About the B-4

Also, quit bullshitting. Your playercard shows what, 10 Axis games total? I don't reckon you have that much experience with the receiving end of the B-4.

what's your playercard?

Might I recommend finding a AT if you want to play this game competitively? Don't doubt the synergy between 1 OH and 1 OKW player in the 2's game mode. Off map artillery is only one hardcoutner to the B4. Spanning elite infantry behind enemy lines to de-crew it is just as popular as off map artillery.

The specific hard counter meta will always exist in this game. There is no way around it. It is the way the factions are designed.

Don't let my player card fool you. I might not be good at Axis (Or this game in general) but I play them and enjoy them. Ostruppen is my favorite Doctrine in the entire game, period.

Eh?
There is not a single map in the 2v2 pool where B-4 will not be built in base or immediately adjacent to it. Decrewing B4 via call-in is only ever a half measure of course and will more often than not cost you the unit attempting it. Not exactly a cost-effective trade. Well if you play Axis it certainly doesnt show, at all, unless you have a secondary account, in this case my apologies, otherwise the point stands. I am quite suspicious of peoples' balance opinions who only know one side of the equation.

The specific hard counter meta will always exist in this game. There is no way around it. It is the way the factions are designed.

2 things:
1. Do give a source for this, idd really love to see that.
2, what happens when you play double OkW on say minsk pocket, (or any other map where one can place b4 in base and hit the important parts of the map)You should just surrender when facing B4?

They are far more urgent matters to balance that the poor B4....Shrecks, Obers, Grenades.

To date, nearly all nerf requests resulted in a overnerf of the unit leading to everybobby not playing that unit anymore.


If they nerfed the B4 while so many things are still unbalance, it will not good for the game...
thanks

I think we know the unit is not functioning properly when you look to one doc to counter. Having said that I do want to stand up for allied players and say without a heavy hitter in the late game axis armor is very difficult to bring down. This is true in larger games, in smaller games (2v2 and 1v1) this unit is stupid strong.

Also it has been a while since I had a chance to use this doc, but as I remember there is no penalty to rotation during reload. As such I never found my B4 in the wrong direction. Place a mine on road, rotate to mine, if tank kill, if pio squad to mine sweep wipe. Now his tank cannot move up because there might be another mine.

Also on larger maps like Steppes there are fewer choke points large battles can drag on allowing B4 to get in position. My best games with B4's were on Steppes. With 2 of them they can hit almost anywhere at any time. Keep KV-1 nearby to prevent tanks and infantry making it through. Plant mines all the time, make it take a long time to walk through your lines.

Also 90 munitions to a wipe a squad is always worth it. Grens will be carrying a 60 munition lmg42 so you are only down -30 munitions. Take that trade all day.

Conversely when they have stuka, its just B4 built, fires once, kills nothing (usually), stuka bomb. GG. Poorly designed unit.

When they first released the B4 I knew this thing was gonna be a nightmare to balance. It plays to RNG like no other artillery.

2 things:
1. Do give a source for this, idd really love to see that.
2, what happens when you play double OkW on say minsk pocket, (or any other map where one can place b4 in base and hit the important parts of the map)You should just surrender when facing B4?

1. As far as I know there exists little to none reliable sources, secondary or primary to the game, some statistical data was collected nothing more. Stop with the pseudoscience.

2. When you choose to go dual OKW you are sacrificing flexibility for the strengths of that faction. Doing so might increase your chances in some departments but reduces them in others, not having a two-click counter to the B-4 being one of them, and one of the most easily exploited by your enemy. That doesn't mean the B-4 is not able to be countered.


@Leyawn, have to disagree with you on the point that it is not cost effective to knock the B-4. Unless you sacrifice more than half your army it is valuable. That is most likely a wipe of a huge chunk of the enemies defensive and offensive capability. He is 600 mp in the dirt and needs to get that up again quickly, meaning his infantry is extremely vulnerable because every dead model is 10 seconds later before he can get that 2nd B-4 out.

Because of it's placement I don't necessarily agree it is High-risk in 2v2, but it is putting most of your eggs in one basket, and with that comes a danger.

Somenbjorn, Napalm was talking specifically about decrewing the B4 with house-spawned call-ins. First off, this is doctrinal, secondly, this of course is depending on the map, and thirdly, success is not at all guaranteed. 90% of the time, B-4 will be in base to start with, and if that should not be the case, than any decent player will take measures to protect it. OKW Falls have good Dps and a nade, Jäger and Sturmtruppen (sans upgrade) have a nade but are unimpressive in the DPS department, all of them are expensive and fragile and will in all likelihood not survive retreating through the opposing army. Worth it? Maybe to kill a vet 3 or approaching vet 3 B4 crew. As for losing half your army to actually physically destroy the gun: In a 2v2, at the stage the B-4 hits the field, you absolutely, positively cannot afford to potentially lose all your vet units in order to destroy a 600 mp gun - especially when playing OH. It forces you to make a move, true - catch 22 at its finest.

1. As far as I know there exists little to none reliable sources, secondary or primary to the game, some statistical data was collected nothing more. Stop with the pseudoscience.

Im honestly baffled by this this respnse, asking for a source to back up a claim is pseudo science and should be stopped? The hell?

Not to mention a dev quote or a vidoe or some such would have been enough.

I really dont understand where youre coming from with this.

Edit: fair enough of the second point of your post.

Somenbjorn, Napalm was talking specifically about decrewing the B4 with house-spawned call-ins. First off, this is doctrinal, secondly, this of course is depending on the map, and thirdly, success is not at all guaranteed. 90% of the time, B-4 will be in base to start with, and if that should not be the case, than any decent player will take measures to protect it. OKW Falls have good Dps and a nade, Jäger and Sturmtruppen (sans upgrade) have a nade but are unimpressive in the DPS department, all of them are expensive and fragile and will in all likelihood not survive retreating through the opposing army. Worth it? Maybe to kill a vet 3 or approaching vet 3 B4 crew. As for losing half your army to actually physically destroy the gun: In a 2v2, at the stage the B-4 hits the field, you absolutely, positively cannot afford to potentially lose all your vet units in order to destroy a 600 mp gun - especially when playing OH. It forces you to make a move, true - catch 22 at its finest.

Aah sorry, interpreted it as whether or not it was or wasn't worth the risk of potentially loosing units to knock it out, missed the part about jägers/falls being specified. Then ofc, I think I only put it outside of base on Minsk and no buildings so that point is moot for 2v2.

And yes that is a typo, half your armored units, not half your army of course, this would be insane.

@zarok47 I mean asking for a source on a game is stretching it, if you are discussing some science, like in historical discussions, sure ask for a source, but for a game? I seriously doubt any devs will talk about the game in such an open manner that a viable source will be available.
Sure we can discuss if a specific if a hard counter meta has or do exist in the game but asking for sources sounds ridiculus.

B4 needs like a 10sec reload increase, and Vet 3 needs to be like 25% extra damage instead of 50% extra.

Axis are allowed to have over powered (somewhat broken) units while Allies need their strong unit to be nerfed. The only thing left for the Allies is just basic units (most unique units like ISU were nerfed to the ground). I think any changes to the B4 would make the whole commander to be useless. The whole point of the B4 is to take on OKW's heavy monsters.

Firstly, it is entirely untrue that the only valid targets for the B-4 are blobs and heavies. I'm sorry to say it and I hope not to insult you, but someone arguing that wiping one or two squads off the map for 90 munitions doesn't pay off can't have a lot of experience playing on the receiving end of the B-4. Plus, the closer you push towards the B-4, the less the enemy even has to rely on spending munitions on Precision Shot to hit your troops. Even if you're out of munitions to take out the smaller targets with a Precision Shot reliably, there is rarely a game where there aren't still a lot of potential immobile targets around to fire at with a normal shot: Base buildings and retreated units on smaller maps, heavy vehicles or reinforcement points on larger ones.

Secondly, the suggestion to take out the B-4 by risking a push close to or even into the enemy base is ridiculous. Even if your flanking force would succeed in taking out the B-4, which is not at all a given, it will most likely not make it out alive as they will have the entire enemy army in their back once they reached their goal. A single anti-tank grenade would be the death sentence for any vehicle in such a location, and infantry alone is not even capable of pushing through the base defenses.
Additionaly, the cost of rebuilding the B-4 is just 600 MP, and the losses one would sustain during such a push will most likely be much higher in so many cases that no reasonable player would deem that as an acceptable counter.
This maneuver cannot be pulled off efficiently and reliably and I doubt that whoever suggested that would deem it reasonable if they were in the receiving position themselves.

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• It is war. Units die.
  
• The B4 operates on gold ammo. At 600 MP, +time to Vet 1, +Gold ammo, +The limitless counters I consider this unit balanced.
  
• A players laziness to change and adapt to the battlefield conditions does not mean a unit is OP.
  
• See a Recon plane? Move your expensive units.
  

Is that list even ment to be taken seriously?
Even the people defending the B-4 resort to the recommendation of a potential suicide commando to the enemy base as a means to counter this unit, and yet you write of "limitless counters" to this unit? So what do these limitless counters consist off then? Never playing OKW since you need some off-maps to take out the B-4 and never playing all the smaller maps where it can fire from base to base? Seriously?
Then you go on about moving expensive units to render the B-4 ineffective again, even though we've been through this and it should seem quite obvious by this point that one cannot always move every unit that is a potential target. Veteran infantry cannot move (and leave cover) in combat without rendering them ineffective at fighting. One cannot always move to the furthest edge of the map to do some quick repairs on a vehicle (especially as OKW, which has a very limited number of vehicles on the field most of the time). One cannot even influence the movement of recently retreated units clumped up at the base at all. And one certainly cannot move the base itself, which are in range on smaller maps. All these should be pretty much established facts to anyone playing the game competitively.

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This is imposing your own handicap on the game, you have 6 commanders available one should have stuka strike. Why handicap yourself? Well because you want to play your way and do not wish to adapt to what the enemy is doing.

Selecting one out of two Axis factions - OKW, which doesn't have off-maps to deal with the B-4 - is hardly "imposing your own handicap". (Sidenote: Even if you're lucky enough to end up with one of the extra OKW commanders or buy one, the only off-map available among those that can be fired at the enemy base sector is the light artillery barrage, which due to it's poor damage and accuracy will rarely do more than decrew the B-4. There simply is no OKW off-map to deal with the B-4.) If you would still affirm that, that would be the equivalent of saying it's okay for one unit to make an entire faction a risky pick in my book.

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(Another sidenote: Aside from the fact that many army setups - those without the right off-maps - will at times find it nigh impossible to deal with this unit, one of the core problems I previously mentioned is that even if one does deal with it, it won't leave a big dent in the enemy army: All the Axis units with firepower comparable to that of the B-4 - that would be mainly the Stuka zu Fuss and the Sturmtiger - are present close to the front line and demand the most fuel starved factions to spend fuel. The B-4 can be replaced just for the cost of manpower.)

I am genuinely bemused that there are apparently people who buy B4s and use them to snipe at single infantry squads.

In terms of munitions trade off this might be efficient, however the opportunity cost would seem very high - there will usually be better things to shoot at, and if there are not you have won anyway.

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I'm not prepared to comment on 2v2 mode, as I barely play that mode but I acknowledge that will be on smaller maps and it will be harder if not impossible to get out of the range.


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Really though the B4 counters OKW very well (uber tanks and fixed trucks), and OKW tend to lack the off maps that counter it.

OKH on the other hand have plenty of commanders with the off map abilities that counter on map artillery:

You get 3 commander slots

I feel sorry for those Ostheer players who have to waste one of them on such terrible doctrines as the list below in case they need to counter a B4


Close Air Support

Jaeger Armour

Joint Operations

Luftwaffe

Spearhead

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

Really though, it only becomes good at Vet1 and then gets even better

Getting it to Vet1 in the first place is kind of a bother however

Sniping a single ober squad is absolutely worth it, and in team games you can be doing a prec shot every 2-3 shells in a totally sustainable manner with a muni cache or two.

I mean blob killing is its main duty sure, but when there's no blobs about there's no point wasting the amazing 60 second reload time. The real trick to using it effectively is to anticipate where the gun needs to be facing before you need the shell fired, thus drastically reducing the time between your click and when it lands.

Even against maneuvering opponents, with good anticipating and planning you can sort of force the enemy to commit forces to respond to your team in one particular area, then hammer them with the B4 as soon as their army stop moving to engage. Any target is a good target for a B4, so it's not like it's always obvious what you're going to shoot next.

The b4 is a strong artillery unit and preforms accordingly to its role. Everyone here is talking about using precision shot like it comes stock with the weapon, and that its some sort of amazing instant win button. So as someone who uses it on a regular basis in 2v2s I'm very familiar with its impact. So let us get a few facts straight.

1. The b4 comes in at cp8, which is also coincidently around when tanks start arriving, which is a very important time of the game. In 2v2's this means that you have to make a critical decision as to were to spend your manpower. Tanks or b4, you don't usually get both, and if you do, you were going to win anyways.

2. The b4 does not come with precision shot. You don't get this until vet one, which can be one shot or 20 depending on troop/tank movements and rng. It should also be noted that if you fight off an enemy squad, and leave your squad in the same spot after my infantry retreated, there is a good chance that there going to get hit with a b4. What I'm trying to say is that by making smart plays to avoid the first few b4 shots is a key step to countering it. The b4 relies on rng until it gets vet one, making it much less dangerous. Its during this time you should utilize your tanks to take it down.

3. It costs munitions to fire the b4. Every time I end up playing a smart player they realize that sacrifices have to be made to accommodate this. Number one on the list is mines, meaning they can play more aggressively with their tanks. As point one mentions, you likely bought a b4 instead of a tank. Now you are suffering a penalty on your front lines.

4. Your going to have to adapt your play styles to deal with this weapon. It does a very good job of beating up OKW players. If you keep losing to b4s, your going to have to take a proactive step and build stukas.

Don't want to adapt? feel free to play a diffrent game.

@zarok47 I mean asking for a source on a game is stretching it, if you are discussing some science, like in historical discussions, sure ask for a source, but for a game? I seriously doubt any devs will talk about the game in such an open manner that a viable source will be available.
Sure we can discuss if a specific if a hard counter meta has or do exist in the game but asking for sources sounds ridiculus.

If there are no sources/way of backing it up, you shouldnt make such claims.
As for devs talking about the game, that happens in most streams and about any patch so that doesnt hold up either. As an example here is the part about ambient buildings in the october patch :
Show Spoiler

Other then that, the claim about hardcounter meta can be disproven quite easily i think: ISU v ele/JT, prime example of such a meta and finally out of the game for the very reason that it was a hardcounter meta, and thus boring as hell.

Just hoped he had an actual source or anything to back up his claim which apperantly, is not possible.

As for the B4, remove the precision strike and replace it with something else (barrage maybe?), with a rework of its vet 3 and cooldown, should be enough.

The whole idea of precision shot in some units is just horrible, IMO.

Tanks counter the b-4, L2P,

The whole idea of precision shot in some units is just horrible, IMO.

The implementation is what's crap imo.

It should be like 40 muni, but instead of pin point accuracy it should reduce scatter by half or whatever. The radius of circle is half or 1/3 of what it would normally be.

The whole idea of precision shot in some units is just horrible, IMO.

And then we will get another dead commander.
Not to mention that Soviets already have right now 3-5 useful commaders.