COH3: Milk Carton Units

Have you seen these units? In anticipation of an eventual "Big sweep" balance patch I wanted to generate a list of units that almost certainly need buffed and workshop some ideas. I mostly play 1v1 and some 2v2 when I'm feeling masochistic so feel free to throw in some team game perspective.

Scott and Hummel (251 upgrade) - AoE on barrage is pretty pathetic.

British AA Truck - pathetic damage on a fragile platform. Not sure if it's even intended for offensive use with Humber being a thing but compared to US Quad it's trash. Maybe add suppression mechanism?

Easy 8 - Overpriced when penetration is barely better than 76MM Sherman. Needs cost reduction so you can actually afford the damn thing without saving up Tiger-levels of resources for a marginally better medium tank.

Bulldozer Sherman - Needs armor buff IMO - has same armor as stock sherman so it gets eaten up by shreks and PAKs making it unusable as a AI specialist with an unimpressive auto fire range. I never see them.

221 - I think I've seen 1 ever built against me? Probably a timing issue/ AT rifle spam issue.

DAK Flak HT - Not sure I want to say "certainly" needs buffed as I suspect it doesn't see play because of how overtuned 8 Rad is but it could maybe use some love if they don't revert the cost increase to Fire Support elements.

Grant Tank - Performance is pretty good but maybe slightly overcosted. I'd maybe lower the teching cost slightly but nothing too crazy.

Edit, add LMG Commandos (Brits) - The last patch buffed them to roughly Stostruppen levels of DPS as far as I can tell but they have negative utility as an expensive 4 man doctrinal unit with Bren. Why would you EVER get them when you can have Bren section with snares or LMG Gurka's which are 6 men, have grenades, and a good ability as a supposed to a piddly suppression ability that might mildly inconvenience a squad momentarily. They definitely need some kind of utility added when every other doctrinal/elite unit is loaded to the gills with abilities.

General DAK Fine-tuning- I think it's worth acknowledging that DAK needs some improvement to their early game and to make Armor Reserves more accessible without making DAK too strong at all stages of the game. I'll admit I have no clue how to do that but probably something along the lines of increasing baseline Panzergren performance but toning down Combat Bonus and toning down Armory upgrades so that late game isn't completely bananas - stuff like Tiger can't capture points with Rapid Advance (tiger is already super strong without also yolo capping).

Easy 8 - Overpriced when penetration is barely better than 76MM Sherman. Needs cost reduction so you can actually afford the damn thing without saving up Tiger-levels of resources for a marginally better medium tank.

Yes please god. It's a glorified Sherman 76 (they do the same 160 damage on pen) with better pen and an ability that adds a whopping 20 extra damage to the main gun in return for giving up the best medium tank ability in the game (HE shells). It also costs nearly as much as the Tiger but can only deal a third of HP damage to it in a 1v1 before Tiger turns it from a pile of shit into a pile of burning shit.

It's also got another 160 HP over the default sherman. Which means instead of getting 3 shot by the tiger, it gets 4 shot instead. Big deal.

Scott and Hummel (251 upgrade) - AoE on barrage is pretty pathetic.

Barrage AoE is fine, this is not CoH2, there is no need for wiping and entire squad with 1 barrage.
Stummel needs quicker upgrade time and better barrage range. Vet1 ability should not target vehicles only, it should be targeted on anything.
Scott needs the same, lower CP requirement and better range for barrage ability. Also it should lose it's ability to fire on the move so it will not rush enemy positions while ordered to barrage or smoke and WP shell barrage at vet1 should be changed into single shell.

British AA Truck - pathetic damage on a fragile platform. Not sure if it's even intended for offensive use with Humber being a thing but compared to US Quad it's trash. Maybe add suppression mechanism?

Supression is weak in CoH3, it needs damage and a little bit more HP, as well decreased muni cost.

Easy 8 - Overpriced when penetration is barely better than 76MM Sherman. Needs cost reduction so you can actually afford the damn thing without saving up Tiger-levels of resources for a marginally better medium tank.

Riflemen away from call in, from 8 CP to 6, cost to 480 mp and 130 fuel. Same to Panther btw.

Bulldozer Sherman - Needs armor buff IMO - has same armor as stock sherman so it gets eaten up by shreks and PAKs making it unusable as a AI specialist with an unimpressive auto fire range. I never see them.

Not only armor buff, also HP buff. Armor is relatively useless at that timing of the game.

221 - I think I've seen 1 ever built against me? Probably a timing issue/ AT rifle spam issue.

Imo this armored car should go into T1, for the same cost. Then timing would be better.
But actually, built it couple of times and if opponent was going for sniper rifles instead of AT upgrade it performed decently.

DAK Flak HT - Not sure I want to say "certainly" needs buffed as I suspect it doesn't see play because of how overtuned 8 Rad is but it could maybe use some love if they don't revert the cost increase to Fire Support elements.

I disagree that 8 rad is overtuned. Wehr's 8rad even underperforms. Problem of flak HT is it's bad timing, poor armor and high investment into t1. I few times witnessed myself that british blob without AT rifles just smashed FlakHT by staying in green cover and shooting. It is very weak against any kind of fire.

Grant Tank - Performance is pretty good but maybe slightly overcosted. I'd maybe lower the teching cost slightly but nothing too crazy.

Perfectly fine tank just overshadowed by cheaper and more effective crusader.

Edit, add LMG Commandos (Brits) - The last patch buffed them to roughly Stostruppen levels of DPS as far as I can tell but they have negative utility as an expensive 4 man doctrinal unit with Bren. Why would you EVER get them when you can have Bren section with snares or LMG Gurka's which are 6 men, have grenades, and a good ability as a supposed to a piddly suppression ability that might mildly inconvenience a squad momentarily. They definitely need some kind of utility added when every other doctrinal/elite unit is loaded to the gills with abilities.

Problem of bren commandos is that they are fine, just overshadowed, like StoBtruppen. StoBtruppen, regular and STG ones are overshadowed by cheaper jaegers and pgrens, those squads also have more HP in total and come earlier. Gurkhas and tommies need to be toned down, because they are overperforming, just like jaegershreks. Then elite infantry will get it's role when mainlines and semi-mainlines will not be as strong as they are now.

General DAK Fine-tuning- I think it's worth acknowledging that DAK needs some improvement to their early game and to make Armor Reserves more accessible without making DAK too strong at all stages of the game. I'll admit I have no clue how to do that but probably something along the lines of increasing baseline Panzergren performance but toning down Combat Bonus and toning down Armory upgrades so that late game isn't completely bananas - stuff like Tiger can't capture points with Rapid Advance (tiger is already super strong without also yolo capping).

About DAK early game:
Make pgrens 280 mp, make 250 260 mp and increase its frontal armor a bit. Give it shared vet or give it automatically vet1 after armory upgrade and make armory upgrade instantly available. Then DAK early game would be good without overtuning anything.
About rapid advance: it just should not affect stug IIID, Carro M13/40, and Tiger, maybe also PIII. Anything else is annoying, but fine.

And also, why you didn't add Centaur medium tank? This tank is not even a meme.

About rapid advance: it just should not affect stug IIID, Carro M13/40, and Tiger, maybe also PIII. Anything else is annoying, but fine.

I think the problem with most of these abilities is their passive nature. I think territory capping should be something you activate which disables the weapons, like for Soviets in Coh2. Self-repair should be a timed ability that costs munitions. I also wouldn't mind seeing these abilities being mutually exclusive at the unit level, so you have that trade off of which utility you want most and also reduces DAK lategame vehicle scaling, you basically don't need infantry right now.

DAK Flak HT - Not sure I want to say "certainly" needs buffed as I suspect it doesn't see play because of how overtuned 8 Rad is but it could maybe use some love if they don't revert the cost increase to Fire Support elements.

Agreed. The 8 Rad completely overshadows the Flak HT because its so broken but it definitely feels weak compared to other comparable units like the American M16.

I think the problem with most of these abilities is their passive nature. I think territory capping should be something you activate which disables the weapons, like for Soviets in Coh2. Self-repair should be a timed ability that costs munitions. I also wouldn't mind seeing these abilities being mutually exclusive at the unit level, so you have that trade off of which utility you want most and also reduces DAK lategame vehicle scaling, you basically don't need infantry right now.

Those are passive because you invest resource into them.
There is no problem with LV's and easily take out units to capture points.
In CoH2 KV-2 could cap points and it was (for reason, imo) considered OP even when weapons are disabled.
Slow self-repair also should be a thing because currently DAK is only faction without any access to flares or other recon except kradschutzen which is usually dead in mid-late game. As DAK you cannot scout the map without getting hits so it is OK to compensate this design with slow self-repair ability.
About munition cost... If you don't go for Bersaglieri, your munitions drain is insane since you need weapon upgrades to compete against allied mainline infantry, snare vehicles manually since access to AT infantry is limited and lay mines to prevent early LV rushes. DAK is literally most munition-intensive faction if play it in it's "vanilla" state, so there is no need for more munition-cost abilities.