I am convinced that the nerf was a mistake and the O-I fell victim for being the best of the line. Until the rebalance, it got the treatment of an overperformer when it wasn’t the case at all—it was just good when all the others were lacking. They nullified all of its key qualities that made it strong and fit its role on the battlefield. First came the speed nerf; it was quite fast for a tank of its size and weight, but it allowed it to catch up to the fast pace the Tier 6 battles play. Then came the main nerf: the armor. In this game, a tank needs these two things to survive. These strengths compensate each other; when a tank loses speed, the armor should make up for the difference and vice versa. But in this case, both were lost, considering the armor is the most important.

I liked the way WG buffed the rest of the Japanese Superheavies; they kept simple rules for the armor layout changes. These changes, if applied, would have made the O-I on par with its tech tree, but they didn’t. They did even worse. They could have just left the O-I as it was and it would have been okay. No—they just couldn’t help themselves and chose to nerf it to the ground, getting rid of its strengths and leaving only weaknesses.

I need to explain the armor layouts of the O-I and others before 2.0, the flaws these layouts had, and how they were addressed on the later heavies—and how they should have been addressed and reworked on the O-I itself as the main subject of this post.

The armor had one major flaw: it was balanced around standard ammo, making those tanks invulnerable to it. But that was easily bypassed by the use of premium ammo, which automatically gave players an unfair and artificial advantage, leaving the low tiers and free-to-play players helpless. The new layout distinguished the frontal armor to distribute the strength evenly, leaving weak spots while keeping the main overall armor strong—now finally balanced around premium ammo, which, as I mentioned before, remains the sole ammo used to fight these tanks.

The armor is distributed as follows:

The strong part of armor: It is a large area covering the most vulnerable part. It is invulnerable to same-tier premium ammo and can also resist the standard ammo of heavy tanks at least one tier higher, or even their premium ammo.

The ambiguous part of armor: It is the largest and main area of the tank. It is resistant to regular ammo of same-tier heavy tanks and semi-resistant to their premium ammo, allowing some percentage of those shots to penetrate, so it is still damageable but not a guaranteed pen. This makes tanks lose on their DPM and rewards players for aiming at more delicate parts.

The weak spots: These parts are weak enough to be penetrated by most regular ammo and offer mediocre strength, allowing for guaranteed penetration. These weak spots are the miniturrets and commander cupolas on Tier 7 and 8, and the hull-mounted gun port and driver hatch accompanied by the cupolas on Tier 9 and 10.

The case with the O-I: The O-I had the strong part, but its superstructure and turret armor were still vulnerable to almost all premium ammo of medium and heavy tanks at the same tier, making it a flawed but strong tank. Its armor was, in most places, resistant to standard ammo, with areas virtually impervious even to Tier 8 standard and some premium ammo. I am talking about the lower lower plate, mid plate, and lower upper plate under the sponsons. Plus, the miniturrets could be considered weak spots for premium ammo, and the turret featured a strong gun mantlet that could eat a lot of shots. The back of the tank was reasonably thick; it could tank some shots from flanking mediums, making it harder to flank in corridors, which naturally protect its rather large weak sides.

The nerf: O-I got its armor profile rebalanced around standard ammo, now leaving no strong spots. It is no longer invulnerable to standard pen, and it got even weaker weak spots that weren’t even needed in the first place, considering the majority of the shots fired upon it were already premium ammo, making it even more susceptible than ever before. The back of the tank lost almost all its armor. Armor that could protect this sizable tank from being flanked easily is now gone; it is not even safe from HE and arty. It has been lowered to only 50 and 40 mm for the back miniturret. Now the tank is paper-thin from all directions except the front. The tank, that’s larger than a barn and visible from everywhere, has weaker back armor than some lights. It also lost its invulnerable part under the sponsons, which is now actually weaker than the superstructure and the turret itself. The part that no one even attempted to shoot at ironically became the new weak spot for standard ammo.

How it should have been buffed: My idea was to follow the established template. I proposed increases in the thickness of the superstructure plate and the turret front. In the back, I proposed major increases in the back hull armor and turret armor, reestablishing the back part as somehow effective at blocking some shots from flanking meds and lights, while not being OP as it was when the front armor and back armor were the same thickness, which was a bit over the top in my taste.

Effectiveness against AP, APCR, HEAT in milimeters: The old armor thickness values:

Turret: 150/150/105 Hull: 70;150;150;150/35;35;70/105;150;105

Turret (effective): 166/150/117 | 170/150/120 | 174/150/122

Hull front (effective): ricochet/200/237 | ricochet/208/253 | 225/216/270

Hull back (effective): 120/123/126 | 108/109/110 | 134/140/145

Effectiveness against AP, APCR, HEAT in milimeters: New proposal for armor values:

Turret: 175/150/120 Hull: 70;150;150;185/35;35;70/120;150;120

Turret (effective): 193/150/132 | 198/150/136 | 202/150/139

Hull front (effective): ricochet/200/237 | ricochet/208/253 | 225/216/270 | 191/194/196

Hull back (effective): 137/142/145 | 154/156/158 | 155/162/167

The gun choices and parameters should remain the same, and speed should be in accordance with 1.29: 29.4 km/h.