Shadowwada's June 21 Patch Analysis

For those who don’t know me, I’m a top tier player. I won two NA ESL tournaments while routinely placing in top 3. As for leaderboards, I’ve achieved top 10 in 1v1, 2v2 random, 2v2 arranged team.

For this thread, I’m focusing on my concerns with specific changes:

RNG Crits

With removing RNG crits, such as the mines and tank stun deflections, weapon drops should also be removed. It creates imba situations such as obers with two lmgs or cons/rifles/grens with flamers. Along with giving the game greater consistency, it is a minor allies buff since they drop their guns much more than axis as their inf generally uses two guns rather than one (if the squad is holding just one gun, it will only drop when the squad dies while if the squad is holding two, they will randomly drop).

Edit: Forgot to mention vehicle abandons needs to be removed from the game. It is pure RNG and can ruin matches

Suppression Limiting Nade Range

Suppression shouldn’t affect the range of USF smoke nades. The suppression interaction is to keep offensive nades from wiping MGs so the defensive smoke nade shouldn’t be nerfed.

Last Man Dead

“Last man dead” change is dumb. It is a pseudo-skill cap raise. There is really no reason why inf shouldn’t auto fire on the gunner. The only reason for this change is because it is an easy fix for the maxim death loop.

If relic wanted to meaningfully raise the skill cap, there should be a focus fire command as the current attack command is insufficient because it causes units to stop moving. With chasing and tank combat, it is annoying how your speed is punished for trying to focus fire. If you are going to make things harder to help raise the skill cap, there should be sufficient tools so it isn’t annoying or bothersome.

Another example is how you can’t control the rotation of tank turrets. If you know the position of a tank but it is obfuscated by smoke or shot blockers, you can’t issue an attack command so the best is the attack ground command. However it is at the cost of an attack and movement, as the tank can’t move while attack grounding. Giving players the ability to manually override turret rotation would be a great way to raise the skill cap while fixing the problem of wonky turret AI. This would be a real change as opposed to an easy fix under the guise of raising the skill cap.

Sniper Nerf

While snipers’ size got increased, snipers will still be hard to kill. This is mainly a problem with the wehr sniper as the faction is very defensive with MGs & Pacs so it is extremely hard to get close enough for the necessary duration to kill it. To compound the problem, the command tank aura wasn’t nerfed so it will help keep the sniper on unkillable levels.

Next patch, I would expect the size to increase as it is the simple fix but I would like better counters to be created. As it stands, light vehicles and armor have a hard time killing it. Once upon a time relic introduced target tables and yet we haven’t had a single patch addressing target tables since. (I don’t want to say target tables don’t exist but…)

On the topic of sniper counters, USF needs better counters. I don’t want to get into a dissertation on how to rework USF but the m20 and pathfinders are the key units to become counters. In Ardennes Assault, pathfinders have an ability that one shots models so this would be a great way to counter sniper.

USF Captain Over Nerfed

USF doesn’t need another anti-inf inf squad so the captain provided good utility with zooks. The captain upgrade should give two zooks.

The new “On Me” is useless, as it is only a defensive tool. Suppression can be reapplied very easily so you can only use the ability to pull units out of the line of fire. Also “On Me” was one of the few counters to snipers as it gave speed and suppression immunity so you could gap close the sniper. Now we have one less sniper and suppression counter.

Sandbags

Wehr gets sandbags so USF is the only faction that doesn’t have them. Honorable mentions include only faction that can’t build mines and only faction without flames #FeelsBadMan #MakeUSFGreatAgain

OKW Truck Upgrades

OKW medic & repair upgrades should be manpower and munitions rather than manpower and fuel. Just for continuity sake, fuel is used for tech and tanks while munitions are used for upgrades so medic & reps fall under the upgrade umbrella. From a balance perspective, OKW will be struggling vs light armor so I foresee T3 openers being the best counter for pumas. However medic base will be greatly delayed because you need fuel for truck, T3, puma, truck, T2, then finally medics. Because of this great delay, T2 may become the only opener so T2 to T4 would be the meta; RIP T3. Also one of the major problems with shrek blob was having few alternatives to shreks for OKW to spend muni on so by having this muni upgrade, it will keep stg blobs from being the thing.

Reketen

With Reketen buff, it shouldn’t have cloak. It is too easy to walk 1-2 reketens up and insta retreat after firing. One of the main problems with shrek blob was the low risk high reward nature of firing a volley of 3-4 shreks and retreating so why keep the playstyle with reketens. On topic of cloaks, jp4 still has cloak; didn’t know big ass tanks could cloak. If we want to retain these cloaks, the unit shouldn’t be able to move.

Sturmpio Shreks

SPio with shreks is good, only if they can have minesweeper with it. By having both, it will help the mid game transition of it becoming a support unit. No one buys two pios so it would be a huge investment just to have shreks & sweepers. It would be more cost effective to get rekten while SPio has sweepers. Also if Spio can’t have both, it would be a usf nerf since you would always go shrek since USF can’t build mines; OKW vs USSR & Brits, you wouldn’t be able to shrek due to mines & demos. It would be another reason why USF isn’t played competitively #MakeUSFGreatAgain.

Cromwell Nerf

Cromwell should have a speed nerf along with its sized nerf. One of the biggest problems is how fast they can go, which also helps their crushing capabilities, so I’m surprised their speed was untouched.

Bug Fixes

Stun Nade bug didn’t get fixed(?).

Captain zook nerf was direct result of people complaining about okw free medics and repairs with teching. Usf also get free shit too, so when they took away the okw free teching perks they had to do same to usf. If it was truly fair the lieutenant would be also born naked.

I agree with OKW truck updates and raketen cloack detection. Other things are too pro for me :/

“Last man dead” change is dumb. It is a pseudo-skill cap raise. There is really no reason why inf shouldn’t auto fire on the gunner. The only reason for this change is because it is an easy fix for the maxim death loop.

Uh yeah that's exactly the reason why, to reduce easy MG wipes. I believe it was Cruzz or Miragefla who implemented a similar system in their own balance mod.

OKW medic & repair upgrades should be manpower and munitions rather than manpower and fuel. Just for continuity sake, fuel is used for tech and tanks while munitions are used for upgrades so medic & reps fall under the upgrade umbrella.

Soviet building upgrades are Manpower and Fuel, OKW truck upgrades are Manpower and Fuel. It is completely consistent with the established game. Manpower and Munitions would be inconsistent because no other upgrade uses that formula. It's either Manpower, Manpower and Fuel, or Munitions.

Suppression Limiting Nade Range

Suppression shouldn’t affect the range of USF smoke nades. The suppression interaction is to keep offensive nades from wiping MGs so the defensive smoke nade shouldn’t be nerfed.

+1

The change was meant to eliminate the stupidity of suppressing a squad with your MG from afar, only for it to crawl and STILL be able to nade you. BUT, what relic forgot to exclude from this change was the smokes. They aren't a damaging grenade, so they shouldn't have range reduction. You actually have to micro your unit and expend more munitions to take out that MG. Honestly dumb that smokes don't get an exception.

Unless recovery from suppression while under smoke is speeded up, this is something that needs to be looked upon.

I agree with most of what you say Mr. Wada

The USF Captain should have atleast 1 Zook and the 2nd Could be an upgrade

USF does have tank traps for heavy cover so you got that atleast, but they can use non-doc flames in some shape or form

I reckon the OKW side-tech thing should be revamped

Add Side-Tech for AT in HQ, Allows Sturmpioneer Panzershreck and the Raketen to cloak

This would allow more allied light Vehicle play

Add Side-Tech package for Volks in HQ, allows StGs and the Incendiary Nades

Costs for these side Tech can be Adjusted

and remove the 100 MP + 15 F Medics & Engineers those costs are INSANE!

The Sniper nerf was coming but I always thought they needed a short temporary speed nerf after each shot myself

Command tank Aura could be a timed ability possibly?

+1

The change was meant to eliminate the stupidity of suppressing a squad with your MG from afar, only for it to crawl and STILL be able to nade you. BUT, what relic forgot to exclude from this change was the smokes. They aren't a damaging grenade, so they shouldn't have range reduction. You actually have to micro your unit and expend more munitions to take out that MG. Honestly dumb that smokes don't get an exception.

Unless recovery from suppression while under smoke is speeded up, this is something that needs to be looked upon.

You can still fire smoke in front of yourself for defense, the thing that Shocks always do when they get suppressed because they have a shorter ranged grenade. You just can't throw smoke at the MG itself and force it to reposition after it's suppressed you.

Beside, USF is getting better indirect-fire to compensate.

You can still fire smoke in front of yourself for defense, the thing that Shocks always do when they get suppressed because they have a shorter ranged grenade. You just can't throw smoke at the MG itself and force it to reposition after it's suppressed you.

Certainly a change that alleviates the complaint since basically WFA came out that USF smoke counters HMGs too easily without removing it (which is never going to happen).

I respectively disagree with almost everything ! Let me guess, USF are your favorite faction right now ? Don't bother to answer that ...

Its a forum on coh2 balance tbh; my post dealt with coh2 balance

You are cool with the spawn point change ?

tl;dr version: USF is up and without few changes it won't work
Typical USF cry post who doesn't want to notice that his 50 cal, AT gun, Scott, Jackson, Scott get buffed and want his dumb mechanic back
Sage [-]

I respectively disagree with almost everything ! Let me guess, USF are your favorite faction right now ? Don't bother to answer that ...

I think usf is the one of the worst factions, with USSR being best allied faction. I feel qualified to say that as I'm one of the few people who played USF in ESL (Hans & Luvnest didn't as they know how bad USF is). I'm currently 1v1 top 10 OKW & top 20 with rest and top 10 USSR 2v2 so I know all of the factions. You may be able to pull "ZOMG USF FANBOY NOOB" with someone else but not with me

the next patch is realy stupid in many aspects. 21/6 = CO2 death for me.

I highly respect OP's opinion as he provides rather deep insights of the status of the game from a top ranked player's perspective.

For me patch is good more than bad. Mines are definetely overnerfed. 30 muni mine worth more than 1 german model and some damage to squad, plus it can be sweeped

a few thing i agree with but modified:

LMGs should just simply take 2 slots. buff DP but not mirrored and make upgrade to 1.

raketen should not be able to move when cloaked.

I don't agree your idea on the weapons drops. Dropping a weapon does not have a huge impact on a game. Getting a heavy engine crit on a tank often meant you lost the tank and it could decide games. Dropping LMG or flamer does not, especially considering that both players can pick them up.

a few thing i agree with but modified:

LMGs should just simply take 2 slots. buff DP but not mirrored and make upgrade to 1.

raketen should not be able to move when cloaked.

This, LMG spam is just lame. Same with medium crush and demos. Problem is not that it catches blobs effectively which is fine but it wipes single squads, one by one too easily. I think either, most changes of Miragefla mod should be impleted like all haubitzes reduce cost, smoke for LeiG, cheaper T4 and medium tanks upgrade etc...