Profile of Grumpy

Sturms are supporting unit. They are intended to support and they do that job perfectly.

No, Sturms are expensive and a lot of pop cap so you normally have just one. That one then has to repair and sweep, plus it is the only doctrinal flamethrower and non-doc shrek unit. If you upgrade it with a shrek, it loses a lot of AI for something that isn't a good AT deterrent. Unless you build your trucks in your base, your one support unit is really vulnerable to indirect while repairing. Stacking more upgrades on your one support unit just means you can lose 300mp plus 120 munitions to a random arty strike.

Yes. All true.

They also need around 200mp repair/sweeper squad. Not 300mp/30reinforce power-squad or nothing.

This was the point I was trying to get across in my original post. Maybe I could've said it better or more concisely. It is interesting reading all the "giganerf" troll comments.

I doubt that Relic would agree to adding a second non-doc engineer to OKW, so it seems like the solution would be to make OKW more able to afford a second engineer.

Here are the proposed changes to Sturmpioneers:

Some quality changes to Sturmpioneers to make their abilities (including the med crates) easier to use and to make their anti-tank package more viable to increase strategic diversity.
Buff 1)Concussive Grenade cost from 30 munitions to 20 munitions to standardize cost with other similar grenades
Buff 2)Cost of Panzerschreck upgrade from 70 munitions to 60 munitions
BG/Mech HQ now unlocks access to a second Panzerschreck (additional 60 munitions)
Buff 3)Medical Supplies cost from 45 to 30, now drops 2 med crates instead of 3. Cooldown removed.
Assault Package (Feuersturm)
The flamethrower upgrade for Sturmpioneers is a very good upgrade, but it leaves OKW painfully vulnerable to enemy mines because they can’t easily get a second engineer squad for minesweeping due to the high squad cost. Making the minesweeper upgrade available alongside the flamethrower upgrade should make this doctrinal choice more viable.
Buff 4Flamethrower upgrade for Sturmpioneers no longer mutually exclusive with minesweeper (can now upgrade both)
ve with minesweeper (can now upgrade both)

IMO, this is a terrible balance proposal. It's a straight up 4x buff to what is already the strongest starting unit. The unit keeps getting buffs because of its high cost that it has reached comic proportions. Many people on this forum keep justifying the high cost of USF rifles because of their "potential", yet a lot of those same people think the above is a good idea.

I understand not wanting to get a second Sturmpio when playing Feuerstorm, but more buffs are the last thing this unit needs.

I'm guessing the buff to Rifles was needed because Sturmpios would roll over them at the start, but the solution to this might have been better to give a nerf to Sturmpios and adjust price accordingly. Leaving Stumpios alone and buffing rifles changed a lot of other balances that I hadn't seen people complain about.

I'd propose matching the stats to the same as UKF sappers, having the sweeper and shrek upgrade stock, and keeping the sweeper and flamethrower upgrade mutually exclusive. Also, lower the cost and pop cap to match the new performance.

(Please don't take this as an insult, in general, I like the job that the balance team has been doing and am glad they are doing it. It's a much better balanced game now than it was a few years ago. I just think this part of the proposal would be extremely problematic.)

Added "quote" box by ShadowLinkX37 for clarity. Feel free to change it Effen if I've misinterpreted what you're saying.

It really amazes me how some people manage to get even as high as rank 100 in 3 vs 3 RT. You guys should really consider playing the lottery. No, seriously: By the end of last week I was about rank 800 with soviets in 3 vs 3 AT, then suddenly I get an inactive teammate. No big deal I think to myself, quit after 5 minutes and restart the search. Next match I have a similar problem. The first words of my teammate were " STFU. I haven't played in 5 years" followed by him ragequitting, after I pinged his riflesquad 2 times because it got nailed by a MG 42 and was under fire from OST pioneers. Unfortunately I got teamed with this guy in my next match again, so again a defeat.
By this time I already had dropped about 250-300 ranks and things weren't looking brighter the next 2 matches. Now I am at about rank 1700. So how do you guys do it? How do you get so high in RT matches?

Edit: Said AT but meant Random Team

Right now, I think it's really hard to move up in rank if you're stuck in purgatory (300+). One of the problems is that new teams have no ranking, so you can end up playing a group of people that are normally top 100, or even top 30, with a group of randoms that are top 6k on a good day. The worst thing about that is that it will count as a loss against an unranked opponent so you will lose about 100 levels.

I don't think there is a way around this unless Relic changes how they do rankings for arranged teams. If it was possible for the matchmaker to use the individual players's best or average ranking to come up with a composite then it would result in better matches. When I'm playing with a new team, the games aren't usually very fun anyway because playing a 6000 rank player seems like a waste of time.

Pinging is toxic behavior more often than not. Never ping more than once. When you are going to ping, just use it for when you're sure someone isn't paying attention to a unit and it is going to be wiped. Even then, you shouldn't ping if they've got multiple units fighting, as you're creating another distraction while they may be at the limit of their micro. In short, you created two of those losses by pinging and didn't accomplish anything.

Other than that, both Elchino7 and Aegion gave good advice. The only thing that I'd add is that you should always try to contest all of the map. I often see people give up a section, but all that does is enable a player on the other team to get a larger portion of the map and then crash down on the next player.

Vanilla Cons are definitely fine, SVT upgrades probably come slightly too early and 7-man is probably still slightly too strong but the issue is Cons are awful against infantry with upgrades which is why they rely so hard on the T-70 to carry the mid-game. 7-man could probably come earlier if it was toned down a bit to compensate.

Mobilize reserves were already nerfed.
(from patch notes)
Mobilize Reserve reinforce reduction from 3 to 2; changes reinforce cost from 17 to 18
Reload cover bonus from the Mobilize Reserves has been removed.

The nerfed mobilize reserves should be free at T3 and a paid upgrade with T1 or T2.
Also, the grenade side tech costs make cons too expensive, especially if you only get a couple of them. Soviets don't get free officers like USF or free side tech like Ost and OKW. It seems like their grenade unlocks should either be much cheaper or free.

As of this moment, there are only 1449 people ranking with UKF. Ladders with less than 4K people means that they have ranks not represented on them. Would there be no ladder decay/removal most people would drop ranking places as there hidden ELO/MMR is not high enough to sustain those places.
In the case of UKF, ranks 15, 14 and 13 are non existant.

Compare it to OH with 3122 or SU with 2666. To fill the numbers, OKW at 2536 and USF at an historical low of 1746.

Biggest ladder atm is 2v2 AT. It has 7203/6942 teams.

UKF still isn't any more fun to play with than it is to play against. Both it and USF get boring really quickly due to lack of viable build diversity. It isn't surprising that it is the smallest ladder.

Back to the original topic, the ISU really seams okay. There is only some maps where they are viable due to the lack of a turret and the slow rotation. The only thing interesting about this thread is that the same people who insist the JP4 is garbage due to the lack of a turret are the same people calling for ridiculous nerfs to the ISU.

Lastly, the calls to turn the Panther into a 50 range sniper is probably the worst balance suggestion on this forum in the last year.