December Balance Preview

Good question. I think the main purpose for it now is to clear trees. It has gone from being an essential hard counter, to only being useful when playing a 1vs1 against Mr Magoo.

Demo is a mechanic that can dramatically swing the outcome of a game and as such makes balancing sov quite difficult. The question is are soviets viable without demos, i would say yes.

As to the complaint about blobs, well i sympathise but nothing else can be buffed while demos are so powerful.

Personally I think some players not only rely on demos as a crutch but also because there is a perverse satisfaction in abusing such an op ability.

Hmmmmm... Not exactly thrilled to see that the 17 Pounder can no longer be garrisoned. No longer can I bypass the 17 Pounder by garrisoning it and coming out the other end. It's rather needed at times when built in ruined urban areas.

I remember how excited I was when I played the British in CoH2 for the first time and saw you can garrison it. It made sense to me and gave a sense of immersion that the soldiers could take advantage of their sandbags rather than stand outside the 17 Pounder emplacement, potentially fighting out in the open.

Why on earth was this change made?

Cause the only way to implement giving it a visible arc of fire meant that garrisoning/ungarisoning became bugged.

An 80-range static gun without a visible arc of fire is unusable.

Demos should be redesigned so that they are still effective at deterring blobs but not wipe sole squads.

Imo they should only kill 50% of squad members, reduce health on all squads over a large area to almost nothing and either cause prolonged supression and/or maybe even random retreats.

Make the ability a bit interesting, a bit different. Coh2 is drowning in over the top abilities that wipe shit and generally swing a game because of a simple 1 click ability.

Demos should be redesigned so that they are still effective at deterring blobs but not wipe sole squads.

Imo they should only kill 50% of squad members, reduce health on all squads over a large area to almost nothing and either cause prolonged supression and/or maybe even random retreats.

Make the ability a bit interesting, a bit different. Coh2 is drowning in over the top abilities that wipe shit and generally swing a game because of a simple 1 click ability.

I agree, essentially like a giant mine.
Taking away the ability to plant them at points is a big improvement, as that removes cheap squad wipes when capping. That's certainly a change I think everyone can support.

Cause the only way to implement giving it a visible arc of fire meant that garrisoning/ungarisoning became bugged.

An 80-range static gun without a visible arc of fire is unusable.

While the reason makes sense why it was changed, I haven't had major issues using it without the cone. A garrisoned 17 Pounder turns fast enough and engages targets just fine for me since I can see where the gun is pointing and have experience with Pak 43s and artillery pieces to have a rough idea what the Firing Cone would be.

Gah! Is there any way to make the Sandbags around the 17 Pounder behave like the Pak 43's? Where you could pass through the emplacement and use the sandbags as cover in a traditional way? It's not ideal but at least it maintains immersion and doesn't block pathways in urban areas.

But why does a brit non-doc heavy need to be good vs. infantry? The OKW panther costs 15 more fuel and is just as bad vs. infantry, while having almost identical stats. I could see the cost of the comet being lowered to around 480/175, but that's about it.

Because its a generalist tank and it's ment to counter both armor and infantry to some degree. The OKW panther is significantly better vs armor than the current comet.

Can Soviet Mortar recieve some love?

Surprised no cromwell and comet buffs to scatter. Those units can't hit infantry for their lives since their nerf.

If Comet/Cromwell really need buffs, then we'll just nerf other faction equivalents instead. Both are in a perfect spot currently.

Brits have Tommies/Centaur to fulfill AI roles.

The comet, much like the Panther, is a high-armour low-micro tank.

1.4 looks great; pretty much every necessary brit change I could think of is in there. Only change I would disagree on is the buff to the Bren; double bren vet 3 tommies are incredibly powerful, even vs. Vet 5 OKW upgraded stuff.

If Vet3 double bren Tommies are still op, no problem: we'll nerf their received accuracy even more.

The reload time thing on Bren guns was to prevent them from going into 12-second reload cycles (which happen rarely, but they do happen from time to time). For comparison, other LMGs and even HMGs have a reload cycle of 4-5 secs.

While the reason makes sense why it was changed, I haven't had major issues using it without the cone. A garrisoned 17 Pounder turns fast enough and engages targets just fine for me since I can see where the gun is pointing and have experience with Pak 43s and artillery pieces to have a rough idea what the Firing Cone would be.

17-pounder has horrendus teardown/setup times which the Pak43 does not suffer from. We don't want to remove those delays as this would make the animations look completely silly.

Gah! Is there any way to make the Sandbags around the 17 Pounder behave like the Pak 43's? Where you could pass through the emplacement and use the sandbags as cover in a traditional way? It's not ideal but at least it maintains immersion and doesn't block pathways in urban areas.

The sandbags thing might be possible. However, this sounds too difficult to pull off and I don't have the time needed to invest into this; not with 8 commanders-to-go

Ideally 17 pounder target size should decrease to revamp levels, so that the 17 pounder does not remain so completely trivial to counter with tanks and AT guns.

I see they completely missed the point on Royal Artillery and decided to nerf it into the ground. Typical. They accidentally removed fog of war fire before and it rendered the commander unusable.

The whole point of the ability was to allow the 25 pdrs to fire like every other fixed howitzer in the game, except with a hefty munitions cost piled on top. The accuracy was probably too high with anvil, but even then the ability was next to useless beyond maybe hitting a few trucks without anvil.

Why would anyone bother to use it when a tommy squad can do the job better after all?

It's to justify the increased cost, also they nerfed it's veterancy.

increased cost was for the health buff. They slightly nerfed the reload vet for the much Bigger reload buff

increased cost was for the health buff. They slightly nerfed the reload vet for the much Bigger reload buff

The nerf to vet is not slightly and the buff to reload is not comparatively speaking bigger. The reload buff is exactly 15% (4.675/5.5=0.85). The vet reduction is 15% as well. The vet 3 Jackson will on average have a slightly longer reload than before.

old reload: 5.2/5.8 average reload: 5.5
vet 2 bonus: -20%
old vet 3 bonus: -30%
5.5*0.8*0.7 = 3.05

new reload: 4.375/4.975 average reload: 4.675
vet 2 bonus: -20%
new vet 3 bonus: -15%
4.675*0.8*0.85 = 3.179

If I've done a mistake somewhere, please let me know

They cleverly adjusted the reload to make the jackson perform a bit better early but avoided it getting more powerful at vet 3.

Updated the calculation factoring in vet 2. All conclusions remain the same.

Can Soviet Mortar recieve some love?

Enough ?

PS: Soviet Mortar is fine. It is its counterpart - pack howie, that is overperforming

I see they completely missed the point on Royal Artillery and decided to nerf it into the ground. Typical. They accidentally removed fog of war fire before and it rendered the commander unusable.

The whole point of the ability was to allow the 25 pdrs to fire like every other fixed howitzer in the game, except with a hefty munitions cost piled on top. The accuracy was probably too high with anvil, but even then the ability was next to useless beyond maybe hitting a few trucks without anvil.

Why would anyone bother to use it when a tommy squad can do the job better after all?

They nerfed FoW firing because of exactly what you said - Anvil + it was cheesey as fking hell - 100 munitions to insta-wipe Howitzers that cost 600 MP or instantly gib squads because you know where a Battlegroup is with 100% accuracy airburst shells? Broken as hell man. The point of Royal Arty isn't to have a one trick pony cheese ability.

Give it a try in the preview with the new buffed 25 Pounders - they are really really good now - they are accurate now to the point where if you target an OST bunker it'll destroy it almost every time with just one 25 pounder firing. When you throw in free airburst shells without teching Anvil or having to upgrade a Tommy squad that can get suppressed - it gets even better because you can get the area denial effect much earlier than you would otherwise. Also, Royal Arty gets the Sexton which is the true analogous unit to fixed howitzers. If they can buff Valentine then Royal Arty will be in a much better place.

The Nerf to vet is not slightly and the buff to reload is not comparatively speaking bigger. The reload buff is exactly 15% (4.675/5.5=0.85). The vet reduction is 15% as well. The vet 3 Jackson will on average have a slightly longer reload than before.

Old reload: 5.2/5.8 average reload: 5.5
old vet 3 bonuses: -30%
5.5 - 5.5*0.3 = 3.85

new reload: 4.375/4.975 average reload: 4.675
new vet 3 bonuses: -15%
4.675 - 4.675*0.15 = 3.97375

If I've done a mistake somewhere, please let me know

They cleverly adjusted the reload to make the Jackson perform a bit better early but avoided it getting more powerful at vet 3.

well now is much easier to reach vet 3 so instead of simply gutting it they made it 2% worse but you get it early too ...... they just straight up buffed usf but im happy either way i play all faction but if in the next tournament okw and ost never win and all pick usf i think the mod team will lose all credibility

well now is much easier to reach vet 3 so instead of simply gutting it they made it 2% worse but you get it early too ...... they just straight up buffed usf but im happy either way i play all faction but if in the next tournament okw and ost never win and all pick usf i think the mod team will lose all credibility

I dont get it why USF should roflstomp everything.

It is not like they have early counter to luchs. Or as if they had something similar to Kingtiger protected by 2 JP4 and Panthers on the flanks

all pick usf i think the mod team will lose all credibility

Stug roll to new or old Jackson and kill it just upfront without any hesitation. whilst half cheap.

Stug roll to new or old Jackson and kill it just upfront without any hesitation. whilst half cheap.

you forget the range and turret but still Jackson is not stug counter what im talking about is the others tanks

I dont get it why USF should roflstomp everything.

It is not like they have early counter to luchs. Or as if they had something similar to Kingtiger protected by 2 JP4 and Panthers on the flanks

thats a ton of fuel and they now have mines rear E. too and it still has zook and cal 50( althought its just soft counter)

thats a ton of fuel and they now have mines rear E. too and it still has zook and cal 50( althought its just soft counter)

mines only get the vehicle stuck for a moment, they do not get its engine out of its way

well now is much easier to reach vet 3 so instead of simply gutting it they made it 2% worse but you get it early too ...... they just straight up buffed usf but im happy either way i play all faction but if in the next tournament okw and ost never win and all pick usf i think the mod team will lose all credibility

The Jackson gets 20% Reload too in Vet2, it used to get 50% reload at max vet and now it only gets 35%, I still think it's an improvement or around the same.