Maxim Sustained Fire

I actually feel that sustained fire is one of those underrated abilities, simultaneously boosting DPS AND suppression makes it great for trading with other mgs, firing from being suppressed, firing on retreating troops and of course suppressing infantry blobs.


The issue with sustained fire is its accessibility. There are two aspects that make it harder to use.
First is the vet 1 requirement. To me this is a bit of an oddity as I was under the impression it was to assist in the maxim's poor stock suppressive capability. Its sort of counterproductive then to lock it behind vet -as a side note, I was a strong advocate for this ability when it was implemented but with the condition that it not be locked behind vet-.

Secondly is the forced reload. I understand the need for the reload on AP related abilities to prevent MGs from completely shutting down light vehicle play. However, the sustained fire ability doesn't fulfill the same purpose, being able to activate it instantly wouldn't result in infantry being completely shredded.


I'd like to suggest that the sustained fire ability receive one or more of the following changes.

-Make it a vet 0 ability with an increased cost(20-25) that decreases at vet 1(10-15)
-Remove the reload at the start of the ability
-Make the ability more powerful(+5 range increase or something)which will make pre-emptive usage more rewarding but at an increased ability cost

I feel like this would make double maxim starts at teamgames significantly worse to play against as OKW.

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Generally speaking Vet 1 abilities could re-balanced to scale with veterancy and avoid spikes in performance.

I guess one could even move some of them to Vet 0.

In the particular case of the Maxim one could have it work a bit differently by removing the time limitation.

One would have to reload but the use "full nine yards" in the next engagement. The ability would also cancel if one moved.

That would increase maxim performance on defensive position without effecting the "moving" performance.

I would move it to vet 0 for a few reasons:
1. A unit shouldn't require vet to do its job
2. With the right cost and drawbacks it can't be abused
3. A captured mg or recrewed mg late game that NEEDS a vet ability to work is a trash mg not worth a damn.

A cost decrease with vet 1 would be an appropriate improvement, but it should be available from vet 0

Secondly is the forced reload. I understand the need for the reload on AP related abilities to prevent MGs from completely shutting down light vehicle play. However, the sustained fire ability doesn't fulfill the same purpose, being able to activate it instantly wouldn't result in infantry being completely shredded.

I disagree here. Without a forced reload it could just be popped during any push or engagement without care and be significantly more effective than any other HMG at stopping pushes at the press of a button. It should be a situational, concious decision. Not a no brainer ability.

I disagree here. Without a forced reload it could just be popped during any push or engagement without care and be significantly more effective than any other HMG at stopping pushes at the press of a button. It should be a situational, concious decision. Not a no brainer ability.

Just to add to this, it's cost would allow for people to use it pretty much whenever they want. Soviets still seem to float the most Muni, even with cons now having an upgrade

If you remove the reload I think it will start to feel like the ability is just default performance with how often people would use it

Just to add to this, it's cost would allow for people to use it pretty much whenever they want. Soviets still seem to float the most Muni, even with cons now having an upgrade

If you remove the reload I think it will start to feel like the ability is just default performance with how often people would use it

Could always increase the price. 20-30 mun depending on whether the ability gets buffed or not (beyond being moved to vet 0)

Could always increase the price. 20-30 mun depending on whether the ability gets buffed or not (beyond being moved to vet 0)

Yeah that's true. I'm only talking about if they moved to vet0 and got rid of the forced reload, so if that happened I'd say 30 Muni at least. And that shouldn't be reduced with vet

maybe make the reload faster ?

maybe make the reload faster ?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think it gets a 50% reload speed bonus already.

Vet 0 would be alright, but if it didnt force a reload then people would just spam this ability nonstop

i dont think the force reload should go, but dont forget that t2 is actually the most muni heavy tier soviet have. all units in the tier have abilities and would be stepping on each other for them sweet sweet munis. spamming sustained fire means less ines of course, but also less flares and less zis barrages. kind of a pick your poison scenario at that point.

spamming sustained fire means less ines of course, but also less flares and less zis barrages. kind of a pick your poison scenario at that point.

That's a good point too, but I believe sustained fire is the cheapest of the 3 at 20 Muni. I agree keeping the reload is a good way to balance it

I disagree here. Without a forced reload it could just be popped during any push or engagement without care and be significantly more effective than any other HMG at stopping pushes at the press of a button. It should be a situational, concious decision. Not a no brainer ability.

Well, the easy alternative was always giving the maxim actually decent stats as a heavy machine gun so it didn't need sustained fire at all

But this is what we got instead. And given that we have been given it, making it actually able to be used in a reasonable time frame is pretty important.

This wasn't designed as an alternative to the MG42's delete squad/light vehicle/fighting position button- it is meant to allow maxims to do the heavy machine gun job that every other MG gets to do simply by setting up and firing.

I disagree here. Without a forced reload it could just be popped during any push or engagement without care and be significantly more effective than any other HMG at stopping pushes at the press of a button. It should be a situational, concious decision. Not a no brainer ability.

There are plenty of abilities which provide combat bonuses that don't require a "warm up" animation such as Take Aim, Combat Blitz, and the paratrooper suppressing fire.

In terms of suppression, this ability brings the maxim on par with its contemporaries, I don't agree it would end up being the penultimate infantry suppression tool. And even if it were slightly superior at dealing with blobs, it still lacks the anti vehicular capabilities of the other machine guns through their abilities.
The fact that the ability is cancelled upon pack up also means you are greatly rewarded for flanking an already engaged maxim.

That's a good point too, but I believe sustained fire is the cheapest of the 3 at 20 Muni. I agree keeping the reload is a good way to balance it

I definitely agree. Just pointing out that of all the builds t2 is one of the more muni heavy directions Soviet can head. If they throw guards in too for some heavy infantry they will need to lend lease some muni from the Americans to oorah

Well, the easy alternative was always giving the maxim actually decent stats as a heavy machine gun so it didn't need sustained fire at all

But this is what we got instead. And given that we have been given it, making it actually able to be used in a reasonable time frame is pretty important.

This wasn't designed as an alternative to the MG42's delete squad/light vehicle/fighting position button- it is meant to allow maxims to do the heavy machine gun job that every other MG gets to do simply by setting up and firing.

There is 2 types of coh2 players:

- the ones that say "do never significantly buff the maxim again"
- the ones who joined CoH2 after the maxim spam cancer abuse from 2015/16, hence they never saw it before

Well, the easy alternative was always giving the maxim actually decent stats as a heavy machine gun so it didn't need sustained fire at all

That's not an easy alternative at all.

My main issue is that Maxims need a 6 men crew for the deathloop issue and are therefor very durable, while also being available right at the start of a game (unlike the M2HB and DshK, that can have better stats to compensate for the deathloop instead because they come a lot later), while also having a faster reposition time than the other T0 HMGs, which means it can't have good stock stats because then 2-3 Maxims would quite easily shut OKW down completely on corridor or urban maps (like Red Ball Express or Lienne Forest) right from the start because OKW does not have anything in T0 that could counter it (USF had a T0 mortar added to deal with early HMG 42s for a reason) besides flanking/overwhelming with infantry, which isn't really possible in corridors or against garrisons.

Besides that, there's always the risk of enabling the infamous Maxim spam again, which is something I'm sure everyone would like to avoid.

Besides that, there's always the risk of enabling the infamous Maxim spam again, which is something I'm sure everyone would like to avoid.

There are ways around that. What if you increased Maxim cost to 280, doubled its build time and narrowed its cone of fire a bit? That way spamming them would be very difficult, especially at the start, and you could then improve the Maxim as a machine gun to do its job.

There is 2 types of coh2 players:

- the ones that say "do never significantly buff the maxim again"
- the ones who joined CoH2 after the maxim spam cancer abuse from 2015/16, hence they never saw it before

3 types. You forgot those that lived through it but won't let ptsd get in the way of balance. The game has changed A LOT in the last 5 years. I wish there was a mod that had all the original stats and design so we can be reminded how far the game has come. Just because the maxim used to be oppressive doesn't mean it's not underwhelming now and has room to improve. Obviously we don't want maxim spam to return but using maxim spam as justification for no improvement ever is silly.