This installment is the second part in our “Fate of ancient tanks” series, first one about the legendary Object 777 Variant 2 can be found here.
In this post, we will take a look back into the long history of the Waffenträger E-100, investigate what made this vehicle such a notorious battlefield monster and see if this vehicle would fit in the modern World of Tanks meta.
History:
Waffenträger auf E-100 was first added to the game with the Patch 8.9, the Armored Spearhead update, along with the rest of the German glass cannon tank line up until its removal from the game in patch 9.15.
Released in November of 2013, the Waffenträger instantly became one of the most broken vehicles in the game at the time. This vehicle has massive burst damage per second, needing only 10 seconds to unleash its massive 3.360 clip size potential, yet requiring an entire minute (60 s) to reload its 6 12.8cm shells. Not to mention, this tank had an autoloading version of the E-100s cannon, with 4 shells and exactly 3.000 clip potential paired with 50s reload and 3s intraclip time. This vehicle had the notoriety of being able to destroy a Maus with a single clip in 10s, which obviously left the community having a lot of flak with this vehicle.
Waffenträger is the definition of a broken vehicle – being able to destroy any other vehicle with ease, but also being very fragile and frequently one-shotted by artillery or British 183mm-cannon wielding tanks. This status brings us to Patch 9.2.
With Patch 9.2, entire German glass cannon branch got nerfed, with WT E-100 receiving the most love from Wargaming. A single shell was removed from the 12.8cm gun and the tank had its dispersion massively nerfed. However, this hasn’t improved the situation too much, as the vehicle remained problematic and retained its status of a broken one-shotting vehicle that keeps getting one-shotted itself.
However, in 2016, nearly 3 years after its release, Wargaming had enough of the Waffenträger and decided to replace it with Grille 15, which fits the line it represents a lot more. (later, there were talks to replace the Grille 15 with another variant of Grille 15, but those plans got scrapped)
And so ends the story of Waffenträger, a broken vehicle that got removed from the.. wait, it got reworked?
In 2017 July, World of Tanks Supertest received a new version of this vehicle: the WT-E 100 (P) version. This tank was overhauled – the tank lost virtually all of its armor (not that it had any) but got some speed in return. This version was later released on the Chinese version of the game as a purchasable tank.
This new iteration of the Waffenträger has been stirred up quite a bit of controversy and divided the population – many have vetoed the return of this vehicle, while others have been anticipating its return, with hopes to get their hands on this german beast once more.
However, this version of the tank never came to the main servers, and no news or changes about this tank have surfaced since then.
Hail to the King
The WTF E-100 made is super easy to farm ridiculous amounts of damage during its initial reign as the supreme leader of World of Tanks matchmaking. Being able to spank any tank that dared to opposite it, if you were on the wrong end of the barrel, it was unlikely you were going to survive and live to tell the tale. However, the large, massive turret of this tank was a massive HE shell magnet that usually crippled the vehicle, meaning while it could do absurd of damage itself, it took just as much in return if the player had no idea how to play with the tank.
Even post-nerf, this tank had ridiculous damage potential, and even after losing the ability to clip the Maus reliably, with some luck even the mighty Maus was a simple mouse to this mighty beast of a tank. Nicknamed the “WTF E-100 “, “Waffeltractor ” and sometimes the “Waffinator “, this tank was undoubtable the long reigning alpha male for 3 years during its time in World of Tanks.
The (Im)Possible Return
Many of Waffenträger loyalists have requested the return of this tank to our current day World of Tanks meta, hoping to be able to farm damage once more.
However, this is highly unlikely as Wargaming is afraid of turning playerbase against each other – this would counterplay their attempts at pleasing the Veteran audience by trying to fix the game in a way that doesn’t involve them making hard decisions like tank nerfs, in your typical Wargaming fashion.
While the Waffenträger has some demand from players, the simply thought of this once-feared monstrosity returning is too much for Wargaming to try and reintroduce.
Powercreeped?
But lets take a different perspective on the possible return of Waffinator E-100.
This vehicle would hardly be competitive in the current meta, having to resort to long range support fire, as close quarters engagements would bring quick and untimely demise to this vehicle.
World of Tanks has changed massively in the 4 years since 2016 – with many tanks having powerful HESH shells, EBR-105s being very hard to hit and punishing any paper vehicle for 500 alpha damage every 10 seconds, overarmoured heavy tanks and stun-focused artillery would make life hell for the Waffenträger in our current meta.
A great counterpart of the current Waffenträger is the Foch B – while it doesn’t have a turret, the Foch B isn’t a particularly well liked tank in the community, and this would unfortunately be the same fate WTF E-100 suffer if it ever came back to the game.
The new tanks that focus on destruction of paper vehicles, super-scouts like the EBR and heavily armored tanks like Chieftains and 279(e)’s would ensure that WT E-100 is constantly spotted due to massive silhouette and terrible camouflage values, always has some of its modules broken and can’t fully utilize its clip potential on many newly introduced tanks.
Long gone, yet never forgotten
Even if Waffenträger is uncompetitive in the new meta, this tank will always remain in the memories of drivers of this tank and those who had the unfortunate destiny to face it in battle about the damage it would be able to deal to other tanks.
Let’s be real here: this tank is not coming back to the normal World of Tanks, and if you want one, install the World of Tanks China client and pay the small loan of 600 dollars that it costs to buy one, and enjoy clubbing once more in modern meta.
Although, it would be rather nice to see it again in a form of an event, nostalgia is a wonderful thing.
I WANT IT BACK !!!!!
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as a former WTF100 owner I can’t say I’m sad to see it leave the game, it was silly overpowered and a gimmick tank. however what still bothers me is the fact that the foch and the deathstar got taken out and owners got the replacement while keeping the original as well. not asking to get it back and stay in game but some compensation would have been nice specially after they had screwed with the engines from the E75 shortly before it and failing to compensate for that as well.
I mean, you got a grille 15 as compensation which was also briefly OP. There was just no way to balance the WTF100 without removing its soul so they couldn’t keep it in the game even in a nerfed state (unlike the Foch155).
Article JUST SAID it wouldn’t compete in the current meta.
Article JUST SAID it has been surpassed by currently in the game OP tanks.
They COULD have kept it in the game, and over time we would have seen it nerfed by power creep, at the VERY LEAST.
It will always be broken in the randoms, power creep or not.
Well i have grille only played few games after launch,after that it’s sitting in garage.
Knowing the ways of WG, they will reintroduce it eventually, because they oh so love the money and would gladly sell their own Grandma as a tier X premium, well balanced and russian biased.
OFC it will be done in the dumbest way possible, so only the select unicorns may grab it to blast the working class peasants that pay for this game. Then – Black Market for buckets of cash. And the peasants rejoice, especially the ones that had it already, it was taken with no compensation and now can be yours for a low low price (auction ofc) of 400 euro.
there are no tier X premiums, only special tanks!
for now
Keep in mind too that this tank was introduced at a time when there was a lot more foliage on the map. I had it briefly, and do not miss it.
Smart decision to wait with the article till the end of the black market. The article about the 777 didn’t age well, forecasting greedy wg selling it as the first tier9 premium rendering all tier8 useless… It will be a front line reward tank.
thank for this article i find it nice to read something on the wte100, i loved it really ! and i’m total agree with if it come back in the current meta in a future BM for example in a very short quantity like 100 pieces or so. Yes this tank was really nice a in current meta would be harder to play this is true. also wg please bring it back for this little fan community of this tank. I think we are ready to give lot of money to buy it ! come on wg thin about your money ! 🙂
Interesting, a missing word ? :
“Even post-nerf, this tank had ridiculous damage potential, and even after losing the ability to the Maus reliably”
“Even post-nerf, this tank had ridiculous damage potential, and even after losing the ability to kill the Maus reliably”
WTE-100 was never precise at distance.
If it was never accurate at range then explain why it got some of the worst dispersion nerfs in the history of the game? I had one and it was quite accurate at range being able to reliably track tanks. I never want that abomination to come back to the game in any form.
Why Not!
Its OP as hell and fits “exactly” into wargames on-going big power creep mostly for Soviet massive Armour Vehicles and super Heavy tanks
not forgetting the massive OP French wheeled Light tanks that nobody can hit on the move, yet hit anything auto aimed at (built in 100% auto-aim) 100% of the time and at 95kph
Wargame cannot just “choose what OP tanks we get” wait!! of course they can there Russian
– and when your a Russian game well you can make up any rules you like as you go along
cant you WarGame?
now if the Waffentrager was Soviet and in Russian tech tree
…… well you just know the answer
we all do – a Boject~Waffentragger with 6 shells with ‘Stalin’ 0.4 but 0.25 dispersion accuracy
it will return, when WoT numbers will be low
with APCR it could kill ebr very easy. i think it would still do ok. way better as foch b at least.
It was fun to play T32 when this pos was around. Poke from a ridge, let the WTF E 100 bob waste a full clip on the turret and fail to pen with each shot, and then show your love for them with HE shells in the paper turret. Good times. 🙂
And having a go on Waffle with your FatLeopard VK28? Pure joy.
The game used to be better before all kinds of idiots had a go at improving it.
And I want my WT back, as it was. Worse tanks with much more toxic gameplay are ingame an sold more and more. Why can’t we have back a hard earned paper tiger?
First campaign, got to TD-15. One game in this.. jobs done, even on the T-55A. This was beyond silly and utterly broken. But still… stupid fun to play at the same time. So I was glad it was gone when they removed it. But missed it at the same time.
Everyone but a few players WANT this td back. FFS WARGAMING JUST DO IT. Wargaming should of never removed it and just balanced it .
Dude the person who wrote this article is a complete sell out .Just recently you said in the Q and A you wanted the waffle back till your owners wargaming said they you didn’t now you agree. If you cared about the community at all you would push for it back. SELL OUT ARMORED PATROL.
Talk about a troll.
Even if Waffenträger is uncompetitive in the new meta, this tank will always remain in the memories of drivers of this tank and those who had the unfortunate destiny to face it in battle about the damage it would be able to deal to other tanks.
Let’s be real here: this tank is not coming back to the normal World of Tanks, and if you want one, install the World of Tanks China client and pay the small loan of 600 dollars that it costs to buy one, and enjoy clubbing once more in modern meta.
Although, it would be rather nice to see it again in a form of an event, nostalgia is a wonderful thing. THX FOR GIVING THE MAIN REASON WHY IT SHOULD BE BROUGHT BACK. GEEZUS DO YOU EVEN READ WHAT YOU WRITE . YOU MUST OF NOT PLAYED THE WAFFLE IT SHOWS IN YOUR WRITING.
If a player goes directly in front of a WTE-100 it’s that player problem not mine.I had it an it was not op,maybe first time when was introduce but after nerf no.It had 1 min reload time,no camo.People are exaggerating about this tank,too much youtube watching.
Dude you a piece of work. You waited to write this after you baited all the hits on your website using the golden WT E 100 . We should boycott this sell out site.
A great counterpart of the current Waffenträger is the Foch B – while it doesn’t have a turret, the Foch B isn’t a particularly well liked tank in the community, and this would unfortunately be the same fate WTF E-100 suffer if it ever came back to the game. YOU JUST KEEP PROVING YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT WOT. THE WHOLE REASON PEOPLE HATE THE FOCH B BC ITS AWFUL. ITS DISPERSION IS BAD ITS AP PEN AWFUL. ITS A GOLD SPAMMING TANK . WT E 100 LIKED OR DISLIKED HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FOCH B . FOCH B IS JUST PLAIN AWFUL THAT IS WHY ITS HATED. DO YOU EVEN PLAY WOT ???? Just hate how your article acts like you have all the answer. Really seems as if you don’t have a clue .
Just remember the tank was in the game for 3 years and WG knew it was broken. The ONLY reason it stayed in for so long before being nerfed in the final year is because WG made an ungodly amount of money off of people grinding that line or free xp’ing it.
I never want to see it in the game again and I had some friends quit the game back then because of that tank. WG understands that its a very divisive vehicle among the community and that it can drive players away from the game so they will never bring it back.
i just really hope it comes back, and with the new balance patch which is incoming, it could be really great to shoot on all this new pinãta HP tanks !
hope to see it in a future event marathon or a black market. I dont think that wg is stupid so much. They know they can make a lot of money with it on the right time !
in a BM in some years why not !!
“However, this is highly unlikely as Wargaming is afraid of turning playerbase against each other” Wooh, took me 10 minutes to stop laughing and catch my breath after this one.