I would like to share some thoughts here – as I am pretty close to working on these and getting some free orders would really speed up the whole process.
So, the basic question is: which tank is best for getting the ace tanker?
Starting with something obvious: getting the ace-tanker-batch is based on experience (not like getting the MoE, which is different). After this, the mechanics are not so well known.
The documentation says, that you need to be in the top 1% of all players which played the tank in the last 7 days. In other words: take all the players who used the tank in the last 7 days, take their best battle during this time and this is what you have to compete with. If this was true, wargaming would have to collect und evaluate a lot of data… still it might be correct (it still might be some floating-average).
There are some hints, that there is some “reset” at midnight. Some posts state, that at some point before midnight someone got a first-class-batch and after midnight the ace-tanke with less XP… This can not be checked atm whether it is true or not. But it might help to play for the ace-tanker shortly after midnight (server time!).
What else is there…
If the above assumption about the calculation is correct, then you want to use a tank which is played by a lot of players, but only with very few battles per player (the math should be obvious).
So- which tanks are these? One that comes into my mind is the “Excalibur”, more and more players get it, want to try it, but play only a few games (Tier 7, so irrelevant, but you get the point). Also some “marathon”-tanks could be used just after the marathon ends. Or some time-limited-rental tanks.
Bad ideas are probably tanks which people have to grind through and only play it to reach the next tank, because they play a lot of battles in this tank in a short period of time and the best battle they have with it is much better on average.
Another thought: there are tanks which require a lot of xp to get all the modules and the next tank is not too hard xp-wise. Other tanks will have low xp-requirements for the modules and it takes a long time to get the next tank. What I want to say is: if you play a fully-equipped tank while most other players are using a stock-version most of the time, you have some advantage over the “average”. So Tier X and premium tanks might not be the best choice when trying to get an ace-tanker-badge.
Another bad choice might be the Batchat (Tier VIII scout), because there are so many successive tanks that most games with this tank will probably played non-stock and grinding these tanks, so people play lots of games in a row).
In other words: play a tank that is played stock by other players as often as possible.
What else…
IMO in grand battles some tanks have a clear advantage to perform better than in standard-randoms. For example scouts and spg. With spg in a grand battle you have much more targets to shoot at and higher potential for damage and higher possibility of getting the ace-tanker than in standard randoms. On the other hand TD might be worse in grand battles, because either your team wins and it is hard to chase the damage, or you teams loses, you get a lot of damage, but low xp as you don’t win the game.
So… assuming for scouts and spg you might want to increase your chances of ending up in grand battles, you need toplay Tier VIII or X. You also might want to play in busy times and maybe some servers have better chances to get you int grand battles? You also might want to disable encounter modes… I am not sure.
Also… wotreplay might be a good source to find out what the xp-value needed is for each tank… But I think it is more difficult than it seems at first.
One more point: maybe you should pick a tank which makes best use of improved equipment. IMO spg profits the most from it. For example a rammer gives you nearly full dpm-gain in an spg, while in other tanks you quite often don’t feel the shorter reload time that much – with arty you are very often just waiting for the reload, ready to shoot…
All things considered I would probably go for tier VIII spg with full improved equipment (because spg profits the most from it IMO), playing after midnight and trying to get into grand battles as often as possible. Also you might play in a platoon and ask your friends to shoot the tanks stunned by you first or coordinate your play in some way.
Any comments on this? Maybe tier X spg is better because chances for grand battles are higher?
Very nice thoughts you have. Been thinking of how to get 3 aces myself since my plan is to finish just road and then skiping the 3 others with the 9 orders I will have. But have run into some problem with the Union 13 mission.
However I am thinking of the scout route too but for a different reason I think than yours. I am also checking wotreplays to find a tank with a low value Ace tanker and focusing on tier 8. Plan is to get into T9 and T10 games and if you can to most of yours dmg on higher tier tanks you will get alot more xp. I find your theory on midnight "reset" intressting. I must try that one once I get past the Union 13 mission.
Yes - Union 13 is something I will probably never get... Isn't this one getting easier with 1.6? I have 7 orders from Excalubur/Chimera (and face the same problems you describe with bobject and 10K combinded with top-gun)... I hope to get some orders with 3 aces so I can skip all the hard ones...
Well yes they är changing that mission but only the secondary part so it wont help me.
You know that you can finish the last missions using 3 orders? So if you can get the last order for the Chimera you only have to finish one of the last missions for the 279 with honors to get the tank.
Yes... I got 7 orders so far (still hoping for the last one from the chimera) and spent 3 on the block-missions already (so for block15). So i got 4 orders left. I need 2-3 more orders and a bit of luck to have finished all missions... still figuring out where to get the last missions or which are the easiest. Alliance 13 would be nice and then there is only one last alliance mission (3000k avg in 10 games)- just researched the s.conq and hope to do that mission with this the s.conq. After that... I should be pretty close... Apart from that, getting all the 15th missions also gives a nice bunch of bonds, so I would probably spend 3 single orders on "difficult" missions and try the 15th by myself, instead of spending 3 on the 15th mission. For "block" missions I decided to spend the 3 because there are too many annoying missions... Whatever... Feels like being pretty close to the object :)
One more thought... I am currently grinding through the STB-1/Type61... IIRC I did read something like, that in the first few battles in an fresh tank it is guaranteed that you are top-tier... I am not sure if this is still the case. In my observations the last days it seems like it is true - could still be luck. But if it is, you could try to get the mastery-batch easier this way? If you have not-researched tanks which you upgrade with free xp to get all the modules and you will be top tier the next few games... maybe... The tank could be played on the testserver before to get used to it... Just an idea... still more... a theory...
Never heard about that before and have thought about when going for a new tank but I as you a new theory. Still working on the Union 13, have alot of theories on that one too but so far none is working, guess I just need some luck.
Update: it is definitely no longer true, that the first few battles in a new tank are automatically top-tier.
I have one more question... As I am not a native speaker I might be misinterpreting this: " Mastery Badge: Ace Tanker - Earn more experience in a single battle than the average highest experience of 99% of all players in the same tank within the last seven days. "
So... I am confused with the "average highest"... so do I take the maximum XP game of each single player in the last 7 days, and do I have to be in the top 1% of these? Or do I take the average XP of each player in the last 7 days? Both does not make sense to me...
So... just checked the german translation, equally confusing...
So what I guess what is ment:
- for each player, who played the tank in the last seven days, I pick the highest XP value he got.
- I take the top 1% players
- I average the maximum XP values of the top 1% players
- I need to get more than than average maximum in a single battle
Correct?
If this is true, a tank, which is played by lots of players but not very often (battles per player) is best to master... So every tank, that is typically grinded (played a lot in a short period of time) is hard to master.
The more I think about it, the less plausible it gets... from an IT-point-of-view.
Wargaming would have to collect very specific data for this: for each player, for each tank, for each day they would have to save the data, update maximum values and re-calculate the necessary values very often. This is not impossible, but unnecessarily complicated. I am pretty sure they make up some smarted way (like the calculation of the gunmark as an weighted average over time, where they need to store one value only... and their explanation of the calculation is just bluntly wrong...)... Anyway... I guess you get my point...
I dont know, always thought it was as you say top 1% past seven days. But if its the avg of the top 1% no wunder its so hard to get ace on some tanks and easy on some.
Just finished Alliance 4 (with the Badger)... Now... if I mange to get Alliance 15 with honours, I can "buy" the Object279f with my orders... Huuuhhhh..... The question about which UK/US tank is easiest to master becomes quite important now...
Nice. Was thinking of using the bulldog for that. Not many that´s playing that and what I could find when I checked it only took around 1200 base xp to get Ace with that. Should be pretty easy if u get a good game in a T10 game.
Very best of luck to you :)
Did it yesterday with tier 8 uk arty... but only 1st class - getting ace-tankers was really hard... ane even 1st class was not easy... I think I will not continue trying to ace the 15th in the near future...