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A lot of people have asked the question of which Premium tank is best for credit grinding. I finally had 2 almost identical games in my T34 and Panther/M10 to compare the credit earning potential of each. Here's the screencaps.
First up is the Panther/M10, with 3595 damage, 1 kill, and a team loss.
Next up is the T34, 3 kills, and a team win.
In terms of resupply/repair costs, both were about the same at around 11,000. Damage was almost identical in both matches, and I don't think I had any "assisted damage" in either that really made any difference.
Clearly there's differences in # of kills and the fact that the T34 was a win and the M10 was a loss. According to this chart for XP and credit modifiers, you don't actually get any credit bonus for kill shots. You do get an XP bonus, but that's not what we're talking about here. And the victory vs. loss bonus for credits is very small as well. There is no credit bonus for surviving a battle, so the fact that I died in one and lived in the other is irrelevant. What it comes down to is that these 2 games were about as identical as I could make them to compare earnings, except for the absence of the very small modifier to the "Joining a Game" credit bonus you get for a victory.
Everything else being equal, the T34 earned 31.2 credits per point of damage done. The Panther/M10 earned 24 credits per point of damage. What this basically means is that my M10 earns about 25% fewer credits than the T34. But the M10 also costs a lot less to buy than the T34, so we have to continue on and do more maths!
Cost of tank vs. buying gold and converting to credits
If you buy gold and convert it directly to credits in the game, the conversion rate is 1 gold = 400 credits. So the decision now comes down to: Do I just straight up buy the gold and convert it, or is it more worthwhile to use the gold to buy a Premium tank and EARN the credits? Now we have to do some calculations on how much the tanks would cost in credits, and therefore how many credits you have to earn in that tank before you're into what I call "Profit Mode", that being credits earned beyond what you would've gotten for a straight conversion. Up until that point, you're still making up for the cost of buying the tank instead of outright gold conversion.
- The T34 costs 7600 gold, which would be 3,040,000 credits. Using the credits per damage from above, that's effectively 97,436 damage needed to equalize the cost. Once you get past that damage #, you're into "profit". In my T34, my average damage per battle is 1765, so I would only need 55 battles to get into "profit" mode in the T34.
- The Panther/M10 costs 4750 gold, which would be 1,900,000 credits. That comes out to 79,167 damage needed to equal the cost of buying gold and converting. My average damage in this tank is 1584 per battle, so I would need 50 battles to get into "profit".
Of course, there are other factors at play, since you do get small credit bonuses for victories and assisted damage. But this gives a good overview. In the end what this tells me is that, because I generally do more damage per battle in the T34, and because the T34 earns more credits per point of damage, and because it only takes 5 more battles before I get into Profit Mode, that's the better credit grinding tank for me. YMMV (Your mileage may vary), obviously.
If anyones wants to share the credits per damage number for an IS-6, we can do the math on that one or any of the lower tier Premiums too. I didn't bother doing this with my T2 Light or T-15 because I don't play those to grind credits. They're just for fun. :)
Nice .
