Shocktroops at 1CP

I'm not sure how many in this thread are aware, that you can have a ST out as your 3rd unit...

Build T2 and a conscript, send your engy into action. By the time the engy have to retreat, you have your 1CP. ST's counter anything out of T1 except snipers. It is not a good mechanic imho.

I'm not sure how many in this thread are aware, that you can have a ST out as your 3rd unit...

i said this just before

Scout cars are a joke vs shock troopers, pgs don't fair much better.

Soviets get a 6 man knights cross holder squad at the early game while germans have 0 elite inf. All i have been seeing lately is massive shock trooper spam followed by su 85s.

They need a higher reinforce cost because the only inf that can even last long enough to not instant retreat is pgs.

Pgs have a 45mp reinforce cost vs shocks with a 36 man reinforce squad. Yes they have more entities to reinforce but since they already start with 6, dont lose combat effectiveness when they lose 2 men half the squad, they still have the advantage.

The fht nerf took away germans only wtf kill machine(barring tiger ace), so shocks have very little threat of a complete squad wipe if down to 2 or 3 men. By the end, there are 5 to 6 shock squads running around.

I'm not sure how many in this thread are aware, that you can have a ST out as your 3rd unit...

Build T2 and a conscript, send your engy into action. By the time the engy have to retreat, you have your 1CP. ST's counter anything out of T1 except snipers. It is not a good mechanic imho.

+1 that happened to me a few days ago.

@Volo Youre a great player and i usually appreciate your opinion but in that case im pretty sure youre subjective in some way. Maybe you played soviets a little bit too much ? Shocks effectively counter MGs, grens, mortars and even snipers have a pretty hard time to survive if 2 or more shocks are on the field.

Soviet have, by far, many more wins in SNF than German. However you can't really use that as a balance argument for this patch since 3 of the 4 SNFs were played on different patches - with bugged PPSh (that were grossly over-performing), T-70s (also grossly over-performing) and with different building mechanics (highly skewed in Sov favor because of German inability to reliably de-garrison whereas Soviets have Molotov). All of these factors made Soviets the indisputably more powerful faction at the highest levels of play.

Anyways, to get more on topic, Shock troops are counter-able at 1 CP and a lot of the suggestions in this thread have been good. MG42s work wonders because of the suppression and will allow you to hold off for a FHT. Honestly saving your munitions for a FHT will be better (at least in 1v1s) because the FHT melts shocks as if they had no armor (which is their main selling point). G43s and LMG42s will increase grenadier performance against Shocks, but in my experience neither upgrade will allow Grens to hold the line reliably - if you're going to go this route you really have to make sure you're always engaging the shocks 2v1. Shock troop armor is simply too high to rely on small arms fire.

221/222 just kind of sucks... against everything but flamer/sniper M3s now. And even then Guards can be on the field before your 221/222 so yeah... don't build these.

Snipers can work as well since they will inflict a significant amount of MP bleed on the Soviet player however they're more risky and require more micro than an MG42 or FHT. They're also more map dependent. On maps like Semoskiy it can be a pain to position the sniper in a good spot with all the LoS/shot blockers in the middle of the map.

I would avoid trying to use Pgrens to counter shocks for the same reasons as not relying on Grenadiers with G43s/LMGs - shock armor is too high. Pgrens will do better than Grenadiers, but overall you're not likely to come out ahead.

All that being said - sure Shocks can be beaten that early in the game, but I personally dislike the effect that 1 CP shocks/guards on have on the pace of the game. The past few patches have eroded the sense of "early game" that is so dear in CoH. I personally love/enjoy playing and seeing vanilla Grenadiers fighting vanilla Conscripts for the first few minutes of a game. (Don't read this as me justifying gren spam or con spam, I'm not). I love seeing the "dance" for cover and better positioning, trying to lure enemy squads into MG fire, or into bad positions. These early game engagements can really set the tone for the rest of the match, and have the potential to make matches more unique and dynamic. You can be aggressive and go for early cut-offs, you can play more defensive and try to control your own half of the map etc etc.

Elite infantry coming so early really negates this aspect of the game. Shock troops fighting vanilla grens really don't care about cover or positioning, you just right click them next to the Gren squad and watch them shred the grens to pieces. The only thing you have to really worry about is an MG42, and even then you have smoke grenades and Oorah on your Cons to flank.

So yes, they may be counter-able this early in the game, but it isn't fun to play against, it erodes the early game to being even shorter than it already was, and simplifies the game even further.

That has not been happening just with the latest patches ciez. M3flamer,m3sniper, maxim spam, mg42 spam have all been popular in the early game.
With the latest patch the mg42 is finally in a good spot and with the nerfed houses every cover has become more important

All that being said - sure Shocks can be beaten that early in the game, but I personally dislike the effect that 1 CP shocks/guards on have on the pace of the game. The past few patches have eroded the sense of "early game" that is so dear in CoH. I personally love/enjoy playing and seeing vanilla Grenadiers fighting vanilla Conscripts for the first few minutes of a game. (Don't read this as me justifying gren spam or con spam, I'm not). I love seeing the "dance" for cover and better positioning, trying to lure enemy squads into MG fire, or into bad positions. These early game engagements can really set the tone for the rest of the match, and have the potential to make matches more unique and dynamic. You can be aggressive and go for early cut-offs, you can play more defensive and try to control your own half of the map etc etc.

Elite infantry coming so early really negates this aspect of the game. Shock troops fighting vanilla grens really don't care about cover or positioning, you just right click them next to the Gren squad and watch them shred the grens to pieces. The only thing you have to really worry about is an MG42, and even then you have smoke grenades and Oorah on your Cons to flank.

+1

I don't think they are overpowered stats-wise, they are simply coming out too soon.
The CP change basically halved the time it would take to get access to them and the manpower change made it so you now have a lot more manpower early on. Before that, getting them was a trade-off but now getting them early on basically lets them walk through anything the German player can field at that point.

Just move them to 2 CP and it'll be fine. They'll come out at the same time that they could come out before the CP change and the higher starting MP means getting them is still a good thing.

In general I think that the CP changes were not really thought through well but problems are to be expected when doing such fundamental (and in theory good) changes. However, the job is far from done and this is one example that needs to be fine-tuned.

i said this just before

I find there is quite a difference between just mentioning it and then fleshing out how you do it, so people who hasn't experienced it will have an idea of the pace.

I'd rather Shocks and Guards went back to 2 CP.

I don't post a lot. Whats with all of this bullshit about people citing "SNF" as a gold standard for balance? Balancing for a demographic isn't balancing a game. I'm not saying it shouldn't be something to be considered but there way too many of you fuckers using it like its a law of physics or something [/rant]

As somebody who uses shocktroops there a lots of counters for ostheer. MG42 spam is just as effective as ever. The only way I can ever beat a genuinely good german player is to Scout Car spam + penals to break hole in defensive line then sneak shocks through said hole. Otherwise its GG against a good player. The ability for germ player to lock down sections of map is unparalled.

That has not been happening just with the latest patches ciez. M3flamer,m3sniper, maxim spam, mg42 spam have all been popular in the early game.
With the latest patch the mg42 is finally in a good spot and with the nerfed houses every cover has become more important

I'm not trying to make the claim that the early game is less varied - only that it "exists" for a very short amount of time now. I've been loving this patch, it is a huge step up from last patch where the only thing each side could reliably do was spam Cons/Grens with maybe an AGren squad thrown into the mix. Unless of course you're OMGPOP and somehow magically make M3s viable 23 minutes into the game (but then again OMGPOP is easily one of the best players currently). But the vast majority of what I experienced, and saw, last patch was Con spam vs Gren spam. So yes, this patch throwing other units into the mix is great.

But when doctrinal elite infantry hit the field so early (like 1.5-2 mins or so?) into the game and powerful upgrades like PPSh and G43s come very shortly after that it is apparent that this patch has drastically reduced the amount of time players spend in the early game stage. Prior to this patch it was entirely possible to have a FHT or a 222 on the field before Guards/Shocks - hence the more "mid game" units of each faction hit the field at reasonably similar times . Also if you want to parallel shocks with Pgrens since they fill the same role, albeit in different ways (I'd still argue that they're counterparts to one another in the same way that Grens/Cons are counterparts) they also hit the field at approximately the same time, again I'm talking prior to this patch.

Currently Soviets can have Guards on the field before a FHT or 221/222 which effectively makes the 221/222 completely useless unless you know for a fact that they do not have guards (And even then a 221/222 is pretty mediocre against shocks - I certainly wouldn't waste my fuel on one to kill shocks) and it relegates the FHT to being a completely reactionary unit to shock troops specifically.

Additionally (and I realize team games are not a top priority for balance but the majority of us play and enjoy them) it throws off team game balance. What can Germans really do against 1 CP shocks + guards? It is extraordinarily easy for one Soviet player to get an early sniper and then Guards before any reasonable counter could arrive (you can literally go con, t1, sniper, m3, guards, guards and have Guards BEFORE a 221) while the other gets Shocks. The sniper negates MG42s, the Guards negate German T2 entirely (can't use FHT to kill the Shocks) and that early into the game Grenadiers have the tendency to lose to both Guards and Shocks. Then your only decent counter become the German sniper, which is highly vulnerable to the M3 that will already be on the field, requires a ton of babysitting to not get counter-sniped, and a whole lot of micro to deal with that powerful of a Soviet field presence.

Overall Guards and Shocks coming at 1 CP is simply bad for the game on many levels. Even if you like that the early game phase is significantly shorter in this patch, because at the end of the day that is person preference, it still creates a balance nightmare in anything higher than a 1v1 and also more or less invalidates German T2 - which limits an already narrow faction even further.

I don't post a lot. Whats with all of this bullshit about people citing "SNF" as a gold standard for balance? Balancing for a demographic isn't balancing a game. I'm not saying it shouldn't be something to be considered but there way too many of you fuckers using it like its a law of physics or something [/rant]

As somebody who uses shocktroops there a lots of counters for ostheer. MG42 spam is just as effective as ever. The only way I can ever beat a genuinely good german player is to Scout Car spam + penals to break hole in defensive line then sneak shocks through said hole. Otherwise its GG against a good player. The ability for germ player to lock down sections of map is unparalled.

People reference SNF so often because it is the most recent tournament that we've had. This aspect allows the top players to separate themselves from the rest of the pack and balance should honestly be based around the top players in any given game. This is not to say that casuals should be ignored (hell, I'm a casual player myself and far from being considered a top 1v1 player). However, if the factions are balanced at the highest levels that balance will inevitably trickle down to the rest of us because for us mere mortals perceived imbalances might simply stem from not playing optimally.

Take for example SC2 - the win rates of each faction at the highest levels are all super close to one another (like 1 or 2 % points) and there aren't really any legitimate cries of imbalance from the rest of the community (which includes upwards of 95% or so the the actual active population of the game).

Basically it is best to focus on balance at the highest of levels because the rest of us can simply learn to play better in order to overcome (potentially) incorrectly perceived imbalances.

When you see shocks get a sniper straight away, then put down an mged bunker

I don't really have a problem with 1cp Shocktroops. Much like with other elite infantry openings, it suffers heavily in early map control. If you suppress and pin a squad with an MG42 you will be able to take huge chunks of the map with little resistance. When faced against 2x shocktroops I just double up on the MG42s and choose a doctrine with G43s and/or get a flamer HT. So far, I have had little trouble with quick T-70 follow ups as my MG42s make sure that my opponents don't get enough map control to get the fuel advantige.

I agree that early shocks forgo map control, but it becomes a slow roll of death as more and more shocks come out and then they are every where. Mg42s are not a counter to competent shocktroop users because of cheap smoke grenades. Only way to deal with them is to overmatch them, but then you are the one losing map control as you have to dedicate multiple units or a tank to deal with one squad.

I don't use shocks so I haven't see how they perform with the new patch, but in the paper 1CP seems too early for elite units to appear.

I wouldn't mind to revert to the previous values.

Just remembering the uproar when early assault grens initially came out

Nerfed within 24 Hours

Of course with shock troops this is completely different......

I also don't personally like early Shocks or Guards for that matter.

This 1CP elite infantry call-ins is fucking up the 2v2 games even more.

Imagine a Shock squad and a Guards squad out as each player's third unit - what the hell do the Germans do to counter this? Everything just gets rolled over like a joke, assuming the Soviet team isn't retarded.

All that being said - sure Shocks can be beaten that early in the game, but I personally dislike the effect that 1 CP shocks/guards on have on the pace of the game. The past few patches have eroded the sense of "early game" that is so dear in CoH. I personally love/enjoy playing and seeing vanilla Grenadiers fighting vanilla Conscripts for the first few minutes of a game. (Don't read this as me justifying gren spam or con spam, I'm not). I love seeing the "dance" for cover and better positioning, trying to lure enemy squads into MG fire, or into bad positions. These early game engagements can really set the tone for the rest of the match, and have the potential to make matches more unique and dynamic. You can be aggressive and go for early cut-offs, you can play more defensive and try to control your own half of the map etc etc.

Elite infantry coming so early really negates this aspect of the game. Shock troops fighting vanilla grens really don't care about cover or positioning, you just right click them next to the Gren squad and watch them shred the grens to pieces. The only thing you have to really worry about is an MG42, and even then you have smoke grenades and Oorah on your Cons to flank.

So yes, they may be counter-able this early in the game, but it isn't fun to play against, it erodes the early game to being even shorter than it already was, and simplifies the game even further.

+1