DBP Commander Revamp brainstorming

+2 on these ideas. Railroad Arty is good, but you get too much of a warning for it.
Excellent suggestion on swapping the officer; if not I will settle for short barrel Pz IV (non command)

I think Railway artillery should have a large warning. It it for a an areal denial tool not a cheeky squadwipe off-map.

To further improve its areal denial capabilities I suggest increasing the number of shells fired to UKF Special Weapons heavy artillery offmap or to USF Armor Company 205mm artillery (RNG Bombs).

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There is a point that need to be clarified Mr Smith. There are 3 types of commanders (with some variances), in my opinion.

- Early dominance commanders, such Ostruppen or urban tactic, giving you early tools to overcome your faction weaknesses and then allowing you to transition into late game faster and in a better position.

- Long run commander, not specially giving you better tools early, mid or late game tools, just some options to complete you arsenal during the game length.

- Late game commanders, with end game powerful tools and units, those commanders don't usually access to early and midgame game changing tools. (with some exception thanks to P2W commanders legacy)

The question I have is how do you classify yourself the commanders in the revamp pool. I see suggestions on this topic to give more late game utility to Ostruppen or Mechanized or ground force (for example) which are, in my opinion, more early / mid game commanders and shouldn't receive late game powerful abilities.

The only commander I see no real purpose in game is the reco commander. I mean its thematic is reconnaissance but for instance OKW has in stock a better tool to provide intel than USF will never be able to reproduce even with this commander, UKF has also better reconnaissance tools with a doctrine and Ostheer has, also with a doctrine, better infiltration and ambush tools with the Jaeger light doctrine.

* (USF) Mechanized Company
Seems this commander encourages early game utilization of fuel to keep pressure on the enemy, but then when later game hits you can recall your vehicles so no harm no foul. The M3 halftrack is just a little too expensive. It's not the worst commander really, it just has no late game. Maybe swap the air recon with an EZ8 or Pershing to insensitive that it is a mechanized army?

Wanted to point out that mechanized =/ armored. Not sure if a tank really suit in the doctrine.

Can't wait for this "revamping" to lead to the German Commanders getting changed getting buffed even more and the Allied commanders getting even more worst than before. A Lot of the suggestions are either "Let's make this German callin/Ability more effective like this" and "This Allied Callin/Ability is too powerful so it needs to be this". Very few are cool callouts like certain units being stupid expensive and stuff like that. Oh well, time will tell in the end.

I am coming into this late, but, what is wrong with Dank Hunters?

I am coming into this late, but, what is wrong with Dank Hunters?

For a faction that has PTRS Penals in T1, live-version Conscripts, and live-version T2, Dank Hunters are rather lacklustre. Thus, the doctrine got most of the votes and now we have to revamp it.

Our question, now, becomes whether we can rework the doctrine to make it less of a Conscript-spam doctrine and more of a themed doctrine.

In my opinion , the osttruppen doctrine is an early game commander.
So why not let him the arty officer and instead of the trenches give him a Stug E.
or maybe a Stug A (a stug e without explosive shells, like the stug e in the early campaign).
Make this commander an early attack doctrine.

For the infantry jäger doctrine I would recommend stormtroops instead of the arty.
This doctrine needs a call in and stormtroops would fit to the name of the doctrine.

For a faction that has PTRS Penals in T1, live-version Conscripts, and live-version T2, Dank Hunters are rather lacklustre. Thus, the doctrine got most of the votes and now we have to revamp it.

Our question, now, becomes whether we can rework the doctrine to make it less of a Conscript-spam doctrine and more of a themed doctrine.

Thanks for the quick update!

I guess the trouble with this Doc is that - thematically - its hard change it without simply adding cheesy stuff like AT partisans... Maybe make it an Anti-any-vehicle doc and give Maxims AP ammo ability or maybe allow cons or Penals to place AT mines... that way you might encourage or 'allow' for non-con spam strats.

In my opinion , the osttruppen doctrine is an early game commander.
So why not let him the arty officer and instead of the trenches give him a Stug E.
or maybe a Stug A (a stug e without explosive shells, like the stug e in the early campaign).
Make this commander an early attack doctrine.

Stug-E might be an idea. Though, I'm not sure how safe it is to create a commander that's able to "script" a very powerful build order that's difficult to counter (see current Penal Lend-Lease meta, former mortar-into-stuart meta, etc, etc).

For the infantry jäger doctrine I would recommend stormtroops instead of the arty.
This doctrine needs a call in and stormtroops would fit to the name of the doctrine.

That still wouldn't make me pick this doctrine over, say, Elite Armour. Why? Elite armour also has stun grenades (which deal OP damage, btw), and you also have the Tiger Ace option to go for.

Lightning War needs no introductions. Laeger Infantry and Lightning War share 60% of their abilities and, then, it becomes a question of whether you'd give up ostruppen reserves and Tiger for the other two abilities.

Finally, for stealthy stuff you have Storm Doctrine and Encirclement doctrine.

Then, the other infantry doctrines that OST has are:
- Ostruppen-related ones (especially with reserves; Lightning War has this base covered too)
- Doctrines assisted by a command P4 (which makes infantry super-tanky)
- Mechanized infantry doctrines

The only infantry-like doctrines that aren't as well deveoloped as they should are the mechanized doctrines, and they are the ones that could really benefit from a price readjustment.

Thanks for the quick update!

I guess the trouble with this Doc is that - thematically - its hard change it without simply adding cheesy stuff like AT partisans... Maybe make it an Anti-any-vehicle doc and give Maxims AP ammo ability or maybe allow cons or Penals to place AT mines... that way you might encourage or 'allow' for non-con spam strats.

Having read some of the suggestions in this thread, I'm more inclined it to rework this doctrine into a "Soviets ambushing German armour" kind-of doctrine. e.g., hulling-down their tanks to camouflage them, having some Conscript squad with crappy camouflage waiting in corners, camouflaging their AT guns, planting mines and, hell, maybe even a B4 to lure the enemy to attack (also, since B4 also has some anti-armour ability).

Luckily, tank hunters consists entirely out of unique abilities, which we can change at will without having to jump through hoops.

Thanks for the quick update!

I guess the trouble with this Doc is that - thematically - its hard change it without simply adding cheesy stuff like AT partisans... Maybe make it an Anti-any-vehicle doc and give Maxims AP ammo ability or maybe allow cons or Penals to place AT mines... that way you might encourage or 'allow' for non-con spam strats.

What if, since there won't be any new tanks in the game, you modify existing AT tanks for this doc? Early game this doc can keep similar abilities, what if late game you add an ability like:

Soviet AT Industry Focus
... "with the emergence of powerful panther and tiger tanks, Stalin has given the order to focus industry on producing tank killers to hold back the armour advances!" .

• SU85 and SU76 cost reduced by 30%, all other vehicle costs increased by 30%
  

Is it possible to turn flammenpanzer model into a normal hetzer TD ?

Flamethrower + flame panzer in same doctrine is stupid.
Hell, the whole idea of a doctrine on flame weapons is utter stupid..

Stug-E might be an idea. Though, I'm not sure how safe it is to create a commander that's able to "script" a very powerful build order that's difficult to counter (see current Penal Lend-Lease meta, former mortar-into-stuart meta, etc, etc).

Please don't bother to add stug-e ,its nerfed into uselessness since long.Only thing wehrmacht players desire from an infantry doctrine is either - a solid counter to mortar pit that can kill it quickly even if the counter is costly .Or lategame durability increase for mainline infantry with an upgrade.Something like a throwable demo charge would be handy on specialist troops in a doctrine.

Feuersturm Doctrine

* Thorough Salvage doesn't belong on this commander. Remove. Feuersturm could be a replacement passive that give the le.IG an incendiary barrage and give volks and/or obersoldaten a timed incendiary rounds ability similar to the MG-34 and MG-42, adjusting the damage as needed for balance. Would probably need to go through a couple iterations to get the damage values right, but I think it would add a lot of flavor to this commander.

* Flamethrowers are good, but I think they're a bit much on sturmpioneers because they already have schreks and minesweepers. Would it be OP to give them to volks instead? I don't know, something to consider. Another possible workaround is to simply create a new call-in unit called Feuertruppen that are either 4-man volks or sturmpios with a pre-equipped flamethrower.

* Recoup losses is...I'm not sure. I barely use this commander so I don't know how this ability compares to rapid conscription. I don't have much to say on it. Honestly, I wouldn't be against seeing it replaced entirely.

* The Flammenpanzer 38 is just useless, but that's news to no one here. It just needs some buffs to its damage (which currently is around the level of warm bath water) and survivability. Possibly set it at 6 or 7 CPs instead of 8 depending on how much you buff its stats, because as of now it comes out way too late.

* Rocket Barrage is cool, but in my experience, it's just an inferior yet more expensive 105mm Howitzer Barrage from Scavenge Doctrine. Maybe someone with more experience with this commander can enlighten me, but I think it needs a cost reduction or a duration buff. I like the ability in concept, though, as most OKW commanders don't have a solid off-map arty barrage.

Tank Hunter Tactics

* Salvage kits should be removed and be replaced with a passive salvage ability.

* I'd love to see a HEAT round ability make it into this commander, like OKW has.

* Someone mentioned an SU-100. I'd love to see it added, though I know better than to expect that. I'm disappointed that Relic never put such a basic unit into the game.

* Someone else suggested Tank camo that gives Soviet tanks a first shot ambush bonus. I like this idea.

A while ago, I analysed quite thoroughly the bad spot the Artillery Officier is in. Since he is part of the Osttruppen Commander, maybe his time has come to shine. Also, nobody else came up with suggestion. So I will quote myself, just ignore the part where I go into the changes in the revamp mod. All the other parts (especially the Ability Analysis) are still valid. Of course all the QoL changes that Revamp did should be applied once again.

First Post, Analysis,redesign Suggestions.

Before the mod completely moves on to the other armies one last word on behalf of the Artillery Field Officer.
As I said before, this unit is useless, but in a last effort to try to save him let me explain it in detail.
In my opinion, his main problem are his abilities combined with his non-existent fighting power. To explain what I mean by what let's look at his abilities one by one:

Artillery Smoke Barrage 20 mun
Definitely his best ability. With the cost reduction very good for its price. Smoke comes relatively early it covers a good area. In another army, it would be an amazing ability. But in the Ostheer you have a powerful T1 mortar which not only delivers smoke for free, but also has amazing damage potential for the same price. The next problem lies in the core faction design. If you need smoke you are probably dealing with a lot of mgs, in which case a mortar would be a much better investment. Due to the lack of units which want to close in calling smoke to close the distance is not an option. Ostheer doesn't have Shocks or Rangers who could run throw it and destroy anything on the other side.
Conclusion: Very good ability but sadly in the wrong faction.

Concentrated Fire 25 mun
First what does it: Infantry: +15% accuracy, 20 meter radius, Vehicles: -13% reload, 20 meter radius at vet 3 the boni change to +25% and to -25%
On paper, this sounds really good. But yet again good ability, wrong army. The problem of Grens and Pgrens is not their damage output, it's how little they survive. Not only is the +15% accuracy buff barely noticeable in an actual fight, if you use it early on in the already muni starved faction you delay your Lmgs which are in itself a much better option if you want more firepower. And don't forget. The officer itself replaces one Gren. So you are one fighting squad down and the buff is not nearly enough to make it worthwhile.
Conclusion: Decent ability, but not needed.

Coordinated Fire 80 mun
How it works: all artillery, mortars, and rockets in range will immediately fire on the target, regardless of cooldown. Basically, you can bypass the cooldown on your Panzerwerfer or LeFH for 80 mun.
Not only is it incredibly expensive it's also one of the most useless and circumstantial abilities in the whole game. To get more use out of it, then an 80 mun mortar barrage you need to tech T4 for the Panzerwerfer which by itself is a rare unit in 1vs1s. And even if you manage to get to this rare case scenario you can bypass 30-50 sec of Barrage cooldown for the insane price of 80 mun. To consider is also, that you will probably fire your barrage at max range, due to the fragile nature of the Panzerwerfer, so the scatter is insane.
Conclusion: Useless, overpriced and circumstantial.

First Aid Kit 15 mun
Simple question, why should I build the Officier, then Grens can do the same for the same price?
Conclusion: Good ability, wrong unit.

After the conclusion, that his support abilities are bad, he should be a good fighting squad to be worthwhile. But guess what, he isn't. And that's the major problem with this unit, it's not good at anything.

Now onto the things that changed in the mod:

Artillery Officer

To incentivise the deployment of the Artillery Officer, we have removed the 1 CP requirement for the unit’s deployment. Furthermore we have reduced the smoke cost and have added shared veterancy so the unit is better able to support fights from a distance.

- Smoke munitions cost to 20MU
- Receives shared veterancy
- Population from 9 to 6
- Available from 0 CP
- Abilities remain accessible even if the officer model dies
- Officer model moved to the back of the formation


To sum it up, the unit received multiple small buffs and quality of life improvements which certainly helped him but didn't target his main problems as explained before.

The big question is now, what can we do to save him?
I see two ways of doing this. Either make him a true support unit or rework him into a combat unit.

Solution 1 Support
If you decide to go the Support unit role, the abilities should be really worth it. They should outway at least a mortar or a gren. So what can be done?
Smoke barrage is fine how it is, the other abilities need drastic changes however:
-Coordinated fire:
Rework it to "Supervise Artillery" The Artillery Field Officer coordinates the use of mortars, LeFH and Panzerwerfern, improving their effectiveness. Also, the supervised units are able to fire incendiary shells.
How it works: Like the captains supervise, target a mortar, LeFH or Panzerwerfer. Barrage Cooldowns are 50% reduced at vet 3 additionally 50% more shells fired per barrage. Supervised artillery pieces get access to Incendiary Barrage 40 mun.
-Concentrated fire:
Add some received accuracy buffs to it, so that it's actually worthwhile. Increase the area.
-Vet 1 Remove the medkits and replace it with a copy of the major artillery. Implement vet boni for more shells
-Increase cp back to 1, with the Ostruppen commander you can call in two squads at once at the moment, a bit too much

This version would be a true Artillery Field Officer, able to support Arty and Infantry, not a fighting unit but good for support.



Solution 2 Combat
If we look at Ostheers unit roster, it's clear, what it lacks an elite close range brawler unit. So I suggest reworking the Artillery Officer into what. In the game files he is already named the assault officer so why not? Steps to do it:
-Rename the unit into Sturmofizier
-Remove aura buff, and coordinated fire, keep smoke
-change weapon to mp40s but equal to shocks damage output
-give him a 4 man PGren or assault grens model bodyguard.
-new ability "Execute" 20 mun target an enemy for increased damage or accuracy
-give him interrogate ability from g43s
-and as a possible vet 1 stun nades or Sprint
-rework vet to fit the new unit style
-change cp to 2 or 3 depending on where he lands damage wise

All in all, it would change the unit into a thematically fitting good close range unit. A unit the Ostheer currently lacks. Definitely my preferred way.

This are my two solutions I came up with. Both suitable and superior to the present Artillery Officer. Of course, the actual values need testing but that's the reason for this mod. I am open for debates on my suggestions, but if someone says the Artillery Field Officier is fine without having a replay to prove it, then youre playing a different game.

Second post, less drastic, less redesigning more balancing.

After thinking a bit more about my precious Field Offizier lets try a different approach. Instead of giving him more or different abilities that is to say reworking him, let's see if simply buffing his abilities into usefulness is enough. (It's also more likely that relic would accept such an approach, but that's just a bonus)
The main offender here is, of course, his Coordinated Fire ability. Second but close is his aura buff. I already stated in an earlier post why these abilities are so bad, so I won't do what again. Instead, I want to focus on ideas of improving them.
Coordinated fire:
This ability will always be really situational, there is nothing that can be done about it. But at least it should be really powerfull. So lift the range requirements from artillery pieces. They should immediately fire their shells/rockets at the targeted area, no matter where they are. Then to not spread the shells/rockets over half the map, make the accuracy independent from the range. You should always get the same accuracy, no matter where the mortars/Panzerwerfers are.
If that's not possible due to modding restrictions, increase the number of shells fired to turn the ability into an area denial weapon. Panzerwerfers should fire 2-3 barrages. That way even with insane scatter they ability would have some use.
Concentrated fire
Although Accuracy is fine, it's not really helpful, so either add or replace it with received accuracy or the damage reduction from command p4. Aura already scales with vet, so why not implement a 10% damage reduction at vet 0 and 20% at vet 3?
If that proves to be problematic and too easy to blob change it from an aura into a targeted ability which can be cast on a single squad. Of course, the values need to be buffed in this case.

A while ago, I analysed quite thoroughly the bad spot the Artillery Officier is in. Since he is part of the Osttruppen Commander, maybe his time has come to shine. Also, nobody else came up with suggestion. So I will quote myself, just ignore the part where I go into the changes in the revamp mod. All the other parts (especially the Ability Analysis) are still valid. Of course all the QoL changes that Revamp did should be applied once again.

First Post, Analysis,redesign Suggestions.


Second post, less drastic, less redesigning more balancing.

I think that the combat-role rework would fit the unit better.

If you look at it globally, with respect to which doctrines have the Artillery Officer available, only Joint Operations has any usable artillery. Even then, though, the last thing you would want is waste manpower on a unit like this, to risk it on a frontline, when you could have bought another turbomortar with the same money (and also get free smoke).

Having read some of the suggestions in this thread, I'm more inclined it to rework this doctrine into a "Soviets ambushing German armour" kind-of doctrine. e.g., hulling-down their tanks to camouflage them, having some Conscript squad with crappy camouflage waiting in corners, camouflaging their AT guns, planting mines and, hell, maybe even a B4 to lure the enemy to attack (also, since B4 also has some anti-armour ability).

Luckily, tank hunters consists entirely out of unique abilities, which we can change at will without having to jump through hoops.

I and quite a few others actually like Dank hunters quite a lot, I personally wouldn't want it totally changed for no other reason that you can. The B4 is an awful unit design-wise because its pretty much impossible to balance properly (much like the SturmTiger). While some camo abilities might be cool, i don't see why this doctrine needs a total overhaul, partially with con changes (which i hope will be toned down again) in the game.

For a faction that has PTRS Penals in T1, live-version Conscripts, and live-version T2, Dank Hunters are rather lacklustre. Thus, the doctrine got most of the votes and now we have to revamp it.

Our question, now, becomes whether we can rework the doctrine to make it less of a Conscript-spam doctrine and more of a themed doctrine.

Mines + Nades + Scavenge could be merged.

This opens up 2 slots.

Lets keep this doctrine very strong, munnition heavy then

New abilities: Ambush tank tactics (smith you already know about this one)

Sturmovik AT loiter - similar to OST stuka CAS, except with single play for half the duration with half the cost and half the cooldown.

This makes it very distinctive ability compared to other loiters as it can make a huge change in the combat outcome if you use it right with conjuction of all other tools you have but alone it will be rather meh and wont be able to vaporise tanks as much as SCAS can.


I really want to see a finally rather cheap aircraft support ability that allows you to turn the fight into your favour but not being another "skillplanez" ability that gets sh*t done alone

Smith, what do you think ?

Smith, you should create one topic for every commander that will be rework

I and quite a few others actually like Dank hunters quite a lot, I personally wouldn't want it totally changed for no other reason that you can. The B4 is an awful unit design-wise because its pretty much impossible to balance properly (much like the SturmTiger). While some camo abilities might be cool, i don't see why this doctrine needs a total overhaul, partially with con changes (which i hope will be toned down again) in the game.

As Hector pointed out, most of those abilities can be merged into one, opening up slots for new stuff to be added.


I just, personally, think it would be interesting to expand the commander to add some depth to it, rather than it being a (buffed) CONSCRIPTS-IN-YOUR-FACE commander. A brute-force Conscripts-only commander will either:
- Non-competitive (and thus only played for the troll value), or
- Annoying to counter, since it will have a very low skill gap

Since our goal with commander revamp is to add competitive commanders, we had better avoid adding annoying commanders.

Both ISU doctrines have more of a raw-power element to them (but with combined arms involved), and I don't think a conscript spam army should be able to match that in brute force.

B4 can be fixed. Alternatively, there's always ML20. Soviets used a lot of artillery to counter tanks.

As Hector pointed out, most of those abilities can be merged into one, opening up slots for new stuff to be added.


I just, personally, think it would be interesting to expand the commander to add some depth to it, rather than it being a (buffed) CONSCRIPTS-IN-YOUR-FACE commander. A brute-force Conscripts-only commander will either:
- Non-competitive (and thus only played for the troll value), or
- Annoying to counter, since it will have a very low skill gap

Since our goal with commander revamp is to add competitive commanders, we had better avoid adding annoying commanders.

Both ISU doctrines have more of a raw-power element to them (but with combined arms involved), and I don't think a conscript spam army should be able to match that in brute force.

B4 can be fixed. Alternatively, there's always ML20. Soviets used a lot of artillery to counter tanks.

I'm not opposed to changing the commander, I just quite like the essence of the commander, and would like to keep that essence intact.

I have used the commander twice/three with the DBP changes (with cons in various states) and I used it with T1/snipers, and cons being more defensive. The commander doesn't have to be played as a CONS IN YOUR FACE style at all, in fact it is probably more effective if used injunction with t1/t2 anyway...

If you are going to keep the off-map bombing run, then adding in more arty on top of that might make the commander more of a 'counter forward base' commander, at least more so than it already is.