About the B-4

600 mp vs 1200 mp + population costs.

It is kind of like the cost of a printer and ink. The printer is really cheap and you think you got a great deal but then you find out that the ink cartridges are the same cost as the printer. This logic can be applied to the B4. The B4 is only 600 MP but the upkeep is 90 munitions + scout per shot. It adds up. The alternative is two ML-20s. It has an expensive upfront cost of 1200 MP but the upkeep is less. The ML-20 fires 4 shots within a decent radius. Coordinating both ML-20s means 8 shots within a radius which is guaranteed to kill something. There are other benefits to the ML-20 such as less reposition time.

dont forget the manpower income you lose for having 2 ml-20s.

you dont really need to use recon, i only use it if my infantry are reinforcing. recon plane kinda tips off the enemy that youre gonna fire, and that theyre looking for oppurtunities, so they do everything they can to avoid it.
on the otherhand if you use the b4 when your infantry is fighting their infantry, its likely that their units are gonna be stationary instead of actively moving around to dodge shots.

also the real value of heavy artillery is the first shell, since often times units will immediately clear the area as soon as they see the explosion. that means the remaining 3 shells are relatively ineffective and only serve to deny the area.

on the otherhand the b4 has a massively strong alpha strike, and with precision strike your basically playing god.

not to mention that the b4 cooldown is much lower than the ml-20

It is micro intensive

I really actually laughed out loud at that one. Oh man, that was good.

I don't think I ever won a game against competent B-4 usage as Ostheer without having a Stuka; It fires way too fast and reliably kills anything it hits, be it support weapons, inf, or PIVs. Once it is vetted it is beyond obscene, especially in comparison to the ML-20 (which is ok-ish) or the LeFH (which is virtually useless). In terms of gameplay it presents just the same problems as the ISU: It provides squadwipes without any possibility for counterplay, which is as lame as it is infuriating.

dont forget the manpower income you lose for having 2 ml-20s.

We both have different perspectives. I'm finding my tactic with two ML-20's if very good if not better than a single B4 in 4's. Late game the Axis will be fielding so much infantry and armor that having a little scatter between the shots is more effective than a single blast of alpha damage. The ML-20's still get precision shot as well.

i mean, the 'counterplay' is using the stuka airdrop or other offmaps. but if your doctrine doesnt have that, youre probably boned.

I really actually laughed out loud at that one. Oh man, that was good.

The B4 require the player to manual aim it and fire. If unvetted, you hope that you hit something to get some vet. Once vetted, you hope the player doesn't move their units you targeted with that precision shot.

Compare this to any off map ability in which you click and forget about it or a JT which you can sit behind cover and pick off any Allied armor at range.

Meh

don't think b4 is broken. at least in a big way.

but i dont like how it is either a big boom or nothing accuracy and damage.

the b4 puts a timer on the game. if the axis dont destroy the b4 within a certain period, the b4 will just continue to snipe support weapons, the occasional infantry squad, and your trucks. there is actually NO WAY for the axis player to recuperate these losses faster than the b4 can fire, because it has a ridiculous cooldown of 40 seconds or something like that.

that's funny, like an earlier poster said, Axis puts a timer on the Allies in team games

well, team games are kind of a joke imo. balance is wonky, the game reaches the end game much faster since caches are abundant, and if you lose control of both fuels its basically game losing because youre gonna have to deal with 4 players worth of armor.
when playing in a party its so difficult to actually lose in 3v3 and 4v4. ive done some pretty retarded shit in team games with other good players, and its just a steam roll, wether we play allies or axis.

also you cant really compare 2 ml-20s to 1 b4. compare 1 ml-20 to 1 b4 or 2 ml-20s to 2 b4s, cause they cost the same.

2 B4's? Dang that is going to require a lot of gold ammo to operate.

or you can just use the FREE, LOW cooldown barrage. precision strike isnt everything.

WOW, the audacity of some people, the b4 is op? LOL like the allies have anything else that can kill german heavies. Okw ubershrek blobs and jagtigers and a non doctrinal super heavy tank and ostheer with lmg gren blobs and tigers that rofl stomp anything the allies have yet when the allies have something thats not shit people always go to the forums crying how op it is.

Chat transcript of every TAB game ever:


Loading screen:

- Do they have anything that can counter B4?

- Nope

- Bwhahahah


+++++++++++++++++++

Can't get excited about this sorry

You can pick doctrines with Uber tanks and complain you have no counter to on map artillery; or you can get ready, see what everyone else in your team has and use core

Gustav,

By saying that the ISU152 could be a factor your talking team games (as the b4 does not share this call in) to which I'd like to say the axis have the most uncounter-able combo of flares and off map. And in 1v1 if you can't find a single spot to hit the b4 on the small boards that you typically play on with the walking Stuka that's confusing. The b4 on 1v1 boards is overkill on range and the Stuka is also more than sufficient on them for base harrament considering it can mid/late game take refuge in the forward defensive pocket created by the flak equipped SWS.

Yes I'm mainly talking about 2v2 since I don't really enjoy 1v1 and think, that you can't measure balance with 3v3+ standards, unlike many others here.

I think the vanilla B-4 is fine the way it is. The Problems I see are it's vet and the precision shot. Reaching vet 1 with a B-4 usually isn't that hard and often achieved within the first 3 shots.

I don't know the exact dmg and aoe values of the shell, but to me it seems like a 90ammo stuka divebomb with no warning siren.

It's really simple how to counter B-4. Just get 1 commander with recon+off map and it's gone so stop saying that there is almost no counter. If you did not go for such commander it's your fault. The same way if Soviet did not go for ISU/IS and complaing about dealing with KT.

Keep moving your tanks. The B4 is not as precise as you think as axis.
I played a game where the enemy had 3 B4s on Semoisky and they missed most of the shots. In addition their ability costs a lot of ammuntion and the B4 itself is not cheap either.

maybe set the reload time to 90 sec.?!

Biggest bullshit evah.

Moon.. keep it constructive man

There seems to be a very important aspect that most of us here are forgetting. Coh2 has commanders not just for fun, but for reacting to your opponents choices. A b4 can be countered by offmap. "But than I dont have a tiger!!!" Well, your opponent has no heavy either, so enjoy this non-heavy game. Oh btw you have an elephant.
A b4 is strong, agreed, but it might be thé counter against all the heaviest armor in the game.

Let's say we nerf the poor thing's damage, instead of really hurting a KT or JT, it's just going to do a decent amount of damage, absolutely not really dangerous. That doesnt make sense, because the soviets need to counter the more heavy armor with something. Also, forget about heavy tanks, you only have the Kv-1, which is 0 against axis armor.
Su85 ? Please.

If you are going to be aggressive and put your forward bases as okw far ahead? Well they might get destroyed, but that's a part of the game.
Going to get your tanks repaired at the repairstation? Well captain obvious, expect a b4 strike. Hear the 'boom'? Get your tanks moving.

Cant counter it? You didnt go for offmap? Well thats on you.
Sneak in a stuka and kill the crew. Too much effort? Looks like it.

I completely agree about some lazy attitudes here. It requires absolutely nothing to kill that thing. Except a tiny bit of brains.