Profile of StephennJF

My judgement on whats good:

• M3 Scout Car and 222 Scout Car changes are welcomed changes.
  
• Ostheer 4 man pak40 and 4 man mortar increase survivability against both snipers and general attacks.
  
• Increase fire rate of the Ostheer mortar as it provides a great alternative to tackle with heavy conscript or maxim based stratergy, especially when they are utilizing buildings a lot.
  
  

My judgement on whats bad:

• MG42 4 man crew further increases its ability to repel flanks and is unrequired, just return in back to 3 man crews. I have been saying it since alpha, please increase the damage of all small arms rifle fire so that flanked support units and units out of cover are punished harder and faster. In my mind 2 conscripts with a flank on a gren and mg42 should win the engagement, however this is rarely the case as MG42 pack, unpack and then fire extremely quickly again in response. Without an increase to small arms fire, my solution would be increase the pack up time of the MG42 so molotovs do more damage and a flanked unit is punished.
  
• Soviet nerfs on mortars makes no sense as they were actually quite ineffective as they were last patch. Furthermore, it amplifies the strength of MG42's as mortars are weaker and the effects of flanking are weaker. I feel now the only way to breach well played 2-3 gren/2 mg based play is with M3 flamers/snipers or stall to T70. I feel flanking is never rewarded how it should be and early game Soviet indirect fire does not break MG positions well.
  

The past week or so I have been doing t2-t3 Russian builds consistantly. Whilst going t1/t2 to t4 does feel some what more reliable, there is nothing wrong at all in going t2-t3. As pqumsieh just highlighted do not go t1-t3 unless you have complete fuel dominance because you will lose everything to a well microed p4/ostwind due to no respectable AT.

If you play for the fuel as Russia, get out 2 T34's as your opponent has only a single P4 on the field you can actually take him head on with your tanks. The marked vehicle ability will win it outright for you. My general unit composition of this army consists of 1-2 engineers, 3 conscripts, 1 maxim, 1 guard, 1 Zi3 and 1-2 T34's when playing this stratergy. Despite initially losing a lot with this stratergy, testing it against good players, utilizing many commanders I have finally begun to win with it +50% of the time. I hope to write a guide on this approach of the game.

The way I see T34's currently in 1v1 games:

• Great anti-infantry tank. Can deal with some shrecks ambush.
  
• Deters heavy tank based play due to threat of ram on Elephant or Tiger.
  
• Ram only when an opponent overextends a tank to within my own territory and I can easily destroy it and repair my own tank back up. Do not ever ram if I can't save my own tank, unless I know I have the fuel advantage and can replace my tank whilst my opponent can't replace his loss.
  
• T34 at vet2 are one of the few Russian units that actually get a damage increase at vet2. Keep this in mind of the damage they bring to the table if you don't suicide them.
  

Do T34's deserve a buff. Yes, but only a small buff. I believe they only need a slight increase in the penetration damage or chance they do against opponents armour. Not much but just a bit to give a bit more of a soft counter and chase down very hurt p4's a bit better. At the moment I find with t2-t3 the greatest difficulty is getting the final killing blow on your opponents vehciles due slow ATG movement/fire rate you can often only get off 1-2 shots, so Guards or Conscript AT nade can finish of a enemy tank that is extremely hurt. A T34 should be given that chance a bit more aswell. It should not be the dedicated counter though, purely chips in like 10-15% damage to the p4, whilst combined arms from ATG, Guards and Conscripts do the work.

Aside from that the T34 unit is fine and balanced. Damage verse infantry is great, health, speed, rotation of vechile and turret and most importantly the cost. 280 MP and 95 Fuel is perfect. Having a high fuel price for T34's prevents the awful mass ram based tactics that made utilizing German armour in previous patchs impossible almost due to overwhelming T34 tank number superiority. If you ram and lose your T34's in doing without killing your opponents, you should be punished as it was a poor decision to ram.

Balancing with make only a few changes is the best way to go about it! I am very glad they do it like this.

Not sure I feel with a increase to MG/mortar squad sizes without a respective increase to just generic small arms fire. Will be curious to see if it further degrades the effects of flanking in the early game.

Happy with the changes though. We shall see how it pans out

Added in ImperialDanes cast to the OP

I bet Ostheer will be really OP after this next patch unless Soviets are buffed in other areas. Try using a doctrine that doesn't have HTD/Shocks and don't make M3s or T70. The way it is right now flanking isn't rewarding at all because rifles are pathetic at close range. Even molotovs aren't very good against someone that isn't stupid enough to stand in them.

Yep. I have a feeling this will be the case aswell, only time will tell though.

• Reducing building god mode.
  
• Increasing pak accuracy, durability.
  
• Shreck single upgrade for 75 munition.
  
• Increasing German sniper accuracy to almost 90% verse buildings/field.
  
• Reducing duration or increasing reload time of the M3 flamer garrison.
  
• Reducing P4 damage output.
  
• Increasing turret rotation speed of IS2.
  

In my head these are the main changes that will be nice and won't drastically throw the game out.