Early Game Riflemen Rant

I doubt much I'd say would gain traction here, so I will only briefly mention that the kubel is not some death machine. There's a very thin line between using it effectively and a smoking hulk. If you think kubel vs RM is bad, try out UC vs volks/grens.

Only Thompson (tommy gun) Ranger have good DPS even at MID range.

They have around 93% DPS of LMG obers at range 20 and up to 138% higher DPS closer.

But is that is not really related to Riflemen.

Yeah, good luck trying to close into Ober when it has both phosphorus smoke and bundle grenade. Or u want to invest Thompson and BAR to fight Ober at mid and long-range fights?

Only Thompson (tommy gun) Ranger have good DPS even at MID range.

They have around 93% DPS of LMG obers at range 20 and up to 138% higher DPS closer.

But is that is not really related to Riflemen.

Did yo count "3 elite Kar98k" and 1 "elite garand" ?. Good range DPS mean you only have under 93% vs 100% + 3 Longrange weapon ?.
And again, get closer to Ober mean HP bleed, being blocked by WP nade or bundle ?
Edited

Only Thompson (tommy gun) Ranger have good DPS even at MID range.

They have around 93% DPS of LMG obers at range 20 and up to 138% higher DPS closer.

But is that is not really related to Riflemen.

Where did these numbers come from? Based off serelia the LMG does 12 DPS at 20 range while the Thompson do 5.8 DPS. At VET3 LMG does 20 while the Thompson do 7.7. There damage is good if they had a way to close in.

Where did these numbers come from?

That is per sqaud not per weapon.

Comparing a weapon that one entity of squad has with a weapon 3 entities of squad have is rather misleading to begin with.

Based off serelia the LMG does 12 DPS at 20 range while the Thompson do 5.8 DPS. At VET3 LMG does 20 while the Thompson do 7.7. There damage is good if they had a way to close in.

The original claim that "ober LMG long range DPS is the same as ranger tommies close range DPS" since each Thompson has around 113% more DPS at range 10 than Lmg34 has at range 35.

Thompson ranges and Paras have good DPS even from MID range (15-20)


Still that in not really related to riflemen which are the topic of this thread. If one thinks that obers are OP or Rangers are UP one should probably start a thread about.

The original claim that "ober LMG long range DPS is the same as ranger tommies close range DPS" since each Thompson has around 113% more DPS at range 10 than Lmg34 has at range 35.

Rangers have 26.5 DPS at 20 range where Obers have 28.4 . But you are not factoring in that the rangers have to move in to that range where Obers rip your guts out and can always answer you with a Blendkörper. Rangers suck at what they do due to absolutely 0 utility and not having amazing durability and smoke like shocks do.

It seems to me that you are exaggerating. Riflemen is a very strong unit. Can 1v1 Grens at any range but long. And 1v1 Volks at any range any day of the week.

You can't. You need to find the perfect engagement opportunities while paying MORE. This should be the other way around.

Riflemen are very versatile and can be equiped with Bars, Zooks or 1919s according to the game situation.

One of them is doctrinal, Zooks on them are utter waste of munitions and Bars are too expensive for you take early.

The only real problem are Kubels and SPios. But hey, cmon, 2 blobed RM can easily force them to retreat.

2Riflemen with a rear echelon will be slapped by kubels and sturmpios with single volks. Especially if kübel dislocates you from cover.

There's a reason pathfinders are so popular. Riflemen aren't bad they're just by far the most micro-intensive mainline imo

Rifle smoke once made them too easy to use, and they were designed with that in mind. One of many ways the faction design was not great

Not much to add here. Riflemen are decent in 1 on 1. I think the problem is that they don't leave you any tactical choice. Axis have by far the upper hand in long range combat. They can choose if they want to drag out a shoot out or not, they can also engage with a single Gren/Ober and get an overall win from that because Rifles cannot compete long range.
Because they can't "skirmish", they are always forced into an assault. And the only way to ensure that the enemy has not superior numbers and can concentrate his long range fire on you is to have an all out assault with all squads. Either that, or do not assault at all.

I'll keep this short.

The unit absolutely eats the dust against axis in the early game -especially because of the map pool. (Edit : Wording)

Early game,
You get beaten by Volks and Grens at long range.
You get beaten horribly by Volks and Grens if you decide to charge at them.
You beat Volks marginally and beat the Grens handily at close.
Which both cost less than the rifles and has access to their weapon upgrades without any side techs.


The issue is compounded even more when you consider the supporting units of axis factions:

Against OKW:
***Sturmpioneer eats your rifles and your measly Rear Echelons for breakfast.
***Kübelwagen bleeds you to death from range.

Against OST:
***Pioneer does better than your Rear Echelons, provide good support to Grens if you decide to charge them and provides sight to MG42 which you don't have any counters against unless you go for sidetech + leuitenant/captain/your rear echelon with your rifles or the worst mortar in the game (which also creates another weakness with sub-optimal build)
***MG42, mentioned above.
***Sniper, that is literally uncounterable without Pathfinders or LV (Captain one, which is the meta, arrives too late against sniper aswell).


In the end, Rifles are much more micro-taxing and annoying to use while their performance is gated extremely behind veterancy and sidetechs. I don't know if any more updates are coming to the game but if there are, then I hope the rifles are addressed.

First let me just say that I agree with you and I feel your pain. I play all factions with no clear preference and nothing you said here was wrong.

With that said the problem isn't Riflemen but the rest of USF. Rifleman are quite good and one of the best units available to USF. Here are the main issues with USF.

1. USF Tech
The USF tech structure is literally pure shit (thanks to the balance team and the terrible redesign they did).

- To Unlock a Building, you must first Activate the building which gives you partial access. For LT Building you get access to HMGs, and Captain gives you access to AT Guns. To fix USF tech, I would lower the initial activation fuel cost, and then shift that over to the Second Unlock. So for example
to activate Company Command Post it Currently Costs 250 Manpower and 35 Fuel. Then to fully unlock the building you have to pay an additional 50 Manpower and 20 Fuel with the second upgrade.

I would make the initial activation cost roughly 15 fuel (around the same fuel cost of Soviet T1/T2 Buildings) So the Captain Unlock would cost 250 Manpower and 15 Fuel for the first activation. Then the second activation would cost 50 Manpower and 40 Fuel.

This would allow USF to have access to basic tools (AT Gun/HMG) without being punished for it with heavy fuel costs or falling really behind on tech while still keeping the same timings as before for things like Stuart or the AA Halftrack.



2. The M191A6 LMG (the other weapon unlock beside Bar and Bazooka sitting in our base) Should be made available stock and Unlocked with the Major. This would allow Riflemen to address LMG blobs later on in the game without needing to resort to Pathfinder/M8 Scott Spam. This would also roughly match the timing of units like Obersoldaten which would be fair.

3. Limited Viable Vision Options - Balance Team removed or lowered sight on USF vehicles such as the Jackson (it used to have 50 vision range). Without giving USF any alternative stock options for vision in its place. It was apparently broken for Jacksons to have 50 sight range but then giving King Tigers a stealth buff in the game with 70 vision range is perfectly fine. Just like how Rangers had 10% Damage Reduction which was removed on the guise that it wasn't clearly communicated only to give it to Grenadiers after (which also isn't clearly communicated due to the terrible tooltips in the game)

- Stock Vision should be equalized across the board for all factions based on unit types.

(Riflemen should be given extra sight with Grenade Tech Unlock to match Pioneer 42 Vision or Volksgrenadier 42 vision with Vet)

(Would also like to see some consistency with Light Vehicles - For example Luch's/Stuart getting Recon modes like the T-70)

Goal here is to use combined arms. If Pershing had 50 Vision Stock and was able to get it to 70 like King Tiger you would see post after post from Axis players crying about how OP it is because USF no longer need to spend ammo on Take Aim to make use of their AT Guns even though both Raketen and Pak doing Max Range shots all the time without spending ammo for it is fine.



If these issues were addressed USF would be more forgiving as a faction to play. The rigid tech structure really limits your ability to adapt to different situations which is really the main strength of Airborne (being able to drop HMGs or AT Guns to quickly adapt to enemy play is quite strong - much stronger than the Pathfinder in my opinion). USF does have some other issues such as Rear Echelon being hot garbage, limited Viable commander choices vs Soviet/Whermacht (instead we get trolled by Balance Team with Easy 8's)

USF is not God Awful by any means but they do have some design decisions which severely make them unfriendly towards newer players.

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I don't think balance team had much of a choice. From even some smaller things that they publicly said that Relic would not allow them to do, I doubt that Relic would have allowed them to fully rebalance USF tech structure.

Anyway, back to the point:
USF is short on MP in the beginning. In any normal build (3 Rifles into officer, but I think it is the same for 2 Rifles into officer), you will hit the 35 fuel for tech up way before you'd tech up anyway. The only way to make the teching up faster would be to reduce MP cost, but this would also mean that USF had a very cheap backup officer squad for the late game.

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While probably not broken, what would you replace the two commander slots with?

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I absolutely oppose giving more LVs a recon mode. The game has already made factions more "samey" across the board, they don't need to make the units feel the same, too.
It is fully fine if some factions shift more of the cost to combat, while you pay for utility in others for the "same unit type".
The huge sight range KT is obviously stupid, as are highly mobile TDs that spot for themselves.
Volks also only get 42 vision when in cover and at vet4, which takes a while to kick in. That vet is good for defense, but useless on the offense. No core combat unit should be able to basically self spot and dodge MGs (in cover and in the late game, you might be able to pull your squad out before it gets suppressed. And even if not, the MG will be almost useless since you can easily crawl out of range). We can see this problem with Pfusiliere already, where you just get artied all the time.


What I would have liked to see on USF is to make the officers into actual support units. The Lieutenant is almost a copy of a Riflemen squad, while the Captain has some quite limited utility. The major is good, especially after the sight buff, but with 3 models he can be easily forced to retreat. But the first two need something different. They could even get a single M1919 upgrade in my opinion to add more long range firepower for USF.

Rangers have 26.5 DPS at 20 range where Obers have 28.4 . But you are not factoring in that the rangers have to move in to that range where Obers rip your guts out and can always answer you with a Blendkörper. Rangers suck at what they do due to absolutely 0 utility and not having amazing durability and smoke like shocks do.

Glad to see that acknowledge that the post in questions was false.

On the other hand, Rangers are fine and Obers are fine.

Now if in your opinion infatry could walk up to Obers and dislodge, feel free to explain what would be the reason to even build them in the first place.

But this thread you started is about riflemen and not Rangers or Obers so I suggest we stick to the topic of this thread.

You can't. You need to find the perfect engagement opportunities while paying MORE. This should be the other way around.

This simply isn't true, they absolutely can beat Grens at any range except long. I have no idea why you think the matchup is so difficult.

This simply isn't true, they absolutely can beat Grens at any range except long. I have no idea why you think the matchup is so difficult.

Truth be told, 80% of infantry engagements are medium-long range, where volks and grens win. Rifles win short to medium range (lower end of medium range spectrum)

Truth be told, 80% of infantry engagements are medium-long range, where volks and grens win. Rifles win short to medium range (lower end of medium range spectrum)

Ok, but he's acting like you have to play absolutely perfectly to beat ostheer mainlines. It's definitely harder for USF against volks in the early game and during their STG spike, but against Grens? No way do you have to find the 'perfect engagement' to beat them, its exaggeration. Yes, rifleman get bled out at range but they murder them up close.

I don't think balance team had much of a choice. From even some smaller things that they publicly said that Relic would not allow them to do, I doubt that Relic would have allowed them to fully rebalance USF tech structure.

Anyway, back to the point:
USF is short on MP in the beginning. In any normal build (3 Rifles into officer, but I think it is the same for 2 Rifles into officer), you will hit the 35 fuel for tech up way before you'd tech up anyway. The only way to make the teching up faster would be to reduce MP cost, but this would also mean that USF had a very cheap backup officer squad for the late game.

You can always change the officer's build time, that what the modding did, nerfing it at max so USF had the later powerspike possible, not even being a powerspike anymore.

Ok, but he's acting like you have to play absolutely perfectly to beat ostheer mainlines. It's definitely harder for USF against volks in the early game and during their STG spike, but against Grens? No way do you have to find the 'perfect engagement' to beat them, its exaggeration. Yes, rifleman get bled out at range but they murder them up close.

rifle/gren matchup was ok until for some reason sandbags have been given as stock to everyone except USF. If the Oshteer player has some not-too-bad APM skills, he'll simply spam sandbag everywhere.
There a huge difference between playing vs someone not using sandbag and someone using it even if both player are bad at everything else.

We commonly say mines win game, but sandbags more than often also win game on the long run.

You can always change the officer's build time, that what the modding did, nerfing it at max so USF had the later powerspike possible, not even being a powerspike anymore.

The USF tech revamp was a buff to the faction allowing easier access to support weapon and not nerf as you are trying to present it.

rifle/gren matchup was ok until for some reason sandbags have been given as stock to everyone except USF. If the Oshteer player has some not-too-bad APM skills, he'll simply spam sandbag everywhere.
There a huge difference between playing vs someone not using sandbag and someone using it even if both player are bad at everything else.

We commonly say mines win game, but sandbags more than often also win game on the long run.

USF where completely dominating Ostheer as for sandbags USF have tank traps.

As for "spam sandbag everywhere" ostheer pioneers are one of busiest units and it far easier for Soviet/UKF/OKW and even USF to spam tank traps than for Ostheer to spam sandbag.

This simply isn't true, they absolutely can beat Grens at any range except long. I have no idea why you think the matchup is so difficult.

Do you know that Grens have better DPS than rifles until 12 range ? The moment you lose your extra model over grens, you insta lose the engagement. That is also not factoring in the moving accuracy penalty that the rifles will take.

Do you know that Grens have better DPS than rifles until 12 range ? The moment you lose your extra model over grens, you insta lose the engagement. That is also not factoring in the moving accuracy penalty that the rifles will take.

Comparing DPS per entity when there is different number of entities is simply misleading.

Especially when in fight between grenadier and riflemen one grenadier entity is bound to be focused fired by two riflemen.