Spring Update - Balance thread

For such a cheap price you are going to roam the battlefield with 2 or 3 222 with no fear of anything.

Except for the teeny-tiny little issue of the 222 not actually hitting anything.

I'm not exaggerating. The 222's guns do not actually hit targets unless it stands still and fires for three full bursts.

The first burst always misses fully, even if you order the 222 to stop. By which point enemy units back out of range and bring up some AT to blow up the 222 instantly.

I complain about the 222 not being armored because that's the most absurd and unfair thing about it, but the way it just doesn't deal any damage unless the opponent is braindead or AFK and leaves their units in its line of fire for a minute straight... well, that's not exactly an upside to it.

How does that lead to completely redesigning the unit being justified? Why not stat changes instead, like i said, the change doesnt just make infantry flanks more rewarding vs it, it also completely changes the sniper dynamic vs Ost and utterly homogenises the unit.

This is the point. The 2 man design is far too durable, and the source of a lot of issues. You use them because they are nigh impossible to kill, and therefore give you a very high return on investment compared to other faction snipers. A more homogeneous sniper dynamic is sorely needed, each differentiated by abilities rather then durability. The proposed changes reward infantry flanks...

Eg. Big flanks would clip one model, but the other rounds a corner and saves the "squad". Mortar shell lands and kills one model but not the other, it gets out. Counter snipe only kills one model, second model counter snipes you back. The 222 chases down the sniper, kills one model on a road but a con comes to cover with an AT nade and the last model gets out. Having cloaked falls ambush a sniper squad, killing only a single model as the second model retreats out.

These are all situations where the brit or ost one model snipers would've died,thus allowing the high ROI on soviet snipers to persist and generate more value over the course of an entire game.

This is similar to the 4man durability of ost vs 6 man durability of soviet argument. The one with more models is more likley to be able to retreat or stay on field longer. This is because damage in this game is directional and has to be applied to models individually to achieve a kill. More models = more chances to get out.

Another good solution would be to limit factions to one sniper each - but then that limits gameplay choice.

Aside from maybe 50% necessary changes like IL2, mortars, and stuns etc...

Way too many over nerfs and over buffs, really sad to see Relic and the balancers take such a big step backwards. Really scared about the game after this patch if it goes live in its current state.

Over buffs:

Panzergrenadiers - why give smoke, decrease muni cost, and improve far accuracy WHY ALL THREE, wtf have they not learnt anything?

222 - big mp decrease AND huge armour increase? are they crazy? Just asking for a new 222 spam meta. RIP soviet sniper and brits in general.


Over nerfs:

PPSH - who thought cons with ppsh's needed a 33% nerf? When they had 2xPPSH's no one ever used them, why would they revert to that with nothing to compensate???

Snipers - never seen one class of unit so brutalised as in this patch, you'll barely see them again. Sad really, almost seems as though there's some kind of distaste for the very place they have within our game, and they've been made borderline unusable. Vs. fast 222 there's no chance a soviet player would ever field a sniper now. 50% increase in aim time too, like wtf, have Relic and Balancers decided snipers shouldn't be part of the game now?

Unnecessary changes:

Brummbar, wtf? It's finally in a decent place now, just because it's powerful doesn't mean it needs to not be powerful...

There are more, but as I say I hope only 50% of this patch sees the light of day.

This is the point. The 2 man design is far too durable, and the source of a lot of issues. You use them because they are nigh impossible to kill, and therefore give you a very high return on investment compared to other faction snipers. A more homogeneous sniper dynamic is sorely needed, each differentiated by abilities rather then durability. The proposed changes reward infantry flanks...

Eg. Big flanks would clip one model, but the other rounds a corner and saves the "squad". Mortar shell lands and kills one model but not the other, it gets out. Counter snipe only kills one model, second model counter snipes you back. The 222 chases down the sniper, kills one model on a road but a con comes to cover with an AT nade and the last model gets out. Having cloaked falls ambush a sniper squad, killing only a single model as the second model retreats out.

These are all situations where the brit or ost one model snipers would've died,thus allowing the high ROI on soviet snipers to persist and generate more value over the course of an entire game.

Another good solution would be to limit factions to one sniper each - but then that limits gameplay choice.

The two men arent the source of that issue though, seriously, nerf its received accuracy so that it is extremely flimsy to rifle and mg fire and now it is no longer too durable.

The situations you make i dont think apply:

Big flanks clip one model, the other rounds the corner: quite a niche situation (also why shouldnt good positional play be rewarded inherantly), but nerf its received accuracy and you increase the rate at which both models die or a retreat is forced / make this play harder to pull off for the soviets, tweaking for balance but RA changes could sort this problem.

Mortar shell: 1 man snipers dont die to a mortar shell already, with 82 health and 1 model the soviet sniper wont either. The soviet sniper is the only team that CAN curreently be 1 shot by a mortar at the moment BECAUSE of its 2 man squad, this backs up my statements not yours?

222: increase its RA so after a fair (edit: i mean "balanced" fair has ambiguous meaning here i realised) amount of time under the 222's guns the sniper team dies. This is again not intrinsically linked to two models, but to not taking enough damage from small arms.

Cloaked falls: again increase its RA so they basically gib the squad under these circumstances.

Its about DPS taken, not the number of models. As i said to luciano, if the squad members had 2 men each with 1 hp and 100% received accuracy no one would be complaining that they are too durable.

This problem can be solved without the big homogenisation change.

Second edit: Just to be clear, i agree the soviet sniper is OP, i agree the soviet sniper is too durable. I disagree that the 2 models is inherently the reason, i disagree that its the right way to nerf the squad.

I got the feeling that soviet sniper lost its 2nd man, because sniper wars were impossible, because 2 man sniper squad was made to literally eliminate that cancerous part of CoH1 gameplay, which sniper wars always were.

The Panther armour hp change is a buff. If you really cant comprehend that youre a moron

obviously the accuracy and reload time will be better after patch. in general terms maybe is a buff, but more HP per less armour? this a survivability NERF, especially if you consider the tank in vet 2 and the time repairing to reach vet 2
i don't remember the actual armour of the panther, 300 or 325 i think, assuming its 300:

now in vet2
960hp 300 armour

after patch in vet 2
960hp 286 armour

Stop showing off knowledge that you don't have, it seems you do not know how to count...

Way too many over nerfs and over buffs, really sad to see Relic and the balancers take such a big step backwards. Really scared about the game after this patch if it goes live in its current state.

+1

The game changed often in the past 5 years. Now it needs little tweaks, not a new meta every patch!

Its about DPS taken, not the number of models. As i said to luciano, if the squad members had 2 men each with 1 hp and 100% received accuracy no one would be complaining that they are too durable.

No, its about effective damage taken. This game has directional damage applied to specific models based on a statistical distribution, mitigated by terrain and distance factors.

Two models allow you to defer, delay or spread applied damage from the distribution by leveraging the distance and specific models portion of the equations. Thus more models creates a moderately higher effective hp. This means the number of models a squad contains is a VERY BIG balancing factor when considering durability. See the age old arguments of 3 ostherr man team weapons vs 6 man soviet team weapons from the good old days, or 4 man grendiers vs 6 man grenadiers.

In the case of a retreating sniper squad you're usually only ever shooting on model at a time, the second model is taking no damage or partial damage. This results in cases where both models have 2 health, took no model losses and are safe in the base.

In the case of a mortar shell that 82 damage isn't being fully applied to the entire squad. Unless you've magically put both snipres models at the center of the motar shell, they will either both get out with low health or only lose one model.

In the case of a tank shell hitting a sniper, you're applying a ton of DPS to one model but not the other. So even though your tank shell dealt 100-120 damage, you only applied it to a single entity with 45 health or so. Wasting over half of the damage.

The two men arent the source of that issue though, seriously, nerf its received accuracy so that it is extremely flimsy to rifle and mg fire and now it is no longer too durable.

They are though. For the exact same reason a conscript squad has more chances to retreat then a grendier squad does. This game is about directional damge applied to specific models.


The situations you make i dont think apply:

Big flanks clip one model, the other rounds the corner: quite a niche situation (also why shouldnt good positional play be rewarded inherantly), but nerf its received accuracy and you increase the rate at which both models die or a retreat is forced / make this play harder to pull off for the soviets, tweaking for balance but RA changes could sort this problem.

You really can't increase RA more then it is. Snipers already take damage really easily; increasing it anymore will create situations where literally every shot will land on them. Snipers will start dying to right clicks, not flanks - making them not worthwhile building. The RA on snipers is already high, and the patch attempts to bring their retreat RA closer to their base one to help reduce the frustrating retreats thing.

Mortar shell: 1 man snipers dont die to a mortar shell already, with 82 health and 1 model the soviet sniper wont either. The soviet sniper is the only team that CAN curreently be 1 shot by a mortar at the moment BECAUSE of its 2 man squad, this backs up my statements not yours?

No the sniper team won't die because you have two models, that are a distance apart. The shell lands in one spot, not both. Unless you're bunch your sniper together in which case, rip.

Werfs are more likley to kill a sniper model (or squad) because of the saturated scatter Aoe profile it brings as opposed to single point and radius.

222: increase its RA so after a fair (edit: i mean "balanced" fair has ambiguous meaning here i realised) amount of time under the 222's guns the sniper team dies. This is again not intrinsically linked to two models, but to not taking enough damage from small arms.

222 increased accuracy is already in the patch notes, its a problem against all infantry not just snipers.

Cloaked falls: again increase its RA so they basically gib the squad under these circumstances.

RA doesn't help that much this situation (unless its really high, but we went over why you don't want it higher then it is), since damage is applied in a directional manner against specific models. Your falls target one model and volley him. The retreating model already home free. Or they split their fire, then one model gets sslighlty out of range and they switch fire from one model to another - failing to kill the first model they targeted.

Aside from maybe 50% necessary changes like IL2, mortars, and stuns etc...

Way too many over nerfs and over buffs, really sad to see Relic and the balancers take such a big step backwards. Really scared about the game after this patch if it goes live in its current state.

Over buffs:

Panzergrenadiers - why give smoke, decrease muni cost, and improve far accuracy WHY ALL THREE, wtf have they not learnt anything?

222 - big mp decrease AND huge armour increase? are they crazy? Just asking for a new 222 spam meta. RIP soviet sniper and brits in general.


Over nerfs:

PPSH - who thought cons with ppsh's needed a 33% nerf? When they had 2xPPSH's no one ever used them, why would they revert to that with nothing to compensate???

Snipers - never seen one class of unit so brutalised as in this patch, you'll barely see them again. Sad really, almost seems as though there's some kind of distaste for the very place they have within our game, and they've been made borderline unusable. Vs. fast 222 there's no chance a soviet player would ever field a sniper now. 50% increase in aim time too, like wtf, have Relic and Balancers decided snipers shouldn't be part of the game now?

Unnecessary changes:

Brummbar, wtf? It's finally in a decent place now, just because it's powerful doesn't mean it needs to not be powerful...

There are more, but as I say I hope only 50% of this patch sees the light of day.

PPSH isn't a 33% nerf, thats probably the most neanderthalic way to look at it, even if it's a pretty shortsighted nerf it changes the result of the pg and volks match-up and thats about it, ppsh cons on the test patch will typically lose and win vs the same units they already do if you use them properly. 33% nerf...

No one can 100% call Soviet Snipers anything until a bunch of test games have been played, I think it makes going soviet sniper impossible vs ost but thats probably the thing most likely to change

Brumbarr is not in a remotely decent place it completely needed a nerf, the nerf that it's been given wont even stop it one shot wiping squads anyway because it still has a massive AOE. The reason you don't see it in 1v1 isn't because it's bad it's because of the mechanics of 1v1, its total aids in 2v2+. Squad preservation goes out of the window when this unit exists, it's ability to frontally assault AT-guns is old crocodilesque

The 222 and PGs are pretty much only seeing play by everyone's favourite Dane, Ostheer T2 is being straight skipped in favour of T3 in most 1v1s or is only made for Paks with Puma/Ct callins or in 2v2 after t3 or as part of a t4 rush. It might be an overbuffed tech tier but you can't say that yet.

Also to all the people moaning about 222 in this thread 222 is still going to be 222, flamer ht will still be 10x better at pushing early advantages and wiping squads. 222 will still lose to AEC, still die near instantly to AA/HT, still lose to Stuart and still suffer from pios horrible repair times (good luck spamming 222s when they each need to be repaired for 10 minutes after every ptrs volley). 600/90 fuel into low damage light vehicles sounds a great idea, i'm sure the great minds in this thread would shoot up the leaderboard if that change makes it through.

The over-reactions from people over preliminary patch notes likes it's the death of COH is really something special.

Obviously a lot of the patch is bad, this is the issue when you essentialy have 2 factions of people; relic and the balance team (which is a mess of ideas in of its-self) launching ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks.

The vast majority of the changes have purpose and that people are so insulted by things like a 0.5 second overall 1.5 second nerf to the katuysha is really fucking weird even given how horrible a change it is.

obviously the accuracy and reload time will be better after patch. in general terms maybe is a buff, but more HP per less armour? this a survivability NERF, especially if you consider the tank in vet 2 and the time repairing to reach vet 2
i don't remember the actual armour of the panther, 300 or 325 i think, assuming its 300:

now in vet2
960hp 300 armour

after patch in vet 2
960hp 286 armour

Stop showing off knowledge that you don't have, it seems you do not know how to count...

How often you managed to get to that vet2 again?

obviously the accuracy and reload time will be better after patch. in general terms maybe is a buff, but more HP per less armour? this a survivability NERF, especially if you consider the tank in vet 2 and the time repairing to reach vet 2
i don't remember the actual armour of the panther, 300 or 325 i think, assuming its 300:

now in vet2
960hp 300 armour

after patch in vet 2
960hp 286 armour

Stop showing off knowledge that you don't have, it seems you do not know how to count...

Panther armour in live game is 320

btw is ther anyway we can play the patch (mod)?

PPSH isn't a 33% nerf, thats probably the most neanderthalic way to look at it, even if it's a pretty shortsighted nerf it changes the result of the pg and volks match-up and thats about it, ppsh cons on the test patch will typically lose and win vs the same units they already do if you use them properly. 33% nerf...

No one can 100% call Soviet Snipers anything until a bunch of test games have been played, I think it makes going soviet sniper impossible vs ost but thats probably the thing most likely to change

Brumbarr is not in a remotely decent place it completely needed a nerf, the nerf that it's been given wont even stop it one shot wiping squads anyway because it still has a massive AOE. The reason you don't see it in 1v1 isn't because it's bad it's because of the mechanics of 1v1, its total aids in 2v2+. Squad preservation goes out of the window when this unit exists, it's ability to frontally assault AT-guns is old crocodilesque

The 222 and PGs are pretty much only seeing play by everyone's favourite Dane, Ostheer T2 is being straight skipped in favour of T3 in most 1v1s or is only made for Paks with Puma/Ct callins or in 2v2 after t3 or as part of a t4 rush. It might be an overbuffed tech tier but you can't say that yet.

Also to all the people moaning about 222 in this thread 222 is still going to be 222, flamer ht will still be 10x better at pushing early advantages and wiping squads. 222 will still lose to AEC, still die near instantly to AA/HT, still lose to Stuart and still suffer from pios horrible repair times (good luck spamming 222s when they each need to be repaired for 10 minutes after every ptrs volley). 600/90 fuel into low damage light vehicles sounds a great idea, i'm sure the great minds in this thread would shoot up the leaderboard if that change makes it through.

The over-reactions from people over preliminary patch notes likes it's the death of COH is really something special.

Obviously a lot of the patch is bad, this is the issue when you essentialy have 2 factions of people; relic and the balance team (which is a mess of ideas in of its-self) launching ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks.

The vast majority of the changes have purpose and that people are so insulted by things like a 0.5 second overall 1.5 second nerf to the katuysha is really fucking weird even given how horrible a change it is.

^ perfectly written, couldn't have said it any better

obviously the accuracy and reload time will be better after patch. in general terms maybe is a buff, but more HP per less armour? this a survivability NERF, especially if you consider the tank in vet 2 and the time repairing to reach vet 2
i don't remember the actual armour of the panther, 300 or 325 i think, assuming its 300:

now in vet2
960hp 300 armour

after patch in vet 2
960hp 286 armour

Stop showing off knowledge that you don't have, it seems you do not know how to count...

So you'd rather rely on RNG than have a reliable value to play around? Brilliant. You'd probably be a great Hearthstone player.

It really isn't more or less survivable, comparing vet 2s next to each other is redundant, especially how often Panthers die with their coveted 'high' armour on live (they still get penned all the time on live, dont know if you've used one recently)

The change adds consistency to a high value unit, that is something you should want when you make a big investment in a unit. The repairs could be a problem for Ostheer in 1v1 if you lose your pios over and over again but that usually doesn't happen and ost's crappy repairs are usually a early-mid game problem. in 2v2+ and for OKW its a moot point because of non-doc repair stations.

PPSH isn't a 33% nerf, thats probably the most neanderthalic way to look at it, even if it's a pretty shortsighted nerf it changes the result of the pg and volks match-up and thats about it, ppsh cons on the test patch will typically lose and win vs the same units they already do if you use them properly. 33% nerf...

No one can 100% call Soviet Snipers anything until a bunch of test games have been played, I think it makes going soviet sniper impossible vs ost but thats probably the thing most likely to change

Brumbarr is not in a remotely decent place it completely needed a nerf, the nerf that it's been given wont even stop it one shot wiping squads anyway because it still has a massive AOE. The reason you don't see it in 1v1 isn't because it's bad it's because of the mechanics of 1v1, its total aids in 2v2+. Squad preservation goes out of the window when this unit exists, it's ability to frontally assault AT-guns is old crocodilesque

The 222 and PGs are pretty much only seeing play by everyone's favourite Dane, Ostheer T2 is being straight skipped in favour of T3 in most 1v1s or is only made for Paks with Puma/Ct callins or in 2v2 after t3 or as part of a t4 rush. It might be an overbuffed tech tier but you can't say that yet.

Also to all the people moaning about 222 in this thread 222 is still going to be 222, flamer ht will still be 10x better at pushing early advantages and wiping squads. 222 will still lose to AEC, still die near instantly to AA/HT, still lose to Stuart and still suffer from pios horrible repair times (good luck spamming 222s when they each need to be repaired for 10 minutes after every ptrs volley). 600/90 fuel into low damage light vehicles sounds a great idea, i'm sure the great minds in this thread would shoot up the leaderboard if that change makes it through.

The over-reactions from people over preliminary patch notes likes it's the death of COH is really something special.

Obviously a lot of the patch is bad, this is the issue when you essentialy have 2 factions of people; relic and the balance team (which is a mess of ideas in of its-self) launching ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks.

The vast majority of the changes have purpose and that people are so insulted by things like a 0.5 second overall 1.5 second nerf to the katuysha is really fucking weird even given how horrible a change it is.

I hope you can see the irony that you call some of my statements neanderthal or extremist yet completely lambaste the patch in your own way with some pretty sophomoric references. I'm sure you're right, but you do kind of do the exact thing you criticise within your post.

I hope you can see the irony that you call some of my statements neanderthal or extremist yet completely lambaste the patch in your own way with some pretty sophomoric references. I'm sure you're right, but you do kind of do the exact thing you criticise within your post.

This patch has gaping holes all over it yet people are up in arms about mini-nerfs. Also I feel totally vindicated on the stuff i've been trying to get into the patch for the last 2 months thats been disregarded in place of some truly shit change, so im quite salty

I mean, i dont think RA is as high as is could possibly be for the soviet sniper, you are saying that it is already extremely flimsy due to high RA, but also that its too durable at the same time. It seems incoherent to me.

Im not convinced that RA is already at the max it could or should ever be for the soviet sniper. The problem as i see it is that the soviet sniper can quite happily sit under small arms fire in a way that the Ost and Brit snipers cant.

The points about Mortars and Tanks i dont really know what to say too, its a huge range of "if's" if both sniper models are close enough that they both receive max damage from the mortar then both will die, if they arent, then they wont. But then, as i said, even if an Ost or Brit sniper takes a direct hit from a mortar it wont die either. So the comparison is - can sometimes die for the soviet sniper, too - will never die for the others.

The same applies to tank shots, it depends on the location of the models and the aoe being applied. Its just different, thats what im saying is good, the two models gives the unit a different flavour. Its more durable in some situations, its less durable in others. You make the case that if the tank shell hits one model you waste some damage potential, but you can equally say that if the tank's aoe hits the second model, you are gaining damage potential you wouldnt get hitting a single sniper model. And its not like the 90 mp reinforce cost is utterly negligible.

The problem is right now, as it says in the patch notes, the Soviet sniper is too durable because of its higher HP in fact and as you say its higher effective HP, so nerf its effective HP under rifle fire to reasonable levels by nerfing its RA.

After doing a re-read of the patch notes I'm noticing a lack of Bug Fixes section. I can only assume things like Valiant Assault cooldown time and such will be looked at. It's such an incredibly strong ability and the lack of real cooldown makes it even stronger to hammer in the gained advantage.

So you'd rather rely on RNG than have a reliable value to play around? Brilliant. You'd probably be a great Hearthstone player.

It really isn't more or less survivable, comparing vet 2s next to each other is redundant, especially how often Panthers die with their coveted 'high' armour on live (they still get penned all the time on live, dont know if you've used one recently)

The change adds consistency to a high value unit, that is something you should want when you make a big investment in a unit. The repairs could be a problem for Ostheer in 1v1 if you lose your pios over and over again but that usually doesn't happen and ost's crappy repairs are usually a early-mid game problem. in 2v2+ and for OKW its a moot point because of non-doc repair stations.

from 320 to 260 in armour value, for 1 more guaranteed hit until vet2? and you still thinking than this is a survivability buff?? really???

you must go to school to learn something about maths and statistics, I'm wasting my time with you, and you are wasting your time playing this game.

from 320 to 260 in armour value, for 1 more guaranteed hit until vet2? and you still thinking than this is a survivability buff?? really???

you must go to school to learn something about maths and statistics, I'm wasting my time with you, and you are wasting your time playing this game.

Do you know what RNG is? Do you know how armour works in COH2? Did you ever use Churchill pre its armour/hp swap? Do you know what consistency means?

1) "PANTHERS

Both Panthers are being standardized in reload and accuracy to improve performance; the health bonus at veterancy 2 has been shifted to the unit’s stock performance to improve its survivability against tank destroyers. Now possibly in its best spot yet.
• Wehr Panther fuel cost from 175 to 185
• Wehr far accuracy increased from 0.03 to 0.035
• HP increase from 800 to 960 (all variants)
• Front armour reduced to 260
• Veterancy 2 +160 HP bonus replaced by +10% armour bonus
• OKW Panther reload from 6.1 - 6.4 to 5.2 - 5.6
• Rear armour reduced from 110 to 90 (all variants)"

When they have to write that the Panther is in the best spot yet, I have trouble believing in that.

If you read a bit between the lines you will see that the Ostheer Panther isn't affected by the reload time decrease. The OKW Panther just gets adjusted to Wehr levels. Thus the Ostheer Panther (which currently is underpowered) gets a minor buff with a nerf again. This was the case in the previous patch already (buff + nerf = fixing little to nothing). Combined with the StuG nerf, I'm somewhat sceptic this will work to keep Ostheer relevant lategame.

2) The PG buff is a bit over the top regarding the Schrecks. I'm afraid this will lead to Schreck blobs becoming meta. The far accuracy is great since for me PGs lost all their purpose being outperformed by regular Grens on far range.

3) The 222 buff seems to be too much aswell. I fail to see how Brits might win against that. Even an AEC should be in trouble.