I would much rather have the extra raw hitpoints over having to hope for miracle bounces (because 300 armor was not that special). The -50% reload was just ridiculous, especially when it could also get another -30% on top from Combined Arms. No other tank in the game had a reload bonus that high. A vet 3 Pershing with CA could reload in like 3 seconds.
As said before the only downside to the bigger HP pool is that it needs more repairs (is it even a downside? Better to spend more time repairing than having a dead tank). And that will be addressed next patch with the damage reduction modifier.
Pershing has better stock speed. It just didn't get any speed bonus with vet, but now it will. It will have 6.6 speed so it will keep the edge over the Tiger and IS-2.
No they don't. All of them get the reload bonus at vet 3. And the Persing will get an extra 5% to compensate for the wind down because it isn't affected by the reload reduction.
You're telling it like CA is super cheap, always available, needs 0 micro or combinations. Perfect "in a vacuum view". Remove CA from the heavy cav and make Pershing worthwhile, or at least justify it with the price.
The current token changes do not bring anything to the table, except for the repair speed bonus. But even that will not really change the fact that you absolutely need 2 REs to repair it in any meaningful time. One RE which gets no repair bonus nor has any repair upgrades (well except for the extra man at vet 3 but REs being squishy as they are, wouldn't hope for much) will repair the Pershing a tad faster. Well, 15% faster. So if the original repair was, let's say, 60 seconds, now it will be 51 seconds. Shaved off 9 seconds. WoW. Of course, the longer the repair, the "bigger" that 15% is. If the original repair time was 180 seconds then it would shave quite enough of time to be worthwhile (about 30 seconds which is plentiful in real time).
But again. The current Pershing is nothing to write home about.
Yes the skillshot is nice on paper. Has good AOE. Penetrates everything. Does great damage. But it takes a f***ton to aim and vs anyone with half a brain, will miss or be dodges (eg. people that do not back off their tanks directly behind but in a "diagonal"). And wasting munitions just to "Maybe" shave off 2 models off a mortar team behind the building.... yeah. No.
Skillshot is not good against infantry unless it's blobbed up and super static.
Not good against unsnared tanks.
Buggy and is scared of any sort of elevations.
On paper it looks good, but in reality, a useless skillshot against anyone decent enough to know that Pershing has a long wind up nuke ability.
Survivability. 270 armour not gonna bounce. Agility not really that high. Higher than the Tiger and KT but again, not so much to actually matter (I'd say acceleration and turn rate are the most important agility aspects of tanks, ones that help the most in a pinch).
Cannon. It's good. A tad better AI than the rest of the heavies. Long reload.
Veterancy. Mediocre at best. The granade at vet 2 is laughable. Like anyone will ever bring the Pershing to the frontlines to face raketen and paks and whatnot which will not bounce reliably to actually toss the nade on the nearby infantry.
Abilities. Like I've said. The skillshot looks good on paper but is highly dependent on the enemy and surroundings/scenario.
Price. The same as better firing, better abilitized, higher armoured counterparts.
Show me a 3v3 or a 4v4 map where moving accuracy matters. Where you won't be blocked by something and does not have obvious lanes with obvious mine placements.
Everyone talking about moving accuracy and accuracy in particular, without any context whatsoever.