State of the ISU-152

There was a discussion a ways back about beefing up medium tanks close range pen so that closing with heavy Armour is more rewarding. I think this might be a good time to throw that into the ring.

There was a discussion a ways back about beefing up medium tanks close range pen so that closing with heavy Armour is more rewarding. I think this might be a good time to throw that into the ring.

Interesting idea, but it will brin also balance issues with t-34.

There was a discussion a ways back about beefing up medium tanks close range pen so that closing with heavy Armour is more rewarding. I think this might be a good time to throw that into the ring.

thats not going to help against an ISU however.

ISU is one of the worst vehicles in the game right now, It is only mild effective if you stand in front of it doing nothing, and with the high price and pop it's actually a detriment for you.

Not to mention ISU is completely vulnerable to pretty much everything and needs a LOT of support to operate.
Show me ONE game where ISU actually made a big impact in recent times, you are not gonna find it, the 14cp requirement means that by the time it hits the field the game is already won or lost.
I would say the vehicle actually needs some sort of rebalance to be viable.

ISU is one of the worst vehicles in the game right now, It is only mild effective if you stand in front of it doing nothing, and with the high price and pop it's actually a detriment for you.

Not to mention ISU is completely vulnerable to pretty much everything and needs a LOT of support to operate.
Show me ONE game where ISU actually made a big impact in recent times, you are not gonna find it, the 14cp requirement means that by the time it hits the field the game is already won or lost.
I would say the vehicle actually needs some sort of rebalance to be viable.

Thank you for your opinion.

ISU is one of the worst vehicles in the game right now, It is only mild effective if you stand in front of it doing nothing, and with the high price and pop it's actually a detriment for you.

Not to mention ISU is completely vulnerable to pretty much everything and needs a LOT of support to operate.
Show me ONE game where ISU actually made a big impact in recent times, you are not gonna find it, the 14cp requirement means that by the time it hits the field the game is already won or lost.
I would say the vehicle actually needs some sort of rebalance to be viable.

Your contribution to this balance discussion will not be forgotten

ISU is one of the worst vehicles in the game right now, It is only mild effective if you stand in front of it doing nothing, and with the high price and pop it's actually a detriment for you.

Not to mention ISU is completely vulnerable to pretty much everything and needs a LOT of support to operate.
Show me ONE game where ISU actually made a big impact in recent times, you are not gonna find it, the 14cp requirement means that by the time it hits the field the game is already won or lost.
I would say the vehicle actually needs some sort of rebalance to be viable.

Could you imagine the outrage if Brumbar was made 14command points, or if ISU could spray magic smoke to make snares useless.

The axis boys would be in meltdown

It is accurate enough to bleed opponents hard.

Yes a 260 fuel gun should do that, it would be sad to invest 260 into a unit and watch it kill a gren squad in 4 hits don't you think? It already bounces frontally on panthers, tigers and bounces 7/10 times on a Elefants frontal armor, so you see it is not that good in AP as it is good in HE.

Panther is only 75 fuel less expensive. The difference in armour, range and anty infantry potential seem to be greater than the price difference. Panther looks bleak here imo.

260-175= 85
Also I cannot comprehend how you are unable to understand basic english language. 1v1 here signifies ISU-152 v panther only and no other unit on the map. Here panther beats ISU easily.

With support as in actual battlefield yes it is difficult to push but that's where your teammates should come to help since the presence of ISU, elefant affect all the players on the map and not just the opponent and the owner of these guns.

Generally, 70 range unit that can deal with both target types is a bit OP imo and follows the pattern of many Soviet dual purpose units.

I don't think that stalling for a heavy tank is such a bad idea, especially if you can have a mixture of t70s and ZiSs to deal with most threats anyway.

Soviet dual purpose units? Is there anything as such? T-70 is good against infantry and pz2/222 but comes around 3-4 minutes late as compared to them. T-34 bounces most of the time on pz4 and has inferior AI, it is ineffective against panthers. SU-85. Axis has the best multirole tanks panther can decrew an AT after flanking it, Pz4 can decrew it frontally with 1-2 good shots and they both fair great against T-34. If SU-85 gets flanked by any of these it is as good as dead.

You need to understand the point here, to counter a panther Soviet has to go SU-85 which is ineffective against infantry whereas panther and pz4 both are good in AI and AT both and brummbar god like AI which Soviet lack. Hence ISU fulfills the role here by providing both of it.

If MMX's unit stats are correct, the ISU has actually the same accuracy and a better scatter area profile than the Elefant, so it's safe to assume that the ISU will hit more often. The AP shell uses different stats than the HE shell, so while the HE shell indeed has a large scatter area, the AP shell is more "accurate".

Yes ISU has the same accuracy and scatter as Elefant, but the main role of ISU is hitting infantry with TS:<1 whereas Elefant is hitting target with TS: >23. do let me know which will be more effective at max range.
As for the AT of ISU, it is a joke, my ISU once bounced on a vet 2 okw panzer frontally at max range imagine that, its penetration value is a joke most of the time it bounces off frontally on tiger 2,tiger and panthers, all of them have over 900 HP which means they will take 4 shots or more of ISU to be destroyed at the slow reload rate of itself. Elefant has 300 damage where except brits no one has tanks of over 640 HP which means 2 shots from elefant, it also has a stun feature that stuns the tank for few seconds when the victim tank is already on half of its HP by the first shot.

This is a very thin argument. Following this train of thought, all heavies could also act as game enders again because you did not push enough beforehand.
In a somewhat even game, it is often viable to sacrifice some CP in order to push resources more heavily and go for a heavy tank instead. I'm not saying that it were impossible to deny heavies by constant pushing, but brushing it off by saying "push more and you won't see a heavy ever" just does not work. Especially not in team games where fuel is not as limited due to caches.

My argument was based on the fact that if the Soviet is stalling for a heavy, the Axis can hold the resources and mostly fuel until then? because of no tanks or support so if they do have resources held for a long time they can easily make 2 panthers to rush ISU and save one of them and still have fuel reserves from the territorial occupancy.Thing is nothing in this game needs rebalancing its like introducing VAR in football which destroys half of the fun.

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I just don't agree. Soviets are much more versatile and their units trade much better. Watch tourneys and see for yourself. You can't just debunk every argument of a person who writes all that based on actual gameplay with all factions and watching hundreds of game replays, etc. I'm trying to pinpoint why it is easier to play with Soviets than it is to play with both Axis factions. If you believe that playing with axis is easier, we probably won't find common ground when discussing the game in its current state. Allies are easier to play with, and to me it is just a fact.

ISU is imo just an example of a very potent dual purpose unit with crazy range and armour, and not that bad mobility. It exists in doctrines with stuff like mark target, guards button and off maps. If you just don't see how powerful and imbalanced that is you are imo just almost blind. If ISU could deal with only infantry it would be an assymetrical counterpart to Elphant/Ferdinant. That would actually be ok as it wouldn't overlap with other doctrine tied abilities. In its current state it is just a bad design in relation to other units from opposing factions.

I just find it really difficult to discuss stuff which is based on advice "just rush it with panther". It is so biased and not acknowledging a simple fact how much better one should be to pull sth like that off.

Yes ISU has the same accuracy and scatter as Elefant, but the main role of ISU is hitting infantry with TS:<1 whereas Elefant is hitting target with TS: >23. do let me know which will be more effective at max range.

I have no idea where you want to go with this one, especially since you continue to critique the AT capabilities. You are describing the obvious what 10+ have already iterated beforehand: You get the most value if your ISU shoots HE rounds at infantry for as long as possible.

As for the AT of ISU, it is a joke, my ISU once bounced on a vet 2 okw panzer frontally at max range imagine that, its penetration value is a joke most of the time it bounces off frontally on tiger 2,tiger and panthers, all of them have over 900 HP which means they will take 4 shots or more of ISU to be destroyed at the slow reload rate of itself. Elefant has 300 damage where except brits no one has tanks of over 640 HP which means 2 shots from elefant, it also has a stun feature that stuns the tank for few seconds when the victim tank is already on half of its HP by the first shot.

What you are describing is the difference between a dedicated tank destroyer and a hybrid unit. With the same logic (ISU's AI is very good, the AT is allegedly bad) I could argue that the Elefant needs a big buff in the AI department, because it did not even kill a model after 10 shots. Regarding your calculation examples: A unit with 960 health would need 4 shots from both Elefant AND ISU (assuming all penetrate of course). Similarly, mediums take 3 shots to kill. The Elefant had 320 damage before and was nerfed to 300 to achieve exactly that. The main difference is in the snare potential that you need to back the units up with.
You also should know that the ISU does deflection damage which somewhat compensates the mediocre AT (or better to say penetration) of the unit.

My argument was based on the fact that if the Soviet is stalling for a heavy, the Axis can hold the resources and mostly fuel until then? because of no tanks or support so if they do have resources held for a long time they can easily make 2 panthers to rush ISU and save one of them and still have fuel reserves from the territorial occupancy.Thing is nothing in this game needs rebalancing its like introducing VAR in football which destroys half of the fun.

I don't know if I understand what you want to say. Please rephrase this, because the only thing I got is that if Axis have a resource lead, they will also have more units/vehicles out, which is not surprising.
If your point is that stalling for a heavy is not worth it then don't do it? But again, maybe rephrase this because I don't know what you want to say.

People keep repeating that ISU-152 can bounce but seem to ignore that even when it bounce it does damage. It actually has one of the highest deflection damage in game.

It does 120 damage on deflection up to 162 with "mark vehicle".

On top of that it comes with 400/350/300 penetration skill shot.

People keep repeating that ISU-152 can bounce but seem to ignore that even when it bounce it does damage. It actually has one of the highest deflection damage in game.

It does 120 damage on deflection up to 162 with "mark vehicle".

People don't mention 120 damage after 10s reload because it's not very good performance for a 260FU vehicle.

man the ISU-152 can switch between HE and AT round, wonder if the Jadtiger from OKW can also do that ( without costing ammo ), people would use Jadtiger more in 2vs2.

Also, imo ISU-152 with it HE round are good wiping machine consider Axis infantry are mainly 4 man squad, 1 HE shot is usually good enough to force retreat ( if you don't have frontline halftrack ).

tbh if you play as Ost in top 100 2vs2, see Soviet with ISU commander and you don't pick Elefant high chance you are fucked

People keep repeating that ISU-152 can bounce but seem to ignore that even when it bounce it does damage. It actually has one of the highest deflection damage in game.

It does 120 damage on deflection up to 162 with "mark vehicle".

On top of that it comes with 400/350/300 penetration skill shot.

Probably because SU-76, a 70 fuel light vehicle, will do 360 to 420 dmg at the same time wihout mark target.

Also, imo ISU-152 with it HE round are good wiping machine consider Axis infantry are mainly 4 man squad, 1 HE shot is usually good enough to force retreat ( if you don't have frontline halftrack ).

I highly advise you to check what Brummbar does to 6-7 man squads of allies.
You also need a retreat after taking 1 shot if it doesn't outright wipe your squad.

This is how expensive AI units that aren't flamers work, if you get hit, you have time until next reload to save your unit.

People don't mention 120 damage after 10s reload because it's not very good performance for a 260FU vehicle.

That is guaranteed even at high armor targets and it is hardly the only one gets.

Probably because SU-76, a 70 fuel light vehicle, will do 360 to 420 dmg at the same time wihout mark target.
...

That depend on the target and in the target SU-76 would penetrate ISU-152 would do full 240 damage.

Ignoring deflection damage is simply misleading.

People don't mention 120 damage after 10s reload because it's not very good performance for a 260FU vehicle.

The ISU is not supposed to be "very good" at AT because it's AI is already exceptional.

But you should not neglect that the deflection damage effectively halves the bounce rate in the case of the ISU, which offsets the rather low penetration value for its class.

It's AT is okay. Not good enough to stop a push by itself, but good enough to supplement the rest of the AT forces.

It's AT is okay. Not good enough to stop a push by itself, but good enough to supplement the rest of the AT forces.

Its not good to do much to a panther facetanking it from 20 range that's supported by at least 1 PaK.
Source: Did that.

At the very best, ISU AT is supplemental as literally anything above PTRS outperforms it by a long shot.
You can't mention damage and deflection without underlining the fact it has longest reload time in game right next to KV-2.

Little off-topic.

ISU could stay like it is, if AT-grenade lose its bounce damage (like Faust) and AT-setal-charges get removed.

-> so you can flank it with your more expensive and slower tanks with less range.

Little off-topic.

ISU could stay like it is, if AT-grenade lose its bounce damage (like Faust) and AT-setal-charges get removed.

-> so you can flank it with your more expensive and slower tanks with less range.

Out of all things that make absolutely no sense written on this forum in this month, this one makes least sense of them all.

That idea is so bad you should feel bad for conceiving it.