The Tiger and Panther barely deflect shots. Neither does the KT.
They deflect well everything that is not their hardcounters, that is how its supposed to work.
Added with gun splash nerfs for heavy tanks.
Can't see how that is a bad thing, heavy tanks were OP for years and present in almost every singular game
across all skill levels up until the nerfs.
But with the current community patchers, I don't see this chaning anytime soon.
And it won't, because heavy tanks do NOT underperform in any way - sure, they do compared to old selves, but their old selves were again, overpowered.
They were responsible for unwarranted vet nerfs (Panther, JPIV) in addition to penetration buffs for Allied tank destroyers. To add insult to injury Elefant and JT were also nerfed. Lategame has totally shifted to the Allies (against the game design).
Most durable vehicles of their own class with overpowering vet bonuses.
You'd have to be blind to not see them getting attention at one point or another and allied AT is supposed to stand on its own against all axis armor, that includes 320 and 375 armor stock units, was it any other way, we would have imbalance.
And late game was leveled, just like early game was with dozens of allied nerfs and axis buffs.
Sorry, but "krupp steel" argument is long dead, it was toppled over by the need for balanced gameplay across all game stages.