they should be. I've got all the engine upgrades in both and the Panther is still way faster.

I know to aim for the weaker spots on these tanks but that's kinda tough at 1000m. IMHO they should have the Pershing variants in the 5 BR range, not 6, that would at least be fair.

For USA BR 2-4 felt much more balanced. I recently played both USA, USSR, and Germany at BR 3.7 back-to-back and it was more fun because at that BR the tanks are actually balanced.


Just wondering if anyone else shares this opinion?

[McLOVIN]

Originally posted by Venom Thanos:

Jump to 7.0. T29 and T34 will be a breath of fresh air as they have good gun and turret armor that could stop the Soviet 100mm and 122mm.

That's the point, I don't have 7.0 unlocked yet, I'm grinding for it. Like I said, up until 5.3 it's been really fun and seemed pretty well balanced but now it's gotten rough.

[Chaoslink]

The trick is staying mobile and using that stabilizer while flanking. You can't just frontline engage and expect to win.

But yes, just about every US tank above 4.0 is a bit too high. The M4A1 76mm shouldn't be so high. The hull is crap and maneuverablility isn't great either. You can be penetrated by just about anything since you have 37mm of armor wrapping to your front from the sides. You can't angle it. If you look at the performance of other guns at the tier, 4.7 is just too late to be giving USA their better gun. Frankly, I don't think its that much stronger than a Panzer IV, the stabilizer being its only boost. So being only a hair higher than the PZ IV I feel is very fair.

The other two, the M4A2 and M4A3 should honestly take its place at 4.7 since they do have more workable armor and mobility.

Other tanks like the T14 should also drop a step. Jumbo too. You can make these tanks work at their current rank, but its far more effort than the other tanks they share a BR with now. All things considered, I'd argue the KV-85 is better than the Jumbo, or at least comparable. Sure, the KV-85 doesn't have armor nearly as strong, but it is still workable armor and the gun allows it to defend itself quite well. I do think its a bit low, it belongs at 5.0 at the very least, but the Jumbo should share its BR.

It just kinda sucks how annoying it can be to play USA around those BRs. You can make it work, but it always feels like an uphill battle. Even a downtier feels like an uptier since everything you face can deal with you.

Personally, I just stuck to 4.0 and played that. Having bought the Calliope a long while ago, its a great lineup sporting the M4A2, Calliope, M19 and whatever CAS planes tickle my fancy at the time, usually the P-61 and PBJ. I try and enjoy the slightly higher BRs for USA, but just can't most of the time. Not unless I'm just in it for the shennanigans of flying the B-17 in GRB or something.

[McLOVIN]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

The trick is staying mobile and using that stabilizer while flanking. You can't just frontline engage and expect to win.

But yes, just about every US tank above 4.0 is a bit too high.

Does that include Cold War era? Cause my whole goal for USA tree is to unlock Cold War tanks and that would really suck if literally everything above BR 4 is like that.

[Shyue Chou]

My line-up was then at 5.3 with the two 76 mm-armed M4s, M36 and the Jumbo. I didn't crew the M4 at 5.7 as I thought it was one step too far. I persisted with it and researched through that rank with a 5.3 line-up. Don't expect a 2:1 K/D with them. You can maintain a positive K/D however.

I used my stabiliser a fair bit. It is mainly to pop from cover, shoot and swiftly reverse back into cover.

Right now, I am researching my M1A2 SEP.

[Aegis270]

The American 5.3/5.7 lineup is a little weak compared to their cotemporaries, but it's not unusable.

At 5.3, you have two standouts, the 76mm M4A2 and the Jumbo. The 76mm is a pure flanker, lacking the armor to survive shots you need to rely on the advantage your stabilizer gives you to get that first shot off. Don't discount this. If you encounter an enemy at close range while both of you are moving, you will get the first accurate shot off, and you can kill or disable any enemy you will face if you place it well.

The Jumbo has the armor to ignore most guns at the tier (So long as you aren't uptiered, and as always I recommend against relying on heavy tanks in an uptier as much as possible), but the gun is it's weakness.

The trick to get both of those to work is to know when to go for barrel shots and when to go for weakspots. Most enemy tanks at this BR have nice large muzzle breaks that make it very easy to disable their gun at close range, while your .50 can shred their tracks. So if you come up against something you cannot penetrate, like an angled Tiger, you can still use your reaction advantage to track and barrel them before moving in for the kill.

At 5.7, you get the Hellcat, which gives you the mobility to put that gun where it needs to be to work, as well as the M36B2, which gives you HEATFS to deal with the heavily armored stuff you'll be constantly fighting. Also the M4A3 76, which is barely an upgrade over the M4A2.

Things get better at 6.7, the T34, T26E5 and various light tanks are all strong. After that though, it's a slog until like 9.0ish.

[Scrotum Scratcher]

just skip 5.3 and get the 5.7 lineup M4A3, M18, M36, M36B2. the M4A2 and jumbo are both terrible tanks (except the 76mm jumbo). the 5.7 lineup is godlike though

if you're grinding US just to stop at cold war then i would just save yourself the disappointment. M60 and m103 are trash and you get matched against stabilized MBT's and rocket spam. one of the worst BRs for US

[McLOVIN]

Originally posted by Venom Thanos:

Originally posted by Blacksmith_41:

Buy the T29, M26 Tiger, M6A2E1 and the T114, skip the pain with money

LOL f--k no. That's like over 200 bucks for those vehicles. That right there is the reason why Gaijin treat the community like s--t and get away with being such a--holes. Their business model is to make you get frustrated and spend tons of money, and you fell for it.

I play WT because I'm a tank history nerd and I like the gameplay. But I think Gaijin is overall a scumbag company and so only *occasionally* buy some Premium time.

[McLOVIN]

Originally posted by Venom Thanos:

Originally posted by Blacksmith_41:

LOL f--k no. That's like over 200 bucks for those vehicles. That right there is the reason why Gaijin treat the community like s--t and get away with being such a--holes. Their business model is to make you get frustrated and spend tons of money, and you fell for it.

I play WT because I'm a tank history nerd and I like the gameplay. But I think Gaijin is overall a scumbag company and so only *occasionally* buy some Premium time.

But I am not joking, the vehicles I mentioned is like a night and day difference compare to the 5.3 ones. But Sherman always inferior so there is no way they can get better if even if kaijin is a people person. The M6A2E1 can reverse as quickly as it can move forward and has really thick back turret armor and the rear engine will absorbs nuke rounds like the early IS-series tank that people drove backwards, you can bait people into shooting you and nuke them with your 105mm. 6.7 onwards feel so much better bro.

Put the money aside, US 5.3 is sucks, always will be. The difference is your journey to get there, you can walk to new York city from new Jersey, or you book a flight so you don't have to walk 300km to get there.

Look man, I get what you're saying but I'm not spending 200+ dollars on video game tanks. If you wanna do that whatever you do you.

I buy a month of Premium time two or maybe three times a year. 20$-30$. That's it.


And like I said up until BR 5.3 USA I've been enjoying this game immensely, and now I'm just about to unlock the T-26E5, so this rough patch is almost done.

[Mister_Rat_]

Just get the M18 and M36 lmao

[Vilkas]

Originally posted by Blacksmith_41:

What the title says. Trying to grind USA to get Cold War tanks and 5.3 is just a nightmare.

I've got 2 76mm Shermans and the Jumbo. Occasionally you manage a good match but for the most part it's just getting rocked by Tigers, Panthers, and KVs.

The 76 Shermans have an *alright* gun, still not as good as the German tanks, but get penned easily even at like 900+ meters by most everything at that BR.

And the Jumbo can take a punch but the 75mm is pretty much a peashooter at BR 5-6

Doesn't help that the 76 Shermans don't feel as mobile as they should be. I've got all the engine upgrades in both and the Panther is still way faster.

I know to aim for the weaker spots on these tanks but that's kinda tough at 1000m. IMHO they should have the Pershing variants in the 5 BR range, not 6, that would at least be fair.

For USA BR 2-4 felt much more balanced. I recently played both USA, USSR, and Germany at BR 3.7 back-to-back and it was more fun because at that BR the tanks are actually balanced.


Just wondering if anyone else shares this opinion?

use the stabilizer advantages, you can hide in corner then ambush enemy or ambush when enemy driving in front of you since most of the enemy doesn't have stabilizer you can easily shot first

[Lemon]

as most people say in this post, abuse the stabilizer, its the vehicles core strength and also will cause enemys often to not hit vital spots or barely not kill you because you are constantly moving

[Gergar12]

Originally posted by Mister_Rat_:

Just get the M18 and M36 lmao

And get penned by anything in the game.

[Player55545]

Originally posted by Felix_41:

What the title says. Trying to grind USA to get Cold War tanks and 5.3 is just a nightmare.

I've got 2 76mm Shermans and the Jumbo. Occasionally you manage a good match but for the most part it's just getting rocked by Tigers, Panthers, and KVs.

The 76 Shermans have an *alright* gun, still not as good as the German tanks, but get penned easily even at like 900+ meters by most everything at that BR.

And the Jumbo can take a punch but the 75mm is pretty much a peashooter at BR 5-6

Doesn't help that the 76 Shermans don't feel as mobile as they should be. I've got all the engine upgrades in both and the Panther is still way faster.

I know to aim for the weaker spots on these tanks but that's kinda tough at 1000m. IMHO they should have the Pershing variants in the 5 BR range, not 6, that would at least be fair.

For USA BR 2-4 felt much more balanced. I recently played both USA, USSR, and Germany at BR 3.7 back-to-back and it was more fun because at that BR the tanks are actually balanced.


Just wondering if anyone else shares this opinion?

I'm grinding USA tanks too, I had M4A3 76 (5.7 br), M36 (5.3 br), M24 (br 3.3), M4A1 76(5.0 br) lineup and a plane. Just play with those M18, M36, M36B, your shermans are only there as last option your tank destroyers are very good if you know how to flank and not get hit. Your 76 Shermans can penetrate tigers and panthers at your BR, what's the problem there? In urban maps your stabilizer gives you advantage over others due to close range and you can move less than 25 kph and still shoot first shot. If you can't get any kills with the sherman just flank like it's a m18 hellcat. Try to snipe enemies with the US tank destroyers, I have played M36 (5.3br) in simulator ground and taken out ferdinands, elefants, tiger 2's by sniping. Only the sherman 76 at 5.7 feels weak due to lower pen.

[Blyatman]

Originally posted by Mister_Rat_:

Just get the M18 and M36 lmao

M18 got heavily nerfed at some point from when I played the ♥♥♥♥ out of it, it seems like what used to be killshots on Tigers and Panthers are now just hitting it with a wet napkin.