E8 is still trash

It has only been one game but this unit is straight up useless. I know I got a bad roll of rng in my game but I literally lost for trying to use it. I had control of the map for most of early game, opponent sw3itched to blobbing JLI to stall for P4J. Our tanks came out around the same time, out of a total of say 6 shots I think 1 penetrated. I ended up making 2 to see if maybe I was just being unlucky. It was more of the same. What is the point of accuracy if it doesn't damage the enemy tank. The game snowballed and I lost after that.
No big deal but at this point I am struggling to figure out what is the point of the E8, it cant tackle more than a P4 with side skirts nor infantry. The commander does not give you a way to get immediate wipes such as rocket art or indirect. The crazy thing was in my game I flanked him and got 3 or 4 wipes using 1 white phos ability. But I couldnt capitilize on killing his tank because my shit kept bouncing.

To hopefully figure out how to use this commander can the mods form a 1v1 tournament where they have to use USF and Rifle company when they play Allies.

I just played a second game this time vs OKW with Falls. Decided to go a completely turtle style of play and rushed the M3 halftrack and pushed up little by little using the M3 healing and reinforcement. Slowly built Bunkers/Howi/AT gun and forced him to keep poking me until I would catch him out of position and push hard with E8 game was slow and boring but effective.

The E8 really didn't push the game in my favor aside from the fact that I slowly blobbed them over time. The biggest issue is its consistency. It bounces shots when you don't expect, wipes opposing infantry off of random lucky shots, and gets its own shots bounced. It just isn't reliable compared to regular Sherman and Jackson.

To the guy I played, sorry for the boring ass game.

I know I got a bad roll of rng in my game .

Well there you have it. Or user error. Easy 8 has 155 far penetration (more than M10 without AP ammo) bouncing shots is never going to be Easy 8's problem but of course it's not going to have TD level Pen. For comparison OKW P4 has 110 Far Penetration. Now, if you're trying to use Easy 8s against KTs or other super heavies then yes it's going to bounce more but that's why they added the new Vet 1 ability. Talking about it's AI performance is neither here nor there as it's intended role isn't AI but it has the perk of having SOME AI compared to dedicated tank destroyers.

I suggest you next post is after 10+ games...

Well I played with the unit not stop vs CPU during the BETA so not much changed stat wise after final BETA version. The main difference is obviously strategy of a live person vs CPU with inflated resources. People still had the same problems as you can see in the USF balance thread.

Do you have any actual suggestions or personal feedback since you seem to always give condescending answers to anything you don't like.

Well there you have it. Or user error. Easy 8 has 155 far penetration (more than M10 without AP ammo) bouncing shots is never going to be Easy 8's problem but of course it's not going to have TD level Pen. For comparison OKW P4 has 110 Far Penetration. Now, if you're trying to use Easy 8s against KTs or other super heavies then yes it's going to bounce more but that's why they added the new Vet 1 ability. Talking about it's AI performance is neither here nor there as it's intended role isn't AI but it has the perk of having SOME AI compared to dedicated tank destroyers.

Thanks for the response.

I think I was at mid range but like we said bad roll. I completely forgot that the tank commander doesn't provide the range bonus its is part of Focus Gunnery so that is my my fault. Seems like the optimal set up for the E8 would be MG with VET1 always on and playing at long range unless a Panther comes along.

I'm still very skeptical of the vet 1 ability. Don't like making my tanks slower, especially as USF. I haven't used it enough yet but so far it feels really underwhelming

I've used it today 3 times. 3v3. Vet1 ability is downright garbage. Becomes a retarded Jackson with a slightly better AI department and worse range. 215 armour is nothing vs stugs and AT walls. Hell even a P4 has good enough penetration chances vs it on ranges that will usually be fought at (close to medium range). Tried popping the focused gunnery but the slowdown is not something I like, especially with garbage pathfinding (eg. used reverse and the E8 decided to spin 360 and only then reverse back). Not something I curse at with regular shermans as they are quite mobile, but with focused... yeah. No.
Don't understand the team's decision to make E8 a retarded Jackson that outside 1v1 has no real use (not enough armour nor range nor agility to do anything against OKW P4s + walls).

In 1v1, I can see E8 being more used. In 1v1 the focused gunnery can be substantial. In theory, the vet1 E8 can be a really good tank in 100 vs 100 popcap games

The AI's a bit mediocre but that's general purpose rounds for you. While I do disrespect this vehicle a lot with auf Js, it can bite me hard for doing so. Have to be cautious frontally with Panthers as a realistic slug out ratio (2-1) is very dangerous. Seems fine overall imho.

As ostheer build two stug and GG, as OKW as you'll het anyway two raketen to support your armor the Ez8 is just irrelevant.

RE flamethrower still get rekt by anything.

I think the commander will go back in the unused commander pool.

The Commander itself doesn't hold up. The whole point of the commander is the Easy 8 and it is Ok at best (still sucks) if the rest of the commander was better then it would be fine in the current state that its in. However since most of the commander sucks and offers nothing that USF needs then (why would USF need a shitty Jackson?) there is no point in picking the commander.

Also there are too many Doctrinal Sherman Variants that provide nothing to USF some of them should be made non-doctrinal. They should remake the Easy 8 into a Command Tank for the USF that offers something unique for USF.

Well there you have it. Or user error. Easy 8 has 155 far penetration (more than M10 without AP ammo) bouncing shots is never going to be Easy 8's problem but of course it's not going to have TD level Pen. For comparison OKW P4 has 110 Far Penetration. Now, if you're trying to use Easy 8s against KTs or other super heavies then yes it's going to bounce more but that's why they added the new Vet 1 ability. Talking about it's AI performance is neither here nor there as it's intended role isn't AI but it has the perk of having SOME AI compared to dedicated tank destroyers.

Dont use penetration values for comparing different factions tanks. And E8 is trash. Not good vs armor not good vs infantry so what is the damn purpose of using this shitty unit ? E8 is not a good generalist too. It will be funny to watch how you guys defends this shitty situation.

As ostheer build two stug and GG, as OKW as you'll het anyway two raketen to support your armor the Ez8 is just irrelevant.

RE flamethrower still get rekt by anything.

I think the commander will go back in the unused commander pool.

So the Easy8 tank is irrelevant because it can be countered by 2 TDs or 2 ATGs. Great argument.

Easy 8 is still trash and finds no play in 2on2s. It gets countered by anything axis without problem, and it cannot counter anything. It found no play in the mod, the feedback was ignored, and the commander is still trash. I would have loved playing against more e8 commanders and more ukf but all I get now is soviet spam. Soviets everywhere. Incredibly useless balance decisions by the balance team, the changes to the e8 commander did nothing. Even worse that people still argue that e8 its good when it's just trash. I love my Ost buffs and changes but the state of the game me as axis versus Soviets now doing the same stuff every game but now against b4. That's all the patch did. Added b4 to Soviets. That's what we get as an axis driven community.

So the Easy8 tank is irrelevant because it can be countered by 2 TDs or 2 ATGs. Great argument.

Not as much irrelevant as your participation on this topic but close by.

Being countered by two TDs or two ATG isn't the problem here, the M4A3 is also countered by those, but the M4A3 brings something on the table for the USF, the EZ8 brings nothing.

Not as much irrelevant as your participation on this topic but close by.

Being countered by two TDs or two ATG isn't the problem here, the M4A3 is also countered by those, but the M4A3 brings something on the table for the USF, the EZ8 brings nothing.

Pls make up your mind what the problem because in your previous post you identify the problem as being countered by double AT asset and now you come up with a new one.
(so do not blame me if you have clearly changed your mind)

As for the Easy8 compared to to M4A3 it brings more durability (armor/hp) and better AT gun, so might or might not be enough, bu the claim it "bring nothing" is simply false.

Not as much irrelevant as your participation on this topic but close by.

Being countered by two TDs or two ATG isn't the problem here, the M4A3 is also countered by those, but the M4A3 brings something on the table for the USF, the EZ8 brings nothing.

E8 ensures the enemy can't rely on p4s to bully usf where otherwise they could and would. It's one of the only USF tanks that can bounce anything at all


That said it is kinda boring...
If it's changed I'd maybe see it as a command tank. Make the crew elite (as in with the usf elite crew upgrade pre installed) come pre upgraded with the mg and give it a few abilities. Limit to 1. Then you have sort of the opposite of the p4 command tank-instead of being helpless against enemy armour but good against infantry, the inverse but it's most important role would be as a force multiplier.

Give it all the shells!
But as single shot abilities with a cool down.
Give it perhaps the ability to to give nearby tank MGs suppression and increased modifiers (timed ability)
Make it a FUN unit that a good player can get a lot out of.
Make it a cross between a tiger ace campaign and the movie fury.

q bu the claim it "bring nothing" is simply false.

But why? Ez8 has brought nothing before the patch, it was discussed to bring nothing during the patch, it still brings nothing after the patch as the changes are quantitatively useless. Your claim that the EZ8 is fine which you insist on is wrong as usual. The Ez8 is bad and the commander goes again in the bin. It brings factually nothing.

E8 ensures the enemy can't rely on p4s to bully usf where otherwise they could and would. It's one of the only USF tanks that can bounce anything at all

No it doesn't, its not enough. On a vacuum or excel sheet yeah it has the better stat, on the field with all the variable that's definitively not valuable.

No it doesn't, its not enough. On a vacuum or excel sheet yeah it has the better stat, on the field with all the variable that's definitively not valuable.

That's not how the game works. The E8 can and will reliably beat p4s where the m4 is disadvantaged. The E8 is even more valuable against okw where the medium tank match up leaves usf on the back foot.
USF doesn't want for AI anywhere so it's lower AI isnt the end of the world if it denies your enemy tank supremacy.
The issues lie in it being doctrinal, and it competing with the Jackson for an AT role. Those and the fact the tank isn't really that FUN (this I suppose is in part because of its lower AI)

Like I said, make it a limited to 1 command unit and it gives it much more room to be unique and not overlap so much. As I think, it might be required to be HARD capped at 1per game due to the crew, or at the very least with an extreme cooldown to prevent stacking up.

But back to your point there is no denying that the E8 has good stats. It can bounce all standard AT and requires a Panther as a means to guarantee penatrations. This is undeniable. There is no spin. Stats are stats. E8 CAN bounce even pak shots at range (the chance is slim but it CAN) it is one of the only allied mediums in the game that has that chance. It's not debatable. It's one of the only allied mediums that can bounce shreks. Again, this is beyond contestation.

The tank is underwhelming. I agree with that, but imo it's a fun factor not a Stat issue. This is not fact but opinion.