State of heavy tanks.

So as everybody know, all heavy tanks have been nerfed not so long ago. This nerf was for the good, but imo heavy tanks state in game, while not being dominant, still is far from being enjoyable in general.

I dont want to jump into deep exeel sheet analysis, with providing all stats for every single heavy tank in the game, but instead I'il try to point out some overall problems presented which are the same for heavy tanks in general, affecting more or less all gamemodes.

What I think is problematic:

• 1) Overall rear armor. Most of heavy tanks has too high rear armor for mediums to fight them. While premium mediums have better chances of penetrating rear amor, all of the stock medium tanks pretty much have stupidly low chances of penetration, even at point blank range.
  
• 2) Overall perfomance. All of the heavy tanks perfomance is honestly quite poor after nerf. They lack purpose in a way. Pershing is being expensive comet, Tiger is being expensive P4. One might say that the difference is in amount of HP. But damage sponging is a so-so idea.
  
• 3) Non-single heavy tanks. This is has to do more with churchills and KVs. Most importantly their timing. While chuchill is somewhat alright, but very frustrating to play against, KVs timing feels just ridiculous, considering it comes slightly after first medium, while being proper heavy tank with a proper gun of the medium tank.
  
• 4) Heavy tanks as a TD meta justification. TDs in general got to the place where are they right now, because of the heavy tanks and mechanics behind them. Weaker TDs = heavy dominance, stronger TD = cost effective against everything.
  

What I think should be done:

• 1) Lowering rear armor of all heavy tanks. Mediums should have better chances to flank and engage heavy tanks, and player who let mediums flank his heavy tank, should be punished for it. No matter what this heavy tank is. Player who decided to go for medium, shoudnt be punished if enemy player went for heavy tank.
  
• 2) Damage on deflection. I belive that this mechanic is what CoH2 misses in general and it is possible to add it back. Considering armor combat in CoH2 worked completly differently back in the day and later was rewamped into what we have right now, which is more of vCoH model, deflection is a mechanic which will do good.
  
• 3) Because of deflection damage and fact that mediums will be an option against heavy tanks, this will bring possability of ajusting TDs to become more oriented to fight heavy targets, while becoming less effective against medium targers.
  Ideal scenario would be: AT guns = more of a medium tanks counter, TD = more of a heavy tanks counter.
  
• 4) With changes like this, heavy tanks like Pershing\IS2\Tiger can recive small part of perfomance back, to actually be good, rather then being more expensive versions of medium tanks in terms of combat perfomance.
  

Agreed across the board.

What I feel is, if Medium able to easily pen Heavy from rear. It would make Premium Medium...pointless.

That will make 2 T34-76 have higher chance to kill a Tiger than 1 Comet.
2 T34 will do twice DPS as 1 Comet (Because they just have the same damage). Their total health is 1300 compared to Comet 800.

We have Medium, Premimum Medium, Heavy, TD. We should balance the class by making it a Rock Paper Scissor game

Currently Pre-Medium & TD just counter to everything, even to themselves.

For my idea. It should be Heavy > (Pre-Med > Med) > TD > Heavy

Think you need to distinct between heavy tanks and Super heavy tanks that are limited to 1. Most of later have low rear armor.

Tiger being a heavy P4 is not a bad thing. The abilities are great. Pintle MG. Great ROF. Great penetration. Great HP pool. Great armour. It's probably the most balanced heavy tank ATM. Still, having said that, the prepositions are not bad as they stand.

Considering rear armour. ISU152 needs a nerf to rear armour. Churchills don't since they are neither long range and they are slow AF. KV1 as well.
Tiger also doesn't need a nerf to rear armour. IMHO, tiger should be the best Heavy Tank in the game. The best all-rounder. It's got great penetration but not TD penetration (20 less). High armour, hp, ROF, accuracy. Great veterancy bonuses and it's speed is mediocre. Not great, not terrible. Overall a balanced tank. It used to be ridiculously OP but it's not UP currently.

I mean, with the amount of parameters this game has, and the limited time people have. It's impossible to NOT make something a "more expensive version of...". Heavy tanks that do not adhere by that definition are probably croc, KV tanks, KT. Mainstream heavies like IS2, Pershing and Tiger I are all more expensive version of some other tanks. Tiger>IS2>Pershing (As it should be). The only problem is, even though the rankings of these 3 tanks are such, they don't stand out in other areas. Pershing no longer stands out in AI department and IS2 no longer stands out in Tanky slow tank with a big gun. Tiger still has it's role as a generalist heavy so it's fine I guess.

The ISU-152 has too much rear armor as it bounces P4 shots too much.

With all the other points I do not agree.

What I feel is, if Medium able to easily pen Heavy from rear. It would make Premium Medium...pointless.

That will make 2 T34-76 have higher chance to kill a Tiger than 1 Comet.
2 T34 will do twice DPS as 1 Comet (Because they just have the same damage). Their total health is 1300 compared to Comet 800.

Well I didnt say that it should be always be 100% chance of penetration. But in any case, even in your example 2 t34\76 will cost you rufly the same in terms of tech+units.
Single comet cost 500MP 185FU 12pop.
Double T34\76 600MP 180FU 20pop.

And T34\76 is the cheapiest medium in the game. Other double mediums cost you more then a single panther\comet\premium, while chances of 2 mediums defeating heavy tank are pretty much non existant.

Think you need to distinct between heavy tanks and Super heavy tanks that are limited to 1. Most of later have low rear armor.

Elephant\JT\KT\ISU. Some of them do have lower rear, but even in this case its usually too much for mediums to handle effectively, the only difference being that most of them dont have a turret, while KT is slow. By any means, its easier, but just as un-effective in general.

Tiger being a heavy P4 is not a bad thing. The abilities are great. Pintle MG. Great ROF. Great penetration. Great HP pool. Great armour. It's probably the most balanced heavy tank ATM. Still, having said that, the prepositions are not bad as they stand.

Great armor against what? TDs dont care about armor, nor they care about HP, lets be honest here. Great armor against mediums, well. All mediums suck vs any heavy anyway. But again as I said, its not about stats, because some of them are still better some of the are worst. At any point, they all share the same problems and bring same problems to the game.

Mix bag opinion:

1- I think it's the other way round. Most heavy tanks have a low rear armor value with only a few exceptions been the case of it been high. And that been said, the only outlier requiring a change is the ISU152. The other ones been the Churchill variations and the KV1.

What i think it should be the case for this meatbags with a medium tank gun, is that they should not have the current rear armor adjusted. KV1 could be adjusted through a CP gating.

I'll mention what i would like but i don't think it's possible. For this tpye of tanks, the distribution on the hitbox between rear armor and frontal armor shouldn't be 50/50. If it was say 75/25, you could lower the rear without affecting their job as intended.

2- I don't think the performance is poor. IMO it's a case of people trying to force vehicles for modes which are not designed around them. I've said it before, don't try to force Tiger/Pershing/IS2 into 3v3/4v4 and don't force JT/Ele/ISU152 into 1v1.

3- KV1 is not considered a heavy as far as the game goes. It's in the same category as other adv/premium mediums such as PV or T85s.

KV8 interesting enough is considered a heavy.

The only super heavies are the KT, JT, Ele, ISU152. This is all based on how the game classifies their wreckage.

4- I think you are confused. 4v4 having an artillery/TD metas is because the mode is designed around big number of units + not so flank friendly maps.

Proposals:

In general, i think they are valid paths to try for, say reduced pen slightly/decrease RoF but give deflect dmg, but it's not something which can be done in this game due to lack of patching available to fine tune it.

Not so bad idea, with a special treatment for the Tiger Ace because if the Tiger is OK, the Ace is garbage.

+ if we can make a damage engine stop ram + Disable ramming possibility in order to stop the almighty ram+Il-2 bombing would be a step forward for heavy viability.

1- I think it's the other way round. Most heavy tanks have a low rear armor value with only a few exceptions been the case of it been high. And that been said, the only outlier requiring a change is the ISU152. The other ones been the Churchill variations and the KV1.

They do have low rear, but as I said most of the mediums still have to be at point blank range, to have at least consistant chance of penetration, and its still not a garanteed chance. Even considering enemy made a mistake and let you flank him, he still have an upper hand over you, because you pritty much will sacrifice your medium attacking rear of the heavy, and possibly even without a payoff. All heavy tanks are way too forgiving against medium tanks.

Considering 2 mediums cost the same\slightly less then heavy tanks, and 2 premium mediums (which can kill heavy tanks from rear) cost a lot more then heavy tank.

2- I don't think the performance is poor. IMO it's a case of people trying to force vehicles for modes which are not designed around them. I've said it before, don't try to force Tiger/Pershing/IS2 into 3v3/4v4 and don't force JT/Ele/ISU152 into 1v1.

Before nerf, they still had usage in teamgames. While JT\Ele\ISU always were too much for 1v1, other heavy tanks saw usage in every gamemode. The fact that they were nerfed brought them on a resonable level in 1v1, but at the same time deleted them from teamgames. Balance team instead of nerfing them via providing better ways to counter them, simply slaped raw perfomance nerf. The same way TDs racived raw pefromance boost, exclusively to fight heavies, ruining medium tank play in every gamemmode but 1v1.
I mean, there are gamemode specific problems, which objectively cant be fixed, but I dont like the idea that some of the units see this "dont use them in X gamemode", especially when there are paths to make them usefull in every gamemode aswell as make counter play more or less the same in all gamemmodes.

4- I think you are confused. 4v4 having an artillery/TD metas is because the mode is designed around big number of units + not so flank friendly maps.

I do agree that in teamgames arty\TD are more dominant, but correct state of balance favors this type of play more then it should. And there are ways to tone it down, without affecting 1v1 and 2v2 too much.

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1- I think that's the whole point of heavies vs mediums. 2x mediums trade micro tax but they will have more firepower (most tanks do 160dmg) and positional advantage. The ideal trade is 1 heavy for 1 medium tank and for that to happen it all depends on what kind of support each army brings into the mix.


2- They saw a resurgence in team game use, the moment they overbuffed them. Prior to that, you didn't see heavies on 3v3+ outside of anecdotal usage. And that has been how things were ALL the way back to when WFA was not released yet and Tiger/IS2 were not limited to one.

Let me remind you that whole "TD boost" was at the expense of been less effective against medium tanks. It's the other way round.
Most TDs got nerfed against mediums (mostly RoF) so, no it's not that "TD boost" destroyed medium play. Medium play has not been the main way to play 3v3+ for quite a long time.



I think we will have to agree to disagree here. I don't think a solution is possible, because the moment they tried to do so (and having a patch designed by people who are 3v3+ mains like Sander/Sturm behind them as opposed as what we had historically) we had the previous heavy meta reigning chaos on ALL modes.

After 7 years and with possible no future patch in sight (or at most 1), i don't think it's worth trying to FORCE heavies back into 3v3+ again. If we had patches every 2/3 months, sure. It's like wasting resources into "fixing" Soviets T1 (specially Penals). There are better things to invest time on IMO.

Suggestions and changes have to be as small and elegant as possible.

I think a good angle might be to add support abilities to heavies. Maybe like a MU costing Combined arms ability that buffs nearby infantry, or off map smoke and barrage abilities or smoke/WP shella.

Abilities that make the units more valuable in an offensive that add value to the unit but don't disrupt the tank vs tank balance and don't raise questions of how tanky/ much damage should they do.

...
Most TDs got nerfed against mediums (mostly RoF) so, no it's not that "TD boost" destroyed medium play. Medium play has not been the main way to play 3v3+ for quite a long time.
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The m36 got buffed vs both mediums and heavies
The SU-85 at vet 0 probably got buffed vs both medium and heavies maybe at vet 2 it might be slitly better vs mediums.

The m36 got buffed vs both mediums and heavies
The SU-85 at vet 0 probably got buffed vs both medium and heavies maybe at vet 2 it might be slitly better vs mediums.

??

Su85: 1.4s RoF nerf. Accuracy/Pen buff. Target size reduced, +2 rotation, Cost increase, pop increase.
The unit went from 4.0s/2.8s/2.24s vs 5.4/5.4/4.32 Add to both the 0.26 in ready/aim times for full RoF.

Jackson was indeed buff against everything, not just mediums. But that was required (though overbuffed) cause the faction didn't hold it's own on anything that wasn't 2v2 and below.

Su76 has been nerf. Stug nerf. PV was buffed. JPIV nerfed (though mostly on vet/stealth).
FF is kinda hard cause it got a RoF buff from 10 to 8s but Tulip 1 shot combo on mediums is no longer a thing (dmg cut down in half for each rocket). Acc + acc on the move went down. Vet dmg nerf.

If we go doctrinal: M10 nerfs (UKF version was never a thing), Ele/JT/ISU nerfs though still good, Cmd PV nerf.


Reminder that the point of discussion is that the overall changes "ruined" medium play. That has not been the case cause the game mode suffers from map + unit volume which makes medium play less desirable, even when the changes favoured mediums overall.

• 1) Overall rear armor. Most of heavy tanks has too high rear armor for mediums to fight them. While premium mediums have better chances of penetrating rear amor, all of the stock medium tanks pretty much have stupidly low chances of penetration, even at point blank range.

This is not true. The generalist heavy tanks do not have high rear armor, and most superheavies have low rear armor too.

The Tiger and the IS-2 have 140 and the Pershing has 110. The KV-2 has 120. Low enough for a medium to reliably penetrate even at longer range, and with around an 85-100% chance to pen at point blank range. The Tiger II has 150 and the Elefant, Sturmtiger and Jagdtiger have 110.

There are a few exceptions: namely the KV-1, the Churchill and the ISU-152. But the first two are meant to be tanky and don't have that much offensive power, and on the ISU-152 I would agree it needs to be lowered. The Crocodile and the AVRE also have high rear but I don't think it's a problem.

??
..
Su85: 1.4s RoF nerf. Accuracy/Pen buff. Target size reduced, +2 rotation, Cost increase, pop increase.
The unit went from 4.0s/2.8s/2.24s vs 5.4/5.4/4.32 Add to both the 0.26 in ready/aim times for full RoF.
....

The accuracy buff, target size reduction, rotation buffs are far more important than the the ROF nerf when fighting mediums.

Generally speaking the accuracy of FF/M36/SU-85/JP are so high that they have nearly 100% chance to damage even at range close 60 and especially once vetted.

That makes mediums targets for gaining XP in the late game.

This is not true. The generalist heavy tanks do not have high rear armor, and most superheavies have low rear armor too.

The Tiger and the IS-2 have 140 and the Pershing has 110. The KV-2 has 120. Low enough for a medium to reliably penetrate even at longer range, and with around an 85-100% chance to pen at point blank range. The Tiger II has 150 and the Elefant, Sturmtiger and Jagdtiger have 110.

There are a few exceptions: namely the KV-1, ... But the first two are meant to be tanky and don't have that much offensive power,...

The KV-1 has enough offensive power power to take out the OKW PzIV easily with roughly the same cost.

And the Churchill can take out a PzIV even when flanked point blank.

The KV-1 has enough offensive power power to take out the OKW PzIV easily with roughly the same cost.

And the Churchill can take out a PzIV even when flanked point blank.

Oh please, will you ever stop this bullshit?

KV-1 wins P4 because it has massive health and armor compared to it.
It outlasts it.

If KV-1 had enough firepower to take on P4, then so would T-34/76, because they have pretty much exact same firepower with irrelevant differences, but somehow T-34 loses, that means its NOT firepower that allows KV-1 to beat P4.

Exact same thing with Churchill, but it actually good decent gun and even more EHP.

We've had this discussion already, you've made equally retarded and incorrect point back then.

snip

What are you even taking issue with here? The wording? You're both saying the same thing. "The KV1 is able to defeat the PzIV relatively easily for similar cost" and "The Churchill is able to take out the PzIV"

The KV1 beats the PzIV because it has a combination of a gun decent enough to penetrate the PzIV, AND because it has enough armour and health to tank shots from the PzIV. If it didn't have both it couldn't do it.

I don't know why an argument sprang from this.

What are you even taking issue with here? The wording? You're both saying the same thing. "The KV1 is able to defeat the PzIV relatively easily for similar cost" and "The Churchill is able to take out the PzIV"

The KV1 beats the PzIV because it has a combination of a gun decent enough to penetrate the PzIV, AND because it has enough armour and health to tank shots from the PzIV. If it didn't have both it couldn't do it.

I don't know why an argument sprang from this.

He thinks its the gun that makes KV-1 win vs P4, not the armor and health advantage.
That's the key difference.

And KV-1 got anything BUT a decent gun.
In fact, its the worst medium tank tier gun in the whole game to engage other vehicles with, so no, its not decent nor adequate.

Also, example of KV-8 further underlines that its exclusively durability advantage, because KV-8, using its 45mm meme gun can also beat P4 in a slugfest.

You have argument out of this, because that particular specimen will do everything and anything to try to spin narrative using twisted semantic games to "prove" his point even if its complete and utter bs.