Profile of Esxile

TL;DR
-Canister was always OP on a crap commander n unit.
-USF is more playable.
-Grouping of units gives more chances of wipe
-Meta hasn't change as much, specially OH vs USF match up.

I have never said Canister Shot wasn't OP before, but never used to his maximum potential because the M8 had no room to exist in the meta at that time.
About the grouping, I'm not really sure it change anything with the canister shot. Canister shot doesn't work vs cover - or at least the few times I tried it didn't do much.

I'm not sure if the USF is more playable than before the Kubel Up patch. It is definitively more playable since it last little readjustment for sure. Is the Pak nerf alone explains the M8 becoming suddenly appealing vs Ostheer? To me, not that much, the pak nerf doesn't make the Reco commander suddenly more interesting to play than any other commander. The pak nerf gives more room to USF to use light vehicles in general and not anymore only rushing to sherman after the lieutnant - in other terms, less relying on Rifles to maintain the pressure early game. What I say is this new diversity given to USF players in their play style is a problem for Ostheer, it is much more difficult for them to build their BO and have the right counter at the right time. Before a pak was enough to enforce USF to go for infantry, less punitive in case of failure than losing a M20 or a Half-trak in 2 seconds. And so Ostheer could rely more on their MGs and Mortar.

For the rest of your argumentation, we are agreeing, you are simply focusing on units and factions when I talk about play style. The Puma remains a great asset, but far more difficult to manage than 2/3 volks shreck in a group.

The way OKW players are focusing on building squads more and more and less and less light and medium vehicles make people react on looking for dedicated counter until the puma get back into the meta to counter it.

I'm always impressed how people around here (and over every coh2 forums) discover, the hard way usually, units and capabilities proposed by the game since it very beginning.
I found the M8 canister shot "new" OPness Beeing today the culminating point of this moving meta.

The commander having this unit is pretty old, 6 months old, and pretty bad since this time. So it has never been that used in the past. But the moving meta changes that. This canister shot has always been there and OP. But I remember months ago, it, alone, didn't worst the investment.

I found the moving meta going more and more deeper in an infantry domination of every strate of the game. That blobbing way of fight. And so makes people to try to adapt to it.
From an USF player perspective I found that OKW is really dominating the actual meta, ruling how the game goes, the fashion way of playing that impact at the end all other factions, including and probably impacting the most the Ostheer faction.
The majority of players has now enough experience with WFA, between 6 and 3 months and knows what strategy does work better than others. And different ways of Blobbing volks/obers seem to be that strategy today for OKW.

How did we reach the point to include the M8 in the current meta?
Playing a lot of game in 1vs1 or 2vs2 modes made me release that even if 2 months ago, people where complaining how the PUMA was OP, Till then nothing has change, Relic didn't modify it but who feels it OPness today? few of us simply because nobody built it, it is better, faster and safer to build 2 more volks with shreck than a Puma, and save your fuel for something else. And when someone finally uses it, the lack of experience with the unit negates his effectiveness, because yes you need to micro it to fully use it potential and it is something different than managing a mass of infantry.
When 3 months ago, OKW players were still trying different strats, with Puma and flak-truck, who would have risk to build a M8? the unit would have been ripped off in a matter of second and not being able to use his canister shot ability, the Commander itself was simply considerate as OK in team game and rubbish in 1vs1.
Today its different, it is safer to call one with the disappearance of Pumas and since everyone asks how to counter this so old "insane" unit.
How have we reach this state, here again, thanks to OKW domination and the Kubel modification.
Which has enforce USF players to use more and more the Utility Car to counter the Kubel, making USF players more and more skilled with this cheap unit. And here comes the insta-facility to use the M8, it is approximately the same unit with same stats, you're microing it as the utility car. It takes the same reasonable amount of time to kill the kubel with, and since the Puma has left the meta, you don't really need that mine anymore, you can wait for better ATs. So an instagib squad becomes a far more interesting ability.
Here again, back 3 months ago before the Kubel buff, who was bothering using the utility car? USF players were rushing the half-track or fast Sherman, and so OKW players Pumas.

Ostheer faction is probably the biggest loser in this meta evolution dominated by OKW infantry spam. Because the faction is more sensitive to meta evolution since it needs to strictly adapt its build order.
If we look at USF, SU or OKW, one more core unit or one less doesn't change a lot since you are using almost every time a core aggressive unit with 1 or 2 supportive ones. Ostheer is the opposite, your core units are the supportive ones and the "aggressive" ones provide a kind of support/capping power until you get your T2/T3. I feel that i won a lot of game vs Ostheer simply because he built the wrong support unit to counter me.
The pak nerf probably helped a lot in that, Ostheer lost the ability to hunt down fast with a really high rate of success any light vehicles.

Now the question is if the Infantry blob tactics will continue to dominate the meta or if an abuse of usage of M8 will shut it down and make PUMAs reappear in the field, balancing the whole.

Of course, this is just my opinion/vision of the game evolution so far. And you, what do you think of the meta evolution?

So look, stay there with your certitude about that game, you wanted a shoulder to cry on and someone agreeing on your complaint, I'm sorry to not propose you mine.

Changing SHrecks long rand accuracy is a better solution to the problem (if Relic thinks they're over performing of course) than completely re designing OKW faction structure. It's the same reason why Cons will never get a native weapon upgrade that's not coming from the commander.

It would hard nerf Ostheer and I'm not sure it is something we do want.

Well my own idea isn't to touch volks + shreck, but Obers and falls. Add a munition cost to their weapons and OKW players will start to restraint themselves to spam volks + shreck.

Well, the same goes for usf, they are blobbing with airbornes and rifles as well. And if you take the schreck from the volks you have to give them something else, otherwise no one will build them anymore and you would have to give the okw some sort of mobile at which isn't bound to one tier. When you take the schrecks from the volks okw will be slaughtered by the american light vehicles and even more by m3s.

We are talking about giving shreck to sturmpio, not removing shreck unilateraly. Don't you understand that the issue lies within their Vet capability and cheap reinforce price, whatever you give them is going to make them super strong for a ridiculous price.