Profile of Esxile

Seems like OKW/OST need to continuously use grenades to stay in / win fights which is my personal experience as well. Usually leaves the Allies (especially the Russians) with a disproportionate amount of spare munitions to dump into weapon upgrades, mines, abilities and offmaps.

Soviet faction is the allied faction using the more grenades because 1/ molotov unlock Price is low 2/ guards/penal meta providing other source of grenade handling. If you look at Soviet meta, Cons is the less mainline infantry used, Soviet can use Penal and guard.

This is reflected in the table, Soviet players have used as much Guards grenades as Cons molotov, plus Penal satchels.
In fact if we addition molotovs to RD33 and Satchels, we are not far behind Axis average usage of grenade.

Now USF and UKF are behind, USF and UKF used less of their grenade than OKW infiltration grenade that is locked behind a unique commander.

So where I join your argument is promoting USF and UKF to use more their grenades would re-balance the early game and the late game: more grenades used during the match mean less munition for upgrades, delaying dual BAR and Bren.

Following the different topics about balance and stats around factions, I wanted to see what was the usage ratio of AI grenade between factions, for this I have use Siphon X data who generously provided me additional statistics about grenade command issued during each game of the GCS2 qualification tournaments.

I'll only focus on grenades used by mainline infantry (RM, GRN, VOLKS and IS). The question is to see how impactfull on the gameplay is the difference between Axis "free tech" grenades and Allied "pay to unlock grenade" mechanism.

 provide by Siphon X
 OKW :  168 games
 Sov :  175 games
 Ost :  145 games
 USF :  93 games
 UKF :  45 games

As mentioned by Siphon X it is only based on if the command as been triggered by could have been cancelled before the execution, I personaly don't believe this would change a lot the statistics shown below.

There are a lot to say about it, "freetech" nade are naturally more used then "Unlocktech" grenades, satchel and RGD-33 grenade is at almost same level than flamnade when they are assignated to non mainline infantry. OKW Infiltration grenade more used than any other allied grenades while being locked behind a unique commander etc...

And one question for the debate:
Does it exists a pattern between grenade usage and winrate?

What are your feeling about it?

 Rifle Grenade:                         840 / 145 = 5.79 (Ostheer)
 Bundled Model 24 Grenades:              32
 Throw Molotov Cocktail:                244 / 175 = 1.39 (Soviet)
 RGD-33 Fragmentation Grenade:          230 / 175 = 1.31 (soviet)
 RG-42 Anti-Personnel Grenade:           19
 RGD-1 Smoke Grenade:                    11
 Throw Satchel Charge:                  136 / 175 = 0.77 (Soviet)
 Grenade Assault:                         0
 Mk 2 Frag Grenade:                     193 / 93 = 2.07 (USF)
 Bundled Grenade:                        60
 Blendkörper:                            29
 Bundled Model 24 Grenade:              104
 Throw Model 24 Grenade:                  8
 Concussive Grenade:                     10
 'Cooked' Mk 2 Frag Grenade:              6
 Infiltration Grenade Assault:          438 / 168 = 2.6 (OKW)
 No. 36M 'Mills Bomb':                   61 / 45 =  1.35 (UKF)
 Light Gammon Bomb:                      62
 Gammon Bomb:                             5
 Throw Incendiary Grenade:             1029 / 168 = 6.12 (OKW)

Ok, here is how often a command to use a certain grenade type was used:

Code

 Rifle Grenade:                         840
 Bundled Model 24 Grenades:              32
 Throw Molotov Cocktail:                244
 RGD-33 Fragmentation Grenade:          230
 RG-42 Anti-Personnel Grenade:           19
 RGD-1 Smoke Grenade:                    11
 Throw Satchel Charge:                  136
 Grenade Assault:                         0
 Mk 2 Frag Grenade:                     193
 Bundled Grenade:                        60
 Blendkörper:                            29
 Bundled Model 24 Grenade:              104
 Throw Model 24 Grenade:                  8
 Concussive Grenade:                     10
 'Cooked' Mk 2 Frag Grenade:              6
 Infiltration Grenade Assault:          438
 No. 36M 'Mills Bomb':                   61
 Light Gammon Bomb:                      62
 Gammon Bomb:                             5
 Throw Incendiary Grenade:             1029

I might have missed certain types (they are coded basically as "use_ability" together with an ID of that ability, so, there might be other grenade-like abilities that I missed). Also, these are simply numbers of how often the command is issued, the grenade might not have been thrown because the throw might have been canceled.

I really had to a make a thread about it which I have never thought to do before. I realised the reason why I start shouting at the screen and get very frustrated when playing CoH 2 is ALWAYS BECAUSE OF THE DAM RUBBISH PATHING!!!

"Ah great I've built a Brummbar that should help me deal with those rifle blobs, ok now just reverse up they are getting to close .. reverse!!! .. MY GOD REVERSE DAM IT PLEASE WERE GOING TO DIE!!!(unit decides to spin around and face rear to enemy and then stop) oh look an M36... "

just an example of playing CoH 2, some units will literally stick to nearly everything and anything and will get stuck .

As for the MG there was literally nothing I can remember that was blocking it as when giving the order again the MG team obliged to my orders but by then it was too late as it already swarmed by conscripts. Although relatively rare it has happened a good few times.

Isn't more a lag issue than pathing? I have solved 90% of pathing issue by carefully driving and positioning my tanks. Like never placing your tank back to a pathing blocker. ie: never put a tank back to a flag point.
Also the IA doesn't like when you spam a command, everything is about being smoothy as possible. I really think your main issue is the lag not the pathing, and yes use the hotkey at least for this one.

Debunked by who? The 50 trades the wider arc for a halved setup time of the 42. Its up to personal opinion which is better. That’s also why I said argueable.....

And? Do you think the HMG can unsetup and resetup facing 2 squads flanking?

Brit doesn't need light, that's probably why everyone build a carrier and upgrade the vicker asap in every game I see and the same for the AEC. Light is meta, every faction get access to it and should use it. In the current state of the game if the USF doesn't need to build light that's probably because the player outplayed his opponent on the early game, and this is the same for every faction, in that case you can skip light and rush medium if you want.

I don’t know how you think 1x LMG on a rifle is bad, when it is nearly identical to the LMG42 on a more durable squad. Your advantage vs OKW is your lategame scaling and you need to exploit their awful weaknesses. OKW still lacks smoke heavily so MGs work great, and the 50 is argueably the best MG. If you have a problem with OKW lights maybe you should convey to the balance team to stop dumping on volks so that OKW can use other parts of their army. You REQUIRE a light as OKW currently because volks don’t scale through mid game and the support teams are still mediocre. The best OKW support teams are when the soviets steal them which is really sad. Fighting 6 man raketen and 6 man MG42s for ostheer is truly scary.

You point out in your post that you need support teams as USF just like any faction. Instead of making horrible changes like giving rifles smoke, go for changes that would actually help the faction like getting rid of their awful tech fork.

You mean you can't flank a .50 with its small cone of fire without smoke? .50 being best hmg in game has been debunk already, it was the case with sprint but not anymore.
Every faction requires light vehicle, that's how the meta is today. The problem is OKW light >>> USF light in term of durability and damage being upon OKW infantry > USF infantry early game plus OKW having access to atgun from T0 and USF still being locked T2.