I don't see the fascination with blobbing honestly. No matter which faction I play as, I have counters available for anti-blob duty.
Defeating blobs can be annoying, but I would rather deal with 4 rifle squads coming at me in a horde, than 4 rifle squads using intelligent use of smoke and cover to close the distance.
Honestly, I don't usually blob. But if I do, it is because I have discoered a weak point i the enemy's defense, and figured that just walking through the opening without micro is much easier than bothering with micro. Either way I will win the engagement with minimal losses, the only difference is that by just moving my infantry in one clump, I can spend my micro on more important things like my armor.
Also, to people saying that the mg42 can't beat rifle blobs, please try using two of them in cover, spread apart in such a way that they can-accurately suppress a large field of fire, while covering each other in case of smoke. A single 251 HT and an mortar behind them will make it impossible for a blob to assault you, and you don't even need supporting units! (Though a pio flamer or two is advisable.) If your enemy outflanks you and hits you in your blind spot, where you had forgotten to place mines or a scout squad at least, that means that you got outplayed, not OMFGOPBLOBWOW. |
I've noticed that you can execute some soldiers that aren't moving. I'm assuming that this is the cause of the vision bug. |
the fact is a flamer car can knock pretty much all volks off the field before they get shrecks... why cant they do small arms dmg too the scout car like grens can?
I think it is fie. If I see t1 in the enemy base, I like to build a defensive mine to knock out the m3a1, and sometimes also invest in a raketen. The reason volks don't seem to do damage is because the scout car has good armor, allowing it to soak damage. I actually think the volks have a higher dps vs the m3a1 than grens do without panzerfaust. |
Your first point contradicts the second. If OKW was fine then it wouldn't float insanely huge amounts of MP.
Thats not true. All it means is that the OKW player is able to go through the game without large manpower expenditures. This just shows how cost efficient the OKW army is in fact. You can put that spare manpower into a raketen, or a pak43, or bunkers, or more obers, or an mg34, or a tank. The thing is that OKW doesn't really need much more than 2 obers + 4 volkshreck, so they don't usually feel pressured to make the decision to invest that manpower on units, and instead choose to sit on it as a "rainy day" fund. That is fine, OKW ends up waiting on the fuel to callin armor, like an opposite soviet industry.
You didn't address my point about how OKW would get a much higher income than is needed. Why does OKW need a larger fuel income than they currently have? You can normally get a panther by ~19 minutes, and will have all of your units either when they are needed, or before they are needed. Adding caches would simply increase the fuel income rate, which will mean that some units will arrive faster than they are supposed to, before their own counters arrive, and making it easier to replace lost armor, which is something I am fine with. OKW has scavenge. Take advantage of this ability to supplement your fuel income.
I'm yet to see any reason to add fuel caches besides "to negate manpower float," and it will only negate manpower float insofar as it allows you to supplement your fuel income at no real cost. The idea of fuel caches is that you are expending resources meant for your infantry/ armor on a higher fuel income which is a real choice for every other faction. OKW would just build caches with their float at no real cost. |
The reason why caches for OKW would be a bad idea is because it would give them far more income than they were supposed to have (talking in a ones perspective).
Imagine, for a scond, that an OKW player has his/her infantry horde of 2 obers /pfus + 4 volkshreck. The OKW player is folating 800mp, and doesn't need more tech to field KT. WHat does he do? He takes that mp and puts it into fuel caches. These caches do not detract from his infantry horde (he already has them), because they do not bleed his income over time, it is merely a sink for excess manpower. This results in a KT coming out much faster than it normally would, but at little to no real cost the the OKW player, because he was just going to be floating the mp anyways.
This is the problem with adding caches to OKW. I would be fine if OKW had for example access maybe to an opel truck for 400mp and 10 popcap, so that the boost to economy would come at a great cost to not only manpower, but to future manpower income. I honestly don't think that OKW really needs any opels trucks or caches anyways, the faction is fine as it is. |
Balance, at least in ones, is pretty good right now I feel. The recent patch have changed many things that have combined to make the game a much more enjoyable experience.
Ostheer got a very big buff with the new sniper and mg42 buff, s well as the synergizing pio sight range. This allows ostheer to rely on combined arms early game and also makes the mg42 a lot easier to vet up. While the super early game is still a bit of a pain vs. a USF player who goes straight for m20, it cn be countered by fast teching for the newly buffed 222 or even just placing a smart teller. Incindiary rounds on the mg42 do well at this, and it is easier to get the mg42 to vet 1 now that the long range accuracy has been buffed.
OKW got nerfed as a whole, and this is a good thing. With the nerf to volksshreck and the buff to the raketenwerfer, OKW has been forced to rely more on the raketenwerfer early game to counter light vehicles. The fact that obers have to pay for their lmg34 means that OKW players now have to make a choice on what upgrades to apply to their army, which is also causing the raketenwerfer to be fielded in greater numbers, as well as units like the puma/ jagdpanzer 4 which are very useful to fill in the gap of AT that was once supplied by the shreck blob. The change of the vet 5 of volksgrenadiers has made them less like golems that are impervious to bullets, but has instead made them more powerful vs. infantry. This leads to a more interesting dynamic in late game fights, where vet 5 volks still die at about the same rate as vet 3 cons, but can deal a lot more hurt on encroaching squads such as shocks or riflemen before they retreat.
USF was given some needed lategame boosts in this patch, and the buff to the jackson (and the nerf of the KT's armor to reasonable levels) has it made it a very good unit at dealing with enemy lategame armor, while the damage nerf has made it no longer a harcounter to ostheer t3. It nows takes longer for a p4 to be killed by a jackson than by an su85, and this is a good thing, as it outlines the difference in these units' roles. That being said, I believe relic also needed to tone down the riflemen with lmgs, or, more specifically, the defensive stance that they get. Defensive stance allows riflemen to suppress enemy units, and gives them yellow cver anywhere, which is fine and good, but it doesn't have enough counterplay since it an be deactivated at will, which leads to frustration as grenades from volks are dodged, only for the rifle squad to reenter defensivve stance 5 meters away. I believe that defensive stance should not be useable in combat (like it used to be), and should have a cooldown to turning off, like HTD.
Soviets. I'm going to be honest here. I hate soviets. I hate their gameplay, I hate the faction design, and I hate the callin system. That being said, from the few games I played with them this patch, and the many I played against them, I believe that soviets are the strongest faction currently (read: not OP) because of their ability to effectively deal with many threats and have a solid early game, while not sacrificing their lategame. The recent PTRS buff has given soviets access to a great defensive unit (guards), which allows them to hold the line against enemy assaults. Unfortunately, the buff to PTRS has also made conscript PTRS very powerful, and this may need to be addressed in the next patch. I think that the best way to fix the PTRS would be to keep the current accuracy values, but to drop the PTRS accuracy at close range to ~10%, to show how the PTRS is most effective at mid range (it was hard to use such an unwieldy weapon at ass-sniffing range.) Other than that, I beieve soviets are in a good place, and will be in a much better place if relic ever decides to deal with the callin meta.
In conclusion, I do not believe any single faction is OP. Some factions have more evenly rounded strengths, while others have have strengths at one time which drops off drastically as the game progresses. However, all factions have a fairly good chance of winning at all times in the game (even if disadvantaged), because the patch has lessened the huge disparity in the faction strengths at different times in game. |
Aw crud. I don't know where I've heard that he resets cooldowns. Ah well.
The artillery officer's ability does not reset cooldown on artillery, it ignores them. This means, for example, if you had 4 pzwerfers, and you had them all attack a single position, you could use the artillery officer's ability to bombard another location before your pzwerfers have finished their cooldown. On top of this, the second salvo from the artillery officer doesn't reset the cooldown.
Also, there is a bug with the artillery commander's ability. If you use his abilities to allow a panzerwerfer to fire, the panzerwerfer will fire 16 rockets instead of 12, like it used to. |
Brummbar needs a faster rotation speed. Its biggest problems seems to be that it gets stuck on a VP for example, then has to slowly turn around to change its facing. Unlike SU85s and Jagdpanzer 4s, the Brummbar is not meant to fight armor. Any armored unit can stand in front of it without worrying about much more than a stun. Increasing its turn speed would buff its pathing, while having a negligible impact on combat due to its low fire rate. |
The CAS doctrine AT strafe is fine. It is a 110 mu callin which does not track and is fairly easily dodgeable. The only change it needs is a way to slow it down when it is called in from near the edge of the map, and even that maybe not.
That being said, I think that the Stuka CAS loitering strafe needs either a muni increase, or 1 flyover with no shots. allowing it to be countered. It is a bit silly that a strafe that can one shot jacksons/scotts also can loiter and track targets, all for 20 mu more than the IL2 loitering strafe, and come in a good doc like Lightning War.
Queen, Johnny, please, stay on target. :} |
SHows how PTRS cons can be defeated by OKW forces. |