State of Heavies

Heavies just need a price increase.

Heavies just need a price increase.

How much are you thinking?

I was thinking they just need to add a couple CPs, but a cost increase could work

Well I mean, if we are overhauling them and reworking their vet we could (bear with me on this) rework their vet REQUIREMENTS too! If more power is gated behind vet their true potential would come from scaling and preserving them so they could be cheaper and hit a bit sooner. If we're talking about a rework any aspect can be reworked. Trying to fit performance to a fixed price point is where many balance issues reside.

if you reduce their vet requirement, that is not going to change them from their current state. they already vet quite easily thanks to their HP pool and good overall dps.
Each unit should value their price at vet0, remember Pfus? we went from expensive low efficient vet0 unit with incredible veterancy to priced correctly for vet0 unit with incredible veterancy.

Personally I don't like heavies, I'll not care at all if those were overnerfed and leaving the meta.

add cps

is remove some armor

tiger and is 2 vet 2 bonus loses 5 range

I think I would just require more tech to be built before you can call-in a heavy tank, that way they would still be good in team games and in 1's. Maybe just require USF, Soviets, and OKW to have to pay tech costs similar to that of the Crocodile and Tiger Ace since I feel those heavies don't come too early. Ostheer Tiger probably should require Tier 4 to be built as well.

I'm generally pretty happy with the state of the heavy call ins. I like the CP9 for Tiger and Pershing. Makes it so you can actually use them in 1v1. Before you'd call one in as your opponent was being pounded into dust anyway to just finish off his base.

How much are you thinking?

I was thinking they just need to add a couple CPs, but a cost increase could work

20-30 seems fair.

A slight 10-20 armour decrease on the IS2 would be good too.

if you reduce their vet requirement, that is not going to change them from their current state. they already vet quite easily thanks to their HP pool and good overall dps.
Each unit should value their price at vet0, remember Pfus? we went from expensive low efficient vet0 unit with incredible veterancy to priced correctly for vet0 unit with incredible veterancy.

Personally I don't like heavies, I'll not care at all if those were overnerfed and leaving the meta.

Heavy tanks are quite different than fussies though. They are insanely forgiving and thus much easier to vet. Repair times are the lowest they have been so even if they take damage they can be back on the front quickly.
Heavy tanks, being limited to 1 are more like a "hero" unit. They should be nurtured and grown across the late game and losing a vetted one should really hurt (more than just the resources)

They need to be viable and it's a fine line between being op and being not worth their cost, one that has been flipped back and forth over for years. We have had massive pop caps and massive prices and massive performance and the inverse of them all as well (relative to the other factors of course) and just tweaking those is difficult to produce good results.

We could try some lesser used mechanics to try and tweak performance, things like damage modifiers for example (increase health but also make em take more damage so they take longer to repair) to make em justified in their power. We could try economical tweaks, like a small resource deficit like the tiger ace had but much more minor to simulate to resource drain such a monster would be. We could try adding more utility instead of more combat power to bring it more in line with being part of an army
there are more options than just the running the same stats through a randomizer over and over and over again

20-30 seems fair.

A slight 10-20 armour decrease on the IS2 would be good too.

I think 20 would be fine, and i think they should still add a CP or 2 on top of it

Heavies just need a price increase.

this, together with a delayed arrival on the field. several solutions have been suggested before, such as making them buildable or adding a delay between call-in and actual deployment. cp requirements could stay as they are right now, and individual price/timing adjustments would bring the most obvious outlyers (e.g. is2) back in line with the rest of the cast.

Heavy tanks, being limited to 1 are more like a "hero" unit. They should be nurtured and grown across the late game and losing a vetted one should really hurt (more than just the resources)

Hero units are cancer. You can only balance them around themselves, if you like to play with hero units WC3 reforged will be there for you.

Personally I'd like to understand how we came to this situation where Heavy are a must have to expect to win a game. They aren't stock and should come with same level of downside as upside which isn't the case today.

Otherwise, if the idea is like you say "hero unit", make them stock so everyone can have them. At the moment they just shit over any other commanders that are balanced with downsides.

The problem is complex for a number of reason:

1) Commanders
These unit are available to commanders some of which have good abilities to begin with so the Super heavy tank is the icing on the cake.

Suggestion: one has to balance commanders so that if they have a good ability like a Super heavy tank the rest of their abilities should be UP so that the total power level of all commander abilities could be brought to about the same power level.

More radical: Make all of them stock instead of doctrinal...

2) Timing
Their timing is simply too early since the arrive slightly later than mediums tank while completely nullifying them.


Suggestion:
Delay arrival. That can be achieved by:
Increasing the CP and adjusting passive CP gain in bigger MOD so that all doctrinal abilities become available around the same time.

Add a research "tech" similar to BP for them (requiring resources or not) with a long research timer acting more as delay than an actual tech restriction. The same "tech" could be used to delay the replacement of the unit once it was lost so that player would need to research it again.

3) Shock value
Currently these units are way too powerful and can be game changing if one is not prepared even before they appear.

Suggestion:
Lower base stat and increase vet bonuses with each units gaining bonuses according to its design (for instance IS-2 could get armor as bonus). That would make these units easier to counter when they appear but progressively better and thus worth building.

4) All around performance

These units are simply too good as all around units better than their specialized counter parts, their armor/HP is comparable to each faction "meatshield", their AT is comparable to the "TD" and their AI is comparable to AI units.

Suggestion:
One could lower the performance at some area keep the performance good in another creating some sort of weakness. For instance the Tiger could keep its AT good but have its AI lowered while the IS-2 could have its AI good but have its AT lowered.

Else one should imo should toned down the performance in both AI and AT and simply make cost 1.5 medium making more attractive then 2 mediums due to price and being easier to keep alive.


5) Counters

Any units performance is directly related to each counters so the performance of these units can be adjusted by changing the counters.

Suggestions:
Lower the performance of TD at max range so that this units have more breathing room in large MOD or have special AP round similar to 76mm Sherman designed to be used against these units with more damage lower accuracy and ROF so that medium and Super heavies are balanced separately.

Lower the availability cheese tactics like:
Ram/off map (ram could become vet 1 and redesign as skill shot)
AT satchels causing 1 hit engine damage (these weapon should cause only damage and maybe a temp critical)

These changes could give more breathing room for this units in large MOD so that they do not have to be OP in smaller MODs.

Hero units are cancer. You can only balance them around themselves, if you like to play with hero units WC3 reforged will be there for you.

Personally I'd like to understand how we came to this situation where Heavy are a must have to expect to win a game. They aren't stock and should come with same level of downside as upside which isn't the case today.

Otherwise, if the idea is like you say "hero unit", make them stock so everyone can have them. At the moment they just shit over any other commanders that are balanced with downsides.

You are misinterpreting what I meant. I mean they are a hero unit in the sense they should be nurtured to reach their full potential, not that their presence should win games alone. Quite the opposite. I believe they should fight for their power. For example, if you took the is-2, and lowered its armour by say 50, and slashed its reload by say 50% and added it back through vet (spaced out) but didn't change its timing you would now have a weaker is-2 that, even if rushed is still less impactful but if it survives to the late game you will have a tough and reliable tank

This shit needs to be nerfed, its drastically thinned out commander/build diversity. Its simply gimping yourself not to use a heavy tank on some maps.

Give stug a APM mode like M1 AT gun from USF...so you can spend muni to get more range and maybe more penetration for a time

You are misinterpreting what I meant. I mean they are a hero unit in the sense they should be nurtured to reach their full potential, not that their presence should win games alone. Quite the opposite. I believe they should fight for their power. For example, if you took the is-2, and lowered its armour by say 50, and slashed its reload by say 50% and added it back through vet (spaced out) but didn't change its timing you would now have a weaker is-2 that, even if rushed is still less impactful but if it survives to the late game you will have a tough and reliable tank

That's not downside, that's plain nerf. Again I'm not against heavily nerf any heavy tank but we saw in the past the outcome of it, more whine and buff again.
But just as a reminder, you value a unit from its Vet0 perspective, nobody is going to play with a unit that requires you to vet it to 3 or 5 to be good. (but I'm personally fine with that).

Downside is what make you opponent use his brain to counter you without having to call his own heavy. Popcap increase is a good downside since it makes you lack something on your army composition to afford the heavy and gives your opponent room to overcome you by other ways than brute force.

That's not downside, that's plain nerf. Again I'm not against heavily nerf any heavy tank but we saw in the past the outcome of it, more whine and buff again.
But just as a reminder, you value a unit from its Vet0 perspective, nobody is going to play with a unit that requires you to vet it to 3 or 5 to be good. (but I'm personally fine with that).

Downside is what make you opponent use his brain to counter you without having to call his own heavy. Popcap increase is a good downside since it makes you lack something on your army composition to afford the heavy and gives your opponent room to overcome you by other ways than brute force.

Heavies come earlier than they used to which has inflated their value/performance balance. Making it weaker to start makes it more manageable. It would be a nerf for sure, but a counter to the timing buff they received. My example numbers were rough, and absolutely flexible but a weaker and earlier hitting heavy ensures that I can still see use in small modes without commanding larger modes entirely.

Pop cap is a garbage solution because it puts 1/4 eggs in one basket meaning that basket HAS to be at least as good as 25% of an army if not better to be attractive. In the past high pop cap made heavies unattractive despite their great performance because it simply was too limiting to be useful. We have already tried massive pop costs and it proved ineffective. I'd sooner try something new that might not work than try the same thing that's been attempted time and time again and failed each time.

That's not downside, that's plain nerf. Again I'm not against heavily nerf any heavy tank but we saw in the past the outcome of it, more whine and buff again.
But just as a reminder, you value a unit from its Vet0 perspective, nobody is going to play with a unit that requires you to vet it to 3 or 5 to be good. (but I'm personally fine with that).

Downside is what make you opponent use his brain to counter you without having to call his own heavy. Popcap increase is a good downside since it makes you lack something on your army composition to afford the heavy and gives your opponent room to overcome you by other ways than brute force.

The MOD team already has designed PF to work that way and even Obers are designed like that becoming more useful with higher vet.

And not the performance of units once vetted is very important. Actually for year Relic focused on balancing the units at vet 0 while many of the balanced issues comes from the performance of a unit once it is vetted.

I have been calling for veterancy overhaul for year now and the fact that some unit had their vet abilities and bonuses looked at is good sing.

The MOD team already has designed PF to work that way and even Obers are designed like that becoming more useful with higher vet.

But they're still viable at low vet.

The power spike of Panzerfusiliers is in their weapon upgrade, not their veterancy.

But they're still viable at low vet.

The power spike of Panzerfusiliers is in their weapon upgrade, not their veterancy.

G43 PF are UP for 295MP/80MU at vet 0 especialy taking into account the time they become available and they investment needed to be upgraded.

But the actual implementation is besides the point since I am talking design here and the design can be seen from the patch notes:

Panzerfusilliers

The way Panzerfusiliers are deployed has been changed to better match their role as an alternative mainline infantry to Volksgrenadiers. They will be slightly weaker than Volksgrenadiers at the start but have access to the Anti-Tank Rifle Grenades, slightly better combat veterancy, and more powerful upgrades, giving them increased power in the late game. This should make for interesting choices and compositions.

Point here the unit is designed to be UP at spawn and vet 0 and better once up-gunned and vetted.

A similar design could easily apply to Super heavies.