[AXIS] [All modes] [PIV should be on par with Ez8/t3485]

they are also doctrinal tanks. Also I have not many soviet players who go for t 34/85 commander, there are so many better commanders to use, garden, i am glad if my soviet opponent goes a commander with the 85

I don't know about this argument they are "doctrinal" tanks. I dont know how, "doctrinal" tanks connected with "it should cost 140 fuel more but perform like ~155-160 fuel unit". Sure they are doctrinal, but why they should perform like top tech tanks, while costing you almost like stock tanks?

For every PIV soviet\USF player can have T34\85 or E8. Both this tanks would rape PIV. I just want to ask why? Simply because its doctrinal? Why then doctrinal inf more or less on pair with stock inf if they cost you the same\close. So T34\85 and E8 can stay toe-to-toe with panthers (if used right), which cost Axis players almost ~35 fuel more, but PIV which cost ~10 fuel less then T34-85\E8 will have problems with both this tanks.

• Problem: This unit does not have a definite purpose. Is it AI? It can get destroyed by at nades, zook blobs (thanks for the price cut) while not hitting shit. Thanks to the recent recieved accuracy buffs, it has zero late game AI usability.
  
  Is it dedicated to AT? The penetration value is too low for that role and it might be only viable against t34/AEC. It can't even kite the Ez8. Is it a general purpose unit? Then it sucks balls in all departments. The cost difference between its counterparts is minimal yet the other 2 eat it like sushi. And before anyone yell that Ez8 is doctrinal, don't bother. Everyone is using that P2W doctrine right after USF got released til this day.
  
  

AT Grenades do hardly any damage and if you get "destroyed" by them then its L2P. Are zook blobs even a thing? I've yet to ever see a USF player go nuts with zooks on Rifleman ala OKW Shrek blobs... not to mention zooks look trashy compared to Shreks. The munitions cost reduction was slight and justified because of this and I sincerely doubt its created zook bloobs as a result. I'm almost positive Received Accuracy only affects small arms so that doesn't matter at all. Go play USF and try to zook blob and report back to us.

Its good at what it is: a generalist medium tank that comes at T3 and has better armor than its Soviet/American counterparts. You can't expect an Easy-8 level tank for what its role is supposed to be. If anything is has similar if not better AI than T34 (76 or 85) and Easy 8s. I do agree that a slight Pen buff isn't a bad idea so that it can deal with Brits better but thats about it. If your changes happened then Ostheer would lose its generalist medium tank and then what? Its not feasible at all.

You know what the *real* problem is? Ostheer teching isn't all that great still so T4 is usually out of reach so Axis players find themselves stuck with nothing but Pz4s instead of Panthers who are designed to deal with EZ8 and T85. Meanwhile PZ4s can struggle if you try to engage Easy 8s and T85s on a 1:1 ratio. The fact that these tanks are in popular doctrines doesn't help. If you don't utilize PAKs, StuGs, and Shreks then it can be hard. The answer isn't to buff PZ4 its to improve T4 teching and to make better use of combined arms. That's why your posts come off as "whine whine whine, plz buff". Sure there might be a problem but you aren't seeing the whole picture.

Edit: Post Censored By WiFi (lets not defame other users please)

Now that the Croc is a thing: no, Paks do NOT do the AT job. The last game I lost against a Croc, I was so frustrated that I calculated the probability of killing a Croc with a Pak. Here's the numbers:

Pak chance to penetrate front armour (the armour you will always shoot since that's where the flamethrower is): 70%

Number of penetrating shots required to kill the 1400hp: 9

Chance of penetrating 9 shots in a row: 4%

Chance the croc will kill all your packs before it dies: 100%
Chance the P4 can penetrate the croc: 39%
Chance the P4 can protect your paks from the flames from hell: 0%

This is way more of a croc problem than a P4 problem

The p4 is perfectly fine vs other nondoc mediums. It's still the best of any of them.

It seems like the problem people are having are with the doctrinal mediums. If that's the case shouldn't we be talking about delaying or increasing the price of those tanks instead of buffing the P4. Because doing that would completely mess up the normal medium match ups which are perfectly fine.

Not a bad suggestion. Ez8 @ 14CP/ or cost increased to 180/490 and T34 @11CP/or cost increased to 160/400.

hell nah

• Problem: This unit does not have a definite purpose. Is it AI? It can get destroyed by at nades, zook blobs (thanks for the price cut) while not hitting shit. Thanks to the recent recieved accuracy buffs, it has zero late game AI usability.
  
  Is it dedicated to AT? The penetration value is too low for that role and it might be only viable against t34/AEC. It can't even kite the Ez8. Is it a general purpose unit? Then it sucks balls in all departments. The cost difference between its counterparts is minimal yet the other 2 eat it like sushi. And before anyone yell that Ez8 is doctrinal, don't bother. Everyone is using that P2W doctrine right after USF got released til this day.
  
  

Solution:

• Cost adjustment: Fuel cost changed from 125 to 105. Popcap 8
  
• OR; Stats buffs with cost increase:
  Scatter changed from 7.5 to 6
  Penetration changed from 100/110/120 to 115/125/145
  Cost changed to 150F/390MP
  Additional thought; swap it with the pwerfer along with those stat buffs
  
• Add swapping HE/AP rounds for helping PV to be more viable for more micro
  

Fixed this for you.

Not a bad suggestion. Ez8 @ 14CP and T34 @11.

Jesus christ, why is every number you throw out completely rediculous. 14 cp is more then a tiger. 11 or 10 for both would give the P4 plenty of time to have it's dominance.

They should come out as maybe the second tank around the same time as a panther.

Yeah forgot about tiger's CP. It should come at the same time.

@Johnny: That is an interesting suggestion, but then the CMD PIV would lose its appeal.


ONTOPIC: Lets' forget about the timings mate. The PIV needs better performance, a buff is on the horizon

That is an interesting suggestion, but then the CMD PIV would lose its appeal.

What does that have to do with anything, it would remain the same. It's no advanced medium.

Yeah forgot about tiger's CP. It should come at the same time.

No they shouldn't. The impact between a tiger and an easy 8 is a huge difference. Easy 8s are nowhere near a strong.

I think the PIV needs to be cheaper. Actually all of Ost T3 should be cheaper when you compare it to the abomination that is Brit T3

True that. Was outplaying a brit on 1v1 kholodny ferma. Had fuel superiority (both fuels) for quite some time too, throughout the match. He built a wasp, AEC and had all 3 HQ upgrades. I build a 222 and HT. We both had first tanks (crom/pz4) out at the same time. Clearly, there is a fuel price issue here.

It should have a bit more pen with no price increase.

Since stock m4 sherman got a random pen increase with no adjustment either (though it can be pointed at its later timing than it was in the beginning).

Also I want to add. Look at Comet. This tank could be considered as "doctrinal" aswell, because you cant have both Churchill and Comet. But for some reason this unit cost you 185 fuel and its WEAKER in AT then Panther.

Comet you 185 fuel. Because its faster, have AI performance, 800 HP and nice penetration, can stand against all medium tanks, but could be damaged by AT guns and TDs, good range.

Panther cost 175 fuel. 800 HP Perfect frontal armor, good mobility, good range, zero AI perfomance, good penetration, weak to TDs.

E8 have 720 HP, mobility, good frontal armor against all medium tanks, good AI, really good penetration (200 penetration at close range), could be damaged by AT guns and TDs, can fight any Heavy tank frontally at close range or if flanking. Cost you 140 fuel

T34\85 have 800 HP, good mobility, good frontal armor against medium tanks (worst then E8 frontal armor, but it compensated by HP), decent penetration and decent AI performance, can fight all heavies if flanking. Cost you around 130 fuel.

PIV have 640 HP. Weak frontal armor without vet, with vet quite decent, decent AI performance, can fight all stock medium tanks, cant fight heavies even if flanking, good mobility, weak against all AT inf and tanks. Cost you 125 fuel.

Sherman have 640 HP. Weak frontal armor, poor AT perfomance, really good AI perfomance, decent mobility, cant fight heavies, weak against AT tanks, less weaker against AT inf.

T34\76 have 640 HP. Weak frontal armor, poor AT perfomance but better then shermans, decent AI, weak to any AT. Cost 90 fuel.

So how is this fair? Even for doctrinal units.

It would be interesting if another approach to buffing it rather than making it cheaper would be to make the Skirt vet give it 720 HP and at to kinda give it parity to the Sherman have it be able to switch between HE and AT shells, and then you could justify giving it an AT penetration buff.

Would make the unit better while enabling players with good micro to really make it shine IMO.

There are few hostile shit poster such as yourself whom I don't consider as "people".


As for your points, I'm not going to take them seriously when you selectively mention parts of my post and misinterpret everything I've wrote.

How did I misinterpret them? You said a bunch of stuff counters PZ4 and that it should counter Easy8s etc. I pointed out that AT nades, etc. aren't an issue and that its not the PZ4's role to be a heavy medium tank. Even if I was mistaken that doesn't make anything I wrote less true as to why PZ4 doesn't really need a buff either due to the counters you mentioned or the PZ4s role in the Ostheer faction. Please explain otherwise other than "I really want the PZ4 to be buffed because its not as good as I'd like it to be"

And here comes the problem both E8 and T34\85 could be compared with Panther, but not PIV. Yet, both E8 and T34\85 cost slightly more then PIV and out class it badly. So what the point of even having ost PIV is 10 more fuel E8 will dominate it all day long.

I have to agree with you on this point. But I would mainly suggest to increase it's penetration and it's hp a bit. This would make it a bit better so it's more of a threath. 1 on 1 the Ez8 still should win, but not by the huge margen it currently has.

So these changes should be put on both Pz4's. But keep the same cost, since the vet abilities of the OKW Pz4 is insane from vet 2+

Not a bad suggestion. Ez8 @ 14CP/ or cost increased to 180/490 and T34 @11CP/or cost increased to 160/400.

Why the easy 8 should cost more feul wise than I panther?
While a panther is waaay stronger? (witch it should be)

Reading this thread encouraged me to make my first post on this forum. It seems that many people are advocating for a performance increase for the Panzer IV. I don't think that this would actually fix the problem. It seems like this would shift the tank burden to UKF (Cromwell),USF (Sherman) and SU (76). Both USF and SU would have to select their corresponding doctrines just to stay competitive with a stock do-it-all Panzer IV. The poor Cromwell would be completely outclassed. This would force Allied players to buy TDs for a stock unit, and that would solve nothing because that solution already exists for Axis.

There are several solutions that do not require throwing this delicate tank balance. 1) Doctrine tanks or other units (cough... flame rifles) are indeed too powerful and require toning down a bit. 2) Maybe a different approach of tackling these two doctrinal tanks: players selecting these doctrines are doing so (in part) because of the specialized tank. Buying a TD might be the best bet. 3) A healthy combination of the 1 and 2. 4) Fix the teching issues so that Axis players can get to the Panther in a timely fashion to combat these two tanks.

The EZ8 might need to cost a bit more fuel if it severely outperforms the Panzer IV.

This is my admittedly (very) limited view on the balance of the Panzer IV. I may just need to play with the tank more to see how it holds up.