Firefly is too weak

I think the Firefly is too weak in team games. Does anyone else feel the same way? Its great if you have muni but otherwise not so great without muni.

With a single firefly, 1v1 its pretty easy to dive with a Panther especially since infantry section does not have tank snare. Even with tulip rockets, you will at best, get 2 shots off and 2 tulip rocket hits for about 50% of the Panther's HP. Its not exactly enough to stop it and is a huge investment for what could be a Panther retreating. Not a great trade but the alternative is your firefly dying. If tulip rockets are not available then the Panther pretty much bullies the firefly. The slow acceleration on a vet 0 firefly doesn't help it either.

Anytime I play UKF, I find myself having to babysit the Firefly with an anti-tank gun or royal engis, just in case any Panthers decide to dive it. It doesn't feel safe unless its sitting securely in a minefield as well. It just might be in my mind but the firefly feels equivalent to a rocket truck rather than a TD. Its too fragile and could use some buffs to help it deal with Panther dives without help.

I understand that the firefly must be 'weak' because it can sit behind units like the Comet and Churchill and deal damage. My argument for this is this is already a high cost/high fuel combo and should not be considered because it's no different from other heavy/TD combos. The firefly feels the weakest out of all TDs especially in terms of cost/performance ratio. You don't get good performance for the cost. In addition, the unit costs so much to power-up while not being all that great. Its a high value unit that doesn't perform well for its cost because it requires additional cost to be put into it (tulip rockets) and I hate that.

Some buff ideas (Mix and match and choose 2):
- Remove tulip rockets for faster attack speed on the main gun.
- Alternately, all fireflys should come with tulip rockets as a default upgrade. Losing a firefly with both commander and tulip rocket upgrade is devastating and quite easy against a Panther.
- Faster acceleration especially in reverse. Vet 1 should be the baseline, with a new vet 1 bonus providing a better mobility upgrade.
- Better pen. Why better pen? The firefly shoots slow already, any bounce shots is devastating for a tank that is supposed to counter heavy armour. Remove 40 damage if you must, reliability is more important over alpha damage.
- Increase the durability of the firefly and decrease repair times similar to KV-1. The firefly is prone to damage and the long repair/downtime does not help its case.
- Lower the cost. Fuel is not as important as the high MP cost. The firefly already costs a lot of munitions to power up, not to mention any supporting troops required to babysit it. Again, I cannot stress it enough. The firefly is very bad value for its cost.
- Remove vet 3 +40 damage upgrade for a flat mobility increase. Alpha strike is not more important than survivability. At vet 3 firefly should be hard to kill, not something you can dive with 2 Panthers.
- Add a 'Blitz' like ability to it. Having a speed boost while disabling the main gun would help this tank immensely. Simply having an ability to help keep your high value firefly alive would be greatly appreciated. Like War speed but not requiring royal engi setup.
- Remove the on-use cost of tulip rockets. Instead make it something that Royal Engis have to load it on like war speed.

The firefly is fine. You’re comparing the panther which is 185F to the 145F firefly. Of course it’s going to lose in a 1v1. Put it behind sappers and mines and supporting armor/at guns. Panthers can’t dive if you prep for the dive.

Firefly can get a survivability buff when it loses the ability to 11second combo any 640hp medium. The fact that it can bounce P4 rounds with the same chance as a Sherman medium is dumb enough.

The firefly is fine. You’re comparing the panther which is 185F to the 145F firefly. Of course it’s going to lose in a 1v1. Put it behind sappers and mines and supporting armor/at guns. Panthers can’t dive if you prep for the dive.

Firefly can get a survivability buff when it loses the ability to 11second combo any 640hp medium. The fact that it can bounce P4 rounds with the same chance as a Sherman medium is dumb enough.

I wouldn't mind if the tulip rockets went away. The meta of team games has less focus on mediums and more focus on heavier tanks like Panther and TDs to counter them.

In terms of cost, normally I would say that a 145 fuel tank should not be able to 1v1 an 185 fuel tank however the firefly's specific role is to counter said 185 fuel tank but does a poor job at it. Fuel costs aside, the Firefly has similar amount of MP investment and the additional muni investment which I would argue puts its 'cost' on similar levels.

I want to stress that I don't believe the Firefly should be able to 1v1 a Panther. Rather than Firefly should have more punch or survivability specifically to prevent the Panther (the tank its supposed to counter) from easily gaining value by diving the Firefly.

The scenario that you described has a much higher cost for defending a Firefly than simply fielding a Panther. Its not a good unit if you need to put in a lot of investment for defending it especially if it doesn't pay off all that well. Simply put: The Firefly has low value for its cost while Panther has better value. Putting the Firefly player on the 'back foot' so to speak is not exactly my idea of thrilling game play either.

I want to stress that I don't believe the Firefly should be able to 1v1 a Panther. Rather than Firefly should have more punch or survivability specifically to prevent the Panther (the tank its supposed to counter) from easily gaining value by diving the Firefly.

It counters a lot more than a panther though. I think your putting too much emphasis on that matchup, especially since all you need to prevent the panther from diving is one sapper squad near the FF

The firefly already packs a big punch. The biggest of any stock TD, and the tulips add to that. Don't think you can justify buffing it

Honestly Fireflies are fine, and aren't they getting more 'responsive' in the next patch? Or was that the last weat cant remember but they are definitely fine in teamgames, they just require a lot. Either muni and/or micro.

i do feel its pen is a bit low, perhaps a(nother) rework to tulips that takes some emphasis off them would do the tank some good since it would allow for the FF to be a bit more reliable and independent of them.

Firefly is fine. It's not really a tank that can stand up to any other tank 1v1 but supported can easily dish out damage. Penetration far is not really that great vs super heavies so as armadillo said. Some rework to tulips perhaps would be good with penetration changes to cannon..

It's turrent rotation speed & mobility is just way too low. But it will be(I believe?) increased in next patch. But UKF's problem is not the firefly right now...

I think the Firefly is too weak in team games. Does anyone else feel the same way? Its great if you have muni but otherwise not so great without muni.

With a single firefly, 1v1 its pretty easy to dive with a Panther especially since infantry section does not have tank snare. Even with tulip rockets, you will at best, get 2 shots off and 2 tulip rocket hits for about 50% of the Panther's HP. Its not exactly enough to stop it and is a huge investment for what could be a Panther retreating. Not a great trade but the alternative is your firefly dying. If tulip rockets are not available then the Panther pretty much bullies the firefly. The slow acceleration on a vet 0 firefly doesn't help it either.

Anytime I play UKF, I find myself having to babysit the Firefly with an anti-tank gun or royal engis, just in case any Panthers decide to dive it. It doesn't feel safe unless its sitting securely in a minefield as well. It just might be in my mind but the firefly feels equivalent to a rocket truck rather than a TD. Its too fragile and could use some buffs to help it deal with Panther dives without help.

I understand that the firefly must be 'weak' because it can sit behind units like the Comet and Churchill and deal damage. My argument for this is this is already a high cost/high fuel combo and should not be considered because it's no different from other heavy/TD combos. The firefly feels the weakest out of all TDs especially in terms of cost/performance ratio. You don't get good performance for the cost. In addition, the unit costs so much to power-up while not being all that great. Its a high value unit that doesn't perform well for its cost because it requires additional cost to be put into it (tulip rockets) and I hate that.

Some buff ideas (Mix and match and choose 2):
- Remove tulip rockets for faster attack speed on the main gun.
- Alternately, all fireflys should come with tulip rockets as a default upgrade. Losing a firefly with both commander and tulip rocket upgrade is devastating and quite easy against a Panther.
- Faster acceleration especially in reverse. Vet 1 should be the baseline, with a new vet 1 bonus providing a better mobility upgrade.
- Better pen. Why better pen? The firefly shoots slow already, any bounce shots is devastating for a tank that is supposed to counter heavy armour. Remove 40 damage if you must, reliability is more important over alpha damage.
- Increase the durability of the firefly and decrease repair times similar to KV-1. The firefly is prone to damage and the long repair/downtime does not help its case.
- Lower the cost. Fuel is not as important as the high MP cost. The firefly already costs a lot of munitions to power up, not to mention any supporting troops required to babysit it. Again, I cannot stress it enough. The firefly is very bad value for its cost.
- Remove vet 3 +40 damage upgrade for a flat mobility increase. Alpha strike is not more important than survivability. At vet 3 firefly should be hard to kill, not something you can dive with 2 Panthers.
- Add a 'Blitz' like ability to it. Having a speed boost while disabling the main gun would help this tank immensely. Simply having an ability to help keep your high value firefly alive would be greatly appreciated. Like War speed but not requiring royal engi setup.
- Remove the on-use cost of tulip rockets. Instead make it something that Royal Engis have to load it on like war speed.

No way anyone's buying this. UKF may need some changes, it's not in the firefly though. Do not 1v1 a panther with a firefly. That's using the firefly wrong. If a panther decides to dive your firefly and is successful, then you failed to build an adequate overall force and should not have taken the shot.

Team games are full of chaos, you can't make a good balance discussion off a 1v1 bubble like this, especially not between these two units. The firefly is not designed in a manner that would allow it to put up a fight against a panther. The panther is the better tank destroyer in MOST situations, that's why it has the faster speeds and turret rotation.

The same can be said on the allied side too, look at the heavy tank destroyers. Who wins 1v1 Sherman/cromwell/t(rash)34 vs elefant/JT? Any of those MBT's will win and for precisely the same reason that the panther wins vs the firefly. The TD will get 1 hit off on the MBT's if they approach from the front, then the mbt's will just stay on the flank forever until the HTD is destroyed.

No one gets out of babysitting duties for these slower tank destroyers! If you choose to build them, you are choosing the babysitting life, so get over it. Build comets instead.

The firefly is fine. You’re comparing the panther which is 185F to the 145F firefly. Of course it’s going to lose in a 1v1. Put it behind sappers and mines and supporting armor/at guns. Panthers can’t dive if you prep for the dive.

Firefly can get a survivability buff when it loses the ability to 11second combo any 640hp medium. The fact that it can bounce P4 rounds with the same chance as a Sherman medium is dumb enough.

Shhhh, they don't know about that, keep pretending the Firefly is bad so it gets even more buffs

I don't think anyone is banking on a p4 shell bouncing off a sherman chassis. At least I hope not.

Firefly does its job great, she's just muni intensive. Highest dps TD with pretty great accuracy and pen. Supported, nothing mobile breaks Axis armor as consitently as the FF. 80 munis for at minimum 80 damage and a crew schock is so good. I consistently secure kills vs Panthers while when I don't play UKF Panthers never die.

The turret rotation buff was a BIG DEAL, because FF pirouetteing was a weird necessary UKF skill. If she makes it to vet 3, the FF 3 shots P4s consitently and 4 shots Panthers. Strap on Command AEC with 2 ff and I've wiped a map clear of axis armor.

It's turrent rotation speed & mobility is just way too low. But it will be(I believe?) increased in next patch. But UKF's problem is not the firefly right now...

Agreed, for something built on the Sherman chasis it moves like crap. The damage on the unit is fine and doesn't need to be changed but it needs to be more responsive and less clunky feeling in the way it moves/pathing.

However the Firefly is not really the main issue with UKF.

Ever since they gimped Infantry Sections with its numerous nerfs, you have Subpar Infantry with also subpar support weapons (or lack of since they need a non doctrinal mortar).

Rather than seeing Infantry Sections get buffed and return to cancerous levels where everyone just makes like 5 Infantry Sections and nothing else, UKF needs some buffs to Vickers (allowing Bolster to work on them would be a start) and a mortar that isn't the mortar pit.

Firefly does its job great, she's just muni intensive. Highest dps TD with pretty great accuracy and pen.

It has the worst penetration of all Allied TDs so no it doesn't have "great pen".

It has the worst penetration of all Allied TDs so no it doesn't have "great pen".

To clarify on this. It has the worst far pen sitting at 210 when the normal is 220. Max range is where most of the action happens so having lower far pen hurts a lot especially on a slow reload, high alpha gun.

I don't think anyone is banking on a p4 shell bouncing off a sherman chassis. At least I hope not.

Nearly 1/3 of panzer 4 shots will bounce on standard m4 at long range. I dont think you should "bank" on it, but its not exactly a rare occurrence either.

It has the worst penetration of all Allied TDs so no it doesn't have "great pen".

You're right, that's weird. Id suggest bump it to 240 far so it always pens P4s.

You're right, that's weird. Id suggest bump it to 240 far so it always pens P4s.

No. It needs to trade something for the extra accuracy, alpha damage and the option to carry a mobile snare (with 1000) pen. If you really want to have more pen, you can get a Command Vehicle.

No. It needs to trade something for the extra accuracy, alpha damage and the option to carry a mobile snare (with 1000) pen. If you really want to have more pen, you can get a Command Vehicle.

That something is bad mobility and insane munitions requirements and slow reload. There is no reason why a slow ass TD with 8 seconds reload should bounce on a P4.