Ostheer Artillery: 105mm, Panzerwerfer

I think the Ostheer artillery is strange. They have great early game options with the mortar ht and the regular mortar.

Late game however you barely have a chance to defeat a well dug in opponent as you are lacking the late game artillery.

Getting the 105mm means no Tiger/Elefant. That alone means its seen rarely. But then it seems to miss too often and the reload takes very long. 600mp and locking the ability to go for heavy tanks isn´t worth it at all.

The Panzerwerfer is hard to get to (tech cost) and even if you have it, it has to come very close to its target to actually hit. I have been using it lately for the fun of it - when the game was already won. Per barrage (firing on weapon teams) I got 2 kills on average. Hardly worth it.

It´s frustrating that Ostheer lacks a whole option: Late game indirect fire.

Your thoughts?

Edit: writing this because of a game with a friend: 2v2, 2x Ostheer vs 2x Soviets. In the lategame we had two Tigers and a Panther versus an IS-2, 2x T-34/85 and 4 Zis guns + several Maxims. The infantry couldn´t defeat the Zis as it was sniped by the tanks, the tanks couldn´t be defeated because of the Zis cover. Usually arillery would have helped but my Panzerwerfers missed. This camping costed us this (exceptionally dull) game.

Well relic wanted to reduce the use of the artillery units shelling enemy base as you can read from the old patch notes:

105mm Howitzer

These changes reduce the viability of artillery saturation on the opposing player’s base. Additionally, howitzers should feel more organic with the changes to reload.

Reload time from 2.75 to 2.25-2.75

Shots fired per barrage from 12 to 6

Crew size from 3 to 4



152mm Howitzer

These changes reduce the viability of artillery saturation on the opposing player’s base. Additionally, howitzers should feel more organic with the changes to reload.

Shots fired per barrage from 8 to 4

Reload time from 3 to 2.8-3.2

Barrage recharge time from 120s to 90s

Crew size from 3 to 4



And the Changes to rocket artillery:

Panzerwerfer

The increased recharge timer offsets higher than desired artillery saturation.

Recharge time from 54 to 90

Katyusha

The increased recharge timer offsets higher than desired artillery saturation. Its recharge is still lower than the Panzerwerfer to better represent its distributed saturation.

Recharge time from 60 to 70

I haven't yet formed an opinion on the stock rocket arty units, but the doctrinal stationary arty (Sov and OH) definitely need a buff. They are expensive, cannot retreat, simultaneously have a surprisingly large scatter and small AOE, long recharge time, and can only be obtained when forfeiting heavy tanks; in other words: worthless. Something of the aforementioned aspects needs to be changed.

I remember the last time I used the OH 105mm: I had two of them, and they both fired at mid range against a single Soviet Maxim: Not even one (!) crew member died. That was the moment the 105 has died for me.

Arty pieces come without call ins?

OH SUCH BAD DESIGN, NEED MORE TIGURS

All the howie needs is a price reduction and maybe slight damage buff

and T4 needs to be easier to tech to but otherwise its fine.

Saying that Ostheer doesnt have arty options is wrong.

At least Ost doesn't have to be worried about allied players insta countering it with 2 clicks with most popular doctrines and soviet bombing runs are not guaranteed kills anymore on static emplacements.

Ost mechanized doctrine with spotting scopes, arty and command tank is nothing to ignore, its not the most popular one, but its certainly far from underpowered.

Both howis could use a bit shorter cooldowns as well.

Compared to the ML-20, its Soviet counterpart, it performs poorly.

The ML-20 has higher AoE, deals more damage (300) and got the better vet 1 ability.

The LefH oneshots infantry within an area of 3.3, the ML-20 can do this within an area of 4.65.

The Panzerwerfer is just plain bad. T4 is overpriced and if you want to deal decent damage within an area you'll need two PWs or an Artillery Officer.

The Katyusha got the better vet 1 ability, better range and less scatter.

@sheep-He said that Ostheer doesn't have a proper late arty options.

Anyway I have a very low opinion of 105mm, it has a nice range and goes well with arty officers but it barely hits anything.

Panzerwerfer doesn't hit as much as katy but it still is useful against blobs and gives a bit of the kick. Now I've heard arty officer ability resets panzwerwerfers cooldown but never tried it myself.

Artillery Officer allows you to pay to attack a point, where he is within range, with all nearby arty. He does not reset the shot button. The ability is useful, but I don't go AO to get a werfer to shoot slightly faster.

Werfer is bad.

Static arty (minus B-4 to some degree) terrible. Damage is not a problem, it does good damage, AOE and scatter are. Those units frequently miss buildings! How am I going to use that to do any damage? As a result best use is to simply bombard base sector and hope to kill something. All static howitzers need some serious buffs.

TBH I think the way artillery works needs to include gun-laying corrections: what this means is that when artillery units are firing salvos, the chances of striking a sighted stationary target (like an enemy emplacement or unit) becomes progressively higher in hit probability. The player just needs to make sure his own units are in sight of the target being bombarded. The longer it's in sight, the higher the probability, and higher probability = more hits.

What this means is that you no longer get dumb things like artillery firing at a stationary target and missing every hit, and at the same time requires some synergy with other units for maximum effect.

Artillery Officer allows you to pay to attack a point, where he is within range, with all nearby arty. He does not reset the shot button. The ability is useful, but I don't go AO to get a werfer to shoot slightly faster.

Aw crud. I don't know where I've heard that he resets cooldowns. Ah well.

Aw crud. I don't know where I've heard that he resets cooldowns. Ah well.

The artillery officer's ability does not reset cooldown on artillery, it ignores them. This means, for example, if you had 4 pzwerfers, and you had them all attack a single position, you could use the artillery officer's ability to bombard another location before your pzwerfers have finished their cooldown. On top of this, the second salvo from the artillery officer doesn't reset the cooldown.

Also, there is a bug with the artillery commander's ability. If you use his abilities to allow a panzerwerfer to fire, the panzerwerfer will fire 16 rockets instead of 12, like it used to.

panzerwerfer is hard to tech just like other T4 units but the point is it sucks, katyusha can easily now counter blobs, Panzerwerfer must hit directly a unit to kill it and its very innacurate

LeFH is kinda lame cuz it's low caliber and it fires like what, 6 shells? and reload 90 secs? totally useless, at least ML-20 fires 4 shells and deals good damage

I have always wished for these both to be non-doctrineal and unlocked after having T3 (T3 or T4 in soviet case). of course it will never be done and our commander system will never really be changed

@comm
well thats still good I guess...well except the bug part, but having an awful spread and accuraccy I don't think even 4 extra missiles would make much difference, but then again I could be wrong.

The problem I have with the osteer howi is how many soviet and usa commanders have a strike in their call ons that just 1 shot it.

At least Ost doesn't have to be worried about allied players insta countering it with 2 clicks with most popular doctrines and soviet bombing runs are not guaranteed kills anymore on static emplacements.

Ost mechanized doctrine with spotting scopes, arty and command tank is nothing to ignore, its not the most popular one, but its certainly far from underpowered.

Both howis could use a bit shorter cooldowns as well.

I can't believe what I have already read. You have any knowledge about current balance or you are just keep up on theory?

I can't believe what I have already read. You have any knowledge about current balance or you are just keep up on theory?

Not really sure what you are on about it here.
I do sometimes play with mechanized doctrine for command tank and arty combo for variety(can't play same doctrine too long, thats why I'm against stale meta), mainly on semoisky, so I'm fully aware of ost arty performance as contrary to 90% of axis fanboys here on this board, I actually use it.

Soviet meta doctrines have no off map that would post any threat to static arty, you specifically need to go for ISU doctrines for that.

USF stand a bit better, but they got only a single doctrine able to reckon and arty the howi, but since its mechanized, its not really popular at all.

Meanwhile 90% of ost players have CAS doctrine equipped. Remaining 10% use the good old jeager armor with ele, recon and stuka dive which invalidates any attempts of allied arty play.

My biggest gripe with arty is the long cooldown, which ensures low cost efficiency of both, ML-20 and leIH compared to say stuka zu fuss, which is more accessible, more survivable(being mobile) and more deadly thanks to precision striking everything every time.

Talking about 2v2 here.

I dont understand why you even bother to compare the soviet arty with the german one. It doesnt matter if its better or not. Most used ost commanders just delete it anyway.

Arty pieces come without call ins?

OH SUCH BAD DESIGN, NEED MORE TIGURS

No need to be sarcastic. I meant to say: The doctrine doesn´t come with heavy tanks aka a very effective unit. This is good design. But the artillery piece shouldn´t suck as you sacrifice the aforementioned effective unit. Nobody is going to build artillery instead of heavy tanks if in the end you get out less of the doctrine. This applies to all doctrinal artillery pieces.

Not really sure what you are on about it here.
I do sometimes play with mechanized doctrine for command tank and arty combo for variety(can't play same doctrine too long, thats why I'm against stale meta), mainly on semoisky, so I'm fully aware of ost arty performance as contrary to 90% of axis fanboys here on this board, I actually use it.

Soviet meta doctrines have no off map that would post any threat to static arty, you specifically need to go for ISU doctrines for that.

USF stand a bit better, but they got only a single doctrine able to reckon and arty the howi, but since its mechanized, its not really popular at all.

Meanwhile 90% of ost players have CAS doctrine equipped. Remaining 10% use the good old jeager armor with ele, recon and stuka dive which invalidates any attempts of allied arty play.

My biggest gripe with arty is the long cooldown, which ensures low cost efficiency of both, ML-20 and leIH compared to say stuka zu fuss, which is more accessible, more survivable(being mobile) and more deadly thanks to precision striking everything every time.

Talking about 2v2 here.

Both the ISU commanders are in the meta now thanks to the Guards PTRS buff. Mark target + ISU is extremely good. And if your talking about 2's a USF player can just recon run the artillery piece and hit it with time on target, mechanized artillery, ect.

Really all the howitzers in the game should be mobile, the regular ones just slowly so the Priest maintains it's advantage.