USF Pathfinders need to be balanced

Like I said:
If Axis have something strong, maybe abusable: It's a balance issue.
If Allies have something strong, maybe abuseable: It's a l2p issue.

Cool!

If I haven't mentioned it yet, I was an alpha tester right from the beginning and I am a top 100 player. But you're maybe right, it's only my lack of skill....

yeah, i mean if you get stomped by zookfinder spam and blame it on paths being OP instead of the obvious skill gap that let your opponents get away with it, then yes, your top 100 rank doesn't seem to be worth too much.

Like I said:
If Axis have something strong, maybe abusable: It's a balance issue.
If Allies have something strong, maybe abuseable: It's a l2p issue.

Cool!

If I haven't mentioned it yet, I was an alpha tester right from the beginning and I am a top 100 player. But you're maybe right, it's only my lack of skill....

sure, aple tester + top 100 player get rekt by 3 pathfinder alone, no weapon upgrade. Could you watch your own replay and see how bad your team is ?
Holding 3 vp for half of the map, know Enemies go full airbone, still not buy Ostwind ? how nice of Top 100 is.

And the other that thing is trying to engage in a substantial discussion with people who who's only argument is "you are a four digit noob" is senseless also.

(and it seems that frequence/the number of people using such an argument has increased)

"if you are 4-digit guy l2p". Seriously. Blame hand before balance.

Using Pathfinder instead of rifle as a mainline inf.? Yeah right. Even JLI is not used in a such sense.

So I decided to spend my time to watch the actual replay.

01:20 - don't place mg42 on mid VP. It's pretty obvious that first battle will be placed between left&right fuel - standard territory. There is a lot of heavy cover. USE it.
Thanks to u not being at the sight, USF already camped all the good heavy cover.

~05:00 - Nice push with 2 col, but again, mg is doing NOTHING. could have delayed iroha's blob if it was properly used.

06:00 - again, pushing with 2 gren against 3 pathfinder in heavy cover. No wonder it's u lost one gren here. NO mg support. & please build 3+ grens at least.

~08:50 - 2 panzergren is very stupid idea. Especially if u are not interested in closing the distance. If enemy is blobing, u should too. Even tho u got majority of the map at this point, you kept lose at the battle because they are concentrating fire(of 3 pathfinder + 50cal), and you only have single squad each time. & retreating.

10:30 - It's been a 10 minute. Yet ur mg is not even half to the vet1. If you are not gonna use mg; Just go for 5 gren or something.

~11:40 - Reason why I told u to blob against blob & build gren instead of pgren. Only way of 2 pgren winning against 3 pathfinder blob is to use vision cover to surprise them at close range. But you are not doing anything close to that. Just getting hit from far distance & retreating. Build gren...Just...build it....


BTW, if enemy got indirect fire, you better get one too.

14:50 Puma? Really? With tier3 built? VERY VERY poor choice.

17:40 At last, wasting-popcap mg is dead! That was probably the worst mg I have ever seen in my CoH life.

18:00~ I'd say you pretty much lost power to fight head-to-head from this point.

Main reasons are...

1. NO mg use what so ever
2. Poor choice of unit build - 2 pgren & puma? What for?
3. Giving one squad at a time to blob & retreating. No wonder you are losing to 2bazooka pathfinder.
4. p4's are fighting against zooked pathfinder alone. Where is inf. support?

What you should have done...

1. Please use mg or consider yourself playing OKW or USF. There is a reason best mg is at tier0 for WM.
2. Saw enemy blobing pathfinder -> go for 4 gren with lmg. Fight at long range as you blob too. Remember, you lost not against 2bar Pathfinder, but 2Bazooka Pathfinder. I don't even understand the point of this thread at this point.
3. Choose commander wisely. What's good for mobile defense anyway?
4. At battle: plase march with inf & tank together. Enemy is doing exact thing with pathfinder + howitzer. You? You give infs. to them; retreating; then p4s comes in. Fight against zooked Pathfinder alone; get dmg & fall back.


From my point of view; You should not complain about pathfinder spam. You should be thankful to it. Iroha was more like toying with you. If he went for normal 2rifle + 1pathfinder build; You couldn't have made their vp to 83.
I mean.. MG42 was not even vet1 at the time of wipe(17:40?). Against such WM, any 2-digit USF could have won.

"if you are 4-digit guy l2p". Seriously. Blame hand before balance.

Or maybe you should focus on the topic of a thread instead of the person.
OP also is not a 4 digit play thus it rather irrelevant here.

Using Pathfinder instead of rifle as a mainline inf.? Yeah right. Even JLI is not used in a such sense.

JLI where used like that when they CP 0 with great success. Actually they where deemed OP and they had to be nerfed.

But not sure why you are quoting me.

Or maybe you should focus on the topic of a thread instead of the person.

Which I did after edit. Sorry it took some time to see replay.

So OP was suggesting based on his experience in replay.

"The issue is simple: You can spam Pathfinders early on and upgrade them easily with powerful weapons while still beeing cheaper than Jäger."

I'd say spam Pathfinder at early because it's 0cp would be insane idea. If that's the point of OP, why not high-ranked OKW using Panzerfüsiliers instead of volks? They are 0cp; can be used as mainline inf. high-ranked USF spam Pathfinder?

Reason(for both pathfinder & Panzerfüsiliers) is simple: It's hard to win early game fight.

Which OP failed to do so because he did not used his unit(mainly mg) properly.

Imo unit of this type should designed as support/scout units and be balanced around the 240 price.

The critical kill mechanism could be turned into a timed ability to avoid ""critical kill blobs"

Im with The fist haft of your suggestions here, let them be 240-260 without any scope rifle, as sander once said 4 elite carbine will be too strong for cp0 i can give them a custom carbine with reduce firepower.

For the second haft, i prefer a pay shot to take out individual model to a time ability unlock with an upgrade ofc. Basically coh1's "deploy marksman" or "assasinate" prom coh2 us campain. It will offer usf the perfect counter sniper tool and a reasonable price like 40muni per shot will guarantee that tge player will always pick valuable target instead of spam.

This current moment there 6 thread buff allies/nerf axis and 4 thread buff axis/nerf allies in the first page.

(Bunkers
Pershing vs Tiger. Shouldn't Pershing be buffed?
Easy 8 and 76mm Sherman Can be buffed bit more I think.
E8 is still trash
Does Axis save too much MP in team games?
Could we just delete vet 1 ML-20 smoke barrage ?. )
vs
(USF Pathfinders need to be balanced
The devs did it again... Buffed B4 into the heaven
The Stug E is still a terrible tank
PTRS Penals and Soviet vs Ostheer balance)

but if in your opinion it is quantity that matter and not the context you can start your own threads.

Now can we pls toned down this axis/allied rhetoric and focus on the topics.

You are blowing what i said out of preportion with the quantity remark. To me it seems you only respond when its a axis bias favor claim, i could be wrong here ofcourse. But you seemed to let the the allied bias favor slip and just respond to mine.

Yes at this moment what is said is wrong. But in general it tends to be the case.

The mods and the dev team imo are fair and as unbiased as can be.
A lot if not most threads or responces however are are not. One side complains a bit more generaly. This has little to do with the quality of the posts.

For the second haft, i prefer a pay shot to take out individual model to a time ability unlock with an upgrade ofc. Basically coh1's "deploy marksman" or "assasinate" prom coh2 us campain. It will offer usf the perfect counter sniper tool and a reasonable price like 40muni per shot will guarantee that tge player will always pick valuable target instead of spam.

Given how incredibly important model drops are to the outcomes of infantry firefights, a paid snipe ability on any squad is a bad idea. It would allow them to win fights just with a small upfront munitions investment (from range, unlike grenades) by immediately sniping a model of an enemy squad. Which is exactly what happened with the snipe ability for scoped Enfield Section for UKF in vCoH and that was terribly unbalanced too.

Given how incredibly important model drops are to the outcomes of infantry firefights, a paid snipe ability on any squad is a bad idea. It would allow them to win fights just with a small upfront munitions investment (from range, unlike grenades) by immediately sniping a model of an enemy squad. Which is exactly what happened with the snipe ability for scoped Enfield Section for UKF in vCoH and that was terribly unbalanced too.

I agree, while the ability sounds and probably would be great against certain Squad it would be opressive. Losing 1 model for PG, Sturm pioneers, Falls and a few others causes a massive drop in DPS which would immediately swings the favor of battle in favor of Pathfinders. Since they are a long range squad you would have to close to kill them and with BARS they would damage you on the trip and back.

I think a simply switching all the weapon profiles to long range with a call in at CP1 would be fair. Putting BARS on would no longer be an automatic upgrade.

Given how incredibly important model drops are to the outcomes of infantry firefights, a paid snipe ability on any squad is a bad idea. It would allow them to win fights just with a small upfront munitions investment (from range, unlike grenades) by immediately sniping a model of an enemy squad. Which is exactly what happened with the snipe ability for scoped Enfield Section for UKF in vCoH and that was terribly unbalanced too.

It is just my personal preference and opinion on viper's suggestions, but as you taking the important of model drop into account, the current 75%hp crit of jLi is also nowhere near healthy, too. Otherwise, current pathfinder isn't cause any major balance issue (they have just been nefted). Still, If they really have to be heavily touched then remove the pair of m1 scope rifle and offer a custom carbine profile can be a solid way of doing so.

It is just my personal preference and opinion on viper's suggestions, but as you taking the important of model drop into account, the current 75%hp crit of jLi is also nowhere near healthy, too. Otherwise, current pathfinder isn't cause any major balance issue (they have just been nefted). Still, If they really have to be heavily touched then remove the pair of m1 scope rifle and offer a custom carbine profile can be a solid way of doing so.

I suppose the difference is that JLI or Paths don't snipe on-demand, they're still required to actually fight their opponents, and their snipes still have criteria they need to reach before being possible. They can't (Barring exceedingly favourable RNG, which could be applied to most squads) instantly execute a model before combat even starts.

I am sorry, but this discussion moves into a false direction. As I said before, the problem of Pathfinders is not their weapon profile or sniper mechanic. They feel good and they are doing well!

My concerns are just their early and easy arriving and the possibility to upgrade them with heavy wepaons. Jägers are never capable of standing their ground versus allied core infantry. Their purpose is to scout and support from long range.

Pathfinders though can become a real threat to vehicles with double Zooks or shred down Volks and Grens with double BAR. All of that combined with their huge vision. That's NOT their purpose! USF got Airborne Rangers for that role. Pathfinders should be a supportive reconnaissance unit.

Therefore I suggested to town down their arrival, increase cooldown and withdraw their weapon slots. They will still be useful and powerful at long range, can snipe and spot the enemy. But Bazooka-Finders or BARfinders?? Really? ...

Given how incredibly important model drops are to the outcomes of infantry firefights, a paid snipe ability on any squad is a bad idea. It would allow them to win fights just with a small upfront munitions investment (from range, unlike grenades) by immediately sniping a model of an enemy squad. Which is exactly what happened with the snipe ability for scoped Enfield Section for UKF in vCoH and that was terribly unbalanced too.

This is exactly correct

I am sorry, but this discussion moves into a false direction. As I said before, the problem of Pathfinders is not their weapon profile or sniper mechanic. They feel good and they are doing well!

My concerns are just their early and easy arriving and the possibility to upgrade them with heavy wepaons. Jägers are never capable of standing their ground versus allied core infantry. Their purpose is to scout and support from long range.

Pathfinders though can become a real threat to vehicles with double Zooks or shred down Volks and Grens with double BAR. All of that combined with their huge vision. That's NOT their purpose! USF got Airborne Rangers for that role. Pathfinders should be a supportive reconnaissance unit.

Therefore I suggested to town down their arrival, increase cooldown and withdraw their weapon slots. They will still be useful and powerful at long range, can snipe and spot the enemy. But Bazooka-Finders or BARfinders?? Really? ...

The UKF and USF weapon upgrade structure is what causes this problem, really. All of their infantry has access to BARs/Brens and Zooks/PIATs. It's an interesting idea in terms of the flexibility it affords the factions, but it does potentially mean there can be balance issues. I'd personally prefer than USF/UKF units just had in-field weapon upgrades like Axis (Or restrict them to only upgrading in the base sectors, if that's still desirable), units might then be able to have some unique options while retaining flexibility, and "unintended" upgrades would not exist.

I also thing weapon dropping (I.E, BARs dropping from destroyed Riflemen, LMGs from destroyed Grens, etc) is also a bad mechanic, but that's a bit of a tangent.