Do people really think arty is OP, or do you think it is just an emotional reaction?
For tiers 6-10:
12.2% of vehicles average over 1 ****/game, only 3.8% amongst arty.
41% of vehicles have over 50 percent winrates, only 38% amongst arty.
Arty represent 13% of the tanks in these tiers, but only 5%(1) of the top 20 for dmg/**** is arty, yet 40%(8) of the top 20 for team damage dealt are arty.
There is no arty that has better effective accuracy than any non-arty - which can't possibly surprise you.
Only 3 arty have accuracy values over 40%, and none hit 43%. Even the FV304 only hits 42% of its shots. Which means the vast majority of damaging hits taken from arty are from splash.
Now, I'm no great player by any means, but I am better than more than 85% (>1400 global wn8 and 2100 recent) of active players, I have a couple thousand games in arty and the CGC. So first off, lets be realistic about what a player's average experience is. When we talk about "good players" we're talking about the top few percent of players. They do not at all represent the experience or interests of the whole community of players.
That being said, I am always on here reading complaints about arty and how OP it is. I think the real issue is that it is frustrating to play against. People get hit by arty and say "WTF what a newb, he's across the map and he can nail me, theres' no counter play to this." etc etc. At the time I decided to write this there is a post on the front page about this exact thing. How game breaking and OP arty is.
Only there are counter plays to arty. Such things as...
-Not pretending that the existence of an arty makes entire swathes of the map unplayable, but rather that you can't sit still in certain areas of the map, while scouted.
Being conscious of where enemy arty probably is, and therefore where in your current location you should plant your tank when not firing so as to reduce the ease with which your tank can be hit.
Timing arty shots when they shoot in your area. Roughly know when an arty can probably shoot again.
Assessing whether you or your area looks like a tasty target zone to enemy arty. Are you bunched up and brawling around small hill where you are definitely all lit and barely moving?
And not to counter play arty, but to maybe counter your frustrations with arty - play more arty yourself and realize how 90% of the time that you get a meaty direct impact hit it is because that person allowed you to do it by staying in a spot where they are lit, barely or not moving, for too long.
And a final note that I imagine most commenters no this post will ignore - none of the [very elementary] precautions above will make you immune to arty. Nothing is going to make you immune to arty. But you play to reduce the chance you can receive a hit, reduce the likelihood any hit on you will be a good one. Play to reduce your attractiveness to arty as best you can while still doing what you want to. You do these things and you will get hit less by arty.
You are always going to get hit by arty. You are always going to get splashed by arty. But the reality is that either this happens relatively infrequently, and you are just more frustrated about it because you feel like it is out of your control (though its not actually that much more out of your control than any other type of tank shooting you), or it does happen a lot, in which case you are just not thinking about arty while you play - which you should be.
Arty is demonstrably not overpowered. I listed a couple random stats (literally just the first few I looked at, because I knew arty would be the worst in most or all categories) but feel free to look more up yourself.
If you feel like arty is wrecking you all the time, either its your skewed perspective (maybe actually record hits/games/deaths and see how much less of an impact it is than you think) or it really is and you're just not playing correctly.
EDIT: Most people saying its not OP just not fun/hinders gameplay.
Without arty wouldn't you think a lot of specific positions like the ends of the 1 line on Fisherman's Bay would be OP for TD's to just sit at and ruin that whole area of the map?
In the absence of arty, some other tank class (probably TD's) would just be pointed at in the exact same way.
In fact this already happened. FTR released those internal emails from back by the Arty nerf where devs said 'if we nerf arty, they'll complain about TD's' and we did, and then they nerfed TD's, and now everyone is back to saying Arty is what ruins the game.
Your least favorite aspect of the game is always going to be bitched about. If they change arty, something else will take its place for the community. At least arty isn't actually OP.
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