Ostheer Sniper (1v1), Large Post

TLD: Long as feck post about Snipers, where I argue why the Ostheer sniper should get a tweak to buff him to account for where the COH2 meta is (big T1 play, resource system is more important then manpower for a better mid game), I go through how I think Ostheer work in Coh2 and where the sniper fits in, concluding that he is not a consistent enough unit for the price/risk and could do with some change, e.g. adjust his rate of veterancy so he vets up a bit faster. It's long winded, as I wanted to give the full line of reasoning/argument.

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I'd like to open up (yet) another discussion on the Ostheer sniper, my favourite unit to play with and a pleasure to see well used in replays, as I think it is possibly the trickiest non doctrinal unit to use consistently well.

The facts are it costs 360 mp, has a pop value of 9 and by design is a very efficient anti infantry unit, you bleed nothing and over time your opponent drains manpower.

In COH2, snipers only cloak in cover, which means snipers became easier to kill by other means than the vcoh route of countersnipers, and as a result micro became more important. Snipers also now have 50% accuracy vs units in buildings, as opposed to 100% in VCoh. Counter snipes are 100% accurate in Coh2. The Ostheer sniper has a better camo ability then his Soviet counterparts and fires faster.

Honestly, I like these changes for the most part, I only dabbled in VCoh, but snipers appeared to be very strong in the original game and more micro/decision making is an improvement imo.

The elephant in the room is the Soviet sniper design (2 man teams), that ain't changing, it was a design decision that we may not all agree with (I don't), but Relic have made it pretty clear the lady ain't for turning on this one. No point in discussing it, worth mentioning.

For the sake of narrative, i'll add some opinions now that aren't facts, the Ostheer faction, in particular with the last two patches, are a faction who has units that are less durable then the soviets, but have higher dps per modal and scale really well through upgrades, mainly munition one's. Ostheer also get versatility in their tech tree, with access to support weapons and mainline units from their tech buildings.

So, in my opinion, positioning as Ostheer is key and snipers got a nerf in recent patches as whilst i'm not privy to the beta, I reckon with cover becoming more important as infantry lethality was ramped up, a unit that ignores cover was a worry.

E.g. if you have a Gren in green cover with a sniper behind him vs a few infantry units also in cover at long range, if they want to bum rush the sniper to force him off, they are abandoning cover and taking damage closing in. If they stay in cover and beat the grens that way, your taking a manpower hit every few seconds and may win the engagement, but not manpower efficiently, or anywhere close to it. Before the infantry patch, people generally just bum rushed you either way in that situation. So by design, the sniper is now a support unit that requires other units around it, for both factions. Great, I can dig that, anything that promotes combined arms is good in my book.

My issue of contention is that the Ostheer sniper is not viable on all maps, and does not have the consistency of other anti infantry units at your disposal. By that I mean, on urban maps, good luck with a sniper for obvious reasons. The consistency issue is a trickier one, a 360 mp unit with one modal and little armour, that drains manpower over time and is micro intensive, is admittedly a hard unit to balance.

In isolation, I think he is fine, but factor in that conscripts are a mobile unit with oorah, the way resources and territory work in coh2, and the lack of a German 30 muni all purpose mine, I think these factors have to be considered, particularly the resource modal in Coh2.

The current meta, imo, is build a big t1, using units that are not necessarily manpower efficient, e.g. Grens ,to take a portion of the map, that gives you the resources to have a more efficient mid game i.e. as sectors give all the resources you need, it's logical to take as much map as you can, then invest those resources (fuel/munitions) into upgrades and units that are very efficient e.g. Lmgs on Grens, Scout cars etc. If you invest in a 360 mp sniper, it stands to reason your playing a more efficient manpower game early on, but probably are going to hold less map.

Soviets can do this, for a variety of reasons with t1 play, I don't think in a game where two players are equal, the Ostheer sniper is an equal choice to just getting more grens or another MG42. The risk is too high, the consistency too low. You could argue this is a meta problem, inherent to the design of Coh2 with how resources work.

For these reasons, i'd like to see the Ostheer sniper get tweaked as I don't believe the resources system design, like the soviet sniper teams is going to change. I think starting small would be an idea and see how that works, e.g. adjust the Ostheer sniper to gain Veterancy a bit faster vs soviet infrantry or reduce the munition/ability recharge cost on his incendiary round.

(In the long run, i'd love to see snipers overall get tweaked so that using a building as a sniper spot would be more beneficial, but that is beside the point).

Thanks for the good read!

Does anyone know the relation between pop value and manpower upkeep?

It would be interesting to know how much manpower drain 9 popcap translates to and how many kills per minute a sniper would need to remain profitable.

I think if the ostheer sniper got any buff, it should be to its time-in-camo when moving between cover. The issue most people seem to have is the balance compared to the soviet sniper; allowing the ostheer sniper more freedom of movement would make counter-sniping even easier.

Does anyone know the relation between pop value and manpower upkeep?

It would be interesting to know how much manpower drain 9 popcap translates to and how many kills per minute a sniper would need to remain profitable.

1.5 manpower = 1 pop cap. You can check it ingame when you purchase a unit.

I've gotten used to using my German sniper to bait Soviet snipers.
Slowly draining at soviet MP and taking the attention of the Soviet snipers.

MP drain hurts the soviets more than the ostheer when it comes to sniper fire IMO

I'd like to see some of these things implemented but I don't think it's a make or break type of issue...

My idea for fixing Ostheer snipers: Increase HP and Armor. That way only a Soviet sniper can ideally counter it most of the time......or a 120.

I think if the ostheer sniper got any buff, it should be to its time-in-camo when moving between cover. The issue most people seem to have is the balance compared to the soviet sniper; allowing the ostheer sniper more freedom of movement would make counter-sniping even easier.

I think this could go a long way. I have always been a big fan of Soviet snipers, but have recently made it a point to get a German sniper of my own. I have been attempting to use the german sniper to counter-snipe the soviet snipers. In cover the German sniper cloaks fast enough to counter snipe. The hardest part of this attempt is getting close enough to the soviet sniper without giving away my position. Given the scarcity of cover on some maps, it would help a lot to be able to sneak in there and take some shots without being completely exposed on the way in. A very small increase in how long the cloak is active would have a large impact.

Nice read, though I would argue that a sniper not being really viable on some maps being an OK thing?

My idea for fixing Ostheer snipers: Increase HP and Armor. That way only a Soviet sniper can ideally counter it most of the time......or a 120.

I don't know if it's a good idea to force soviets to go t1 to counter the german sniper. The reason its OK for the germans to need a sniper to counter the soviet sniper is because ostheer always gets t1. I think its really important in coh for there to always be more than 1 non-doctrinal option to counter a given unit if the unit can't be countered by t0 units.

I takes 40+ inf kills to achive vet3 with a ost sniper, the only way to speed up the process is either use elite troops or hit a light vehicle with explosive shot.

It should be tweaked indeed, that and +16 health or some armor would be great too.

increase the reinforcement cost for the soviet sniper, from 90MP to 180 MP IMO.

how man times do I have to say it the sniper mechanic is perfect the way it is, German sniper is superior to soviet sniper if you know how to play and use cover its no problem to counter sniper even double counters snipe and especially if you have vet ability because then you can one shot soviet sniper so please no more bs and completely unnecessary sniper change proposal or German sniper sucks threads cause its un-needed and untrue.

increase the reinforcement cost for the soviet sniper, from 90MP to 180 MP IMO.

Probably a bit excessive, but 90 is slightly too cheap. Maybe 100-110.

how man times do I have to say it the sniper mechanic is perfect the way it is, German sniper is superior to soviet sniper if you know how to play and use cover its no problem to counter sniper even double counters snipe and especially if you have vet ability because then you can one shot soviet sniper so please no more bs and completely unnecessary sniper change proposal or German sniper sucks threads cause its un-needed and untrue.

I'm not saying the German sniper sucks. I feel the sniper just needs a bit more love surviveability wise. I've seen 2 con models unvetted at range snipe a full health sniper in green cover before, as well as a single flare taking out a vet 2 sniper easily while it's on the move. It may be slightly more effective than the Soviet sniper due to camo/rate of fire. But feasibility wise putting it in a build it needs to pay off big-time, so a health increase + armor increase would solve that problem easily. I've seen all types of skill-level players try German sniper builds and 9/10 their German sniper get's RNG'd to the face by the dumbest things. I feel making it a better standing unit would still keep it balanced with the Soviet sniper because the Soviet sniper, while slow in camoing/firing, has a much higher survive ability rate than the German sniper has, since you can not only retreat it if it gets down to one man, but take shots to the face and still have a chance to save yourself. German sniper does not have that luxury and it costs the same as the Soviet.

Agreed about the reinforcement costs. The Soviet Sniper isn't cheap, but 90 isn't enough to keep people from being reckless with them. Seems like people just throw them out there sometimes because they can afford to lose a man, they still keep the squad. On the contrary, German sniper usage almost always has him sneaking around cover and hiding from danger.

Let's keep this thread on topic. This thread is about the Ostheer Sniper and its viability.

If you have some good points about the Soviet Scout Sniper squad then make a separate thread. People seem to be equating "nerfing soviet sniper" to be somehow buffing the Ostheer Sniper.

@Brian seemes to be talking about the viability of the Ostheer Sniper as a whole and not just as a dedicated anti-sniping unit.

I agree with the original post. Ostheer Sniper does need something. I don't think it is earlier access to Incendiary Rounds (vet1 ability). This ability is... only okay. It is expensive to use and probably prohibitively expensive to use right away. If you are going against Tier 1 you often need to save munitions for dual panzerfausts very early on. This attack does not even kill Soviet Sniper squads with any reliablity. It is good against charging infantry but the Ostheer sniper has to do a full reload animation before he uses it so it actually can make him more vulnerable depending on circumstance. More options are always nice but I feel a different buff would be more beneficial. Hell. You could give him multiple buffs even.

I would rather see Cruzz's suggestion in his fantasy patch to increase the health of the German Sniper to 56 or 60 or whatever. A little extra small arms fire soak potential.

I also think that DanielD's idea of lengthening the "cloaked between cover" could be a good direction for the buff. I'm a little dubious. The duration of the stealth between cover is already fairly generous. Entering stealth when entering cover can be frustratingly inconsistent although that much is true for both snipers.

Another Idea for a slight buff would be to lower the cloak penalty for taking shots without moving. I really can't understand why you would punish the German Sniper for using his full shooting potential, if the enemy allows it. It also makes for a very unpleasant experience against MGs in Houses, because you don't have to move, and it takes a shittone of time to Snipe them out of there.
Now your Sniper stands 5 units out of range of the MG, and slowly loses its camo, then next thing you know is your Sniper jumped "in cover" and dies from the MG.

Btw, were there any changes that suddenly made the German Sniper a more effective killer? I didn't do the exact math now, but even if we just ask if the Sovietsniper wipes 4 man faster or the German 6 man, we might just come to a balance, but nowere a superiority of the German Sniper, ESPECIALLY if you factor in that you have to retreat with 1 man, so 3 kills vs 5 AND that you more often than not don't get the chance to even USE the higher firerate of the German Sniper.

A lower cost (to 280-320) and upkeep (to 4) would make it less of a burden in the early game. Because as OP said, if u get it early you wont have as much core units (grens) and you ll be pressured to try make up for it's cost.

A fragile unit that's easier to access in early game would maybe be more balanced. It needs to be a glass canon, so that Soviets can actually still kill it without going snipers themselves.

I'm not saying the German sniper sucks. I feel the sniper just needs a bit more love surviveability wise. I've seen 2 con models unvetted at range snipe a full health sniper in green cover before, as well as a single flare taking out a vet 2 sniper easily while it's on the move. It may be slightly more effective than the Soviet sniper due to camo/rate of fire. But feasibility wise putting it in a build it needs to pay off big-time, so a health increase + armor increase would solve that problem easily. I've seen all types of skill-level players try German sniper builds and 9/10 their German sniper get's RNG'd to the face by the dumbest things. I feel making it a better standing unit would still keep it balanced with the Soviet sniper because the Soviet sniper, while slow in camoing/firing, has a much higher survive ability rate than the German sniper has, since you can not only retreat it if it gets down to one man, but take shots to the face and still have a chance to save yourself. German sniper does not have that luxury and it costs the same as the Soviet.

+1