Is 8

[Raviel]

Why is it so bad?

1) It barelly has any armor. E75 seems to have ~50 more on all front side. In fact it seems to have just below minimum penetration for tier 9ish tanks so that armor doesn't block any shots even bad rolls.
I once pointed my gun at an enemy is8 half his turrent was grey!!! And that aside already big weak spots on hull and i only had ~260 penetration. Tier 9-10 tank destroyers have even 300+ penetration. On top of their 600 -1000 average damage per hit.

Pointing that samge gun at enemy E75 it looks fully red. Not even any weak spots. Wtf?!?

2) gun is mediocre for tier 9 and has bad dispersion. Penetration is not bad but you can't snipe anything with such low camo values and long aim time. You feel like a sitting duck and vastly outclassed by most tank destroyers tier 9. Not even mentioning tier 10, you very often get matched against.

3) i saw a video of someone claiming it is a misunderstood medium tank.
So i tryed playing it as medium. Still bad armor, slow turrent rotation and reload. Compare it to t54:
*) T54 has ~240 average armor when angled. No major weak spots.
Is 8 ~250 armor when facing the enemy in straight line. Even with minor angling and it becomes ~200. And has a pretty big weak spot up front which is also ~200 armor.
All in all i'd take t54 armor any day..

*) DPS: t54 : 2945, 201 pen
Is 8: 2573, 258 pen. A trade off here, would probably need calibrated shells at all times but still seems fairly close.

*) speed: i don't have average speed values as of now but it seems fair to assume t54 would be faster.

Now please someone explain to me where am i wrong and what that tank is actually good for. And no, spamming premium ammo with reduced dps is not a reasonable strategy in my book...

[76561198365326053]

I did not play IS8 a lot, especially after update 5.5 ruined all upper tiers. True, its armor profile is practically paper thin and guns stats live up to the well known legend of entire IS-series!

When I purchased it, I thought it to be tier9 counterpart for IS7. It was my first tier9 tank so I had no idea about the alpha and penetration I was up against. I got rekt severely in initial attempts. Next, when I got its top gun and all other modules done, I started enjoying it. Its gun packs a tier10 punch. And to be honest with u, not many people play it, its a rare occurance. Thats what catches people off guard as they are not expecting a tier10 alpha coming from a 'no-body' tank. The fear factor!

Consensus is that u play it as second line/support and preferably go with meds. That ofc requires u to adjust ur playstyle accordingly. Its high mobility, higher alpha, low profile and decent shot-trading against meds is what I enjoyed most. And yeah! plz dont bother angling/side scraping or chivalrous hulldown maneuvers! Just dont!

But if u are up to it, u can do some reverse sidescraping in it, provided u know what u are doing!

[Raviel]

Originally posted by Imr.Qns:

I did not play IS8 a lot, especially after update 5.5 ruined all upper tiers. True, its armor profile is practically paper thin and guns stats live up to the well known legend of entire IS-series!

When I purchased it, I thought it to be tier9 counterpart for IS7. It was my first tier9 tank so I had no idea about the alpha and penetration I was up against. I got rekt severely in initial attempts. Next, when I got its top gun and all other modules done, I started enjoying it. Its gun packs a tier10 punch. And to be honest with u, not many people play it, its a rare occurance. Thats what catches people off guard as they are not expecting a tier10 alpha coming from a 'no-body' tank. The fear factor!

Consensus is that u play it as second line/support and preferably go with meds. That ofc requires u to adjust ur playstyle accordingly. Its high mobility, higher alpha, low profile and decent shot-trading against meds is what I enjoyed most. And yeah! plz dont bother angling/side scraping or chivalrous hulldown maneuvers! Just dont!

But if u are up to it, u can do some reverse sidescraping in it, provided u know what u are doing!

I actually enjoyed it when it was unupgraded. I got mainly mathed against tiers 8 and it is about as good as a IS 3 but with less(?!) Armor
Now i got it fully upgraded but need 150k more xp to unlock IS7 and get matched against tier 10 most of the time feeling completely helpless... even my win rate on it dropped below 50%. Just can't carry on it...

It isn't so rare, and alpha isn't impressive in my opinion. T30, object 704, rhm B WT are popular and have 640 alpha.
Mouscchen and E75 have 460 alpha.
Even tortoise has 400 alpha but almost double the DPS of an IS8...

IS8 has just 420.. not going to impress anyone exept maybe medium tanks that too, have higher dps due to faster reload...

I went full on aim time reduction equipment, stopped trying to sidescrape(even tier 8 tank destroyers seem to penetrate it sidescrapping), just doing hit and run, peekaboo and stuff and it feels alot better but still quite underwhelming....

[76561198365326053]

Tier10 IS7's top gun has 460 avg dmg I think. Not too impressive if u compare it to its german counterpart or american autoloaders... and tier9 IS8 is abt 40 points short of it. IS7's apcr has abt 20 less penetration than IS8's heat pen. Considering the paper armor profile, you just gotta play around IS8's better mobility and alpha+pen. Imo, forget abt dps at higher tiers. Also, due to its high mobility, u can just absolutely bully lower tiers and some same tier meds/lights. Its a ramming devil too when used correctly!

The top gun on IS8 makes all the difference, provided u understand the specs of IS8 and play it accordingly. Keep a support and cover and dont front line. Let the gun do the rest!

Its been abt 10 months since i entered tier9~10. I have 4 tanks in these tiers and IS8 is the only one I have aced twice. And my first ace was as soon as i got the top 122 mm gun lmao! I was still less than 100% crew.

Idk, I play on EUW server and i rarely rarely rarely see IS8s. I think I saw 1~3 IS8s this entire month. I think most of players get easily discouraged when they get penned everywhere by everyone.

[Raviel]

Originally posted by Imr.Qns:

Tier10 IS7's top gun has 460 avg dmg I think. Not too impressive if u compare it to its german counterpart or american autoloaders... and tier9 IS8 is abt 40 points short of it. IS7's apcr has abt 20 less penetration than IS8's heat pen. Considering the paper armor profile, you just gotta play around IS8's better mobility and alpha+pen. Imo, forget abt dps at higher tiers. Also, due to its high mobility, u can just absolutely bully lower tiers and some same tier meds/lights. Its a ramming devil too when used correctly!

The top gun on IS8 makes all the difference, provided u understand the specs of IS8 and play it accordingly. Keep a support and cover and dont front line. Let the gun do the rest!

Its been abt 10 months since i entered tier9~10. I have 4 tanks in these tiers and IS8 is the only one I have aced twice. And my first ace was as soon as i got the top 122 mm gun lmao! I was still less than 100% crew.

Idk, I play on EUW server and i rarely rarely rarely see IS8s. I think I saw 1~3 IS8s this entire month. I think most of players get easily discouraged when they get penned everywhere by everyone.

i play on EU server too. i think i saw 2 IS 8 just today (that weren't me)
maybe it's because i have low relatively number of games yet (~3k) so get matched with newer players who max it first or what ever.

i don't know i really don't think much about premium ammo. very rarely ever use it and even with 370 penetration it still can't penetrate many tier 10 tanks freely for the meager 360 alpha.

like i'm desparate enough at this point to use provisions on it (generally i do not do that) but i got 13 million credits and still very long way to unlock IS 7. so f*ck it.. might use it sometimes when i see use for it, don't really care for getting negative credits on it anymore...

i guess it's so bad that there is no reason to ever use it once you unlock IS 7 so veterans wouldn't play it. pretty much all german tanks tier 9 i looked at had 300+ effective armor and a better gun with better alpha. ST-1 has much better armor and exactly the same gun (slightly slower reload)

speed yes, it's nice i did notice i could beat light/medium tier 10 tanks in 1 v 1 at times, but it isn't worth it in my opinion. enemy team could be all heavy and tank destroyers and 1v1 isn't given even if there is a medium/light tank in enemy team.

i guess it's meant to be grind niche tank or whatever for people who really like that play style.

by the way you say 420 alpha is close to 460 but it's closer to 400 which is what IS3 (apparently i got 3 master medals on IS 3, didn't even rememeber that much...) has and even the tier 6 KV-1S has 400 alpha. so yeah. really don't see how that is supposed to be impressive. as far as i see it IS7 is all about good effective armor ~370 effective armor on most front side and not about the gun. the gun doesn't seem impressive 1 bit compared to other tier 10 tanks, it's the survivability that matters here.

[Zireth]

It can sidescrape, but good luck doing heavy things with that tank, the only good thing is the decent gun and tier 10 medium health.

[Raviel]

Originally posted by Rachel, The Promised End:

It can sidescrape, but good luck doing heavy things with that tank, the only good thing is the decent gun and tier 10 medium health.

Yeah...
Already got IS7, can't do heavy things on it either. Too big weak spots and dispersion too bad for sniping...

German heavies get in your face and you can't pen them at all.. even tier 9 ones...

Going to get a german tier 9-10 tank to practice more. Maybe i'll figire out how to play IS7 afterward...

Don't know why people keep saying its for new players. Both IS7 and Lowe were quite hard to figure out. IS7 i haven't even began to understand how you supposed to play it...

[76561198365326053]

IS7 is great and typically, u should get IS5 first and learn IS7 on it. Pretty much same except IS7 has more tougher skull and great mobility comparing to same tier. In most of ur IS series, watchout for ammo racks. IS7 can be easily ammo racked from front and sides. keep ur lower hull out of enemy scopes. I got ammo racked while trying to cap C on castilla, i was in bush and enemy FV183 blind shotted my front right angled shoulder. BOOOM with zero damage! lol

Things will get better once u cross 80% crew skills.

I used IS7 to get ratings calibration. Im just a noob but i managed to land in gold 3.2k rating... not too good but not too bad either.

Compared to IS5 and IS6, IS7's turret can take a lot of beating on same tier basis. it can side scrape more effectively compared to these lower tier IS's but be careful abt ur front angled plates (i think they are called 'shoulders' ?). Reverse sidescrapping is harder but more effective on IS7 too. But careful against high pen HE's. Due to mobility, u can ram lights, meds and TD's if u get a chance. Compared to IS5, IS6, u dont have much to do to protect ur hatch. Most german heavies end up throwing HE's at ur turret in frustration and doing abt 50~180 damage per shot. Upclose, IS7 'should' win against E100 in a 1v1 fist fight. against Maus, its gonna be hilariously bizzare if u face hug him! Side hugging and u can finish him easily i think (I havent have a chance to face/side hug a Maus yet, not many people seem to play it). The problem with Maus/Mauschen is that its turret is at far end if u face hug him and its hull is higher than ur turret lol! front armor plate becomes too much sloped for u to pen and u cant even see his turret when face hugging. Flank to the sides. I 'guess' same goes for tier10 VK.

IS7 vs IS4 is hard for me to decide but opinion seems to be inclined towards IS4 winning the duel. At fair distance, IS4 may be absolutely no trouble penning ur lower plate and possibly ur shoulders with/without APCR (or heat?). But against a good IS4, penning anywhere on his front gonna be hard.

Not sure how can T57 pen u if u face hug him... but despite gun depression, u should not get penned unless he can create some distance to shoot at ur shoulders.

[Raviel]

Originally posted by Imr.Qns:

IS7 is great and typically, u should get IS5 first and learn IS7 on it. Pretty much same except IS7 has more tougher skull and great mobility comparing to same tier. In most of ur IS series, watchout for ammo racks. IS7 can be easily ammo racked from front and sides. keep ur lower hull out of enemy scopes. I got ammo racked while trying to cap C on castilla, i was in bush and enemy FV183 blind shotted my front right angled shoulder. BOOOM with zero damage! lol

Things will get better once u cross 80% crew skills.

I used IS7 to get ratings calibration. Im just a noob but i managed to land in gold 3.2k rating... not too good but not too bad either.

Compared to IS5 and IS6, IS7's turret can take a lot of beating on same tier basis. it can side scrape more effectively compared to these lower tier IS's but be careful abt ur front angled plates (i think they are called 'shoulders' ?). Reverse sidescrapping is harder but more effective on IS7 too. But careful against high pen HE's. Due to mobility, u can ram lights, meds and TD's if u get a chance. Compared to IS5, IS6, u dont have much to do to protect ur hatch. Most german heavies end up throwing HE's at ur turret in frustration and doing abt 50~180 damage per shot. Upclose, IS7 'should' win against E100 in a 1v1 fist fight. against Maus, its gonna be hilariously bizzare if u face hug him! Side hugging and u can finish him easily i think (I havent have a chance to face/side hug a Maus yet, not many people seem to play it). The problem with Maus/Mauschen is that its turret is at far end if u face hug him and its hull is higher than ur turret lol! front armor plate becomes too much sloped for u to pen and u cant even see his turret when face hugging. Flank to the sides. I 'guess' same goes for tier10 VK.

IS7 vs IS4 is hard for me to decide but opinion seems to be inclined towards IS4 winning the duel. At fair distance, IS4 may be absolutely no trouble penning ur lower plate and possibly ur shoulders with/without APCR (or heat?). But against a good IS4, penning anywhere on his front gonna be hard.

Not sure how can T57 pen u if u face hug him... but despite gun depression, u should not get penned unless he can create some distance to shoot at ur shoulders.

yeah i'm grinding for VK 72.01 K now. just got the tier 8 part. will get VK 100.1 (P) later but not sure if i want to grind for Mouse. atleast the tier 9 VK 45.02 B should be good, has nice armor and 640 alpha. i hope it will be more fun to play than IS 8 and will help me learn. simultaneosuly i'm grinding for T30 (maybe T110E4 later on) as well but that is more far away and not sure how it'll help, just want a good tank with decent depression for a change. Soviet tanks are just horrible in hills battle and i would like to try some of it.

i'm just about to get supply level 8, have some time to unlock IS5....
what bothers me most about IS7 is the gun, its aims so long and despersion is too big. on tier where you can only pen coupolas or small weak spots it's very crusial and just not there. even if i manage to hide front weak spots i doubt i would be able to hit coupola on a moving tank with that dispersion...

hugging and going for side armor might work, but could get me surrounded, i guess i have nothing to lose, will try that later on.

[76561198365326053]

It will get better from 80% onwards crew. You should not be having problems with Russian accuracy at tier10 though! lol... but if u do, that means russian guns dont suit ur gameplay style. Germans and Americans are ofc better in gun handling, usually sacrificing mobility and a bit of hull armor, which isn't much of a problem. Also, u get decent gun depression too. French got very decent guns too but man the paper armor is not for faint of the heart lmao!!!

Regarding face/side hugging... its situational ofc, you dont have to do it every time. But when u have to, IS7 can mostly win... generally loosing only to lower profile tanks with faster hull traverses in 1v1 (esp if they can aim ur front shoulders).

GL!

[Raviel]

Originally posted by Imr.Qns:

It will get better from 80% onwards crew. You should not be having problems with Russian accuracy at tier10 though! lol... but if u do, that means russian guns dont suit ur gameplay style. Germans and Americans are ofc better in gun handling, usually sacrificing mobility and a bit of hull armor, which isn't much of a problem. Also, u get decent gun depression too. French got very decent guns too but man the paper armor is not for faint of the heart lmao!!!

Regarding face/side hugging... its situational ofc, you dont have to do it every time. But when u have to, IS7 can mostly win... generally loosing only to lower profile tanks with faster hull traverses in 1v1 (esp if they can aim ur front shoulders).

GL!

Well thank you!

I'm spoiled by Lowe and Hellcat at ~0.28 dispersion Tiger P is not far from there as well.

I could somehow live with IS8 3.64 dispersion, on tier 8-9 most tanks still have fair sized weak points that can be exploited with that and it has speed to circle of death things, maybe... so you offset the disperation problem with that.

IS7 got 0.44 dispersion and over 6 seconds aim. Hitting moving coupola with that is not viable option and there aren't many alternatives. At tier 10 people don't stand and wait for their weakpoints to be shot...