How To Get Better At War Thunder

This has been one of the most heavily requested videos yet. Apparently, many of you guys are relatively new to War Thunder, and since Gaijin doesn't do an amazing job of explaining how to do well, I've had a lot of requests to make a sort of tutorial. While I don't think I'm an amazing player, I do have a few tips that will hopefully help.

Check the channel "About" section for the link to the creator of my profile picture.

Songs used (in order from first to last):
Subnautica - Into the Unknown
Halo 3: ODST - Rain (Deference for Darkness)

Sound mods:
Epic Thunder (Pre-release)

Reddit: /u/spookston
Discord: See my Patreon page.

#warthunder​​​​​​​​​​​​ #tanks​​​​​​​​​​​​ #tankhistory

[cabbageashthest]

My advice: always underestimate your teammates and always overestimate your enemies

[FLERS]

Best Advice i can give is: find people to play WT with because random teammates will 98% of the time let you down, don't rush high tier tanks, don't play like a tungsten statue if you want to have fun, and always make sure to have enough SL in reserve just in case you get a new tank.

[cyberdroid]

One important thing I learnt about War Thunder is, "Fun is a finite resource in this game".
Everytime you are winning, someone is loosing (and vice versa). Everytime you do your victory dance, someone is malding and coping hard. Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and keep on moving, and if the game gets too tough, take your well deserved break.

Do not let the game consume you friends, know your limits.

[DarkButz]

The part about not using WT content creators as reference is really important. I've seen dozens of videos titles "let's play X, the absolutely worst vehicle I ever played" and then they get 13 kills in a single match with it. This really, REALLY skews your view on your own skills.

[WTCheatShaming]

Best advice I can give: Don’t play to grind. People have been complaining about economy recently and we can all agree it’s bad. But your overall goal shouldn’t be just get to top tier. Find a tank/aircraft in a tree to focus towards or even if you find a vehicle before that one that you enjoy, play it for a time, or use it as a fallback vehicle to play and enjoy.
I did this for the T-34 1942 a few years ago and have well over 3 k kills with it just because it’s entertaining and fun. I’m doing it more recently with the object 906 because it’s an overall fun tank and lineup to play.
I’m done with 3 ground trees and still enjoy 9.3 and lower. Top tier and cool modern mbts might look cool but they are not enjoyable to play (imo) especially with helis ruining the fun.

[SilentButDudley]

First way to get better is to learn weak points on tanks and angling.

Second is to learn play styles of tanks, get used to ranges, and using Rangefinder/Spotting

Third is positioning. Getting to a good positioning or power spots is key to succeeding often, only after the first two skills.

[Vilamus]

Don't be afraid to do Arcade Air/Ground/Naval.

Yeah, Realistic is super cool but also requires a lot more brainspace than Arcade.
Whatever mode you play, have fun.

[nanochad]

"don't cap points, just uncap enemy ones"

me who needs the rewards: "no i don't think i will"

[Kottery]

On the bit about don't compare yourself to Youtubers, this is why I love to watch OrangeFan's "First Ten" series. He shows the first ten battles in a tank no matter how bad the battle was. Gives a far more realistic view of how things pan out initially.

[orcashamudeluxeu]

Here's a tip from me, have fun. Not even joking if you just do not stick to the meta, you can have fun. The Churchill with 50 smokes and 10 shells, playing the strv m/39 at 6.3 to get god mode(20, 000 sl). Note be respectful when having fun so your poor teammates don't get ligma.
Guess this got the God Mode community assembling, cool!

[ashleyhamman]

On the point about avoiding frustration: Even if you are having a pretty good series of rounds, stop at the "I don't think I'll be able to top that today." when those happen. Everything will pale in comparison, and the morale boost may make you throw caution to the wind in future matches.

[doktorsteve]

RN i have +450 hours of playing and there were surprisingly 2 tipps for me .The only thing i can say to new players: Everything comes with experience . The more time you play the better you get .Also don´t rush for the modern tanks You will only loose fun while playing .Try to set urself smaller goals like firts reaching lvl 10 then getting ur firts rank3 vehicle and most important have fun

[mewantkrinkov]

Step one: at no point should you use French or Italian tanks, unless you have a padded cell to have mental break downs in

Step two: feeling down? Not enough lions? Go back to RB low Tier, trust me it’s fun.

Step three: go the unexpected rout, try not to take main streets and stick to buildings when you thing enemy’s are nearby.

Step four: Remember it’s a game about tanks.

[JoviaI]

There's a reason Spookston has a high K/D but bad stats everywhere else. I wouldn't play like him if I were you. My advice, play in a way that will give your team the greatest chance of winning. Try to cap points when possible, but know when to avoid the caps. Play as a counter-flanker on maps where you can have your team slaughtered by just one guy flanking. Defend your teammates but never trust them to defend you. Use CAS, not to revenge bomb, but to target the people doing the best on the enemy team or the people who are defending/holding/capping points. In ground battles K/D is not the stat that shows how good you are, it's your win rate and average position on the leaderboard. And last but definitely not least, PLAY LINEUPS. It means, that you shouldn't play a tank if it's the only tank you have at that BR. Find a lineup of tanks all at the same BR and play that instead. If it means you're not playing that cool new tank you just unlocked, so be it. You can play it later when you have more vehicles at that BR.

[rayproductionsbackupchanne]

3000+ hours into the game and yeah. i still learn new and interesting techniques to this day. it's always important to try and improve yourself. but one of the big tips i can give is. play to have fun. not play to win. with the last winter event. i had to push myself trough frustration so often to get my tasks done that it sucked the fun out of the game. even though i didn't play much differently than i would without the event.

[DeadlyHirsch]

one thing i have learned in my 700+ hours of WT is to plan your next actions in battle carefuly, for example: don‘t rush towards the enemy spawn asap, look for spots from where you can ambush an unexpecting enemy and wait for your team to get there.

[cornyking]

Another tip is to find people to play with as this WILL improve your experience. Luckily for me I had 3 other friends who essentially started playing at the same time as me. Now I’m sitting at 1.7k hours and still enjoying this game from day to day and I think that my enjoyment is caused by being accompanied by them.

[ES]

Finally, I have long anticipated this video… my prayers have been answered

[laxanopoiosOG]

Ive been playing war thunder for a while (well its kind of a when i feel like taking it up again which could take a lot of time) despite that I'm not very good at the game, I've been watching tutorials and YouTubers to try to learn, but I just couldn't find much helpful advice. Until I saw this video, where I got the true piece of information I needed. To never play when frustrated for any reason. I found out that most times I play im frustrated about something most of the time, whether it's a previous match or something else. This video definitely opened my mind to the real reason of why I struggle in the game sometimes. Thank you for making this.

[squillz]

I've been playing War Thunder for nearly eight years now. I spent the first 6 years or so as a free-to-play account. I didn't get a premium account, golden eagles or premium Vehicles until just over two years ago.

I agree with everything spookston put here. Some of the things here were good reminders for me, and others were new things. The best advice I could give is to not take it too seriously. At the end of the day, it is just a video game. If you play every second to have fun, sometimes it even makes dying pretty funny. Thanks for the video Spookston!