Looking at USF

GCS2 results and some forum sentiment are pointing to the idea that USF is underpowered at high levels of play, perhaps due to its teching. Or maybe GCS2 is too small of a sample to determine balance.

I'm not trying to make a whiny "ALLIES UP" thread; I'm hoping that the merits and limitations of the faction can be discussed. What would be some changes that would make the faction more competitive and interesting to play as/against? Is it fine as is?

I think the Sherman could use some sort of vet2 bonus that grants a 30% increase in armor so it scales properly into the late game. Too much allied armor doesn't get increases in survivability as it vets similar to how the OST tanks all get armor bonuses when they vet.

This would give a reward of a screening type unit like a Sherman for your Jacksons as Jacksons are too easy to dive with axis armor. USF is a very micro heavy faction, and it's pretty exhausting sometimes to keep up with having to activate all of their abilities to be any good. The USF AT gun is the best AT in the game when you activate all of it's abilities but without them its just alright. The jacksons great, but late game you wanna tap the HVAP shells as much as possible to get reliable penetration. The m18 Scott is the only huge solid for me, but the USF tanks are just fairly mediocre, even their heavy tank has less HP than a Panther.. it's such a glass cannon faction.

Losing major engagement as USF is very unforgiving, don't forget about dropping all your guns for your opponent too. Love that part of playing USF.

Stuart should be better against infantry, that would certainly help a lot.

In my, not so experienced opinion of playing the USF, their major problems which I have noticed are the following:

Tech-ing, lack of meaty/meatshield tanks (Like the Churchill for example, a direct counterpart to the of the USF would be the Sherman Jumbo) and lack of access to weapons in the field.

I'll go on my points one by one in more detail, but just as a note, I'll be making a lot of relations to the CoH US Army.

First off is Tech-ing, the USF tech is just... plain weird to say it frankly. To me it's a weird mix of the British from CoH (because of the officers) and I guess, Dawn of War 2 because you only had a single HQ building there from which you upgraded tiers to get new units and so forth, but instead of that here you research officers to "build" new structures. Now that's all fine and dandy but the problem is that the units are all over the place, in CoH you had specific buildings for specific jobs.

Those were: Barracks (Soviet T1 basically), Weapon Support Center (Soviet T2), Motor Pool (sort of Soviet T3 but not exactly) and Tank Depot (Soviet T4). Now if you wanted Riflemen you went either T1, or upgraded a building into a Forward HQ which on it's own had it's pros and cons but I won't get into that, if you wanted support weapons you built the Weapon Support Center, if you wanted light vehicles like an Armor Car, an AT gun or a Halftrack to reinforce in the field you went the Motor Pool and so forth. By this I mean that you had a choice, and you knew which building had what specifically and didn't have to sacrifice AI or AT like the current USF tech design.

Further more, you could upgrade your tanks, specifically the Sherman into a better version of it which I think was brilliant, and if I was making the USF I would go on the same route, the M10 could then but made the default TD but you would have the option to upgrade to the M36 or the Jackson could become a doctrinal unit instead or whatever makes the most sense balance and design wise.

Which gets me to my next point, lack of meaty tanks. The USF like Kharn said is a glass cannon Army, heavily reliant on micro and glass cannon units, which is obvious in their tanks. The Jackson, most Sherman variants and the M10 plus their light vehicles and the M26 Pershing all lack durability and are taken out fairly easily when compared to their counterparts in other Armies.

This is why in my opinion we see things such as the 105 Sherman getting a buff to it's HP, Mech Company's Reserve Armor also giving the regular Sherman a buff to it's HP in the form of the dozer upgrade and the Pershing as well as the E8, because they can take an extra punch. This is why I was all for a Sherman Jumbo and the M36B1 Slugger. The Jumbo acting in the same role as the Churchill does for the UKF and their Firefly and the M36B1 just being a beefier Jackson that doesn't have to over rely on the player's micro, again, like it's counterpart in other Armies such as the SU-85 for the Soviets, I get that it's turretered but fuck me, I can't take my eyes off of it for like a split second or I lose it.

And finally their access to weapons in the field, I absolutely love the weapon racks as an idea, the concept is brilliant, however I think the UKF executed it better with their Forward Assemblies and Weapons Halftrack from the Special Weapons Regiment. Every time I play USF I have to retreat my units back to base in order to arm them which just doesn't make sense for a "flexible" and "versatile" as well as mobile Army. Something like a WC51 that is able to deploy with some weapon racks just makes too much sense to me in order to help with that. And there was never such a problem in CoH where you could just globally upgrade your Riflemen with their BARs which I still consider a superior alternative to the current weapon racks being such a pain in the ass, at least for me.

That's about it for me, again this is just my personal opinion, I'm not stating any solid rock "facts" here.

The biggest thing would be to fix the teching somehow. Why they put all the at units (Stuart and at gun) and all the suppression units (AAHT and .50) in the same tiers is beyond me. Either making teching linear (and make one officer not free for balance reasons) or swapping the units around a bit would help a lot.

On the topic of a lack of tanky tanks, maybe a global upgrade for more hp/armor on Shermans would help. If it was veterancy based then losing veteran tanks would be too big of a blow for how comparatively easy it is to lose mediums in the late game (when that kind of upgrade would matter). Making it a health increase rather than an armor increase would make it more consistent and mean the tank would spend that much more time repairing if damaged (so it’d be better for counterplay IMO).

It’s worth noting that soviets are the only other faction with mediums and TD’s as their nondoctrinal armor ceiling, but t34s are significantly cheaper than Shermans.

The fact that usf has to pour almost all their muni into BARs for the first 40 minutes of the game also kinda hurts them.

The biggest thing would be to fix the teching somehow. Why they put all the at units (Stuart and at gun) and all the suppression units (AAHT and .50) in the same tiers is beyond me. Either making teching linear (and make one officer not free for balance reasons) or swapping the units around a bit would help a lot.

On the topic of a lack of tanky tanks, maybe a global upgrade for more hp/armor on Shermans would help. If it was veterancy based then losing veteran tanks would be too big of a blow for how comparatively easy it is to lose mediums in the late game (when that kind of upgrade would matter). Making it a health increase rather than an armor increase would make it more consistent and mean the tank would spend that much more time repairing if damaged (so it’d be better for counterplay IMO).

It’s worth noting that soviets are the only other faction with mediums and TD’s as their nondoctrinal armor ceiling, but t34s are significantly cheaper than Shermans.

The fact that usf has to pour almost all their muni into BARs for the first 40 minutes of the game also kinda hurts them.

Agreed with pretty much everything.

Maybe Reserve Armor's dozer upgrade should be made a default one? That or the 76 Sherman being an upgrade that adds more HP as you said, and maybe slighty better penetration while keeping the round switching?

Ez. Go ask all USF top main players why they basically drop the faction starting by Devm.

Since conception, USF has been driven by the old Soviet design of polarizing teching options which was surpassed by having strong shocking value units. The LT/Cpt coming with weapons and then the light vehicles.

As opposed to UKF, i think USF has all the tools it needs, the problem been how they access to them.

PD: with the exception of good late game indirect fire.

Fix usf teching.

What would improve them:

AT gun unlocked after building either Cap or LT

Ambulance cost to 150MP 10 Fuel
REs reinforce cost to 20MP
Nades side tech cost to 80MP 25 Fuel
M20 for 210MP and 20 Fuel


Mind that this is purely from 1vs1 and 2vs2 perspective, USF is bound to be UP in 3vs3 and 4vs4 until those modes get properly sized maps

They are very predictable, their versatility is tied to the very rigid way they tech up, forcing Commander choices to allow you to skip a tech or provide you with a call if you wanna get basic tools a faction like OKW gets at T0 regardless of their teching of choice.
If you let your opponent organize a defense, you will slowly begin to lose, grinded to dust by much cheaper infantry (that can hold it's own against yours up to vet3 double upgraded status) and much better tanks discounting the M26 Pershing. Which is why most USF players will pick this doctrine, unless they really need something else like flamers, air support or artillery pieces to give up the only tank in their arsenal that might bounce a shot.

I would start by making the grenade unlock cheaper.

Ez. Go ask all USF top main players why they basically drop the faction starting by Devm.

Since conception, USF has been driven by the old Soviet design of polarizing teching options which was surpassed by having strong shocking value units. The LT/Cpt coming with weapons and then the light vehicles.

As opposed to UKF, i think USF has all the tools it needs, the problem been how they access to them.

PD: with the exception of good late game indirect fire.

What do the UKF lack in your opinion, except for a snare and mobile indirect fire?

in my opinion a simple way to improve the situation would be to swap the atg with the aa halftrack so you would have to choose between the standard support weapons with the Lieutenant and more mobile armored support with the captain

You'd only see LT then, you get both support weapons and your minelayer scout car, rushing for a Sherman every game.

What do the UKF lack in your opinion, except for a snare and mobile indirect fire?

To be honest, that's exactly what you said. Maybe the wasp could be cheaper so as to not be such an investment or the grenade unlock to provide something more (in case of the new snares for ex). When you lack basic tools, it's hard to pinpoint how to fix a faction. Right now, i imagine UKF as OKW without snares on Volks and how that would ever work.

To be honest, that's exactly what you said. Maybe the wasp could be cheaper so as to not be such an investment or the grenade unlock to provide something more (in case of the new snares for ex). When you lack basic tools, it's hard to pinpoint how to fix a faction. Right now, i imagine UKF as OKW without snares on Volks and how that would ever work.

Other than the big glaring issues I'd say some tweaking to under performing units would be nice. IE Cromwell Price decrease and fixing the comet. But I feel like snares are going to really help the faction be usable next patch.

I only played 4 vs 4 with USF. My opinion on the US fraction's drawback:

1. Rifleman are underperformed to Volks, unless you got 2 BAR. But RM cost 280 while Volks cost 250.

2. Rifleman side tech costs too much, 150 MP/25 fuel for grenade and 150MP/15 fuel for weapon rack.

3. Do not have a good method to destroy MG bunkers.

4. Tank and TD are always slower than Axis fraction. So you have to choose capt if your teammates can't provide a AT.

To be honest, that's exactly what you said. Maybe the wasp could be cheaper so as to not be such an investment or the grenade unlock to provide something more (in case of the new snares for ex). When you lack basic tools, it's hard to pinpoint how to fix a faction. Right now, i imagine UKF as OKW without snares on Volks and how that would ever work.

Too bad flamethrowers on IS would be too OP.

Other than the big glaring issues I'd say some tweaking to under performing units would be nice. IE Cromwell Price decrease and fixing the comet. But I feel like snares are going to really help the faction be usable next patch.

There is still the glaring issue of the mobile indirect fire tho, and even with some good suggestions on keeping it unique Andy said that they can't, or at least won't do anything about it because of "reasons" which absolutely baffle me, they're willing to let an Army be a cripple only because they're too proud or some other stupid shit to admit they're wrong and actually listen to the community on how to fix it.

Ez. Go ask all USF top main players why they basically drop the faction starting by Devm.

Since conception, USF has been driven by the old Soviet design of polarizing teching options which was surpassed by having strong shocking value units. The LT/Cpt coming with weapons and then the light vehicles.

As opposed to UKF, i think USF has all the tools it needs, the problem been how they access to them.

PD: with the exception of good late game indirect fire.

Wait pack howie is freaking amazing. It just always dies to rocket arty though. I would say one of the biggest weaknesses of the faction is the offensive late game tank department since almost all their tanks are so squishy.

UKF only works if you crutch really really really hard off commandos IMO.

Wait pack howie is freaking amazing. It just always dies to rocket arty though. I would say one of the biggest weaknesses of the faction is the offensive late game tank department since almost all their tanks are so squishy.

UKF only works if you crutch really really really hard off commandos IMO.

It's more of a big mortar. Not close to either rocket arty or howitzers.