Commentary from the Steam Forums

So I was reading the Steam Forums under their Balance section for CoH2 and this user "Dubweiser101" made a post that just kind of touched a sore wound in my heart concerning the German factions. So I offer some of his thoughts below.




I've had the game since release, over 900 hours play time, level 178, and a score of : 117,322 units killed, 60,352 units lost in total. When I play with friends my win ratio is over 80% and when I play with randoms (who usually end up being noobs) my win ratio is around 60%. As you can see I'm not using my armor or other units wrong, and trust me, I'm not trying to snipe anything with a Panther or Tiger like a noob would. The problem is the German armor (especially after the Oct-2014 patch) have poor accuracy. What generally happens in armor engagements is: the Panther/Tiger gets spotted before it spots the enemy tanks, then takes 1 or 2 hits (which 90% of the time score penetrating frontal armor hits) before it can even return fire. And when I do return fire I miss say 50% of the time unless the Panther happens to be Level 2 vet or higher. By this time the Panther's healths is at half while the enemy armor is full, which means good bye Panther since it can't even pull back due to its ridiculous slow speed.

Flanking is out of the question, unless you're playing against a lower level (noob) opponent, because the speed of German armor in this game is again pathetic and any veteran allied player will easily counter this. The only other option is to have Pak's move with your tanks or PZGren's with Schreks but this defeats the point of mobile warfare altogether. Also a Jackson rush with 3 or 4 Jacksons easily spells doom for the overpriced two Panthers you might have been lucky to save up for at this point in the game. So my point is: What's the point of having such an expensive tank compared to allied tanks when it performs worse? At this point no one can say German units are OP because it just isn't true, at this point its an issue of balance in terms of unit cost. If German units are performing the same, or worse than allied units, they should be as cheap to build and reinforce. It's only fair.

Yes Grenadier rifle grenades can be deadly but again by the time they're fired an experienced allied player can easily dodge them costing you 30 munitions for no return. In comparrison the Shock Troop grenade, Guards Rifle grenade, and Rifle Squad grenades are insta-launched. Like I said, all units are equal after the patches, no German units are OP and no allied unit is OP (except the ISU-152), so since all units now perform the same they should cost the same and have the same abilities.

Flanking is out of the question, unless you're playing against a lower level (noob) opponent, because the speed of German armor in this game is again pathetic and any veteran allied player will easily counter this.

Panther is faster than T34/76 and 85, SUs, ISU, IS (but that's obvious), Shermans, and even Jackson. Add blitzkrieg, doctrinal smoke and you have perfect unit to flank.
What's more, Axis AT is not designed to flank (except Puma and Panther). USF are designed to flank but it's ridiculous when unit that should flank (Jackson, Wolverine) is slower than Panther.
The point is, OKW and OST have everything to flank.

at first i thought that was serious, the V does tend to miss and the fire rate sucks. then i got to the part about it being slow. lol

I have trouble understanding German armor is weak as it is now. I find it rather balanced cost/power wise. On the other hand, i think Pak was a bit overnerfed, lower vet + lower rof + no more cover from the canon shield seems a bit too much for a go-to unit (Wehrmacht has no other AT option in the early game).

Panther is faster than T34/76 and 85, SUs, ISU, IS (but that's obvious), Shermans, and even Jackson. Add blitzkrieg, doctrinal smoke and you have perfect unit to flank.
What's more, Axis AT is not designed to flank (except Puma and Panther). USF are designed to flank but it's ridiculous when unit that should flank (Jackson, Wolverine) is slower than Panther.
The point is, OKW and OST have everything to flank.

Blitzing Panther is one of the fastest vehicles in the game, I don't know how fast but it's easily over 7.0

For scale, 7.3 is the fastest speed in the game (without abilities), going to the Opel Blitz and M3 Scout Car.

I've had the game since release, over 900 hours play time, level 178, and a score of : 117,322 units killed, 60,352 units lost in total. When I play with friends my win ratio is over 80% and when I play with randoms (who usually end up being noobs) my win ratio is around 60%. As you can see I'm not using my armor or other units wrong, and trust me, I'm not trying to snipe anything with a Panther or Tiger like a noob would.

And if you would have played some Allies you would see that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

The problem is the German armor (especially after the Oct-2014 patch) have poor accuracy. What generally happens in armor engagements is: the Panther/Tiger gets spotted before it spots the enemy tanks, then takes 1 or 2 hits (which 90% of the time score penetrating frontal armor hits) before it can even return fire. And when I do return fire I miss say 50% of the time unless the Panther happens to be Level 2 vet or higher.

And why are your tanks in the first line? This is a L2P issue. The other thing is called "RNG".

By this time the Panther's healths is at half while the enemy armor is full, which means good bye Panther since it can't even pull back due to its ridiculous slow speed.

Panther max. speed (both factions): 6.6

Normal Sherman: 6.4; EZ8 just 6.1 Jackson: 6.5

T34/76: 6.5 T34/85: just 6.3 SU85: 5.7

And Panther has a abillity called "Blitzkrieg". You should try it. This means the Panther is even without Blitzkrieg faster than nearly every tank the Allies have except M10 (7.0) and with Blitzkrieg you get a free out-of-jail-card. Tank micro is really hard, isn't it?

Flanking is out of the question, unless you're playing against a lower level (noob) opponent, because the speed of German armor in this game is again pathetic and any veteran allied player will easily counter this.

Blitzkrieg. Smoke. Offmaps for AT-guns. By the way, why are you attacking with tanks alone? You do realize that the times of Panther-solo-everything are over? Use some supporting infantry. In other words: L2P.

The only other option is to have Pak's move with your tanks or PZGren's with Schreks but this defeats the point of mobile warfare altogether. Also a Jackson rush with 3 or 4 Jacksons easily spells doom for the overpriced two Panthers you might have been lucky to save up for at this point in the game.

As if you would have read my post while I was writing it. Jacksons are TDs, you know? They have no AI capabilities. You just named the right thing. PAK + PGrens with Schreck.

So my point is: What's the point of having such an expensive tank compared to allied tanks when it performs worse? At this point no one can say German units are OP because it just isn't true, at this point its an issue of balance in terms of unit cost. If German units are performing the same, or worse than allied units, they should be as cheap to build and reinforce. It's only fair.

As pointed out, Panther does not perform worse. It is faster, has good range and a strong frontal armor.

Yes Grenadier rifle grenades can be deadly but again by the time they're fired an experienced allied player can easily dodge them costing you 30 munitions for no return. In comparrison the Shock Troop grenade, Guards Rifle grenade, and Rifle Squad grenades are insta-launched. Like I said, all units are equal after the patches, no German units are OP and no allied unit is OP (except the ISU-152), so since all units now perform the same they should cost the same and have the same abilities.

I must be some kind of Übermensch. I have the abillity to dodge Guards/Schocks/Rifles grenades . Again L2p.

doesn't make a lick of sense, Panther is almost the fastest tank in the game and he's complaining about it's speed? plus it has BLITZ!! laughable post.

It's frontal armour is very high and deflects many rounds. Speed is highly respectable, however you don't even need very high movement speed with tanks to execute a flank if you have good positioning.

I love how he regards his random team-mates as 'noobs'. You can already tell from this statement and how it repeatly makes it that his mind is so deluded that he wouldn't be able to recognize his own mistakes. The guy should just go play 1v1 or stick with his friends (who probably carry him all game lel).

OKW Panther has speed 13.2 in Blitz
Ostheer Panther has speed 8.9 in Blitz
Fastest allied vehicle M20 has 7.8 speed

Too slow for flanking

OP has succeeded in showing one of two things:

A - Trolls can be successful.

or

B - If someone with so little game knowledge and sophistication after 900 hours can reach position 178 with Axis after playing only one side then Axis really are OP.

I think the poster on the Steam forums really should try out 1 vs 1, and he will notice there isnt suddenly 2 armies stacking your side of the map, against you with AT gun walls and massive tank blobs

This guy ever seen a blitzing panther?

in other words

Sorry Sierra, but you'll have to try again.

I wrote a whole post about how everything in the OP is wrong, but, if you'll fall for this guys non-factual, non-evidenced, and totally false notion of balance, it wouldn't serve a purpose.

Locking this thread because it's going nowhere, and we expect the quality of balance posts to be higher than that of the suggestion box at the YMCA.