The most damage I have seen done by ISU to an infantry squad is by doing 80% health damage to the squad and then subsequently kill it. I have never in my entire COH 2 history seen ISU do a one hit kill on not a clamped up squad and they are on full health. Panther can 1v1 ISU and beat it, you have to be around rank 9000 or something to keep it infront of ISU and hoping to beat it. The reload time of ISU gives panther ample amount of time to not get hit by the second shot of ISU and easily flank it. Now the problem is support for ISU, well you have a 70 range tank destroyer with the same issue and it can easily stun and stuka dive bomb kill the tank. I don't think these abilities need changes since they would take out the fun from the game not everything has to mediocre and tasteless.
Imo the problem is different. Very often an mg, pak, mortar crews or infantry won't be full health. Your scenario is highly unrealistic. Axis units will be fighting other frontline units while ISU will be adding damage. If ISU deals 80% damage, any other frontline squad will easily finish the job ar ISU will finish off a squad that is fighting other squads.
Panther won't beat ISU unless Soviet player just lost all his support. Panther will be likely snared when diving and ISU will just shoot from afar adding additional damage, or will use mark target (imo then it deals even more damage than elephant).
Both above scenarios are very likely. The problem is that ISU will be able to do both jobs from 70 distance. It is a balance problem imo. It is too good at dealing with all threats. |
Tommies should just continue to be produced with 4 men after bolster, but can be reinforced up to 5.
Would discourage just spamming tommies rather than encourage it.
Yep. Especially because it also affects sappers. This would be a much more balanced apprach. |
You just decribe gamedesign differences between OST and SU. OST have units with narrow specialization (better perfomance against specific targets), while SU units all-around (mediocre perfomance against 2 types of threates). OST have only few all-around major units: P4 and Tiger. And SU have few specialist units: katy and su-85.
You can kill ISU use infantry/AT builds (shreck blobs, stun shots, blietzkfrieg armor) or use your elefant. In 1vs1 there aren't unbeatable builds.
I saw that game with zis spam. OST player lost 2 brummbar until he realized that against team weapon spam he need werfer...It was tunnel vision of OST player.
I fundamentally don't agree with this interpretation. I agree with the fact that it was the original game design, which was good. It has changed over the years, and now those dual purpose units aren't inferior to dedicated units. That is the problem.
With ISU you are just ok getting it against all threats. Even if has less success penetrating the heaviest armour, it will basically destroy everything else, which is enough (namely, at guns, team weapons, light vehicles, medimum tanks, etc.). Apart from that it will still add some damage to all AT fire against the heaviest armour as well. If you combine it with snares you can just deal hp damage being out of range itself.
It really should be balanced around dealing with soft targets only. It would be a much better design (not the best but better). |
The isu is more rounded but not better than an elefant per say. The elefant gives you guaranteed armour supremacy no matter what the enemy is using where the isu works like a worse su85 if on AP shells. It can do both but it's AT performance is not great you are overstating its AT. it's there to balance its cost to keep it high without having a 200+ Fuel only AI unit. I've played the game since the beta, I remeber what an AI only ISU is like and it's not something we need again.
You can kill elephant with infantry/AT builds. If you see one on the field you are very likely to spend more resources into AT/infantry department and just kill it. ISU, just like many Soviet units, just follows the pattern of being the jack of all trades. Soviets don't really care about analyzing what is on the battlefield. Whatever they build will be ok against most threats. There are people building ZiS guns just to act like mortars even when there are no vehicles on the field. They don't risk wasting resources by building wrong counters. ISU follows the same pattern. Axis armies don't have such luxury. If you build an elephant, the enemy will win the infantry war. |
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Valentine? |
Try to use your noggin here for a second. Do you REALLY want to fight an AI only unit that costs as much as the isu does?
If you remove its AT it would need a cost decrease.... Which means it would be easier to get and support. It would mean when you take one out, the next one is going to replace it eaiser.
OR
if you want to keep its cost up you need to increase its power somehow, and since it's only an AI unit that's another direction nobody wants.
Its weak AT performance keeps its cost up and its power manageable.
Balance is a teeter toter of many factors, if you simply remove one something else either has to give or something else needs improved.
I know what balancing stuff means. I used to create board game rules.
The problem with ISU is simple. It deals greatly with infantry from 70 range AND it can also deal extra damage to tanks from afar, which makes it better than Elephant as it combines both roles. With all standard AT tools it often adds up enough hp damage to be decisive in winning armour engagements. Range is the key here. It can sit behind the front lines. Charging it with tanks will always be risky because of mines, sanres, and because of the frontline screen of troops.
I don't think the price really reflects its performance (like many other Soviet units btw). |
Radical suggestion: Make its main gun fire HE only through an ability like the Churchill AVRE.
It is far from radical imo. If Ferdinand can only fight armour ISU should be an infantry only killer.
Switchable rounds give you more options. HE round could be 70 range but maybe almost zero pen and no deflection damage. AT round could have more penetration but max 50 range, for example. |
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ISU is just a bad design. It should deal zero damage to medium/heavy armour. It should only have HE shells.
If panther's gun cannot deal with infantry it is perfectly acceptable for isu to deal only with infantry. Soviets have it both ways on too many units. At squads/guns can deal with both infantry and tanks (guards, penals, ZiS, Su76, etc). If they were realistically speaking inferior at both these jobs to dedicated units (those dealing only with one threat) it would be ok. But they are too close to being as good as dedicated units (realistically speaking). This is the core of the problem. Very often some other abilities (mark target, ram, off maps, snares) combined with those units lead to problems and frustrations on the receiving players end. |
Now I know another reason why its so god dam painful to use (after I had a couple of matches).
It takes 2.5 seconds to tear down and 3.5 seconds to set up with an additional 2 seconds for the crew to begin firing (attached duration) if I am correct.
On top of that, every time you tell the 120mm to barrage besides perfectly perpendicular to the 120mm, it will tear down and set up again with the possibility of having an extra 2 seconds to 'man the gun' can take a whopping 8 seconds to fire its first fkn round.
I would like to add, the 120mm also bugged out and sometimes dosnt show a firing or reloading animation, the mortar round appears out of nowhere (I was using attack ground, could be the case with other mortars but never seen it).
Bath posts are very informative. Just to enumerate the reasons that make it lethal: close range aoe value is relatively high; fast setup/tear down/time to fire, good scatter, good range. Am I missing something? |
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TBFH it's been a bit of a game feature (since coh 1) that allies are easier and more forgiving to play with. Imo it is absolutely intentional. I'm a bit surprised that this is still debated rather than accepted as a fact. I guess the game is quite difficult for new players and choosing allies might make it a bit easier to start the game adventure. |
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