USF Indirect Fire Nerf

The Pak Howitzer and M8 Scott are really over performing at the moment. Especially in the late game, random pak howie and m8 scott barrages can one shot max vet infantry. Mortars were changed to reduce the chances of one shot wipes so I think it's only fair that the pak howie and m8 scott get changed too.

My personal experiences playing against USF (1v1) have been pak howie white phos barrages into my base, double scott drive by killing anything in range, followed by a human wave of paratroopers + riflemen. I think its honestly retarded playing against a faction like this, especially when I can dominate the early game but still get destroyed later on because of untouchable indirect fire. Notice how priests have stopped being used and been replace with pak howies? I wonder why...

A lefh or ml20 static emplacement can still be countered with appropriate call in arty or counter barrage. But a pak howie has the same killing power but with the ability to move? Tiny bit dumb if you ask me. In fact there have been games where my lefh on counterbarrage was destroyed by a pak howie LOL
Here's some changes that I propose,

Either;
Increase pop cap on pak howie
Reduce speed that pak howie can move
Remove vet 3 damage buff
Place a 30-45 muni cost on its barrage, so that usf players can't just spam barrages and still have vet riflemen with double bars at 15 min.

Scotts can be changed the same way. They can be used much more like a t70/fast brumbar than a support unit.
Add 30-45 muni cost on its moving barrage.
Decrease AoE damage.
Remove smoke canisters but increase its health by 120 so that it cannot be two shot by tanks.

You're trying to nerf things that are not problematic at all. It's the autofire on these units thats horribly strong, not the barrages.

You're trying to nerf things that are not problematic at all. It's the autofire on these units thats horribly strong, not the barrages.

Imo pak howie auto fire is fine because its auto fire range is low enough for it to be dived and retreated

Only thing that I would like to see is Scott near AoE reduced slightly so it doesn't oneshot squads all the time. Can compensate it by improving mid AoE or something, the good ol' Brummbar treatment.

Literally 1 pz4 shot will decrew a pak howie lol. I don’t understand how axis players can’t deal with them in 1v1s. I can understand the frustration in team games where there is much more to push through before you can dive it but they’re easy to deal with in 1v1

1v1s are not the real problem, I think it is 3v3 and 4v4, where they are incredibly strong. There I usually build 2 of them, they almost always pay off. For 1v1 and 2v2 I usually build none or just one unless the Axis players turtle like hell.
But then again, balance is made for 1v1 and 2v2 for good reason, as these provide more controllable environments where you can make the right conclusions for nerfs and buffs.
I think especially Ostheer suffers from the Scott. Cloaked double Raketenwerfer are crazy good against USF tanks, but Ost always has to dive a tank to push the Scott and suffers more due to smaller squad size and the heavier reliance on static weapons.
I think broadening the AoE damage as DerbyHat suggested might be quite nice and more consistent for both sides.

1v1s are not the real problem, I think it is 3v3 and 4v4, where they are incredibly strong. There I usually build 2 of them, they almost always pay off. For 1v1 and 2v2 I usually build none or just one unless the Axis players turtle like hell.
But then again, balance is made for 1v1 and 2v2 for good reason, as these provide more controllable environments where you can make the right conclusions for nerfs and buffs.
I think especially Ostheer suffers from the Scott. Cloaked double Raketenwerfer are crazy good against USF tanks, but Ost always has to dive a tank to push the Scott and suffers more due to smaller squad size and the heavier reliance on static weapons.
I think broadening the AoE damage as DerbyHat suggested might be quite nice and more consistent for both sides.

So perhaps OKW players should focus on building early stuka instead of rushing panthers like every single team game scrub, with utter disregard to whatever happens on field or what enemy does?

StuKa is one way to counter.
But as I said, Ostheer suffers most, and they don't get an early StuKa

So perhaps OKW players should focus on building early stuka instead of rushing panthers like every single team game scrub, with utter disregard to whatever happens on field or what enemy does?

Yeah, one should rush some at vehicle and the other should rush stuka.

StuKa is one way to counter.
But as I said, Ostheer suffers most, and they don't get an early StuKa

Its about team games, there is no reason to not have OKW in team.

The thing with the Scott is it has higher damage than the Pack howitzer and most other AI AOE weapons for some reason (for against vehicles, maybe???? but the penetration still sucks...), which means it can murder infantry in its AOE easier. So, I mean, I could see changing that for a better AOE profile on the Scott, maybe, something more like the Pack howitzer in radius but less damage overall.

And the pack howitzer is still fine and still fragile as can be. The only nerf I could see for it is some teardown/setup time nerf so it becomes more easy for call-in artillery to murder it, but the crew already have a 1.25 RA modifier (the only such gun crew to possess it) and bunch up closely so as to be killed easily by direct or indirect aoe options, or infiltration units. Maybe a small munitions cost for the HEAT barrage as well, since it otherwise makes the regular barrage totally pointless, being more or less a straight upgrade.

Imo pak howie auto fire is fine because its auto fire range is low enough for it to be dived and retreated

Then you don't really know what's up here. Autofire is always always always a much bigger issue with hitting infantry than barrages are because it takes zero input given that it's in range and is a lot more accurate than a barrage for hitting individual squads. Barrages have never been the issue with indirect, it's always been autofire. Personally, I'd like to see all autofire nerfed across the board and barrages buffed somehow (maybe RoF) excluding scott because it's supposed to be long range fragile mini-brummbar (so autofire is it's main function).

Also I don't recall pack howie getting a damage bonus at vet3. You might be thinking of the 3 shell HEAT barrage at vet2.

Literally 1 pz4 shot will decrew a pak howie lol. I don’t understand how axis players can’t deal with them in 1v1s. I can understand the frustration in team games where there is much more to push through before you can dive it but they’re easy to deal with in 1v1

A tank which comes at 300 fuel can decrew a pack howie which comes at 60 fuel is supposed to mean what exactly?

Literally 1 pz4 shot will decrew a pak howie lol. I don’t understand how axis players can’t deal with them in 1v1s. I can understand the frustration in team games where there is much more to push through before you can dive it but they’re easy to deal with in 1v1

Maybe you never played axis at all and you should, in order to clean a little those glasses full of bias

Then you don't really know what's up here. Autofire is always always always a much bigger issue with hitting infantry than barrages are because it takes zero input given that it's in range and is a lot more accurate than a barrage for hitting individual squads. Barrages have never been the issue with indirect, it's always been autofire. Personally, I'd like to see all autofire nerfed across the board and barrages buffed somehow (maybe RoF) excluding scott because it's supposed to be long range fragile mini-brummbar (so autofire is it's main function).

Also I don't recall pack howie getting a damage bonus at vet3. You might be thinking of the 3 shell HEAT barrage at vet2.

Yea its probably the HEAT barrage, iirc it does give a damage bonus. I know autofire is what everyone hates but this is just my opinion on how the pak howie can be changed to provide more leeway for axis players to get around it, I proposed changes to barrage because you would rarely if ever see a pak howie autofiring into someone's base, meanwhile I've had multiple games already where I get white phos and heat shells dropped in my base. Back on topic, other than a 380 MP investment, the opportunity cost of the pak howie is almost 0, you are neither giving up the chance to get a vehicle nor anti-tank capabilities. (Captain unlock comes with aa truck and AT gun.) Not to mention it costs 100 muni to get a double zook RE to ward off any scout car/ flame HT dives. It's easy to turtle for a few minutes to get it out and bam you're back on course with map control because any fights you take against infantry in cover is almost instant win.

I mean there are a lot of other indirect ways to fix this other than nerfing the pack howitzer directly.
E.g. Buff Ost healing so that aoe damage affects them lesser letting inf squads get back out on the field faster (change healing to aura) LOL JK DONT KILL ME PLEASE

You're trying to nerf things that are not problematic at all. It's the autofire on these units thats horribly strong, not the barrages.

+1

Even pack homie AF is fine, but Scott autofire is NUTS

According to coh2.db

Compare it to the StuG E

Both 75 fuel

Scott: 60 range, StuG: 50 range

Scott: turret, StuG: no turret

Scott: 100 damage, StuG: 80 damage

Scott & StuG accuracy: identical

Scott health: 400. StuG health: 480


I’m pretty sure the stats are out of date b/c I’m pretty sure the StuG E has 640 HP

The Scott seems to have the same rate of fire when autofiring as when barraging, is there any other artillery unit that has this?

Asking out of interest.

Compare it to the StuG E

Scott & StuG accuracy: identical

Accuracy is only relevant when targeting vehicles.

When targeting infantry, scatter is what matters and the StuG ausf.E has way better scatter than the Scott.

Scott:

Scatter angle 6
Distance offset 0
Distance ratio 0.125
Distance max 10

StuG ausf.E:

Scatter angle 5.5
Distance offset 0
Distance ratio 0.075
Distance max 3

Accuracy is only relevant when targeting vehicles.

When targeting infantry, scatter is what matters and the StuG ausf.E has way better scatter than the Scott.

Scott:


StuG ausf.E:

You forgot AoE. That's also crucial.

You forgot AoE. That's also crucial.

I didn't forget anything. I was only comparing accuracy, which he mistakenly stated as being identical while it isn't (versus infantry).