Do I have any hope of ever getting better at this game lol? I hover around 45% after 7000+ battles. I read about the game/tactics and watch a bunch of replays but even when I do well kills and damage, I seem to be on teams that get steamrolled. It almost feels like the MM is weighted and stacks us low eff players together!
any advice beside "uninstall" ?
1) Acknowledge that the "MM is out to screw me" attitude is bullshit. It is the same MM for everyone, it gets very tiring hearing this bullshit spouted by players (who typically are below average).
2) If you are playing stock tanks, stop. Use your free experience to get the good gun quicker on tanks, then grind out the next one (which will save you free EXP to grind the next tank's gun).
3) If you are doing poorly in higher tier battles, go back to low tier play. Learn the basics again in tier 1 and 2. The nice thing about tier 1 and 2 is that most tanks can hurt each-other and you can really figure out the art of peek-a-booming with a bigger cannon or just out DPMing with a 20mm.
4) Avoid tier 4+ light tanks. Unless you have truly learned the art of passive/active scouting (which it doesn't sound like you have), just avoid those lines.
5) DO NOT platoon with another sub 50% player. It is a reinforcement of bad tanking, poor decisions, etc.
6) Find a good player who streams, there are always some players on twitch.tv that you can watch and learn how to play better.
7) Figure out which tanks you do well in and which you do poorly in, try to identify why.
8) The Russian heavy lines are the most forgiving lines to play. If you do poorly here, I don't have much to offer you.
9) Make sure you are getting AT LEAST 20 FPS and below 200ms ping. I tend to start missing shots when my ping creeps above 130ms and my tank becomes less maneuverable above 150ms. I *will not* play if my ping stays above 200ms.
10) Either ONLY play arty or STOP playing arty. The skillsets in playing arty are completely different than tanking. If you are switching between the two constantly you will not be good at either. Each arty has massively different trajectories, lead time, aim time, load time, etc.
11) Sacrifice all graphics to make sure you can have maximum draw range in your settings. This is CRITICAL.
12) Pay attention to the damn minimap. Since you are mentioning stats in tankers in game, I assume you are using XVM. There is NO excuse for not knowing a flank has fallen or what tanks were last spotted where since that is now all included in XVM.
13) Know when to go back and try to delay a cap push for a win.
14) Passive play leads to losses. Avoid the magic forest on morovnka. Avoid the 1-2 line on prohk. Enough of the other bad players will camp there and do NOTHING until it is too late that you can be elsewhere.
15) Damage early is worth about twice the amount of damage late game. This ties directly into #14. If you are camping and not doing damage for minutes at a time, while other tankers die, your contribution later will mean little.
16) *IF* you are using default loadouts on guns, STOP. For longer barrel guns switch out most ammo to AP, a few to your premium ammo (APCR/HEAT), and *very few* to HE. If you are firing derpy guns (shorter, howitzer guns), load a lot of HE, and only a few of the premium ammo and NO ap.
17) Make sure each of your tanks are decked out with fire ext/repair kit/first aid kit. If you actually do damage after burning the kits then you will make back the credits. There is no reason not to have these in all your tanks (with the possible exception of tier 1). It doesn't mean you have to use them, why use a fire extinguisher when you are staring at 5 tanks and you are near dead?
18) DO NOT use a 50% crew. I assume you know you can retrain the crews between tanks, and you should be doing this.
Finally: 45% is basically the bottom level of play. Bots average 45%. To be this low means you REALLY need to address basic tanking. The only way to do worse is platooning with other 45%ers, be an AFK tier 10, tk a lot, or be part of troll platoons (tier 1 with a tier 8 or something).
If you want more help, you could provide a replay for me to look at and I will try to figure out what you did wrong.