[Winter Balance Update] Vehicle armor changes

Hello guys,

My question is regarding the following mentioned in the balance update beta patch notes:

SU 85
"With the reduction of armour on certain Axis tanks, along with the SU85 receiving improved penetration from previous patches, the unit no longer needs high veterancy bonuses for penetration."

• Veterancy 3 Penetration from -30% to -20%
  

M36 Jackson
"With the reduction on armour of certain Axis tanks, along with the M36 receiving improved penetration from previous patches, the unit no longer needs high veterancy bonuses for penetration."

• Veterancy 2 penetration bonus from +30% to +20%
  

I have seen a trend of reducing the armor on allied vehicles making the german medium tanks a bit more potent cases, most of them are aimed at reducing the rear armor in order to promote more active flanking in games.

In the current patch the only armor changes that are happening are;
Reducing the Brumbar's armor from 260 to 250, Reducing the Churchill's rear armor from 180 to 150 and the ISU-152's rear armor from 150 to 110.

But in the previous patch, the only 3 armor changes happened which were the reduction of the Jackson M36's from 130 to 110, IS-2 Armor from 375 to 340, and also the increase of the Brumbar's armor from 240 to 260.

Is the armor reduction on german tanks something that is still planned for later iterations of this patch preview or is the penetration reduction otherwise justified, since the only armor change in the last 2 patches on the axis side is an increase of 20 and then a reduction of 10 armor from the front of the Brumbar.

The patchnotes are worded a bit poorly. They're supposed to say:

Because of the gradual reduction of armor of Axis tanks over previous patches

Many Axis tanks have had an armor reduction over the past years, the most recent examples being the Brummbar, the Panther and the Jagdtiger. Allied TDs (SU-85 and Jackson) were given really high penetration values to deal with the original high armor values, but then as Axis armor was toned down they never got their penetration lowered accordingly, until now.

that's cause they forgot those 2 heavy tanks

Soviet IS-2 rear armor reduced from 205 to 140
Wehrmacht Tiger & Tiger Ace rear armored reduced from 180 to 140
Wehrmacht Elefant rear armor reduced from 150 to 110
OKW Jagdtiger rear armor reduced from 150 to 110
OKW King Tiger rear armor reduced from 225 to 150
British Comet Tank rear armor reduced from 180 to 130

(as u see Churchill and ISU was missing , and kv1 is still missing)

Jagdtiger
Frontal armor from 525 to 450

Standardized Panzer IV rear armor across variants (90)

Panzer V Panther

Veterancy 10% armor bonus removed (mirror the -10% on pen)
Front armour reduced to 260

and if u are asking why they are nerfing pen it's simple, they reduced the armor of heavy tanks and panthers so they don't need it

u really could have just seen the previous page on the channel log and found your answer

really that change is to make the panther at least have 5% chance of deflecting 1 TD shoot (as before a vet 3 su 85 or jackson had 100% chance to pen even at max range, they literally had 286 pen vs 286 armor, so 100% now it's 264 pen vs 286 armor which is around 92% if im not wrong at max range)

Thanks for the answers

@Stuglife when something like this is mentioned I'd assume it is at least something that happened in the last year. So looking at the previous page still would not have given me the explanation I needed.

Also, The nerfs of the armor I believe did not go without reason. Won't we end up in a similar situation where we have to reduce the armor further (and then maybe in the future reduce the pen even more) and end up going in circles.

Thanks for the answers

@Stuglife when something like this is mentioned I'd assume it is at least something that happened in the last year. So looking at the previous page still would not have given me the explanation I needed.

Also, The nerfs of the armor I believe did not go without reason. Won't we end up in a similar situation where we have to reduce the armor further (and then maybe in the future reduce the pen even more) and end up going in circles.

no because they buffed pen the same patch they nerfed armor, and now they realized it was a bit too heavy of a nerf and a bit unbalanced having a TD penning a semi heavy tank 100% at all ranges, even then, as u see the above calc, the difference is minimal

Problem comes from the fact that unit are balance mostly at vet 0 and veterancy overhaul has been long overdue.

So some unit that have their base stat buffed become rather silly once vetted.

Thanks for the answers

@Stuglife when something like this is mentioned I'd assume it is at least something that happened in the last year. So looking at the previous page still would not have given me the explanation I needed.

Also, The nerfs of the armor I believe did not go without reason. Won't we end up in a similar situation where we have to reduce the armor further (and then maybe in the future reduce the pen even more) and end up going in circles.

Some context of the last 5 yrs:
A SU-85 went from pen values of 200.0/190.0/180.0 to 240/230/220 in a similar time frame.
A Jackson went from pen values of 240.0/220.0/200.0, 480hp to 260/240/220 and +160hp.
I don't have data for firefly pen values in 2015. Live is 260/240/210 but hits for 200dmg

The real crux of the problem imho was Panther 320 armor, which on paper presented a formidable obstacle to deal with for AT guns and even TDs. After 320->260 armor in exchange for 160hp more and TD pen going up, Panthers almost became target practice outside of heavy urban or 1v1 armor duels. Combined with the very large pen increases listed above, the survivability rework led to almost every TD shot penning and bounces being very rare.

TDs have kept the same pen next patch, and a minor nerf to the veterancy pen increase has not affected the base matchup at all. Vet II vs Vet II, TDs still have higher pen gain than the vet II panther armor increase.