Tier 8 tech tree Premiums – the good, the bad, and the expensive (part 2)

Finishing up with the ‘Least Recommended’ tier 8 tech tree premium tanks. Before listing the detailed responses on the ‘bottom 6’ I’ll review, briefly, the goal of the survey and what was covered in part 1.

In a nutshell, 329 WoT players from the WoT sub Reddit participated in a short survey where they voted on the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ of the tier 8 tech tree premium tanks that you can buy for gold at any time.

There are twenty tanks available for gold at tier 8. Here’s how the overall voting came out:

Yesterday, I covered the top 6 tanks. Today, I’ll detail the remarks submitted on six tanks, technically the bottom 6.

The French medium AMX CDC, the German medium Panther mit 8,8 and the 8,8cm Pak 43 JagdTiger TD, the Russian IS-6, the Chinese medium 59-Patton, and the Japanese medium STA-2.

Jumping right in…

#6) Japanese medium tank STA-2

STA-2 Pros

• The STA-2 is a reliable Japanese Medium at its price. Good standard and premium pen (212 and 275), good maneuverability, and gun handling makes this the top pick I have.

STA-2 Cons

• The STA-2 is arguably worse than useless as the power creep is so soooo evident when playing it now days.
• Even though I haven’t played it, I wouldn’t want to buy an STA-2. I don’t see nearly as many of those compared to all the other premiums and I think that there are much better options.
• STA-2. Because this is for a line of medium tanks that are not very good or competitive in their own tiers, and until the STB-1 gets a buff of some sort, it still remains hard to recommend this tank to any new player.
• STA-2, because it is just barely mediocre. Could use some more speed.
• The armor is ‘poo’

#5) Chinese medium 59-Patton

59-Patton pros – none provided

59-Patton cons

• 59-Patton: Giant tumor on turret makes it difficult to really hold a position with the somewhat decent frontal turret armor. The gun has decent pen, good handling statistics and decent dispersion values but aren’t enough to counter the poorer aspects of the tank
• 59-Patton because I can’t ever seem to play it right. The tumor on the turret makes cover more difficult to find. Turret rotation is great and gold ammo is stellar at tier 8 but costs a lot
• The 59-Patton is pretty garbage all around, huge profile, mediocre gun handling, and a massive weak spot on the turret.
• the 59-Patton is a really bad tank that not only under performs in speed armor and gun alpha damage but it has that huge commander hatch cupola that gets you spotted over ridges and that people shoot easily before you can crest to shot back at them you already lost allot of HP and they will hit you on your way back down the ridge because of the cupola. That tank would be a terrible purchase for new players there is a reason why one never see’s the 59 Patton in the battlefield, I would not recommend said tank to anyone either new bad good or unicum but that’s just common sense.
• 59 Patton – that skyscraper cupola ruins the tank. If it wasn’t there it would be a decent tank.
• 59 Patton, it is a combination of the worst parts of the Patton and type 59. Creates a tank with no useful armor and not a very good gun.
• 59-Patton – Its literally just a worse Type-59 with an American turret that has a massive weak spot, negates all armor it would otherwise have.
• Maybe the 59-Patton. I don’t own it and don’t plan on own it. It has a giant butter cupola that prevents you from doing anything
• 59-Patton for obvious reasons, it’s too big, slow, and not well armored

#4) Russian heavy IS-6

IS-6 Pros

• IS-6 because it is fun to play after a hard day of work, and is always a useful addition to the team.
• For the situation I’m torn between the T-54 Mod 1 & IS-6 as these are key gold premiums that offer usability among many tank crews. There are plentiful competent Russian mediums & heavy Tier 8-10s, and by having a premium to work on their respective crews, earn credits & free experience, these are by far the best choices available.
• The 112 and is-6 are obvious picks for a premium heavy because of how flexible they are and how especially welcoming they are to a new player. These tanks are also great credit makers and crew trainers because of how easy it it to do well in them.
• IS-6 – for me it is super fun tank, armor troll enemy, you have beautiful 390 alpha and if you stuck in tier 9 battle than good aimed HE are pretty annoying for them, I first tried this tank when there was those 7 days rental codes and I fell in love with this tank and 2 days after playing in rental I get 30% coupon so it was obvious what I bought
• is-6 since it’s very forgiving for new players and the preferential matchmaking
• IS-6: reliable armor, recently buffed, preferential match making, easy play style

IS-6 Cons

• The Is-6 was amazing back in the day but the power creep and the ability to get the defender when it is available totally makes this tank worthless. The Churchill 3 is better for heavy Russian tanks.
• Is-6, a relic pretty much of old school WoT
• IS-6. Lackluster penetration means you’re not able to damage even same tier HTs combined with how awful the MM is for SMM tanks.
• It would be the IS-6, almost everyone knows how to deal with them, it’s more fun of you can do something unique.
• IS-6, armor is irrelevant, terrible gun that cant pen same tier heavies with gold ammo.
• IS-6 – It used to be a very good tank, but a power-creep has killed it, it has awful pen and the armor doesn’t hold up anymore.
• IS-6 is my least favorite because I have IS-3A, Defender and Object 252U it’s a bit of a waste of gold these days
• is-6: bad at everything, literally unusable without shooting a lot of gold
• I would say it’s the IS-6 or the Super Pershing, because their “new” counterparts, ie the Defender and the Patriot, are just much better, only w/out preferential MM.
• IS-6, on paper is seems to have pretty good armor, and with premium matchmaking you think it would hold up, but this is not my experience with it. Armor feels disappointing, it’s slow and gun handling.. Well it’s Russian:) And besides its is also among the most expensive premium tanks in the game.

#3) German Tank destroyer 8,8cm Pak 43 JagdTiger

8,8cm Pak 43 JagdTiger – Pros

• Jagdtiger 88 purely because of the armor, pref mm and rate-of-fire
• JgTig 8,8 may not be fun but is an absolute beast

8,8cm Pak 43 Jagdtiger – Cons

• Jagdtiger 8.8, slow turretless td with situational armor with small alpha. does not have the alpha or mobility of something like the WZ 120-1G FT or the sneakiness of the STRV s1.
• Jagdtiger 88. To slow, bad pen, armor gets pen by anyone shooting gold.
• Least favorite of the list is the Jagdtiger88, although pref mm is a thing, and its mobility speed-wise got buffed its traverse is still shit and unless you can get hull-down its Swiss cheese time. Pen with Gold is 230 or sth, not enough to pen some T9s it meets frontally at all.
• GER – 8,8cm Pak 43 Jagdtiger – TD: It’s just been passed by over time. Fantastic DPM but difficult to utilize. The armor is no longer what it once was.
• 8,8cm Pak 43 Jagdtiger is horrible to an extent not amply expressed with words. I played it when it first came out (I was a horrible player) sold it and recently recovered it to try and improve the god awful stats I had in it, but it’s just bad…. Bad armor, mobility, alpha, and view range. The gun handling is fine but the alpha dmg destroys the benefit on a platform like the jagdtiger. It’s a noob catcher too, people getting into the game may have heard of the jagdtiger and want to play it and see you can buy ‘one’ only to realize it tickles the enemy and is useless compared to 95% of the tanks it faces.
• Jagdtiger 8,8. I don’t have it myself but it’s selling point (the DMP) is not special anymore, the armor is not reliable and since there are many city maps now the low alpha damage and bad armor makes it bad at trading shots.
• I would probably have to go with the 8.8CM Pak 43 Jagdtiger. It’s slow, even after the update, it’s expensive, it’s gun has low alpha and good dpm which just isn’t very exciting for such a slow tank. It’s hitbox is very big and the armor is actually not all that great.

#2) German medium Panther mit 8,8cm

Panther mit 8,8 – pros

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• I enjoyed the Panther II, and I find the Panther 88 fun. Could use slight buffs to its aim time and top speed; but it’s got good DPM, usable mobility and gun depression. INB4 its armor sucks, only about half of the T8 meds rely on their armor

Panther mit 8,8 – cons

• Panther mit 8,8cm does not hold up to the test of tier 8 – 10 mm. Even at top tier it will still struggle.
• Panther 8,8, so bad it should be preferential matchmaking
• Panther 88, very slow, large size with poor armor. Gun doesn’t make up for it.
• Panther 88. Has no strengths and faces tier 10s. Gun is meh at best. Armor is worthless, it is fat and slow, camo is pretty bad, everything is meh or just bad.
• Panther, it got power creeped. Armor is useless and alpha is laughable.
• Panther 88: no real strong points. Gun is meh at best, mobility also meh, armor is weak.
• Hard to choose, but I will stick to Panther 8.8 because it is derpy copy-paste of tech three Panther 2 and has worse gun stats and armor. Doesn’t have pref. matchmaking and new player will suffer playing this tank.
• Panther mit 8,8cm – statwise is simply the worst tank of them all
• Panther 8.8 terrible tank overall. Unplayable in hands of a new player
• Panther 8,8 gets outclassed in every way besides its dpm, and to me it seems like it presents itself as a sort of beginner tank. It’s just hard to make work
• Panther 88, because it is big, has no armor, and an uninteresting gimmick with its gun. I always find them easy to take out and rarely see anyone do well in them. It is especially difficult for newer players
• Panther 88. I had good time in it, but most of the time, it doesn’t perform well comparing to others. Big profile, no armor, and only ok-ish mobility kill this tank. The only decent thing is the gun and DPM, but it can pen tier 10 reliably even with gold rounds.
• panther 88, extremely outdated in the current meta, no outstanding characteristics
• Panther Mit. 8,8 cm is by far the worst tech tree premium and the panther 2 isn’t that far behind as a tech tree tank.

#1) French medium tank AMX Chasseur de chars

AMX CDC – pros

• AMX CDC, surprisingly fun vehicle, people say the soft stats ruin it, but Ive been having a blast with it, very quick and a good gun overall, second would be STRV S1 for unique TD mechanics. and third is a tie between the M4 49 (solid heavy) and the super persh, downsides to the french heavy is the normal french heavies arent good imo, so wastes that “crew training” benefit a bit.
• AMX CDC is my top pick because it teaches you to play opportunistically and learn to save your HP. Plus it has decent pen and makes alot of credits.

AMX CDC – cons (there are many responses, I’ve limited it to the most ‘useful’)

• AMX CDC. This vehicle wishes it was the FCM 50t. This thing is as large as a heavy with absolutely no armor to speak of. Granted, it’s incredibly fast, but the sheer size of this vehicle means that it’s going to be incredibly easy to hit if the shooter is at the very least competent. Oh, and every other hit this thing takes damages the ammo rack. It also doesn’t have preferential match making. This vehicle has an obscenely very high skill floor, and is very unforgiving of mistakes. I regret buying this thing because it’s just terrible now.
• The CDC, it is a finesse tank with no redeeming qualities. Playing it is punishment.
• AMX CDC. Made of glass, mediocre gun.
• CDC, paper, huge, pewpew gun with abysmal handling that meets tier X all the time. Just no.
• CDC, no pref mm and it’s a big xp piñata
• The AMX CDC is the worst pick of the crop because of how unfriendly the tank is to a newer player. A big target with no amour, a limiting top speed and a difficult gun to work with for even the higher skilled portion of the player base let alone something who is picking it up as their first tier 8.
• Amx cdc because it’s just bad and jtiger 88 because it’s slow and the armor doesn’t hold up due to the power creep
• AMX CDC – it’s very fast but it’s a huge target with no armor. In the old days I use to load up my 59-16 autoloader with HE and just go to town on CDCs. The gun also feels very under-powered these days.
• I had a friend who owned the CDC, and he despised it. It had absolutely no armor anywhere, has mediocre gun stats, and was insanely tall. It was hard to hide and was easy to spot. It had no hopes of dealing a lot of damage or bouncing a lucky shot.
• While it isnt my least favorite, it’s easily the least favorite pick for new players… The Amx CDC. Zero armor, a meh gun and tons of speed is going to end horribly for new players who pick it up.
• as of this moment, it would the Amx Cdc, because it gets no armor, only mobility, but has a gun that is too inaccurate to actually make use of any flanking spots. alternatively going to close brings up the armor problem again and you will likely not trade very well.
• AMX CDC- on paper- gun should be quite good, in reality- hidden stats just make it impossible to use, combined with no armor and huge profile- it’s sad sight of a tank that everyone shoots at with HE. if gun handling were more better, one could enjoy it and play it as glass cannon
• AMX cdc is bad since it is basically a worse than average tier 8 medium, and tier 8s are usually bad because of the current MM anyway.
• AMX CDC is almost worse in all aspects compared to the Fcm 50t. There’s no reason to play it since it’s become powercreeped.
• AMX CDC, it used to be a great example of WG’s philosophy on premium tanks because it had severe drawbacks (armor/module hp) while having a great gun with (at the time) above average penetration, decent DPM and great mobility It was balanced in a way that it wasn’t oppressive when top tier because lower tiers could easily punish it if you made a mistake and even trade evenly when brawling if firing HE. Thanks to it’s mobility, penetration and reload it would also never be useless if you were bottom tier. Having played 1400 battles in it during it’s golden days, now it’s just gathering dust in my garage. A sad reminder that something went wrong along the way.
• AMX CDC – Everyone loads HE when they see you, you can’t shoot anything. Also who needs your power to weight when you are capped at 59kpt and you turn like a boat.
• Amx cdc is the least favorite tank for me because even if I’m a 1800 wn8 average bob I have hard times to efficiently play with it. It has no room at this game time meta the famous pen when it came out seams outdated for now and the glass canon can’t work since 8 of 10 games are tier 10 (imagine to play with212 pen against type which one shot you)
• FR – AMX CDC – Med: the gun doesn’t make up for the missing armor. The mobility is not better than others to justify the missing armor. Low alpha compared to high cost of special ammo.
• AMX CDC. Too fragile, too large (=easy target & bad camo), not good enough gun to compensate and although it is fast in a straight line, it turns really bad @ speed. Very high skill ceiling to do good in this, even experienced players will find that the red line is too thin in this one. M4A1 is far more unique and fun.
• Amx cdc is the worst. Gun is alright but situational, the speed feels like it should be a bit quicker and agile but isn’t. The armor is the real fall down any he can and will pen this machine. Any artillery will pen and most importantly the Japanese super heavies will tear this tank down. Really not favorable in the meta.
• AMX CDC: The gun handling is atrocious for a medium and the armor can be penetrated with HE
• AMX CDC, Its utterly terrible. I don’t recommend this to any player experienced or not.
• CDC as this has a high skill cap for newer players and would be frustrating to play

A final note, in case you didn’t see the chart, here are the gold prices for all the tanks on the survey. For as bad as the AMX CDC reportedly is, the price is higher than several of the ‘better’ tanks on the list.