Are Guards Ok Now?

I think Guards themselves perform OK, but they've fallen victim to a particular quirk of Relic balance I have noticed: nerfing a unit's performance without reducing its cost. I don't think Guards are necessarily too weak, but their is no longer a good reflection of their performance. In particular the munitions cost - 75 for the DPs is pretty punishing, as is 45 for a mediocre grenade. Guards can quickly become munitions sinks, especially once you start using Button.

Needless to say, the weapon dropping situation needs to be fixed as well. No other unit suffers in the same way that Guards do.

Can you expand on this?

Not really much to explaining.
Try to play without snipers, maxim spam or guards and see how well you do for yourself.

Conscripts/penals and now even guards performance for cost speaks for itself.

Now that Guards buttoning has been nerfed significantly ( which was needed ) I wonder if anyone still use guards.

That pretty much just says it all eh?

As a tierless call-in, I think the Muni costs are fine, and overall inline with weapon upgrade costs.

As to the Button nerf, its somewhat peripheral, because if you wanted to destroy medium+ armor, youd need combined arms anyways, and in an isolated situation, disabling the maingun was a bit cheesy, and in anycase now answered by a slow rotataion and fire rate.

Guards dropping weapons is a problem, and one of the things that points to a need of Sov restructure, especially in regards to Penals as a diversifiable tech unit. PTRS AND DPs is too much to situate on one call-in, not only as Commander specific, but also because of weapon drops and also the PTRS already inherently hampering AI efficacy. Also, wtf with an AT snare located on an AI weapon? Its just all kinds of confused contradictions.

Even swapping DPs instead of PTRS as native in Guard, would go a long way to augmenting Cons AI problems, through combined arms. And additionally moving the Button to a secondary PTRS upgrade.

Only Guards that ok for me are Guards with PPSh that come with soviet land-lease commander. So fun without that stupid-2 second to aim-PTRS and no need to upgrade for increase of AI. And Button got nerfed.

The Guard nerf was uncalled for. Even though the button-ability was frustrating on the receiving end, it didn´t need to be nerfed.

The only good thing I can think of that this Guard change did, was slightly weakening the Sniper-Guard-synergy. But then again, this was more an issue with those annoying sniper-squads, rather than Guards.

Now soviets need to rely on mines rather than guards to watch their SU-85\zis

BUT actuallty guards with DPs are pretty good in m3 vs OKW. Just keep engies somewhere near

Previous to button nerf Guards were already meh.

1. really expensive call-in infantry
2. DPs necessary to compete but very expensive
3. They DROP their weapons a lot which is ridiculous
4. Can't compete with other Axis infantry above T0 let alone elite units
5. PTRS + DPs = jack of all trades unit with no real saving grace but button

Previous to button nerf Guards were already meh.

1. really expensive call-in infantry
2. DPs necessary to compete but very expensive
3. They DROP their weapons a lot which is ridiculous
4. Can't compete with other Axis infantry above T0 let alone elite units
5. PTRS + DPs = jack of all trades unit with no real saving grace but button

1) Price is fine, as translated.
2) DP price also at universal standard.
3) Yes, a problem. Too many upgrades on one callin unit.
4) Can, but hampered by hardwired PTRS.
5) Yes, stupid intermix of abilities and AI/AT that makes the unit schizophrenic.

Jesus people, why are you saying that Cons suck. Why are you saying that Cons are useless. Did you even play the game? They hit harder now. Cons can be quite competetive later in the game, because of their amazing utility that they carry all game long and because of the pretty good but not amazing rifle damage. Vet 2 or Vet 3 Cons can be really, really good.

Penals? Never have been a fan. I think they overlap with Cons because they do slightly better at short range. But it feels like they arent even shooting as soon as the target is located at mid or long range. Cons do hit. Penals simply dont. I think Penals need to be designed as a stock, non doctrinal medium to long range rifle unit. It doesnt make sense to cost more and only do a single thing better than Cons. Oh, and satchels ofc. With 1m range.

Guards? Didnt like them that much vs OKW. Still dont like them. They simply get eaten by OKW elite infantry. Button was nerfed to ground, period..."we wanted to highlight the counterplay.." Which counterplay with button? Do you think the vehicle still going at almost full speed and with main gun active is some kind of counterplay Relic? No its fucking not, its simply a nerf. A big one. I only consider Guards to be still competetive anti infantry against Ostheer. But they suck against OKW big time and can be used as light anti tank and maybe a meatshield for Snipers. And all enemy inf units can grab their weapons. They feel like a big living weapon chest available for everyone.

Shocks? They absolutely murder enemy infantry at very close range. I even sometimes think that they might be overperforming. 1.5 armor with 6 PPSH's, Smoke nades and normal nades is just way too delicious against both Ostheer and OKW. You got Falls, Obers, Jägers, Sturmpios, Sturmtroopers? Soviets got shocks. And god, they hit hard. Definetly the most competetive soviet infantry out there. But they still need to be in point blank range tho. And that requires some good micro against a decent player. Whereas your Obers can sit in green cover at long range and laugh.

TL;DR : Cons are great with amazing Utility, Guards arent that great, Penals arent competetive at all and Shocks murder all that is human and of german nationality.

Guards can't do anything against : LMG42 grens, Obersoldaten and other OKW elite infantry types, takes forever to kill vet3-5 volks. Guards dps is low, their AT is powerless, vechiles stun ability should be cheaper. My suggestion: make it 3cp 420 manpower infantry with same as obersoldaten dps and maybe buyable AT upgrade.

What if Guards could shoulder their PTRS and fire a mosin, like how sturmpioneers can holster their mine detector and still use their stg44?

What if Guards could shoulder their PTRS and fire a mosin, like how sturmpioneers can holster their mine detector and still use their stg44?

God, soviets would have a versatile elite unit that actually can fight at least one target effectively.

God, soviets would have a versatile elite unit that actually can fight at least one target effectively.

oh the rage it would bring....

Guards are amazing anti-infantry units. They also come in - hands down - the best soviet 1v1 doctrine in the game : Guards Motor Tactics.

Even now that button is far less abusey than it used to be, guards are still great long range units (Provided they've been upped with LMGs).

If button is going to remain this way, it should disable smoke launchers as well

I think they should return button to how it was.

but in turn raise the CP requirements of guards rifles, then maybe increase their survivability stats a little since you cant bring them out until later.

This would make it so you can still use them to assist with taking down panthers and elefants which soviet tanks are no match for on their own.... Guard rifles ought to start being available around the 15 minute mark

This would also fix the issue with spamming snipers and guards rifles in 1v1 (I suspect this is the main reason for their nerf). Guards rifles would come out too late to handle light vehicles and light tanks. But theyd still be a resource to use to take down the larger tanks.

Agreed with Arclyte.

Alternatively, buff the PTRS to high heaven (then you'd have to give just 1 to Cons in Tank Hunters or something).

Alternatively, give the option to buy 2 PTRS or 2 DPs separately, like Stormtroopers.

Alternatively, make them dispense free beer to the player at Vet2. That's what would get me to use them every once in a while.

To quote a fox,

I think the patch needs to be out longer before any real good suggestions can be made. Not everyone in the game uses the coh2 forums or keeps up with balance changes. People are still figuring out whats new and experimenting with new things based on the changes.

But yesterday was a different era.