Grenade balance

There are several different grenade types which all perform differently, and some cost more and some cost less. There is also a difference in the range they can be thrown at and how long they need to be thrown.

I find there could be some small tweaks here and there. I think grenades like Rifle Grenade and Molotovs are pretty unique in their role so they are basically fine in their own right, but some other grenade types work rather similar but still behave different.

For example the Stielgranate used by Volksgrenadiers or Panzerfüsiliers costs 30 munition, same as Shock Troop RG-42 grenade, however the Shocktroop grenade does more damage in a bigger AoE. Now you can justify that the more elite squads gets the better grenades, but why do the grenades cost the same then? The Bundle Grenade used by Panzergrenadiers, Obersoldaten or Fallschirmjäger is even stronger than the RG-42, but it also costs more accordingly with 45 munition.

Then you have some very different grenade with the Stun grenade used by Ostheer infantry with the Elite doctrine, but also by Sturmpioniere once they reach veterancy 3. This grenade seems completely useless right now; the stun duration is so short that it has practically no impact on any fight while doing nearly no damage as well. The latter is ok to me, after all it is a stun grenade so it should be used to stun and not to kill, but currently the stun is not useful. In my opinion the grenade should stun for significantly longer. If necessary, the cost can be also increased accordingly if it is found to overperform.

Just to make things complete, there is also the Infiltration grenade which some people find too strong apparently because of the cheap cost of 10 munition. While it has already quite some drawbacks (very long animation time, reduced effectiveness with every model already dead in your squad, long cooldown which only recharges out of combat and might have also a bug where it resets the cooldown back to 120 seconds when it was already partially recharged), I can also understand that people think it may be a bit too cheap for its effect.

I would like if Relic puts an eye on overall grenade balance a bit in the future (especially Stun grenades).

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Do guards have the same grenades as shock troops? They seem to be quite powerful.

The last time I read a post about one of the Stats Gurus on grenades the shock trooper grenade was the weakest.

Guards' grenades are always doing unexpected squad wipes on my troops, can't really remember shock troops doing it much. The grens rifle grenade seems pretty weak, though I guess it's kind of RNG because sometimes it will kill like 4 out of 6 from a squad. Would be nice for that to have a more reliable effect of what you know it will do rather than just hoping for the best.

@Aerohank: Take a look on http://www.coh2-stats.com/ if you want to see stats of grenades. You can see that Shock Troop grenades have a bigger AoE and do more damage in big parts of its AoE (at far outside they do the same damage, but RG-42 still has a slightly bigger circle).

Shocktroop grenades also cost only 30 munition, not 45.

Cannot follow your comment about OKW grenades, their AoE is clearly not as good as the 45 munition grenades.

Stun grenades cost 20 munition, not 10, and as I said they could make them more expensive in trade for a better effect. Sturmpionier squad grenade is 30 munition even; sadly I cannot find this grenade type in the stats page, but it didn't seem useful in my experience.

My arguments about infiltration grewnades, is hardly "grasping at straws", the disadvantages are very real and meaningful, because they mean you cannot just run up with a Volksgrenadier squad, throw all your grenades and kill a whole squad unless your enemy is sleeping and focusing fire on something different so that all models on the Volksgrenadier squad survive. I still agreed that the cost may be too low, but we should not pretend it has no drawbacks already.

Hmm, I see there have been a lot of undocumented changes to grenades with the changes in AoE profiles. Very well, I shall remove my comment.

Jesus no, the last thing OKW needs is even cheaper ammunition costs for abilities after the 100% munition income change.

I'll provide information on a couple of grenades, then I'll present my opinion. I really don't want anyone to chip in false information in this thread since it's really demotivational to always post the stats and then have them being ignored.


Shock grenade: 30 munition 4 radius
Guards grenade: 45 munition 4.5 radius

Riflemen: 30 munition 4 radius
Paratrooper: 35 munition 4 radius

Volks/Fuselier: 30 munition 3.5 radius
Fallschirm/Ober: 45 munition 5 radius

PGrens: 45 munition 5 radius


Besides those a couple of other stats are important (throwing time, fuse time etc, but I'm really not motivated to get all those).


Opinion:
I think in general the balance between the grenades is fine. Besides the actual cost of the grenade and their strength the usual targets and the throwing squad is important. Fallschirm/Obers/PGrens get the best grenades, but are also 4 men squads which lose a lot of DPS for throwing it, so a dodge by the enemy can be a major loss. Others like Volks have a pretty weak grenade, but since they are 5 men and have a short fuse time in the actual gameplay it still feels rather strong. Riflemen and paras have stats wise a really nice grenade, but their throwing animation is so long it feels rather useless (especially if you teched to it). Guards have a strong grenade, but also rather expensive. Shocks have a really good grenade per cost (pretty much the same as riflemen) what makes it excellent on them is their squad size and shorter animation.

Might need some minor readjustment since Shocks recently got a major buff. I personally would like to keep their strength, but increase cost maybe to 35 or such.

Do guards have the same grenades as shock troops? They seem to be quite powerful.

No, they use same grenades as pgrens, fallshirms and obers.

That being said-the only change any nades need is speed up throw animation of USF nades. Rest is fine.

No, they use same grenades as pgrens, fallshirms and obers.

That being said-the only change any nades need is speed up throw animation of USF nades. Rest is fine.

Actually I noticed it's completely random for the time taken to throw a grenade and it affects everyone. Fix this and also the "use nade, throws air" bug.

Thanks MilkaCow, I hope that gets the thread into the right direction now. Yes, a slight cost increase for Shocktroop grenades to 35 just to reflect the difference in grenade performance would be fair in my opinion. It will still be lower than Bundle grenades, but it won't be the same price as a weaker grenade for no apparent reason.


Also, I thought I wrote that in my first post, but apparently I forgot. Yes, I also wanted to compare the time to throw a grenade, but currently there are so many bugs regarding this that it makes it hard to know what is really intended duration required and what is just a result of a bug, so I left that away.

A lot of grenades seem to currently take ages to throw or not throw at all (with no refund). Some units seem more prone to this than others. For example Volksgrenadier grenades seem most of the time reliable, Panzerfüsiliers on the other hand very unreliable.

If they fix those bugs, they should also take the throwing time into consideration, as this is a rather important stat.

There are several different grenade types which all perform differently, and some cost more and some cost less. There is also a difference in the range they can be thrown at and how long they need to be thrown.

I find there could be some small tweaks here and there. I think grenades like Rifle Grenade and Molotovs are pretty unique in their role so they are basically fine in their own right, but some other grenade types work rather similar but still behave different.

For example the Stielgranate used by Volksgrenadiers or Panzerfüsiliers costs 30 munition, same as Shock Troop RG-42 grenade, however the Shocktroop grenade does more damage in a bigger AoE. Now you can justify that the more elite squads gets the better grenades, but why do the grenades cost the same then? The Bundle Grenade used by Panzergrenadiers, Obersoldaten or Fallschirmjäger is even stronger than the RG-42, but it also costs more accordingly with 45 munition.

Then you have some very different grenade with the Stun grenade used by Ostheer infantry with the Elite doctrine, but also by Sturmpioniere once they reach veterancy 3. This grenade seems completely useless right now; the stun duration is so short that it has practically no impact on any fight while doing nearly no damage as well. The latter is ok to me, after all it is a stun grenade so it should be used to stun and not to kill, but currently the stun is not useful. In my opinion the grenade should stun for significantly longer. If necessary, the cost can be also increased accordingly if it is found to overperform.

Just to make things complete, there is also the Infiltration grenade which some people find too strong apparently because of the cheap cost of 10 munition. While it has already quite some drawbacks (very long animation time, reduced effectiveness with every model already dead in your squad, long cooldown which only recharges out of combat and might have also a bug where it resets the cooldown back to 120 seconds when it was already partially recharged), I can also understand that people think it may be a bit too cheap for its effect.

I would like if Relic puts an eye on overall grenade balance a bit in the future (especially Stun grenades).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhBJFvtsxZU&feature=youtu.be

Feel it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhBJFvtsxZU&feature=youtu.be

Feel it...

The video you posted was of a blob being destroyed by two well place abilities. What is amazing is how poorly the Soviet player chose to play. Not only did he lead the charge with low health shocks (who died before the grenades went off), but even after the first nades fell he refused to retreat. The OKW player also spaced out his men and used cover helping to limit the number of causalities from the shock grenade.

Not sure if you are saying there is a problem with grenades or just showing off a blob being punished. If you are complaining about grenades please only post videos where both players are using equal amounts of skill (preferably at a high level), and a failed game mechanic cheats one player out of a win/victory.

The video you posted was of a blob being destroyed by two well place abilities. What is amazing is how poorly the Soviet player chose to play. Not only did he lead the charge with low health shocks (who died before the grenades went off), but even after the first nades fell he refused to retreat. The OKW player also spaced out his men and used cover helping to limit the number of causalities from the shock grenade.

Not sure if you are saying there is a problem with grenades or just showing off a blob being punished. If you are complaining about grenades please only post videos where both players are using equal amounts of skill (preferably at a high level), and a failed game mechanic cheats one player out of a win/victory.

Nevertheless, destroying a whole 5-6 squad blob with 20 muni does make ones eyebrow raise.

Nevertheless, destroying a whole 5-6 squad blob with 20 muni does make ones eyebrow raise.

It's Axis, thus it is fair.

It's Axis, thus it is fair.

Nevertheless, destroying a whole 5-6 squad blob with 20 muni does make ones eyebrow raise.

buff 6 squad blobs attack moving at squads in cover. thats seriously some of the worst soviet play you could possibly show.

What about making Shocks' smoke grenade trigger a short (5 seconds?) cooldown for their grenade ability and vice versa?
That way there would be a choice between suppression/damage avoidance and a high damaging fast grenade, placing the choice in the player's hands. It would also prevent invisible throws from inside the smoke screen.

Other units with both abilities could behave the same. As an exchange example, the wind-up time for riflemen could be reduced, making the currently not often used grenade tech more desirable without making double-strikes too hard to predict.

The only outlier is the Riflemen's grenade that takes ages to throw. It's only really good for a surprise early game turnaround, where your opponent is in green cover and thinks he has the upper hand. Then poof, suddenly you throw 2-3 pineapples and do serious damage. After that, your ammo is almost always better spent on smoke grenades and weapon upgrades.

I am beginning to think the US grenade should come included with either the Bazooka or BAR package to make them more enticing. Maybe it would cut down a bit on the 1919's prevalence.

Infiltration grenades? Considering the drawbacks on those, they seem fine. At worst a small cost increase and/or a longer fuse time. They ARE pretty hard to dodge.