Current strafe

Somehow having managed to avoid the worst of the strafe of doom era, I'm still finding this ability very popular and maddening to deal with. 120 munis for easily the best anti-infantry off-map in the game in the doctrine which has Opel Blitz trucks as well... in my last game someone was using it just about every single time it came off cooldown, made it agonising to actually get back onto the map. Doesn't help really that the Soviets have no anti-air if they go for Tier 4.

Personally, I think the cost needs to be increased radically. In particular, it is way more effective than propaganda artillery, which is a similar ability for only 20 munis less and not linked to a doctrine with bonus munitions income.

However, my beef may just be that I've had a few bad games against it (especially on Minsk Pocket, where you're suddenly just unable to go to one side of the map and Opel hunting is very hard indeed but that map is just terrible in general). How does everyone else think it stands at the moment?

Edit: will say the current iteration is *way* better than the previous one.

I'm with you. It's better than the previous one but still kind of maddening when used on you. I don't see it too much though, fortunately.

Ah yes lets nerf it to that point where planes will drop pictures of disneyland ya?

Ah yes lets nerf it to that point where planes will drop pictures of disneyland ya?

Ha!

If they were able to use strafe continuously like you said, you already lost before that point.

Has anyone used the HEAVY staffing run ability to great effect?

It's part of the lighting war and jaeger infantry doctrines. I remember in Alpha there was an ability to call in an airplane to fire on tanks, is this what replaced it?

Just curious to hear experiences using this ability and whether you were able to get some good use out of it.

It's still easily the best off map call-in in the game; comes at 1 more cp than recon flight and costs 40 munitions more for the additional ability to pin infantry and nearly guarantee sniper kills (on top of essentially being recon flight). Yeah it did get nerfed once but considering it was essentially a free win at 3 cp I would expect most people who care about balance try to ignore that nightmare of an ability ever existed. I personally think at this stage it should be left as is except the cooldown should be doubled because as long as you have the munitions it's a no brainer to have it called in as often as possible.

Ha!

If they were able to use strafe continuously like you said, you already lost before that point.

I don't agree, all it takes is losing map control once and the german will easily get +60-70 munitions per minute; that's enough to afford a couple back to back strafes as long as you have some munitions already saved up.

Has anyone used the HEAVY staffing run ability to great effect?

It's part of the lighting war and jaeger infantry doctrines. I remember in Alpha there was an ability to call in an airplane to fire on tanks, is this what replaced it?

Just curious to hear experiences using this ability and whether you were able to get some good use out of it.

The 240 muni strafing runs from the soviet and german doctrines are no where near as useful as the 120 muni strafing run, unfortunately. The cannons only really damage light vehicles and infantry.

Are you kidding me? The best AI off map call in!?!?!?!? It doesnt kill inf it just pins. So retreat and come back. Not tough to deal with at all anymore.

Opels cost 300mp why bother when u can build a cache?

No sir, the best AI call in would be the kv8 or is2 or shocks.... those shred inf and rightfully so (except kv8 lil to op). But there is no need for anymore changes on thos doc besides doing something about the tiger (slight buff).

Telling somebody "Retreating fixes this" is really stupid. It's like people who say this don't realize forcing your opponent to retreat so you gain map control is kind of the entire point of the game.

Also, Tristan, KV-8, IS-2, and Shock Troopers are not off map call ins. Sturmoviks, Artillery, and Strafe, those are off map call ins. Abilities, not units.

Regardless, I would argue Propaganda Artillery is a better off map ability, or rather, equal in effectiveness. Strafe is in a very precarious position where it's still stupidly effective but if it were nerfed any further it'd be utterly useless.

Ah yes I read it wrong. But strafe in its current state is fine. And retreatng isnt a "fix" its a good away to avoid it, kind of like the arguement for when the kv8 hits the field and comes at inf. You must retreat and relenquish map control while you plan your attack.

Keepng those units in tact is most important even when losing map control, at least there is a fightng chance to get it back.

I agree it's fine too, definitely shouldn't get buffed again. Like I said if I was to change anything I would tweak the cool-down due to what I mentioned in my previous post but it's not essential. Compared to the rest of the call ins I still feel it's the best for what it does.

If a german player uses it twice thats 240 muni plus whatever else he used his muni for. So its kind of hard to spam unless he has muni caches and opels on 3 points. Maybe it could use a nerf on its cool down for a few secs. Agrred there.

@Rasha... I'd more like to see the cost increased to the point where you can't use it in just about every engagement. Given it can't be effectively dodged and affects a very big area for a substantial amount of time, that doesn't seem unreasonable.

Ha!

If they were able to use strafe continuously like you said, you already lost before that point.

The map was pretty fifty/fifty at that point. I think I was marginally ahead in kills as well. A combination of Minsk Pocket's pinched design and gren blobbing just meant that after the first strafe hit it was incredibly hard to actually get onto the map (i.e. you get denied from more or less a whole side or the centre at any given time - if you move out in force, you get strafed into a retreat; if you move out without the double snipers, four gren squads roll whatever's there).

@Tristan, the best because it instantly pins several squads infantry AND can't be dodged (say, an Incendiary Barrage stuck at a random point without any units to follow through, you can just move out of the radius of... you cannot do that with strafe) AND lasts a substantial amount of time. Retreating would be OK if the ability was expensive enough not to be spammable. As it is, it tends to be available again soon after you get back out on the map, which is really problematic on a horrible chokey map with slow base exiting like Minsk.

An off-map refers to artillery or air strikes coming from off-map as opposed to on-map artillery (like the howitzer). I am comparing strafe to other such 100-240 muni abilities rather than to manpower and fuel call-in units which are a different thing entirely.

240 munitions spent on any other off-map (except possibly the much later-game heavy strafes... I haven't seen much of those yet) won't force two retreats of all your squads in an area and protect those areas from infantry or capping for that whole period of time.

I agree the tiger needs a buff.

Opels give you both munitions and fuel, while a cache does not. They're also a little easier to keep alive despite being squishier because you can put them wherever in a sector. I don't object to them at the moment but the synergy with strafe's low cost and serious effectiveness is pretty silly.

@Cyridius, I've always found it pretty random whether propaganda actually does anything. As I understand there's a random chance between suppression, pin and retreat per shell and it seems to affect a smaller area than strafe, IIRC. Either way, I'm not seeing it very often.

Do you guys remember the V1 and how absurdly powerful it was for ironically around 120 munitions as well? Why wasn't it spammed? Well the only reason it wasn't used in every engagement was because of the 5 minute long cooldown, I don't want strafe to have a 5 min cooldown but it shouldn't be non existent like it is now. It's a get out of jail free card ability just like propaganda war with additional benefits and it should be left at that, except for the fact it's available too often. If it was like the V1 the ability would require a lot more preemptive "do I use strafe now or do I wait for a better opportunity?" thinking just like what happened to htd after the nerf so it's not used in every engagement. I'd like it being used as an alternative support when your mg42s fail to pin and get flanked themselves and not a "hit it and forget" ability like it is now but that's just what I think would improve the game.

Do you guys remember the V1 and how absurdly powerful it was for ironically around 120 munitions as well? Why wasn't it spammed? Well the only reason it wasn't used in every engagement was because of the 5 minute long cooldown, I don't want strafe to have a 5 min cooldown but it shouldn't be non existent like it is now. It's a get out of jail free card ability just like propaganda war with additional benefits and it should be left at that, except for the fact it's available too often. If it was like the V1 the ability would require a lot more preemptive "do I use strafe now or do I wait for a better opportunity?" thinking just like what happened to htd after the nerf so it's not used in every engagement. I'd like it being used as an alternative support when your mg42s fail to pin and get flanked themselves and not a "hit it and forget" ability like it is now but that's just what I think would improve the game.

Agreed

Opels cost 300mp why bother when u can build a cache?

Because cargo truck will give you 5+ ammo and 3+ oil where as cache will give you the same amount of either ammo or oil, but not both. So for he cost of 300 you get the income of 2 caches.

Plus cargo truck can be moved out of sector. That's allot better than losing a stationary cache which is only effective for the 5 minutes until small tanks and guards start popping up to destroy your cache with ease.

Do you guys remember the V1 and how absurdly powerful it was for ironically around 120 munitions as well? Why wasn't it spammed? Well the only reason it wasn't used in every engagement was because of the 5 minute long cooldown, I don't want strafe to have a 5 min cooldown but it shouldn't be non existent like it is now. It's a get out of jail free card ability just like propaganda war with additional benefits and it should be left at that, except for the fact it's available too often. If it was like the V1 the ability would require a lot more preemptive "do I use strafe now or do I wait for a better opportunity?" thinking just like what happened to htd after the nerf so it's not used in every engagement. I'd like it being used as an alternative support when your mg42s fail to pin and get flanked themselves and not a "hit it and forget" ability like it is now but that's just what I think would improve the game.

The V1 was 150 munitions (in the remit of about, I admit), IIRC. It was also at the end of a tree, and required going the non-King-Tiger direction, so people tended to only get it either very late game or lateish game if they had a specific target for it (howitzer or occasionally brit blob, normally). So, there's more than the cooldown as a reason people didn't spam it. (also, if a V1 missed it'd do nothing, while strafe is kind of guaranteed area denial).

I would sort of like a higher cost (say, 200ish, so it's a bit cheaper than the damaging strafes) for how beneficial strafe is and so a bad use of it is somewhat punitive for the strafer. A longer cooldown would also help it a bit, I agree, but I think the munitions cost is problematically low for the effect.

Ah yes lets nerf it to that point where planes will drop pictures of disneyland ya?

No, you're confusing it with "Fear Propaganda Artillery" and yes, those pamphlets are filled with "Special shows and exhibits"; those Germans are indeed running back to Disneyland.

No, you're confusing it with "Fear Propaganda Artillery" and yes, those pamphlets are filled with "Special shows and exhibits"; those Germans are indeed running back to Disneyland.

You didnt understand me , i know what is fear propaganda i played lot of vCoH but what i meant was make Strafe in CoH2 so useless that dropping pictures of disneyland and mickey mouse would have greater result... cuz when some1 doesnt like ability , ok 1 nerf (atm strafing is good but there is much better abilities , i dont use strafe doctrine anymore) but now make another nerf just cuz it has annoying factor in it atm , or better yet remove the ability so we can all dance to puppeteer orders
There is a lot important issues that need adresing and nerfing strafe run (again) is rly lowest priority atm imo