How to Get Better at World of Tanks: A Pro's Guide to Improving

[@7th_CAV_Trooper]

Solid advice. My clan, GATT, does replay reviews and it's helpful to get feedback from the guys who are playing 500 to 1k WN8 better than me. Also, your advice to play for marks starting at lower tiers is similar to what I did when my win rate was 48%. Someone called me a shitter and said I should go back to tier three. Though toxic, it was actually good advice. So I went to tier three and played until my WR was 51%. Then moved up. Now I'm working on tier 9 and I'm 49.9% there and 52% overall. Took about 6 months to get positive WR from tier 3 to 7. Took another 6 to repair all the damage to my tier 8 WR. Now I'm playing for marks and it's challenging me a lot. One thing you didn't mention is playing competitive modes. When I started participating in clan battles I had to learn to be more intentional. We take turns calling at low tiers and that will really stretch an 800 WN8 player. 😀

[@darkninja___]

Yes good point. Sounds like you are progressing nicely, congrats!

[@7th_CAV_Trooper]

@@darkninja___ it's really slow and sometimes I feel like I have no idea how the game works. lol

[@odinsclone3436]

Yea. I played 8 years ago for 3 battles. And to say I was a Yolo player. I don't think I even noticed the mini map and I didn't even consider the roles of each tank class .so I was Frontline getting nuked weather I was in my tin foil td. Or my is6. Lol . When I came back to wot 6 months ago and installed xvm I had a sub 300 wn8 😆 with a 47% win rate. It was rough. And now after 6 months maybe 7 I've been actually thinking about my plays learning each tank class and it's roles and strengths. I have over 1k wn8 and a recent wr of 52.6 according to tag and on xvm overall win rate is 49.9. I went from 1344 wgr to 5k and climbing every week. . So ive been improving well. And have fallen in love with the French lights and brittish meds. And Russian mediums . I don't really enjoi heavies to be fair. Maybe it's an acquired taste. I just like the mobility and sneakyness of the meds and lights. And it's forcing Me to learn the game mechanics .

[@Lone_Wolf_91]

That's so great. It takes some splid brain to hear critical words and thinking about your actions. Great story

[@blitzcanuck1120]

Good stuff Dark. I'm not in the same league as you. Just a garden-variety unicum. But i improved (and continue to do so) exactly as you have prescribed. For anyone looking to improve, it cannot be overstated how important it is to be honest with yourself and critique your own gameplay. Don't blame RNG, don't blame your teammates, don't blame WG for 'rigging' the match. They are all just lame excuses that will maybe salve your ego but will definitely impede your progress. Thanks for making this video Dark. It's nice to see you following a script. Having followed your YT channel since the start, i was actually going to suggest this because i thought your videos, while presenting excellent info, suffered a bit from meandering. You have a lot to offer the WoT community and i would like to see your channel get a lot more eyeballs. So hopefully you take this constructive criticism in the spirit it is intended.

[@s0nder1275]

You, kajzoo and daki deserve so much more exposure. I've learned alot from you and them as a 3.3k wn8 player it helps to watch you and see what you do to improve

[@lakesong7566]

thanks, i have been doing these lately and increased my WN8 significantly, win ratio is also recovering back to 50% from 47%. After integrating these to my normal gameplay, what really pushed my stats is not being skimpy with gold rounds, every shot hitting but not penetrating is slowly contributing to you losing the battle so i have seen drastic spike to my winrate and dmg potential after slapping 2-2 the moment i see a decently armored tank

[@OTOss8]

I'm going to try to implement this advice. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. It's a huge help for a potato like me.

[@ivandelamorte4743]

I don't know how I ran into this channel, but I'm glad I did. Excellent video. Extremely helpful. Thank you kindly.

[@agent74113]

thanks for the video! i have been playing WOT for over a decade, but my stats suck because i didn't bother to learn how to play GOOD, until fairly recently. I started the game playing mostly heavies and i have a few Tier X tanks, but it wasn't until i made my self learn light tanks, that my game play improved dramatically.

[@blinchiki525]

Really insightful and useful video, thanks for making it. I'm a WOT Blitz player who recently started getting into PC WOT. The thing I certainly struggle the most with currently is knowing where to go. Your advice of watching good players to improve is solid and helps a lot. The one I would add from my own personal experience with improving is tooning in similar tanks with players that are slightly better than you. If you are 50% play with someone who is 55%, or if your 55% play with someone who is 60%. Then you just kind of shadow the other player. This helped me get in the habit of doing the right thing subconsciouly while not fully understanding why right away. Then once you start doing things right, they make a lot more sense right away.

[@darkninja___]

Definitely a good idea

[@mrsaussissonsec1054]

What u said here is still working today, especially at about 19:00 . Back in the day I was a decent player with around 1.8 to 2.4k recent wn8, and I got my hands on a free bourrasque thanks to some giveaway. I loved the tank but wasn't really performing great in it, so I challenged myself to make it the 1st tank I have 3MOE on. IN the end, I played more than a thousand games in it and only marked it earlier this year, but just by trying harder and harder it made me a much stronger player, as I usually have around 4k recent wn8 (which I'm still not satisfied about, lol)

[@whitegoliath]

16:22 basically, you're using your fast-track brain aka intuition to rely upon for a lot of decision making which automatically comes to your mind based on experience.

[@vincedoran773]

Appreciate your putting in the effort to make this, great advice. And I believe you would succeed in other spheres with that same focus and logic/discipline. Cheers.

[@valeriomangano4533]

You earned yourself a subscriber! Keep up the good work!

[@kobathedread9649]

Insightful video mate - brimming with wise tips and suggestions. Thanks!

[@abrahamergashev146]

Thanks bro, I just started and I was going down hill, but this helped me

[@Val-sj1mw]

Please do a guide about dealing with bad maps on lights. (Empire's border, Himmelsdorf, Ensk and other)

[@darkninja___]

Alright, i’ll see if I can find some replays

[@J0ku656]

Farm dmg and stay alive with hp

[@iLikePizza829]

This is your best video i seen so far

[@darkninja___]

Thanks it took me quite a few hours to plan this one out and write a script

[@jksoler]

Great stuff. Much appreciated. I just subscribed.

[@darkninja___]

Thanks

[@bandit86gaming22]

Great Job on this. I think the biggest part of me learning was my computer but other than that. When I started WG was taking a bunch of maps out putting more in, changing tanks. WG just took the 183 out the Waff just got took out the 155.. Then they was buffing tanks and nerfing tanks as soon as i would get them. So I really couldn't learn anything. The game seemed to be forever changing. But the biggest to me was gun depression. I also think its still a big issue with the game in general. I think as a new player staying away from tanks with no gun depression. Why maybe the T29 is one of the most loved tanks. Its a tier 7 and its got a great Turret. I'd play IS7 and I could shoot from this spot but now i took the T-44 I could not. Well im going to make it work so now i'm over peaking and so on etc. You touched on on it a bit with the where to go early on with your tank. I mean its the where and why. I also seem to see a bad player on a strong position but its like they don't know why they are there. Positioning and Aggression is to me is, the two biggest things on top of what OP tank your playing. I have an aggression problem and thats why I can't play High Purple or maintain a high purple.

[@darkninja___]

Thanks

[@tonster181g]

Excellent advice. I'd add that you should have damage markers enabled so you can see where people are shooting from and the alpha if bounced. It helps with blind shots and of course figuring out where people are on the map. I personally am leveled off at between 2k-3k wn8 playing meds (mostly tier 8). I know I don't fire enough gold, but also maybe I'm too aggressive as my win rate runs between 52%-60% (variable depending on the week).

[@Zudexa]

1 month after first watching this video and average wn8 went up from 1k to 1.5k, and average winrate went up from 49% to 56% your underestimating how good this video is for helping people improve haha

[@MrCuerocks]

Yeah I am coming back from a 3 year break. Went a good win8 to 1k with a 2% drop in win rate. I had to relearn the game because tanks like the Lowe changed were you shoot them. Plus the maps changed to be majorly updated and not even talking about all the new tanks. Was a new challenge to the game.

[@justdoingitjim7095]

After being in the Marine Corps and then playing WOT the biggest adjustment for me was getting used to the fact that NO ONE will back you up, help you or come to your aid! In this game you're basically an individual mercenary, hired by some war lord to do damage and kill the enemy. Winning a battle with medals will get you bonus hazardous duty pay, but usually you end up paying for that privilege. To earn some spending cash for expenses you have to go to the lower tiers and shake down the new kids for their lunch money. I think they call it "seal clubbing." After you've stolen enough cash from the noobs you can go back to the upper tiers and try to bully someone with more experience! There is ZERO loyalty in this game and you're just as likely to be taken out by a teammate who feels slighted because you cut across in front of him at the beginning or you stole HIS kill while battling. You'll get pushed out in front of the enemy, so they can use you for target practice, blocked from retreating after a shot, pushed off cliffs and cussed out by every adolescent child out there that has anger issues. Other than that I guess it's an okay game.

[@darkninja___]

I havent been pushed out recently but I agree no one helps eachother or block shots for you when you are a 1 shot. It makes it feel special when it happens because its so rare.

[@edwing1947]

Thanks for this...very helpful

[@wolverine343534]

My win rate is 49.88% (past 1000 battles the WN8 is 1215). I am a fairly average player, but I am unsure how to influence battles more, to get that win rate back to above the 50% mark (used to be at 51%). Like yesterday I was in the top 3 of the team about 90% of my 30 battles. Good damage and kills in most of the games, but the team just collapsed, so was usually left with a lot of enemies to fight. I won about 25% of battles yesterday, but no matter how hard I tried to help each flank, I couldn’t influence the games enough to get a win. I have unlocked every tier X (except Japanese TD’s), and play a varied amount of tanks. Could it be that I play too many different tanks at times, so not getting better with a specific tank? I basically want to try and influence games more and to get that win % up to at least 55%. I also think I play a bit too passive at times, hence why I never see many 7/8/9k damage results (makes the campaigns difficult). Some advice would be appreciated.

[@darkninja___]

That is a pretty general question so its hard to answer. I basically gave my answer in this video but my play like a pro series goes over a lot of general tips and how to play certain maps and tanks, etc, so maybe that could help. Also, improving can take over 1k battles so could take some time.

[@thiemokellner1893]

If I understood you correctly, to improve substantially and sustainably, you need to invest several hours a day. With this precondition, what do you think about the matchmaker throwing unicums and the casual tomato like me into the same battle and what might be the intention of WG behind that?

[@darkninja___]

Random matchmaking is standard in a lot of games and wot is no different. You don’t necessarily have to play hours a day but maybe 4-5 hours a week probably if you want a shot to be really good, but it’s always quality over quantity. If you don’t want to invest time for a videogame that’s fine.

[@VioletGiraffe]

800 WN8 with autoaim - amazing. With many tanks I struggle to get up to 800 no matter what I do.

[@uselessoldman7964]

Great advice but sincerely its all about using your head and keeping your cool. I found whats best is having a HUGE screen and a good quality mouse that I can change the dpi on so its slower or faster response depending on whats best in any given situation. For me I love 4k Ultra on the TV even at 60hz cos I am getting 100/130fps which is fine and since Im getting old my eye sight isnt what it was so I am not only useless I am blind, well maybe thats an exaggeration but you get my drift. I keep stats on a spreadsheet and always try and improve but after 45k games I think I have reached my limit so will always be that average player. Probably not helped cos I play arty and you cant alays influence games as you can in other tanks

[@ozzie8821]

Excellent content Ty 👍👍👍👍🍺😎

[@eziodeldegan414]

great video thank you

[@theoriginalmikyscha2777]

As somebody that has been playing with an iMac for 2 years, i can safely say that I’m happy to switch to a 4090 by Tuesday 😅

[@nathanhood2415]

Damn that’s one resume at the start 😂

[@eeiko321]

Heya what’s the setting you have on for the team display, where it has their health levels in black and Red or Green??

[@darkninja___]

Is the hp you are talking about on the minimap or the side panels?

[@eeiko321]

@@darkninja___ Hi Darkninja, i just saw your reply, thanks for getting back to me. Its the team listing on the left and the right...Where the friendlies are Green and the Enemies Red...i cant seem to get it or find any settings to make it look like that. I have seen other players achieve the same look you have on yours, but all i have on mine is a feint red color or feint green and its a bit hard to see/tell....

[@darkninja___]

@@eeiko321 Did you get it using mods? The one I am using is just in the game. I think it is under general settings, probably on the right near the bottom. It should have a dropdown menu where u can either set it to “dont show”, “show when pressing alt”, or “show at all times”, something like that. If yours is the same then im not sure why it looks different colors. I do have on a filter in my game, the “deep” color filter set to 100%. Maybe that makes it look darker idk.

[@yuan_6124]

Good stuff backed by dark's degree 😜Any specific advice for an experienced player to improve from semi-good 3k5 WN8/3.8K DPG to great 5K WN8/5K DPG? 😁

[@darkninja___]

The advice in the video is applicable to all players but its 10x as hard to get from 4k to 5k wn8 than it is from 3k wn8 to 4k wn8 because there are diminishing returns. Just watch a 5k wn8 player (basically all the players I linked besides skill4ltu and see what they do differently than you and ask yourself why they might be doing that then integrate. But the most important part is still the mindset you have: aka a growth mindset where you constantly review your own gameplay to see what you could have done better.

[@leomonteiro4445]

Well I started the vz 51 and after 20 battles I had 3.1k dpg and 65% wr, things slowly started getting worse with a few close to 7k dmg games (wich is very high for my current level). 105 battles now and I'm down to 2.4k dpg and 57% wr. No matter what I do everything always seems to go wrong and I just can't anything, last battle I was so afraid that I didn't even do any damage. I just can't seem to be able to improve anymore.

[@darkninja___]

How many battles do you have? If you have less than 15k then i can basically guarantee you that you can still improve if you keep at it and genuinely try to fix your mistakes. Hell, Ive seen plenty of players with over that many battles still improve significantly. It is also important to look at the big picture. Anyone can have a bad session or rough week which might make it look like you are not getting better or even getting worse. Happens to me all the time. What is more important is to look at broader trends. You should compare your last 1000 battles with your previous 1000 battles before that if you really want to know if you are making progress, as it is a much better indicator than how one or two sessions go.

[@leomonteiro4445]

@@darkninja___ I have close to 10k battles. I'm slightly better compared to previous 1000 battles and now I'm having a 800 dpg session, I guess it's a good idea to get back to low tiers right.

[@darkninja___]

@@leomonteiro4445 Im not entirely sure what is best for you but what someone else mentioned worked for them was to drop to literally tier 5 or something and play until their winrate at that tier reached 50% (for you that might be 57% or something, just pick a number that seems reasonable), and then they moved up one tier and repeated the process until they got to tier 10 and reached it there. That might take too long though or become boring and it also depends on what tank you choose to play (because its easy to get high winrate in op tanks) so I can’t really say of an easy way to track progress other than to look at ur dpg and win rate over the span of hundreds of battles to see if it is going up. But one idea maybe is to pay attention to whether your dpg in a tank is improving after like 100 battles and if it is not then maybe you can try dropping a tier or playing something easier. But in my opinion the most important thing is that are playing a tank that feels challenging to do well in, but not so challenging that you feel completely lost/hopeless and have no idea what you need to do differently to improve. And keep i mind by the way that 20 battles in the VZ is really not that many and you could easily have just gotten lucky/ had a good session. Ive had a 40 battle session in the EBR 75 with 3800 dpg which is ridiculous for that tank but if you look at my overall average for that tank when i was tryharding it was around 2700 dpg, and I played all of those battles within a relatively short span of time.

[@leomonteiro4445]

@@darkninja___ I'll try that, thanks for answering.

[@djuraster]

My WR went from 46% to 56% 5 min after watching this. On a serious note, haven`t heard anything I haven`t heard for 10000 times before, TLDR for this video : do better

[@darkninja___]

Ok bro, well every other comment says otherwise so i guess you are just a genius, congratulations.

[@ziginaigra]

i see one problem with patience/waiting ,its boring😃

[@austrian_wastukov.233]

thank you it helped me

[@normalgroyper8642]

Damn man, bro brought out the neuroscience.

[@Val-sj1mw]

By the way, have you read "Luzhin defence"? I hope that your situation is better than the life of the protagonist in this book.

[@darkninja___]

Have not read that. But I don’t see the problem if I enjoy the game and still be productive at the same time in life.

[@gregstubbings7643]

I don't believe win rate is a true indication of improvement, It is so reliant on having a descent team and that is so hit and miss.

[@rayr4320]

A scientist? Shall I put PCs in the lab to keep students at work? Cognitive processing like chunking is dependent on intelligence factor. The process of learning is a form of bias. Bias only becomes a problem when the organism is unable to assess feedback and extinguish detrimental bias. A recent problem is game evolution. For instance what used to work well in a comet may not work in the present due to the proliferation of new tanks. I used to keep the comet above 56% but i am lucky to have 50% win rate in a session. I have been plateaued by game changes.

[@darkninja___]

Highly unfortunate. Its true u can’t learn well when you are not smart enough to figure out what caused a negative outcome, etc but that’s why I like to pair it with watching good players because you can learn by modeling as well.

[@dracofenix3860]

3:45 my PC would be good enought if it wasn´t because of bullshit Windows and random app updates that >only appear when i´m playing

[@darkninja___]

I am not good with PCs so I don’t really know but hopefully someone else can help.

[@Qwerty_Q101]

I'm always in the loosers team, no matter what, 6 or 7 lost in a row and 1 or 2 wins, there is something fishy with the game...

[@lion_7224]

ty

[@EKGEN01]

1. buy premium tank and account, 2. use all premium ammo, 3. use premium/most expensive equipment and consumables, 4. try to play "op" tanks, 5. enjoy.

[@ziginaigra]

u forgot to say press 2 key😆

[@Charly_Z]

And on console

[@L4byrint]

3k dmg but 43 % wn8

[@HiddenInPlainSight386]

System lag doesn't help, I find this game futile

[@karlash3769]

oh how to get good at wot, spam gold every battle wow soo good

[@darkninja___]

No that’s not true, you would suck even if you did fire gold 😘

[@BruceAlrighty1991]

spech 100

[@bradlyfan]

Got an email that I got chat banned today 😂. My wn8 plateaud at 2000 … and I went on vacation and was grinding a bunch of tanks so it’s prbly gone down.

[@Val-sj1mw]

Now i watched the video to the end. You are just crazy. Seriously, you are or were addicted. Talking about 1000 battles like about a regular thing, watching streamers for thousands of hours without understanding their language. This is just not normal. I am sure that this game ruined your life in some way.

[@darkninja___]

Yes well that is what it takes. This game kept me from offing myself because it is an escape from dogshit daily life.

[@Val-sj1mw]

@@darkninja___ If your life was worse than Iyouxin's past, i understand.

[@darkninja___]

@@Val-sj1mw I never said that but bad is bad

[@nightnine5165]

I am just SICK of this shit. No matter what I do, what effort I put in it's all for nothing. Im just pure yellow WN8 subuhman piece of shit that is too stupid to even realize my tactics are shit. I dont know is there any way to even be green player.

[@darkninja___]

Don’t get mad at yourself. Just try to enjoy the game first most and make improvement a secondary goal. Or if it is too frustrating you can stop playing. I have been playing only when i feel like it nowadays and it feels much less like a chore or obligation.

[@nightnine5165]

@@darkninja___ I dont even know where to start. I totally lack situational awareness, i cant read the minimap, i often die like a fucking retard in first 5 minutes trying to reach position and dying. My patience is non existent, not to mention to predict and adapt to enemy movements. How i am supposed to enjoy the game when the most I make is pathetic 2000 WN8 a day?

[@nikolaspatronas527]

Full gold noob wow

[@rendzis]

Strike the best!!!

[@csh5414]

Yeah you do need to introduce yourself..never heard of you.