Sturmtiger vs AVRE - in a very good spot right now?

Since the brits have become viable again I've spent quite a bit of time playing around with the Royal Engineer doc and especially AVRE has become one of my favourite meme units. The good thing about it is that its actually a really good meme and even the best players regularly lose squads to it. (as evidenced by the recent 2v2 tourney)

On paper it still seems like the (worse) wannabe Sturmtiger compared to the real deal with its lower range and damage. However in reality AVRE seems to vastly outperform its Axis counterpart.

I decided to play around in CheatMod and came across some unexpected and interesting findings and also payed more attention to the veterancy bonuses.

First of all the AVRE Reload time begins when the firing animation is started making the actual reload several seconds shorter than on paper. Meanwhile the Sturmtiger's manual reload is exactly what is meant to be so the AVRE gains an unfair advantage due to this oversight. That is in addition that the ST reload is done manually and the speed debuff makes instant manual reload on the frontline a very bad idea most of the time while AVRE gets away with its automatic instant reload scot-free.

2nd item on the list: the Sturmtiger's vet 4 range bonus is simply bugged and it seems to not be implemented at all. I checked the recent patch notes and veterancy guide and there seems to be no indication that the vet 4 was scrapped so its just a useless shiny star on the unit icon atm.

The inconsistency between veterancy and reload bonuses:

The AVRE gets the reload bonus right away at vet 1 making it only 32 seconds. In actuality the reload disparity between it and the ST is even bigger due to the AVRE's ease-of-use in reloading.

The Sturmtiger on the other hand requires vet 3 to get a 30 seconds manual reload and vet 5 meme tier vet to remove the speed debuff. Much like indirect fire the real power spike happens when the reload buff veterancy level is achieved. So the AVRE power spike happens a lot quicker compared to the sturmtiger giving it a huge advantage in this department as well.

Time to fire: The sturmtiger has one the most obvious firing animation in the game (after the conscript molotov) and it lasts approximately 4 seconds giving opponents ample opportunities to react. Meanwhile the AVRE time to fire is around 3 seconds and there is no real firing animation + the turret traverse makes targeting faster and even more so with vet 2 movement and turret rotation buffs. Once again the sturmtiger gets the short end of the stick. Also due to the lack of proper animation the mere presence of the AVRE is often enough to force retreats (as in parking it next to a point / behind a sightblocker when it is reloading while the opponent expects the AVRE to fire the second a capping squad is in range.)

The ease of use against armor:

For UKF it is significantly easier to use the AVRE and combined arms against armor compared to OKW and the Sturmtiger. Brits have several abilities that synergize extremely well with the AVRE like the AEC tread break and Tulip stuns that make it possible to chain stuns. (The longest relatively easy stun lock being Tulips + tread break + AVRE + Gammon Bombs requiring no assistanance / abilities from teammates) OKW nor axis in general has such stun locks / chaining available.

The last thing that I find peculiar is the disparity between patching these units.

The changelog has made it very clear that the instagib potential of the Sturmtiger was deemed necessary to be severely reduced.

Quote from the changelog of december 2018:

Sturmtiger

We have aimed to make this unit perform more consistently. The intention is an increased ability to punish dense unit concentrations while not outright destroying infantry squads immediately.

Since then it has been given "buffs" that mostly seemed like out-of-date April Fools jokes like the grenade launcher buffs. Meanwhile blind eye has been turned to the AVRE and its vet that is 100% aimed at improving its primary offensive capabilities.

The bare minimum I would like to see is the veterancy oversights / bugs fixed. The focus of balancing between these units should also be made consistent and equal instead of the nerf hammer ignoring one of these units completely.

I'd like to hear your thoughts since the AVRE is such a regular unit on the battlefield these days and it has made the power disparity between it and Sturmtiger very apparent.

I like AVRE as it is. Good to play, nasty to play against, fitting its cost. But the Sturmtiger is hardly worth its invest. So I recommend giving some love to the Sturmtiger, so we can see it in wild again more often.

edit: nice catch with the reload times!

I really can't see the point of the Sturmtiger unless you intend to use it as it was designed. It's supposed to be an extreme risk-reward unit, and if it can one-shot a medium tank or wipe a few squads then fine. It has a long aim time and is vulnerable during reloading, and it doesn't fire automatically like most units. I think its flaws were always obvious.

I think it's a huge shame it was made doctrinal as it was never designed to be, but nerfing it seems like a mistake. If it's just going to end up as an AVRE or Stupa clone then I think it's essentially a waste of a unit slot.

I really don't like the way you have worded the poll. Am I saying no that the avre is not in a good spot or am I saying no it dosnt have an advantage over the sturmtiger?

Anyway, I think its range at vet 4 is bugged as well as the increase range for the grenade ability.

The grenade ability is in my opinion, quite good now (I wish you could use it when reloading). Besides fixing the vet I would like to bump up its rotation and increase its acceleration/deceleration slightly as they are very low.

The current sturmtiger is nothing more than a Unit that plays chicken with enemy infantry, either you shoot or they retreat (most cases they simply sidestep and that's that).
Before the damage against vehicles was nerfed it was actually a nice supporting tank in severely damaging enemy tanks, and in combination with vehicle spotting you could catch tanks of guard.
If you try that nowadays, you can be lucky if a jackson looses 1/3 HP. I like the elite armor doctrine for the 221, and I tried to make the sturmtiger work, but even against emplacements its lacklustre.

Okay kill the previous post, I thought I was editing it..... sorry bout that

I really don't like the way you have worded the poll. Am I saying no that the avre is not in a good spot or am I saying no it dosnt have an advantage over the sturmtiger?

Anyway, I think its range at vet 4 is bugged as well as the increase range for the grenade ability.

The grenade ability is in my opinion, quite good now (I wish you could use it when reloading). Besides fixing the vet I would like to bump up its rotation and increase its acceleration/deceleration slightly as they are very low.

Edgy titles / polls spark more discussion

The real meat of the matter are the facts stated in the post that can be very easily checked making the poll statement edgy but supported by my observations.

I think the ability to frequently delete squads out of nowhere isn't a fun gameplay mechanic since the punishment is so severe for a few seconds of bad reaction time. Especially the AVRE's short reload and lack of animation make it a huge mental strain to keep an eye on. I think the AVRE's vet 1 is a big factor here since it is quite easy to achieve and is such a huge boost to the offensive firepower. (and is one of the very few vet 1 abilities that change the units combat performance instead of adding an ability) Reworking / replacing the vet 1 of the AVRE or shifting the vet between levels might alleviate the issue.

As for the Sturmtiger I'm not quite sure what should be done - all I know is every time I call that unit in the chances of me throwing the game seem to exponentially increase

Im totally unsure what to vote as the phrasing is reaaaaaaaly weird.

And yes. I hate the avre because it feels way more capable of doing, what the ST does. And i guess bugfixing should be the !No.1! next Patch for this game. Not just for the ST

Im totally unsure what to vote as the phrasing is reaaaaaaaly weird.

And yes. I hate the avre because it feels way more capable of doing, what the ST does. And i guess bugfixing should be the !No.1! next Patch for this game. Not just for the ST

What you vote doesn't really matter - patching is never based on such polls. Its your written input that is appreciated here. And its not just your feeling since by several metrics AVRE is just objectively better.

IMO they all suck...I'd like to see AVRE rework be UKF KV2，for ST maybe grenade should be default weapon not a time limited ability，or increase range make ST be middle range artillery

A few additional things I forgot to include yesterday:

The vet 3 free crit repair on a unit like AVRE is just bonkers - the free engine crit autorepair happens after 15 seconds no matter if the unit is in combat or not and it fixes both normal and heavy engine damage.

In a rarer scenario if multiple engine damage criticals are stacked they all disappear within 15 seconds after receiving the crit. So trying to snare a vet 3 AVRE with a mine or a faust is pretty much wasted effort and the only surefire way to trap an AVRE in place is with a doctrinal riegel mine (good luck OKW getting that riegel with that legendary 221 vet 5 ) All other factions have to risk vehicle crew repairs and trap their vehicles in place or to use USF vehicle crew vet 1 ability and risk exiting the tank to get rid of snares in addition to paying a hefty munitions price of around 40 muni. (besides the vehicle crew vet 1 ability)

The vet 3 neutralizes key gameplay mechanics such as smart mine placement which at minimum is problematic.

I also did a quick test using a KT as a target dummy to see how fast the AVRE and ST got their biggest power spike aka reload buff. (I am sure someone more interested in specifics will provide the specific vet requirements if need be)

For AVRE to reach vet 1 and to get a 30% reload time decrease bonus (which in reality is even bigger due to the reload timer starting at the beginning of the firing animation) it required exactly 2 shots against the KT while the Sturmtiger required 3 shots for the Vet 3 reload time buff. Once again in reality due to the AVRE's ease of use compared to the Sturmtiger the time between the power spike between these units is significant.

AVRE is slightly too good but not that big of a deal considering the doctrine isn't that strong overall.

Sturmtiger is just too bad.

AVRE is slightly too good but not that big of a deal considering the doctrine isn't that strong overall.

Sturmtiger is just too bad.

You can have ST and KT at once and ST will still just walk up and annihilate ATGs just fine.
Its not super amazing unit, but it is not bad.

You can have ST and KT at once and ST will still just walk up and annihilate ATGs just fine.
Its not super amazing unit, but it is not bad.

You're attempting to muddy the waters by trying to bring unit synergy to a topic that is focused solely on pointing out the huge disparities in performance and balancing mentality between 2 units performing identical roles with identical costs - and that trick is not going to work here in addition to it being just being ridiculous. I rate it 5/7 strawman argument

If an OKW player has managed to actually field both the KT and Sturmtiger (around 40 popcap worth invested into 2 units) he/she has either already won the game at that point or they are going to be greeted by a wall of tank destroyers - Especially AVRE doctrine's command vehicle buffed Fireflies will happily yeet such heavies into a vet feeding repair loop.


However I wish you the best of luck if you are going to pick defending the current comparison / status quo between the AVRE and ST as your hill to die on.

However I wish you the best of luck if you are going to pick defending the current comparison / status quo between the AVRE and ST as your hill to die on.

Well, my personal take on it is that KT, ele, JT, ISU and these two should NEVER be in the game in the first place, but they are and let's do whatever is needed to keep them niche options instead of wanting to buff them to meta level.

ST might be harder to use then AVRE, but we've seen games where it wrecks everything just as well as AVRE.
This is why I'm saying both are fine.

Well, my personal take on it is that KT, ele, JT, ISU and these two should NEVER be in the game in the first place, but they are and let's do whatever is needed to keep them niche options instead of wanting to buff them to meta level.

ST might be harder to use then AVRE, but we've seen games where it wrecks everything just as well as AVRE.
This is why I'm saying both are fine.

It might be my ranking, but I have not seen a Sturmtiger in ages, and I have also not seen a Sturmtiger in any serious higher level stream.


I agree that the AVRE is way better, but the AVRE is approximately the level these units should be at. Good aiming + somewhat late reaction of the opponent gives a decent chance for a squad wipe, everything else does damage but not wipe. The Sturmtiger is just waaaaay to buggy. With the projectile colliding everywhere it can't get long range, the impact effects don't allow to rework it to reduce the damage.
All animations around this unit say it has to have a big, wiping boom, everything else would look and play very weird.
If possible, get the ST up to about AVRE performance. But I feel like this unit has issues beyond saving, mostly due to the design of the current game and the CoH2 engine.

Its weird thinking that a Brummbar does the job of killing infantry better than a SturmTiger. I always feel bad when teammate picks a ST over any other units, feels like trolling almost.

I think the greatest problem the current sturmtiger has is the abandon chance whenever it gets hit while reloading, if that could get removed it wouldn't lose its veterancy which is quite annoying even if the sturmtiger can get repaired, remanned and brought back into aciton after some lucky indirect fire hit it while it was reloading far beyond the front line with no follow up. If the abandon chance wouldn't be as high as it is, players could try to use the sturmtiger a bit more proacitve and fire and instantly start the reload on the frontline, while backing away (still with the speed debuff) and thus could fire more often potentially earn veterancy faster.
To the argument about damage against medium vehicles: it cannot onehit them currently but it still does 560 damage (compared to 440 from avre) on a direct rocket hit but the damage drops very fast off so usually the stun is the most interesting aspect in fights against enemy armor.
While it would be nice and probably fair to clean up a few inconsistencies between st and avre veterancy i think many of those could lead to a dominance of the sturmtiger so it would be nice if we could make it viable with some caution - while i fully agree with SweetrollNearTheDoor's findings and arguments i wouldn't want to hurry too many changes into a potential patch.

Both units are too strong. Sturmtiger was played by Stuve in UTT2 and got to vet5. They are both excellent at getting rid of enemy AT guns and MGs. They have a bit different playstyle but both can wipe squads with a single shot. One does it from out of sight and has stupid autonade throw, the other goes in close and gives you a choice of staying and dying or going home. You can't nerf one without nerfing the other.

Its weird thinking that a Brummbar does the job of killing infantry better than a SturmTiger. I always feel bad when teammate picks a ST over any other units, feels like trolling almost.

Brummbar can't drive frontally to 2 ATGs and kill one, ST can.

Yeah, I said killing infantry, not killing ATG. I know Brummbar cant as easily kill ATGs as STurm. Different roles. I still prefer seeing a brummbar over ST (i know different factions and stuff)