Noinga's Terrible Balance Suggestions / analysis

Hi fellas, I have terrible thoughts and I hope you heed them.

Wehrmacht/Ostheer/Degenerates
1. Move Grens from T1 to T0 and MG42 from T0 to T1
This would encourage people to use Grens more and would have them wait just a little bit before getting a unit that shuts down all infantry play at min 1, this would also make them have to use some braincells when contemplating HMG spam.

2. Brumbar "The Suppa Stuppa" armor
At vet 2, the already tanky tank becomes tankier, requiring planet killing weapons to even dent its hull armor. Now I am not aware of how its stats compare with other tanks but it I've seen the thing bounce 7 AT rounds from a ZIS and SU-85's in a 2v2 (Maybe I just have terrible luck but every time I fight it it never dies.)

3. Tank timing.
Ost spends 145 fuel and tanks are now available, making their tech tree one of the fastest and now that T4 is basically free they can get the stronger tanks (like panthers) when the allies roll out mediums.
USF: 175 Fuel for tanks (Not including weapon racks+healing)
SU: 195 Fuel for tanks (not including Conscript grenades)
OKW: 190 Fuel for tanks
UKF 145 fuel for tanks (not including side techs or Tommy upgrades)

UKF is the same cost, but we all know that if the UKF player doesnt Bolster or get AEC he loses the match.

OKW
The OKW is not too bad right now, the main issue is the same as the USF's which is no infantry AT choices that are viable on base, making Puma a solid build for OKW players to counter. My issue with them is that they seem to have unlimited Manpower to churn out endless streams of cheap and effective squads, or a combat group of elite seal clubbing Obers which ill pin to the non-intensive tier structure.

SOV
not bad, they are supposed to be durable and they live up to that quite well. While they have strong units they are reflected well by their cost.

USF
1. Teching down to LT or CPT in a serious match will put you at a terrible manpower deficit as you now have to manage the officer squad with the team weapon you teched down to get. A solution to this would be once the major is unlocked in his building there will be a Unlock X command post upgrade, as a way to get the remaining building up without summoning the officer squad alongside.

-Due to the encouragement of having at least 4-5 Rilfe-like squads on the field your army can very quickly become a logistical nightmare when you wish to expand it with Elites or team weapons. While the riflemen can hold their own once you dump over 20 federal stockpiles of muni on them, I feel that once the Axis elites take hold and gain veterancy the rifles get more and more obsolete. (but thats why I assume people say USF is best in mid game)

2. Pak Howitzer
My thought on the Pak howitzer is that it fills a void in the USF's lineup. Since the rifles lost smokes a while back and Wehr players can get MG's faster the Pak howitzer becomes almost a necessity when dealing with a player with defensive posture (as the rifles cannot perform their job when suppressed) I feel that if the Pak howitzer is nerfed then the USF would be Handicapped when dealing with defensive players in a team setting. Also, I feel that its damage is reflected in its high cost of 340MP, it is easy bait for rocket arty, and requires campers to use 2 braincells and reposition their team weapons.

UKF
1. Due to their rigid tech structure, the UKF are very predictable and generally stick to the same tempo every game, with only slight deviations based off of Commander choice.
UKF build order: Tommy - Tommy - Tommy - (Vickers/UC) > RE - Sniper (usually for countersnipe) - AEC > Cromwell. This makes their game play quite monotonous, I don't really know how this can be changed without destroying the faction, but more baseline opportunities to expand UKF play would be great (except emplacements, screw those things.)

In general I find that when you slip up as allies you have less time to re-stabilize yourself then the axis, whose more impressive tank lineup can quickly suffocate the allies if they gain the lead. This can be countered by the Allies having generally good LV's but if that fails they will be further behind the Axis to tanks by a significant margin. (essentially Axis have more snowballing potential.)

These are just my thoughts, feel free to boo me off the forums

I generally agree with these comments.
However, I also want to add some things after read this article.

The current balance feels that the strength of the weapons team has been reduced too much. In particular, mortars are rarely used all factions. Even if your opponent uses a lot of MG, the mortar doesn't feel like it counters the MG properly.
Recently, MG has not been able to defend against blobs. I saw a scene where the M2HB fired two magazines and could not suppress the obersoldaten without the cover at all. The MG was wiped out by obersoldaten from the front. It was a very strange experience.

The Weapons Team plays one of the important systems of the game. However, they too lost their role.
I think the result is Ostheer. Ostheer originally had a lot of strength in the weapons team, and slightly weakpoint of baseline infantry. However, once all these advantages are lost, the issue of Baseline Infantry is beginning to arise. Ostheer now becomes a faction that fights with a baseline infantry enhanced with questionable doctrine abilities.

The unfortunate thing about CoH2 now is that all the features of each faction disappear.

The Weapons Team plays one of the important systems of the game. However, they too lost their role.
I think the result is Ostheer. Ostheer originally had a lot of strength in the weapons team, and slightly weakpoint of baseline infantry. However, once all these advantages are lost, the issue of Baseline Infantry is beginning to arise. Ostheer now becomes a faction that fights with a baseline infantry enhanced with questionable doctrine abilities.

I find this to be true of Ost, at first they had the team weapons to support their infantry as they made a tight battle line. (resembling Eastern front Germany) Now it seems that the Ost is now played as a baiting monstrosity, to suppress the enemy and destroy them with a counter attack when the enemy is tied on their support teams. This is seen with the recent meta being Gren G43 kill teams that aggressively push under MG fire to destroy the enemy, making them frustrating to duel against as the attack must destroy the MG while simultaneously fending off the countering Ost units.

However I am assuming these tweaks to Ost infantry play sprang up from their previous weakness in 1v1, where their infantry needed to space away from the safety of team weapons to capture key points and without their support they were at too great a disadvantage. It used to be that Ost could turtle up and gradually expand its reach on the field while being weaker at infantry skirmishes. Now it can do both with mainline buffs and commander choices.

Now that I think about it the Ostheer is slowly becoming a USF clone with better team weapons and tanks

Now that I think about it the Ostheer is slowly becoming a USF clone with better team weapons and tanks

I agree. However, I think it is a pity all factions to become a USF clone.
In real history, this two faction's infantry operations were very different. The superiority of the personalized firearms(M1 garand), rather than the lack of squad-supported firearms(BAR and .30 cal wasn't enough), made it possible for the USF to compete in chaotic battles, and Germany, which maintained steady firepower based on industrial technology(MG42) even after losing many veterans, has different personalities.

In any case, almost all five factions now have a similar operation.
In this way, I think balancing that remove traits and normalize everything is actually worst balanced. This is because there is no reason to divide the faction into five.

I agree with OP's statements. If you want stats without opening up attribute editor on the game files: https://coh2.serealia.ca/#

EDIT: The reason ATs bounce a lot on brummbar is because brumbrum has 260 armour on base and 312 on vet2, while ZiS has 200/190/180 penetration on far/mid/close. so let's say 190/260 ~ 70% (312 ~ 60%). So it's no wonder it can bounce a lot, especially if the luck is not on your side.

IMO OKW could rework tech tree like USF
T2，build need 10Fuel，only unlock IG18
T2 upgrade， need 30 Fuel，unlock 251/20 and Puma
T3，build need 10Fuel，only unlock AAHT
T3 upgrade，need 30 Fuel，unlock Luchs and Stuka
T4，build need 85 Fuel，unlock Ober（and weapon upgrade） and JP4，for commander unlock Ostwind or FlamePanzer
T4 upgrade ，need 35 Fuel，unlock P4.J and Panther

T4 need full upgrade single HQ，or T2+T3
For StormPioneer ，maybe Flamethrower and Schreck upgrade not lock out sweeper upgrade，but second package need T4 upgrade