Axis heavy armor needs nerf or Allied AT needs buffs

I feel that there currently is an imbalance between Axis and Allied anti-tank weaponry. I will be talking primarily be talking about tanks and tank destroyers. Here is a good thread about the imbalance bewtween Axis and Allied handheld AT: http://www.coh2.org/topic/26914/the-imbalance-between-allied-and-axis-infantry-anti-tank


I will now quickly go over some of the Axis tanks

Tiger
This unit is balanced.

Panther
This unit seems fine, but i don't think the buff it got to its armor (to 320) several months ago was necessary. It just needed to be more accessible. Anyways, it is a good unit except
when combined with blitz and smoke, then it becomes overpowered. It becomes way too survivable with those two abilities and can leave unscathed when baited into a trap.

King Tiger
I think this unit is OP. It bounces shots like crazy. It can deflect AT guns, Jacksons, Jackson vet ability, Su85s, ISU AP shells, IS2s, etc. I think the gun on it is fine but the tank has way too much armor. Gettng some lucky RNG is the only way to stop these behemoths (other than using B4, or airstrikes). It also has combat blitz, which makes the tank very fast (i think it is silly for a gigantic heavy tank to have this ability).

Jagdtiger
I think this unit is okay since it can no longer shoot through walls and buildings.

Elefant
I think this unit is balanced because it is super slow but has a good gun and good armor.

Allied Anti-tank vehicles (non-doctrinal)
Non-doctrinal vehicles include the Jackson and SU85. These vehicles perform well at stopping Ostheer T3 (Jackson stops it too well). However, these units start to struggle against anything heavier than a Tiger. Every shot becomes a prayer to the RNG gods to roll a penetrating hit. Although multiple Jacksons and SU85s are good against a lone Panther, it still feels unreliable. This is best exemplified when using Jacksons and SU85s against a King Tiger. Shots either chip away at the King Tiger, forcing it to retreat, or shot after shot ricochet away. The King TIger then proceeds to smash through your lines while blowing everything up.

Jackson
Good unit but dies very fast. It is also heavily RNG dependent on tanks like the Panther and heavier. Shuts down Ostheer T3 very well (too well). However, when it does penetrate, it can burst down tanks very fast. Vet ability does bounce off Jagdtigers and King Tigers sadly.

SU85
This unit is very good at vet 3, but also suffers from RNG versus heavier units. It is also really sluggish and suffers from horrendous pathfinding. An example of its unreliability is with its matchup against the King Tiger. It may land shot after shot or fail to penetrate multiple times.

Allied Anti-tank (doctrinal)

IS2
This unit is balanced. It actually seems like it got a ninja buff somewhere because the gun can actually do some splash damage to infantry now.

ISU
After the many nerfs, i think this unit is balanced now. However, i think an increase in the penetration of its AP round wouldn't make the unit overpowered. It still struggles to pen the King Tiger even using the AP round. It also bounces off the Panther occasionally. It is sad that even the mighty Zveroboy is broken against the armor of heavier German tanks.

Final Points
I believe the main imbalance between Axis tanks and Allied are:

1. Axis tanks can consistently penetrate Allied armor (which is okay)

2. Allied tanks cannot consistently penetrate Axis armor, particularly heavy tanks like the King Tiger and Panther.

This leads to weird scenarios where RNG can factor in and give Allied players an edge during tank fights, or get utterly destroyed.

It also does not help that the panzerschreck is very deadly and easily available to units like the Volksgrenadier and Panzergrenadier. These units make an excellent screening force for Axis vehicles because it constantly disrupts Allied tank positioning, giving time for Axis tanks to land some shots. It also acts as a defensive line against flanking Allied tanks. This is another issue that can be discussed in a new thread.

Overall, i think Axis heavies like the King Tiger need an armor reduction. Increasing the penetration of certain Allied tanks could work, but this may be very damaging for Ostheer T3 play.

So.. to sum this up "Nerf KT plz"?

Hate to pass it off so causually but thats what i got out of this.

Ah missed something, Before the buff Wehr's panther was not worth the cost at 175.
The armor buff made the unit worth building again for wehr. While T4 is still kinda in the dumps
as a whole at least the panther is worth the tech cost.

you're missing 90% of what he's saying, which is that the average pen of allied AT weapons and the heavy armour of axis tanks can have a serious effect on gameplay and win or lose games.

i'm not really sure how to solve the issue short of introducing new units.

theoretically the game design is sound but relic has so few units, and the ones you can actually get are furthered limited by teching choices on all factions (except sometimes OKW) so you have to be really fucking careful with changes or you end up with terrible unwinable matchups. if the jackson, or particularly the su85, get buffed against heavies, they're going to shut down medium tanks so hard that'll it'll be back to Vs or nothing, which wasn't very fun for anyone.

you're missing 90% of what he's saying, which is that the average pen of allied AT weapons and the heavy armour of axis tanks can have a serious effect on gameplay and win or lose games.

Oh but i don't think that i am, Pen is a problem for some allied tanks, Just as accuracy can own axis tanks by repeated misses with low firerate (Panther)

KT is slow enough that you should be able to stay out of its range jackson's with ease.
And like any superheavy surrounds with mediums owns it.
In OKW's case if he hard tech's to it (Some OKW's do this)
hes spending 504 effective fuel. and 1320 manpower.

with sov you can almost have 4 t34/76 by that time.
Same with USF and Jacksons.

I think there is also a popcap issue at play, The Kt at 26 popcap requires a signifigantly higher pop of medium tanks to engage roughly 4 t34-76 or 3 su85s. The panthers popcap is also a little low at 16 imo when the jackson is at 14.

I think both increasing the popcap of the KT signifigantly, the panther by like 2 and increasing the performance or decreasing the popcap of some medium vehicles like the jackson, sherman, t34 could help this issue considering a p4 costs more than sherman/t34 same pop and jackson costs the same as a p4 and has 2 more pop

Oh but i don't think that i am, Pen is a problem for some allied tanks, Just as accuracy can own axis tanks by repeated misses with low firerate (Panther)

KT is slow enough that you should be able to stay out of its range jackson's with ease.
And like any superheavy surrounds with mediums owns it.
In OKW's case if he hard tech's to it (Some OKW's do this)
hes spending 504 effective fuel. and 1320 manpower.

with sov you can almost have 4 t34/76 by that time.
Same with USF and Jacksons.

This.
As Sovjet KT should be hit by mines and then finished with circling mediums ( 85s are good for this), IS2 ( also able to outrun KTs turret) , ISU or even su85 +arty.
As USF try to kite with Jacksons. This is harder , but manageable. Also use m20 mines.

Kt costs 260 OKW fuel, which is a shitton and without transfering ammo it is 390 fuel for allies! So it has to be that good. Use its very slow turret speed and general speed to your advantage.
Imo the IS2 is far better for cost. 230 fuel for a better tiger with almost kt armor.

I love it when people say you can circle a tank. That's hilarious. Because people just drive there tanks into giant open fields and let enemy tanks circle them.

The reality is that on most maps, you can only really engage a heavy tank with 1-2 mediums at a time. Once you factor in infantry and other obstacles, flanking is also VERY difficult, and often times impossible.

I feel that there currently is an imbalance between Axis and Allied anti-tank weaponry. I will be talking primarily be talking about tanks and tank destroyers. Here is a good thread about the imbalance bewtween Axis and Allied handheld AT: http://www.coh2.org/topic/26914/the-imbalance-between-allied-and-axis-infantry-anti-tank


I will now quickly go over some of the Axis tanks

Tiger
This unit is balanced.

Panther
This unit seems fine, but i don't think the buff it got to its armor (to 320) several months ago was necessary. It just needed to be more accessible. Anyways, it is a good unit except
when combined with blitz and smoke, then it becomes overpowered. It becomes way too survivable with those two abilities and can leave unscathed when baited into a trap.

King Tiger
I think this unit is OP. It bounces shots like crazy. It can deflect AT guns, Jacksons, Jackson vet ability, Su85s, ISU AP shells, IS2s, etc. I think the gun on it is fine but the tank has way too much armor. Gettng some lucky RNG is the only way to stop these behemoths (other than using B4, or airstrikes). It also has combat blitz, which makes the tank very fast (i think it is silly for a gigantic heavy tank to have this ability).

Jagdtiger
I think this unit is okay since it can no longer shoot through walls and buildings.

Elefant
I think this unit is balanced because it is super slow but has a good gun and good armor.

Allied Anti-tank vehicles (non-doctrinal)
Non-doctrinal vehicles include the Jackson and SU85. These vehicles perform well at stopping Ostheer T3 (Jackson stops it too well). However, these units start to struggle against anything heavier than a Tiger. Every shot becomes a prayer to the RNG gods to roll a penetrating hit. Although multiple Jacksons and SU85s are good against a lone Panther, it still feels unreliable. This is best exemplified when using Jacksons and SU85s against a King Tiger. Shots either chip away at the King Tiger, forcing it to retreat, or shot after shot ricochet away. The King TIger then proceeds to smash through your lines while blowing everything up.

Jackson
Good unit but dies very fast. It is also heavily RNG dependent on tanks like the Panther and heavier. Shuts down Ostheer T3 very well (too well). However, when it does penetrate, it can burst down tanks very fast. Vet ability does bounce off Jagdtigers and King Tigers sadly.

SU85
This unit is very good at vet 3, but also suffers from RNG versus heavier units. It is also really sluggish and suffers from horrendous pathfinding. An example of its unreliability is with its matchup against the King Tiger. It may land shot after shot or fail to penetrate multiple times.

Allied Anti-tank (doctrinal)

IS2
This unit is balanced. It actually seems like it got a ninja buff somewhere because the gun can actually do some splash damage to infantry now.

ISU
After the many nerfs, i think this unit is balanced now. However, i think an increase in the penetration of its AP round wouldn't make the unit overpowered. It still struggles to pen the King Tiger even using the AP round. It also bounces off the Panther occasionally. It is sad that even the mighty Zveroboy is broken against the armor of heavier German tanks.

Final Points
I believe the main imbalance between Axis tanks and Allied are:

1. Axis tanks can consistently penetrate Allied armor (which is okay)

2. Allied tanks cannot consistently penetrate Axis armor, particularly heavy tanks like the King Tiger and Panther.

This leads to weird scenarios where RNG can factor in and give Allied players an edge during tank fights, or get utterly destroyed.

It also does not help that the panzerschreck is very deadly and easily available to units like the Volksgrenadier and Panzergrenadier. These units make an excellent screening force for Axis vehicles because it constantly disrupts Allied tank positioning, giving time for Axis tanks to land some shots. It also acts as a defensive line against flanking Allied tanks. This is another issue that can be discussed in a new thread.

Overall, i think Axis heavies like the King Tiger need an armor reduction. Increasing the penetration of certain Allied tanks could work, but this may be very damaging for Ostheer T3 play.

IS2 has about as much armor as KT fyi. 2nd most heavily armored unit in the game and 2nd most penetration. (leaving out elefant, isu, and jagdtiger.)

This.
As Sovjet KT should be hit by mines and then finished with circling mediums ( 85s are good for this), IS2 ( also able to outrun KTs turret) , ISU or even su85 +arty.
As USF try to kite with Jacksons. This is harder , but manageable. Also use m20 mines.

Kt costs 260 OKW fuel, which is a shitton and without transfering ammo it is 390 fuel for allies! So it has to be that good. Use its very slow turret speed and general speed to your advantage.
Imo the IS2 is far better for cost. 230 fuel for a better tiger with almost kt armor.

Units should be evaluated based on their price not on some conversion madness. The unit should perform like it costs 260 fuel or just give okw full resources and make them pay 390 fuel. If their tanks are evaluated on the other factions fuel cost then there was no point in giving them reduced income in the first place.

Furthermore I Think the KT does perform like a 260 fuel tank, its really not that far off an is2 its really just got a much better offense( and blitz instead of secure mode ) but using half your popcap on tanks that may still struggle to kill it seems ridiculous

IS-2 Armour Front 375 Rear 205
King Tiger Front 425 Rear 220

Now keep the price difference in mind. If you nerf the armour of the King, make it cheaper or nerf the armour of the IS-2.
I don't use the KT, because it's a sitting duck once it gets a engine damage, from my experience it's easy to keep it alive in some 4vs4 random roflstomp but in a 1on1 or 2on2 it's very risky to go for a KT.

Units should be evaluated based on their price not on some conversion madness. The unit should perform like it costs 260 fuel or just give okw full resources and make them pay 390 fuel. If their tanks are evaluated on the other factions fuel cost then there was no point in giving them reduced income in the first place.

The whole idea behind that is to give the player the feeling he/she is playing with Germany in late '44 early '45 where fuel starvation was the main problem. All okw vehicles perform individually better than their allied counterparts for the "same" price, simply because of that reason. A converse rate of 1.5 is therefore a good method to show the real value of a unit, at which it performs.
I know you see it from a E-Sports view, but a lot of players enjoy this game because the immersion.

OKW fuel penalty IS NOT THE REASON WHY OKW VEHICLES PERFORM THE WAY THEY DO.

Or else OKW panther should be much better than Ostheer panther.

Fuel penalty determines the timing of units, in which other factions gain more fuel than OKW so OKW cannot field as much armor.

If units are proportional better as a result of the fuel penalty THEN WHAT IS THE POINT OF A FUEL PENALTY? Seriously...

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Like every other game, it is much easier to keep alive a more durable unit as well as kill more things with that unit than with a different, weaker unit. Fact is Axis have more durable tanks overrall and have units that have higher armor penetration. There are also many other facts about Allies, but it is still much easier to favor quality over quantity.

What if armour had a maximum and minimum value, and where you keep taking hits your armour goes down to the minimum value? Heavily armoured tanks would then be good for the surprise blitzkrieg but couldn't as easily trudge through defensively placed AT. ZiS/57mm guns against KTs would actually have an effect then, not necessarily in damage but in softening the target for SU85s/Jacksons. Having minimum armour wouldn't need to mean the tank turns into paper, just easier to penetrate after getting hit so much.

What if armour had a maximum and minimum value, and where you keep taking hits your armour goes down to the minimum value? Heavily armoured tanks would then be good for the surprise blitzkrieg but couldn't as easily trudge through defensively placed AT. ZiS/57mm guns against KTs would actually have an effect then, not necessarily in damage but in softening the target for SU85s/Jacksons. Having minimum armour wouldn't need to mean the tank turns into paper, just easier to penetrate after getting hit so much.

That would take a while.. imagine KT:



This tiger suffered 255 AT hits in the course of 6 hours including 3 mines
And drove back to safety on its own engine.

interesting idea but far to complicated for relic to implement, especially since Cynthia just stressed that they have way to small a team for everything that needs to be done.

increasing the near pen values would be an easy way to make heavily armoured vehicles more vulnerable without opening them up to much to longer range units. it would also make things like the 34/76 much more viable when spammed. don't see that happening either though.

Two changes need to happen to make the armor situation fairer for allies, IMO:

- US AT guns and Jacksons get AP rounds at vet 0. This allows them to get much more reliable penetration on enemy tanks when fresh, which is important because of how fragile they both are particularly late game in the context of volks blobs and obers.
- Panzerschreck long range accuracy reduced. I'm not sure of the precise stat to influence, but it needs to be less accurate firing at long range targets than it is.

I would accept small popcap reductions for some allied tanks too, but that's something I feel like we can worry about later on. A single, momentary failure to keep your Jackson out of range of a volks swarm will mean the tank goes down hard in many cases. And even with HE shells, if the dice don't go your way, you can be in for a world of pain on your shermans. T34s need not apply currently.

Yeah sure, Panther and King Tiger have too much armor, but IS-2 is "balanced" when it has nearly as much armor as the King Tiger.

IS2 has about as much armor as KT fyi. 2nd most heavily armored unit in the game and 2nd most penetration. (leaving out elefant, isu, and jagdtiger.)

Yeah sure, Panther and King Tiger have too much armor, but IS-2 is "balanced" when it has nearly as much armor as the King Tiger.

True but look at penetration numbers.
For Axis is not that hard to penetrate IS2.
For Allies (especially for USF) is really, really hard to do it.
_____________
Side armor would solve this problem (God! Even Blitzkrieg 2, game from 2005, has 4 types of armor!!!)
Leave front armor how it is. Just make flanking profitable.
And of course redesign this gardening blitzkrieg.
I tired to flank Tiger with Jackson yesterday. Reversing Tiger was faster than my Jackson

Or make front armor for 1/4 of the tank and the rest should be rear.

I really hate RNG dependent penetration, misses, bounced shots, etc. Period

It will always boil peoples blood when they do everything right just to be punished by RNG God for no good reason.

I am all for exact damage from every round, no misses. If a tank shows his ass to my ATG and I have clear shot and range, I don't want to bounce 1 shot and miss 2.
Especially if I lost expensive unit to get it down to kill-able health.

IMHO its just stupid and unnecessary

True but look at penetration numbers.
For Axis is not that hard to penetrate IS2.
For Allies (especially for USF) is really, really hard to do it.
_____________
Side armor would solve this problem (God! Even Blitzkrieg 2, game from 2005, has 4 types of armor!!!)
Leave front armor how it is. Just make flanking profitable.
And of course redesign this gardening blitzkrieg.
I tired to flank Tiger with Jackson yesterday. Reversing Tiger was faster than my Jackson

Or make front armor for 1/4 of the tank and the rest should be rear.

How come? Apart from the good old Bazooka / PTRS / Panzerschreck story this is more like a popular myth. Anti-Tank guns are all similar in Penetration (US one with ability). Between equivalent tanks there is not a huge difference either. Like, P4 is slightly higher than T34/76 and Sherman on medium and long range but slightly lower than T34/85 and somewhat lower than Easy Eight Sherman.

Tiger is slightly lower than IS-2, Panther is a bit higher than IS-2, IS-2 is slightly higher than Tiger.

Jackson is slightly lower than Jagdpanzer IV, Jagdpanzer IV is slightly lower than SU-85.

All in all I don't see those huge differences and if you ask me it is easier for Allies to penetrate the Panther from the front than for Axis to penetrate the IS-2. But you know what, this is fine to me, I just cannot follow the argument of the OP.

I am in favour of your side armor suggestion by the way, I think this would make the game make more sense. Panther had historically excellent armor in the front, but on the side it was quite vulnerable.

interesting idea but far to complicated for relic to implement, especially since Cynthia just stressed that they have way to small a team for everything that needs to be done.

When was this?