Post December 10th Patch

Hello everyone! I'm interested in how everyone is adjusting to the new patch? What build orders have you been going, favorite doctrines etc?

I play mostly 2v2 games and I personally find myself going shocks in most of my games. For me, 3 conscripts - molotovs is a flexible opening build. I go t2 because I like the maxim for dealing with gren spam, the zis for a heavy t2 strat. (atg). This allows me to delay my commander decision and adapt to the situation.

I find t1 less useful now that buildings can be reasonably dealt with without flamers and an m5 and with the sniper feeling lackluster for the amount of attention required to make it worthwhile.

Some key points of note seem to be:

-Shocks come very early
-The vehicle scatter nerf was a huge buff to shrecks and to a lesser extent guards (ostruppen doctrine is extremely strong due to its fuel > muni ability)
-T3 feels weak
-Tiger Ace still feels cheap when used in a close game.


Post your build orders and general thoughts on the meta!

I've been running a lot of t2 early game strat as well.

-Engineer squad- build t2- conscript- maxim- conscript- mortar or maxim.

After that it's mostly about a combination of shocks and AT guns.

I've also found myself relying much more on extra ammo and laying lots of mines instead of rushing to a t3 or t4.

I'll save the fuel (mostly) until the end and run up with an IS2....

Except I find my expensive IS-2 gets killed by circle strafing PzIVs or Panthers, and I mean one or the other. Single tank. Defeating an IS-2. I basically have to get it the hell out of there. It's a friggin joke that I have to run my super expensive uber tank away from the STOCK STANDARD Germans ones because they are already so good. Make panthers doctrinal again and bring them out in pairs like in the orignal.

The original wasn't doctrinal. If that's what you meant, might have got the wrong end of the stick.

Except I find my expensive IS-2 gets killed by circle strafing PzIVs or Panthers, and I mean one or the other. Single tank. Defeating an IS-2. I basically have to get it the hell out of there. It's a friggin joke that I have to run my super expensive uber tank away from the STOCK STANDARD Germans ones because they are already so good. Make panthers doctrinal again and bring them out in pairs like in the orignal.

If you're letting one tank circle strafe your IS-2 until death without bringing up an AT gun, Guards, AT nading it, or luring it over a mine... you're doing it wrong.

The IS-2 is a monster of a tank. Sure it won't beat a Tiger head-to-head but as long as it is supported (as every tank in this game should always be) it really carries its weight - and its ability to one-shot entire squads is second only to the ISU-152.

As for build orders I've been enjoying T2 with shocks:

Engi builds T2, start making Con. Shortly after T2 is finished make a Maxim, then get either a Con, Maxim, or Mortar depending on the situation/map. Bring in a Shock squad and follow that up with Con/Maxim/Mortar/AT gun all depending on the situation. (Borrowed this from my friend Raz)

I've also been liking Sniper/M3/Guards into either T4 + ISU-152 or T34/85s depending on the map/enemy doctrines. But then again I've been overly fond of snipers since the beta, very rewarding/satisfying to use. Although it can feel cheesy sometimes with the fact that I'll have 2-3 Guard squads on the field before a 221/222 even shows up.

Finally Con spam with PPSh is still pretty decent/viable. I'm not a huge fan of it because frankly I find it to be boring, but it is certainly still effective.