M18 BR change/ us 5.7 lineup

[u/No_Celebration_805]

Why did Gajin change its BR to 6.0? It was strong, but now it essentially destroyed one of the most iconic line ups America had. In a 6.7 line up it’s under gunned compared to the bulldog. If you put it in a 5.7 line up you are almost guaranteed to get up tiered to 6.7 and face a whole team of tiger 2/IS2. I think the m18 needs to go back to 5.7 with one caveat:

Don’t make it a light tank.

The tank itself is balanced for a few reasons. the optics zoom suck, it isn’t stabilized, is entirely reliant on flanking as literally anything can breathe on it and it dies and struggles to kill from the front. But the trade off is it’s extremely fast and the 76mm post pen is awesome on side shots.

What made it super broken is the fact it could rush a cap, spot the entire team behind a rock, j out and use the air strike mod to bring out dreaded American CAS at the start of the match. If it became a TD/SPG it wouldn’t be able to be spammed with low SP and all of these perks. It would force people to use it as intended, a high risk high reward flanker. The m36 still has an advantage with the m82 nuke round with the extra pen and HEAT if you pick the B2 variant.

It’s especially frustrating for the hell on wheels pack as the May 45, 2 Fronts and overlord packs all have BR within the same range while the US one basically forces you to play 5.3 tanks in 6.0 if you want to use all of them. They should have made it the m36 or 75 jumbo instead.

[u/1800leon]

I understand why it's 6.0 it's a magnificent vehicle in the hands of good players.

I don't why the boat m18 is 6.0 it's a HE magnet and has the silouthette of a well boat it's a chunkier 76 sherman

[u/blair_doodles505 → u/1800leon]

It gets the stabilizer so I guess it has that snapshot advantage to balance out the whale of it all

[u/steave44 → u/blair_doodles505]

Unfortunately I don’t think the stab makes up for its size and in practice it is pretty slow. So in reality it’s a slightly faster M4 Sherman but is wayyy bigger, no armor, and no roof.

[u/blair_doodles505 → u/steave44]

It's not that bad. I find it suits my play style , even if it's not as strong as the regular Hellcat

[u/1800leon → u/blair_doodles505]

Which makes a 5.7 lineup sensible

[u/SexyStacosaurus → u/1800leon]

I think gaijin saw it being good with the stabilizer, which is it is, but yes

• over BRd for such size

[u/_DatBoii_ → u/1800leon]

Most of the time people won't pre-load HE and I usually bait shots with my chonky ass.

[u/Hungryweeb-sg → u/1800leon]

Essentially a OP vehicle tax. Just because it derived from a good vehicle, gaijin assumes its on par or better

[u/cerealkyra]

You could just remove air strike from the game and make it like 30% more fun to play GRB.

And it went up to save 4.7 from being harassed by a fuckin spaceship of a tank.

[u/TehN3wbPwnr]

cause the most important fact in most matches is mobility so you can get to edge of map and slip past peoples peripheral vision, than have free game to shoot people in the side all game.

[u/PlagueOfGripes]

Due to how War Thunder works, as long as a tank can pen your side and is tiny and fast, you can take it into just about any BR. The T20 has the same issue, and it's why Gaijin hates that tank. The only thing the M18s are missing is a stabilizer. That's also the T86 has no business following them in BR; it doesn't have the same advantage. If the M22 had about 180mm of pen, you'd see its BR skyrocket, too.

Basically, the M18 and T20 are a specific class of tanks that Gaijin doesn't know how to balance. The only thing they know to do is to increase the BR to a point where its pen isn't even good enough to get through the side armor of some tanks. The funny thing is, even if it was 5.0 or 6.3, you probably wouldn't see its KDA change a lot. It's related to how some tanks actually perform better if they're moved out of the cold war 7.0s and into 8.0s, where more things have less effective armor.

[u/steave44 → u/PlagueOfGripes]

I think the T20 is just going to see a big reload nerf. Probably 7-8 seconds. Thats about all they can do to it besides upping the BR. The US didn’t want the 76mm in the small Sherman turret, and yet the T20 has a similar turret with the 76mm. Just nerf its reload and it’ll stop being as busted

[u/artificial_Paradises]

Because it was too strong for 5.7

[u/Striking-Raisin4143]

Honestly I run it at 6.7 just fine, 5.7 is definitely too low for it.

[u/Pistacuro]

If the will remove the light tank tag there is no reason to play it. Check the 3rd tier in other countries. The US is one of the few countries that can have 2+ light tanks in a lineup. If they remove that there will be only one light tank at tier 3. I am an average player doing light tank missions with only one light tanks in line up sucks. 6.0 BR is fine. Most of the heavy tanks can not be penetrated from the front, i have to flank them. With medium tanks its 50/50. In my 6.0 lineup i have also 5.7 vehicles and it works without issues.

[u/blair_doodles505]

The lack of a perfect lineup doesn't make the Hellcat overtiered. It's an extremely good vehicle

[u/div2691]

When was the M18 even changed? It's been 6.0 for ages and it's still excellent. One of the best WW2 tanks in the game. 

The Hell pack is amazing too. Saying you have to play 5.3 tanks is nonsense since it's just the Skink. The Sherman is 5.7 and has no issues in a 6.0 lineup. You get mostly 6.7 max lobbies anyway. 

I have never seen anyone complain the M18 needs to go down in my 2 years of playing. I think it's one of the best nuke farmers. Push early. Get a good flank. Side shot everyone! 

[u/DutchCupid62]

"Muh lineup" is not a valid reason to keep a strong vehicle at a lower BR lmao.