Lert's guide to Premium Tanks. What are they? What do they do?

Lert: In which I explain what premium tanks are, and why they are so useful. This thread does not go in-depth on all premium tanks, their pros and cons, etc. Premium tanks keep getting added and removed, so any such thread would require constant updating to remain current.   So what are premium tanks?   In short, premium tanks are tanks that stand outside the tech tree.     The T26E4 and T34 in this example stand outside the tech tree. You can not research them from a previous tank, nor can you research the next tank from them.   But if I can't research a tank from them, why would I want one?   Premium tanks offer several additional benefits:   - Additional credit income - Additional XP income - Crew training - They come fully elited - Some can have very fun and unique playstyles     E-25. The cockroach. The StuG on crack. Hetzer's little ADHD brother. Fast, nimble, great DPM on a weak gun. Unfortunately no longer available.   Ok, so how do I get a premium tank?   There are several ways to acquire one. The simplest and most common method to get a premium tank is to buy it with gold; IE, RL money. However, every now and then Wargaming will give low-tier ones away, most commonly tier 2 premium tanks during christmas. Every now and then there are clanwars campaign in which you can earn reward tanks. And then there are the personal missions in which you can earn reward tanks.     StuG IV. An example of a tier 5 reward tank. This vehicle is rewarded for completing the first set of personal missions Wargaming introduced into the game.     Object 907. An example of a tier 10 reward tank. This one was earned through meeting the conditions in the third clan wars campaign.   Finally, every once in a while Wargaming will organize 'grind fests' where if you grind out a ludicrous amount of XP over a specific time frame, they will bestow upon you a mid- to high-tier premium tank. Watch the news for these events! They are rare, but they do happen.     SU-100Y, glorious tier 6 soviet box tenk. The hull is the box that the gun came in. Was the reward for one of Wargaming's grind fests a while back.   Wait, what? Nevermind the box tenk, what about that Object 907? A tier 10 premium tank? That sounds too good to be true! Buying your way right to the top of the foodchain!   Well, no. Not exactly. The only way to get your hands on tier 9 and 10 reward tanks is by earning them through in-game accomplishments, and these can hold pretty hefty requirements. For the personal missions ones you need to complete an enormous set of missions in some order, and for the clanwars reward tanks you have to be in the top 2500 or 3000 players after a long series of clanwars matches. These are not easy to get. Being successful in clan wars usually requires a whole stable of pre-existing tier 10 tanks to even be considered as a member of any clan that stands a chance of winning those tanks, and completing all the personal missions takes dedication, time and no small amount of luck.   Plus, there is this distinction to be made: Premium tanks go up to tier 8, reward tanks go up to tier 10.   There's a difference between premium and reward tanks?   Yes. High tier reward tanks such as the Object 907 don't get the credit earning bonus that regular premium tanks do. Low tier reward tanks like the StuG IV might still get a credit bonus though.   So I can only get them with my precious in-wallet dollarses?   Wellll, technically you buy them with dollars in the gift shop, but with gold in-game. You can get gold through various means, though the quickest and easiest is by buying them with money. Gold can also be earned through clanwars and tournaments; though be warned: the amount of gold you can win with those is relatively small, and the competition is very, very cutthroat. You have to be quite experienced and skilled and have the right tanks to be able to reliable earn gold through tournaments or clanwars.   So how do I recognize a premium tank?   In the garage, premium tanks will have their name displayed in gold:     In this example my FV215b is not premium, my PzKpfw. B2 740 (f) is, my Löwe is, my E 100 isn't and my Maus isn't.   In-game there is no way to tell a premium tank from a tech tree researchable, credit purchasable one except by knowing its name from memory.   But waitaminit, I don't see that PzKpfw. B2 740 (f) for purchase anywhere, not in-game, not in the gift shop! How do you get it?   I have it because it was purchasable at one point, but isn't anymore. It was removed from the in-game store and gift store, by Wargaming. They might do this for several reasons: the machine might not be at the appropriate power level, the machine might be superfluous or the machine might not fit within the matchmaking tier spread that Wargaming wants in the game.   Explain those?   Okay.   - The vehicle's powerlevel. Normally speaking a premium tank is supposed to be slightly more powerful than a stock vehicle of the same tier, but slightly less powerful than a fully upgraded vehicle of the same tier. The StuG IV is a good example: quicker and with a better gun than a stock StuG III at the same tier but slower and with a worse gun than a fully upgraded StuG III. However, some premium tanks fall outside this. For example, the Pz. Kpfw. B2 740 (f) is considered by many to be slightly overpowered; better than a tech tree vehicle at the same tier. For some very rare tanks like the Pz II J (which I don't have) there is no question about how overpowered they are. That's why the Pz II J is unavailable except through a bonus code on ebay, which go for exorbitant prices in excess of several hundred dollars.   - How does a vehicle become superfluous? The Pz. Kpfw. B2 740 (f) for example became superfluous when the french tech tree came out, with virtually the same tank as researchable, credit-purchaseable tank at the same tier. Why have two virtually identical tanks at the same tier in the game? Because ...   - Matchmaking spread. Some premium vehicles (though far from all!) have what is known as 'preferential matchmaking'. This limits what tiers the vehicle sees. In the Pz. Kpfw. B2 740 (f)'s example, its premium matchmaking means that it can only see up to tier 4, its own tier. Meaning that it's always top tier. This was introduced because it has a very weak gun. However, its regular french tech tree counterpart the B1, the virtually identical tank I mentioned in the previous point, can see up to tier 5. So the B2 (f) always being top tier but otherwise the same as the regular B1 means that the B2 is both superfluous and overpowered, because of its matchmaking spread. So Wargaming removed it from sale.   So, premium tanks are overpowered, then? They're pay-to-win?   No. Premium tanks are in general (with rare exceptions but those aren't available for purchase) worse than fully upgrade tanks of the same tier.     This is my T34. It is perhaps the finest example of what a premium tank is and should be.   - It is available for purchase with gold (12000 of it to be precise) and through the gift shop (For around $50). - Its credit making potential is incredible, 100k+ credits on a great match is not rare. - It trains crews - It has some very strong features (Very powerful gun for its tier, very strong frontal turret armor) - And some glaring weaknesses (Low DPM, very vulnerable hull, very sluggish mobility)   Its combination of strengths and weaknesses make it better than stock tier 8 heavy tanks but worse than fully upgraded ones, which all can be expected to perform better.   You've mentioned crew training a few times now. How does that work?   Normally if you put a crew that is trained for a tank in another, you need to retrain them or they will incur heavy penalties in both performance and XP income. When you retrain a crew either they will lose an amount of experience, or you lose an amount of gold.   However ...     Major Mattias Korn and his men are trained for the E 100. This is a regular tech tree vehicle. But as you can see, I've put them in my VK 72.01 (k) clanwars reward tank. Because clanwars reward tanks act the same premium tanks for terms of crew training, this means that while Mattias Korn and his men are not trained for the VK 72.01 (k) they can still drive it without incurring any performance penalties or XP income penalties. They will drive the premium tank as if they were trained for it.   This means that if I take my VK 72.01 (k) out and win a match, the crew will receive the 2x XP for the first victory of the day. I can then put them back in the E 100, and get another 2x XP for the first victory of the day. After that I can drop (most of) them in my Löwe and get another 2x. After which I can once again relocate (most of) them to my Pz. Kpfw. B2 740 (f) and get yet another 2x.   By doing this, Mattias Korn and his men will have gotten the 2x XP bonus for the first win of the day four times. That's a lot of XP!   One thing to keep in mind though is that this only works for tanks of the same type. While Mattias Korn and his men are not trained for the VK 72.01 (k), Löwe or Pz. Kpfw. B2 740 (f), they are still a heavy tank crew. If I were to put them into my StuG IV or my Panther 8.8 for example, they would still incur the performance and XP penalties, because those are a TD and a Medium Tank respectively. I can however train my RHM-Borsig WT crew in my StuG IV and my E 50M crew in my Panther 8.8, no problem.   So, how do I pick which premium tank to purchase?
  Well, in order to choose which premium tank is best for you, you need to ask yourself a few questions:   - How much budget do I have? - Do I want to use it for crew training? - Do I really need a premium vehicle of that tier?   Premium tanks cost real world money. Your actual dollars, sitting in your E-wallet. Low tier premium tanks are a lot cheaper than high tier ones.     T-15, an example of a low tier premium tank. Costing only 900 gold, this is far more affordable than the 12000 gold that T34 costs, for example.   As for using it for crew training, that depends on what lines you are grinding ofcourse. It makes little sense buying a premium russian tank destroyer and expecting to use it for crew training if you don't actually have russian tank destroyers and aren't going down the russian tank destroyer line.   Finally, do you really need a premium tank of that tier?   A word of warning ... Too often people who have only played up to tier 2 or 3 in the regular game drop $50 on a tier 8 premium tank, and find themselves hopelessly outclassed in every way. The field is full of people with fully upgraded tier 8's, 9's and 10's, with 4-skill crews in them. People who have thousands and thousands of matches, and understand the meta and the flow of game play. And our hero with only tier 2 and 3 tanks in his garage gets murderized, crushed and stomped into the ground by these far more experienced players.   This only leads to frustration - both for the player who has put $50 into a game he enjoys only to get grounded to dust time and time again in his shiny new premium, and for the people on his team who depend on him to carry his own weight. My advice? Only buy premium tanks of a tier you've reached through normal game play. If you've reached tier 3, stick to tier 3 premies. Reached tier 6? Stick to tier 6 premies, etc.   But I really need credits!   Then by all means, get a credit grinding tank. For the average player, tier 7 is roughly where they start to run into trouble regarding credit income on a standard account. Premium account users can add a tier to that; they can just cruise on along until tier 8. Good players can keep trucking on to even higher tiers without credit issues, sub-par players will run into problems sooner. This means that the average player can go quite far in this game without needing a credit grinder.   If you do find yourself needing a credit grinder, go right ahead and get one. Tier 5 regular tech tree tanks are often considered the 'sweet spot' for credit grinding without needing to drop actual RL dollars onto the game. Besides that, lower tier premium tanks also have a credit income bonus. Though, granted, the tier 8 premium tanks credit income potential is the highest in the game.   You also mentioned XP grinding earlier?   Yes. Actual premium tanks (reward tanks not so much) also have an XP income bonus. This can be used in two ways:   - By checking 'accelerate crew training' this bonus XP all goes to the crew, training them even faster. Since premium tanks come elited right out of the box, you can check this box from your first match in it.   - By not checking 'accelerate crew training' this bonus XP gets collected on the tank itself. However, there is nothing to research on or from a premium tank, so this tank specific XP immediately becomes available for conversion to free XP through the use of gold.   Oops! I accidentally sold my premium tank, and I want it back! Now what?   Unfortunately, purchasing a premium tank does not 'unlock' it in some way so you can buy it back with credits. You might be able to get it back by submitting a support ticket and asking for it to be returned, but this is not guaranteed to work. And even if it does, it'll only work if:   - You have a free garage slot - You have enough credits to 'buy' it back, the same amount you got from selling it - You submitted the ticket within a short enough time after selling the tank   Good luck! You're going to need it.   So, in short:   What premium tanks are:   - Money grinders - Crew trainers - Oftentimes interesting and fun vehicles in their own right - One of Wargaming's primary methods of generating income, keeping the servers alive for the free players as well as the paying ones.     SU-122-44. Quick, relatively nimble, great DPM on a gun with good alpha. Very fun to drive, considered one of the best premium vehicles in the game. Pathetic viewrange, high bloom, low accuracy and mediocre penetration on the gun keep it from being overpowered.   What premium tanks aren't:   - Pay-to-win - An impulse buy. Well, they can, but shouldn't be - A shortcut to quality high tier play   Why would I want a premium tank?   - If you really need a credit grinder - If you really need a crew trainer - If you really like the look of that particular premium tank - If the playstyle of that particular premium tank looks like fun to you   Final word of advice:   Before you buy a premium tank, read up on it on the forums and look up reviews on youtube. Educate yourself in the product you are buying. Because that's exactly what you're doing: you're buying (the use of) a product. Make sure you know what to expect to prevent disappointments.   Have fun!