Sturmtiger Impending nerfs

My argument is that it should have a significant fuel cost increase, but also an armor buff exclusive to its front armor (maybe in compound with an HP nerf, but not as large as you suggest). Right now the armor is pretty low for a vehicle of its class.

This community. Solid contribution. It makes zero sense that the STs cost wasn't adjusted back when the rest of the OKWs late game roster was. Other than that I think the unit is fine, but its far too common in team games, which I think shows its cost is a bit low.

Dumb thread - dumb answer.

Simple as that.

Reading "hitpoints to 640" and you already know it's a troll thread.

Can we just stop talking about fixing what is not broken?

leave the sturmtiger alone and show your playercard

leave the sturmtiger alone and show your playercard

What if rank in playercard are hight then you. what next ?

Also nerf the AVRE because its way better than ST in every aspect...

The price is ridiculously low for what Sturmtiger offers. The criticals it deals to tanks are also way over the top.

However, if you simply raise the price of the Sturmtiger, you are still going to be left with a very broken mechanic in the game that will make certain map types unplayable. I am looking at you Trois Points.

There's no reason to place such restrictions on our mappers. Instead, fix what's broken, and that's all one-hit wipes.

The main problem with them is that it's one shot, and that it's guarnteed to wipe. Take the guarantee away, and we can, finally, have a healthy alpha-shot ability/unit.

This will look a bit like how the current Panzerwerfer performs:
- Not too weak
- Not wipey
- However, you still wouldn't waste its barrage to target 1 single squad.

One-hit-wipe-wonder fixes

This one is about addressing one-hit wipes (AVRE, Sturmtiger, demopacks, goliaths, etc)

I have separated the damage of these abilities vs vehicles and vs infantry.

Most of those attacks retain their damage vs vehicles as it was (exception: Sturmtiger and B4 got nerfed to 580 from 640, for obvious reasons).

The damage these attacks vs infantry now is no longer one huge, unavoidable explosion. Instead, it's a randomized explosion, that might, or might not wipe everyone standing right in the center of it. On the other hand, that same explosion may also kill models further away from the centre of the explosion.

It works a bit like:
- Take Stuka Dive Bomb
- Replace it with 50-or-so mini-infiltration nades peppered around the radius. Throw 25 of those nades within a radius of 5 or so, and the remaining 25 nades within a radius of 10 (the latter might still end up within the smaller circle).

The rationale behind this change is that:
- The blob-counter rationale behind those abilities is a myth. Those are lone-squad wiper abilities
- In the live version the attacker has full control over when to launch the attack and where the attack will hit (most of these attacks are pinpoint accurate)
- This means that an attacker is very likely to abuse those abilities to wipe individual squads
- Since the explosion is unpredictable, the attacker might now have to think twice about wasting the attack to wipe an individual squad
- At the same point, launching this attack on a blob will cause enormous amount of damage

All of those attacks now cause exactly the same amount of anti-infantry damage. Demo-packs and goliaths have now been normalized to also deal the same amount of damage to all targets.

Stuka Dive bomb causes additional damage, but over a wider radius, so that it remains scary. Don't expect too many wipes with it.

B4 is now a lot more accurate if you fire against visible territory. On the other hand, it's even more inaccurate than before if you fire in the fog-of-war. Line your shots wisely.

In the future, I might decide to add a stun critical vs infantry to those attacks.

Also nerf the AVRE because its way better than ST in every aspect...

If you truly believe this, you are either delusional or completely clueless.

The only things that the AVRE does better at than the Sturmtiger are:
- is lining it shots better so that it avoids hitting ground
- Costing less fuel (140 FU vs 160 FU) but more manpower
- Firing a bit faster
- (the Sturmtiger getting decrewed while reloading is actually an abusable bonus; not a penalty)

Building-piercing shots
- The Sturmtiger shot can go through buildings. AVRE cant

Range
35 vs 45

That doesn't seem like a lot. However, 35 also happens to be the max sight range for 90% of the units you will be facing in the game. Being able to fire from the fog of war with an one-hit-wipe wonder is a huge boon.

Imagine Soviet demopacks being able to randomly spawn beneath your troops. That's what dodging Sturmtiger rockets feels like.

Targeting
That turret thing. You would think it's an advantage. Well, guess what. it is impossible to control which way the turret is facing.

This is because the turret has the stupid habit to chase after just about any squad that pops up.

Damage vs Vehicles

AVRE deals 440 damage or 220 damage vs vehicles depending on whether it manages to penetrate or not.

Sturmtiger deals 640 damage and always penetrates.
640 is an important threshold, since it's just enough to one-shot medium tanks.

In addition to that, the Sturmtiger shot also bestows stupid-strong criticals on the target:
- Permanent immobilization
- Main gun destroy
- Engine damage
- Stun (this is the only one with a limited duration; 4 seconds)

Damage vs infantry

The raw damage of the sturmtiger is enough to wipe everything in within 8-radius. This includes garrisoned troops.

For AVRE, I need to check the damage criticals again. If there's no infantry-killing criticals, the one-hit-kill radius is about 5. The killing radius of the AVRE is also further diminished by cover/garrisons.

Manoeuverability

The AVRE, for a vehicle that needs to run up close has one of the slowest speeds for a in the game.

King tiger max speed: 3.8
AVRE max speed: 3.9
Sturmtiger max speed: 4.7

Note that with the insane range of the sturmtiger, and the ability to shoot through obstacles, it need never expose itself to danger to fire.

Durability

AVRE has 1400 HP 240 Armour (all vet levels)
Vet0 Sturmtiger: 1280 HP, 220 armour
Vet2 Sturmtiger: 1440 HP, 242 armour

+ Mr.Smith

If you truly believe this, you are either delusional or completely clueless.

The only things that the AVRE does better at than the Sturmtiger are:
- is lining it shots better so that it avoids hitting ground
- Costing less fuel (140 FU vs 160 FU) but more manpower
- Firing a bit faster
- (the Sturmtiger getting decrewed while reloading is actually an abusable bonus; not a penalty)

Its not fires a bit faster... its rapid fire compared to ST.. and its gets faster on vet1.

STs manual reload is a great handicap you all underestimate. You have to pull your tank back from the front and start the reload manually. With AVRE, by the time you pull you tank back, its already reloaded.

Who cares about being decrewed during reload? no one reloads on the front anyway... you need to pull back, which makes AVRE basically able to fire twice as fast in practice.

I respect your knowledge of stats, but if you play a couple of matches with SturmTiger, then you play a couple of matches with AVRE, you will see what i mean. The auto-reload makes everything so simple.

ST can fire through obstacles, its true, but in practice you will notice, its rarely an advantage. How many times you had the opportunity to fire through a building with that range, being unnoticed. Usually most of the buildings are already destroyed.

In squad-wipe the two unit is pretty much the same... i dont know the exact stats for both, but check out the video i have uploaded. Who cares with the details when you see these results.


TL;DR:
Auto-Reload for AVRE in practice allows it to fire twice as fast than ST. The rest of the differences are only in minor details, happens rarely in a match.

Sturmtiger is a silly unit that I don't think can be really be balanced. I wouldn't say it's overpowered, but its ability goes against CoH2 design values. Same thing applies to demo charges.

The sturmtiger is fine, when we consider these facts;

- Allies late game medium spam.
- The hyper-veteran, omnipresent bazooka/ptrs/piats blobs.
- The omega buffed cheap tank destroyers, including the SU85.
- The long reload time.
- The long Aim Time.
- The non achievable veterancy.


If anything, I would reduce the XP requirements by 10 times and replace it with the PIV/Jagdpanza

Show Spoiler

One big lul.

Range+obstacles vs everything AVRE has.

It's always better to have 1 unavoidalbe, from FoG shot than moving into LoS, waiting for turret to turn and fire quite easily avoidable shot.

The sturmtiger is fine, when we consider these facts;

- Allies late game medium spam.
- The hyper-veteran, omnipresent bazooka/ptrs/piats blobs.
- The omega buffed cheap tank destroyers, including the SU85.
- The long reload time.
- The long Aim Time.
- The non achievable veterancy.


If anything, I would reduce the XP requirements by 10 times and replace it with the PIV/Jagdpanza

Note that the arc of the sturmtiger is not entirely error prone. If the terrain between the sturmtiger and the target is completely flat, the shot will hit.

If the terrain has ANY kind of deformation, the shot will derp and sometimes hit short. This is similar to how several artillery-kind of calculations derp with the terrain.

AVRE will also derp in the same situation, but to a much lesser extend than the Sturmtiger.

U can wipe units faster with avre than with ST. cause of reload.

u can use avre in towns....cause of turrent. ST needs to move the whole tank in slow motion around a corner...

u can use avre in towns....cause of turrent. ST needs to move the whole tank in slow motion around a corner...

Simply fire thru house. Why move around corner?

The sturmtiger is fine, when we consider these facts;

- Allies late game medium spam.
- The hyper-veteran, omnipresent bazooka/ptrs/piats blobs.
- The omega buffed cheap tank destroyers, including the SU85.
- The long reload time.
- The long Aim Time.
- The non achievable veterancy.


If anything, I would reduce the XP requirements by 10 times and replace it with the PIV/Jagdpanza

Same blobs from axis.
Cheap tanks destroyers have same or more hight cost than axis.
Wait one minute to wipe tank, yes its to long i guess.
Who cares about veterancy if its wipe units from fog of war.

@Mr.Smith

I'm intrigued by the overhaul you mentioned and want to understand it better.

Suppose a ST hits a blob with 4 full health riflemen head on (let's say they're adjacent and all in the blast radius but not so close they're overlapping). Guesstimating, what would be:

- The worst case scenario for the riflemen
- The median outcome for the riflemen
- The best case scenario for the riflemen

By median, I mean that if you repeated the action 100 times, and laid them out from most devastating to least devastating for the riflemen, what would be the result in the middle?

Image editing at it's finest for having no time. Apart from that, yes, nerf axis because why not. Right?

ST is painful, yeah, maybe don't blob.

Show Spoiler

lol

@Mr.Smith

I'm intrigued by the overhaul you mentioned and want to understand it better.

Suppose a ST hits a blob with 4 full health riflemen head on (let's say they're adjacent and all in the blast radius but not so close they're overlapping). Guesstimating, what would be:

- The worst case scenario for the riflemen
- The median outcome for the riflemen
- The best case scenario for the riflemen

By median, I mean that if you repeated the action 100 times, and laid them out from most devastating to least devastating for the riflemen, what would be the result in the middle?

Worst case is death.
Best case, the squad has lost at least 60% of its effective HP (either through death or severe bruising of the models).

Median case I don't know. I guess that in the median case I would like to see a full-health squad have at least 50%-66% chance of survival.

Personally, I wouldn't pull the trigger if my well-placed demopack only had 33% chance to wipe a lone squad. At the same time, having a blobber walk into the demo pack with 3 squads means you have very good chances of getting at least 1 wipe.

I guess this threshold depends on people's own subjective opinions.

Another interesting idea I discovered by accident is having the demo-pack start dishing damage out over time, but extremely fast.

This is sort of like having the affected squads washed away from the center of the explosion by the blast-wave, and having to watch the models disintegrate within milliseconds, not being sure whether they will survive or not.

If you want to give it a whirl, I've already implemented a version of this idea for my mod:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=740714838&searchtext=quality+of+life

Currently, there's only 2 levels of wipey-strength:
- Stuka dive bomb
- Everything else

I made Stuka dive bomb have the same strength as everything else + some extra damage sprinkled on top, over a wide radius.