Artillery Officer Veterancy

Hello gents! The Artillery Officer has a trouble of earning veterancy, given being designed around supporting troops and leading the charge will ultimately leading the Office to lose more than his cap.
Not to mention his squad not being combat effect either. This results in the Officer not being able to "upgrade" his abilities through veterancy, making his abilities, while still great, lose some effectiveness as enemy units gain veterancy and become more resilient.

I'd suggest that to help him earn veterancy at a faster he can earn it through some different ways.
One suggestion I thought of was that when nearby allied units (only the owning player) are under the effect of Concentrated Fire kill a enemy unit or model, portion of the XP goes to the Officer.
Reasoning of only under Concentrated Fire is not to let him just rapidly earn veterancy for being there but earn it when he orders his troops. It also makes the German player decide to use either the Officer abilities more frequently as to gain better abilities or on upgrades, mines, etc.

This helps make him and his squad more useful as the game goes on and become a more effective force multiplier.

Well the dudes vet bonus's are pretty good other than medi-kit;

Unlocks the 'Field First Aid' ability
+40% smoke and coordinated fire barrage range, -23% incoming accuracy
The 'Concentrated Fire' ability boosts the accuracy for infantry from 15 to 25 percent and reload from 13 to 25%, +40% accuracy

and he is essentially just a more expensive gren squad but you are correct in that he often fails to get vet due to needing to stay behind the lines. His coordinate fire barrage range without vet is fairly pathetic all things considered.

At least he can gain vet. The OKW one is oddly vetless.

At least he can gain vet. The OKW one is oddly vetless.

It would be fun if the OKW officer worked like the command panther.

It's been a while since I've used it so correct me if Im wrong, but his dps should be the same as a gren sqaud right? So that's pretty decent, while vet unlocks his abilities, except smoke which is baseline.

I think that since vet unlocks the rest of his abilities it would be great if they were muni-free, without touching anything else, making it desiderable to keep alive while doing proper support without impairing ost's ammo economy.

Edit: ofc some tweaking to the cooldowns would be needed.

Yeah, I used to use ostruppen doctrine quite often and I never had a problem vetting him up. He has slightly less DPS than a gren squad, and he doesn't force retreat when killed, so I find him to be a valuable fighting unit.

Just make sure that he has the ability to shoot enemies from where he is standing and he should vet up at a slightly slower rate than grens.

It's been a while since I've used it so correct me if Im wrong, but his dps should be the same as a gren sqaud right?

Nah, that was back before the March 2014 infantry combat changes. His squad is now definitely worse than vanilla Grens (not by a ton, but the DPS the officer contributes [which is very little at most ranges] probably also reduces the squad's odds even against Cons at max-range by a fair bit since losing the Gren bodyguards will tank the squad's DPS by an even higher percentage).

Yeah, I used to use ostruppen doctrine quite often and I never had a problem vetting him up. He has slightly less DPS than a gren squad, and he doesn't force retreat when killed, so I find him to be a valuable fighting unit.

Just make sure that he has the ability to shoot enemies from where he is standing and he should vet up at a slightly slower rate than grens.

Yeah, I never really had a problem with vetting him either. Sure, the squad's not amazing in combat, but it's still functionally pretty similar to other basic infantry squads getting vet, and it's not really tough for any of those.

Nah, that was back before the March 2014 infantry combat changes. His squad is now definitely worse than vanilla Grens (not by a ton, but the DPS the officer contributes [which is very little at most ranges] probably also reduces the squad's odds even against Cons at max-range by a fair bit since losing the Gren bodyguards will tank the squad's DPS by an even higher percentage.

Believing CoH2Stats, Grenadiers in that squad have exactly the same DPS as regular grenadiers. So we can safely assume that the Artillery Field Officer squad has about 75% DPS of regular grenadier squad at all ranges.

It's been a while since I've used it so correct me if Im wrong, but his dps should be the same as a gren sqaud right? So that's pretty decent, while vet unlocks his abilities, except smoke which is baseline.

I think that since vet unlocks the rest of his abilities it would be great if they were muni-free, without touching anything else, making it desiderable to keep alive while doing proper support without impairing ost's ammo economy.

Edit: ofc some tweaking to the cooldowns would be needed.

the abilities are baseline and all cost munitions. victor target is the only one that's expensive and how expensive it is depends on whether you're using it with mortars or pwerfers/lefhs; with the latter two it can be a deal if you use it right.

Believing CoH2Stats, Grenadiers in that squad have exactly the same DPS as regular grenadiers. So we can safely assume that the Artillery Field Officer squad has about 75% DPS of regular grenadier squad at all ranges.

Well, the Officer's pistol than a Gren rifle is better at range 2.

But yeah, more or less the gist of it.

His unit design is clearly the support/ caster unit type, and naturally his veterancy reflects that. SOmeone can mod that, can't they? Annihilation mod added vet5 to all units, and I use a mod that lets the arty officer use Forward Retreat like the USF major, nifty for those large 4v4 maps. Wished there was a Soviet equivalent though.

As for OKW's Sturmoffizier. I preferred if his veterancy increased the squads durability. e doesn't need stacked aura bonuses, that would just make him the same as Command Panther and end up diluting both units' uniqueness, and it's not like either commander are DLC/ War Spoils dropped unlocks either. IMO SturmOffizier vet should make him meatier so that he can be used closer to the fight while still retaining some risk in a forced retreat.

Also, Sturmoffizier squad can pick up two weapons, whereas Ostheer's arty officer cannot.

Also, Sturmoffizier squad can pick up two weapons, whereas Ostheer's arty officer cannot.

Wait, really?

Wait, really?

yes

yes

Sounds like a bug to me. I can't imagine any reason why the Arty Off. would be an exception like that.

Sounds like a bug to me. I can't imagine any reason why the Arty Off. would be an exception like that.

Once upon a time the AO was the most durable squad in CoH2 and him picking up an LMG turned him into a literal terminator.

Once upon a time the AO was the most durable squad in CoH2

Yup, I miss that so much

It was just so funny for the Artillery Officer to be tougher than guys with body armour.

Though I think it was just specifically the officer, the Grens with him were totally normal Grens...which frankly made it even funnier.

Wait, really?

Well at the very least one weapon, I do that whenever I choose that commander, especially if it's a long range weapon like bazooka or PTRS, which allows the Sturmoffizier to remain engaging at long range while your other units are closer to the fight. I find that when the Sturmoffizier is taking hits, it's almost always going to kill the officer first, which then induces a retreat. Giving him such weapons keeps the squad farther away.

Of course, none of this happens with the Arty officer, then again you don't have the problem of forced retreat if he dies.