Comet Vet needs to be looked at (suggestion inside)

Hi to everyone,

Intro: (skip to UPPERSCALE issue if not interested)

Longtime reader first time poster.

I am not an amazing micro player, hence I gave up on 1 v 1 a loooong time ago, but I do consider myself good at macro and figuring out which units serve me best in which situation and this has lead me to an issue I would like to share with you.

I have played a lot of brits lately and it has happened to me a lot of times that I am swimming in fuel in the endgame but dont have anything of value to spend it on. In my opinion more than 1 firefly is most of the time reduntant (most of the time!) and going for more cromwells/centaurs, whilst beeing ok, is not realy what you wish to do when you are reaching the stages of a game where you are fighting tigers and panthers or even elefants/jagdtigers. The same way as you dont go for p4s or stugs if you have enough fuel/mp for t4 or go for p4j when you have resources to get a panther or KT.

This brings me to the late game stock tank options of the british. I very much believe the churchill to be a unit that does not hold up to my concept of beeing good (it's simply too damn slow and not tough enough anymore to compensate for it) in just about any situation for its price, especialy not with the upcomming patchnotes. Whenever I play any axis faction I am always happy to see the free XP providers that are churchills. I have seen plenty of topics on the churchill already and would thus rather focus on the other option about whom I have rarely seen any comments at all. The comet.

Now, I think the comet is a wonderful tank and congratulate relic on balancing it as it compares wonderfuly to the panther, slightly more expensive with worse AT in trade of acceptable AI and faster speed. The panther brawls from afar with the option of persueing almost any tank or outmanouvreing turretless tanks and blitzing out whilst the comet is supposed to strike in fast and get out fast and handily defeat anything weaker than a panther whilst also dealing some damage to infantry.

My personal grief with the unit lies with the COMETS VETERANCY

At vet 0 the comet and the panther work out nicely against each other, or the comet and any other decent tank when looking at its price/performance ratio in its intended role.

The comets vet though is as follows.

Vet 1 White phosporus
Vet 2 Turret horizontal movement spend increased by 35%,+30% accuracy
Vet 3 Speed increased by 30%,Crew will attack nearby targets with their grenades by default,acceleration and decelleration increased by 20%

Now, these vet bonuses are by no means bad, but if you compare it again with the tanks ingame at the time of its window of action you see how the comets role shifts dramaticaly into a point where to me its "useless"

The panther gains

Vet 1 Blitz
Vet 2 +10% armour +20% health, +40% weapon rotation speed
Vet 3 -30% reload, +20% rotation speed, +10% ac/de-celeration

So whilst I stand a chance at a 1 v 1 at vet 0 knowing that the advantage is (as it should be) slightly in the favour of the panther, the situation gets bad at vet 2 and drasticaly worse at vet 3. All of a sudden my Comet cannot hold up in the role I bought him for, to be a slightly weaker form of AT whilst beeing okish at AI.

A vet 2 or even 3 panther is a LOT better at his AT duty than a vet 0 one,the comet gains nothing of value, well... not nothing, it gets even better at flanking yet this is in my humble experience not a very deciding factor in top level games, you will flank with the comet the same without that extra speed and turret traverse in the same situations with about the same effect, whilst it helps you nothing in those where you wouldnt flank which are more common.

One can even say that it doesnt even get better at AI. Yes it gets 30 % more accuracy, but we all know that vs infantry most of the hits are made by scatter anyway. And it's vet 3, whilst looking very cool is again I believe not realy how you want to use your comet.

I dont want to drive my 185 fuel 500 mp tank up close to infantry of which most of can either directly damage it (shreck) or worse, snare it, a snared comet looses its one saving grace, its mobility. Since the comet has only 800 hp 1 AT shot beforehand is enough to get in snared by a panzerfaust. I ESPECIALLY dont want to do that when my tank is vet 3. So unless I am stomping noobs, my vet 3 comet will hardly ever actualy throw those grenades, and if he does actualy kill something that isnt already retreating.

The same issue holds true with any other tank it would potentialy face against, they all get substantialy better with vet at AI or AT or even both like the tiger.

I thereby suggest that the comet needs to have a bit more of the standard vet along the lines of 30 % reload and possibly more pen.

Maybe I shouldnt add this line, but I did not do the actualy math, but while at vet 0 the comet and panther have about a 40 % to 60 % (panther) chance to win. At vet 3 it changes to a 10 % to 90 % chance only ever happening if the panther miraculously fails to constantly penetrate the lower armor of the comet who in turn again miraculously manages to pen every single shot on the panthers much higher armour with a much weaker gun.

And if, for the sake of argument, you woul assume for an instant that the comet does get better at AI with vet, it again is not why I was willing to spend those resources in the first place. I payed them for a tank that is SLIGHTLY worse at AT whilst beeing a lot better at AI than the panther, and since this comparison is in my favour I am willing to pay more resources for the comet than the panther. With vet though, this comparison falls apart, I am far far worse at AT whilst still beeing approximatly the same or as I said lets pretend, slightly better at AI than I was before.

If I wanted a tank that is mostly AI I would have gone for the Cromwell, you could even go as far and say that the comets intended role is to FLANK other tanks all the time that even in that role a vet 3 cromwell performs better than a vet 3 comet since the cromwell actualy does get 30 % reload speed whilst beeing about the same fast and since we are flanking an shooting at weaker rear armour the additional pen of the comet doesnt matter.

The issue with all british tanks (except firefly) is that they vet up extremely fast, but the vet bonuses are mediocre. It's probably intentional though.

The issue with all british tanks (except firefly) is that they vet up extremely fast, but the vet bonuses are mediocre. It's probably intentional though.

Cromwell vet is pretty good, better than T-34 and Sherman.

the comet has more generalist vet than the V, which isn't necessarily an issue but the way the game is designed, AT is worth more than generalist improvements.

i understand where you're coming from but i'm having a hard time deciding if it's actually an issue or not. i think the biggest point though is how strong that extra armour and (especially) health is for the V.

the comet has more generalist vet than the V, which isn't necessarily an issue but the way the game is designed, AT is worth more than generalist improvements.

i understand where you're coming from but i'm having a hard time deciding if it's actually an issue or not. i think the biggest point though is how strong that extra armour and (especially) health is for the V.

Thanks for the replies so far. I dont think the panthers vet is too good or that the unit overperforms on any level. Rather I tried to convey, that you go for the comet for a certain role you want it to perform. This beeing a high tier AT platform with its strengths beeing acceptable pen and armor/hp with high speed with mediocre AI.

I btw holeheartedly agree that AT>AI if it werent, the fuel points wouldnt be the most sought after points, if his vehicles are gone, yours, no matter how mediocre will rule uncontested and it will allow you to build pure AI vehicles that will rain supreme.

But anyhow, back to the point. The comet looses his spot in the army balance once vet kicks in. You dont have (in comparison to panther/tiger with the same vet) good at anymore. And when i play a game vs people on my skill level I expect them to have the same veterancy on their tanks. They get significantly stronger whilst the comet does not. It doesnt even get stronger in its AI role as I hopefuly understandably and retracably pointed out in my original post.

Useless vet is not singular to the comet. But it is one of the few very expensive units (the KTs only truly useful vet is also only vet 5) with useless vet and especialy since its direct competitors have great vet.

I disagree that many brit vehicles have issues with the vet conparison with axis. Cromwell, all churchilks and centaur all have perfectly fine vet (engine repair even is nuts...) and inline with other factions. But the comet does not.

Edit: And even IF the comet actualy got better in its AI role with vet, less scater more aoe etc... I would still be very unhappy with it because it goes from 85 ÷ panther AT lvl and 200% panther AI lvl with 10% more price to 20% panther AT lvl and x % panther AI lvl. If I wanted a tank with that cind of AT and AI in comparison with the panther I would have went for the cromwell. Which, i repeat myself, with vet 3 and the assumptiom of flanking a tiger even has better AT, from the front they are both hopelessly lost at vet 3 vs tiger/panther.

Think of it this way... Comet with vet will help you kill you inf, so your other units/ats can kill the panther.

You seem to forget that the Comet is also very potent vs infantry, as where the Panther does virtually nothing without the pintle mounted mg. Even when it has the pintle mounted mg, it is still pretty questionable vs infantry apart from perhaps some crush.

vet 3 adds no micro grenade of doom for at guns, which the crew does automatically. Vet 1 needs to be looked at, the phosphorus round just needs to be non vet ability and vet 1 needs to changed. To what, I couldn't think of it, perhaps capture?

I stopped reading at

I very much believe the churchill to be a unit that does not hold up to my concept of beeing good

The biggest issue with the comet ATM is the fact it can't groundfire effectively (same with the firefly thanks to the projectile they use).

So suddenly you pop smoke on your panther w/e you are basically invulnerable because all his shots will just hit dirt.

Add in the fact smoke/WP rounds are glitched and you might as well just spam cromwells+6 pounders now churchills are nerfed into the ground.

The biggest issue with the comet ATM is the fact it can't groundfire effectively (same with the firefly thanks to the projectile they use).

So suddenly you pop smoke on your panther w/e you are basically invulnerable because all his shots will just hit dirt.

Add in the fact smoke/WP rounds are glitched and you might as well just spam cromwells+6 pounders now churchills are nerfed into the ground.

17-pounder have this issue too. Who in Relic got the bright idea of introducing hit scan weapon for tank weapons, Brit got riddled with bugs since release and now Lelic wants to make more commander.

I stopped reading at

Well if you stopped reading there then I guess I am rather happy you didnt comment on anything else...

I dont know but I believe we might play on different levels, on high level play, the churchill is never worth its price.