ost is fine in 1v1
micro your sniper and screen with osttruppen
also go 2x 222 to prevent allied light vehicles from wrecking your shit
When did "locking the player down into exactly one viable strategy" become the shining example of good faction design?
251 is getting considerable buff on preview mod.
Wow, it has a cheaper flamethrower upgrade. I'm impressed! There's only a slight problem: Even with the flamer it is still total rubbish, because it dies to everything farting at it. How is it supposed to take out garrisons, if the unit inside the garrison can bring it down to less than half health before they are even slightly in danger from the flames? Heck, even the Universal Carrier (a unit that doesn't need much convincing to be shown as severely lacking) has more armour...
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I don't think the Ostheer lategame in general is a problem. The balance preview finally somewhat corrects the ridiculous teching situation (it still does nothing to reduce the retarded time constraint through research and base building or the inability to go for unorthodox strategies by skipping teching of a certain Tier because you still have to research it). This finally brings Panther strategies up to the other factions's tank play, especially as the Pansy IV still stays as overpriced for its performance as it is (although that performance is largely due to the Cromwell, the Cost/Performance-matchup against the Sherman works a bit better).
I'd rather have the early game adjusted to allow as many different ways as the other factions do. Revert the 222 health buff, and instead bring both the 251 and the 222 up en par in terms of armour. That greatly increases their performance against infantry while keeping them vulnerable against other vehicles (also: FIX THE BLOODY MG ON THE 222! It's over 2 years that we have that bug, Relic, it's not that hard!). This not only would open up other ways to play, it would also finally allow the Ostheer some decisions.
Meanwhile, adding some things could greatly increase the behaviour of the faction in general. Some kind of forward retreat point would be greatly welcome, and make life especially against the US a lot easier. This would only be fair, considering that buffs the major will get. Of course, some sort of implementation of forward retreat points would then be necessary for the Soviets as well.