SPG Rebalance: Changing the Stun Parameters
5 min readAfter almost two years without changes, Wargaming has finally decided to do something about it. At long last, we will see some changes to the Stun Mechanics that needed tweaking for such a long time.
Highly recommend you watch the video above to fully understand what will change, and while it might not look much, it will make a hell of a difference to slow vehicle drivers. Here’s how it is now and what’s going to change.
How Is the Stun Time Calculated Now?
The maximum stun time consists of two components:
- The first component is constant for each SPG shell and doesn’t depend on the damage inflicted. In the shell settings, this value is set by a coefficient from 0 to 1, and in your Garage, it’s displayed as “minimum stun time” in seconds. This is one of the balance parameters of the shell – the same, for example, as penetration or velocity. This parameter is configured individually for each SPG shell, which has the ability to cause stun.
- The second component is a conditionally variable value, which is calculated depending on the damage caused by the shell. This characteristic is not specified in the game client directly, but it’s easy to calculate. This value depends on the damage, and each time it is different.
In summary, both these components (constant and variable) are equal to one (1). Let’s consider their ratio on the example of the Object 261. At the moment, this SPG has the following characteristics:
- Constant Share of Stun = 0.45
- Shell Stun Time (maximum stun time) = 29 seconds
- Minimum Stun Time = Constant Shell Stun Percentage * Maximum Stun Time = 0.45 * 29 = 13.05 seconds
Based on this data, we can calculate the variable amount of stun and its ratio with a constant value:
- Constant Share of Stun = 0.45
- Variable Stun Percentage = 1 – Constant Percentage Stun = 1 – 0.45 = 0.55
- We will modify the constant component of the stun, which doesn’t depend on the damage. Accordingly, we’ll increase the influence of the variable component by 5%. Using the example of the Object 261, this ratio will change from 0.45 and 0.55 to 0.4 and 0.6. This will change the minimum stun time for the Object 261 from 13.05 to 11.67 seconds.
- We will also modify the second component of the stun, which depends on the damage. We will change the distribution of damage from the splash depending on the distance from the tank to the center of the explosion. Now this range is from 0.5 in the center of the splash to 0.15 on the edge. We will reduce the amount of damage at the edge of the splash from 0.15 to 0.05. This will decrease all splash damage, except for cases when a high-explosive shell explodes directly on the armor. And this, in turn, will lead to a slight decrease in the second component of the stun.
- If you are already under the effect of being stunned, then any further stun is halved (1/2 stun). To better understand this mechanic, let’s take a look at a specific example below.
- We will reduce the stun time when an SPG shell hits a vehicle, which is already under the effect of a stun, if this machine is equipped with a Spall Liner. Now the Superheavy Spall Liner will reduce the additional stun time by an additional 20%, and a Heavy Spall Liner by 10%. For example, if the additional stun time is 15 seconds, when using Superheavy Spall Liner it will be reduced to 12 seconds, and in the case of Heavy Spall Liner to 13.5 seconds.
Changing the Additional Stun Parameters
Currently if the additional stun time is longer than the remaining time of the previous stun, then the additional stun time is added to the total stun time, as shown in the illustration below:
The first stun is 20 seconds. After 8 seconds, another shell hits your vehicle, adding another 23 seconds. And the total time will be 8 + 23 = 31 seconds.
After changing this mechanic, additional stuns will automatically be halved in time. So, the total time stunned will decrease:
The first stun is 20 seconds. After 8 seconds, another shell hits your vehicle, adding another 23 seconds. It is then halved, so the total stun time is 8 + 12= 20 seconds.
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What a surprise….the Germans are most heavily nerfed xD
Well aside from that the more they need arty the better. But it still won’t be good enough. It will never be good enough until they remove it completely so people can play the game without having to cower and camp in cover afraid of being hit by an orbital air strike with WW2 tech known as satellite view which also doesnt need direct line of sight and doesnt risk anything when shooting which could do huge damage and also stun you effectively making you useless for a long period of time.
Nothing wrong with the arty as it is, WG should leave it alone and the whiners should quit moaning
Ok I hate arty, too. But I did not hate arty back when it was still a damage dealer. The stun effect made everything worst. Artillery is part of the game and if it ruins your battle results, that just means you suck at the game. Nerfing or removing arty is a buff to all well armoured tanks. So basically to all Russian tanks. GG. That’s just what we need.
My solution: Remove stun effect, Reduce average damage by 20%, don’t change the low penetration it has now, increase reload by 10%, make the splash damage double and finally: If arty fires two times from the same position its spotted. All of the city maps in the game and arty number limitations do the rest. I imaging that this way arty will be fun to play and easier to counter.
I agree with Havoc. If you can screw up a certain tank branch so hard, that they are useless, then just take em out of the game. So everybody can stay hidden behind objects untill time runs out.
Much better!!
Bet 80% of this guy’s battles are artillery.
bro, just strike moaning, let them just quit, lol
Ist, reduce the amount of arty to one per side
2nd reduce the amount of mariokarts
Just leave if it bothers you. No-one will miss your arty scum arse
3rd ?????
4th profit by desperately selling more premium tanks till you drive every last person away.
Change it to a frontline type arty system and scrap all the SPGs.
Or they could just remove the stun mechanic? Reduce splash radius but up damage, not to the levels they once were but just by a few 100 points.
Maybe they could actually try making smoke rounds that people have suggested in the past?
Then you will have no one to play with and the game will be dead. Only true way to fix arty is to make personal stats private thus killing XVM and also hiding clan tags from being visable to the opposing team. Besides that the other thing would be to restrict arty to 1 per team which will make arty que times longer but arty players be damned for playing a broken cl***.
I occasionally play artillery. Did a lot more in the old days when my ping was bad.
Anyway, the current meet for artillery is not damage but stunning and tracking your targets for your team to damage. Is the new change going to make artillery suffer more when it comes to XP and profitability to play?
Honestly, I feel the old way was better but players hated being “one shot” killed or half of their HP erased. But it took about a minute and a half for artillery to make a direct hit. Back then, artillery had longer reloads, and were less accurate. Direct hits averaged about one out of three hits. With up to thirty seconds to reload, that’s where the one and a half minute time comes in. If you were lucky, you could splash your target all three attempts.
Then you had the removal of all non-HE shells. Small gunned artillery, doesn’t have the current ability to stun targets. Like the heavy tanks that your team needs to crack. The HE damage just gets shunned off with very minor or even no damage at all. Then I’m higher tiers, you have heavy tanks in corridors that your team just can’t seem to pen. HE can chip at them and stun them now, but it’s not always enough. Most howitzers used to shoot HEAT rounds that would penetrate the rooftop armor of these tanks. They had only about one in three chances to do any damage but that was more helpful than keeping an enemy stunned that still can’t be penetrated by the tanks trying to hold them back.
I can also remember in the old days people would complain about the amount of damage artillery did with AP rounds. That actually should correct. WoT did a bad job of just calling ammo in the beginning as just AP, HE, HEAT, and APCR. Most of these guns were naval guns. They technically didn’t shoot standard AP rounds, they shot APHE rounds. They had less penetration but when they did penetrate, the shell would blow up inside. There is still one example of this in WoT with the SU-100Y. It mounts a naval gun. And if you look at it’s “premium” round, the AP has less penetration than the standard but yet does more damage. It’s because it’s really an APHE round.
Any way, the current stunning mechanic I know can be annoying. Even more so when multiple artillery is aiming at you. Just with those changes, in a way they buffed artillery by making them shoot faster (I considered the old reload times to incorporate making the calculations to be on target) and be more accurate (with the old accuracies to consider calculations being off). All it really did was change artillery to aiming at the armored targets. With doing less damage, and relying on your XP and silver to come from attache on arrived vehicles, there was no more reasons to aim at the spotted p***ive scout, the sniping TD, or even anti-artillery. Artillery most likely would only take their HP, leaving them in the game to just relocate and try to shoot/spot undetected again.
I’m not against the mentioned changes to lessen the stun times. Artillery became more of a support vehicle when it’s damage was nerfed. Is the planned changes going to drastically effect the support your front line allies need? I doubt it but I guess I’ll find out when it becomes active.
Havoc, you old misery! What about all your clanmates who love arty or has Blakey banned it’s use? All the best my old friend!
tired of the ******ed arty cry baby /\/!663Rz
So what would the point be of reducing wheeled vehicles? Are you that bad at the game that you can’t counter them on your own? They’re literally worse than almost all light tanks yet you’re not complaining about them are you?
I would be happy with this. Limit arty to one per team. Let them have better damage and lower the rate of fire.
Too little, too late.
“If arty fires two times from the same position its spotted.” This sounds great! Id like to add this feature to all the tanks with the condition of: If no enemy in the 450m range (so you can not be spotted) and you fire 3 times from the same location 2 time you get auto spotted.
This would be awesome! all the camping bush lover player get balanced this way!!
Reduce average damage by 20%, The arty has the lowest dpm tier to tier already even before the game calculate the penetration and damage reduction. ( in a tier 8 brittish arty i can hit a tier 10 tank and cause no damage…)
don’t change the low penetration it has now, Atry has the lowest penetration tier to tier you are so generous.
increase reload by 10%, already 30+ sec reload with a fully decked crew and equipment.
make the splash damage double Interesting, the thing is for most player hate arty is the splash damage and you want to rise it.
The only nerf what an arty need is to make it easier to spot, but not with some bull**** decloack gimmick bring back the 3 sec long shell tracer what they had long long time ago. That made them so easy to pinpoint and hit, if they ar sitting still.