Oh dear, this has gone deep into the abyss here...
Oh well, been playing this since 2011, had a long break inbetween, got back into it last summer, somewhere around 5k battles, got a Maus, on my way to T110E4 (TD) and E100 (2nd German Heavy) as well as GW Typ E (Tier 8 Artillery). Additionally, I was elected to be the clan leader of the subclan of the Schwere Panzerabteilung 503, which is a successful Clan-Wars clan and is able to hold several regions on the European part of the World Map, which is kind of the Elite. ^^
It is very much skillbased. You can't just run straight to the enemy and hope to survive more than 20seconds in a game. The most fun you'll have in a platoon of 2-3 people, as you can run several tactics, take cover behind your friends when you're low-hp, focus fire much better and generally have a lot more success than when driving alone with 14 random players.
Khorin: Depending on the enemy player of course, one can still manage to outskill a higher Tier enemy. I managed to almost singlehandedly kill a King Tiger (tier 8) and a Premium tank T34 (Tier 8) with my IS (tier 7). It's a lot about angling your tank correctly so the enemy will bounce, drive behind cover quickly, always face the front to the enemy (best at an angle, s.a.). Most Solo-Players on WoT are a bit noobish and don't know the basics about Angling, Weakspots, Aimingtimes, Reloadtimes and all that.
If anyone is interested in learning some more, feel free to contact me