Give me a reason why KV8 is OP?

It shows up and a squad dies almost every single time. Literally the only way to not lose squads is to retreat the second it comes in the same quadrant of the map, so to retreat the necessary amount of units you lose complete map control. The main problem is it doesn't take any skill to use whatsoever. Just give it a move order and it plays the game for you, a player with pretty piss poor micro can get one and wipe several squads with little to no effort. It should be good at killing infantry, but for a game that has such a big emphasis on unit preservation it shouldn't 1-2 burst squads almost every time. For those of you saying "well its expensive" that is no excuse for unit to do such a thing. Panthers are expensive, Pershing was expensive, and Tigers/KT were expensive but very very rarely did they 1 shot units. It definitely needs a nerf to flamethrower, and maybe a little bit of a penetration buff to the main gun in return.

Its a high risk, high gain type of unit. If you pull one out and don't achieve desired result, you are in deep trouble. You did 2 things, forced German player to tech to heavier armor and at the same time used up good chunk of resources...

Something like Brit eng commander with flame churchill and bomb one (whatever they were called, already forgot

It shows up and a squad dies almost every single time. Literally the only way to not lose squads is to retreat the second it comes in the same quadrant of the map, so to retreat the necessary amount of units you lose complete map control. The main problem is it doesn't take any skill to use whatsoever. Just give it a move order and it plays the game for you, a player with pretty piss poor micro can get one and wipe several squads with little to no effort. It should be good at killing infantry, but for a game that has such a big emphasis on unit preservation it shouldn't 1-2 burst squads almost every time. For those of you saying "well its expensive" that is no excuse for unit to do such a thing. Panthers are expensive, Pershing was expensive, and Tigers/KT were expensive but very very rarely did they 1 shot units. It definitely needs a nerf to flamethrower, and maybe a little bit of a penetration buff to the main gun in return.

+1

To be honest like pantherswag said above it's more of a problem with flame weapons on retreat (same with flame HT).

In COH1 I never fielded the flame HT or Crocodile tank even when I had a massive advantage except when I wanted to troll my opponent. The Flame Chruchill was powerful but it came very late and was expensive and still didn't wipe squads like the KV-8.

In the line of previous comments, my only problem with the KV-8 is that sometimes (lots of times) it kills an entire PGren squad with a single burst, even after the German squad began retreating. I understand that, by design, this tank is supposed to be an infantry destroyer, but I disagree with anything that cannot be countered/reacted to.

It happened more than once that I saw a KV-8 and *immediately retreated* my PGren squad... and it was not sufficient to avoid the entire squad being killed. So, I'd probably tone down it's damage just a little bit, just to avoid a single burst killing 4 PGren models.

Ok, to answer Op's question:

The reason KV8 is OP is because its in a weak commander tree (no rifles, etc) meaning German domination through t2.

Its designed to be high risk strategy with potential high gain or if it doesn't work out its GG

Its quite clear why its OP, because if its nerfed you may as well just delete entire commander tree

Its a high risk, high gain type of unit. If you pull one out and don't achieve desired result, you are in deep trouble. You did 2 things, forced German player to tech to heavier armor and at the same time used up good chunk of resources...

Something like Brit eng commander with flame churchill and bomb one (whatever they were called, already forgot

It can be good without instantly erasing units. Someone gets vetted Grenadiers and PGrens but just because someone picked an otherwise weak doctrine it is acceptable for them instantly die? No. It could be buffed in other areas like acceleration and main gun but there is no justification for units consistently insta killing full squads unless its just a really lucky hit from artillery or grenades.

Just don't use PG to deal with it. KV-8 is hopeless against almost any German tank. I really don't see a problem here unless all you have done all game was PG spam. But that's your mistake not unit being OP

There are times where I've retreated Vet 3 PzGrens when the KV-8 is on the very edge of my LoS(As far away as possible and they still get killed because he gets off a single burst.

A well-microed KV-8 is basically a godlike T70. Switch guns with it an the armor value should let you duke it out with a PzIV if you get your positioning really good.

The only reliable way I've found to kill a KV-8 is 2 StuGs camped behind some bait and my opponent over extending. This was before the Faust nerf so I threw away a fresh-bought Gren squad for a Faust shot that damaged the engine. It's not a reliable strategy anymore.

My favorite game was when I managed to steal a KV-8 wreck and my opponent complained it was OP.

Ok, to answer Op's question:

The reason KV8 is OP is because its in a weak commander tree (no rifles, etc) meaning German domination through t2.

Its designed to be high risk strategy with potential high gain or if it doesn't work out its GG

Its quite clear why its OP, because if its nerfed you may as well just delete entire commander tree

Um, I'm not sure being in a crap tree is necessarily a good reason for it to be OP, because then fixing anything else in the tree (like, say, making Shocks cost effective) will completely mess up the balance.

My issue is still, it's just that it's the sort of unit that can just end the game if it waltzes into an enemy base, as well as being very hard to actually kill if the opponent uses it more responsibly. For 360MP and 135 Fuel, that's way too good. I don't mind the infantry melting but the infantry melting, the armour and the cost together is way too good.

I think the best point of comparison is the Brummbar, which has worse armour and less HP, is less effective against infantry in a real scenario most of the time, requires a Tier 4 tech building (hence a bigger initial fuel and MP investment) and costs 35 fuel and 160 mp more.

Not really. The KV-8 needs 4CP, the timing of which suprisingly falls together with the first PzIV. That's assuming the Soviet didn't tech and is still on tent. Since there is absolutely no reason not to spam PzIV as Ostheer, the best the KV-8 can attempt to do is a baserape.

as the kv8 is heavy armor a panzer4 will get plenty of deflections off its armor as I experience every time even hitting side armor.

A faust is not guaranteed to work after the nerf, which is alright as I like those changes overall, but the kv8 received a significant buff from this due to its solid speed. Mot to mention the sheer DPS will eat the gren/pgrens with shrecks alive before they can do almost anything...god help you if they started at less than full health.

I've seen a kv8 roll over a teller mine and receive no damage, let alone engine damage fuuuuuuuu

The flamethrower range is almost as long as rifle and shoots across half the screen almost casually. By comparison the squishy flamer halftrack has to get up close which is countered by AT nades or guards.

Basically similar to the t-70 the kv8 is imbalanced from its low cost (for a heavy tank of all things) combined with its solid armor, speed, and amazing dps. Its a cheese unit that unless it hits a mine and gets engine damaged straight in the field of fire of some supported ATG, the tank will take forever to kill.

Whats important to remember is that units dont exist in a vacuum. 4CP for a heavy coming out at the same time as a panzer4 doesnt address the fact that a smart soviet player will have zis/guards/at nades/an army? to conduct combined arms with the tank. The tank just provides too much benefit for its current cost and availability.'

But in the end its just another soviet unit that dominates the battlefield and forces the german player to react specifically to a single unit (t70, kv8, su85, sniper spam, etc etc)

It shows up and a squad dies almost every single time. Literally the only way to not lose squads is to retreat the second it comes in the same quadrant of the map, so to retreat the necessary amount of units you lose complete map control. The main problem is it doesn't take any skill to use whatsoever. Just give it a move order and it plays the game for you, a player with pretty piss poor micro can get one and wipe several squads with little to no effort. It should be good at killing infantry, but for a game that has such a big emphasis on unit preservation it shouldn't 1-2 burst squads almost every time. For those of you saying "well its expensive" that is no excuse for unit to do such a thing. Panthers are expensive, Pershing was expensive, and Tigers/KT were expensive but very very rarely did they 1 shot units. It definitely needs a nerf to flamethrower, and maybe a little bit of a penetration buff to the main gun in return.

+1

I don't know why so many players try to defend the KV8 - it is blatantly clear that it is OP for its price. The fact that it can insta-gib a squad (yes, the whole squad) just by looking at it is ridiculous.

Nobody said you are supposed to call in the KV8 as a first armored unit. Try getting one when you have an Su-85 already, or even some AT guns on the field. Just with the presence of the KV8 on the field the German player is shitting his pants praying that sending his infantry to capture a point isn't going to result in them getting instantly roasted. PAK guns become instantly useless and Germans are forced to go for an armored approach, most likely P4s, which is in turn easily countered by mine spam and the existence of the Su-85.

Even if you don't manage to kill all of the German armor, you will have map dominance by this point since his infantry are pretty much all screwed and then you can just drain VPs by defending and getting more Su-85s. This is even more evident lately because of the panzerfaust nerf that makes it nearly impossible to stop this juggernaut reasonably quickly unless you have a Panther (I'm not saying a P4 or Stug can't kill it, but it won't kill it fast enough to render it ineffective).

Just because Shock Troops are not good versus the German T2 right now doesn't mean it is acceptable to have such an OP unit in the game. When the German armored car's price raises (and thereby its vet requirements) the KV8 is going back to being a problem.

If you really need to see how OP a KV8 is, play some 2v2 - you'll literally negate and decimate 2 players worth of infantry (so probably around 1k manpower each) with 1 unit that costs 135 fuel. Clearly balanced.

We "defend it" because we realize it's the least of the balance's problems right now. It's an overpowered late game pure anti-infantry tank in a game dominated by anti-tank tanks on the faction that can't spare the fuel in a tree that lets germans easily assert complete dominance early on with vehicles unless the soviet player gets lucky with mines.

It's also one of the few reasons for the StuG to exist (as everything else in the soviet arsenal has such shit armor that you'd be better off with the turreted generalist PIV). Oh and the KV8 is pretty much the only reason for its commander trees to exist.

I am still of the opinion that if in the current patch any german feels like they lost "because of the KV8", then they absolutely deserved to lose because they had obviously screwed up so badly way before in the game.

Note: I don't care what, if any, effect the thing actually has on 3vs3 and 4vs4, and I'm pretty sure Relic doesn't either. Those modes are provided as is without any consideration for the balance in them, and for very good reason.

So, you're telling me that the reason the KV8 is "fine" is because the Soviet's early game is bad. How is that any justification to anything? Once the early game gets adjusted once more to balance things out a bit after the last AC buff, is the KV8 not going to spiral back out of control if it stays the same? Just because the faction's early game is shit at the moment does not mean a late game unit needs to insta-gib a squad upon contact. If the same amount of DPS was given to the Brummbar when Maxim spam was out of control, I guarantee Soviet players would have been crying (funny thing is, I did remember some Soviet players crying about the Elefant back during Maxim spam days). I play both factions and I have been on both the delivering and receiving end of KV8 flamethrower infantry-retreat-rape and believe me when I say it is ridiculous when used correctly.

I did not say anything about nerfing the KV8 and leave the rest of the Soviet faction as is. Rather, some trade between a buff to early game units and a simultaneous nerf to the KV8 is in order. Stop using one balance issue as an excuse to not correct another, because then I can say the reverse: "since the KV8 is so OP, Soviets should be utter shit early game." How does that sound?

Butt Seriously, its only OP vs infantry (use that as hint)

+1 nods.

sounds like the problem here is not that it is OP. but rather that you guys don't build tanks.

sounds like the problem here is not that it is OP. but rather that you guys don't build tanks.

sounds like the problem here is not su85 is OP. but rather that you guys don't build infantry.

sounds like mg42s are not that op, you just dont build tanks.

sounds like soviet snipers arent that op, you just dont build light vehicles.

Come on guys, the KV-8 is only overpowered against the most important unit class in the game, give it a break already! It's not like it doesn't take a Tiger tank a minute to kill it or anything.

Come on guys, the KV-8 is only overpowered against the most important unit class in the game, give it a break already! It's not like it doesn't take a Tiger tank a minute to kill it or anything.

But Cyridius, I heard that in this game there are tanks that can capture points!

Oh, wait.

So, you're telling me that the reason the KV8 is "fine" is because the Soviet's early game is bad. How is that any justification to anything? Once the early game gets adjusted once more to balance things out a bit after the last AC buff, is the KV8 not going to spiral back out of control if it stays the same? Just because the faction's early game is shit at the moment does not mean a late game unit needs to insta-gib a squad upon contact. If the same amount of DPS was given to the Brummbar when Maxim spam was out of control, I guarantee Soviet players would have been crying (funny thing is, I did remember some Soviet players crying about the Elefant back during Maxim spam days). I play both factions and I have been on both the delivering and receiving end of KV8 flamethrower infantry-retreat-rape and believe me when I say it is ridiculous when used correctly.

I did not say anything about nerfing the KV8 and leave the rest of the Soviet faction as is. Rather, some trade between a buff to early game units and a simultaneous nerf to the KV8 is in order. Stop using one balance issue as an excuse to not correct another, because then I can say the reverse: "since the KV8 is so OP, Soviets should be utter shit early game." How does that sound?

Its just about useless in 3v3 and 4v4 (since 1 or 2 German players tech straight from t1 to t4, more often than not Piv will hit the ground before Kv8)