World of Tanks/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Innuendo -- Penetration!
    • A forum signature states it nicely: World of Tanks is the only game where you can say "I penetrated him" without everyone thinking you're gay.
  • Awesome Music -- This song sometimes plays on the loading screen and during the countdown. It is one example of many things that make this game Awesome.
  • Broken Base -- People who think artillery is overpowered versus those who think it's Acceptable Breaks From Reality. Artillery in the game can get a decent degree of accuracy from across the map, often hitting tanks which are slowly moving or not moving at all.
    • Since the early days of the Closed Beta, artillery accuracy, penetration, splash damage, shell travel times, and accuracy penalties for moving have all been nerfed, and some people still think they're overpowered.
    • Artillery can be infuriating for those who do not understand that their purpose is to introduce a new threat to being spotted - getting OHK'd for taking inadequate cover. Artillery vehicles are (supposed to be) worthless as anything but extremely long-ranged glass cannons adding firepower to a forward team - and their existence as such gives worth to Mediums and Lights as both scouts and as artillery-killers.
    • And now divided between people who think Soviet tanks are overpowered and people who think German tanks are overpowered.
      • The Americans seem to have their own base-breaking done. They are either balanced or underpowered.
      • Not to mention the influx of complaints against the Soviet T-54, the medium tank that borders on being a player controlled Demonic Spider.
  • Fake Balance -- The perception of this leads to arguments.
  • Fan Nickname -- The fan community is rife with them:
    • Several tanks have abbreviated names to ease communication, but it didn't take long for the German Leichttraktor to gain the affectionate nickname "Loltraktor".
    • The SU-14 SPG is probably better known to most players as the "(school)bus" than by its actual designation. Another nickname is the "Finger of God", which is shared with the other Tier 6 Russian SPG, the S-51, which has also been nicknamed the "Basilisk", due to its striking resemblance.
      • Among Russian players it's known as "The Fridge" ("Холодильник").
    • The KV-2 turret for the KV tank and the Schmalturm turret for the PzIV gained the nickname "bobbleheads" for their disproportionate sizes.
      • US heavy tanks from the T29 onwards got nicknamed "Cheburashkas" for the same reason, and for the "flaps" on the sides of their turrets.
    • The VK4502 Ausf B. Heavy tank has been called the "Baby Maus".
      • Russian fans gave it the nickname "Slipper", for its silhouette icon.
    • The map Malinovka, for its large no-man's land and the usual tactics for the map, earned the derisive nickname "Campinovka".
    • The 100mm D10-T gun used by a very large number of Russian tanks, including almost the entire latter half of the medium tree, is sometimes referred to as the "idiot gun".
    • Some tanks can use howitzers; short barreled guns that primarily fire low velocity high-caliber HE shells. These are known as "derpguns". On tanks with multiple howitzers available, there may be the distinction of "miniderp" for the smaller variety.
      • The original Derpgun is an enormous 152mm howitzer that's an option on the Russian KV tank. It's slow-loading, not very accurate - and an instant-kill on a lot of the tanks the KV will be up against.
    • The new premium Type 59 medium tank has been nicknamed the "Walmart Tank." Because, you know, it's made in China. Others call them "pandas", and for a more racy nickname, there's always the lovable "chink tank". The most readily understandable and commonly used nickname, however, seems to just be "type" (due to the fact that it's the only tank in the game with that word in it's name.)
    • The KV-1S "Sport"; despite being a tier higher than the KV before it, it has lighter armor. It's essentially a stripped-down version of the KV that performs more like a medium tank than a heavy.
      • Some people refer to it as the "KV-IS" since it used a nearly identical turret (they're impossible to tell apart from behind) and very similar hull to the IS.
    • The KV-5 premium heavy tank has earned the title of "Battleship" by some; it is exceptionally well armored (even on the sides) and has two additional mini-turrets in front of the main turret, giving it a warship-like appearance. The mini-turrets themselves have been nicknamed "R2-D2",
    • The Pz38H735(f) Hotchkiss, a captured French tank available as a German premium light tank, is often called the "Mini-Maus", as it has very strong armor for its tier, which renders it near invulnerable to most of the tanks it usually fights against, and moves rather sluggishly for a light tank.
    • The T82 is a tier 3 American tank destroyer which is basically an open-topped M3 Stuart light tank chassis with a powerful selection of guns to choose from, including a 105mm howitzer. Being based on the Stuart's chassis means it can move more quickly than almost any other TD, but has paper thin armor as a drawback. It's no big surprise it's been nicknamed the "Jeep with a TOW missile".
    • The German GW Panther Tier 6 artillery has distinctively up-turned sides (where the crew would normally stand on while operating the gun) earning it the nickname "Dracula" for the popped-collar look.
    • The highly sloped armor of the Russian Object 704 Tier 9 tank destroyer makes it look like the most recent incarnation of the "Batmobile".
    • The new French AMX 40 light tank is already starting to be referred to as the "Rubber Duckie" because it looks like a rubber duck.
    • The tier VIII French medium tank Batignolles-Châtillon 25T often has its name shortened to "BatChat." Some players have started to endearingly call it the "BatShit" out of respect for its capabilities.
    • The German-influenced design of the AMX M4(1945) has lead to some players dubbing it "the Green Tiger" or "the French Tiger" for its strong family resemblance to the German Tiger II.
    • The M3 Lee gets quite a bit of flak from the playerbase, due to its lack of turret, thin armour and horribly inaccurate guns, to the point where-along with its high-profile design-people have begun calling it the Garbage Truck.
  • Game Breaker -- The German VK 3601 firing gold shells in its special 75mm conical gun could be seen as this. Huge penetration, 165 damage per shot (up from 65 with standard shells), plenty accurate, and a high rate of fire made this tank/gun combo very deadly, at the cost of using real life money to fund the buying of the gold shells. See this video for a gameplay video of the VK 3601 using gold shells.
  • Good Bad Bugs -- The "teleporter"(also known as "warping") bug causing tanks to seem to "hop" at long range was long hated by the fandom. The patch release that fixed it lead to a two-day downtime: this bug was one of the game engine's key features, relieving the server load. Fixing this problem took some time, and the bug was finally fixed without causing server-side problems... which lead to the light and medium tank population dropping: these hops were one of the few things protecting them from being mauled at range by heavy tanks and artillery.
  • Memetic Mutation -- Many of the Tier 4 tanks are excellent in comparison with the mediocrity of the Tier 3 lineup, but the sheer terribad of the stock Hetzer tank destroyer led to a strong loathing towards the vehicle for many up-and-coming German TD players. It has led to the phrase "Hetzers gonna Hetz", which in turn has led to players graduating into the "StuG life" once they unlock the next tier vehicle, the StuG III.
  • PVP-Balanced -- There are lots of people who believe that Russian tanks perform better than their American and German counterparts, the T-54 only being part of it, to the point of the game's balance being reduced to a joke at the expense of the development team.
  • That One Level -- Artillery in a match on Himmelsdorf is considered a cruel joke by the matchmaker. The buildings everywhere ruin the ability to get a clear shell trajectory.
    • Malinovka, whose problems are summed up in its nickname further up this page, is the subject of considerable bitterness. There is an ongoing drive to remove the map from rotation, and at least some players who are bitter about the map will drive into the central field and stop in the open, committing Suicide by Cop to get out of the match while still getting some XP and credits.
    • Excluding tank destroyers and artillery, Tier 4 is often considered this, especially for new players. In general, it is the first tier where the player might encounter tanks more than two tiers above their own and so feel the true cruelty of the game's matchmaker. To make things worse, the tanks at this tier often have distinct strengths and weaknesses that require special playstyles that might not be obvious to a newbie, such as the M3 Lee(With a gun that's powerful but hull-mounted, requiring the whole tank to turn to aim) or the T-28(which is fast and heavily armed but large and poorly armored, necessitating careful hit-and-run tactics). And it gets even worse if they're playing on a line with a Tier 4 light tank, in which case the player is designated a scout and can face enemies up to Tier 9. This can be extremely off-putting to new players who just downloaded the game to shoot stuff, as scouting is an advanced role that's not for everyone, and that's if they even realise they're a scout: It's very possible that some would actually try to fight horrifically more powerful tanks with their peashooters and paper armor and die very quickly as a result. Getting through Tier 4 can be considered a rite of passage of sorts, where success leads to Tier 5 where the game's "real tanks"(in the sense of both being effective and consisting largely of the recognizable WW 2 models that many want to play as) start.
  • Tier-Induced Scrapheap -- Some tanks are reviled because they are considered much less effective then their same-tier counterparts, and some players actively avoid playing these tanks, preferring to skip them via free XP, if they're played at all.
    • The M3 Lee is considered an inadequate vehicle because despite being in the primary US tank line, the top turret is unusable (until multi-gun support is patched in), which means this tank is forced to play as a hull-gun-only Tank Destroyer. The sudden change in playstyle, combined with the Lee's relatively thin armor, sub-par penetration against anything higher than Tier 5 mediums, and ruthless matchmaking leaves a sour taste in some players' mouths.
    • The VK3001(P) is considered one of the worst stock tanks, because not only is it slower then molasses going uphill in summer, and has thin armor and horrible agility, but also because its default turret can only mount the stock gun, which in the matches the 3001P is often thrown into, is about as effective as a thrown rock. Adding on to that is that both the turret and tracks are required before a more adequate weapon can be mounted. Upgraded, it's a decent tank, but many players give up after a few matches because of the severe inadequacy of the stock vehicle.
    • The higher you go in the tiers, the fewer American SPGs you encounter. Their top-tier SPG, the T92, is especially rare; it has the highest damage to be sure, but it also has the slowest rate of fire, longest sighting time, and worst accuracy of any of the top-tier SPGs.
      • However, the T92 is still a popular choice for Clan Wars due to the absolutely huge amount of splash damage it can inflict with gold shells. This means it can still deal damage to tanks in cover that the other top SPGs couldn't reach.
    • Low to mid tier French tanks. Their armor is fantastic for their tier, but it's not enough to keep most other countries' guns from penetrating. Their own guns have some of the weakest penetration in the game, meaning they can rarely return the favor unless the enemy is lower tier. They're also almost universally slow, with several of them being unable to outrun a Maus without perfect crew and consumables. It's a commonly-held belief that every French tank before Tier 7 is a clunky, underpowered, ponderous behemoth.
      • The French "light line", for lack of mediums, gets decent as early as tier 5. Quick, nimble, badly armored and with a 6-shot Pz IV gun, it begins the line of tanks people start to universally hate, the "Mag-cannons."
  • Took a Level in Badass -- French tanks in the first four tiers are cumbersome, heavily behemoths with poor fire power, and as such many players see them as little more then (slightly) mobil cover and SPG bait. That said, at tier five, they do a total 180 and become fast, lightly armored and armed with deadly autoloader cannons, a much more favorable combination, especially with guns in that tier being what they are.
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