Hey all,
Now, it may come as a shock to you, but some people have quietly voiced occasionally that Wehrmacht is perhaps not quite as robust and flexible as it could be. No, no, it's true, I assure you.
People often get drawn into how a single unit should be buffed in these situations, and I encourage you to visit and contribute to the
issue tracker where I spend much of my time curating such suggestions. I recently undertook an overhaul of it that I hope you'll find a substantial improvement if you found it getting too cluttered recently.
The tracker has helped me develop a more wholistic view of Wehrmacht's various shortcomings, and I'd like to present them to you here, complete with links for you to voice any support. So without further ado:
Grenadiers
Designed as long-range units, they are unfortunately prone to being rushed easily by conscripts that have oorah and molotovs, and riflemen which just have outright superior firepower.
A big part of this problem is with the HMG42 underperforming, which I'll address next. However, I feel there is one simple suggestion that could improve grenadiers in the early game without affecting their long-range role: Give them the ability to build sandbags like volksgrenadiers. This would give them more flexibility in their defensive early-game role and allow them to more effectively punish those who attempt to rush them.
It might also be an option to swap LMGs and G43s as doctrinal/standard upgrades. This would grant grens more affordable, close range flexibility earlier on.
Vote here
HMG42
Let's not mince words here: You fix this, you fix almost everything. This is obviously meant to be a critical and powerful early-game unit for Wehrmacht by preventing Allied troops from closing in on grenadiers.
The only problem is that it doesn't.
The rate at which it suppresses often allows conscripts to oorah straight at it and throw a molotov. Small riflemen blobs can walk up to it head on and just shoot it to death before being pinned. They scarcely even have to use their excellent smoke grenades. This is also another area where sandbags might help.
The numbers of ways in which the HMG42 could be improved is not small, but here are my preferences. Both Allied teams have a number of early-game counters to flank them, so why not just make them suppress very quickly? A fast swivel/traverse time to reward manual targeting would also force Allied players to use intended abilities. The MG42 also has a pathetic vision cone. If it were larger, even current suppression values would be far more effective (although probably still not enough). I'm not concerned about setup/packup times. With its wide cone of fire any rapid micro for this unit should be while set up.
Yes, a powerful MG42 would make it the meta, but the point is that it is never enough alone. It enables effectively every other early game unit to function as it is supposed to. It's actually without it that you get the boring metas of one unit type. Make it good enough to buy some breathing room for once and Wehrmacht players will be much less stressed by light vehicle rushes as well.
Vote here
222 Scout Car
One of the big problems with fighting USF as Wehrmacht is that you're scrambling so damn hard to just to stay alive and cling to some basic map control against rifles that sending your pioneers back to base and teching up to tier 2 is easily overlooked in those first 5 minutes compared to the rapid ease with which you'll find yourself facing a very effective USF light vehicle.
Panzerfausts are a waste of ammo, since USF vehicles can repair crits so easily, and you need every scrap of ammo to upgrade your grenadiers to LMG42s anyway. For that same reason, panzergrenadiers with schreks are way too expensive to bother with. A pak40 is invaluable, but can only be used defensively, and one more thing easily crushed by riflemen. Teller mines are not only a very limited defensive option that also consume precious ammo, and are very cheaply found by REs, but usually require some skilled baiting (great if it works though!).
This leaves the scout car for affordability and tactical options. However, the first thing you have to do is spend 55 ammo on it before it can do anything remotely useful. Even then, it takes some decent micro to kill an m20. Against a slightly competent flak HT or stuart, it's utterly useless. It doesn't damage infantry much either. It will also die quite easily to small arms fire, and you can kiss it goodbye if it gets within AT nade range.
So, suggestions are any mix of increasing HP/armour/cannon DPS, and making the unit come with the cannon as standard. A slight increase in cost, particularly fuel, would probably also be important to limit spamming. It would still need to be highly vulnerable to proper AT weapons.
Vote here
Sniper
Compared to its Soviet counterpart, I do like the German sniper's fire rate. However, people comment on its highly fragile nature. Once again, I think this has much to do with HMGs not doing their job and keeping Allied forces at a safe distance. However, given that it has only one entity per squad, it could perhaps do with a slight improvement to received accuracy, or HP, and perhaps an ability on par with the Soviet sniper sprint.
Vote here
Panzergrenadiers
As discussed, riflemen are pretty hard to beat with anything Wehrmacht have. The obvious solution would be the more expensive panzergrenadiers, and on tight green-cover maps they can be quite devastating if they get in close.
However, for the cost of 340MP the fact is that they die way too easily, especially compared to 390MP shock troopers. They also seem to love to move in an elite, tight formation I like to call 'The Suicidal Sheep'.
When faced with an armada of heavily and mobile armoured t34/85s, panzergrenadiers should play a key role in providing flexible anti-tank damage for a steep investment (340MP/120M). Instead, the entire squad immediately gets one-shotted and you find yourself paying for a new monitor. The panzerschrek upgrade severely undermines their anti-infantry capabilities, so there's no reason they should be so vulnerable to standard tanks.
Vote here
Flame Half-track
The half-track is currently pretty indispensable as grenadier blobs are the only effective tactic to survive currently. The half-track reinforce ability keeps them on the field, despite their low entity count.
Apparently due to devastating rushes, the flame upgrade was pushed to tier 3. Unfortunately this is the same tier as medium armour which is not only better at handling infantry, but also makes 120 ammo on such a light vehicle a very risky and hard decision to justify, especially as such a munitions intensive faction.
Tier 2 is when it is needed and justifiable. If rushing is still likely to be an issue, then the effectiveness of the flames should be reduced, or the vehicle made a bit slower. Neither USF nor Soviets lack numerous counters at this level though.
Vote here
Ostwind
This is a tricky one. It's not that it's ineffective, but 100 fuel is steep investment which means you can't build a real tank for some time. By comparison, the luchs and t-70 are highly effective for much less fuel. You need to have some decent AT on the field to support it for a while.
The real issue is that it's hard to justify building since a panzer IV will do the same job quite effectively for slightly more fuel, and also counter medium armour. Although, in that sense Wehrmacht start to have an advantage in that they don't actually have to make a choice about what to build. One unit does everything.
Vote here
Stug G
This guy should be more common. A cheap tank destroyer? Goodbye meta, hello options! Ostwind might be viable, suddenly. Unfortunately it dies very easily. Given its inherent vulnerability to flanking (an excellent promoter of enjoyable micro), it should probably have improved frontal armour to limit the effectiveness of head-on attacks, and maybe a bit more HP. Making its gun more effective against armour, and weak against infantry would help promote a specific role.
Vote here
Panther
What's a panther? You mean tiger, right? Big cats. Very similar. Understandable to get confused.
Ok, this isn't really about the panther (a pretty good tank, actually) so much as it is the call-in meta invalidating t4. Basically, it's pretty rare to build t4 because it's a substantial fuel investment to get panthers, which are only particularly effective against tanks, while many doctrines will allow you to call in the much more versatile tiger at about the same time. Building t4 would just waste fuel that could buy more tigers.
Neither the brumbar and panzerwerfer have quite the wow factor to make t4 worthwhile either. Often the only time you'll only see them built is by the more skilled and unconventional streamers
The panzerwerfer is currently one of the all-round weaker mobile arty weapons. Brumbar got some love with the removal of shot blockers, but probably needs to be *the* go-to weapon for dealing with late-game vetted infantry blobs. Something that inspires fear in a similar manner to the sturmtiger. It may actually already do this, but it's hard to tell when no one ever goes t4
The obvious solution, in my humble opinion, is to make heavier tanks cost a few extra CP. This way players are forced/allowed to spend more time getting a return on investment for medium tanks, much like when the infantry early-game was extended, encouraging more interesting and tactical infantry play rather than a rush to vehicles.
Vote here for call-in meta overhaul
Vote here to improve the panzerwerfer
105mm Howitzer
No one builds this thing because despite costing the same as the Soviet equivalent, it is significantly inferior in apparently every way. A bargain at twice the price!
I recall it being a pretty awesome area denial tool in the early days when its barrage would go for so long that it was ready to fire again immediately afterwards. I can imagine there were probably good reasons that got changed, but still, buff time!
Vote here
Tiger Ace
One of the few OP weapons in the Wehrmacht arsenal. Mines are your best bet in stopping these guys in their tracks, FYI, but people still frequently get caught out by it. This is probably because it costs no fuel. Sure, the resource slowdown limits the support available to it, but opposing players should really be able to delay its arrival by controlling the fuel. It's hard enough just preventing a normal tiger from hitting the field. Increased CPs for heavy tanks once again would also play a significant role here. It would be nice if getting a Tiger Ace out was an achievement in a game, not a guarantee.
Vote here
Got some suggestions? Feel free to leave them below, or on the issue tracker. I'll be sure to incorporate them if I agree.
Edit: I've created a card that groups these issues under Broad Design Issues as a means of highlighting that they are not necessarily separate. You can
vote for it here. If you agree with the overall sentiments described here, you may wish to check that one out. It links to the individual components to show how it's all connected.
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