Patch Notes 20/08/2013

changes? but i hate changes? everything is different from the way it was before. i cant handle different!

They shouldn't nerf the SU-85 too heavily otherwise Soviets will have a terrible late game. This nerf is alright imo. The 222 was buffed but should cost more manpower otherwise we could see some scoutcar spam strategies which can rape anything.

My prediction:
-T34s will own Stugs. Gets maybe one lucky shot if Sov comes from front, then the T34s speed will run circles around the extremely slow Stug and buttpunch it to death.
-SU85s will still dominate with lolreverse to negate flanking, by simply instantly turning off the no longer needed Focused Sight (which infact was a hindrance in reversing vs flank anyways, due to restricted vision so good players microed it off before too).
-KV8S, now largely impervious to engine dmg from Fausts, will ignore AT and baserape mercilessly at full speed.
-PaK40s will rarely vet to get Weak Spot, and the delay on the cast means the traversing T34 is already ouf of cone or behind cover, causing the PaK40 to not fire ieven its vanilla shot in the interim.
-Any Stugs lucky enough to vet will be perma Buttoned or AT naded, due to slow speed and poor AI.

Having played a few games since the patch hit, all of what Nullist said is true:
T34s beat Stugs if both unsupported, SU85 is still a powerhouse (though people don't tend to use the focus sight sight much so not *quite* as strong), KV8 is an unfaustable monster, pak40s are lucky to get vet 1.
However, there are some really nice changes, especially small arms fire at point blank range doing way more damage (helps germans vs flame cars and sovs vs mg42s) and the map vetoes. Oh and upgunned german scoutcars eat snipers alive. :-)

@s73v0: german scoutcars will lose badly to conscripts with AT nade due to the small arms fire change. They're strong at range but squishier than ever. Definitely not viable for me to spam, but maybe some micro god like Hans could be lethal with them en masse. Jury still out. Bottom line is they're only multi-purpose when upgunned at a hefty 70 munis, VERY squishy, but actually a worthwhile unit past early game if you keep them alive.

Great patch. And this!

Pop cap is too small now, reverse it to the way it was before.

My prediction:
-T34s will own Stugs. Gets maybe one lucky shot if Sov comes from front, then the T34s speed will run circles around the extremely slow Stug and buttpunch it to death.
-SU85s will still dominate with lolreverse to negate flanking, by simply instantly turning off the no longer needed Focused Sight (which infact was a hindrance in reversing vs flank anyways, due to restricted vision so good players microed it off before too).
-KV8S, now largely impervious to engine dmg from Fausts, will ignore AT and baserape mercilessly at full speed.
-PaK40s will rarely vet to get Weak Spot, and the delay on the cast means the traversing T34 is already ouf of cone or behind cover, causing the PaK40 to not fire ieven its vanilla shot in the interim.
-Any Stugs lucky enough to vet will be perma Buttoned or AT naded, due to slow speed and poor AI.

PZIV won T-34/76 T-34/85 KV-8, and SU-85 now can't chase a running stug, AT nade have less 50% chance of engine damage a PZIV, and 2 PZIV owns a JS-2 with ease, cherry picking enough?

T34s beat Stugs if both unsupported

Technically this was always the case. It would just take longer.

"Pop cap is too small now, reverse it to the way it was before."

It makes sense that the fuel cost is taken into account. They should keep it the way it is, just increase the cap to say 120.

@Cruzz, a flanking T-34 can now chew up a P-IV, which is basically the level of buff they needed. They can also mince an Ostwind head on, which is probably a good change. They're also even cheaper in terms of fuel.

Well, in the stream yesterday it atleast looked like the first t34 was getting a rear armor hit on every single shot, and it still lost. The second also came from the rear (well, more to the side, so probably wasn't hitting rear...), and lost. With the current acceleration and speeds of various tanks, the only thing I think you could claim to often be able to rear damage is a StuG (which nobody will still build), Brummbär (ditto), Tiger (has more armor in the rear than a PIV in the front, good luck with that. And nobody builds them) and Elephant (also never seen in 1vs1, but often enough in team games. Same as Tiger). Panther and PIV, no go, yet they're the ones you'd actually need to counter.

I think the T34 change is a step in the right direction, but I don't think it's a big enough change for it to be a realistic replacement for the su85 in a match that hasn't been dominated by soviets early on. The penetration numbers needed to be at PIV levels even if shot damage and armor was still below the piv. I guess they want to try emphasize flanking by still giving it a bad penetration value, but the thing is, you often have to fight from the front and when you do the SU85 is still the only thing that can perform.

Also for gods sake just make the atguns 240mp already if you're not planning on buffing their performance. Then they just maybe might one day kill something worth more than they are.

Great patch. And this!

xp kickers? What does this mean?

xp kickers? What does this mean?

These are the xp numbers you see when you kill a unit member.

Classic xp kickers are shown above the unit which is being shot at, before it was above the unit that is shooting.

thank you peruci

basicly you can now decide whether the XP kickers appear next to the unit that got the kill, or if it appears like it did in vCoH, where it appeared above the killed soldiers/tanks

Good patch overall...
How long exactly does it take for the SU-85 to de-activate focus sight? I hope this helps the SU-85 spamming, but we will have to see.

Very glad about the 222 buff, will make upgrading it actually worth the investment.

Stug's target weak point might be better, will have to test it.

T34 buff was huge, dont know why people are still complaining. It's damage was buffed by 1/3 against all units, thus it will rape infantry even more than before, and stand up well to p4's while being 30 fuel less. T34 will also demolish halftracks and scoutcars very fast which isn't neccesarily a bad thing..

Also, it is now a measly 85 fuel(manpower price has very little effect since it's always about fuel in CoH. The upkeep system also means you get a lot of mp if you are behind). Ram changes were good, but it is my prediction that T34's will be spammed frequently from now on.

I am very sad that pak/zis didnt get a damage buff. Target weak point now does more dmg across the board, but getting to vet 1 especially with a pak will be damn hard.

cool patch

I think the rationale behind the SU-85 having to de-activate focus sight to escape is that it no longer can escape whilst outranging the pursuing tank. It was a really broken side effect of the ability + the SU speed: they could do an "offensive retreat" where they would shoot at a Panther while avoiding being shot at. Now the Russian player has to choose between staying and firing, or simply retreating without the extra range.

This alone probably won't be enough to fully balance the unit and I'm pretty sure that the SU-85 will still get more nerfs in the future. As already mentioned, balancing is an iterative process. I just hope that it happens soon or I'm afraid the game starts losing players.

Aside from balancing, the issue where SU-85s snipes infantry and pak guns way too often is a broken behavior that needs fixing.

I think the rationale behind the SU-85 having to de-activate focus sight to escape is that it no longer can escape whilst outranging the pursuing tank. It was a really broken side effect of the ability + the SU speed: they could do an "offensive retreat" where they would shoot at a Panther while avoiding being shot at. Now the Russian player has to choose between staying and firing, or simply retreating without the extra range.

This alone probably won't be enough to fully balance the unit and I'm pretty sure that the SU-85 will still get more nerfs in the future. As already mentioned, balancing is an iterative process. I just hope that it happens soon or I'm afraid the game starts losing players.

Aside from balancing, the issue where SU-85s snipes infantry and pak guns way too often is a broken behavior that needs fixing.

Thing is, focus sight increases its sight range, not its actual range. Thus if it reverses without focus sight it will still have the same range, just not its own spotter. But take into consideration that it will be reversing into friendly territory, thus it will 9/10 times still have vision of the attacking tank provided by either friendly infantry, or control points. I really dont know how big the effect will be, but I think the lol-reversing is still gonna be a problem.

My only hope is that the time it takes to de-activate the focus sight will give enough time for the flanking tank to get behind it.

Another good point brought up by nullist is that kv-8's are now gonna be almost un-faustable(like they were even faustable to begin with).

Fuck they overbuff T-34, even panther can't kill them fast

T34 buff was huge, dont know why people are still complaining. It's damage was buffed by 1/3 against all units, thus it will rape infantry even more than before, and stand up well to p4's while being 30 fuel less. T34 will also demolish halftracks and scoutcars very fast which isn't neccesarily a bad thing..

Also, it is now a measly 85 fuel(manpower price has very little effect since it's always about fuel in CoH. The upkeep system also means you get a lot of mp if you are behind). Ram changes were good, but it is my prediction that T34's will be spammed frequently from now on.

I think the same.
I used it a lot pre patch, it was an anti inf beast.
Now I fear it will be out of control.