120mm Mortars & Grens Vs Cons

These things and their uncanny ability of wiping squads in one shot needs to be looked at. I am all for Soviets having a good mortar, but this thing needs a hit with the nerf bat.

There really is no need for it considering Soviet 82mm mortar is also very good. The 120mm is very hard to kill because of it's range and it also has 6 man squad which makes it durable.

Also, the bloody Grens vs Cons early game needs to be fixed. It really is a no win situation for the Soviets Cons just melt to Grens focus fire and cant go anywhere near Grens when they have LMG's.

The broken early game makes Soviets spam stupid Maxims, Mortars and AT Guns and then Guards, which makes for very very boring gameplay because all you have to do as Germans is build a Flame HT and you win or cause so much damage that its hard for you to lose.

Buff the Cons so that they beat Grens, I'd be happy with that, but then replicate German MG so that it works like vCoH. It needs to supress in the first burst if infantry are charging into it. This will make Soviets learn how to flank and that's a good thing. At the moment all you need to do it hoorah into the face of an MG and throw a tov on it and retreat.

I think having to choose a doc for ppsh limits conscripts too much.

Mg's on both sides need a supression buff.

Mg42 should be supressing more than maxim, but still supress cons in 1 burst out of cover, maxim should require more than one burst. I'm not 100% sure what the stats are now, but they feel worse than what I descibe here for sure.

flame ht could stand to lose some damage tbh, with a corresponding munitions reductions to the upgrade cost, so the unit can still be present but not be as impactful. not sure if this is the way to go, but at vet 2 its too good.

I agree, the 120mm is ridiculously powerful and needs very low to no skill to use.
Maybe a range or crew reduction could solve the problem or moving it to 3 cp.

I am also unsatisfied with the con vs. gren situation. In my opinion the lmg upgrade should require the tech to battlephase 1 and the rifle nades should be available from the start instead.

I would also like to see a significant buff to penals to make them a valid AI option.

Mg42 should be supressing more than maxim, but still supress cons in 1 burst out of cover, maxim should require more than one burst. I'm not 100% sure what the stats are now, but they feel worse than what I descibe here for sure.

Right now the Maxim can suppress in one second whereas the MG42 takes at least two. This makes the Maxim a lot better as you can pretty much attack-move it against German squads.

@Gustav: Good suggestion about LMG vs. rifle nade unlock. Penals as well. +1.

It's only good against support weapons and Grens with LMG upgrade. Keep your squads mobile and it should be ok. Or get yourself a mortar half truck.
Quick scout car ride will do the trick as well.
Also don't blob your units. I've seen this many times, especially in team games. Cluster of PG walks straight into maxim, get suppressed and then bombarded by 120mm Mortar. I love 3v3, 4v4 German players
HMG are absolutely fine as they are right now.

In my opinion the lmg upgrade should require the tech to battlephase 1 and the rifle nades should be available from the start instead.

I would also like to see a significant buff to penals to make them a valid AI option.

LMG should be moved to BP1 for consistencies sake, but I call tell you outright that will do zero in terms of timing.
This because the actual LMG threshold is Muni, not MP/Fuel. Maybe its possible to narrow it with a super early Muni cache, but LMG will practivaloy never hit the field before BP1, now, or after this reasonable change. Its just not possible to accumalate Muni that fast.

Im against LMG nerf. Its already been hit. Anymore nerfing, and we hsve to start removing/reducing the setup time to compensate, which would be "bad".

Im ok with RNade being BP1, since the Molotov upgrade takes time and far more expense anyways.

Penals, however, now there is the really central and tough nut to crack.

Cant make it call-in with no build time, because its not Doctrinal.
Cant make Penals a unit upgrade to Cons, cos its irrational for Conscripts to "upgrade" to prisoners.
Cant make SVT a T1 upgrade to Cons, cos then Penals are flushed.
Cant reduce cost, cos really they cost exactly what they should for survival/dps.
Cant make Penals a T0 buildable unit, cos then T1 is shit and theyd own Grens outright well before LMGs.
Cant make Penals a T0 building upgrade, cos again, T1 is shit then.
Cant reduce Penal buildtime, cos that fucks the universal buildtime/cost ratio.
Cant move Penals to a Commander, in exchange for Guard/Shocks, cos that would defeat the purpose.
(Inb4 someone tries to argue that half of these are "cans". Believe me, they are not.)

Lot of cants, of which most prominekty rises, imo, between them, the central problem of Sov T1 costing more than twice of Ost T1, in terms of the actual building. This creates practical timing problems at a game stage when MP is only just rolling in and Sov needs to "save" that for building. Shit that I cant remeber the build time sifference between Ost T1 and Sov T1, because the Pios increased field time needs to considered, atleast secondarily to this problem.

I remember now, this shit pissed ke off already at launch. I mean its always been retarded that Ost has to build T1 immediately from game start. I have always thought there was something stupid in that. This was back when people still experimwnted with one pio building half of the structure, and the next pio the remainder. Start of match, I mean the first 30s, has always been pretty retarded based even solely on this. I think this same problem reflects, through the rest of T0-T1, negatively, on Sov Penals ultimately. It was always stupid, and still is.

I will say that 120mm has an uncanny ability to kill off my squads when I least expect it through passive firing without using the precision strike ability.

"Precision strike" is a bit LOL for ww2 anyway. Modern rocket assisted mortars using GPS still miss roughly 1 out of 4 times.

I don't know why the RNG seems to favor the 120 so much over other mortars, but it needs tweaking towards more scatter as it has a larger blast radius than the 81mm. I would also love to see a slower movement speed, and more critically, retreat speed on the unit. Modern 120 look similar to that setup and weigh hundreds of pounds... aint no one going to be sprinting that back to base if someone jumps out of the bushes and starts pew pewing them in the back. Soviet weapon teams in general suck up grenades and sometimes small arms fire thanks to their 6 man squad size.

1. Increase scatter on the 120mm
2. Remove precision strike entirely and give it another vet ability
3. Reduce retreat and/or movement speed of the 120mm

Leaving precision strike on the 82mm (as much as I hate that ability) would encourage use of the non-doctrinal mortar. If you want the extra range and explosive power of the 120mm, you will be trading less consistent returns with the option of bigger hits.

Also the fact that this unit can retreat with just 1 guy means it can be left longer on the field or get out safe, keeping vet. Should also be changed to be inline with other mortars that need a crew of 2 and when there is only one left, he runs home to mama.

Sure, sure... Lets nerf poor soviets even more...

You guys wanna talk about over powered German tanks???

Sure, sure... Lets nerf poor soviets even more...

You guys wanna talk about over powered German tanks???

They are fine, You just need the combine arms and flanking maneuver plus some nice micro and some luck and lure your opponent into your trap, and assuming they will make mistakes.

They are fine, You just need the combine arms and flanking maneuver plus some nice micro and some luck and lure your opponent into your trap, and assuming they will make mistakes.

Right, because none of that applies to the Su-85.

Don't even bring up the Elefant because no one has one in 1v1's.

My Soviet play is predominantly in 2v2 but I haven't even had much trouble there (at least not to the degree you seem to be saying), even with the enemy pulling out an Elefant out of their arse in the late game.

I have been complaining about the 120mm mortar for a while. I think it's so damn op and consistently wipes my squads out in firefights. Once it reaches vet, which isn't that hard, watch out!!

It's also almost impossible to kill since getting it down to 1 squad member doesn't cause it to retreat off map. So you must kill all 6 squad members of the mortar. I am all for this unit remaining powerful but as is I believe it's a bit to much.

120mm mortars are just dumb. They are so RNG dependent. Sometimes I would have two of them firing all game with almost no kills on either. Other times, I would get multiple squad wipes with a single one. Hate the RNG in this game.

RNG, its all about the RNG. Bur srlsy if you dont micro 120mm well it will wipe your own squads aswell...

120mm mortars are just dumb. They are so RNG dependent. Sometimes I would have two of them firing all game with almost no kills on either. Other times, I would get multiple squad wipes with a single one. Hate the RNG in this game.

Check out that 120mm mortar with double damage sitting next to a Forward HQ in 2v2's. Any and all German infantry, except Osttruppen and maybe Assault Grenadiers, are instantly screwed.

RNG really is just a problem with this one because its AoE radius is so huge.

I'm not a huge fan of those large impact RNGs of some abilities/weapons we have in the game and for this unit all of the other (possible) problems stem from its large AoE radius.
Neither its range nor survivability nor Precision Strike ability would be a problem if it didn't have this high tendency to either miss completely or to one-shot a squad.

This unit behavior is bad for both sides. The Ostheer player can't really adapt to it because the mortar might be firing anywhere on the map (missing "tell") and the one-hit removes any chance for him to adapt to it by retreating in time (e.g. squad is down to 2 men, or 4men squad gets shot to 1 man -> retreat either as prevention or as reaction). The Soviet player on the other hand simply can't count on that unit. In some matches it'll be the best unit ever and in others it'll be a complete waste of resources. The Soviet player can't even really compensate or profit from the unit using his player skill. The scatter is just too high to reliably use Attack Ground or Barrage because it can still miss a lot. This means you can't compensate bad luck or even achieve the same results as good luck does. If it wipes a squad, it normally isn't because of the Soviet player's skill but because he got lucky so the skill of the Soviet player barely plays any role. Someone good at the game should always get better results from the unit than someone just letting it sit next to base at 120 range.
Of course this stems partially from the small German squads but the real culprit is the 120 mm's large AoE radius.

I'd suggest turning it pretty much into a 82 mm mortar stat-wise, just with larger range. This means compared to now it'd be more accurate, fire slightly faster but its AoE radius would also be the same as the 82mm's. Of course it'd just cost 240 mp, so it'd really just be a 82mm mortar with longer range that and doesn't require a T2 building.

However, I also understand if some people wouldn't like this suggestion because they either fear it'd be "useless"/"too weak" or because they like the feeling/game impact of those large explosions (though those are partially just animations).
It wouldn't be a change Relic would do, either way.

Sure, sure... Lets nerf poor soviets even more...

You guys wanna talk about over powered German tanks???

Do I read "over powered German tanks"?? Let me teach you something. Mark Target+SUs

I made a post about this unit more than a month ago. It is one of the many units that can take whole squads out within the soviet arsenal. COH is about unit preservation, and for the germans this is the toughest part of the game.

Market Target is commander limited, I also don't like the implementation of straight up huge extra damage taken from all sources. Balancing too much around those commanders limits commander choices and makes for a boring meta. I'd be fine with a massive nerf to mark target in exchange for more reasonable and useful tank play. As it stands, mark target use is kind of boring.

While Germans see a problem with various Soviet weapons instantly wiping their squads with a hit, one thing they need to realize is that their basic infantry units are much more capable of wiping out Soviet infantry units with normal gunfire and abilities. Grens with LMGs can quickly kill almost any Soviet squad, even Shocks if you have more than one LMG Grens. PGrens rock most units, and the bundle grenade is wickedly powerful (if a bit inconsistent).

If you want Soviets to have less killing power on their high end support weapons, then you have to trade for more killing power or survivability of infantry.

Although, I wonder if squad wiping can be helped a bit by increasing the mandatory distances between troops in intra-squad AI. I know that Relic said they implemented AI where high vet squads would naturally spread out more. Perhaps it's time to force them to do so even more, even if it means being out of cover?

i think marked target is a stupidly lame ability, should go back to dow2.

i think all rifle infantry, need their damage scaled up, they do almost nothing after the initial engagement and with vet scaled in, combat takes ages. this is a little more soviet-ish buff because of conscripts cannot be upgraded like grens.

at least conscripts and to a lesser extent guards can do something with focused fire.