Review [Issue 73] Flexoo's Garage Analysis (Part I)

[Flexoo 6,980]

 

 
Tactic, teamwork and maybe even bit of the well-known luck are all the essentials needed on the path to success. However, the keystone to build around is your garage. Having a good garage is an absolute must for everyone who strives to be a strong tanker. As someone who experienced this and that, let me present you my garage advancement while I bring back on stage this Newspaper classic.

 

 

 

My Humble Beginnings
 
I cranked up my engines around the beginning of 2014, maybe sooner, maybe later. I didn't devote many hours to gameplay, nor I considered TO to be the most interesting game at that time, so my memory is very scrappy. Anyway, I assume no one is interested in prehistorical ages when Iranian deserts were inhabited by M0 Mammoths with Isidas. Long story short, I would characterize first days of my newly registered account as a time of purchasing most M0 equipment that I already acquired experience with while occasionally partaking in heated battles on another account. It was a time of experimenting with various turrets and hulls and figuring my playing style. It took me couple of weeks or months to actually reach the M1 ranks, but I slowly pushed through to my first M1.
 
M1s
 
As I mentioned, I wasn't very active at the start of my career and it did not change even when I reached ranks that unlocked M1s. I usually just loaded the game, claimed daily gifts, played couple of battles and then closed the game. That was the routine I followed. This way I reached Warrant Officer 1 and transformed my earnings to very first M1. My first major investment was nothing else than Shaft M1, a turret I deemed to be the strongest around these ranks.
 

 

 

pre-update 8.5/10,  post-update 7/10

 

I confess. I was quite a big camper and Shaft M1 was absolutely perfect for it. There was nothing easier than finding a cozy place and OHKO almost everything that dared to appear in front of me. My D/L ratio was almost always higher than average of the team and those poorly armored Wasps and Hornets kept on coming into my view like bees to the honey jar. Though, with introduction of the Shaft laser scope update, I slowly started to lose interest because I felt cheated that sniper mode aiming is now visible. Despite the fact that not much has changed as most of the lower ranked players were still an easy prey, it was not the same Shaft I felt in love so much and so I started looking for replacement.
 
Around the same time as Shaft, I also bought Titan M1.

 

                                                                                                 9/10
 

I would describe Titan purchase as a huge step forward. Titan was a bulky golem with over 200 HP. It could easily eat many hits and its bulk went well together with Shaft. Potent enemies with power to one-shot me were absent at these ranks. This allowed me to stay alive longer, take any hit and at least damage if not absolutely dominate opposing tankers. Since I played mostly on medium and large maps, I soon noticed the only defect. The speed. Being at least moderately mobile was necessary for my newly-found passion for gold hunting. When siren went off I struggled and usually failed to get to drop zone at time. Although Titan wasn't the best hull for quick transport to Gold box spots, it still deserves an excellent mark.
 
Some time later, if I remember correctly on 70% off Smoky! sale, I got myself, duh, Smoky M1. I was an impatient nuba who did not think twice about his purchases, so shortly afterwards, I also purchased Dictator M1 at full price because I heard about its magical Gold hunting properties.

                    

                                         
                                                               10/10                                                           10/10
 
Smoky M1 brought groundbreaking changes to my ordinary gaming style. The damage was not as high as in case of other medium-long range turrets, but 3 to 5 consecutively fired shots provided enough harm for me to come victorious in most confrontations. It's necessary to mention the usefulness of impact force. With such quick firing rate, Smoky could easily knock off enemy aim of ever-present Railguns, Thunders, Shafts or other Smokys. The always annoying and unexpected critical shots made this turret even more powerful and so I stuck to it for several ranks.
 
As for Dictator, its assignment was to increase my Gold Box catch chances and it definitely fulfilled the difficult task. Difference in height was significant which contributed to many golden successes. Additionally, Dictator was offering great amount of protection while being just slightly slower than its medium hull brother Viking, and though its height has been a double-edqed sword making me an easier target, I persisted in using it exclusively up to Major. It's been equipment worthy of the price.
 
Days flew away and New Year was knocking on the door with full bag of sales and goodies. I took this opportunity to expand my garage and so I bought Firebird M1, Freeze M1 and Hornet M1.
 

          

                          
                                         4.5/10                                     3.5/10                                                   3/10
 
The truth is that close combat turrets along with light hull were a leap in the dark. Limited effective range guns as well as light armored tank like Hornet proved to be ineffective in my hands. I was unable to form a relationship with hit-and-run tactics and I had little experience with this equipment. I hardly ever used this equipment and practically wasted my crystals. My advise to all of you would be to measure twice and cut once!
 
Disappointed with my previous purchases I returned to Smoky M1 and Dictator M1. When Tanki Iron days appeared with 25% discount on all turrets I risked and pumped my Warrant Officer 5 rank up crystals into another untested equipment when I get myself Ricochet M1.  
 

                                                  
                                                                                              10/10
 
Despite the unfavorable discount, Ricochet turned out to be a really fun turret to play with. Its forte demonstrated in urban areas. Fort Knox, Island, Garder, Pass and many other maps with lot of walls or houses were perfect for the special bouncing ability. I shifted my focus mainly on small and medium maps and quickly befriended gameplay in Noise CTF, because Ricochet really excelled there. I often left my enemies in awe, making them wonder from where the shot arrived and how could anyone fire from such angle.

On the same Iron days sales as Ricochet, I bought one of very few paints in my garage – Safari. The only reason for this purchase was the commonness of Isida M2 around Lieutenant ranks. At that time, Safari paint offered 20% protection from Isida, and although it wasn't the best protection, it still managed to at least lessen Isida's deadly effects.
 

 

 

     

 

                                                                                               5/10
 
My last M1 purchase was Twins M1 that I got on May's 25% sales as a young Third Lieutenant. I went for Twins M1 because I was hungry for new equipment that would suit my main hull, Dictator M1.

                                            

             
                                                                                             11 10/10
 
This truly trolly turret banks on functioning conjunction of Spacebar and brick. Twins M1 was freakin' overpowered and easily tore through enemies. My Lieutenant rank enemies usually didn't possess any M2 hulls other than Hornet and their attacking spirit usually broke against my plasma shot barrage. I preferred Twins with medium Dictator or sometimes with heavy Titan. It's effective turret that was quite easy to handle.

 

 
Product Kits - The M2s and Early M3s

 

I finally climbed to the ranks that opened the doors to M2, but Twins M1 could easily challenge almost any early M2 equipment and so I decided to go a different road. My aim was to purchase a kit containing M3 equipment and so while others were spending their crystals on lower modifications, I somehow endured the lure of Tanki's 50% birthday sales and kept on saving.
 
After about one and half months, shiny glow materialized over my tank and I reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. I've got over 300k crystals that were loafing around in my wallet. Soon enough, Bulldozer kit reappeared and I immediately invested in it. I also bought Dictator M2, once again irrationally without any sale, because as predicted, that oversized elephant from the kit was too slow.
 

                     

                         
                                   9/10                                                8/10                                                     8.5/10

 

Bulldozer was my first experience with kits and consisted of Thunder M3, Mammoth M2 and Emerald. Thunder M3 inflicted massive damage per shot and I was able to finish most of the enemies in two max three shots. Thunder's special feature, splash damage, was also handy for damaging seemingly hidden enemies or multiple enemies at once. Thunder was very common turret around these ranks but only very few players had final M3 modification. Having M3 equipment two ranks before majority of players  gave me a huge advantage. I didn't appreciate the snail-like Mammoth, but it could take hits and proved to be a good choice in Deathmatches or small map battles. Last component, the Emerald paint with 42% Thunder protection and 26% Twins protection offered decent coverage. The minor 10% Railgun protection did not make much of a difference, but it could have been useful later in XP/BP format for Wasp.     
   
Bulldozer served me well, but as I progressed through ranks with it, the number of players with protection paints from Thunder (mainly Cedar and Rustle) increased rapidly. It was evident that Thunder will not be able to win me all the battles. That was the reason I bought Atlas kit on memorable day of x5 battle funds.
 

       

                         
                                                      8/10                                     9.5/10                                   6/10
 
With Atlas I gained some equipment variety on M2 level. Atlas was pretty cheap M2 kit. For around 190k crystals, I got a great turret, the better one of the two heavy hulls (imo) and a paint with protection against pesky Firebirds. It was  extremely hard to cover yourself from both Smoky and Thunder simultaneously because there weren't many Thunder/Smoky protections at that time. So when I was cornered with my Thunder, I quickly changed to Smoky which usually solved the problem. Although I already owned a heavy hull, Titan expressly dominated in statistics over Mammoth.  Loam was more of one-turret-protection paint, but anyone who experienced the gameplay those days, knows how valuable was Firebird protection. From economic point of view, Atlas kit was a bargain.
 
I nolifed so hard on x5 battle funds that I was able to collect over 140k crystals. That made me squint at another addition to my  kit collection. On Brigadier, lot of Viking kits with various turrets popped up, and there sure was one that caught my eye. And so, approximately two weeks before Tankers Day, Jackhammer enhanced the kit repertory of my garage.

 

 

           

 

 

                                      9.5/10                                           10/10                                         9/10
 
As the kit name implies, Hammer is one of the components. This powerful M3 turret was able to deal almost 270 damage points in one clip. That was enough to destroy any tank around Brigadier rank. Moreover, pellets' diffusion allowed me to hit multiple enemies, while impact force raised the tanks from asphalt. Additionally, it took only just two seconds to reload the clip and the range was astonishingly long. I simply couldn't wish for more.  Viking M3, the first M3 medium tank you could unlock, was absolute balance between protection and speed and I was very satisfied with it.  The kit was very versatile and worked well on every battlefield. Tiger reminded me of Savanna. It possessed perfect mid-long range protection from Hammer and Smoky and with some micro-upgrades it also covered your butt from Railgun.
 

10/10

 

When I built up my crystal count again I bought Isida M3 on 40% Tankers day sale. The most versatile of all, moving repair kit on tracks, Isida was simply great. You could fiercely attack while self-healing or just stand by and provide a healing support for teammates, without endangering yourself, without using many supplies and still gaining a ton of experience points. If you were looking for cheap turret that will feed your rank bar with loads of points or eventually crystals, Isida was perfect choice.

 

 

And this is were I will pause it now. I hope you enjoyed this rundown. In second part, I will cover the rest of my M3 garage purchases and Micro-upgrades.

Remember to share with us what will your next purchase be. Also if you enjoy garage analysis check the work of other reporters in the archive.

 

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

I love reading garage reviews and this one is now one of my favourite. I loved it, but may I ask where part 2 is?

[KILL_BILL_CHAUHAN 2,505]

Product Kits - The M2s and Early M3s

 

 

I did exactly same bought bulldozer kit and dictator in new year sale 2015. I was major at that time and required 10k for rankup to unlock bulldozer kit. I play whole day and ranked.

Edited March 3, 2018 by KILL_BILL_CHAUHAN

[lukey0 27,543]

Very nice! I love reading garage analysis'. 

[Commander_Rose 327]

Nice.

[Flexoo 6,980]

I love reading garage reviews and this one is now one of my favourite. I loved it, but may I ask where part 2 is?

I'll try to summarize it in upcoming months.

 

Product Kits - The M2s and Early M3s

 

 

I did exactly same bought bulldozer kit and dictator in new year sale 2015. I was major at that time and required 10k for rankup to unlock bulldozer kit. I play whole day and ranked.

It was pretty powerful kit, probably one of the best kits you could get early in mid ranks. RIP Bulldozer. You will be missed.

 

Very nice! I love reading garage analysis'.

Nice.

Ty, I knew some of you might enjoy this classic, so here it is :D

[GrandExecutioner 1,403]

Spoiler Alert- Check @Flexoo's garage to find out what's gonna be in Part 2 :ph34r:

[You.Have.to.die 519]

That was one of the best days any tanker could gain huge amount of crystals. Yes, 5x funds were very fun and I remember having to reload my game every second because of the lag and server connection. Nevertheless, we did make the required amount of views on the videos, so we deserved it. This will probably never happen again.

[Magenta 5,165]

None of the images seem to be loading, except the header...

[Flexoo 6,980]

None of the images seem to be loading, except the header...

They were taken from Wiki, but even in other article they were messed up by the Wiki maintenance. I'll restore them asap.

[Magenta 5,165]

They were taken from Wiki, but even in other article they were messed up by the Wiki maintenance. I'll restore them asap.

Yeah they are back already :)