The Waffentrager auf E-100 

Overpowered, or Not?

 

You Decide

 

Whenever Wargaming releases a new tank line, there's always endless speculation about whether the new set of tanks will be balanced (T110E5), break the game (Foch 155), or just fade into oblivion (anything British except the 183). Given the nature of what Wargaming is trying to do and has already done with their game, I believe it's fairly obvious at this point that new tanks are generally better or have some advantage over established ones, at least at first. Wargaming has a well-known history of releasing a new tank tree, intentionally making at least the tier 10 tank obviously overpowered, and then nerfing (making worse) said tank line. 

The reason for doing this is obvious: everyone sees the new flavor of the month tank line, and uses gold to free experience to the tier 10. For those who don't know, gold is the in-game currency which can only be bought with real money, or won via contests, tournaments, or Clan Wars. Everyone who plays the game accumulates free experience, which can be used to research new tanks. To use the free experience though, you have to pay gold, 1 gold for 25 free experience, a pretty terrible ratio if you ask me. To free experience a tier 10, you need a lot of gold, and thus Wargaming makes massive profits from these new tank lines. Now, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with Wargaming, or anyone, making money (I have my own business too), but the tactics they use to make the money are in my opinion shady at best. I understand they have a lot of leeway which is given to them via the EULA (end user license agreement), but the constant cycle of releasing broken overpowered tanks and then nerfing them later just makes this company look bad. 

Now that you perhaps have a clear understanding of partly how Wargaming operates, let's have a look at the newest tier 10 addition to the game, the Waffentrager auf E-100, released in patch 8.9. While there were some historical designs for Waffentragers, there was definitely nothing for this beast. This is yet another tank Wargaming has literally made up, 100% fantasy. 

Aliens?

I have to give Wargaming credit though, they really know how to come up with tanks that people fall all over themselves to spend money on. This tank was just released not long ago, and already 274k battles have been played in it (source: noobmeter.com). Here are some other pertinent numbers:

Waffentrager auf E-100

OP Rating           605 (green)

Battles                 274k

Win Rate             60.1%

(source: noobmeter.com)

Noobmeter's OP Rating is a rating for determining if a given tank is overpowered or not. Currently, this tank has the highest OP rating of any tier 10, and is the only tier 10 with a green OP rating. It's very rare for a high tier tank to have a green OP rating, for tiers 8-10, this tank and the WZ-111 are the only ones that do. 

 Aside from the OP rating, the win rate is the highest of any tier 10 by a wide margin. Now, you might say this is because all the best players are playing it, and you would be partly correct. I believe the majority of players who have this tank now are better than average, but there are always bad players who use a lot of gold too. I believe that once more mediocre players get this tank, the numbers will not drop very significantly for it. Please allow me to explain by showing you the technical specifications for this tank.

2200 hit points

40 km/h speed limit

30 deg/s track traverse

12 power/weight ratio

200/120/150mm hull armor

20/10/8mm turret armor

24 deg/s turret traverse

420m view range

15% chance of fire

and the guns:

12,8 cm K44/2 L/61      

276/35265 penetration

560/560/750 avg damage

5.14 rate of fire, 6 shot autoloader, 30 rounds per minute within the clip, 57.53 sec clip reload

.29 accuracy

1.5 sec aim time

15 cm Pak L/38

 235/334/85 penetration

750/750/950 avg damage

3.87 rate of fire, 4-shot autoloader, 20 rounds per minute within the clip, 47.95 sec clip reload

.34 accuracy

1.9 sec aim time

It's basically common knowledge that the 12,8 cm is the better choice, not only because of the sheer damage you can put out with it (3360 per clip), but also because of the superior gun handling characteristics (.29 accuracy, 1.5 sec aim time). There's also the fact that you don't have to shoot gold ammo to penetrate, which helps a lot. So, looking at the gun statistics, I'm not sure anyone can come away from this and think this tank is balanced. You can literally burst damage any tank in the game to death in one clip, including the Maus, which has 3000 hit points. In many cases, you won't even need a full clip to make quick work of anything. 

I know, the turret armor is horrific, and in most cases will be penetrated by HE rounds. The fact that this is really one of the only major drawbacks to this tank is a bit ridiculous in my mind. The other 2 major drawbacks are of course the rear-mounted turret, as well as a truly terrible camo value, literally the worst of any tier 10 in the game (source: http://www.wotinfo.net/en/camouflage?country=all&vehicletype=td&tier=10&showLines=30). 

These really don't make up for the fact that, having good hull armor and 2200 hit points, almost any potato can yolo their way to 2-3k damage games relatively easily. Most good players in this game know that hit points are really the best armor, and not relying on armor and instead conserving your hit points is the best way to survive and do well. This thing having 2200 hit points means it can survive long enough to make a big impact on almost every game. Having played this tank on the test server, I seriously believe it is the single most overpowered tank Wargaming has ever released. If you encounter one in-game driven by someone who knows what they're doing, you will likely come to the same conclusion.