Simple suggestion to essentially buff Ostwinds

Add a Hold Fire option to the Ostwind.

Change its tooltip help to say it's "Effective against aircraft, light units, while stationary."

As it stands right now, I'd say the unit does underperform a bit, but the Ostwind does its role fairly well...while it's still. Once it starts moving, its crew has to be blessed by RNGesus for the vehicle to hope to kill two guys in a entire burst.

The unit seems to be intended as a more defensive one made to work together with other forces, as is fitting for the Wehrmacht faction. That's just fine with me, but it is inevitable for the unit to have to kite while engaged due to it having a completely normal range for tanks. This doesn't bother other AI tanks that fire single shells at a time very much as counting the reload timers for them is pretty easy to do, but the Ostwind fires in long bursts that makes it difficult to time stopping it between bursts for all of its fire to be shot optimally once enemies get in range. The similar Centaur can deal with firing in bursts far easier due its bursts being much shorter in duration.

Hold Fire would allow the unit to alleviate this weakness with micromanagement. Therefore, adding this small feature will let its users to deal with its most noticeable weakness by easing the possibility for them to control it around that weakness effectively while not outright changing the unit's current general concept and specifics.

I personally feel it would benefit greatly from an AOE increase on shell explosion. Something that deals more consistent (moderate) damage to groups so that a few indirect hits can kill models. As it stands, it's pretty useless against blobs, and that's what it should be excellent against.

The ability to manually reload its magazine could be interesting too (also for HMG teams). Sometimes when the enemy makes an attack, the Ostwind makes 1-2 shots before a long reload/cooldown.

I like that option, since all it does is make sure it doesn't waste it's shells on pointless crap.

I'm a bit concerned about buffing it in anyway, since it's just as fast as retreating squads it could turn into a monster.

i say it need suppression, it is AI unit yet can't deal with blob. so is OKW flak HT, it can only suppress 1 unit at a time,also flak HT should have a fire while moving, but with crazy low acc (or half attack speed of stationary) and able to multiple suppress units that is close or lineup, since allied AA HT (SU and USF) can suppress all units in its firing directions, which is a great tool to anti volks blob.

i say it need suppression, it is AI unit yet can't deal with blob. so is OKW flak HT, it can only suppress 1 unit at a time,also flak HT should have a fire while moving, but with crazy low acc (or half attack speed of stationary) and able to multiple suppress units that is close or lineup, since allied AA HT (SU and USF) can suppress all units in its firing directions, which is a great tool to anti volks blob.

Probably a dangerous concept. Bulletproof 640 health setup-less suppressor sounds difficult to not want and it wouldn't have the fairly easy counters the other suppressing units have. ATG walls would be the only easy chance to stop it from drive-by suppressing, and investing in TDs could still generally give the Ostwind the advantage in most cases since with good micro and supporting forces, suppressed units will stay suppressed, and we all know TDs are generally pretty useless against infantry.

Frankly, the Centaur would probably stand a better chance at vaguely approaching balanced if it magically now suppressed (though it definitely totally wouldn't if it did) with how slow it is making it more vulnerable to AT outranging it.

I liked how the ostwinds superior speed was used as a reason why it's on par with the centaur.

The connection to this thread you ask? Adding hold fire to the ostwind leaves its speed permanently in the "why is this here?" department.

I would suggest the exact opposite annd buff the ostwinds accuracy on the move.

Since you know, high speed+not hitting the broad side of a barn while moving is contradicting.

I personally feel it would benefit greatly from an AOE increase on shell explosion. Something that deals more consistent (moderate) damage to groups so that a few indirect hits can kill models. As it stands, it's pretty useless against blobs, and that's what it should be excellent against.

I disagree on the effectiveness asgainst blobs (that should be the main power of HMGs and other suppressive stuff, and artillery).
I would say however that the emphasis of units like Ostwind is more on extremely effective anti-infantry on a individual/ small numbers level: the explosive shells easily kill one model at a time and damage nearby, but can still be overwhelemed by blobs. This means Ostwind could (or should) be effective against team weapons, even AT guns, because of its ability to whittle down models, just one at a time.
Maybe also make its shells more effective against units in cover? Ostwind has low DPS but should have higher damage characteristics to make up for it.
IMO Ostwind should be deadly against infantry at an individual level; artillery do the AOE damage and HMGs do the suppression. Ostwind would be your go-to unit to run in and finish them off, where their armour lets them get away with it easier than 222.

TLDR: Ostwind should just be big brother of 222, doing the same thing but better and with greater chance of survival.

The thing about the Ostwind is it's survivable.

You can't have(except for tanks) survivability and damage in the same vehicle.

That's why OKW Flaktruck and the AA halftruck(which is technically an AAA halftruck I believe) have low HP and only survive 2 pakshots, but have great damage output and suppression.

Then there's the Ostwind that is survivable but doesn't dish out damage as well.

The thing about the Ostwind is it's survivable.

You can't have(except for tanks) survivability and damage in the same vehicle.

That's why OKW Flaktruck and the AA halftruck(which is technically an AAA halftruck I believe) have low HP and only survive 2 pakshots, but have great damage output and suppression.

Then there's the Ostwind that is survivable but doesn't dish out damage as well.

Apply this logic to centaur ......

You can't have(except for tanks)

isnt the owstwind a tank? it comes in a expensive t3 and costs 100 fuel, that is pretty "tankish"

Apply this logic to centaur ......

centaur is extremely slow in comparison.

isnt the owstwind a tank? it comes in a expensive t3 and costs 100 fuel, that is pretty "tankish"

It's priced as tank, but I believe Relic just doesn't want it to be one. Nomenclature in the end is irrelevant if the balance masters don't intend it to be.


So yeah, I would recommend a price buff first and foremost.

centaur is extremely slow in comparison.

Pity Ostwind speed is useless because it can't hit anything when moving.

centaur is extremely slow in comparison.

http://www.stat.coh2.hu/squad.php?filename=centaur_aa_mk2_squad_mp
http://www.stat.coh2.hu/squad.php?filename=ostwind_squad_mp
its only faster

http://www.stat.coh2.hu/squad.php?filename=centaur_aa_mk2_squad_mp
http://www.stat.coh2.hu/squad.php?filename=ostwind_squad_mp
its only faster

so? only i thing i said is that centaur is slower. whats your point?

The only problem of the Ostwind is its accuracy - the Centaur has over ten times the accuracy for every single shot(!), which is why it can deal so much damage, despite already having a smaller AOE on each shot. It basically hits with almost every second shot directly, while the Ostwind will never ever hit anything directly, except for tanks.

This of course is multiplied once the Ostwind moves, which is incredibly weird, considering that it is meant to be a more mobile unit than the Centaur (evidently so, by the fact that it is more mobile in terms of speed, etc. and has less armour in return). Not to mention the ludicrously bigger target size, meaning that AT guns will never ever miss your Ostwind.

The Ostwind isn't really bad, there is just no reason to get it as Ostheer. Much more effective to just wait the 20 fuel to get a P4 that is good against both tanks and infantry than something that is useless against tanks and sometimes effective infantry.

A manual reload is required from the unit; the biggest problem is the long reload time starting after the first shot if you've been in an engagement before. Having to attack ground to cause a reload is a pain in the ass.

Manual reload would be great on a lot of units across the board.

OKW Ostwind is great, 280mp and at like vet 4-5 and that thing is a machine wiping infantry.

It gives you a bit of buffer to drain zook/guards that the Luch just can't provide. Although the Luch is pretty broken at vet too with the mobile suppression that renders all infantry useless

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