Here's my feedback on the balance patch, these are all opinions from 1v1/2v2/3v3 inhouse games with friends:
Centaur: Feels like it's in a good place now, can still wreck infantry but isn't over the top like before.
Flame damage vs garrisons: Feels better as well
Flame vehicles: WASP buff is great, was not performing with a 90 muni cost before with 6 dmg. Croc dmg nerf is justified though new armour value isn't (see churchills below)
Air Superiority: Nerfed wrong values... needs a 25-50% less damage vs emplacements, especially OKW trucks since they can be 1 shot with this ability. You really should be punished if you keep ANY unit in the AoE of this 320 Muni ability. Nerfing the AoE radius of the bombs still wont fix the problems most people had with this ability.
Heavy Artillery: 25% dmg nerf to buildings is an unnecessary change. Artillery already is underwhelming IMO due to its accuracy, only useful with anvil upgrade. If you let an IS or a 50 cal sniper get in range of your production trucks and buildings for an arty call in, you should be punished for it.
Pack Howi and LeIG: New firing arc is nice but barrage nerf is not. Players should be rewarded for a skillful barrages on blobs. IMO should have more suppression during barrages and should be the only time these guns pin squads. Guns should also pin if squads already suppressed by MGs. The role these weapons should have is to suppress approaching squads in the open which was what they were achieving in the past. Revert stats to pre-OP stats of both guns, buff barrages and keep the higher firing arc. I would also like to see them remove the auto turning and firing to make this unit more micro intensive.
IS section reinforce: Seems like a nice change. I feel like now I can have more than 2 IS squads if I wish to play an inf heavy game without being harshly punished by reinforcing.
Commandos Sten guns: Way overnerfed, If you want to keep them at this performance then their initial call in has to be cheaper in both the vanguard and commando regiment. 500/540+350MP is WAY too much for a squad which need heavy micro to use aggressively (moving them from cover to cover to get close to squads). Not to mention IR halftracks reveal stealth units and prevent them from using ambush bonus which makes them pretty much useless now. It's a nice dynamic how vanguard glider is defensive while commando glider is offensive and can disrupt a defensive line of team weapons. However, spending 500 MP to aggressively deploy a glider which will definitely take damage and lose it's reinforce ability on landing or during the engagement only for the squad to not have much shock value and bleed models on a well placed call in is disappointing. Here are my proposed changes 1) Change fire rate to 22 and keep MP costs 2) Keep nerfed stats, Reduce all MP of all glider call ins. P.S Also need to add their light gammon bomb needs to be on the level of Axis bundle nades. It seems like they do more damage than any nade in the game.
Churchill Tanks: Overnerfed, feels like Relic is unsure what role they want these tanks to fill, here are the choices I would make for it. 1) Make it a non-RNG dmg sponge which keeps the 1600HP, which needs 2 AT shots before fausted and changes the armour to 200. 2) A more 'standard' heavy tank with a mix of good armour (240-280) and decent HP (1400). As for the croc and AVRE variant, I believe they should have less HP and slightly less armour than normal Churchills. Also should add the defensive nades need to have same stats as mills bomb nades. Right now tank nades AoE seems huge.
Forward Assemblies: I'm surprised people aren't mentioning how easy it is to destroy these. One CAS AT strafe will kill it at full health which means a 120 Muni trade for a 400 (450?) MP if the retreat point has been bought. Needs either a 50% health buff and the Brace ability or a significant health buff of around 100-200%.
{etc.}
Great post and a lot of thoughtful changes suggested.
It does seem odd that rather than a gradual stepping down of supposedly OP units, Relic overdoes things and then steps them back up to get the right balance.
In both the case of the commando dps and Churchill armour it seems like they need to reduce the changes by 50% to get the right balance.
With these balance previews, do they read the responses here and adjust them before they put the patch live or is it pretty much a done deal?
It is also a shame that they don't appear to be acting on any other complaints players have expressed about the shortcomings of the British with regard to the deep flaws with their emplacements, which are supposed to be a mainstay of their faction.
I don't actually like the Commando glider call in as it stands - in the original CoH game it was a straight decent to the landing point, so you could choose to land behind it away from the enemy to keep their presence hidden. But now it circles the battlefield before landing so you might as well have a neon sign pop up to your opponents announcing that the commandoes are coming so they can prepare their counters.