First off, are we assuming 4v4s here? Are we assuming the best case scenarios for the elephant and brummbarr? Because I can think of countless maps where elephant and brummbarr are terrible.
In a head to head battle these units are unmatchable. In reality, they have many weaknesses number being poor mobility combined with a front facing turret.
In 4v4 they can seem OP because they're weaknesses can be covered by their allies. On the other hand, they're weaknesses can also be exploited by the enemy.
For example, a single player can't take out a brummbarr elephant combo on his own because if he tries to dive them he'll get taken out by the other axis players also passively defending the flanks and rear.
On the other hand, the Allies can also observe the elephant and brummbarr sitting defending one point and decide to all rush it together with one fell swoop and the elephant won't be able to retreat to safety fast enough.
Why do people never get elephant and brummbarr in 1v1s and only get elephants and brummbarr on very specific 2v2 maps? It's because the elephant is slow, cant react to the movements of the enemy and therefore requires a skinny open map with few shot blocks so that it can be easily bababay sat by the commander and his ally.
The problem here isn't the elephant or the brummbarr, it's the lack of coordination in 4v4 randoms.
My suggestion ---> coordinate with your team or play smaller game modes if elephant brummbarr combo is too rough.
This strategy falls flat on its head if the Elefant team has, collectively, half a braincell to pitch in with mine-laying. Infantry, simply, cannot move fast enough to clear the mines, and if you fail the YOLOrush, you have just handed the Elefant team the game.
This is entirely because of map design.
With veterancy on your tanks gone, you're gone. That's what makes Elefant/JT/Calliope so OP; they are such good veterancy-wipers. It simply doesn't matter how well you preserved your army until the moment they arrive. Those units don't care.
Since we are bound by the following constraints:
- Teamgames should be more fun and diverse to play
- 90% of the maps in the map-pool are either favouring or
heavily favouring heavy-TD play (the other 10% are La Gleize and Hill 400)
- There is simply not enough map output to replace the problematic maps; thus Elefants being OP is no longer a map-design problem; it's a mode-design problem
- If you are facing an overwhelming strategy, you have to go full-tryhard to counter it. This completely sucks out strategic diversity
We will have to find a way to rebalance the Elefant to be:
- More appropriate for 4v4 maps (since that's where it's causing problems)
- Potentially more viable elsewhere