Profile of SweetrollNearTheDoor

Since the brits have become viable again I've spent quite a bit of time playing around with the Royal Engineer doc and especially AVRE has become one of my favourite meme units. The good thing about it is that its actually a really good meme and even the best players regularly lose squads to it. (as evidenced by the recent 2v2 tourney)

On paper it still seems like the (worse) wannabe Sturmtiger compared to the real deal with its lower range and damage. However in reality AVRE seems to vastly outperform its Axis counterpart.

I decided to play around in CheatMod and came across some unexpected and interesting findings and also payed more attention to the veterancy bonuses.

First of all the AVRE Reload time begins when the firing animation is started making the actual reload several seconds shorter than on paper. Meanwhile the Sturmtiger's manual reload is exactly what is meant to be so the AVRE gains an unfair advantage due to this oversight. That is in addition that the ST reload is done manually and the speed debuff makes instant manual reload on the frontline a very bad idea most of the time while AVRE gets away with its automatic instant reload scot-free.

2nd item on the list: the Sturmtiger's vet 4 range bonus is simply bugged and it seems to not be implemented at all. I checked the recent patch notes and veterancy guide and there seems to be no indication that the vet 4 was scrapped so its just a useless shiny star on the unit icon atm.

The inconsistency between veterancy and reload bonuses:

The AVRE gets the reload bonus right away at vet 1 making it only 32 seconds. In actuality the reload disparity between it and the ST is even bigger due to the AVRE's ease-of-use in reloading.

The Sturmtiger on the other hand requires vet 3 to get a 30 seconds manual reload and vet 5 meme tier vet to remove the speed debuff. Much like indirect fire the real power spike happens when the reload buff veterancy level is achieved. So the AVRE power spike happens a lot quicker compared to the sturmtiger giving it a huge advantage in this department as well.

Time to fire: The sturmtiger has one the most obvious firing animation in the game (after the conscript molotov) and it lasts approximately 4 seconds giving opponents ample opportunities to react. Meanwhile the AVRE time to fire is around 3 seconds and there is no real firing animation + the turret traverse makes targeting faster and even more so with vet 2 movement and turret rotation buffs. Once again the sturmtiger gets the short end of the stick. Also due to the lack of proper animation the mere presence of the AVRE is often enough to force retreats (as in parking it next to a point / behind a sightblocker when it is reloading while the opponent expects the AVRE to fire the second a capping squad is in range.)

The ease of use against armor:

For UKF it is significantly easier to use the AVRE and combined arms against armor compared to OKW and the Sturmtiger. Brits have several abilities that synergize extremely well with the AVRE like the AEC tread break and Tulip stuns that make it possible to chain stuns. (The longest relatively easy stun lock being Tulips + tread break + AVRE + Gammon Bombs requiring no assistanance / abilities from teammates) OKW nor axis in general has such stun locks / chaining available.

The last thing that I find peculiar is the disparity between patching these units.

The changelog has made it very clear that the instagib potential of the Sturmtiger was deemed necessary to be severely reduced.

Quote from the changelog of december 2018:

Sturmtiger

We have aimed to make this unit perform more consistently. The intention is an increased ability to punish dense unit concentrations while not outright destroying infantry squads immediately.

Since then it has been given "buffs" that mostly seemed like out-of-date April Fools jokes like the grenade launcher buffs. Meanwhile blind eye has been turned to the AVRE and its vet that is 100% aimed at improving its primary offensive capabilities.

The bare minimum I would like to see is the veterancy oversights / bugs fixed. The focus of balancing between these units should also be made consistent and equal instead of the nerf hammer ignoring one of these units completely.

I'd like to hear your thoughts since the AVRE is such a regular unit on the battlefield these days and it has made the power disparity between it and Sturmtiger very apparent.

It is a shame if the demo doesn't showcase some of the campaign missions that are already implemented with cutscenes and hero unit backgrounds.

As for the multiplayer aspect only time will tell what kind of a community / playerbase it will have but I definitely will feel that I've gotten my moneys worth if the rest of the campaign is well made. Since its a small team I know not to expect Starcraft / Warcraft campaign quality but nowadays there are so few RTS games with a story I hope it will succeed commercially so the devs can improve upon their initial concept.

Much like vCoH had a ton of issues many of them were ironed out and the key gameplay mechanics were improved in CoH2 and I hope that is the case for Iron harvest as well.

Balance wise I'm not too concerned since C&C Remaster proved that even completely imbalanced and wonky games can still be a ton of fun to play if they are properly supported with modding, terrific soundtrack and good interaction between the developers and the community.

I'm using it everytime I play team games so.... works like charm.

I very specifically mentioned "somewhat high tier games" and Adamir is the only top 50 & top 100 player I've seen use that strat. For now your success with this particular playstyle is yet to show in your rank.

For me it matters very little if this strat is deemed problematic since very few people are going to adapt it and the chances its gonna get looked at in a patch are slim to none. But it does offer excellent entertainment value when ones teammate manages to pull off such a meme move

I'm pretty sure molotov damage ticks stack. For example I've sometimes thrown triple molotovs at an MG bunker which will gib it from full health. (An actually cost effective trade / on the fly bunker counter if you ignore the tech cost of molotov and the general meh:ness of it)

If you were able to put up a mortar pit by the fuel in Across the Rhine, and keep it from being destroyed, then the game wasn't competitive at all. In games like that, you can do anything you want and it doesn't prove anything. One of my teammates, who plays UKF, will build 5 snipers and go big game (Puma) hunting in those games. It doesn't prove anything beyond the fact that there were too few people searching to make a good match.

You can't double team an opponent off the fuel, spam trences to deflect the counterattack and build a mortar pit in the meanwhile? Accounting for the fact the pit needs to only exist for a few minutes at max to get the job done? Mkay Once again the life expectancy of the mortar becomes irrelevant after it has fired the needed amount of smoke barrages. For the pit to pay off it does not have to survive the truck kill operation.

In addition the skill level of a player has nothing to do with the fact no faction has reliable readily available tools to counter free constantly spammed easy-to-use smoke with 0 cooldown that can be combined with questionable gimmick mechanics without Axis doing excessive/unreasonable investments to counter that single strat.