The Shock rifle doctrine is really busting my chops.

Oh man I feel the frustration against especially this doctrine.

It just seems that even against clearly inferior players I have to work twice as hard and utilize a much larger variety of my units to just break even against the combination of shock troops and IS-2

This doctrine in it current state will result in them not needing to built anthing other than t2 and can decide whether to even get other tiers if they feel like it and have the ressources.

as for infantry counters I feel like theres not really anything in the ostheer roster that trades particularly well with the combination of conscripts and shocktroops before it has to just hard retreat out of the CQC kill zone. The sniper does a decent job of draining the manpower from the shocks, but them being 6 man squads they still don't diminish their efficiency as they would with units from other factions.

Unless I absolutely break the back of my opponent in the early game it often goes in a tendency where I'm slightly ahead and steadily draining their ressources up untill the point where the IS2 hits the field and the battle just turns progressively more against me until the point where my army is no more. This has happened frequently against opponents where I just straight up had better game sense and micro, but the sheer brute force of the shocks, smoke, team weapons and utimately the IS2 lead to a decicive defeat. I've even managed to trick the IS2 into a Teller and killing it off with stugs, but because of the fuel conservation with this strat, the next one could be deployed in a matter of minutes.

At this point I just straight up veto Caen, because the shock troop potential on this map is insane, but even with more open maps I feel like they are a force to be reconed with and even the smallest mistakes of loosing a team weapon to the hands of the opponent will definitively lose the game.

What have you guys found to be the best strategies against the red tide of the shock rifle?

1. i have a very bad experience on caen as wher, i would suggest a veto
2. FHT can work because it basically forces the player into a pak and so reducing MP that could have gone into Schocks
3. T70 spam into call in is2 is tough to deal with (look at GCS2), i would suggest a double pak and p4 kombo if you face such things, having G43s and or tiger can also help,
4. If support weapons kill you a mortar is always a right choice but beware the loss of map presence. I think Sniper is not really worth it vs soviets you loose too much momentum.
5. Basically the best way to counter it is to disrupt it before he can build his entiere army, if he has 2 paks a maxim 2 cons and a schock T70 and an IS2 things get tough

1. i have a very bad experience on caen as wher, i would suggest a veto
2. FHT can work because it basically forces the player into a pak and so reducing MP that could have gone into Schocks
3. T70 spam into call in is2 is tough to deal with (look at GCS2), i would suggest a double pak and p4 kombo if you face such things, having G43s and or tiger can also help,
4. If support weapons kill you a mortar is always a right choice but beware the loss of map presence. I think Sniper is not really worth it vs soviets you loose too much momentum.
5. Basically the best way to counter it is to disrupt it before he can build his entiere army, if he has 2 paks a maxim 2 cons and a schock T70 and an IS2 things get tough

I agree. So how do you propose to best stop it in its track?

Osttruppen and mg spam to dominate on the field presence and tellers + paks to deal with light vehicles?

if it works for you fine, i usally go jäger inf for g43 and light alterie barrage against the paks, it is fairly cheap and forces them to move then you can push with p4

i would suggest planting tellers when you see a flamer, i would suggest a g43 commander not to battle the schocks but to push the paks,
while the camo can be used for ambushes

Given the current state of this patch and the allied bias, I truely wonder if they even test the patch. I mean when a patch gets released it normally takes me about ten games to start finding bugs or things that are just outright retarded. So again I ask is the patch even tested.

Given the current state of this patch and the allied bias, I truely wonder if they even test the patch. I mean when a patch gets released it normally takes me about ten games to start finding bugs or things that are just outright retarded. So again I ask is the patch even tested.

I don't really think of it as distinctly broken, but rather something I have to figure out how to work against. Though admittedly with the state the shock troops are in now, I think it's quite powerfull that they come in a doctrine where they can get an IS2 call-in and thus techinically don't need t1 and t4 (and possibly not t3 either).

I think just locking all doctrinal call-ins behind tech might do something to mitigate this issue.

I don't really think of it as distinctly broken, but rather something I have to figure out how to work against. Though admittedly with the state the shock troops are in now, I think it's quite powerfull that they come in a doctrine where they can get an IS2 call-in and thus techinically don't need t1 and t4 (and possibly not t3 either).

I think just locking all doctrinal call-ins behind tech might do something to mitigate this issue.

I don't know if it is broken as fuck, but it certainly adds yet another layer of frustration to the game which thanks to the community mod team, really is becoming completely braindead and monotonous.
The smoke is too much and really is no longer needed because it negates their natural counter instantly and if you are quick enough will still force the mg to retreat because it cannot setup again quickly enough.

I know people will say support the mg, blah blah blah, but even if you have 2 grens nearby the shocks will still do substantial damage and still force the retreat, and thats if their just on their own. Add in any other combination of units support the shocks and it can often be easy to force a mass. retreat.
Oh and lets not forget incendiary off map, just in case smoke is not enough. >LOL

My issue is its just too easy for the soviet player to just Rambo around in a senseless manner whilst the axis player is frantically microing his shit trying to hold the line.

They need to loose the smoke so that they are only rewarded for good positional flanking and they probably need their reinforcement time increased as a deterrent to using them senselessly or getting double squads for maximum cheese effect.

I don't know if it is broken as fuck, but it certainly adds yet another layer of frustration to the game which thanks to the community mod team, really is becoming completely braindead and monotonous.
The smoke is too much and really is no longer needed because it negates their natural counter instantly and if you are quick enough will still force the mg to retreat because it cannot setup again quickly enough.

I know people will say support the mg, blah blah blah, but even if you have 2 grens nearby the shocks will still do substantial damage and still force the retreat, and thats if their just on their own. Add in any other combination of units support the shocks and it can often be easy to force a mass. retreat.
Oh and lets not forget incendiary off map, just in case smoke is not enough. >LOL

My issue is its just too easy for the soviet player to just Rambo around in a senseless manner whilst the axis player is frantically microing his shit trying to hold the line.

They need to loose the smoke so that they are only rewarded for good positional flanking and they probably need their reinforcement time increased as a deterrent to using them senselessly or getting double squads for maximum cheese effect.

I'm inclined to mostly agree with you. I was originally on team "seperate cooldown" for the frag and smoke grenade, but this combined with the general DPS buffs and the reduced suppression bulletin effectively negates what should be one of the most natural counters to shock troops.

In recent 1v1 matches vs soviets I probably meet the Shock troops in at least half the games and most of these in the shock rifle. It usually takes units from all 4 tiers and an incredible amount of effort, micro and well-timed support abilities to beat people who are ranked 100 below myself and even then I find myself losing many of the games.

quite frustrating. But I don't think it's fair to blame the balance team as I'm sure we'll see corrections in time and so much have been changed that things are bound to be a bit wonky untill the hotfixes.

It just seems that even against clearly inferior players

I think you need to learn about humility and how to adapt.

I think you need to learn about humility and how to adapt.

Do we have a beef that I don't know about?

Why are you writing in here if you can't manage to provide any feedback?

By "clearly inferior" I meant people that are significantly lower ranked as that's the only reasonable way to asses this. I don't mean that they are bad people.