What to do with OST?

There is only one thing I am sure about: Ost will collapse after the Tiger nerfs. The lack of lategame will become evident once you can't rely on the Tiger as much.

What broke Ost was the nerfs to their lategame gimmicks over the last years. It started with Elefant nerfs years ago. Then there was a Panther. The community complained but Panther wasn't buffed but only adjusted. Vet 2 was then nerfed on most tanks. Spotting scopes were nerfed. The command Panzer IV aura was nerfed. The LeFH was nerfed. The Brummbär was nerfed. All small stuff that made Ost good lategame.

What was the nail in the coffin were the heavy buffs for Allies (KV1 and Churchill, Pershing). At that point Ostheer did not hold their supposed lategame advantage any longer... which was the whole point of playing the faction in the first place.

There is only one thing I am sure about: Ost will collapse after the Tiger nerfs. The lack of lategame will become evident once you can't rely on the Tiger as much.

What broke Ost was the nerfs to their lategame gimmicks over the last years. It started with Elefant nerfs years ago. Then there was a Panther. The community complained but Panther wasn't buffed but only adjusted. Vet 2 was then nerfed on most tanks. Spotting scopes were nerfed. The command Panzer IV aura was nerfed. The LeFH was nerfed. The Brummbär was nerfed. All small stuff that made Ost good lategame.

What was the nail in the coffin were the heavy buffs for Allies (KV1 and Churchill, Pershing). At that point Ostheer did not hold their supposed lategame advantage any longer... which was the whole point of playing the faction in the first place.

This looks like a teamgame issue where OH is not as gimped as in 1v1 and can compete. People keep bringing this whole "i got to lategame therefore i win" mentality when that design was dropped in 2014/2015.

If the GOTO meta is not IS2 and Pershing, then OH won't suffer as much the lack of Tiger at all.

OH shined and remain stronger than other factions in 3 different stages:

-Mobile defense
-Sniper/222 meta
-Brummbar meta.

Maybe some short lived patches such as rework Ostwind.

The problem has always been early light vehicle meta and then heavy meta post Stug nerf.

Ostheer is simply too fragile with 4man Grenadiers. Volks can at least hold the line with 5 models and Obers are beasts from max range.

This is also why Osttruppen have become so popular, at 17mp reinforce and 6men you can afford to screen for your damage dealers. 4man Grens cannot.

I'm not advocating for a Grens buff, just stating the sad reality. In my honest opinion a stock 5man Grens upgrade instead of the LMG42 would be a lot better for the faction. If Relic gave me the green light to do whatever I want I'd make the 5man upgrade from German Infantry stock and I'd make the LMG42 a German Infantry doctrine upgrade.

Another major issue is the lack of dominant LV play, which is why the Puma crutch was needed in the first place. If Ostheer had the Luchs and Puma combo they'd be the dominant pick. Instead they don't have a light tank which is a shame. If Relic had put the Panzer IV F1 in T2 with a T4 upgrade to Panzer IV F2 it would have had a very positive effect.

If the GOTO meta is not IS2 and Pershing, then OH won't suffer as much the lack of Tiger at all.

The problem is, the current meta is "60 range-TDs". After the Tiger is nerfed, OST really isn't going to have all that much in terms of vehicle based AI that will actually work in late game. Ostwinds and P4s will get deleted by M36s, SU85s and even FFs.

Ost is fuck powerful in 4v4. I would consider nerf the werfer. And stuka too. Oh bunker cost 1 pop cap

Other than that, brumbar is getting buff. Pak is getting buff. Grens is getting buff. Shit is hitting the fan in 1v1 for you whiny boomers.

Ost player most self entitled old fart? See proof here. Thread #2810 ost am cry

The problem is, the current meta is "60 range-TDs". After the Tiger is nerfed, OST really isn't going to have all that much in terms of vehicle based AI that will actually work in late game. Ostwinds and P4s will get deleted by M36s, SU85s and even FFs.

Which is "fine" in the sense that they won't get their units 2 shotted by heavies. They have better tools to deal with those than say a vet 2 50 range IS2.

I spent about 30 minutes writing a reply in the "The TRUE reason behind OST" thread, but it was locked when I hit the "reply" button. However, it essentially came down to this:



OST is a really complicated faction to balance, since it has so many interconnected pieces, and relies much more heavily on combined arms than any other faction. It also has the most "complete" set of tools, so it doesn't have any obvious weaknesses like, for example, USF (no sniper) or UKF (no mobile mortar). Additionally, the vast majority of OST's units scale very far into late-game (grens, pgrens/Schrecks, Pak40), meaning that changes to mid-game units can drastically change late-game game play.

This means that buffing one unit can drastically change a completely different unit. The example I was going to give in the other thread was how buffing the 222 could indirectly make the MG42 much more powerful in the mid game, since a buffed 222 would better defend against snipers, flanking, and LVs. That would in turn make Grens more powerful, since close-combat units would have a harder time getting within range. This type of 'knock on' effect would likely be much less drastic if, for example, the USF Stuart was buffed - I would doubt there would be many threads about the .50-cal being too strong as a result.

Due to all of this, as Vipper said, the only easy solution is to nerf other factions to OST power level - i.e. a return of the "Ost Benchmark" concept. This isn't to say that buffing OST is impossible; it's just exceedingly challenging to do without creating incredibly gimmicky/boring metas (i.e. current Tiger meta, old "Panic Puma" meta, etc.).

I disagree about the powercreep angle, Ostheer have pretty much bullied UKF since release, early sniper into 222 was pretty much was an instant win for the first 6 months of Brit release. Only some doctrinal cheese gave Brits a fighting chance.

Look at the past tournaments and even when they have been weaker, Ost have always at least featured and were picked in the last rounds.

Ostheer are not some historical sickman ottoman empire of CoH2 some make them out to be, they have the most complete roster that gives you a lot of room for adapting to different metas.

Brits on the other hand...

1) More people own ostheer than UKF
2) UKF are badly designed faction going from up to OP all the time.

It can be argued Ostheer are certainly not perfectly designed themselves.

Part of the issue with keeping USF and UKF balanced over the years has been how early ostheer can cheese a sniper and roll into 222 or flamer HT. This is why AEC and m20, and Soviet tier 1 have had major redesigns numerous times over the years trying to solve this issue.

Look at the past tournaments and even when they have been weaker, Ost have always at least featured and were picked in the last rounds.

Previous weekend there was tourney casted by Helping Hans and I believe (atleast on streamed games) only VonIvan picked OST. So 90% peoples choice was OKW but understandable when we have disbalanced factions :-/

Ost is fuck powerful in 4v4. I would consider nerf the werfer. And stuka too. Oh bunker cost 1 pop cap

Other than that, brumbar is getting buff. Pak is getting buff. Grens is getting buff. Shit is hitting the fan in 1v1 for you whiny boomers.

Ost player most self entitled old fart? See proof here. Thread #2810 ost am cry

This is the second thread Mrgame2 has used Ost players supposedly ALL being Boomers an argument against buffing Ost. I don’t think that has anything to do with balancing the game and isn’t constructive feedback to improve the game.

Which is "fine" in the sense that they won't get their units 2 shotted by heavies. They have better tools to deal with those than say a vet 2 50 range IS2.

"better" - I guess? OST still doesn't have any vehicle with even close to 60 range, except for the 245f doc-locked ele. The closest they have is a 50-range STUG. Meanwhile literally every other faction has one non-doc TD at 60 range.

OST can manage, but they're still going to be fighting an uphill battle if a match goes into late-game.

I disagree about the powercreep angle, Ostheer have pretty much bullied UKF since release, early sniper into 222 was pretty much was an instant win for the first 6 months of Brit release. Only some doctrinal cheese gave Brits a fighting chance.

Look at the past tournaments and even when they have been weaker, Ost have always at least featured and were picked in the last rounds.

Ostheer are not some historical sickman ottoman empire of CoH2 some make them out to be, they have the most complete roster that gives you a lot of room for adapting to different metas.

Brits on the other hand...

I don't entirely think its 'power-creep'. In a thread a while back, it was shown that really, most units haven't gone up that much in power over the years. I instead think that its "utility creep" (compare the features on a WFA unit to vCoH2), combined with WFA setting the power-bar a bit higher (even post-nerf). I.e. it was a one-time bump, followed with an increase in utility to other units, rather than raw power.

I also think that comparing anything to UKF is somewhat pointless; UKF is simply a poorly designed faction. At release, they were lacking so many of the basic tools that they were inherently going to end up flipping between 'incredibly OP' (ex. release-state brace) and 'completely useless', based entirely on the stats of a few units (IS, AEC, and a few others). Now that they're starting to get some of the basic tools (i.e. snares), they're getting better, as their balance can be based around more units and/or abilities. However, there's still a lot of issues, such as the balancing related to 'bolster', the lack of a normal mortar (or similar), the lack of garrison clearing in the early game, etc.

UKF is going to be a mess until that's addressed, and until then, factions really shouldn't be compared to them.

This is the second thread Mrgame2 has used Ost players supposedly ALL being Boomers an argument against buffing Ost. I don’t think that has anything to do with balancing the game and isn’t constructive feedback to improve the game.

Imo he is a troll. First it was poor axis poor 4 men grens and the deathloop on the pak 40 was worse then the deathloop of the maxim...
No he flipped 180° and its axis op most of the time.

soviets barely saw any change exept the 7 men and some slight adjustments. So i dont wanna hunt ghosts, i care about facts. We cant just mindlessly buff OH becouse we feel like it. Then we will have to buff the allies again etc.

I think there is some truth in what you are saying: Its simply wrong to say that OH did not get love in the last years because in the summer the mod team buffed Pgrens and Ostwind, and also lowered the tech costs. This is a lot.

Where i disagree with you is that Allied factions are more or less balanced after the changes to SVT/7man cons. I think there is one USF unit in particular that absolutely need a nerf and thats the pak howie. Its insane how good the unit is in teamgames. AoE and accuracy are way too good especially if you consider that OST mortars were nerfed heavy after the UTT tournament. And OST is the faction that should have better team weawpons than other factions.

Ost units that recently got buffed: Grenadiers, Mortars, Pgrens, HT, Ostwind, Stug, Ass Grens, Tiger.

Maybe remember that Ost was fine before the recent Riflemen and Conscript buff so maybe look at these changes first

And if you check patch notes, you'll notice that over last 2-3 years the only ost units that weren't buffed are P4, pwerfer, sniper, pak and mortar. Some were buffed to the point when they had to be additionally nerfed afterwards.

I am not sure why you want bring the history of Ostheer patches up, no matter what the history is the fact remains that Ostheer did not perform good in the last tournament.

Fire and terror claim that allies have not gotten any significant buff the last two year. Now PLS explain if you agree with that or you do not agree with that.

But pls stop trolling and derailing this thread just because you want to disagree with anything I post.

Actually since the rework of usf none where touched exept the maxim got slight buffs. If anything 50 cal was nerfed ages ago by loosinf supression and vet 1 sprint IIRK. So USF just has better acess to its weapons making it a good faction.

But you are missing the impact of the tech changes. USF had always had great unit but the come with a price. Support weapons would come later and one would have either access to suppression and light vehicles or ATG , indirect fire weapon and light tank.

Actually those restriction where so important that they Airborne doctrine was designed to simply bypass them.

Once these restriction where removed USF become a faction not only with superior infatry and light vehicles but a faction that could beat ostheer in their own game of combined arms.

Not to mention a number of commander revamps that made USF commanders stronger and with more abilities.

soviets barely saw any change exept the 7 men and some slight adjustments. So i dont wanna hunt ghosts, i care about facts. We cant just mindlessly buff OH becouse we feel like it. Then we will have to buff the allies again etc.

Better of to slightly adjust the values and be done with it. Becouse the only nerf i can see for OH is the loss of puma, which made OH very dominant beforehand.

Now read my post did I say ostheer need buffs? What I said is that other faction need nerfs.

It can be argued Ostheer are certainly not perfectly designed themselves.

Part of the issue with keeping USF and UKF balanced over the years has been how early ostheer can cheese a sniper and roll into 222 or flamer HT. This is why AEC and m20, and Soviet tier 1 have had major redesigns numerous times over the years trying to solve this issue.

You can argue what ever you like but your example is balance issue and not a design issue.

It also flawed. The m20 and AEC did not "major redesigns numerous times".. Neither did Soviet T1 and it was not because of sniper/222 problem. It was because of maxim spam.

Ost units that recently got buffed: Grenadiers, Mortars, Pgrens, HT, Ostwind, Stug, Ass Grens, Tiger.

Maybe remember that Ost was fine before the recent Riflemen and Conscript buff so maybe look at these changes first

When you say recently buffed what do you mean?
When was OStheer mortar buffed,HT, Stug buffed?

Stug got faster and harder to hit, grens dont get oneshotted at vet 3, ht heals

All good changes IMO, the only thing OH needs are slight adjustments to maybe stug TWP doing full dmg, or stupa getting its slight armor buff, which it does this patch.

Edit: since peaple conplain about 4 men grens, actually since the last changes i find them harder to wipe then volks at vet 3 becouse of how sqad spacing works.

And ofc to adress the overtuned cons and maybe usf pak then it will be fine. OH is not the wreck peaple make it up to be, since as i said beside of cons 7 men no allied units were recently that signifcantly buffed to make it a wreck

Stug got faster and harder to hit, grens dont get oneshotted at vet 3, ht heals

Ostwind becomes a bofors on wheel with a turbo 1-click escape.

Ost is in the best spot yet.

Dont just harp on the wc19 games. A theory floating around, is top players are trying their luck with tiger stalling and allows a hole in ost builds

Stug got faster and harder to hit, grens dont get oneshotted at vet 3, ht heals

Stug had major nerf in ROF, and some people think that it still up.

HT got buffed but mostly added utility so that people would actually build the thing.

Mortar was nerfed along with other mortars and once one of the most powerful units of ostheer see as much action as other factions mortars.

Regardless of all these buffs OKW still get picked more than Ostheer.

The problem is, the current meta is "60 range-TDs". After the Tiger is nerfed, OST really isn't going to have all that much in terms of vehicle based AI that will actually work in late game. Ostwinds and P4s will get deleted by M36s, SU85s and even FFs.

And it'll always be meta as long as both axis factions spam nothing more then P5 and P6.

You see, you think Tiger is a cure.
Its not.
Together with other heavies, its the cause of pretty much all problems.

If there is no danger of heavy tanks, there is no reason to build more then 1 TD and if you can't play around 1 TD, you REALLY need to improve.