Grenadiers - Not for the faint of micro

Hello internet strangers,

It's been a very long time since I've created a balance thread as I have been attempting to "get good" in 1 v 1's as Ostheer. My observation is that Grenadiers are overly micro intensive when compared to other front line infantry. In the past six months cover has changed, grenades have changed, the other factions front line infantry have changed but Gren's have remained a near constant. Oh, there was that minor correction two patches ago which hurt their performance.

Simply put, given the direction the game has taken I feel the time is now for Gren's to have a 5th model. The damage should remain the same but this one change would at least make the unit more survivable and easier for the not-top-10 players to use.

My frustration as of late has been the USF toss a grenade and retreat tactic. The timer on those nads are short which in my case leads to squad wiping, both in cover and out. An extra model may help ease this.

Rawr


Add on with something I should have spoken in more detail about.

While I would love to see grens turned into a 5-man squad, this change would actually require a NERF to overall grenadier squad DPS to keep balance. Currently the only reason conscripts can beat grenadiers is because of the fact that they have more men. At close range, a grenadier model has higher DPS than conscript DPS by quite an amount. Increasing gren squad size to 5 and spreading the DPS across all the models will make it impossible for a 5-man conscript squad to win the fight (losses taken from closing). Even a 6-man squad would have considerable troubles.

If you add a 5-th man, the grens need to have an overall lower DPS than than they had 4-men to make sure that the increased TTK (time to kill) for allied squads doesn't give the grens a much higher advantage, since they have better DPS.

Shitstorm, allied fanboys and a lot of katikof inbound.

Imo LMG grens are the easiest main line inf to micro Just attack move them all the time. Also rifle grenades are harder to dodge than any other nade in the game.

grens are actually fine

I'd for that change but a hell lot of abilities and units will have to be adjusted to accommodate for that.

Grens are by far the easiest infantry to use. Just use a-move all the time.

The key word is LMG Gren. You are forcing a choice on a player. Does anybody remember the G43 upgrade? I thought not. In my opinion the LMG is a crutch that is more then likely being looked at elsewhere in balance land.

The biggest issue is that what kept Gren's in the game was good scaling because their starting received accuracy + received accuracy from vet made them have more survability against small arms than their other basic counterparts.

Gren Rec Acc at Vet 3: 0.7007, effective health is 456

Riflemen Rec Acc at Vet 3: 0.59752, effective health is 669

Conscript Rec Acc at Vet 3: .6522, effective health is 735

Volks Rec Acc at Vet 5: 0.81, effective health is 493

This results in basic Axis infantry falling apart later into the game because the superior scaling it once relied to remain effective is now gone. Resulting in Allied basic infantry being more resistant not only to small arms fire but explosives as well.

Have you ever considered CAS + four Grenadiers?

Try using IS for a time and Grens micro will feel like a breeze.

This results in basic Axis infantry falling apart later into the game

Huh. Long range grens seem to disagree for many reasons...

While I would love to see grens turned into a 5-man squad, this change would actually require a NERF to overall grenadier squad DPS to keep balance. Currently the only reason conscripts can beat grenadiers is because of the fact that they have more men. At close range, a grenadier model has higher DPS than conscript DPS by quite an amount. Increasing gren squad size to 5 and spreading the DPS across all the models will make it impossible for a 5-man conscript squad to win the fight (losses taken from closing). Even a 6-man squad would have considerable troubles.

If you add a 5-th man, the grens need to have an overall lower DPS than than they had 4-men to make sure that the increased TTK (time to kill) for allied squads doesn't give the grens a much higher advantage, since they have better DPS.

Wow did he just complain about the usf grenade lmao it is like the most easily dodged grenade in the game slow obvious wind up and huge timer.

Huh. Long range grens seem to disagree for many reasons...

Because every single map is an open field and LMG grens somehow magically figured out a way to increase their range from 35 to 45 and thus are able to totally shoot back at max range against Maxim's and .50 cal's.

Long range superiority depends on you being able to kill enough of the enemy before they close to CQC, can't do that when the enemy has far better Received Accuracy than you.

Hmm just attack move them and they win. They well engage long range everytime, wich is nice.

The biggest issue is that what kept Gren's in the game was good scaling because their starting received accuracy + received accuracy from vet made them have more survability against small arms than their other basic counterparts.

Gren Rec Acc at Vet 3: 0.7007, effective health is 456

Riflemen Rec Acc at Vet 3: 0.59752, effective health is 669

Conscript Rec Acc at Vet 3: .6522, effective health is 735

Volks Rec Acc at Vet 5: 0.81, effective health is 493

This results in basic Axis infantry falling apart later into the game because the superior scaling it once relied to remain effective is now gone. Resulting in Allied basic
infantry being more resistant not only to small arms fire but explosives as well.

poor poor lmg grens cant kill vet 3 stuff at vet 3

poor poor vet 5 volks dont scale well

conscripts and rifles finally dont die like flies at vet 3

vet 3

vet3

allied units scale, wow such imbalance

Because every single map is an open field and LMG grens somehow magically figured out a way to increase their range from 35 to 45 and thus are able to totally shoot back at max range against Maxim's and .50 cal's.

Long range superiority depends on you being able to kill enough of the enemy before they close to CQC, can't do that when the enemy has far better Received Accuracy than you.

Thats why Ost have very good combined arms team weapons, unlike some other silly faction that we know of that needs its mainline infantry to do nearly everything.

We dont want a USF v2, right? I mean, my life would be easier as Ost, but perhaps i do feel compelled to use more than one unit from T1...

I agree grens can get wiped by explosives super easily, but i think the problem is more engine related than squad size. A 5th man would make such events less likely but not impossible since volks and even cons can get wiped in 1 shot if they bunch up just right.

Problem is there but i think engine rather than unit adjustments are necessary

While I would love to see grens turned into a 5-man squad, this change would actually require a NERF to overall grenadier squad DPS to keep balance. Currently the only reason conscripts can beat grenadiers is because of the fact that they have more men. At close range, a grenadier model has higher DPS than conscript DPS by quite an amount. Increasing gren squad size to 5 and spreading the DPS across all the models will make it almost impossible for a 5-man conscript squad to win the fight (losses taken from closing).

If you add a 5-th man, the grens need to have an overall lower DPS than than they had 4-men to make sure that the increased TTK (time to kill) for allied squads doesn't give the grens a much higher advantage, since they have better DPS.

This is mostly incorrect. A close range Conscripts have 3.4 DPS per model and Grens have 5.9 DPS per model. A Gren squad at point blank range loses to a Con squad because the Con squad has better survability with 6 men, not because the conscript squad has better DPS. When Cons are upgraded with PPSH and thus have 9.6 DPS at close range they can lose several more models in closing and still win be it at Vet 0 or Vet 3.

The big issue becomes when later on in the game you are dealing with squad wipes from explosives as Ostheer because of your smaller squad sizes, AND now you have to deal with the fact your squads are also more fragile to small arms.

I decided to run some tests on it to ensure my thesis is correct, results were quite informative!

-At vet 3 a riflemen squad with 1 BAR can charge across a field at max range and win against a Vet 3 LMG Gren squad with a reliability of 68.4%, additional BAR's or a flamethrower or 1919's brings this up to 93.4% (well adding them all together 1919 Rifles don't need to close to beat Grens)

-At vet 3 a riflemen squad with no upgrades can close from max range and beat a Vet 5 Volks squad with no upgrades 1 on 1 with 97.5% (only had the riflemen lose once due to insane RNG )

-Addition of upgrades to Vet 3 Riflemen give them basically a 100% chance of beating Vet 5 Volks even at mid to far range.

-A vet 3 conscript squad with no upgrades can close from max to close against Vet 3 LMG Grens and win 49.2% of the time (wins were often insanely close, with 1 member always being left on each side with almost no health left)

-A vet 3 PPSH Conscript squad can close from max to close against Vet 3 LMG Grens and win 68.87% of the time.

-A vet 3 conscript squad with no upgrades can close from max to close against Vet 5 Volks with no upgrades and win 62% of the time. RNG jesus holds a lot of say here.

-A vet 3 conscript squad with PPSH's can close from max to close against Vet 5 volks with no upgrades and win 83% of the time. RNG matters a lot less with the more accurate and less RNG dependent PPSH's.


Conclusion: Hard to really say that LMG Gren's are just "A-move to win" when almost every Vet 3 Allied equivalent squad can literally run up to them and win with often 60%+ reliability

poor poor lmg grens cant kill vet 3 stuff at vet 3

poor poor vet 5 volks dont scale well

conscripts and rifles finally dont die like flies at vet 3

vet 3

vet3

allied units scale, wow such imbalance

If Vet 3 Cons and Grens cost the same why does one magically get better veterancy I would say is the big question. This isn't even highlighting the fact that Volk's entire gimmick is scaling really well which isn't the case anymore because the basic infantry of other factions was buffed to out do them. OKW doesn't even HAVE support weapons other than lolisgspam to support it's basic infantry with.

If you want to make Allied late game better (Soviets didn't really need this tho) then buff Penals, and give USF some stock elite infantry instead of just lazily throwing huge received accuracy modifiers on everything.