December Balance Preview

Really need to have all the changes complied and updated and it is a chore going through each and every change log. Saying that I didn't notice the luchs increased build time and thought I share my reasons on why Luchs is so powerful before the changes to its build time. I'm not sure on the changes either but I don't know a clear solution either.

Issue is with Luchs is a combination of issues then the unit itself. OKW can rush a cut off and win early engagements with Sturmpioneers, Volks, and kubel and if allies do lose these engagements it is far more punishing simply due to the kubel quick capping which leads to large chunks of the map falling to OKW control compared to any other faction. This is further compounded by Volksgrenadiers building sandbags which makes them hard to shift unless you go some form of light fire support, have grenades, flamers, or try to flank around. All those options cost manpower, munitions, and/or fuel to counter these positions however doing so sets you back further from teching up to get AT options out on the field.

Given the fact early game no faction will have weapons upgrades OKW can use their early munitions for healing crates which prevent bleed on their part while the other player has to either forgo healing to try and rush counters out for luchs or slow down and purchase healing which aside from Brits, Soviets and USF have to stay and heal whilst OKW infantry can heal on the move and thus keep up map control while not being susceptible to bleed.

By the time the mech truck is built OKW now has MG34 to further control the map and make it even more difficult to assault positions. Thing is while Volksgrenadiers veterancy did indeed get nerf this won't matter for early game as Volksgreandiers veterancy one and two are unchanged and their stats are also unchanged as well. After all Volks are on relatively even footing with Rifles, Cons, and IS early game if used wisely. To add more onto Volks they can counter garrisons which means any position that is held by Allies can be nullified by a flame grenade.

By the time you can push off OKW from your side of the map they have enough fuel and map control to snowball into Luchs. This is compounded by Volksgrenadiers who don't need to tech for their upgrades and they can upgrade on the field meaning they can hold their ground at key points. USF have to tech weapon racks and upgrade Rifles to one BAR to be put on EVEN footing with Volks with STGs early game. Same with IS which need to tech for five men and/or weapon racks.

Yes Volksgrenadiers did get nerfed however they aren't any different from live version Volksgrenadiers early game with STGs and their veterancy 1 & 2. Late game isn't a issue if you force the enemy to lose early game.

Let's say you do manage to get out a Stuart, AEC, or T-70. CPT tier doesn't have MGs to lock down parts of the map nor help counter bleed with HMGs, Stuart has only moderate to decent AI power, AEC has piss poor AI capabilities, and T-70 is a fine unit just can't counter Luchs effectively due to it taking so long to kill.
Throw in OKW has Rakets and could even throw in a Puma which effectively counters any light vehicle meant to counter the Luchs.

OKW has a very strong early game which leads to snow balling into luchs which leads to closing the game.

Want to make clear that I'm not sure on a fix for this Luch issue as it is more of combination of units that lead to closing out the game then the Luchs itself. Might just need to revert the build time and see how it the patches goes with OKW changes.

Everytime i play dbp with or against okw i still feel the same:
1) volks are too powerful early-mid but in a very small window
2) volks are complete trash ultra overpriced for the rest of the game

Give back pre DBP volks, cut some mp and remove stg...fixed...
So much for justifing/tweaking such a wrong balance decision as stg volks.

Changes were compiled by someone further up this thread -Page 79 shadowlinks post

Yet they both lose to the panzer 4 in a straight up fight. Lets not forget the pak 40 is easily the best anti-tank gun in the game. The armor balance is in such a weird place. Panzer 4 beats sherman and cromwell in a straight up fight, but I think the cromwell is in a better place in terms of value then the sherman or panzer 4, and the sherman has a niche if I can get one quickly then when the axis armor hits the field I would never build one instead spam jackson, sometimes scott. I said earlier the panzer 4 is not what the axis need. They don't need an mbt that can beat other non-doc mbts. They need one that can fight infantry well. Really I think the ost armor problem can be summed as such, its too focused on fighting other armor and not enough killing infantry. Ost needs to lower their at capabilities and increase their ai abilities.

Its so hard to micro 2 comets or croc with firefly. Kappa
P4 and sherman 1v1 are the same tanks, what shows a 50-50 chances to destruction of each other, but sherman have more speed, can repair himself, have smoke and have AI-rounds. Cromwell have a smoke shell without cooldown and faster veterancy with officier.
Control the one tiger are really easily, than controlling 2+ medium tanks, but its not so important in hight skill games and in current version of a game brits and USF have the same (crock, comets and pershing) heavy armour with the same difficulty to using as a axis tanks.

Its so hard to micro 2 comets or croc with firefly. Kappa
P4 and sherman 1v1 are the same tanks, what shows a 50-50 chances to destruction of each other, but sherman have more speed, can repair himself, have smoke and have AI-rounds. Cromwell have a smoke shell without cooldown and faster veterancy with officier.
Control the one tiger are really easily, than controlling 2+ medium tanks, but its not so important in hight skill games and in current version of a game brits and USF have the same (crock, comets and pershing) heavy armour with the same difficulty to using as a axis tanks.

This was removed I believe. The OKW p4 is in a good spot and comes with its extra armor straight out of the box. The Ostheer p4 is now in a very good spot considering its price since it now has penetration buffs. It also has the ability to gain more armor with vet. The cromwell and Sherman can't do this. You have to consider this when comparing these vehicles. Although the Sherman and Cromwell have good chances against the Ostheer p4 at vet 0 and the start of their deployment, we can't deny that as veterancy piles up, the odds are most definitely in the favor of both p4s.

We must also not forget that both p4s can get a very effective pintle mount mg, which makes them even better vs infantry. While I think of it, the Ostheer p4 is supported by the best at gun in the game, which further enlarged the offset in the Sherman/Cromwell vs Ostheer P4 battle. The Sherman and Cromwell are supported by a decent at gun (57mm) and very good at gun (6 pounder), but these too have to eventually fight the added armor of the p4. Although the 6 pounder does this better, the 57mm however does not.

The UKF can't even snare the P4s... Ostheer and OKW can snare any vehicle they want, so can USF.

Its so hard to micro 2 comets or croc with firefly. Kappa
P4 and sherman 1v1 are the same tanks, what shows a 50-50 chances to destruction of each other, but sherman have more speed, can repair himself, have smoke and have AI-rounds. Cromwell have a smoke shell without cooldown and faster veterancy with officier.
Control the one tiger are really easily, than controlling 2+ medium tanks, but its not so important in hight skill games and in current version of a game brits and USF have the same (crock, comets and pershing) heavy armour with the same difficulty to using as a axis tanks.

Let's not forget that in any scenario outside woldbuilder panzer 4 would at least be forced to fire some shell on the move (flanking/chasing/reverse.. ) and that means it won't hit unlike sherman.

This was removed I believe. The OKW p4 is in a good spot and comes with its extra armor straight out of the box. The Ostheer p4 is now in a very good spot considering its price since it now has penetration buffs. It also has the ability to gain more armor with vet. The cromwell and Sherman can't do this. You have to consider this when comparing these vehicles. Although the Sherman and Cromwell have good chances against the Ostheer p4 at vet 0 and the start of their deployment, we can't deny that as veterancy piles up, the odds are most definitely in the favor of both p4s.

We must also not forget that both p4s can get a very effective pintle mount mg, which makes them even better vs infantry. While I think of it, the Ostheer p4 is supported by the best at gun in the game, which further enlarged the offset in the Sherman/Cromwell vs Ostheer P4 battle. The Sherman and Cromwell are supported by a decent at gun (57mm) and very good at gun (6 pounder), but these too have to eventually fight the added armor of the p4. Although the 6 pounder does this better, the 57mm however does not.

The UKF can't even snare the P4s... Ostheer and OKW can snare any vehicle they want, so can USF.

Wait what ? Did you just call 57mm "decent" ?
Hell you don't know its potential for sure...
It's the second best atg in game after pak, pounder being third.

Wait what ? Did you just call 57mm "decent" ?
Hell you don't know its potential for sure...
It's the second best atg in game after pak, pounder being third.

It is decent without vet and special rounds. Hella good with them.

Really need to have all the changes complied and updated and it is a chore going through each and every change log.

https://www.coh2.org/topic/64970/december-balance-preview/post/644393

https://www.coh2.org/topic/64970/december-balance-preview/post/644393

Why don't you make a new thread with notes at the top?

My guess is patch hitting the 20 dec (2017 lol).

What's yours ?

Gratz and thanks to all Coh2 fanboys !!!!

Also, I find extremely annoying the fact that if there are two targets in the firing arc and you manage to suppress one squad while the other is trying to get past the cone,and you try to click on the other squad but misclick due to the fact that the squad was moving, the mg packs up. I'm sure everyone has had this infuriating experience and I'd say a good way to change it is to allow a secondary method of target selection for mgs. Borrow the directional tulip shooting mechanic from the Firefly. This will no longer require you to click on a moving squad.

Attack command instead of just right click. In case you miss, you will still be shooting whatever is on range.

I dont have Brits but what I see Brits suffer from lacking smoke.

Their Recon IF squad should have acess to smokenade

I dont have Brits but what I see Brits suffer from lacking smoke.

Their Recon IF squad should have acess to smokenade

Mortar smoke is buffed/added in patch I think

Mortar Smoke was always there. It just sucked hard with how long it took to come down and HE rounds were always the better option.

Why don't you make a new thread with notes at the top?

Good call

Attack command instead of just right click. In case you miss, you will still be shooting whatever is on range.

My life has just changed

Does anyone know why they didn't touch up on Valentine and/or Sexton?
I thought everyone agreed on them being pretty shite.

Is it because they didn't choose to revamp the Royal Artillery commander and thus not touching up any of its units or do they and community think both units are fine the way they currently are?

I dont have Brits but what I see Brits suffer from lacking smoke.

Their Recon IF squad should have acess to smokenade

I agree, that would make them more appealing compared to always picking healing, although they did get the arty buff already.

Looking people arguing that spammable bar/bren mainline should be more powerful than doctrinal/non doc elite squads gave me cancer.

If you're sinking 120 munitions onto a squad it should absolutely be able to deal with elite squads. Because- pop quiz what do axis factions have that allies dont? What is Non-doctrinal elite infantry? Ding ding ding! Obers and PZ Grens have an easy time with non or single upgraded squads so the only way for commanders that don't have elite infantry to be viable is for allowing mainline infantry to be able to scale with other elite squads for a cost. It's either that or just allow Riflemen and Tommies to be outscaled just because they are facing off against "elite" squads and be forced into commanders with Rangers, Paratroopers, Commandos, etc. just to compete.

If you're sinking 120 munitions onto a squad it should absolutely be able to deal with elite squads. Because- pop quiz what do axis factions have that allies dont? What is Non-doctrinal elite infantry? Ding ding ding! Obers and PZ Grens have an easy time with non or single upgraded squads so the only way for commanders that don't have elite infantry to be viable is for allowing mainline infantry to be able to scale with other elite squads for a cost. It's either that or just allow Riflemen and Tommies to be outscaled just because they are facing off against "elite" squads and be forced into commanders with Rangers, Paratroopers, Commandos, etc. just to compete.

so by your logic axis inf should always be worse at any point of the game right ? cuase "green/volks should not win vs RM or IS eraly" "but if RM and IS cant get good upgrades/vet how can they survive elite inf" "Volks are beating my "elite" RM ans IS not fair they cost less" "why are Ober(specialized ai only anti inf squad) beating my RM, they should win all engagement" aaannnndd this logic is what brought us the op Volks blob ,as they nerfed to the ground ober so they had to buff Volks (at the time okw had like 30% win rate) i still dont get it, you want an inf squad that win eraly and late game ? whats the point of elite units ?