Balance Patch Brainstorm: Swapping Sniper and Maxim

As of now, there is a lot of discussion of the future direction of the Balance Patch by our very comitted community balance experts. Many ideas get tossed around and the current discussion about Soviet T1 with PTRS Penals and M42 receive a lot of attention. There is another possible change being discussed at the edge of this topic, which is to swap the Sniper from T1 with the Maxim from T2 in the Soviet faction. Since a focal point of the discussion is the longevity and contribution of Soviet T1 towards the lategame, there is some merit to this approach.

I just want to give this discussion it's own place and would like to ask what you think about it:

How does this change the Soviet tech tree and the decisions that Soviet players need to make in the early phase?

Is there any, and if so, how much value has (with this change) back-teching to T1/T2 respectively after a Soviet started with T2/T1.

How useful are the resulting compositions? Is there lack of AT, AI, flexibility?

Especially since light vehicles have received a rather big change, how would early Luchs/222 perform against this?

How are the risks and rewards of this design distributed?

If at all, how do the answers to these questions change if we take commanders into account?

I'm eager to hear your opinions.

In short, you want to just build T1 and wait for your T34/85s.


Nein, not happening.

Wouldn't that expose me (I have no personal agenda on this btw) to light vehicles?

No, You've got PTRS and AT satchels.

Satchels are basically only there to limit super greedy and reckless lv play and ptrs cripples AI and is just for inhibiting vehicles. I wouldn't say they are a hard counter or anything.

I just think that T1 into t34/85 is too much of a stretch.
Besides, if that would be enough then we'd see a lot more of penal ptrs into t34/85.

As opposed to T2 into T34/85s?

I don't get the retort.

As opposed to T2 into T34/85s?

I don't get the retort.

You don't fix a broken meta/strat by introducing an even more broken strat.

With the sniper nerfs, people want to swap it with the maxim and then just buid T1, which provides AT, AI specialist, an accurate scout car and a strong HMG.

Sounds silly.

I don't want to do that and I'm not proposing or discussing changes for my own benefit. Your implications are silly and disrespectful. If people don't like this change, ok, there are reasons to dislike it. I haven't heard any that would apply here, which don't contradict to the current meta.

You don't fix a broken meta/strat by introducing an even more broken strat.

With the sniper nerfs, people want to swap it with the maxim and then just buid T1, which provides AT, AI specialist, an accurate scout car and a strong HMG.

Sounds silly.

I guess it depends on your definition of AT. AT satchels alone aren't really going to counter anything. I am against this notion if there are ptrs on penal or an m42 in t1. Penal shouldn't hard counter vehicles.

The idea is that maxim spam comes without zis support option. It necessitates going t1 and t2 to have all the infantry based options.

I mean the scout car faces grens and volks with fausts, so I'm not sure how the m3 becomes so powerful if you switch maxims and the sniper team.

I'd better swap USF AT gun with AAHT to balance suppression/AT means between tiers.