The Bias Monster

By:

IrmaBecx

So you heard the IS-4 was a gud tenk. Saw it out there, maybe struggled against it a few times. You thought about it a while, and then you slogged through the powerful but boring ST-I grind to get one of your very own.

Mine is maxed out, with the “Skilled” legendary camo, and I have yet to drive a single game in it.

But it’s not like I haven’t driven it before. I put it through its paces on my press account, and as easy as the IS-7 is to drive, the IS-4 is even easier. You don’t have to worry about a pike nose, you just angle up maybe 10-15 degrees. As for theory, there isn’t a whole lot of it; you just drive straight at the enemy and bully them until you win.

Well. That’s how it looks inside my head anyway, and perhaps in yours too; especially if you have faced it out in the wild.

Can it really be that simple? And is this really the best tier X Heavy tank in the game?

*

The latter question I’m not so sure about. There are plenty of powerful tanks at tier X, and I don’t think there is a bad Heavy tank in the bunch. But they all have their little particularities, and when it comes to the IS-4, there really isn’t anything about it that sticks out.

So is the IS-4 the most versatile Heavy tank at tier X? Or the easiest to drive? I feel that may perhaps be closer to the truth. At a bit of angle, the IS-4 is showing around 300 mm effective armour, you have perhaps the best 122 mm gun in the game, and the mobility is excellent although the tank isn’t quite as fast as some other Heavy tanks.

I had a specific idea in getting my IS-4. When things get troublesome, I was going to take it out to get some payback. Am going to, I mean.

So to see if there is any merit to this idea, I lined up my tier X Heavy tanks of similar type; being the IS-4, WZ-113, and the WZ-111 5A, and drove all three of them back to back. Tellingly, both games in the Chinese tanks ended up with around 2000 damage and loss by Supremacy points. IS-4? 2600 damage, two kills, and we won.

This very small and statistically insignificant sample does however give an indication I may be on the right track.

It may be slightly misleading to talk about “first impressions”, because as I said I have driven the tank before. But it’s always a little different on my own account; it feels more “real” I suppose. Racing for pink slips instead of doing practice laps. And I am left with two impressions; firstly the IS-4 is super easy to drive. Everything works the way you think it will, it doesn’t take a lot of brains at all. Second, I am starting to realise I’m going to have trouble trying to say something worthwhile about how to actually drive the thing, because it all seems so obvious, straightforward, and self evident.

I mean, all I did was roll up to C cap on Rockfield and start punching holes in tanks, angling up slightly and trying to hide the lower plate.

That does at least give an answer to my initial question: yes, it really is that simple.

*

Okay, but what is there to like about the IS-4?

First and foremost, there is the magnificent 122 mm M62-T2. I’ve actually had one for quite a while;  it’s on both the tier IX Russian Heavys, but you can get it at tier VIII if you just opt for a turretless design and virtually nonexistent gun depression. They call it the M62-C2 on Tank Destroyers, but it’s the same weapon. I’ve always been a huge fan of the “IS-4 gun”, no matter what tank it’s mounted on, and especially on the SU-122-54.

Is it just as glorious on the actual IS-4? Yes. Yes, it is.

I have to say I like the look as well. It’s quite understated in terms of Soviet style brutalism; it looks much like the word “tank” sounds in your head; there are no surprises. But it’s well executed, and there are also no disappointments. Aesthetics may not be very important for most people when they choose tanks for their collection, but personally I would never drive a tank I didn’t like the look of.

You have to like the armour. The brawn of the IS-4. For such a comparatively small tank, it has a big slab of hitpoints. 150 more than the IS-7, 100 less than the E 100, and 350 less than the Maus puts this in the category of a SuperHeavy. Put it in any Heavy tank position and it’s going to tank some damage. Or it can, I should say; you still have to do the actual tanking. But it certainly has all the armour it needs.

And of course you have to like the Bias. Those inexplicable bounces, being so light on its feet in spite of all that brawn; all those little things you notice around the edges of performance that make life a little easier driving a Russian tank.

There is also something quite pleasing about driving a stronk tenk like this. Look at the WZ-112-2 as an example; it was designed to be robust and easy to drive for newer players, but of course a lot of not so new players like it too, because it’s so forgiving and easy to be successful in. Literally the only thing you might say against the IS-4 is that it “only” has 6 degrees of gun depression, and it doesn’t do 50 km/h; it does 42.

Driving something like this means you have to spend less time thinking about the simple stuff. In my 113 or 5A, I have to angle the armour just so, or it won’t work. In my IS-4, basically any angle will do as long as it looks reasonable.

A lot of things to like, then. You may of course not be enamoured with Heavy tanks, or Russian tanks, or some other category the IS-4 falls into. You may think it’s too boring and pedestrian, too big and unwieldy, or not tall enough for your liking; I don’t know. But I don’t think anyone would dislike the IS-4 because it’s not powerful enough.

I will also say that having to think about what I am doing is what makes me love my Chinese tanks so much. Chinese bias is a lot more subtle than Russian bias; just some good statistics that are plainly obvious with a little bit of research, and with a gun to my head you could certainly have my IS-4 if I could keep my WZ-111 5A. But I didn’t get the IS-4 because I wanted a finesse tank, I got it because I wanted a big, bad, Russian bruiser I can beat on the red team with.

You know; when all else fails. Or I feel like it.

*

Of course, no amount of brawn or bias is going to save you from bad teams, bad matchups, bad RNG, or bad tactics, and out of those four, tactics is the only thing you can really do something about.

I ran through my ten rating calibration games in the IS-4; I usually end up somewhere in the middle of gold league when driving my Mediums, but this time the result was decidedly disappointing. I got around 2600, which is middle of silver league, and about a thousand less than I am used to. It’s not been getting better after calibration either.

But then I’ve been driving regular games also, and my winrate after 10 of those is 80%. I am thinking both of these results must be a bit of a fluke.

The IS-4 is not a true SuperHeavy, but it’s also not a “Heavium”, although it is lighter on its feet than you might expect from a Heavy tank. It makes a lot more sense to think about it as an agile Heavy tank than a slower, more well armoured Medium.

Keeping at it, I manage to claw my rating to just over 3000; that’s gold league at least. And it’s kind of a humbling experience driving my Russian hammer against hordes and hordes of SuperHeavys and big TDs, which seams to be all people drive in ratings this season. It’s not uncommon to se twelve Heavy tanks in a game. Even in a strong vehicle like this, it’s a bit of a struggle chewing through all those hitpoints, and since it’s so strong, there really are no excuses.

All in all though, it’s been kind of nice. I enjoy a dynamic Heavy tank, the M62-T2 is great to work with, and the more I drive it, the better I get at getting the best out of the armour.

*

So what’s it like living with an IS-4?

Just like the Russian Mediums, you may initially be surprised the IS-4 is a bit more fragile than you might have expected. The tank has been in the game forever, and people know where to aim. Also, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself if you have a little too much faith in the vehicle and its reputation for being really strong.

Things will pick up after a while. You will get used to the way the IS-4 moves, shoots, and bounces shells, and find the sort of positions it likes. It really is very easy to get your head around.

How strong is it?

It’s not the best performing Heavy tank at tier X, but it’s right up there. And that’s just looking at the numbers; the IS-4 feels strong. It hits hard, it can tank some proper damage, and it’s quick enough for short flanking and making sneaky plays. Once you start finding your feet, you will have every reason to feel confident while driving it.

But I didn’t simply get the IS-4 because it’s powerful; I got it because I like driving it. And although that does have a thing or two to do with outright strength, that has never been the most important thing for me; I would never drive a tank I didn’t like just because it happens to be powerful.

The best thing about having an IS-4 is it just doesn’t really have any downsides, and nothing about driving it is hard to figure out or difficult to learn. It responds so well to basic things like angling up, sidescraping, going hull down, face hugging; in fact you might say if you were going to learn all those things, this might be an excellent place to start. Certainly the IS-4 is a little easier to learn than the pike nose IS-7.

*

Waking up this morning, I drove my first battle in the IS-4, in ratings. I tip my hat to anyone who drives a Medium tank in ratings these days, and we have two against the red teams one, but of course they don’t go out on the flank, and both get taken out by the enemy Skoda T50, allowing it to go cap the farthest supremacy base uncontested.

It’s two bases to none, but we have held the line, and are starting to wear down the enemy team. With two tanks left to deal with someone caps one of the red bases to give us more time, and I flank around the last remaining tank to clear it for the win.

Not a spectacular game, but a solid one. The IS-4 did everything I needed it to do, and we came out on top. And that, really, is about the best you can expect most days.

The one thing I am feeling as a new IS-4 owner, is that it does perhaps lack some of the “soul”, or the “personality” if you prefer that my Chinese Heavys have. You don’t have to work quite as hard to make it perform, and although that may of course be gratifying, it’s also a little less interesting in the long run. Compared to my Chinese bruisers, it feels a little generic.

But yeah; IS tanks are supposed to be faceless drones from beyond the iron curtain I suppose. I am happy I grinded it out. I am happy to have it. No regrets at all.

Should you get one?

I don’t see why not. Although there are Heavy tanks out there that are perhaps even more efficient, and certainly ones that are more exciting to drive, you could absolutely do much, much worse for your first tier X tank than getting the IS-4.

What if it doesn’t work out?

Honestly, I don’t see how it couldn’t. If you are getting killed early with low damage, you are likely being too aggressive, and trying to bite off more than you can chew. The IS-4 can do some heavy lifting, and sometimes carry the whole team on its back, but it needs time to do it. It doesn’t fire all that fast, and it turns even slower. Get back to basics; work on your armour angling, hull downing, and lower plate hiding, and save those fancy plays for when you feel more comfortable.

Is it a must-have for any discerning tank driver?

Maybe. I think you will want to have something like it in your garage sooner or later. But there are other options out there that do largely the same things, and if you’ve started up towards the E5, the 113, or the IS-7 already, there’s no reason to abandon that grind to get the IS-4 instead.

So what’s the final word?

IrmaBecx says the IS-4 is a solid proposition in terms of a tier X Heavy tank. There might be one out there you like a lot better, or that turns out to be a better fit for you, but you’d be hard pressed to find something that most anyone can get the hang of without too much trouble.

I won’t go so far as to give it the tank philosophy seal of approval, but I do endorse it.

ST As In “Stock”

By:

IrmaBecx

So yea, I had a bunch of free XP left, so I threw it all at a new grind. It’s a Russian Heavy I’m after, and it is of course the obvious one: the IS-4.

It strikes me I could have had an IS-8 now instead, but however much I respect the old IS-7, I simply don’t want one. This has been a constant for almost as long as I’ve been playing the game, and I have considered getting one numerous times, but always come back to the above conclusion. I could also have had a T57 Heavy bought and paid for, but then I did choose the 50 B instead, and I’ve never regretted that.

But the IS-4? Widely regarded as the best tier X Heavy tank in the game and positively oozing Russian bias? What’s not to like about that?

Well, if I didn’t like it I wouldn’t get one. I have a couple of tier X Heavys already, so it’s not necessarily going to fill a need. But I just never disliked the IS-4; it’s certainly powerful, it’s so easy to drive it might as well have training wheels, it has the amazing D62-T2; probably the best 122 mm in the game, and it’s just a great drive.

But yea, there is an ulterior motive.

*

You know how they say if you can’t beat them, join them? That’s what people always tell me when I whine about the skillstar or the Smasher or some other monstrosity: “just get one yourself”.

And I always try to explain I’m not going to degrade myself by driving a tank I don’t like, because I don’t like it.

Still. It is nice having a powerful tank in your back pocket you can pull out when everything seems to go wrong and you just want to beat on the red team with a bigger stick. I have a couple of those enthusiastically balanced premiums.

None of those is the Smasher, of course. But the IS-4 is a different matter. Everyone knows it’s the most Bised tier X Heavy tank in the game, but they don’t really seem to mind. A fact of Blitz life, it seems. I’s a tech tree tank, so you can just grind one out if you want it. And since I got the T 50/51, there really aren’t any more tech tree tanks I really want at the moment, except maybe this one.

Nothing to do but drive my new tanks and collect resources.

And so that’s how I found myself behind the wheel of a stock turret ST-I with the BL-9, stock engine, and stock tracks.

I mean, how bad can it be?

*

Five games I’ve done so far. In such a stock vehicle, I paid the gold for crew training, which I normally do at tiers IX and X. And I’d love to whine about it, but it’s not all that bad. It’s just… well, boring. I had the idea I would just get the essential modules and then slog through to the IS-4, but I think I’d go out of my mind without a little better mobility. Three out of five I won.

I mean, it’s not going to be a long grind. I have a 25% discount voucher for one thing, and of course I’ll use all the boosters and free XP I can get my hands on. Not particularly looking forward to running a couple of hundred games int he ST-I, but that’s not because there’s anything wrong with it; I’m just not a fan.

The IS-4 is basically a tier X Medium tank in disguise. It’s faster than you think it is, has excellent firepower against all targets, and lots and lots of Russian bias plating. It can bully just about anyone it faces. The ST-I is not that; especially not now, and it never will be. But I hear it’s a good hull down tank when maxed out.

Driving a few games on the night shift, the stocker starts showing its colours, or lack of them. The turret roof is 30 mm, and the BL-9 doesn’t scare tier X targets at all. I can’t wait to get my hands on the glorious 122 mm M62-T2. Winrate quickly drops to mid 40s, and I have to remind myself I’m not doing this for any other reason than wanting to get the tier X tank.

Being stock exacerbates a lot of the grievances inherent in Heavy tank driving. You become even more dependent on others doing their job, because you can’t pick up their slack if they don’t. The pace is excruciatingly slow, and you can’t relax and get into it, because you know it’s not supposed to be like that.

But, I scraped together enough XP for the engine, and the thing does wake up a little. But not enough to win more than two out of five games, it seems.

I hate it so much, I really do. I usually hit 80-90% of my shots; the piece of crap BL-9 struggles to hit 50% of the shots, and even when it does, it most often bounces. Premium rounds won’t go through a tier X tank with any kind of armour. Look, I drive plenty of tanks with bad dispersion, sketchy gun handling, all kinds of random stuff, but I’ve never seen anything dump this many shots into the ground, or into walls; everywhere basically except on target, including common complaints like the IS-5.

There’s no way I’m keeping this big hunk of uselessness when I’ve finished the grind.

*

So how do you drive something this awkward and worthless?

You just do it, I suppose; slog through basic Heavy tank plays with an increasing sense of hopelessness. 120.000 XP to get the thing fully upgraded; that’s 300 games if I keep doing this badly. And then there’s 177.000 more to unlock the tier X.

In actuality it takes me around 65 games to get the M62-T2 with an infusion of free XP from the latest battle pass, and it immediately rewards me with a few low damage losses. If I had hopes for any kind of salvation through firepower, they would have been for nothing. I’ve managed to claw my winrate up to 45%, which is actually more than a 10% increase, but I don’t really feel like the tank is performing any better. Just statistics, I imagine.

First thing I did was run the calibrated shells. AP doesn’t get a lot of increase, but I’m thinking about the HEAT rounds; a touch under 375 mm of penetration means I’ll be able to go through some otherwise tricky targets, and I’m giving up less than 150 DPM.

But yeah, It’s still a hassle. I’m on the home stretch now; getting top modules is when the grind really starts, but I have to take back what I said earlier: this is going to be a long grind. It’s a comparatively slow tank, meaning I can’t dictate my engagements, but most of all I just don’t like the ST-I the way I always liked the IS-4, and that is really what has kept me from doing the grind thus far; the same reason I don’t have an Object 268 or an FV215b Heavy tank.

Life’s too short to drive boring tanks.

But yeah, this is a lot of whining about first world problems. I don’t need the IS-4 for anything; I just want it. I could just wait a month or two and free XP the whole thing. No one is forcing me to drive the SI-I, I choose to drive it because I want my IS-4 faster.

*

However, is not this “grin and bear it” approach to the IS-4 grind starting to sound a little like failure of imagination in terms of tank philosophy? Surely there must be something one can do in a situation like this? If we start by trying to deconstruct the maxim “play to your strengths”, then at least the latter are easy to identify. A powerful gun, a sold turret, and gun depression.

The way the ST-I is not an IS-4 is it can’t bully other tanks the way the IS-4 can, but that doesn’t mean it’s weak. Looking over the inside drivewheel, the tank will be mostly red for the majority of your opponents. You don’t have spaced armour, but the sides are definitely good enough for side scraping. And of course, the more you juke and wiggle, the more that famous Russian bias will come into effect.

The actual weapon is easily in my top three favourite 122 mm guns in the game. And comparing it at tiers IX and X, there isn’t actually a lot of improvement. Difference in DPM should be less than one round a minute, so it’s not the firepower that makes the IS-4 such a brute in comparison. Both accuracy and aimtimes are the exact same, so one might do well to learn what distances seem to work best.

In a broader perspective, one might also do well to try and learn something from experienced drivers and tank philosophers like Skill4ltu, Circonflexes, or Lemmingrush when they are trying to get marks of excellence on their PC tanks; dealing with bad teams, bad matchmaking, and other sorts of mayhem.

The stolid pragmatism of Lemmingrush I am thinking of especially, but all these drivers do the same thing; they don’t put themselves in bad situations even when the game is already lost, and especially not in order to try to salvage a hopeless situation or avert an inevitable catastrophe.

If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense here as well. What they are trying to do is maximise their damage output to gain higher marks; win or lose, and what I should be doing, is therefore trying to maximise my damage output to gain more XP; likewise win or lose.

Here is a sort of strength not usually considered. I’ve been playing the game long enough to have learned to recognise what will be the outcome of certain situations, and which enemies to look out for. To give a simple example: if you have an enemy team with a big Heavy tank that’s hard to put holes in, or a tank with big alpha damage, then someone is going to have to take out that tank or you’re going to lose.

All these bits of knowledge will become instrumental in making pragmatic game decisions.

But before I embark on this experiment, I feel I should drive the actual tank I’m dreaming of a little. Maybe it’s not the ST-I at all that’s not working for me, perhaps I forgot how to drive a Heavy tank at all? Maybe the RNG really is turned against me by evil Wargaming voodoo magic?

Yeah. My first game out was four thousand damage and a first class, even though I basically had to hold the flank myself because everyone else went the other way. Got pushed on by an IS-8; I just drove straight into it and bullied it down, and I would have taken out the enemy IS-4 as well if someone hadn’t stolen the kill.

There is nothing exaggerated about the abilities of the IS-4. It’s just like I remembered it, and that’s why I’m getting one.

Having thus satisfied myself the goal really will be worth the journey, it’s back to the grind. Which is terrible. But in fairness, I have managed to scrape together over 30K XP today, so I’ll probably have grinded out my coveted bias monster by next weekend, not counting free XP.

*

After a little over a hundred games, I’m halfway done. In fairness, I have had a few pretty good battles, and my winrate, inexplicably, is just over the 50% mark, but all those good intentions I had about working on my gameplay went out the window immediately.

I mean, what do you do if no one spots the middle on Canyon, if no one watches the flank on Fails Creek, or no one is even remotely interested in capturing any Supremacy bases at all? You lose, that’s what. And yes, I play Supremacy almost exclusively; there is less camping and more XP.

I think perhaps I expected the ST-I to be better than it is; it’s doing like 52% on average. Incidentally, so is the IS-7, and I feel that’s all down to it being a popular first tier X tank. My research shows nothing wrong with it at all. The ST-I though? I’m not so sure. The fact I don’t like it is probably clouding my judgement to some degree, but it’s definitely not overpowered.

The worst part about struggling like this with a tank I don’t like is I get irritated more easily; yell at teammates for doing the wrong things, and I don’t like it when I get like that.

But after running a few games on the night shift, I wake up this morning, win a couple of games, and with the help of a few X5 boosters, suddenly it’s all over. All that’s left to do is drop seven or eight million for the tank and equipment, a thousand gold for crew training, and I am the proud owner of a brand new, maxed out IS-4. I even drop some for the “Skilled” legendary camo; even though I feel it’s a little bit pale, I like it well enough, and none of my hoard of camo certificates seem to fit just right.

Like I said there’s no way I’m keeping the ST-I around after I’ve finished the grind, even though it’s against my principles to sell tanks past tier VII or VIII. I was thinking how I would sell it before I bought the IS-4, even, but you know what?

I just couldn’t do it.

The ST-I has been a real warrior, powering through the grind and fighting like a cornered rat in any number of hopeless situations; going down swinging. Final stats are 120 games, 53%winrate with 1400 average damage. Even if I still don’t like it, I do respect it and it’s earned a place in my collection. It’s not like I don’t have dozens of tanks I never actually drive anyway.

I can’t imagine I’ll drive it again. Maybe in Gravity mode.

And with that, it’s time to close the book on the ST-I grind. It’s been a bit of a chore, and I’m glad it’s over. But I’m even more glad I did it; I’ve been thinking about that IS-4 for ages, and throwing well over half a million free XP at the grind feels like the best thing I’ve done in a while.

See you out there. I’ll be in the shiny new “Skilled” IS-4.