the USF strafe pins AND does damage to squads caught in the line of fire. the ostheer strafe only pins and deals NO damage. the damage is actually really significant and can easily wipe low health squads in the line of fire. if you increase the damage too much, you run the risk of wiping squads that are at 75% of hp, and if the damage is too high, you can wipe full health squads. do you really want that? do you really want for a strafe to wipe a full health squad?
Yeah, the ability does a deceptive amount of damage. The real problem is that the area it targets is not very accurately displayed by the targeting marker. It only really does the damage around the "end" and the "middle" of the strafe line...? I don't even have a great feel for it yet.
The ability feels bad because it is extremely inconsistent. The first time I used the ability it spectacularly failed to do anything at all. No supression, no damage, nothing. The infantry I had targeted had barely moved.
The next time I fired it off it killed like 10 enemy models. Strafed straight through the center of three volks squads and ate one of them alive while badly crippling the other two.
It's possible that this ability will become quite powerful once players understand it. However I'd prefer a more moderate ability that was consistently useful.