mortar team balance

Ok so here is my concern

• German mortar is 4 man, which was a good change imo, but you still only have effectively 3 men, cos the last guy abandons it.

• The thing that irritates me is the soviet 120mm. You can kill 5 guys and it still retreats with one man, wheeling that fucker out of there. Why is it like this and do you guys think it is balanced? If so, why?

• What about the regular russian 82mm mortar does the last guy retreat with the mortar or abandon?

PS:

• I know the 120mm has wheels but it is big, and must weigh a lot not to mention the heavy shells. Surely one guy can also carry the 80mm german one.

• I also know that it is doctrinal, but it is still a mortar, and should function the same as other mortars at least regarding the retreat/abandon mechanic.

• I mean, doctrinal tanks have the same chance to be abandoned as regular tanks, why should a mortar call-in have different retreat/abandon mechanics than regular mortars?

• I think the fact that it has 6 men should already make it hard enough to kill. The last guy wheeling it away is imho just a bit too much.

Ok so here is my concern

• The thing that irritates me is the soviet 120mm. You can kill 5 guys and it still retreats with one man, wheeling that fucker out of there. Why is it like this and do you guys think it is balanced? If so, why?

I feel your pain man, it is bullshit in my eyes too. That thing is already beast with huge range and damage. Two of them can lock (if you stop moving, you are dead) big area, esp on some maps in 2v2 and there is NO real counter for german till Panzerwerfer or howitzer. Also "funny" thing is that even direct fire from werfer usually dont kill the mortar cuz one guy just run back to base and they can mortar werfers back with succes.

Imho it should be changed that you need 3 guys to survive instead of 1.

The 120 mm mortar thing is due to animation constraints from what I've heard. It has been known and occasionally complained about since beta but tbh I don't think it will be changed anytime soon.

Other than that, the German mortar team fires much faster than the Soviet one. This is their perk for being not as survivable and fighting against bigger squads.

The 120 mm mortar thing is due to animation constraints from what I've heard. It has been known and occasionally complained about since beta but tbh I don't think it will be changed anytime soon.

Other than that, the German mortar team fires much faster than the Soviet one. This is their perk for being not as survivable and fighting against bigger squads.

Yeah german mortar fires faster which is fine, but I still think the 120mm is too surviveable, for the range/damage(and ability to one shot squads) it gives. As mentioned above, you can't really counter it until much later in the game and it comes out at 1cp. Not even the mortar halftrack's incendiary counters it, cos it can easily retreat out of it since the incendiary will not kill all 6 guys.

I have found the only real counter is a flammen HT, but you have to be very ballzy to drive that far behind enemy lines, and will probably lose the ht if you try. On langreskaya the 120mm can comfortably sit inside the hedgerows of your base while firing at the middle vp, if not further.

Now im not saying its range/damage is too much, just the last man retreating that frustrates me.

Think 120 mm need a much larger scatter considering it's blast radius. That thing can almost replace snipers. It's sooooo stupid.

It probably needs to be moved to 2cp and a smaller blast radius (or at least greater dmg reduction at outer radius). Currently, injured squads that are slightly clumped can be 1 shotted.

Upkeep increase to something like sniper would be better, but weapons can be decrewed and recrewed with conscripts...

Yeah the insta-gibbing of full pgren squads is infuriating, but I will be willing to live with that if they don't also retreat at one man with the mortar. A slight AOE radius nerf wouldnt be out of the question though...

Just an FYI, the 120mm doesn't do more damage over other mortars. They all do 80 damage, even on barrages. The 120mm receives 50% extra range and aoe distance. Regular mortars have 1.5 near and 3 far are radius, whereas a 120mm receives a 2.25 and 4.5 radius. (near radius is the distance from point of impact that a mortar will do full damage, far radius is the max distance and the damage linearly scales from near to far damage).

120mm is the one of the greatest bullshit in COH2

it is like a mobile 105 howie

I don't really think it should be nerfed. Yes I get one as soviet but I don't usually rely on it for anything, whatever comes is a bonus, it usually ends the game with around 10 kills. The fact that it's artillery and hard to kill makes it seem so disturbing but really it's not overpowered. Germans get the nondoctrinal one which is pretty nice as well compared to the vanilla soviet one.
And yes it's better than the german's but remember we're going for asymmetrical balance so you shouldn't really judge overall balance comparing similar units one to another.
Also mind that by going with mortars a player sacrifices capping power and AT power.
And remember that not everything has to have hard counters, just let it live and limit it's usefullness.

And remember that not everything has to have hard counters, just let it live and limit it's usefullness.

I dont want to nerf it directly, I just want to be able to kill it and that is very hard to do since 1 guy will make to HQ in nearly every situation.

It shoots rly slow and its most of the time luck if it hits ur troops

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApmrrrPr20ncdEpuSHcxNko1VGVFYjczYXpFZWhqOHc#gid=1

It barrages a hell of a lot faster than you think (fastest barrage speed in game, slowest regular shooting)

I am quite aware that it also does 80 damage, it's the AOE radius that causes the insta-killing squads.

Again, as I have said before, I dont think it needs nerfing really, but it shouldn't be able to retreat at one man and a small AOE radius nerf so it will kill 3 men in a direct hit, not all 4, would probably be warranted.

I think it usually has more than "10 kills". What's the rank of players in that game?

The fact that it doesn't require much micro, and Ostheer must stress so much (spreading out due to the large instakill AOE and long range) is broken. Due to the 1 man still surviving thing, it doesn't reward Ostheer trying to kill it (a bit too hard).

The thing with the 120mm mortar is that its damage and map presence is greatly magnified in a 2v2 setting rather than a 1v1. As the barrage of the mortar is fairly inaccurate, chances are it's probably not going to one-hit your squad (not considering precision strike here). However, when you have multiple 120mm mortars targeting the same area, it becomes immediately impossible for any ostheer infantry unit to walk anywhere near the barrage area.

Of course, if in a 1v1 setting a player chooses to spam 120mm mortars, their capping ability will be severely handicapped and thus the advantage from the multiple mortars is negated. However, when it is 2v2 and both players get a 120mm, the german team is literally forced to continuously spam APM and pray to the RNG gods that the mortar doesn't hit their squad and one-hit it when they are capping a point. This becomes a serious problem on the smaller maps as the germans are unable to cap anything half the time unless they want a bunch of dead squads (which will probably lose them the game anyway).

Back on-topic: if they can't fix the problem with the 1 man retreat due to hardcoding, they should make it a 5 man squad, because that's essentially what the regular 82mm mortar is.

I have a suspicion the guy manning the mortar may be coded to die last, with the net result that there is no internal re-manning of the mortar, as there is on other support weapons.

Whether or not that is the case, I think the 120mm is too survivable for its backline function. Considering the risk and difficulty involved with penetrating that deep into Sov lines to deal with it, it should be more vulnerable.

Just some thought:

What benefits are there in decrewing the 120mm? It's most likely that it'll be quite close to base (due to long range), and recrewing allows them to get lower population/upkeep costs.

I've rarely seen 120mm mortars being able to gain vet easily if that's the issue.

IMO, ostheer mortar vet is more valuable, as vet 3 allows it to have 1.33x range barrage, etc. So I want to keep that alive mostly.

soviet 82mm combat performance have been nerfed into oblivion, and yet you want a durability nerf? I'm damn sure soviet wants the German mortar even if it only has 4 men.

you find soviet 82mm is better than the German one? That pretty much means you never use soviet mortar before.

@UGBEAR: Nobody has even mentioned nerfing 82mm in this thread until you did.