Excelsior

Excelsior is probably the best first premium tank any player can buy. It has good HP, very good armour, mobility, and DPM.

1. Armour
2. Gun
3. Mobility
4. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
5. Pros/Cons
6. Is it worth getting?
7. Tank cost:
8. Camo cost:

Armour

vs 110mm AP (left image) 144mm APCR (right image)
-Lower plate 114mm
-Upper plate 120mm
-Turret 120mm

The Excelsior can be very confident in its armour in tier 4-5 battles.

-Since Excelsior’s armour is mainly flat, shell normalization doesn’t work against it, so even tanks with 125mm of penetration will struggle against the front of the Excelsior.
-The most common tanks you will face that have a chance to penetrate you are the Chi-Nu, T-34, and T1 Heavy, which have 124-128mm of pen. Though if you run enhanced armour even these tanks have no chance of penetration. BDR G1 B has 135mm of pen, so its best to try avoid shots from that tank.

Most tier 6 tanks will be able to penetrate, as very few have under 130mm of penetration, but that’s to be expected as its a higher tier.

The armour of the Excelsior is simple and easy to use. Keep your front to the enemies, don’t angle, and you will bounce.

Gun

Excelsior has a 75mm gun.
-Reload time is 5.7s for 160 alpha, giving it 1679 DPM
-Penetration is 110mm on AP, 144mm on APCR, and 38mm on HE
-Aim time is 4.1s/4.4s, its just average for tier 5.
-Dispersion is 0.397/0.358, which is decent.
–Gun handling is 0.22/0.22/0.16, and it can be improved to 0.19/0.19/0.14 with Vertical Stabilizer. Better than average for a tier 5 heavy tank.
-Gun depression is very good, with -9 degrees on the front of the tank, and -13 degrees on the sides.

Overall this gun is above average. Its accuracy and penetration stats are just average, but the tank has very high DPM, about 200-300 more than most other heavies.  The comfortable -9 gun makes the tank very easy to use on ridgelines.

Mobility

Excelsior is the fastest heavy tank in tier 5.

-Top speed is a superb 39km/h, reverse speed is fairly average at -12km/h
-Acceleration is very high, with 15.3hp/t on hard terrain, and 12.4hp/t on medium terrain.
-Traverse speed is a decent 31.1 deg/s on hard terrain and 25.1 deg/s on medium terrain.
-Ground resistances a good 1.1/1.3/1.7

The Excelsior’s mobility is one of the main selling points, its got the best speed in tier 5, along with some of the best acceleration. The traverse speed is also decent.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Excelsior has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun Rammer:
One of the best points of the gun is its high DPM, this needs to be utilized as a strength of the tank, so use gun rammer to increase the DPM. Calibrated shells isnt needed as the tank doesnt struggle with penetration.

Improved Modules+:
The Excelsior is fast, frontally armoured, and weighs a healthy 41 tons, it can definitely ram its enemies for a lot of damage when its up to speed. Using improved modules+ will decrease the damage you take by ramming enemies.

Enhanced armour:
Excelsior has a healthy 800 base HP, this doesn’t need to be increased. The biggest selling point of this tank is the mobility + armour combination, so use enhanced armour to make the armour stronger.
Using enhanced armour would make the upper plate & turret 125mm thick, and the rear armoured plate 112mm thick.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Though the gun handling of the Excelsior is decent, its still not extremely good. It needs vertical stabilizer as the Excelsior is a frontline brawling heavy that will constantly be moving, so using refined gun on this tank would be pointless.

Pros/Cons

Pros-
No frontal weakpoints: 
The Excelsior’s entire front is a flat 120mm thick (125mm if enhanced), there is not a single weakpoint. If enemies have not got 120mm of penetration, they can’t pen you anywhere.

Earns extra credits:
This tank has a 153% credit coefficent, its quite average but it will make you credits.

High HP pool:
The Exclesior has the 2nd highest HP amount in tier 5, so even if enemies get through the thick armour of this tank, it can still take quite a few hits.

Great gun depression:
The -9 frontal gun depression along with the good armour make this a comfortable learning heavy tank for newer players. In general it just makes the tank very easy to use.

Cons-
Weak side armour:
The tank can’t really be angled as most tanks will be able to go through the 31mm  of armour behind the track wheel.
This is scraping the barrel as a con, there is really not much that can be listed as a weakness of the Excelsior. The sides are only somewhat weak as the areas that are covered by spaced armour are actually a decent 56mm.

Is it worth getting?

The Excelsior is arguably the best tier 5 tank. (While the T1 Heavy and BDR G1 B are usually considered as the best, both have frontal weakpoints, neither have good DPM, and both have unimpressive mobility.)

Excelsior has phenomenal armour on both the front and the back of the tank, and it has no frontal weakpoints at all, even the lower plate is strong.
If enemies penetrate with premium ammo, Excelsior has more DPM than all but 5 tier 5 tanks, so it will still come out on top in most 1v1 battles.
The Exclesior can move almost like a medium tank, with a higher top speed than any other tier 5 heavy, and amazing acceleration as well. 
The combination of this very strong armour and great speed is what makes the Excelsior such a good tank.

Of course, like most tier 5 heavies the armour doesn’t hold up in tier 6, but that’s where the Excelsior has a huge mobility and DPM advantage over all other tier 5 tanks.

If you are a new (or reroll) player looking for a first premium tank, this is the best tank you can get. Its strong, easy to use, very comfortable to play, and makes extra credits.
(If you’re a reroll, this tank ensures you keep a high winrate).

Tank cost:

2,400 gold, permanently available in the tech tree premium section.

Occasionally its sold in a bundle for 1,500 gold, this bundle is updated every Saturday in the store and it can sometimes appear there.

Camo cost: