Profile of Part time commie

Wow, i never tought posting here would yeld so much discussion, quitte a good one too.

@cookiezncreem: you were right, i didn't read right and i owe you and apologie.
On the pathfinders, i don't think they should drop or teleport in buildings. I'd really see a 2 man squad with the german sniper's cloak. This way it would create it's own gameplay just to infiltrate the enemy line. A unit dedicated to scouting (i don't think anyone has that) with some interesting support abilities (check what i suggested in the main post) would be original.

Please continue with the original DESIGN discussion after this post.

Thank you.

It just baffles me why people like the airborne as quick reinforcement for your main line when there are other company that will do it in a more interesting and better way. Because it's seriously all i see people do with them. What's so bad about having an original and interesting commander that offers a play style like no other?
In the end i don't care if the paras cost more if that's what it takes to really make them interesting to play.

Edit: FestiveLongJohns suggested that the para's thompson ability becomes sprint, can't say i hate it, quitte the opposite in fact. While the current ability looks bad ass, it's really just suicide to use it.

I think you should try to better understand how the Airborne commander works now rather than mold it into its vCoh version or what you think qualifies as Airborne.

For one thing you keep bringing up the harassing part which is very much secondary in the current implementation. You have to consider that if they're not that good at harassing then it's probably because they're not intended to.

The Airborne excel at maintaining a strong and adaptable field presence and scouting.

They're also good at delivering the final blow. For example when a tank takes engine damage, it becomes P47 bait. When a forward building is left unguarded, they can plant their demo charge. They're opportunists more than anything.

Your post kind of contradict itself. For once you say they aren't harashers but they are opportunists. Like plating a demo charge on an abandonned forward building. But isn't that harassing? And what forward building can the OKW build that would be attackable by such a device? Also if the place is ungarded it might be because your enemy isn't too good so the paras should be good against bad enemies?

And how can they be more adaptable than rifleman while having less abilities? They can't really keep a strong battlefield presence either with those overpriced weapons drops.

You did bring up scouting like i did. This is why i suggested some changes to the pathfinders to actually make them better at this job. That 4 man squad really is a pain to hide.

I dont know why the Paras cant compete with obers with a 380vs400 cost,having to paradrop,and requiring a 120 muni upgrade AND a doctrine,that,if they decide not to get ,they are LITERALLY pointless to get.

Yes they definitely need to be nerfed. YUP.

I have a hard time understanding what you mean, no one asked for a nerf. Milka only brought some numbers to the topic which are interesting.

Hello, this is a copy of a thread i made on the official CoH2 forum. I heard i could get much more meaningful responses by posting it here instead.

Here's the link if you wanna see what was discussed so far: http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/company-of-heroes-2-general-discussion/66998-toughts-of-a-veteran-on-airborn-commander

And here is the copy of the main post that i updated over time with the discussions.

Preface:
The Idea behind this post isn't to make the airborn OP, stronger or whatever you whant but to give these guys a unique play style that no other commander offers. Akind to the original airbornes and Royal commandos since they are kind of a mix of these 2. Relic made the Rifleman the backbone and the most versatile basic unit, any other unit would really need to have a specific role to really contrast with them (keep that in mind).

Hi there, i am a fan of CoH since it's very first days, the first commander i fell in love with was the Airborn one (not classified as commanders back then, but whatever). I'd play this one for the vast majority of my playtime.
When opposing front came out, it was the Royal commandos. having elite infantry who could infiltrate, plant bombs and escape with the use of concealment smokes was just the ****, couple that with radio triangulation and you had one nice mix for guerrila warfare.
For CoH2 i did have some fun with the partisan commander.
Now you probably have an idea of my playstyle and background, here's what i have to say about CoH2's airborn commander.

Western armies came out and i am really happy to see the airborns back in action. Here's my tougths on this company.

The state of things:
Overall, this commander is pretty underwelming. If you saw anyone using it you probably noticed they don't do much airborne stuff. Usualy using this commander to tier skip, drop guns for his rifleman and at some point, maybe, starting to call in those glorified rifleman.

Pathfinders: I love this idea, kudos to Relic. As far i know, most airborn regiments had pathfinders to recon the landing zones and give the go for the drop. Here that's exactly what they do and that's great. But for a recon unit that's suposed to be comming before the main force, it comes kind of late, it's really hard to hide it and it's kind of expansive at 290 mp for a 4 man squad that's not really good at fighting and will only serve as a recon and beacon planter.

.50 drop: Nothing much to say about this one, 50s anywhere anytime, but it kinds of overlap with the .30s and it has an extra 100MP cost to it.

57mm AT gun: This one is great too, back in CoH1 it was my main AT weapon to deal with tanks. Let you skip certain tier which is nice. But it is sadly grossly overpriced, a real MP sink with it'S 112 extra MP cost.

P-47: Nothing to say about this one either, goes for a few runs and hit like nothing else on tanks. My only complain is that it dosen't target the OKO command vehicules. I don't know why people hate it so much.

Paratroopers: OK, now here we are, the core of the airborn commander, what should make up most of your army. Sadly, they are pretty underwhelming and that's the biggest problem with this commander.
Now some people compared these guys to UberSoldaten (lol), Shocks and PzGren. After checking the numbers, unupgraded they have the lowest DPS of all these guys and only have frags. this hardly gives them any tactical potential for flanking or supporting. Once upgraded they start to have similar DPS to the other units but you paid premium and you still don't have the abilities of the other units (armor, smoke, ...). They also cost 3 CPs which takes longer for the US to obtain compared to other factions (shocks and the likes are often 2 CPs, too)
Their timed explosive is also uterly useless and this is no hyperbole, there is litteraly nothing you can use that on unless you are some kind of tactical genius who can time it to hit a retreating unit, find a eastern front bunker or an oblivious enemy who let you plant that at it's feets. The uses are very limited.
Overall, they are some kind of glorified rifleman, taking 3 CPs, a call-in slot, 380 MP, 9 pop and some munitions for upgrades.


Suggestions : This list is a list of suggestion, take those that you like and dislike and discuss them, i update it after some times with what was discussed. Also don't say that it would be OP if they had all that, it's just some suggestion, no need to implement them all. Every solution tries to follow the style that the commander tries to have which is guerrila warfare and co.

Pathfinders:

• These guys are kind of always late to the party for a recon unit, making them 0CP like the assault engineers probably wouldn't be too much. This way you could start planting beacons and observe enemy movement from the start while starting to build your airborn centered army.
  
  
• Giving them a skill akind to concealment smoke from the commandos of CoH1 (pop smoke on the unit, makes it invisible and remove supression, but the effect wears off if you run toward the enemy), would help this non-combat unit disengage without retreating and get back to hiding. This skill is purely defensive and is useless if you try to use it on the offensive.
  
  
• Someone suggested boobytraps, could be an interesting addon but it deters from it's recon role and i don't think it's very doctrinal for the US (correct me if i am wrong). In the same categorie, i would suggest trip flares. Fits perfectly for a recon unit without giving them power.
  
  
• The pathfinders had to cross the enemy line to reach the zone they had to recon (sometimes even paradropped themselves). Right now, a 4 man squad trying to cross the line in this game have a pretty hard time. The 4 guys are just too hard to all hide at the same time, i suggest cutting down the size of the unit to 2 man and giving them the ostheer's sniper cloak that lets you stay invisible for a few seconds after leaving cover. They aren't really a combat unit after all so there isn't much to loose. Once the airborn arrives, they could still take potshots at the enemy when they are engaged. Cutting down the unit size could also reduce this unit's cost.
  
  
• It was suggested that they get the designated marskman skill from vCoH. for a few munition you get one normal sniper shot. It's really just a supportive ability that could be used in conjonction with your paras (Synergy!). MOAR munition usage for Merica, let's show em what real firepower is!
  

57mm AT gun and .50s :

• 
  the 50s cheaper price is kinda nice, but the 57mm is priced the same price as the manned one. Theses call-in usually bleed you of MP pretty quickly. One solution that was proposed was to price them with ammo or fuel since you usually have more of those than MP. If you count the price of 4 reinforcement at 28MP each we have an extra cost of 112 MP for the 57mm and about 100 for the .50 that's alot for getting a weapon dropped from a big noisy plane that could still destroy the item on landing.
  

Paratroopers:

• Once upgraded, the Paras start to be similar in DPS to other elite troops but this upgrade comes at the price of 90/120 munitions, not a small one considering alot of units come factory new full of SMGs or ARs. The problem is that this squad really dosen't have sufficient firepower to deal with the situation it is thrown at, unless upgraded, so it makes it kind of mendatory, but long this upgrade takes a while to come in. If they could have something like instant upgrade/faster upgrade or any other idea, it wouldn't be a problem anymore.
  
  
• Paras with thompsons cannot equip bazookas while the ones from the recon support can and so any other unit with a full smg squad. So it might be a bug considering this.
  
  
• We don't whant these guys to be too sturdy so they can't go up front like rifleman (To remove some overlapping). But at the same time they have to hold some defensive position while waiting for the main force so giving some kind of slight buff when being in cover and less armor while being in the open sounds like a decent compromise.
  
• These guys need some kind of stuff that goes boom to create some ambushes. I remember building trenches back in vCoH with the commandos, plant an explosive in it, bait my enemy in it and boom they go... once i killed 3 elite squads in one hit, love that thing. The paras actually have the tool for that, the timed explosive, but it's litteraly useless. Aside from the osteer's bunkers (you know those on another front, which i don't think they one hit anyways) there is nothing to use that on. Making it remote detonated like the rest or make it a good old satchell and we are back in business.
  
  
• Some smoke grenades to close in the gap or retreat is a must for this kind of unit that relies on the element of surprise. It gives them more tactical flexibility, something they could use while operating behind enemy lines.
  
  
• Oh i almost forgot, making them 2 cp instead of 3 could be a good thing since they are always pretty late for an harashing unit and by that time you already have a good number of high level rifleman that you probably don't whant to get rid of. Shocks come at 2 and they are a front line unit plus from what i noticed, the US dosen't get any XP from upgrading it's tech, so it takes even longer to reach 3 CP. I tried to play Americans and russians to see who gets to what level faster and here are the numbers : Americans: 2CP: 5:33 - 3CP: 9:20 - Russians: 2CP:4:40 - 3CP 6:20 we can see there is a big time difference between the moment the shock troops arrive and the moment the paras arrive, even at 2CP those that should arrive first arrive last.
  
  
• More Wishly stuff : Being dropped behind the enemy lines means you have very little equipement with you. Paras were pretty ingenious and good scavangers, they had to rely on it after all. Here's a skill idea to reflect that: Temporary gun crewing. Let 3 member of the squad get on the gun but still be in the squad, both part of the squad have to stay within a certain radius and when you are done, you can dismount from the gun and get your full squad back.This would fix some of the MP bleeding caused by crewing one of your freshly dropped gun and having to fill the airborn squad because a 3 man squad is pretty useless for the firepower they have.
  
  
• Add to that an ability to sabotage the gun they were mounted on which would make it explode or stop functionning the next time someone tries to use it. This would open up some interesting gameplay in case your position is compromised (which would happen often with the kind of situations the Paras are being thrown at. Germans can already plant booby traps around the map with no draw back to themselves. Here you have to destroy our own weapon for it to work.
  One of the paras job is to disrupt the enemy and survive until the main force arrives against all odds. It was suggested to give them a bonus when facing multiple enemies at once, i'd personaly go for a buff in firepower or defence while being in cover to prevent certain abuses. This is debatable.
  

Conclusion:
That's it folks, i tried to inject back some life into this commander to help him do his job of harassing, ambushing, recon and the like. Hiting hard and fast but maybe not staying for the rest of the fight. So what do you think? Let's discuss, i'd be eager to see my favorite company being original and fun to play rather than just having somewhat better rifleman and airdropped guns.