Profile of shadowwada

For those who don’t know me, I’m a top tier player. I won two NA ESL tournaments while routinely placing in top 3. As for leaderboards, I’ve achieved top 10 in 1v1, 2v2 random, 2v2 arranged team.

For this thread, I’m focusing on my concerns with specific changes:

RNG Crits

With removing RNG crits, such as the mines and tank stun deflections, weapon drops should also be removed. It creates imba situations such as obers with two lmgs or cons/rifles/grens with flamers. Along with giving the game greater consistency, it is a minor allies buff since they drop their guns much more than axis as their inf generally uses two guns rather than one (if the squad is holding just one gun, it will only drop when the squad dies while if the squad is holding two, they will randomly drop).

Edit: Forgot to mention vehicle abandons needs to be removed from the game. It is pure RNG and can ruin matches

Suppression Limiting Nade Range

Suppression shouldn’t affect the range of USF smoke nades. The suppression interaction is to keep offensive nades from wiping MGs so the defensive smoke nade shouldn’t be nerfed.

Last Man Dead

“Last man dead” change is dumb. It is a pseudo-skill cap raise. There is really no reason why inf shouldn’t auto fire on the gunner. The only reason for this change is because it is an easy fix for the maxim death loop.

If relic wanted to meaningfully raise the skill cap, there should be a focus fire command as the current attack command is insufficient because it causes units to stop moving. With chasing and tank combat, it is annoying how your speed is punished for trying to focus fire. If you are going to make things harder to help raise the skill cap, there should be sufficient tools so it isn’t annoying or bothersome.

Another example is how you can’t control the rotation of tank turrets. If you know the position of a tank but it is obfuscated by smoke or shot blockers, you can’t issue an attack command so the best is the attack ground command. However it is at the cost of an attack and movement, as the tank can’t move while attack grounding. Giving players the ability to manually override turret rotation would be a great way to raise the skill cap while fixing the problem of wonky turret AI. This would be a real change as opposed to an easy fix under the guise of raising the skill cap.

Sniper Nerf

While snipers’ size got increased, snipers will still be hard to kill. This is mainly a problem with the wehr sniper as the faction is very defensive with MGs & Pacs so it is extremely hard to get close enough for the necessary duration to kill it. To compound the problem, the command tank aura wasn’t nerfed so it will help keep the sniper on unkillable levels.

Next patch, I would expect the size to increase as it is the simple fix but I would like better counters to be created. As it stands, light vehicles and armor have a hard time killing it. Once upon a time relic introduced target tables and yet we haven’t had a single patch addressing target tables since. (I don’t want to say target tables don’t exist but…)

On the topic of sniper counters, USF needs better counters. I don’t want to get into a dissertation on how to rework USF but the m20 and pathfinders are the key units to become counters. In Ardennes Assault, pathfinders have an ability that one shots models so this would be a great way to counter sniper.

USF Captain Over Nerfed

USF doesn’t need another anti-inf inf squad so the captain provided good utility with zooks. The captain upgrade should give two zooks.

The new “On Me” is useless, as it is only a defensive tool. Suppression can be reapplied very easily so you can only use the ability to pull units out of the line of fire. Also “On Me” was one of the few counters to snipers as it gave speed and suppression immunity so you could gap close the sniper. Now we have one less sniper and suppression counter.

Sandbags

Wehr gets sandbags so USF is the only faction that doesn’t have them. Honorable mentions include only faction that can’t build mines and only faction without flames #FeelsBadMan #MakeUSFGreatAgain

OKW Truck Upgrades

OKW medic & repair upgrades should be manpower and munitions rather than manpower and fuel. Just for continuity sake, fuel is used for tech and tanks while munitions are used for upgrades so medic & reps fall under the upgrade umbrella. From a balance perspective, OKW will be struggling vs light armor so I foresee T3 openers being the best counter for pumas. However medic base will be greatly delayed because you need fuel for truck, T3, puma, truck, T2, then finally medics. Because of this great delay, T2 may become the only opener so T2 to T4 would be the meta; RIP T3. Also one of the major problems with shrek blob was having few alternatives to shreks for OKW to spend muni on so by having this muni upgrade, it will keep stg blobs from being the thing.

Reketen

With Reketen buff, it shouldn’t have cloak. It is too easy to walk 1-2 reketens up and insta retreat after firing. One of the main problems with shrek blob was the low risk high reward nature of firing a volley of 3-4 shreks and retreating so why keep the playstyle with reketens. On topic of cloaks, jp4 still has cloak; didn’t know big ass tanks could cloak. If we want to retain these cloaks, the unit shouldn’t be able to move.

Sturmpio Shreks

SPio with shreks is good, only if they can have minesweeper with it. By having both, it will help the mid game transition of it becoming a support unit. No one buys two pios so it would be a huge investment just to have shreks & sweepers. It would be more cost effective to get rekten while SPio has sweepers. Also if Spio can’t have both, it would be a usf nerf since you would always go shrek since USF can’t build mines; OKW vs USSR & Brits, you wouldn’t be able to shrek due to mines & demos. It would be another reason why USF isn’t played competitively #MakeUSFGreatAgain.

Cromwell Nerf

Cromwell should have a speed nerf along with its sized nerf. One of the biggest problems is how fast they can go, which also helps their crushing capabilities, so I’m surprised their speed was untouched.

Bug Fixes

Stun Nade bug didn’t get fixed(?).

In other news, water is wet

On serious note, everyone keep equating easy with better. A skilled allied player will beat axis but it is much harder. In 1v1s, allies (specifically USSR) has the easier advantage but 2v2+ is easy mode for axis as each player only has to hold a specific portion of the map so it is easier to lock it down with MGs, pacs, mortars. The faster teching pace allows axis to get to their mid game domination sooner. Also let us not forget shrek blobs countering all allies light vehicles #truth

Steam name: shadowwada
Steam ID#: 76561197989315571

I don't see the problems with blobing. It is only effective if you don't have suppression and/or arty. Suppression is very effective since squads usually get suppressed in 1-2 seconds of being shot. USF & OKW are the factions where you have to go out of your way for suppression but the upcoming changes should make it easier to get. Also OKW has obers & light tank so they don't lack anti-inf. The only strong blob is volk shrek blob since they can go in to one shot a vehicle and retreat.

Soviet industry was shit since it killed your manpower. Also back in the day, guards were more meta so you needed the callin inf. New SI is better because you can actually build units as well as tanks and guards are less important(though they might come back into the meta)

Elite troops was dumb because you could vet units ahead of their natural times. Same problem with rifleman company.

The munition float is a bigger problem with USSR since you can't upgrade your cons with guns. Build more mines in the meantime.