General Power of Factions in 1v1

Alright, with Master League coming up in August I was curious to see how people generally perceive factions power level at the moment. If somebody wants to make a follow up thread talking about other game modes feel free.

I would currently rank the 5 factions in the following order and my reasons for why:

1. USF
I think USF in 1v1 is definitely one of the major driving forces behind the meta being the way it is. Most of there tech tree is composed of strong units that have good timings and do their jobs extremely well. The only unit I can think of that isn't at least good in the current meta is the M20. 50 Cal is probably the best HMG in the game, Riflemen scale incredibly well with 2x Bars and the free officers are great with Bars as well. Pak Howitzer is extremely strong as well and is probably the best Heavy mortar type unit in the game for its cost and performance. Sherman is probably the best anti-infantry medium in the game and the Jackson is still pretty good overall. The commanders are what pushes USF over the top though as Recon Support and Mechanized are the two main commanders. Recon Support is great because it provides USF with Pathfinders for Ost Snipers, Pak Howie and Paratroopers without having to tech Captain and Cluster Bombs which are amazing against team weapons. Mechanized is a commander stuffed to the gills with abilities. Cav Rifles are pretty good. The 76mm Sherman is good against armored targets for its cost and the bulldozer on the Sherman also allows it to punch above its weight. You also get the Mortar HT and Combined Arms which are both good if a bit underused. Then the cherry on the cake is the WC51 which is absurdly difficult to kill without a vehicle or AT gun of your own, even then its extremely elusive with the free "step on it" ability. Plus Bazooka Bus is also something you can do with this commander. The only strategies I have struggled against as USF has been 5-man Grens and Falls with Valiant Assault.

2. UKF
I think Brits before the most recent mini-patch were probably the strongest faction in the game but the slight decrease in power of the timing of Bolster and Vickers upgrade on the UC has made a difference at the highest levels of play. Tommies are still extremely strong and I would say they are probably the best mainline infantry in the game even if Double Bar Rifles at Vet 3 are borderline stronger due to be able to fire on the move. Due to bolster coming earlier and being better than a single Bar. AEC is amazing for its timing and is essentially a slightly worse, but cheaper version of the Puma. Cromwell is a good medium and having the Comet non-doctrinal is really good. Team weapons are ok but the UC is to me just a WC51 with less utility and a higher price point. But with it being non-doc it's seen pretty consistently. I don't think Brits have as deep of a commander pool as USF does but their top commanders are nearly just as strong with Commando Regiment and Royal Artillery being the top picks. Brits are weaker to buildings and team weapons than USF though do to lack of flexible indirect fire options outside of commander picks.

3. OST
This is faction that will probably have the most variance in how its perceived by most people. Ostheer in my opinion is the faction that relies the heaviest on their meta commanders. Ostruppen, Assault Grens, and 5-man Grens being essentially must picks for the faction otherwise they really struggle. Their top commanders are definitely too strong especially against Soviets but I feel without them Ostheer would be one of the worst if not the worst faction in the game. Grens are generally I think the largest issue with the faction as they currently crutch on the slightly too fast timing of the Panzergrenadiers to compensate and also rely on the overtuned Flamer HT to apply large amounts of pressure in the early game with its brutally fast timing if you skip Tier 1. I find LMG Grens to be good on specific maps and in very specific situations but inflexible and cost inefficient which is why 5-man is so prominent with them because it makes them very cost efficient and gives them some side utility. The top tier Ostheer stuff is strong enough to compete with USF and UKF's meta but anything outside of that I feel Ostheer falls flat due to having a generally mediocre early game and an average late game, in which I would actually prefer playing OKW in that sense. Team weapons are good but I wouldn't consider any of them to be overpowered.

4. Soviets
I think Soviets are in a similar state to Ostheer where they have really strong meta commanders at the top of their loadouts but really suffer once you stop playing those, although I still think they have more viable commanders than Ostheer overall. The biggest issue with Soviets is that they really suffer against the Ostheer meta game unless they play Airborne Doctrine. They are the faction most vulnerable to early light vehicles and with Ostruppen allowing extremely quick 222's or a Flamer HT. Ostheer often feels on the backfoot going into the mid-game in which Ostheer has the cheaper tech costs allowing them to put even more pressure on. If you can survive to first 20 minutes of the game, you gain the advantage in the late game with better mediums and a great tank destroyer in the SU-85. 7-man Cons are great but do take some time to get upgraded while Penals are the opposite in which they are good early game but drop off significantly over time in cost-efficiency. To me Soviets have a few overpowered crutches they are relying upon to completely carry them against Ostheer. The Zis-3, T-70, SVT Cons, and T-34 Ram + IL-2 strafe. These are all overperforming abilities but they feel necessary against some of Ostheer's most powerful commanders. In general I would like to see a tone down on both sides. With core units being made better instead of the game being balanced around commanders.

5. OKW
OKW was good when the Tiger was batshit overpowered but now I think their biggest flaws have been showcased. I think they can compete with both USF and Soviets but in general Ostheer's meta commanders are a much safer bet and generally chosen unless a player heavily prefers OKW. They have multiple gaping holes right now they struggle against mightily. The WC51 and UC are already a pain to deal with as Ostheer, they are oppressive against OKW generally in which you are praying for a misplay from the opponent otherwise you have very little chance. In theory, Raketen could work but its difficult to snare these units and its also expensive to spend 290 mp in the early just to have a counter to a cheaper unit. The M3 is more tolerable but still tough to deal with on certain maps. OKW also has major design flaws that negatively affect their power in 1v1 such as having to heavily rely on med crates sapping munitions if you go Mechanized or being bled to death by light vehicles if you go Battlegroup instead. Volks are also in a kind of meh spot, I find them better than Grenadiers due to more utility and flexibility in combat but I don't think they worth 260 mp for their current performance and scaling. This is probably due to power creep from the Allied infantry instead of Volks being UP. Obers who are supposed to compensate for Volks scaling falling off don't come early enough to be able to deal with the vetted infantry your opponent with often have. With most elite allied infantry coming at 2-3 CP often 5-10 minutes earlier than Obers who need vet to be powerful which is why they have a 40 mp reinforce cost. Being able to heal from the HQ would also be nice so the Battlegroup HQ becomes essentially a utility structure. JLI, Falls, and Fusiliers are being heavily crutched upon due to Obers and Volks struggling currently in 1v1, especially against UKF. I feel they are also one of the most inflexible factions as they almost always require back-teching at some point in the mid-late game for certain units or abilites that USF could backtech and get for a cheaper price.

Pools like this never work.

It always turns to "which faction you main?" -weakest faction, always.
And "which faction you don't like to fight against most" -strongest faction, always.

Pools like this never work.

It always turns to "which faction you main?" -weakest faction, always.
And "which faction you don't like to fight against most" -strongest faction, always.

If you ignore the first question, the other 4 give pretty interesting information.
Sometimes you sacrifice a question in a poll to make the others gather the real data.

If you ignore the first question, the other 4 give pretty interesting information.
Sometimes you sacrifice a question in a poll to make the others gather the real data.

Last question needs to be dropped too and what's between is irrelevant.

You'd get same results if you just made selection with 1st or last question alone and it would be equally biased based.

Plus, its not like that opinion extends to any kind of indication and sadly, we do not have access to any metrics, so despite long ass opening post, pools like that are exclusively popularity contests.

Problem with axis mostly comes from the fact that pretty much both ost and okw can be abused by meta.

OKW

OKW suffers the most in early game, because of the light vehicles all 3 allies faction can get. As they are "suppose" to be late game faction, with superior vet and somewhat armor their early game at best on pair with other factions, but drops drastically if they are being abused by vehicles.

While on paper you can get a raketen, it heavily relies on opponent missplay and lack of 1 additional volk squad or (god forbits) delay in tech, can snowball into even bigger problems later on.

Not even gonna mention snipers and problems with fighing garrisoned teamweapons.
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Ost

Ost on the other hand again have the same issue, but in a different way. T1 is in general feels kinda strange. Grenadiers effectiveness is heavily rely on support and positioning.

Realistically in the same conditions, they can 1v1 only cons in all other encounters they would need at least some sort of the support.

On the one hand they are being second cheapest inf in the game, first one is being cons (because they don't require building). But at the same time I belive that grens are actually the most expensive mainline inf in the game, simply because you either need an MG (260 MP), pio squad (200MP) or another grenadier (240 MP) to have an even ground with tommy or rifles early on.

All of this forces ost to play defensively early on and here comes the question - Why would I want to stick with grens (non-5 men), if at the same time I can skip t1, play defensively with MG and Pio and then get T2.

And as ost you need T2 anyway with or without T1 (since it has all main AI\AT units), so if you are not want to play with sniper or a commander which rely on T1, it's just not worth it.

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Sov

Allies have their own problems and have to face cheese from axis aswell. But again, allies in general have much less of "I just need to survive past X moment, to conteact", while axis early to mid game is full of it.

As was mentioned before, I agree that soviets are in general the weakest allied faction in the game. T34\76 is honestly AI tank, and its AT capabilities end up with ram+off map, while SU-85 is cool TD, it's still for me the weakest, because of lack of the turret, but also because of the rest of the army supporting it.

And here comes main difference is the inf play, while british and USF can literally can be running terminators later on with brens\m19\bars being viable and powerfull, cons without ppsh or svts will be loosing, penals are generally meh past mid game. The only salvation are titanium shocktroops, but even they will drop later on if focused.

USF\UKF can stick to inf+TD play, because their inf don't really need AI tank support. They are effective by themself, unlike soviets.

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USF\Brit

Cant say much about them, because I'm still learning how to play as them and make a mistakes sometimes.

But in general USF being the most powerfull early game faction is also being the most punishing for mistakes one, because few wrong moves may lead to loss of this advange, and without early game advantage they will go downhill very fast.

Brits badly rely on timings and unit awareness. Also on meta. Untill mid game, you really have to do everything by the paper and in time in order to not get cached up without pants.

Last question needs to be dropped too and what's between is irrelevant.

You'd get same results if you just made selection with 1st or last question alone and it would be equally biased based.

Plus, its not like that opinion extends to any kind of indication and sadly, we do not have access to any metrics, so despite long ass opening post, pools like that are exclusively popularity contests.

Even then, OKW not showing on the polls at all really is fairly interesting.

Even then, OKW not showing on the polls at all really is fairly interesting.

Yeah and I'd love to have a possibility of compare that with actual OKW WL ratio across game modes.
Remember how Command Panther was laughable noob unit until Hans used it on 2v2 tournament and it suddenly started popping again all over the place?

OKW is a victim to stiff tech system, that means they are very predictable, but weak isn't a word I would use, coming from 2v2 pov.

Yeah and I'd love to have a possibility of compare that with actual OKW WL ratio across game modes.
Remember how Command Panther was laughable noob unit until Hans used it on 2v2 tournament and it suddenly started popping again all over the place?

OKW is a victim to stiff tech system, that means they are very predictable, but weak isn't a word I would use, coming from 2v2 pov.

They're fine in 2v2. Maps are larger and timing is different. 1v1 volks get absolutely dumpstered by rifles and it just doesn't get any better after that. No reason to roll with a faction that has a built in 33% chance to get crushed.

In 1v1, I consider OKW to be the weakest.
I main soviets, I consider them to be somewhere in the middle either second or third from the top.
I consider USF the strongest.
UKF and ostheer is a bit harder to place, the former due to recent nerfs potentially shuffling its position and the latter due to its reliance on commanders and power spike timings that cover up a rather mediocre stock army.

Pools like this never work.

It always turns to "which faction you main?" -weakest faction, always.
And "which faction you don't like to fight against most" -strongest faction, always.

Weird that you seem to be the only one complaining about this poll and now the numbers in the poll don't add up with Brits having 25 votes when only 22 people have voted total.....

Weird that you seem to be the only one complaining about this poll and now the numbers in the poll don't add up with Brits having 25 votes when only 22 people have voted total.....

Because not everyone answers all the question and some might even rig it if they hate/love a specific faction.

The basic impression from the poll is that you have 3 categories. OKW at the bottom, followed by SU and then you have the trio of USF/UKF/OH. Obviously we are talking about high level play with meta in mind.

@Clarity:
Thx for taking the time to write such a big op. I started playing 1v1 again in the last weeks and more ore less agree with your conclusion.
But I also agree with elchino7: OKW is at the bottom of the pack, and the the rest of the ranking is debatable which can be considered as a good sign.
OKW tech is just horrible and the faction is not fun to play. I really hope some of Sander's ideas can go live- it would really help the faction.

Even then, OKW not showing on the polls at all really is fairly interesting.

Idk it seems like more of the same to me. For most of OKWs time in CoH2 I have generally felt they have been weaker in 1v1 and absurd in team games. I'm sure there's a few exceptions, but there cheesiness always seems most on display in team games

There are no strongest factions. Some spike earlier (USF with good mainline infantry), some spike later. This post by itself has 0 factual value. It can only be seen as some general distribution (By factions) of players in these forums.

There are no strongest factions.

? what?

? what?

I meant to put that in quotes "strongest faction". I meant to say that that a "strongest" faction doesn't exist in the general sense. Strongest in what would be more appropriate. You can't tell me with a straight look on your face that in a game with so many variables and combinations, you can single out a faction that is the strongest in the most generalist case.

I meant to put that in quotes "strongest faction". I meant to say that that a "strongest" faction doesn't exist in the general sense. Strongest in what would be more appropriate. You can't tell me with a straight look on your face that in a game with so many variables and combinations, you can single out a faction that is the strongest in the most generalist case.

I'd say the strongest faction is the one with the most power spikes throughout the game. If a faction has none, or smaller spikes compared to others, I'd say that is the weaker faction.

I'd say the strongest faction is the one with the most power spikes throughout the game. If a faction has none, or smaller spikes compared to others, I'd say that is the weaker faction.

And if you can isolate that faction based on logical arguments, where take into account everything (mathematically possible, humanly impossible), you'll be a bona fide genius.

This poll is accurate for all other modes as well

okw is pretty much luch + puma, if you can apply pressure during this phase, you may win.