British Forces 2v2 balanced?

Hello everyone

I am a bit at a loss. Before the okw patch I was rank 1 with brits in random 2 v 2 for about 2 weeks. While I am aware that this does not mean that I am the best 2v2 player due to how the matchmaking works it atleast goes to show that I am a somewhat competent player with brits.

Personal stuff not so relevant but to give a perspective:

Since the patch I have lost 6 games in a row (not counting the first 2 which were easy bad matchmaking wins)

Before I used to win between 7 and 15 games for each loss I had and have never had a loss streak of more than 2 games, not counting my first 10 to 15 games in which i was just messing arround and having "fun".

To be fair none of those were with a fair matchmaking either, me between rank 1 and meanwhile 20 i guess with rank 200 vs team 21 or with rank 1000 vs random 80 and 150 etc but still, I used to win most of those as you have to to gain a high rank.

More objective points:

I lost 2 games in a row vs the same 2 guys one of them beeing I believe crossfire. Then in my thrid game crossfire was playing with the brits as well, him beeing ranked 4 me rank 14 at the time or so. We faced against 2 random okw's ranked 2xx and 35x. Needless to say... we lost. To be fair, crossfire didnt play his best game and ended up with quite a lot worse stats then me but (and I wish i had the replay) the 2 okws just blobbed the shit out of us. There was 1 big shreck blob and 1 big füssilier blob. 2 top players got beaten by 2 low level blobbers. The "skill" put into stratetical decisions and tactical attacks was obviously strongly differing between the 2 teams and yet we lost. I know everyone looses but that game felt especialy hopeless. And I feel somewhat weird that the guy who beat me twice looses with me (with me having played marginaly better than him that game) against a lot worse opponents. The only conclusion that leaves to me is that it must be the factions.

I cant pinpoint exactly what the issue is. But I feel lost... I feel its mostly the IS not pulling their weight anymore especialy since they dont have a snare and okw now has a lot more vehicles and quite some more shrecks. I play with the command vehicle to buff my IS and still they often end up dying more then they kill. I know this is a very uninformative thread but I dont know what it is. I even use the very strong Artillery cover which alowed me in many games to take out jagdtigers and KTs with inferior forces but i still end up loosing.

Are there any other players experiencing the same? I feel very hopeless. I have seen relics stats and that the brits are lower but I believe this is only in 1v1? Are there any 2v2 stats?

Brits just handicapped faction with failed design, which remains relevant only thanks to op abilities (heroic charge, croc, covering arty). Without question worst faction to play randoms with due to lack of self-sufficiency. Bits cant do much on their own, and always forced to rely on teammates to carry them through early-mid game, which is utter failure in random scenario.

Brits can never field enough units, cannot trade cost efficiently without tanks, their teching and upgrades ensure tremendous amounts of bleed, emplacements are useless, gliders get shutdown by free OKW aa and cant be repaired, their medics are terrible and they don't have useful light vehicles.

Worst British problems:

1)Sections are garbage, both in cost-efficiency and performance, and the fact that you cant avoid them only makes things worse. Vetted OKW blobs walk over upgraded and vetted sections without any problems.

2)Their most expensive HMG (DSHK aside) in entire game gets gunner-killed and erased by blobs up front or rifle grenaded to death 99 times out of 100.

3)No viable light vehicles.

4)Maps. All factions suffer from bad maps, but Brits most of them all.

Not only you, I dropped from Top100 to Top600 in 2vs2 with USF faction. Experiencing countless of lose streak.

OKW>USF in all stage of the game
Oshteer tutulling by spaming MGs/pak to go straight T4 double panzerwerfer to rape anything you have on feet.

1)Sections are garbage, both in cost-efficiency and performance, and the fact that you cant avoid them only makes things worse. Vetted OKW blobs walk over upgraded and vetted sections without any problems

I think this is the biggest issue, atleast for me. Because not only did the OKW get stronger but also the IS got nerfed. When I invest 280 mp int a squad and have to spend another 300 mp and 30 fuel into unlocking squadsize + weapons and then 60 mun for a bren i expect them to be good. Atm sturms can most of the time just walk right up to IS at the start of the game nd defeat them. IS is 280 MP fighting unit and sturms a 320 MP utility/repair/combat unit so I would expect the IS to win like it did pre patch.

This is just one example. In that game I had 3 IS with 1 bren each (at vet 3 scoped einfield counts as weapon makimg the brits drop weapons after the first entitiy died if you double equip) buffed by a command vehicle and the blob just strode right past me, double shrecked the vehicle on range and proceeded to kill my infantry.

Also, what do the brits have vs blobs? They have no rocket arty, no mortars worth building in a competitive enviroment, no demos unless you go overnerfed commandos, no arty worth anything, no tank dealing massive AOE dmg... nothing.

Brits have had their coffins nailed in since last patch, which pisses the hell out of me since whoever plays it bought it as DLC, and I purchased the commanders aswell.

I think they need to add the land mattress (which is planned dlc?) to the base army as they REALLY lack decent anti blob units.

The crocodile comes too late and is a real sod to control now the pathing has been 'fixed'.

Brits if just handicapped faction with failed design, which remains relevant only thanks to op abilities (heroic charge, croc, covering arty). Without question worst faction to play randoms with due to lack of self-sufficiency. Bits cant do much on their own, and always forced to rely on teammates to carry them through early-mid game, which is utter failure in random scenario.

Brits can never field enough units, cannot trade cost efficiently without tanks, their teching and upgrades ensure tremendous amounts of bleed, emplacements are useless, gliders get shutdown by free OKW aa and cant be repaired, their medics are terrible and they don't have useful light vehicles.

Worst British problems:

1)Sections are garbage, both in cost-efficiency and performance, and the fact that you cant avoid them only makes things worse. Vetted OKW blobs walk over upgraded and vetted sections without any problems.

2)Their most expensive HMG (DSHK aside) in entire game gets gunner-killed and erased by blobs up front or rifle grenaded to death 99 times out of 100.

3)No viable light vehicles.

4)Maps. All factions suffer from bad maps, but Brits most of them all.

These are good points. I agree Brits maintain field presence with OP off maps and complete dependence on team.

Firefly basically one shoting tanks through FoW is stupid, but has to exist because there are no snares.

Maybe, like many others, people haven't adjusted to the new OKW. Previously they were pretty shite but now are pretty damn strong. Still need some adjustments for them and Brits but I haven't really been bothered with playing OKW in 2v2s. Definitely need some Brit adjustments for them as well to make them stronger. But this talk of IS being crappier is absurd considering they got the nerfs reverted from their recieved accuracy. With high accuracy and high rate of fire makes IS tough to shift if you know where and when to put them in cover. They just roll over Volks with brens, even Obers will struggle against Vet 3 IS with a Bren or two. Not to mention be MUCH cheaper than Obers and outscaling Volks. Vickers does have a slight issue with being pretty crappy at suppression but you get great damage and that amazing vet 1 boast to range in buildings (but what if there isn't any buildings!11!1!! Build trenches) Vickers scales crazy good and so does the Infantry Section.

Just pretty limited in what are good builds and what aren't for Brits atm. If you're struggling with blob get two vickers and have good placement. Not to mention cheap as hell mines that are amazing. Snipers also really help with manpower for Brits and Brits have one of the best healing as you can pull back a squad to quickly heal and send them back. Mortar pit is also pretty great with good placement. Brits also have effective field presence once you get a Field HQ up to retreat and regroup up at.

If you think it's bad now, you should have tried it in the week when popcap was horribly broken.

Personally I see their effective lack of indirect fire as one of the largest issues. I'd argue that brits aren't alone in this, but they are certainly in the weakest position with respect to indirect fire. This isn't exactly new - it has been a gaping hole since the brits launched, but before you could use stuff like the centaur, churchill, AVRE and crocodile to push through a defensive line, along with some of the stronger off map options. Since most all of those were nerfed, it's much harder to do now and the lack of viable indirect fire becomes much more critical.

On the other side of things brits don't have much defense against a reasonably defended panzerwerfer or stuka zu fuss.


What really bothers me about brits though is more that there are obvious issues like the sexton and valentine that haven't been touched despite being plainly useless to the point of broken.

After OKW got buffed, alot of players jumped back to play them again in randoms. Alot of good players I mean. It used to be that most top 2s players went as allies, now it's more evened out because OKW is actually viable in 1s and 2s.

I don't want to say you guys are getting outplayed, but you'll probably get more bad random teammates as allies compared to OKW.

Not only you, I dropped from Top100 to Top600 in 2vs2 with USF faction.

Maybe something to do with allies beeing stronk for so long that your top100 was due that?
It's like complaining you lost ranks becasue faction x is UP but beeing silent when you get Easy Wins/ranks when faction x is OP :^)

Brits if just handicapped faction with failed design, which remains relevant only thanks to op abilities (heroic charge, croc, covering arty). Without question worst faction to play randoms with due to lack of self-sufficiency. Bits cant do much on their own, and always forced to rely on teammates to carry them through early-mid game, which is utter failure in random scenario.

Brits can never field enough units, cannot trade cost efficiently without tanks, their teching and upgrades ensure tremendous amounts of bleed, emplacements are useless, gliders get shutdown by free OKW aa and cant be repaired, their medics are terrible and they don't have useful light vehicles.

Worst British problems:

1)Sections are garbage, both in cost-efficiency and performance, and the fact that you cant avoid them only makes things worse. Vetted OKW blobs walk over upgraded and vetted sections without any problems.

2)Their most expensive HMG (DSHK aside) in entire game gets gunner-killed and erased by blobs up front or rifle grenaded to death 99 times out of 100.

3)No viable light vehicles.

4)Maps. All factions suffer from bad maps, but Brits most of them all.

amen

Whilst I agree sections are the worst thing about Brits right now, I think the other issues such as the vickers gunner-death lock pale in comparison with their total lack of non-doc late-game indirect fire - the base howitzers and suxton mainly.

The lack of a decent light vehicle is partly made up for the low cost (underpriced IMO) Cromwell, though I suspect that the volks-schrek 'meta' hides this problem by limiting the effectiveness of allied light armour across the board.

As for maps, narrow, small or defined-lane maps like Kharkov can be utterly dominated by a bofors/mortar combo, whereas larger or more open maps tend to end in disaster, though I suspect this is more due to the fact that Brit infantry sucks so hard that you get out-capped and out fought by cheaper, more versatile units.

Edit: @Krötentöten, here's the stats for all game sizes - coh2chart.com

If you think it's bad now, you should have tried it in the week when popcap was horribly broken.

Personally I see their effective lack of indirect fire as one of the largest issues. I'd argue that brits aren't alone in this, but they are certainly in the weakest position with respect to indirect fire. This isn't exactly new - it has been a gaping hole since the brits launched, but before you could use stuff like the centaur, churchill, AVRE and crocodile to push through a defensive line, along with some of the stronger off map options. Since most all of those were nerfed, it's much harder to do now and the lack of viable indirect fire becomes much more critical.

On the other side of things brits don't have much defense against a reasonably defended panzerwerfer or stuka zu fuss.


What really bothers me about brits though is more that there are obvious issues like the sexton and valentine that haven't been touched despite being plainly useless to the point of broken.

Yeah this seems to be the reoccurring culprit with the brits. Their design is very lacking with big holes which so far have been filled by OP units in other segments like your mentioned crocodile, with those units beeing brought back in line and even overnerfed in most cases in my opinion (churchill, churchill avre, crocodile ((when have you last seen those in a top 200 game???)) Commandos, airlanding officer) those gaps can easily be exploited.

 

Maybe something to do with allies beeing stronk for so long that your top100 was due that?
It's like complaining you lost ranks becasue faction x is UP but beeing silent when you get Easy Wins/ranks when faction x is OP :^)

I am sorry to burst your bubble but this post is logically flawed. Weather you win or loose often has to do with the abilities of your opponents compared to yours. Your RANK does not. Your rank shows your place within your own faction. If the axis side has more better players now then that would mean that every US player in his case looses more, keeping them in the same respective position to one another. Him loosing that many ranks means that either he played more than others and therefor his rank sunk quicker then the other US players due to more losses more quickly but they will eventualy catch up, or he adapted worse to the patch than the others. Or a lot more players started playing US who are simply better than him.

But this talk of IS being crappier is absurd considering they got the nerfs reverted from their recieved accuracy. With high accuracy and high rate of fire makes IS tough to shift if you know where and when to put them in cover. They just roll over Volks with brens, even Obers will struggle against Vet 3 IS with a Bren or two. Not to mention be MUCH cheaper than Obers and outscaling Volks. Vickers does have a slight issue with being pretty crappy at suppression but you get great damage and that amazing vet 1 boast to range in buildings (but what if there isn't any buildings!11!1!! Build trenches) Vickers scales crazy good and so does the Infantry Section.

Just pretty limited in what are good builds and what aren't for Brits atm. If you're struggling with blob get two vickers and have good placement. Not to mention cheap as hell mines that are amazing. Snipers also really help with manpower for Brits and Brits have one of the best healing as you can pull back a squad to quickly heal and send them back. Mortar pit is also pretty great with good placement. Brits also have effective field presence once you get a Field HQ up to retreat and regroup up at.

I think you should read the patchnotes a little closer. IS got 3 nerfs, received acc right out of the gate, received acc at vet 2 and accuracy at vet 3. Of the 3 only rec. Acc out of the gare got reverted. Vet 2 remains nerfed and vet 3 as well, from 40 % to 20 %, so no, IS actualy scale a lot worse now. And any sane player in my opinion doesnt equip IS with double brens because a) you need the mun for those offmaps to keep you ingame and b) at vet 3 those damn scoped einfields count as weapons making the IS loose weapons as soon as their first Entitiy dies (second if bolstered) instead of the 4th with riflemen. The very very last thing you want is even volks with a bren because guess what? They have better accuracy with it with vet then IS. If füssiliers get it or obers or any other elite inf you can only pray.

On the subject of cover. I wished they removed the "bonus" entirely because all it truly serves to do is confuse people who did not put the admittedly out of scale effort in to research what exactly it does. Its about a 7 % dps increase the rest of the combat increase is what every other squad gets as well in green cover.

I believe we do not play in the same ranks if you say mortar pit is usefull especialy against okw since 1 leig destroys it with utter certainty in a matter of a minute having already payed off its cost and continueing to be usefull later.

I've found the easiest faction to win with is OKW

most difficult are Brits...

most players will report similar experiences/opinions.

After OKW got buffed, alot of players jumped back to play them again in randoms. Alot of good players I mean. It used to be that most top 2s players went as allies, now it's more evened out because OKW is actually viable in 1s and 2s.

I don't want to say you guys are getting outplayed, but you'll probably get more bad random teammates as allies compared to OKW.

That is also my experience. Just yesterday again vs 2 ranks 200 with a rank 1400 mate... we won but i again had to have double the damage and kills then my mate. Atleast it sufficed this time. I believe it has to do with very few good people actualy playing with brits or allies in general due to the shift in OKW power amd not wanting to loose their ranks. I know for a fact that some players in the top 10 have only played 1 game to keep their ranks up. Still I believe there is also a balance problem at the root of this.

But here's the thing... As you dropped from rank 1 to rank 16, others went the opposite way and gained rank. So in their eyes the Brits work better now. To use only your own fall in rank as proof that the Brits have been nerfed too much is not very scientific. You have to take into account that others have perhaps adapted to the new meta better than you.

But here's the thing... As you dropped from rank 1 to rank 16, others went the opposite way and gained rank. So in their eyes the Brits work better now. To use only your own fall in rank as proof that the Brits have been nerfed too much is not very scientific. You have to take into account that others have perhaps adapted to the new meta better than you.

You know what rappy? I holeheartedly agree! I intended to make that point clear in the OP, maybe I didnt. That hole portion is purely gut feeling and to a not small part to vent some of my frustration. I do believe however that the british have 2 core problems in the game atm 1 is the IS not realy pulling their weight due to to high cost for result especialy considering they should be better due to no snare and the other lack of indirect fire for blob control. Before you could just kill blobs, now not realy possible anymore. Plus the entire OKW change is yet to be truly balanced I find. I experience different games entirely when playing against double okw then if playing mixed or double ostheer. Against double ostheer they do fine. Equally I experience a lot easier time when facing double brits as axis then anything else.

Also as pointed out by looney, atm you cinda get very screwed matchups regarding team ranks (atleast in my last 10 games) with the axis beeing arround the same ballpark whilst allies have up to 1000 ranks difference. I believe that many of the people on high ranks as brits atm cind if just dont play much and got luckier with matchups.

But anyway, thats not wprth discussing as nothing can be done. I do believe though that the british are lacking in some departments atm.

But here's the thing... As you dropped from rank 1 to rank 16, others went the opposite way and gained rank. So in their eyes the Brits work better now. To use only your own fall in rank as proof that the Brits have been nerfed too much is not very scientific. You have to take into account that others have perhaps adapted to the new meta better than you.

I went UP 30 places (~135 to ~104) due to not playing brits in the last few days. I'd imagine this is the result of me not tanking my win rate like the poor sods who are slogging it out. Dropped from top 50 in 2s and 3s to ~200 in both modes when the patch first hit. No surprise that Brits have been the least played faction in top 150 - those that play them are likely to drop out of that bracket pretty fast!