When to use Improved Ventilation (ie. Vents) and 3% ration

Often, there is less equipment slots then the number of potentially useful equipment. And one has to choose two from Vents, Optics, Vert Stab, and GLD. (One slot is permanently reserved for Rammer, whenever available.)

Ultimately, what suits you the best depends on your personal playstyle. Now that equipments can be replaced without cost, you can even switch equipments as your progress in the game, gaining more experience and adopting different tactics. In this article, I share the general reasons if I ever use Vents over other equipments. The same reasoning for Vents applies to 3% ration (usually in place of 3% gasoline). I am also sharing some specific examples where my decision to choose one over another was a difficult one.

Let me know what you think. I can collect ideas in the comments in an edit.

TL;DR - see Summary below

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First, there are 4 major benefits of Vents. In Update 3.4, they are made ever clearer.

• Reload time improvement

• Gun handling improvement

• View range improvement

• Mobility improvement

In short, Vents improves everything. However, the improvements come with a catch: every improvement is minute -- that is, the improvement can be so small that it does not improve your battle situation. When is the additional 5% Crew Training not negligible? This article intends to explore exactly when the minute improvements can be of great use.

Reload Time

The difference Vents can make on reload time ranges from less than 0.1s to over 0.2s. Usually, the longer the base reload, the bigger the difference. As one can see, the improvement is minuscule.

Hoewver, on fast reload, high DPM guns such as the top guns of

• Crusader, Centurion Mk 1, AT 15, Caernavon, Panther M10, E25 as well as Ru 251 and possibly Obj 140/T-62A

where with you frequently fire two shots for each opportunity and you frequently seek opportunities to rain shots on your opponents non-stop. The 0.1s improvement on reload time from Vents can often mean whether you have the time to land a second shot or not. In situations where you trade DPM against an opponent in the open, the 0.1s can make the difference of whether you sneak in an extra shot before your opponent gets to fire his meaty high alpha gun. And that could be the difference between victory and defeat.

The other extreme is where your gun has an extremely long reload, such as

• KV-2, IS-3d, etc

You would obviously be hiding behind hard cover during the reload and there would have been many opportunities to shoot you started the reload, yet the reload timer is still slowly ticking. The improvement on reload, now more significant in absolute time, means you can come out and shoot at enemies earlier. Perhaps, Vents can be beneficial that way.

In contrast, if your tank's reload time is average, say around 7-9s. The 0.2s reload improvement makes little difference because if your wait has been 7s already, your target is effectively a new one; so the same enemy who you can shoot at now is likely still there 0.2s later.

Gun handling improvement

Vents improves aim time as well as gun dispersion while stationary and on the move.

Take the silly example of MS-1 in Tier 1. It's 45mm gun has a big balloon because as with all the Tier 1/2 guns it is inaccurate. However, its gun dispersion on the move at slow speed is actually superb. The addition of Vents means that the time you spend aiming after popping over a ridgeline is minimal because a) vent helps aim time; b) vent helps accuracy. In combined effect, with Vents you can comfortably let go of your shot after less than 1s of aiming while the balloon is only half shrunk.

So, on guns with already good firing on the moving characteristics, Vents can make a difference by enabling you to fire extra chancy snap shots. Some examples are

• Caernarvon, Cent 1, AT-15, Tortoise, Conqueror, Cent 7, FV 4202, FV 251b.... (everything British) STA-1, Type 61, Obj 140.

However, also keep in mind that in any case, Vert Stab helps much much more than Vents when it comes to gun handling. So if gun handling is what you want to improve, Vert Stab supercedes Vents whenever available. As a result, the above list of examples now become:

• AT-15, Tortoise

With the rest, you would really be considering whether you can give up Optics for Vents, which we will discuss later.

GLD is also related to aim and accuracy. But it is not related to "gun handling" as people usually speak of.

You take the time to fully aim when your gun's aim sucks, ie. lacks gun handling capability. When your gun already handles poorly, the minute improvements from Vents does not change the fact that you still have to fully aim. And the minor deduction in aim time does not appreciably change/enhance your gameplay. As a result, in my opinion, aim time would not be the reason you use Vents and GLD supercedes vents in most big guns. Notable examples where GLD is decisively better include:

• T28, ISU 152

With T28 especailly, you are likely to be at medium to short range to your enemy and you are likely to catch brief windows of opportunities such as a fast tank running through an open field to get into the next cover. That is unlike ISU 152, which has no chance of catching a shot whatsoever. Earlier we mentioned snapshot = Vents is of help. But not here, the accuracy of T28's 120mm is never good enough for you to shoot before fully aimed. So GLD will help you aim fully before your enemy disappears into cover while shooting without fully aim with Vents will still result in a miss.

This is also why I use GLD over Vents on IS-6.

View range improvement

Vents improves view range by about 2-5 meters, which is really insignificant. This is where Blitz bifurcates from PC WoT. Here it is more productive to think of when Optics may be set aside to make place for Vents.

Optics helps view range. View range means spotting. We can separate spotting into two categories: active spotting & passive spotting.

Active spotting means you actively move to forward positions, possibly poke over your cover, in order to gain vision control for your team. A key instance of active spotting is early spotting, which is a very specific map-dependent maneuver at the beginning of the game that either reveals enemy lemming train in transition or discern the net flow of enemy tanks from one part of the map to another.

For example, in Yamato Harbour, the hill in C/D-5 is allows any fast tanks to spot enemies in transition to various positions in the field. Not spotting any one despite repeated poking? Well, your enemy went town! Another example, which is perhaps my own biggest 'secret', is the bush in C-3 in front of the Church in Winter Malinovka from Northern Spawn. (Northern Spawn only. The map is asymmetrical.) By going there early game in tier 7 or above, you either spot their heavies and TDs in transit for easy sniping by your team or understand whether the enemy team has opted for lake instead of town. (In tier 5-6, the difference between your view range and enemy camo rating may be too small for this maneuver to work. What about Tier 1-4? Well your teammates tend to require adult supervision to do stuffs. So there is no such thing as concerted movements of your team or enemy team.)

In any early spotting example, you need the mobility to relocate shortly after the beginning period of the game because most, if not all, early spotting locations lack proper cover and are too tenuous to hold. What happens if your tank has good view range but insufficient mobility? Well, that means in some maps, early spotting is off-limit! This is especially true if your tank is made of either tin foil or just paper. Also when you think about it, your tank may not even make to the forward positions early enough to do any early spotting. Examples of such tanks include:

• Cent 1, Cent 7/1, FV 4202, Caernarvon (everything British again), STA-1, Type 61, Kuro.

Lack of mobility and armor not only means you can't do early spotting effectively, it also means you can't relocate rapidly in order to take forward positions briefly for active spotting any time later in the game. So spotting and vision control mainly means passive spotting for such tanks. There aren't that many of them. Russian heavies for example are simply blind and need to rely on teammates for vision whether equipped with optics or not. Neither active nor passive spotting apply for Russian heavies. Bino would help but, in my experience, bino is too rarely triggered in absence of non-blind teammates to be justified.

Personally, when a tank can take risky forward position, ie. active spotting = yes, Optics is a must. And if the choice is between Vents and Optics. Optics always supersedes. A high profile example is the Obj 140. When active spotting is out of option, Vents becomes a viable contender, such as in STA-1 and the pre-buffed FV 4202.

Personally again, even for passive spotting tanks, I still go with Optics instead of Vents. Even my Caernarvon has Optics over Vents. I have died before in situations where Vents would've helped me prevail over my enemy but Optics allows me to do early spotting on enemy heavies (but not meds or TDs) in certain situations, which is more impactful for my playstyle. A (secret) example is in dunes of Oasis Palm, South Spawn, E4 near church.

Mobility improvement

Technically, Vents improves mobility as well because Crew Training Level affects the ground resistance of your tank, which in turn directly impacts your tank's acceleration and turning. But I feel 5% Training Level from Vent is rarely significant enough to be put on equal footing as reload, gun handling, and view range. So I wouldn't bother myself with any mobility consideration if I were you.

3% food vs 3% gasoline

Where Vents help, the 3% food also helps. First we need to clarify that, in the case of 3% food, you would be replacing 3% gasoline. If you are not tight on silver, you should always equip 10% engine and 10% ration. Otherwise, you wouldn't be as well equipped as your opponents. For the remaining one slot, you would be choosing among 3% food, 3% gasoline and maybe protective-kit. If you are tight for silver, I would still try to equp either 10% engine or 10% ration but give up on equipping the last and perhaps the second slot completely. That's why here we are comparing between 3% food and 3% gasoline.

The enhancement on ground resistances from 3% additional Training Level is always less significant than the effect of 3% additional engine power. The improvement of 5% Crew Training Level on view range is already minor. The improvement of 3% from food is simply negligible. So between 3% food and 3% gasoline, you are trading reload or gun handling with mobility. Some examples where 3% food can be more desirable are:

• Caernarvon, Cent 1, M46 Patton, Ru 251

With Caernarvon, my personal choice is 3% gasoline. Caernarvon and Cent 1 are cases where additional engine power does not make as much of a difference as other tanks due to the fact that their mobility mainly comes from low ground resistance. Still, I like how 3% gasoline can help my Caernarvon reach 34km/h top speed 1-2s faster in most situations and I do not need the additional gun handling. The reload would be helpful though. But I feel the biggest cut I took on reload was giving up Vents and giving up 3% food doesn't make much of a difference.

On M46 Patton, I chose 3% food because its 105mm gun really needs help with accuracy and aim time. It misses just frustratingly too often. And Patton is already really agile due to low ground resistance. Its engine power is good but ground resistance is more important here. So in my opinion, M46 Patton is also a case where 3% gasoline does not help as much as on other tanks.

Other (really) minor improvements

• Turret traverse

• Camo rating

The improvements on turret traverse or camo rating from 5% or 3% Crew Training Level is really negligible in any case.

Summary

Examples of tanks where Vents may be used over Vert Stab for the purpose of gun handling

• None

Examples of tanks where GLD supercedes Vents for the purpose of gun handling

• KV-2, T28 and maybe the ISs

Note: you may be using Vents concurrently in KV-2 and IS. But IS-3, IS-6 and co. would definitely dedicate one slot to Vert Stab. In T28, if you find yourself able to fire while remaining hidden with camo net, but unable without, once every match or more, then camo net supercedes Vents.

Examples of tanks where Vents may be used over Optics because active spotting is not as imporant

• Caernarvon, STA-1, Type 61, FV 4202

Examples of tanks where Vents may be used over Optics because the tank is blind either way and spotting, active or passive, is irrelevant

• Russian heavies

Examples of tanks where 3% food should be given priority over 3% gasoline because the primary source of tank agility comes from low ground resistance (or because it is simply too slow to matter)

• M46 Patton, Caernarvon, Ru 251, AT 15, Tortoise

A typical equipment loadout for medium tanks at tier 7 or above:

• Rammer, Vert Stab, Optics

A typical equipment loadout for heavy tanks with good gun handling at tier 7 or above:

• Rammer, Vert Stab, Vents

A typical equipment loadout for heavy tanks with bad gun handling at tier 7 or above:

• Rammer, Vert Stab, GLD

Note: for tanks such as Cent 1, Caernarvon and Panther M10, it can be argued that their gun dispersion on-the-move is already minimal and as a result, the aim improvement from Vents along with its other benefits is more important than the dispersion on-the-move improvement from Vert Stab. Personally, I like to make what is good even better - I want their snap shot ability not to be just good, but lethal. This is more a matter of style.

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Glossary

• Bino - Binocular

• Camo - Camoflouge

• GLD - Enhanced Gun Laying Drive

• Optics - Coated Optics

• Rammer - Gun Rammer

• Vents - Improved Ventilation

• Vert Stab - Vertical Stabilizer