Very few cost effective counters to upgraded Grens

Veterancy gain is identical for Cons and Grens.
Its 75% from dmg done. 25% from dmg received.

Grens and Cons do almost identical dmg, and have almost identical survival.

No, and no. In the context of actual gameplay the Grens can spend a good bit of time shooting at suppressed squads that barely even shoot back. And they have rifle grenades that do a lot of damage on impact, whereas a molotov does a very slow burn over time effect that is easily negated even if you don't dodge it. Plus if they get a reasonably priced LMG upgrade their damage output increases exponentially. So for no doctrine and easily affordable munition expenditures they have far superior firepower immediately and a huge increase in survivability at vet 2. Even with a 2 CP doctrinal upgrade the conscripts are still inferior pound for pound and because of the reasons I just listed so they will surely be losing the veterancy war.

We don't want to simply compare LMG performance to vanilla Cons in a "vacuum", do we.

No, we compared them to literally every infantry unit the Soviets have, including upgraded Cons.

If you want some more credibility go play Soviets for a change, your German-only stats qualify you to be nothing more than a theorycrafter.

I believe they specifically do not want conscripts buffed for late game, excepting ppsh and htd from doctrine. The point is to force the soviet to use a doctrinal infantry. Lmg is still a bit too good and comes early; a slight dps reduction and/or tier 1 requirement would be good. Volks couldn't get mp40s without a tier upgrade either.

I believe they specifically do not want conscripts buffed for late game, excepting ppsh and htd from doctrine.

Well, they kinda have to because mass grenadier opening is unbeatable.

I believe they specifically do not want conscripts buffed for late game, excepting ppsh and htd from doctrine. The point is to force the soviet to use a doctrinal infantry. Lmg is still a bit too good and comes early; a slight dps reduction and/or tier 1 requirement would be good. Volks couldn't get mp40s without a tier upgrade either.

Finding some way to improve penals would take care of a lot of issues. I just flat out can't use them cost efficiently (even with only using conscript merge to reinforce). In a clown car they're pretty good long range dps... outside of a clown car they just melt. I'm not sure what to do about them... cost reduction maybe? More survivability? Right now I'd rather just get a sniper.

Hit the dirt was nerfed into oblivion and is not nearly as useful anymore, I agree with cardboard tank, a decent weapon upgrade for conscript s will be good. As well as tweaking with the vet system.

Hit the dirt was nerfed into oblivion and is not nearly as useful anymore, I agree with cardboard tank, a decent weapon upgrade for conscript s will be good. As well as tweaking with the vet system.

No not to that extent, its still useful, especially that it reduces unit movement making firing more focused.

LMG with its current dps comes in the game way too early for the soviet player to have a way to counter it. Also it increases grenadiers vetting so much because of the insane dps. Those are the two main things that need to be fixed first, then maybe dps.

Your second point IS changing the dps. Veterancy is dependent on taking and receiving damage relative to the units cost in mp/fuel. I dont think tgey are going to change that for a single unit.
That's why flameHT and upgun AC vet up so easily. Low cost high damage.

Not sure about balance, but I know I dread seeing an opponent go all grens. Not sure if there's much of a downside to using 4 or 5 of these over combined arms at the moment. They do make conscripts impotent pretty quickly with 1 or 2 lmgs on the field, and they make m3s hard to capitalize on, not to mention t-70s, which have a very short window of "dominance" before a p4 arrives, but have to tread incredibly lightly in that window, or end up crawling around until getting repaired.

I like penals...their flamers do engage much faster than they used to. I use them more against pgrens(especially as support against shrekked pgrens) and they are still hilarious if they can get close enough to a cluster of set-up units and other milling squads to toss in a satchel(though these things seem to have gotten a nerf)

I thought shocks were a good answer to grens and pgrens. I don't play at a high enough level to be sure, but they always seem to eat up anything in their path,and stay on the field for a while.

I only find guards good against infantry for the grenade, but that is a big deal.

Early game I find sandbags somewhat helpful, and they will win me a fight 1 on 1 with a gren squad, or stall a conflict against an lmg'ed gren. , but of course the conscript will always lose out to the rifle-nade, which badly needs the warning timer fixed. Its kind of unfortunate that I can't feel safe to stay in the cover I built against a standard t1 unit, and instead have to rush my opponent half the time for fear of the boom. fixing this little detail might make the early game a little more favorable for russia.

Beyond that, conscripts don't scale well, but they do add some fodder, capping power, and cheap reinforcement for the squads I care about(thats' basically all I use them for in the mid and late game, that and well... AT nades).

A Muni cost increase on LMG may be feasible to prevent excessively buying them on every single Gren when Gren spamming.

Perhaps to 80 Muni.

Ost is generally choked for Muni though, so may need some early-game Sov Muni cost increases to reciprocate.

A conscript buff isn't really the solution - only thing to fix it is to make that DPS a bit lower so that the LMG gren squad isn't quite so one-man-armyish in the early game or increase the cost to make it less spammable. Grens scale pretty well, probably better than conscripts, even without the upgrade with no further investment. Also, two or more squads with LMG-42s just deal *so* much damage at mid-long range for a tier 1 unit that it makes the retreat kills with them a bit easy.

It can probably take a nerf and still be worth 60 munitions.

@Cardboard Tank: now the MG is an interesting unit that fits in well with the rest of the game. Previously it was idiotically overpowered. The same could be said of the beta FHT or the early iteration of the M3 flamer combo or old HTD.

Grens scale pretty well, probably better than conscripts, even without the upgrade with no further investment.

How so?

Genuine query.

I change my stance on this issue a bit. The grenadier LMG blob combined with a panzergrenadier squad that rushes in after the firefight starts is pretty hard to counter because the panzergrenadiers can easily melt Maxims that aren't already shooting at them. That combination of close-range and long-range infantry shredding is pretty hard to manage, especially if you got behind.

Just had a game where one of my Maxims got insta-gibbed by rifle-nade collapsing the house in one hit. Simply could not come back from that as their infantry count got bigger than mine and could roll over my infantry and chase me off the map with the above composition. However, for the sake of objectivity, I will blame that loss on house crits rather than unit balance (why they have not fixed this yet I have no idea).

How so?

Genuine query.

Well, the gren vet 2 bonus is less damage received, while the conscript one is more damage dealt, so unvetted grens can fight vetted conscripts and deal some damage, get some vet and force them off the field in large enough numbers, whilst unvetted conscripts are basically going to do nothing to vetted grens.

The rest of the things sort of balance out in my view (AT nades + molotovs cost resources to tech but Conscripts also have Oorah and Merge, armour is better early game while squad size is slightly better late game, long range grenades are more relevant in the late game but molotovs deny cover + buildings early on).

Vet 2 grens are also much harder to kill on retreat with infantry than vet 2 cons.

It's not that big a deal until LMG-42s turn up, which let vet 0 grens tangle with vet 2 conscripts, and makes vet gain much much quicker for new Ostheer squads.

Edit: also, riflenades right now are bugged so they don't give a warning, which is sort of screwing the balance up a bit later in the game when players need to divide their attention more but that's a bug rather than a balance thing.

Effective counters to upgraded Grenadiers:


1. Early game:
- Mortars,
- Maxims,
- Zis barrage,
- Molotov to some degree,
- Shock troops,
- Engineeres with flamer to some degree,
- Any sort of nades, charges etc.

2. Mid till late game:
- T-34
- T-70,
- SU-76
- IS-2
- KV-8
- Katyusha,
- ISU-152

Anything that's good against infantry tbh.

Effective counters to upgraded Grenadiers:


1. Early game:
- Mortars,
- Maxims,
- Zis barrage,
- Molotov to some degree,
- Shock troops,
- Engineeres with flamer to some degree,
- Any sort of nades, charges etc.

2. Mid till late game:
- T-34
- T-70,
- SU-76
- IS-2
- KV-8
- Katyusha,
- ISU-152

Anything that's good against infantry tbh.

most constructive tips I've seen in my life

http://www.coh2.org/topic/8186/rework-conscriptsoorah

This is what I suggested - that we change the PPSH for Oorah in terms of global/doctrinal abilities.

@Blovski: Why are you comparing Vet 0 units with Vet 2 units? Let alone upgraded Vet 2 units to Vet 0 units? Furthermore, is there a reason you omitted the survival bonus Sov inf gets with Vet 2 alongside the dmg bonus?

In COH1 players also often complained about the BAR upgrade making rifles too good.

I don't understand why those persons can't realise that it's a game feature to make certain units stand out and excel in a specific task.

Here you have a special option for the grens to upgrade for superior anti-infantry action. Other units have other specials. Like the penal flamethrower.

If all units on both sides were equal, how interesting a game would that be?

How so?

Genuine query.

It's a combination of the upgrades available to them and the enemy unit pool opposing them.

A grenadier can take care of out of the box
- Engineers
- Conscripts
- M3
- the never build halftrack
- T70
- T76

With T2 + rifle grenade they gracefully deal with
- Maxims
- Snipers

With LMG43 upgrade they can effectively mow down any soviet infantry.
They're still vital in assisting vs. T-70 and T-34 and SU

And that's basically all soviet units.

A conscript is effective against:
- Pios
and they can assist vs.
- AC
- german T3
but that's a redundant job, because the unit that is better at all of this are
- Guards

Here you have a special option for the grens to upgrade for superior anti-infantry action. Other units have other specials. Like the penal flamethrower.

Flameshrowers are shittier versions of the LMG with less range. The only flamethrower that is better than an LMG, as in it makes good for it's reduced range with appropriately more firepower, is the one on the KV8.

http://www.coh2.org/topic/8186/rework-conscriptsoorah

This is what I suggested - that we change the PPSH for Oorah in terms of global/doctrinal abilities.

This is a very good suggestion and mandatory with current meta.

Vanilla Conscript vs LMG Gren- don't even bother
PPSH Conscript vs LMG Gren- doctrine specific and still inferior
Molotovs- does very minimal damage unless you get a lucky crit, and easily dodged
Shocks- doctrine specific and 2x cost but only slightly better
Penals- too expensive and suck
Guards- they are decent but grenade is overpriced and the weapon drop rate is ludicrious
Sniper- only reliable counter, and early T1 forces a doctrine with Guards or easily punished by German T2 vehicles
Maxim- nerfed too hard, doesn't kill enough now
Mortars- relying on luck= no bueno

• Agree. Vanilla conscripts are to vulnerable. Molotovs or houses are your friends now.
  
• Some what disagree. Molotov is solid imo as it does force your opponent to move which lets you get in more damage. Keep in mind you don't always have to throw it, you can bait an opponent and make them react and quickly cancel.
  
• Disagree. Shocks destroy LMG grens, all you have to do is get close. Aim grenades on the biggest clump or the man with the LMG to buy yourself an extra 1-2 secs of no damage.
  
• Agree. Penals seems harder to use verse LMG.
  
• Agree. Guards don't fancy but hey they shouldn't imo.
  
• Agree. Snipers.
  
• Some what agree. Maxims actually do quite well but you have to give them a lot of forward vision and catch the Grens at a distance.
  
• Disagree. Mortars are actually good verse LMG. The key here is to fight from long-mid range with Conscripts and force a cover shoot out. Eventually that mortar will hit and once you get it to vet1, no capping Gren is safe.
  

I sort of play it like CoH1 Rifles vs Volks spam, which I felt was the Volk spam was the BO with most potential aggresion if America screwed up a single time. Very similiar to that of Gren spam with LMG. With my Rifles I would always play it defensively but the moment you find the opportunity I pounce on it. In this case though my BAR's are my Shock Troops. I have that mindset and it seems to work against a lot of the high ranked Ostheer players that primarily just spam Grens/LMG and extend to T2 or straight T3.

In the mid-game stages I feel as I said my Shocks handle them find, T3 anti-infantry vehicles and T2/T4 arty.