Shocks

Flame posts invised.

@ Albus: negative 'contributions' have been noted.

Cons are fine. In fact they are too effective at being multipurpose. Molo is too cheap, oorah negates gren effectiveness immediately , insanely cheap to reinforce, Can merge. What more do you want?

That they keep being useful past 10 minutes in the game.

Me and one of my 2v2 partners like to refer to them as "the Shock troops of doom"
Later followed up by the isu152 with 60+ infantry kills. That aside:

I think shocks might be slightly too tough, but then i would like to see soviet penals get some love, like a 60 munitions rifle package to make them more akin to BAR rifles and grens.
(and then ditch the silly 2nd man on soviet sniper squads and give them proper camo, for finally
some good tier 1 vs tier 1 combat)

There is currently too much separation between some of the call-ins and the basic army units (shocks vs penals, tiger vs panther ect.), where the call-ins are a no brainer (especially with teching costs).
Call-ins should be units that compliment the army, not units that need to fill in glaring holes or counter other call-ins (*cough* Elefant vs ISU-152 *cough*).

Cons are fine. In fact they are too effective at being multipurpose. Molo is too cheap, oorah negates gren effectiveness immediately , insanely cheap to reinforce, Can merge. What more do you want?

Molotov requires gas to unlock, has the second longest throwing animation of any grenade, and is VERY RNG prone, as well as being easy to avoid by virtue of being a DoT.

OOorah is the very only saving grace of the unit. You cannot spam it every fight, and once Axis elite infantry/LMGs come out it's only use is chasing tanks for an AT nade. It most certainly does not negate grens; you need to run over cover or else you might still take losses and lose the engagement either way. Once LMGs come out it's suicide to charge a gren squad.

Cons aren't any cheaper than any other squad to reinforce. Half the cost of the squad. In fact they cost more to reinforce from 1 man than grens.

Merge is useful if you field Guards. That's it. Weapons teams are cheaper to reinforce and Shocks losing armor is not worth it. And even then, it's like 10 MP per model that you save. So OP.

What more do I want? How about being combat effective past the 10 minute mark like all other core infantry? Conscript's benefits are marginal at best relatively speaking. Grens get great vet and the beastly LMG. Volks become among the toughest infantry in the game bar Shocks and scale thanks to free grenade and shrecks. Rifles scale pretty well and have access to good weapons as well as smoke. Conscripts need a 45 fuel investment to gain some utility, and still lose 1v1 to every single Axis squad bar pioneers and Osttruppen unless the opposing player's micro sucks and he eats a molotov.

We're going off topic and I will stop. It's painfully obvious talking to you leads nowhere.

Molotov requires gas to unlock, has the second longest throwing animation of any grenade, and is VERY RNG prone, as well as being easy to avoid by virtue of being a DoT.

OOorah is the very only saving grace of the unit. You cannot spam it every fight, and once Axis elite infantry/LMGs come out it's only use is chasing tanks for an AT nade. It most certainly does not negate grens; you need to run over cover or else you might still take losses and lose the engagement either way. Once LMGs come out it's suicide to charge a gren squad.

Cons aren't any cheaper than any other squad to reinforce. Half the cost of the squad. In fact they cost more to reinforce from 1 man than grens.

Merge is useful if you field Guards. That's it. Weapons teams are cheaper to reinforce and Shocks losing armor is not worth it. And even then, it's like 10 MP per model that you save. So OP.

What more do I want? How about being combat effective past the 10 minute mark like all other core infantry? Conscript's benefits are marginal at best relatively speaking. Grens get great vet and the beastly LMG. Volks become among the toughest infantry in the game bar Shocks and scale thanks to free grenade and shrecks. Rifles scale pretty well and have access to good weapons as well as smoke. Conscripts need a 45 fuel investment to gain some utility, and still lose 1v1 to every single Axis squad bar pioneers and Osttruppen unless the opposing player's micro sucks and he eats a molotov.

We're going off topic and I will stop. It's painfully obvious talking to you leads nowhere.

Seems to be a L2P issue. Cons are very survivable and spammable. Molto is cheap as anything and forces the grens to run away they get shot by 6 squad memebers for at least 2 seconds as they correct to re-engage.

So merge with maxim and zis gun is not OP? LOL. Never gets dislodged if need be.

Seems you soviet player just dont want to micro or even use your OP abilities like Oorah, you want to win with attack move just like shocks or rifles do with little or no skill.

It shows shock squads wiping out multiple VGs and SPs at once and a squad wipe of a full health FSJ squad by grenade (I hate that shit on 4 man squads), amongst other things. Should have wiped that MG34 after the smoke grenade also but I guess OP knew he had a flanking Penal flamer coming in.

It was a bit one sided because the other guy lost his truck unfortunately but I would have expected 2 volks in green cover and a SP to kill a shock squad but they hardly scratched it.

relic logic

Seems to be a L2P issue. Cons are very survivable and spammable. Molto is cheap as anything and forces the grens to run away they get shot by 6 squad memebers for at least 2 seconds as they correct to re-engage.

So merge with maxim and zis gun is not OP? LOL. Never gets dislodged if need be.

Seems you soviet player just dont want to micro or even use your OP abilities like Oorah, you want to win with attack move just like shocks or rifles do with little or no skill.

1- Theres a reason Gren spam works better than Con spam on this meta.
2- Molotov requires teching. If you are gonna spam easy dodgeable molotovs on everysingle engagement you are gonna have a bad time on the long run.
3- If you move sideways you don´t stop shooting
4- Merge is more expensive than reinforcing. And you are forcing another squad to retreat. First time i heard this is an OP ability.
5- I would gladly trade merge and sandbags for bunker with reinforcement/mg/medics
6- Oorah was OP when it was 5 muni and the killing capabilities where low. When using Hoorah you are not shooting.
7- If you use attack move with shocks you are going to have a bad time. Axis and 1919blobs are meant for A move. I will let you think about this so you notice the difference.

PD: i just notice that mostly of what i said has already being written on the previous post.

________________________________

I still don´t get what´s the OP point. Are we discussing shocks or Soviet faction design ? While the title says one things, OP comments refers to something completely different.

It shows shock squads wiping out multiple VGs and SPs at once and a squad wipe of a full health FSJ squad by grenade (I hate that shit on 4 man squads), amongst other things. Should have wiped that MG34 after the smoke grenade also but I guess OP knew he had a flanking Penal flamer coming in.

It was a bit one sided because the other guy lost his truck unfortunately but I would have expected 2 volks in green cover and a SP to kill a shock squad but they hardly scratched it.

relic logic

I´m just seeing a pretty one sided game. Skillgap is a bit too much.

1:00 he goes Volks and 2SP. I don´t think that 2 SP openings is the best when you can see what building SU has in his base. T1.
1:53 retreats by mistake a Volks
2:50 loses first truck to an M3.
SU is using Penals
3:40 he didnt followed his Volks with SP against the single M3. Then on the fight with flamer+M3+Penals he get focus fired his 2nd SP while 1st SP and Volk are doing nothing. Forces retreat of all units after the army switches target.
4:30 M3 overextends. Gets killed by MG34 + Volks
...-5:50 Bad engagement of Volks against conscripts and Penal at close range. Trying to get a wipe on the cons force 2 Volks to retreat and 3rd one later after being chase by Penal flamer and then meeting a Shock. Wiped. Unnecesary mp lost while doing a merry go round with the Penals.
Meanwhile on the other hand, MG34 forces 2nd Penal to retreat.

"Important part"
6:00 shock meets 2 Volks aproaching them and a SP trying to go from a side all units where moving. The 1-2s of combat, Volks are at mostly optimal PPSH range, they both eat a nade causing them not to shoot. Shocks focus fire SP wiping them (they are at spear range of them). Shocks are at 15-20% health with 4man still.
They focus fire 3man low health Volks (again we are at sword range). They wipe them and they still are at 15-10% health with 4man.
They aproach the 2nd Volk squad (3m away from the other) with 3/4man and force them to retreat after killing 2models and health damage (almost wipe). They are at 3man with 5-10% health.

11:30 Shocks vs Falls (vet 0 both). Shocks dodge nade. Falls pulls back after seeing Shock aproaching then retreats. 5man shock at 50% and 3man 60% Falls. Faces 2nd Falls at yellow cover behind a face. Eats a nade right in the middle of the squad. No attempt to dodge. Wipe. Shocks are at 20% health 3 man.
BTW, he had an MG34 which could he had use prior to engage with either of both Falls if he had soft retreat earlier.

12:47 he could had wipe those Shocks with the MG34. RNG was not smiling upon him.
BTW, T4 flak truck gets destroyed.
End of replay.

shocks definitely need some armor nerf, they are just too hard to kill esp with regular OKW inf. they can easily smoke through your mg and break into defensive position and wreck your whole game because they are so hard to kill. to have any chance against them with any kind of inf you must have 3 squads together and focus fire on them before they can get too close.

Shocks have several weaknesses:

- they cost alot to call-in and to reinforce. Used extensively, they can drain your manpower;
- they are efficient only in close quorter combat though they have no problem reaching it. So they must be kept at distance;
- they got no AT.

So what we learn from this?
- Use something that kills them quickly enough. Like mines, snipers, vehicles (especialy AA vehicles);
- Keep them at distance as much as possible by supressing them or by moving your units backwards. Concentrate all your infantry fire on one squad at a time;
- use vehicles (even light vehicles to chase and kill them).

There you are.

No, they are not inbalanced. I frankly prefer to be "shocked" than "tanked" or "ISUed"

a reminder to everyone (I did some spring cleaning)

People are blowing the shocks survivability way out of proportion. They are 6 men with 1.5 armor. This is equivalent to 9 conscripts against small arms fire, and 6 against everything that ignores armor. If you use the terrain to your advantage, you can cost-effectively deal with them with almost every unit.