Need help as soviets

I accept the flaming and german fanboism that this thread will stir and will most likely try to kill me for saying this.

I need help as my last game i am just being destroyed, which is quite unusual since the start of the closed beta's, dont get me wroung i can win by abusing HtD doctrine and using an M3, but i would like to be able to play diffrently.

My conscripts cant seem to win 1v1 against grens, vet 0 no upgrades, i had one instance they lost out when in gren cover vs yellow, should cons loose consistently to grens? do i need to always take them one 2 v 1?

but for the most part i am able to retain about 60% of the map against a relative similarly skilled player but in my last 10 games i seem to be countered, if i go t1 my M3 gets wrecked by a 222 or we get a stalemate when i put guards in it, either we loose both or stay away from each other and then a flamer half track comes out and i loose the map + some of my units, i rush to su 85 if i managed to hold on which handles the flame track but i am outnumbered by infantry and end up loosing.

If i go t2 i see alot of Pgren + german snipers (they are pretty good) and i cant get a good counter to them and just suffer huge MP drains from the sniper and get forced off the map by the Pgrens with out HtD, i have tried getting shocks but a flamer track comes up and roasts them.


At the end of it i seem to be unable to handle what the germans throw at me as they always come up with the perfect counter. i have no idea how to kill a sniper with t2. how to handle a flame half track with t1(before you say it they keep a 222 near it so my M3 dies and the guards get roasted). When i get to T4 and destroy there first tank they stop putting there vehicles up in front and use it to hit from the back field while pushing up shreks grens to kill it or wait for a tiger whilst i loose map control.

How do other soviets survive this without abusing the game.

Considering the utility of German T1 (Having MG42 insta pin, Grens with MG42 and nades > HTD, Sniper, and a mortar team) they have an easy and instant answer to anything we can possibly do from the get-go with the example of clown car sniper (which I've got 30+ kills with and still lost) there's not a lot I feel can be done. Apparently some people are still losing anyways, but Ostheer feels simply like the easier race to me. If your opponent isn't retarded enough to just stand in Molotovs for the first 5 minutes its easy to take enough map control to keep your fuel with MG's and just rush P4 and then GG because Guards Rifles are a joke to anything past the scout car and T3 does jack shit.

My only reasonable advice is against snipers, build a counter scope since we've got 2 man squads, or if you went support building just try to Oorah into the sniper. ZiS AT gun barrage ability is actually quite good against snipers and MG42's, so that might be a place where you can start attempting to counter some of this.

With our lackluster AT until SU-85, I think AT guns are mandatory at this point.

List of units to not build:
T70 (everyone will debate this, but mines on retreat path + Shreks > this piece of shit. MG42 AP rounds + a faust will fuck this thing up too)

Half Track (Quad does practically nothing, although I'm not sure about the usage vs the insanely effective strafing run that takes our units from retreating to pinned/dead)

T34 (If you have T3, he probably has T3 and P4's > T34 outright. You can ram and not kill the P4 with guards/AT nades because they're trash, T34 does literally almost nothing to tanks as far as damage goes. Not to mention P4 has an MG upgrade that makes you useful against two types of units, where as T34 is just good at immobilizing itself and doing no damage to tanks and infantry alike)

Penal Squads (360 MP for conscripts that can't throw AT nades, good way to lose to flamer HT instantly)

80mm Mortar Squad (Nerfed into the ground, not accurate enough to do a reasonable MP drain)

Su-76 (Mounted with an AT gun. Literally does no damage to tanks, sick logic. Only reasonable time to get this is if they're spamming Pgrens/Grens and you like giving Shrek squads Veterancy)

Katyusha (One shotted by everything, granted it is an effective arty unit. Not worth building until you have 2 SU-85's on the field unless you're doing some weird AT gun Guards rifle spam tactic that won't work anyways because you're not going scout cars.)

I'm not going to flame you guys, but as a predominantly Ostheer player who is routinely kicked to death by Soviet cheese tactics I ain't gonna help you either

Having said that, maps maps maps. I think that vCoH almost had 'plays' for certain maps that hasn't really developed in CoH2 yet.

I'm not going to flame you guys, but as a predominantly Ostheer player who is routinely kicked to death by Soviet cheese tactics I ain't gonna help you either

Having said that, maps maps maps. I think that vCoH almost had 'plays' for certain maps that hasn't really developed in CoH2 yet.

I'm a predominate Soviet that usually causes huge MP drain to my opponent, then I find myself getting kicked to death by the almighty utility that is every single Ostheer unit

Crells i have same problems and 3v3 /4v4 you cant win vs germans because sooner or later tanks will rape you.
1v1 you need to win in few first minutes or with passing time you are facing with stronger and stronger resistance until tanks arrive and masacre your units.
Closed 1v1 maps are favoring germans because of SU range or ZiS obstructed field of view. Tanks will hide from ZiS, infantry will flank your SU.

221s are countered by basic infantry with small arms fire and AT nade.
The 222 is no longer infantry viable as is largely useless against anything exceot further M3s.
Guard also effectively counter it.

FHTs are problematic due to retreat dmg, as are all flame affects.
AT nade it to reduce its speed, and focus on map control.
Guard are effective vs it, especiakly when crippled by an AT nade,
Fast tech to T70 will counter it, but will probably result in a fast PIV inncurrent meta, afterwhich you will be hard pressed to get a T34 or Su85. Map and especially fuel control is essential for this tech route.

Personally I recommend going for a ZiS instead, and Maxims to maintain map control.

Cheaper and more efficient mine use is also something to consider in preventing FHTs from overruning your positions, particularly in conjunction with ZiS. You can afford the mines, since Ost sunk 120 muni into the flamer upgrade.

221s are countered by basic infantry with small arms fire and AT nade.
The 222 is no longer infantry viable as is largely useless against anything exceot further M3s.
Guard also effectively counter it.

FHTs are problematic due to retreat dmg, as are all flame affects.
AT nade it to reduce its speed, and focus on map control.
Guard are effective vs it, especiakly when crippled by an AT nade,
Fast tech to T70 will counter it, but will probably result in a fast PIV inncurrent meta, afterwhich you will be hard pressed to get a T34 or Su85. Map and especially fuel control is essential for this tech route.

Personally I recommend going for a ZiS instead, and Maxims to maintain map control.

Cheaper and more efficient mine use is also something to consider in preventing FHTs from overruning your positions, particularly in conjunction with ZiS. You can afford the mines, since Ost sunk 120 muni into the flamer upgrade.

Thank you for your input nullist but i do have a few things to comment on.


Firstly you said the 221 are countered by basic infantry, i find this slightly incorrect, when i play ostheer i normaly grab a 221 and use it like i use an M3, i keep it at max range out of range from AT nades and if you keep away from the nade you will win against 1 squad of cons. if you micro better than him and he retreats to late you can run the squad down, i have done it many times.

I like the idea of field guns, problem is they normaly get a halftrack AFTER they have seen an M3 and normally dealt with it, which leaves me with 2 options. grab a zis and delay my tanks by ALOT, or rush t70 which locks me into t3 and grants me practically NO AT, no field guns and only the t34's main gun, while that deals with the FHT it just goes poof vs anything bigger.

I guess the bottom line is, a smart German will counter your build, and if he can deal with the M3's or T70'sreliably (the only things that is extremly strong imo) they will out counter you and suddenly you cant do anything. soviets biggist weakness is it's lack of versatile units. The only good thing for them apart from the above units is the mines

I truly believe if the m3 and t70 get nerfed and nothing else happens, soviets will be unable to win vs an equally skilled german.

@ Crells: Oorahing Cons have np AT nading 221. Ost Armor teching is fuel intensive. I recommend ZiSs first alongside the supoort options to maintain map control and deprive fuel so you can tech armor.

M3 and infantry open garrison is too powerful as is T70s AI.

Fuel is the key and what decides between equal opponents who comes out ontop.

I've been playing a lot of 3v3 and 4v4 (am waiting for some balance patch for 1v1) and, yeah, as Ostheer I win 75% of the time. You can't balance 3v3 and 4v4, it really does come down to skill.

When I get beat by Soviets its because they play as a team in a way you don't have to as Ost. Good Sovs will swarm fuel points and use scripts to full advantage. You will see early MG teams and Zis. SU85 will appear early and will be used intelligently with teammates other AT assets. They will *always* push forwards. They will be well supported with mortars. Early German light vehicles will be pwned with nades and guards.

I just won a game on the Steppes map where the Soviet player was good but kept falling back. He made good use of M3 and maxim teams but didn't use early infantry properly. Specifically, he saw me going for a big T1 with grens and went *duh* guards. Had he gone shocks with snipers I'd have been in for a world of hurt. When a guy on my team lost the middle fuel point and I sent a flamer halfie up there there was no ZiS.

Oh, and given the Ostheer preference for Stuka spam at the moment (I am indeed guilty) I am seeing a resurgence of the AA halfie by the soviets. I've never seen so many plane crashes in one game. Plus, the M5 allows you to reinforce in the field... on those big maps it's a long walk back to the front!

So my point is (and this is where lobbies are so important) that the teams need to decide who is making what.

Good soviet teams in big games are a terrifying joy to behold - perpetual motion with excellent joint arms operability.

Love this awesome post, keep it up

Right now Soviets are insanely OP if you try to exploit T70, clown cars, HTD, and Maxims but if you don't play abusively they are pretty weak.

^ Basilone, in your opinion what needs to be done with Sovs to balance them fully but not nerf them?

Sigh, 20 hrs in, 12 posts deep, and no one sees the sarcasm.

^ Basilone, in your opinion what needs to be done with Sovs to balance them fully but not nerf them?

There are a lot of different ways to nerf the OP stuff so I'll just list how to strengthen some of the weaker areas.

-Increase small arms damage output from all units proportionally. Soviets are the more offensive based faction, but with weapons so weak the offensive punch is really lacking. If you flank a MG you really depend on lucky crits to take it down quickly. A vcoh weapon crew getting flanked needed to react immediately or it would go down, not the case here. To make the main combat infantry effective (conscripts), you are forced to take a PPSH doctrine. Even with the PPSH they are still considerably weaker than BAR'd rifles, and they are relying on the OP defensive ability (HTD) to win engagements rather than the actual damage output. This same thing applies for Shocks- they put out very little damage compared to Rangers with Thompsons but they win engagements because of their godlike resilience to small arms fire. This would also give Germans an easier time taking down the near invulnerable 6 man support units.

-Reduce fuel on T34 back to 75, and add a munition cost of 50-75muni for Ram. If the Panzer 4 is going to totally outclass the T34/76, then the T34 should have a numerical advantage. That one advantage was lost with reducing the fuel differentiation to 20.

-Katyusha should fire all rockets at the same time.

-Reduce muni cost for the IL2 strafe to around 150.

-Make Penals more effective by reducing cost to around 280-300.

-Reduce T70 rate of fire by about half, but decrease fuel cost to 25-30 so it functions more like a M8 rather than lightly armored terminator.

-Some of the doctrines are just not viable because of the amount of resources they require. I don't remember the name but one of them includes T34/85 and IS2, how the hell is someone going to have enough fuel to manage that? NKVD doctrine offers no units but has 4 different expensive munition abilities. If a doctrine is going to lack early game strength but provide strong late game stuff, they should reduce the cost of that stuff within that one doctrine so that it is actually obtainable. In no realistic scenario will someone afford to use recon runs, rapid conscription, airburst prop artillery, and IL2 strafe all in the same game unless it comes at a discounted price.

-Some of the doctrines are just not viable because of the amount of resources they require. I don't remember the name but one of them includes T34/85 and IS2, how the hell is someone going to have enough fuel to manage that? NKVD doctrine offers no units but has 4 different expensive munition abilities. If a doctrine is going to lack early game strength but provide strong late game stuff, they should reduce the cost of that stuff within that one doctrine so that it is actually obtainable. In no realistic scenario will someone afford to use recon runs, rapid conscription, airburst prop artillery, and IL2 strafe all in the same game unless it comes at a discounted price.

That's actually quite an interesting idea and could help make the doctrine choices far more deep, massively fix the useless ones, and allow for tweaking one without upsetting others. +1

I am completely shocked by this thread, i was expecting half a dozen "L2P OP STRATS" posts and maybe 1 helpfull, please keep up the good work.


After more experimenting i am finding a 3 con into sniper build to be quite effective, i will use the m3 with flamers IF they go heavy MG's as it is our breakout unit after all, but the strat does not rely on it.

The only thing i am kinda bummed out about right now is the complete dependency on getting guards if the ostheer go for HT.

Any idea how to add some light AT into early mid game?

You can flat out counter his MGs with Maxims.

One of the strongest Sov builds atm is Maxim spam.

Nullist i meant with that build order, which involves getting t1, i am fully aware maxims are the anti HMG counter atm for a reason only relic knows.

" Any idea how to add some light AT into early mid game?"

Strictly speaking, no "AT" is needed early game, because there are no early Ost tanks

But interms of light vehicle counters, the M3 can, even without garrison, face off against both the 221 and the F/HT.

People seem to forget the FHT does jack to vehicles. And since HT armor got nerfed, the M3s 50cal can face off against it in both its Flame and vanilla variants.

222 will beat it ofc, but the 221 only barely (I think, havent tested, but according to the dps/armor stats I think its a very close fight). With garrison of Cons it will wipe the floor with a 221.

Come to think of it, this is the first time even I have considered M3s actual viability vs F/HT and 221.

Oo

Aren't guards some form of light early-midgame AT?

They're still useful against T3.