SU-85; The Thread

As some german players will learn to play with mgs, soviet players will try to backup their SU85's


As long as the mgs have been nerfed so that can be called a support weapon, i'm okay with it.

what does constitute support for a tank destroyer vs tanks?

the turning speed on the SU is just terrible now

the turning speed on the SU is just terrible now

SU85 for breakfast IS-2 for lunch

Wow I knew that it had to be nerfed,but this...was easy to flank a SU85 with Panzer or Panther,now they just need to take one shot,past around it with no concern and goodbye 320 manpower 115 fuel )
No more crying??...
No biggie next thread will be about the poor Germans early game and that MG42 is now useless just because they gave it Maxim's surpression

What about "mines, guards and atnades" that made flanking an su85 impossible?
Dont leave your tanks unsupported

About time the thing got a real nerf. Two of them still lock down whole areas for German tanks. The range is still the same. Park some conscripts near them and you are fine. No warping out of the zone any longer, which is fine.

With less unit dancing from attacks, you might find units like Shreck-PGs being a bit more useful in an attack against SUs, too, now.

Conscripts aren't as good for support anymore, since those AT nades will deflect off heavier armor where you need it.

I'm fine with SU-85 nerfs so long as they address other issues that made Soviet players rely so much on the SU-85. Namely the balance issues that led to Germans holding too much fuel too early, such as the MG42 balance addressed in this same patch.

For as bad as the SU-85 seemed, it was the only thing capable of stopping tank rushes, especially in team games.

By the time they reduce the SU-85 further, I suspect the T-34 will have enough of a buff.

the turning speed on the SU is just terrible now

so use it defensively at range. that was the best way to use it anyway since its more area denial than a breakthrough unit. itll die if you charge after retreating tanks because you are greedy for a kill

so use it defensively at range. that was the best way to use it anyway since its more area denial than a breakthrough unit. itll die if you charge after retreating tanks because you are greedy for a kill

Last time I saw you don't even know how much T-34/76s were cost, don't suppose you really play soviet that much, if the end-game AT weapon can't do a break through what else should be? Defensive game play for a VP game?

Last time I saw you don't even know how much T-34/76s were cost, don't suppose you really play soviet that much, if the end-game AT weapon can't do a break through what else should be? Defensive game play for a VP game?

you expect a turretless tank destroyer to break through enemy lines? you now have the is2 for that. the su85s role is to sit back and pick off german armor. why do you think it has the longest range of any tank besides the elefant and a focus sight ability?

I agree SU-85 is more of an ambush/defensive unit...it would be suicidal to attack an enemy with the SU-85 head-on and without support
And yes,some games play quite nice with Shock Troops on the ofensive,capping VP and SU-85 in the back,90% of the time Ostheer will bring an Ostwind to fend Shocks off...that's when the SU-85 comes in the play...this is a good tactic,at least for me,last three games did wonders

Ignoring all the little kid squabbling in this thread, I think the su85 is still a problem. The combination of range, damage, and armor is just too much. It actually parallels the MG42 problem pretty well - even if you catch a su85 out of position, it's going to have tons of time to scoot away and do whatever it wants.

It still snipes infantry / pak like nobody's business. It still bounces shots / causes misses (even from panther!). It still does just wtf damage and penetration once it hits vet2, especially since you can stack it with mark vehicle if you go that doctrine.

I very much enjoy the T34 buffs because it has made the game more deep in 1v1 and most 2v2. But any 2v2+ it still devolves into complete SU85 spam which is just so f'ing boring from all sides. Combined with the Shock fix, I see a lot more KV8 usage as well which, when you combine the two, is all you need.

Playing with it still feels like I'm cheating. Playing against it makes me want to just /quit every game. Everyone knows that it's wrong and a bad design decision, can we please just fix it?

It still snipes infantry / pak like nobody's business. It still bounces shots / causes misses (even from panther!). It still does just wtf damage and penetration once it hits vet2, especially since you can stack it with mark vehicle if you go that doctrine.

I very much enjoy the T34 buffs because it has made the game more deep in 1v1 and most 2v2. But any 2v2+ it still devolves into complete SU85 spam which is just so f'ing boring from all sides. Combined with the Shock fix, I see a lot more KV8 usage as well which, when you combine the two, is all you need.

Playing with it still feels like I'm cheating. Playing against it makes me want to just /quit every game. Everyone knows that it's wrong and a bad design decision, can we please just fix it?

I think the problem is really less with the SU-85 itself than the complete lack of balance and options for the Soviets when it comes to armor.

The Germans have two excellent non-doctrinal options in the P4 and Panther. The P4 is extremely balanced vs both armor and infantry and the Panther is excellent anti-armor and decent enough against inf. They both have fantastic speed and durability. Then you have the Tiger and Elephant call ins. These are backed by pgrens with shreks which are fantastic AT in and of themselves and resistant to all but shock troops. Grens faust is much more reliable at damaging soviet engines than the AT nade is against anything over T3 for Germans.

The buffed T34/76 is a decent unit until the Germans start building the mass of armor that inevitably happens in 2v2 or above. It lacks the punch or durability to stand and fight and the grens and pgrens make it suicide to try flanking maneuvers most of the time. The T34/85 is slightly better, but it's over priced given its stats and the cost of the SU-85 and T34/76 currently. Cost not withstanding is still doesn't stand up to even a P4 head to head. The IS-2 is in what, two docs? Extremely situational and you force the player to chose one of those two docs to deal with any German armor? The ZiS is decent AT, but it's relatively easy to de-crew or destroy mid to late game when the armor train starts rolling especially with AT nades having much less of an effect.

That leaves the Su-85 as the only viable unit to actually combat the German heavier armor (I don't know how the Panther can be called a 'medium' tank...) Soviet players know it and lean on it or they lose. Without it a Soviet team/player WILL get rolled by a wall of German armor if the game goes past a certain time unless you've completely dominated. In my experience I also haven't seen the SU-85 be very effective vs. infantry or AT crews. You might get some lucky shots, but I would never leave my 85 to battle infantry the way I would a P4.

It might be different if the Soviets could actually outnumber the Germans with their inferior armor, but with the current cost/pop cap it's not really possible to do that.

The only fix I can see working is to have more reliable AT tanks in arsenal. IS-2 change is a good change but that's a late game heavy tank. For the mid game transition you only have one one option and that's SU-85.
You can't deal with Panthers using T-34/76. I've tried. It just doesn't work.
I am not so sure that it was a good design choice to make majority of Soviets tanks to come as a doctrinal call in.
You can build only 2 tanks and 1 tank destroyer. T-70, T-34/76 and SU-85.

The new speed nerf to the Su-85 solved a lot of problems. It is in a pretty good situation 1v1. Anymore nerfing to it will probably render it useless.

Due to faction design, Soviets really have no choice but to at least have one player spamming Su-85s in team games because T-34 spam will get rolled by P4 spam. It's just how it is.

I think the problem is really less with the SU-85 itself than the complete lack of balance and options for the Soviets when it comes to armor.

The Germans have two excellent non-doctrinal options in the P4 and Panther. The P4 is extremely balanced vs both armor and infantry and the Panther is excellent anti-armor and decent enough against inf. They both have fantastic speed and durability. Then you have the Tiger and Elephant call ins. These are backed by pgrens with shreks which are fantastic AT in and of themselves and resistant to all but shock troops. Grens faust is much more reliable at damaging soviet engines than the AT nade is against anything over T3 for Germans.

The buffed T34/76 is a decent unit until the Germans start building the mass of armor that inevitably happens in 2v2 or above. It lacks the punch or durability to stand and fight and the grens and pgrens make it suicide to try flanking maneuvers most of the time. The T34/85 is slightly better, but it's over priced given its stats and the cost of the SU-85 and T34/76 currently. Cost not withstanding is still doesn't stand up to even a P4 head to head. The IS-2 is in what, two docs? Extremely situational and you force the player to chose one of those two docs to deal with any German armor? The ZiS is decent AT, but it's relatively easy to de-crew or destroy mid to late game when the armor train starts rolling especially with AT nades having much less of an effect.

That leaves the Su-85 as the only viable unit to actually combat the German heavier armor (I don't know how the Panther can be called a 'medium' tank...) Soviet players know it and lean on it or they lose. Without it a Soviet team/player WILL get rolled by a wall of German armor if the game goes past a certain time unless you've completely dominated. In my experience I also haven't seen the SU-85 be very effective vs. infantry or AT crews. You might get some lucky shots, but I would never leave my 85 to battle infantry the way I would a P4.

It might be different if the Soviets could actually outnumber the Germans with their inferior armor, but with the current cost/pop cap it's not really possible to do that.

If the soviets could actually build T34/85s this wouldn't be as much of a problem. the t34/76s just don't scale well enough into the late and will be picked off one by one due to their low survivability.

IMO, here's the problem with the Russian late game... they have no decent tanks with turrets. Sorry, but the T34 still sucks, and in the games I've tried it, I just get rolled with P4s. The Germans... well with turrets, they get the P4, panther, tiger, and even ostwind. Two of those are good all around tanks, with one dedicated to AI and one dedicated to AT. The Soviets? Well there's the T70, which got a major nerf now that it can no longer racecar over infantry... and the T34 which still sucks for its cost (and can now fail on ramming big tanks), then the IS-2 (which I've honestly never built since beta because the only doctrine that has it doesn't have Guards).

You can't really be aggressive with Soviet tanks for this reason. The SU-85 lacks a turret and now turns very slowly, so it really has to have long range and stopping power since you have to use it defensively. Pgrens coming out of the fog of war can ruin your day fast if you over-commit. If the T34 could go head to head with a P4, there might be options. As it is, it can't, going Soviet T3 is a losing prospect, and I have no idea what to do about it.