Proposal for a small M3 armour buff

I've been trying to do a strategy working the M3A1 into a Soviet build for the last two patches and more or less what I've concluded is that the armour isn't heavy enough for it to perform well enough against the units it theoretically counters, while the counters to it have been substantially improved. If the armour were increased to roughly the level of the Ost scout car for instance, I think that'd make it a much more potentially useful unit without buffing it against the things that are designed as counters to it or really damaging the asymmetry of the way the two scout cars work.

Naturally I'm keen to hear from anyone who's been trying to make the M3A1 work themselves and their experiences and anyone who's been seeing a lot of M3A1s or having trouble against them.

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A brief history of the M3 in the meta:

Back in the open beta the M3 ruled the Russian meta. If you watch any of the TFN tournament casts, you can see an M3 squad kill in almost every game, and Sepha playing a 5 M3 start against a flabbergasted Aimstrong.

Then there was an eminently reasonable nerf on the M3 (specifically, the crew was now at a reasonable chance of dying when the vehicle got killed). Following this, a number of reasonable changes and bugfixes resulted in de facto reductions in the M3's usefulness:

Riflenade refunds were fixed, meaning Germans probably have a bit more in the way of munis now
The 221 armoured car topgun was fixed, meaning that an upgraded 221 is no longer useless and incapable of gaining vet until Soviet Tier 3 or 4 arrives, and that it's a much more appealing counter to Soviet Tier 1.
Panzerfaust damage was increased to 100 (from 80), meaning a scout car requires less small arms fire to kill it after a faust.

(and Ostruppen were introduced, which have twice as many fausts available as a gren build, and fast T2 is a little more viable with them)

The net impact of these very reasonable changes has been to make M3s a much more challenging unit to use nowadays and not very popular in 1v1. They still have a lot of functionality if managed properly and if you can kill the 222 sent to counter them by decent play, they remain a fun interesting unit.

My issue with the unit has surprisingly not really been all of these counters being improved (though they do make it noticeably more a matter of good management on your side) but actually the speed with which small arms fire damages the vehicle. Using a flamer M3 responsibly against pure p-grens or assault grens can often result in the vehicle and squad getting focused down by small arms fire if you're anywhere near the range you have to be to use the flamer, and similarly a vet 0 MG-42 can often do a surprising amount of damage to an M3 trying to clear it from a building. Sometimes even the good old M3-flamer faust-chomping tactic can get messed up by a couple of LMG bursts finishing off the M3.

Anyway, right now the M3 has an armour of 8.4 (front) and 4.2 (rear). I think if it were buffed a bit, that'd make the M3's performance against such things as aren't meant to counter it a bit better, while on account of it being eminently counterable and requiring skill and attention to manage, not overpowering it.

Very well written post, great analysis and quite objective. There will be a few changes in the future which should give the M3 more flexibility.

yeah m3 is quite underperforming right now , if you want to use it more blovski you should kite infantry with it and engage with the flamers only after the enemy squad starts retreating or if you find a lone mg otherwise a faust is followed by a few bullets can easily kill the m3 . Maybe it retains its usefullness against assgrens ?

Very nice post thank u, I was just talking to Dusty last night about how I really hope they boost the Scout car because right now its pretty much completely useless atm. On the other hand the German scout car is my favorite and imo most fun unit in the game and I think U (Relic) should really try to emulate this units balancing for future units

The German Scout car is very strong and And effective fast yet can be killed easily but not if microed well. The car allows for the kind of great gameplay the fans(geralities here) want to see. I would love to see more balancing/ units akin to about car.


Thanx for feedback PQ, it's good to hear.

Yes agreed would like to see sov scout car stronger, but would also not like to see it as strong as German sc. Delicate balancing here.

dont forget the M5!

Very well written post, great analysis and quite objective. There will be a few changes in the future which should give the M3 more flexibility.

Thank you kindly and good to know things are lurking in the pipeline.

Thanks for the responses everyone

@Kafrion - my experience is that the flamer normally does enough damage to force off a lone gren squad before the car dies.

@NWF - I completely agree there (I think the 221 vet 2 is just too good right now and it might be a little too cheap but other than that it's a really fun unit).

@Tristan - My view is kind of that the real asymmetry in the two comes from the difference between the upgun and the stored squad in terms of giving them ways to improve their damage output/versatility. I'm kind of waiting on the veterancy changes before I have an opinion on what the exact balance between the two vanilla units should be - right now I think the 221 veterancy makes a much bigger difference.

@1234 - I'm not really sure the M5 has been tried enough in the meta right now, to be honest. In my experience, adding forward reinforcement to the Soviets (especially Tier 2) makes them surprisingly resilient and the meatchopper is very decent against infantry. I think Helping Hans is probably the only top player I see using them as a matter of course with his T3, and he seems to get reasonable use out of them. Not disagreeing with you - I just don't think I've seen it and tried enough to say whether it works well. In theory there's a lot of really powerful things you could do with the units shooting from it.

id be surprised if the m3 gets any armor buffs. currently, all the 222 gets for costing 25% more fuel is 2.6 more front armor and 1.3 more rear armor. the damage on their guns is very similar, except the m3 has 2 guns and also garrisons units.

heres the chance for small arms to pen the cars:

m3
front 11.9% rear 23.8%

222
front 9.09% rear 18.18%

the difference is already very small. rng will pretty much decide if either car can survive small arms after it gets fausted or naded.

dont forget the M5!

m5 definitely doesnt need a buff. it has nearly three times the front armor and almost four times the rear armor of the 251, yet theyre the same price. it also has a much better mg than the 251 and lets garrisoned units shoot out of it. the only redeeming factor for both german light vehicles is their weapon upgrades, but theyre expensive.

right now I think the 221 veterancy makes a much bigger difference.

i agree with you. the german veterancy is what keeps their vehicles alive. the m3 needs vet 3 to get a similar incoming damage reduction, which is much harder to achieve. if/when this changes, i think youll find the armored car and scout car will both die to small arms fairly easily. the same goes for the vet 2 251 ht. if you dont manage to get vet 2 on it, it will go down very easily.

Seems changes are already set and impending.

Hope they are good ones. Not much point discussing till they are out.

id be surprised if the m3 gets any armor buffs. currently, all the 222 gets for costing 25% more fuel is 2.6 more front armor and 1.3 more rear armor. the damage on their guns is very similar, except the m3 has 2 guns and also garrisons units.

heres the chance for small arms to pen the cars:

m3
front 11.9% rear 5.95%

222
front 9.09% rear 4.55%

the difference is already very small. rng will pretty much decide if either car can survive small arms after it gets fausted or naded.

m5 definitely doesnt need a buff. it has nearly three times the front armor and almost four times the rear armor of the 251, yet theyre the same price. it also has a much better mg than the 251 and lets garrisoned units shoot out of it. the only redeeming factor for both german light vehicles is their weapon upgrades, but theyre expensive.

The numbers really don't sound right Woof. Rear penetration lower than frontal? I think you've halved rather than doubled for the rear armour but your frontal stats are right.

I think German vehicle veterancy is way more powerful on light vehicles than Soviet vehicle veterancy (because they radically increase the munitions cost and coordination required to kill one). That might change so I don't want to put too much stress on it. (edit: you've addressed this after I saw your post, my bad).

There's also the fact that the M3 means you don't have any AT guns and the fuel for your first vehicle is delayed, which makes it much more high pressure as a strategy (i.e. a fast Ostwind can do you in if your fuel control doesn't make up for the 20 fuel spent). By contrast the Ostheer SC comes with 2 decent answers (shreks, pak) to a quick tank in the same building and when upgunned and vetted actually does pretty well itself against light vehicles.

Certainly, the German scout car is way more popular right now, and I think that's a good example of the meta reflecting that stats aren't as important as being able to fill a role in COH 2. But it could just be the vet making it a bit OP - we'll see.

The numbers really don't sound right Woof. Rear penetration lower than frontal? I think you've halved rather than doubled for the rear armour but your frontal stats are right.

sorry youre right. i got sloppy and divided instead of mulitplied. fixing them

There's also the fact that the M3 means you don't have any AT guns and the fuel for your first vehicle is delayed, which makes it much more high pressure as a strategy (i.e. a fast Ostwind can do you in if your fuel control doesn't make up for the 20 fuel spent). By contrast the Ostheer SC comes with 2 decent answers (shreks, pak) to a quick tank in the same building and when upgunned and vetted actually does pretty well itself against light vehicles.

Certainly, the German scout car is way more popular right now, and I think that's a good example of the meta reflecting that stats aren't as important as being able to fill a role in COH 2. But it could just be the vet making it a bit OP - we'll see.

these are good points. the stats certainly dont reflect roles, but i do think cost certainly needs to be a factor when considering buffs. a cheaper scout car being equal to the armored car just doesnt seem balanced, especially considering it can be built much sooner. i guess well just have to wait and see how the vet changes affect the meta first.

the stats certainly dont reflect roles, but i do think cost certainly needs to be a factor when considering buffs. a cheaper scout car being equal to the armored car just doesnt seem balanced, especially considering it can be built much sooner. i guess well just have to wait and see how the vet changes affect the meta first.

I consider being turreted a huge advantage for the role these two units are supposed to play. The extremely rare times that I bother making an M3 these days (seeing how they're obsolete so fast and T1 in general is rather lackluster) I often find myself wishing that the thing didn't have any guns at all so it would stop turning when I don't want it to.

Scout car currently has extremely good vet bonuses compared to M3 as well as a very good munition upgrade option. To be honest in the current balance the scout car could be given a cost increase and it would still be the more enticing of the two options, especially after the first 4 minutes of the game after which you generally never ever want to build an M3.

But well, if changes have already been more or less decided I'll just wait and see rather than lament the current situation.

Scout car currently has extremely good vet bonuses compared to M3 as well as a very good munition upgrade option. To be honest in the current balance the scout car could be given a cost increase and it would still be the more enticing of the two options, especially after the first 4 minutes of the game after which you generally never ever want to build an M3.

Cost increase don't count if m3 still be one shoted by panzerfaust. For 25 munitions germans killing the m3 in 99% situations. I see this a main problem with m3 hitting the battle field. Yep, i know what "flame clown car" was terror for germans, but is it still so powerful? I mean, most of players knows about fausts in grens and osts. And faust don't need fuel to upgrade your units like atnades for cons.

Cost increase don't count if m3 still be one shoted by panzerfaust. For 25 munitions germans killing the m3 in 99% situations. I see this a main problem with m3 hitting the battle field. Yep, i know what "flame clown car" was terror for germans, but is it still so powerful? I mean, most of players knows about fausts in grens and osts. And faust don't need fuel to upgrade your units like atnades for cons.

As long as an M3 has a high damage unit (e.g. flamer engi) in it and is full health it can eat a lone gren's faust normally as long as you actually follow through with it and force the gren off. If it's unmanned the gren will probably just finish it.

Lets say M3 armor is increased to 221 stats.

Result? An equally armored open garrison transport, that natively has the .50 cal that, iirc, does atleast around the same AI as the 221s MG, for the less cost.

How is that fair? 221 becomes a POS in comparison. Especially when considering the M3 can be loaded with existing units for DPS AND prtection to the models AND transport, for no additional cost, whereas the 221 is extremly muni expensive to maingun upgrade.

If Vet is a problem, then Vet is the problem, and apparently already in the pipeline.

Otherwise, I dont agree with this proposal in the least. Infact the 221s armor should be INCREASED for equity at cost/function/dps. The current armor differential is already tiny.

Isnt the M3 also faster than the 221?

As to the turret argument, M3 has two fire arcs, and the garrison is omnidirectional.

@Nullist, about garrison you also have to take into account that its now two units. Say snipers or guards, you have to add 360 mp. So now you got quite the expensive glasscannon that can more or less be oneshotted, losing you often half the squad, and if unlucky all of it.

I am not sure what would balance this vehicle towards the sc, but the m3 dies so fast and scales horribly that I rarely bother to build it anymore. I also think it adds to the fact that t1 feels rather bad for soviet.

On a sidenote something worth considering with the m3 is to use it to cap. Running across the map on foot takes time, but if you put some engies in the m3 you can use it to traverse the map faster reducing the time you need to cap the map. This could open up a window for t1 play.

M5 comes just too late, and soviet T3&T4 are just mutually exclusive for their cost.

i almost always go T1 for clowncar, (if the first unit i encouter is an mg42)

- m3 is high risk /reward
it functions better in 1v1 than teamgames (less squads on the field)
if you don't manage to get map control with it you're lost

- m3 is a pain in the ass to move around due to spinning on its axis to aim its mg
(and you have to because going frontal to an mg42 is a nono)

@Nullist, about garrison you also have to take into account that its now two units. Say snipers or guards, you have to add 360 mp. So now you got quite the expensive glasscannon that can more or less be oneshotted, losing you often half the squad, and if unlucky all of it.

Its not an "extra" expense, because you still have that unit anyways that performs its role largely just the same.
It just happens to multiply the DPS of the M3 when housed in it.

The Muni upgrade on 221 is a an "extra expense" that hss no other function independant of that function.

As to expensivr glasscannons, the 221 costs more, and the 222 costs ALOT more than an M3.
It survival is only marginally better. The armor difference is really very small (and is accounted for in ahigher fuel cost), as is the dmg difference between ATNade and Faust.

Yes, allowing the M3 to die with units inside it is a risk, but all it takes is D, click, and that is avoided, and your garrison functions normally on the field as it otherwise would, whereas when the 222 is destoyed, there goes your Muni too.

As long as an M3 has a high damage unit (e.g. flamer engi) in it and is full health it can eat a lone gren's faust normally as long as you actually follow through with it and force the gren off. If it's unmanned the gren will probably just finish it.

Grens can do a lot of damage then m3 is aproaching to them. Or use 2-3 shots from rifles to finish m3 off.