Profile of achpawel

Every army without weapon racks needs to do that. OKW and SOV put relatively weak AT on 300 MP units.

True. But - those armies have
decent stock light vehicles.

300 manpower is still cheaper than 340. 6 men squad (poenals) is less likely to get wiped. They also have a satchel. Okw sturmpio shreck is not a proper at squad. Pios coul fulfill the role that ostheer lacks. A relatively weak but more easily replaceable squad to support against vehicles. I fell ost needs it as they are really weaker 1v1 looking at tournament results.

Comet is a better panther. It can deal with tanks well and it is very good against infantry. A great tank plus you get it stock. You can support it with firefly if there is a lot of armour or buy a second one if there's lots of axis infantry around.

Firstly a jackon is not a tank. Its a dedicated tank destroyer, its not capable of doing anything else unlike the panther.

Names don't matter much. What matters is that Jackson is realatively cheap and doesn't require any repair unit. It has a turret, is very fast, and has the range of an ati tank gun. All the above combined makes it lethal and unlikely to absorb fire.

The price difference should make panther a better vehicle. Panther has better armour and more health. In reality these advantages are easily outweighted by the range and potency of Jackson's gun, and the crew. So you pay less for Jackson and get the same or even more. Panther to be fully operational needs another unit to follow it and repair. This means that you need another 200-300mp more to make it operational. Add 100+ manpower 40 fuel cost difference plus more tech required and it means USF can field another elite infantry squad plus have some manpower in a bank in the meantime, or get a bit more fuel and have another tank! It is really unbalanced.

Panther is ai capable. Panther is more durable. Panther has blitz to escape or dive, and heavy crush. But it has shorter range. And nothing like hvap.

Panther ai capability is very low plus you need to pay extra 60muni for it. Additionaly it works close range, which makes the vehicle close in putting it in danger of snares and other sources of at fire. IMO it doesn't make sense and doesn't synergise with its intended function. It is there only to somehow "hide" panther's weaknesses and allow pplayers to say it is good.

The biggest issue is that when panther is fielded there are plenty of at sources on the field which screen Jacksons. Pazookas, ptrs, snares, satchels, piats, elite bazookas/piats plus at guns, etc. The inferior range will make panther dive in all these at sources and absorb too much damage. Without crew repairs it will be out of action too long to have impact on the game. If it is unlucky and gets a crit it will be dead.

The panther is not overpriced. Its the jackson being a tad to good for its price. But i dont see that changing as long as heavies are meta, and axis do have more acces to those regardless

It is overpriced imo. If it had more anty inf cabablities and were a premium medium the price would be justified.

Its a vicious circle atm. Allies need such td,s vs inevitable heavy or superheavy unlike axis mostly, but those td,s overpreform vs medium and premium mediums. The panther and p4 feel weak because of it.

The vicious circle can be stopped. Make panther a stronger medium tank and it should be enough to make people build tier 4 for ost. The intended tech should be to build 1-2 vehicles from tier 3 and move on to tier 4. If panther could replace p4 everthing would be balanced. Panther should be similar at dealing with infantry to p4 but retain its at capabilities. Then everything would be back in place imo. Maybe some of panther's health could be nerfed.

Its utility vs combat stats. The things that require extra (be it resources or micro) are always cheaper than the equivalent that is better in raw stats.

It is the other way aroud. If you have crit repairs on a crew you need less micro. If you have better range you need less micro, better on the move accuracy you need less micro, etc. Raw stats have constantly been buffed over the years for allied tanks and TDs. Their cost didn't really go up and utilities remained as they were - that is the problem.

In a flat fight p4s always have the edge against any allied medium due to higher armour and great pen.

But the difference is mariginal (p4 form ost) and sherman will win on the move. You, unfortunately, are completely silent about the cost difference which makes sherman a better choice. You also forget that sherman will be shooting at 4 men squads and that ostheer will need to purchase pios to reapair it (200manpower) and OKW will need sturms (300 manpower). At the same time sherman will have the free crew with their ability to crit repair. What You wrot above is just a complete nonsense (sadly often repeated). Other mediums are usually better than stock sherman so their edge over the p4 will be greater.

If you think balance is a wash because worse tanks have more non tank things they can do, imagine how bad it would be if they were worse tanks that couldn't do anything..

Balance is actually very decent for an assymetrical rts. I am a fan of the balance team tbh who have put a lot of effort into balancing the game.

And the panther already IS a slightly better comet. It has more range, health and pen. The comet makes up that by more armour and more utility. That's how balance works. What you want is superior axis armour with nothing on the other side to help make up for that by the sounds of it.

Not true - comet is better because it can reliably penetrate a panther AND kill infantry far range - it is a better tank overall. I know how balance works.

Since people want to buff the panther so much I say sure buff its accuracy or whatever, but bring its AI down to other TDs (so nothing) and reduce its armour and HP to match other TDs (paper). Deal?

Maybe just make it cheaper. In my opinion Jackson=panther looking at performance, tech requirements and the package of abilities they get. I seriously don't understand the price difference, especially when one adds the crew into the equation.