Profile of LeStrigoi

People are missing the point. Adding Mg34 will not decrease diversity, it will just mean that there are so many other options to open up with OKW.

As with inter faction diversity argument, people used to say the same thing with Pz IV OKW and heavy tanks for USF. At the end of the day, the factions still play differently and have different feels to them. There should just be some basic things that every faction has, an LMG team is one of them.

Of course OKW currently has an LMG team, but only doctrinally, which locks you into one of two doctrines, just because of the fact that they have an MG. You are forced to get it because without it, you lack options to deal with superior allied infantry mid game.

Signed. It would also made OKW openings a lot more diverse, making it easier to do well early game in more ways then simply going 3x volk.

Kubelwagen simply doesn't scale, it's a really silly unit by design. The micro involved is difficult (much more than any MG team) and the reward you get from it not worth it at all, as it drops off so hard after 3 minutes. You also need to babysit it with sturmpioneers, which means you are a squad down. Its pretty useless against brits too, because they can just kill it from green cover, or there is always the possibility of a bren carrier.

I don't understand how people don't agree with this change. If you play 1v1 vs US, they can literally just run at you and there is nothing OKW has to respond. Volks lose so badly against rifles, and so do sturm pioneers, unless you manage to catch the riflemen out (which, if they just run for a building at your cut off is impossible).

Basically when playing against US early game, same with British to an extent, you have to try and outcap them, avoiding fights, because there just is no way of fighting them early. This is part of the reason why OKW is so bad, you get swept off the map unless you go luftwaffe or fort, or perhaps flame pios. The problem with this has been stated (lack of elite inf, and shitty doctrines outside of 1 or 2 call ins). Furthermore, it is really hard to make a comback with the faction because of the fuel and mu penalty.

A buildable MG34 would help so much in this regard in helping OKW to stay on the map early, and providing some reliable mid game suppression.

Scaling the fuel cost for light vehicles to that of other factions could work.

At the moment you're paying an extra 34% fuel for an extra 2 levels of vet you will never reach with such fragile units like the puma.

Also imo the biggest issue with T3 is that you have zero healing, which means your volks are even more useless against rifemen and cons/shocks.

My solution to this would be to give sturm pios a healing upgrade like tommies at T3, then you could heal units at an affordable price and with a whole lot less micro.

This would give OKW the choice for a very defensive playstyle with forward med truck, or a very aggressive one with light vehicles.

This is 100% right- T3 could be a lot more viable if it didn't mean your infantry was walking about on half health all the time. Healing is obv needed, so you have to forgo T4 in order to get it- or at the very least get a really late t4. At that time its impact is severely hampered, so T2 ---> T4 is just a better choice, regardless of T3 units under-performing.

What the hell you're talking about? Vet5 units are bad? Fals even at Vet 0 kill infantry for breakfast, at Vet 5 they rape any unit they want. Obers with lmg upgrade will kill everything provided they are used at correct range at Vet5 they're unstoppable killing even broken (arm) Commandos.

To summarise you want powerful Vet5 bonuses to come as quick as Vet3? Yeah, that's a great idea.
Let me explain for you that OKW gets 2 additional Vet levels so of course it takes longer to reach level 5 then level 3 and that's completely normal! There is nothing wrong with that.

I fell this topic was born due to sheer envy over UKF Infantry Section. Well you can have all these changes if you'll make OKW early game as shitty as UKF is.

I think you misunderstand. Vet 5 units are not bad, they are just extremely difficult to get. Once you have them sure, they are strong, stronger than allied vet 3 elite inf. What I meant was that allied infantry was better (and for that matter Wehrmacht Grenadiers), because they scale much better as they don't take ages to level up. Basically they are more economical.

I didn't say as quickly as Vet 3, only quicker than it is now because it takes ages. I have gotten vet 5 obers only once or twice. This is for the reason that, as stated, it takes ages, and also because they are insanely difficult to keep alive. Same thing applies to Falls. As I said earlier, it my Falls have 50 kills and are not vet 5 yet, then something is wrong. Its just ridiculous.

OKW late game infantry isn't really comparably to tommies. They are completely different units. But as it stands, they are not very strong. That is why you see so much leIG spam and volks spam, because OKW elite infantry simply are not anywhere near as effective, and that is why I think the vet change would be a step in the right direction.

The Main Issue:

I realise there have been quite a few threads regarding OKW balance lately, but I feel as though a lot of them have been missing the core issue. There is generally a lot of complaints concerning OKW about volksblobbing and strats revoling around 2 leIGs, although leIG (aswell as pakhowie) needs a nerf. However, the main reason why OKW play is often so unimaginative and predictable is that the faction has very little other alternatives. What I am about to say has mainly been drawn from 1v1 experience, I don’t know the state of OKW in team games from 2v2+. I am not making any balance statements about the wider game, this simply concerns OKW elite infantry.

Having played around a lot with Panzerfusils, Sturm Offizier, Obers and Falls recently, I found it very difficult to properly incorporate them into my strategy. Although the units performed ok, Obers and possibly Falls should probably have their cost reduced a bit, they scale really badly thanks to their incredibly slow veteran gain. Once these units reach vet 5 they become pretty strong, but this is similarly the case with elite allied infantry that hit vet 3. The latter is much stronger however, simply because it is so much easier to achieve.

Clearly OKW elite infantry take ages to vet up compared to any allied unit. Commandos, shocks, guards etc. that are mostly on par with OKW elites level up at a much faster rate. It is often very difficult to even get a squad of Obers, Sturms or Falls to vet 2, which is (afaik) where they begin to gain a noticeable increase in their performance. I had a 2v2 game yesterday where I had a Falls squad that had 50 kills (albeit mostly conflicts) and was still not quite vet 5. If ranking up to vet 5 is so difficult, then what is the point of introducing this vet system in the first place?

The result of this is that OKW elite infantry falls behind very quickly, even falling behind core allied infantry that vets up far quicker. Obers, for instance, have considerable difficulty in dealing with upgraded rifles, infantry sections etc:

- If they hit the field early (ie. when a player decides to rush them) this is not so noticeable, but will happen once infantry sections etc. start having higher vet. This is esp. the case with elite rifles. Regardless, Obers in an even game will inevitably drop behind in vet, and thus substantially lose effectiveness.
- If they are a later game purchase (if OKW decide to get t2 and t3 before t4) it is very unlikely that theys be able to catch up with their vet and become incredibly cost inefficient. This should not be the case for a 400 mp unit.

Considering a player is only able to legitimately have a maximum of two of any expensive late infantry units, I think they should be performing somewhat better for their price.
This similarly applies to Panzerfusils, who perform fairly well once they hit the field, drop off extremely quickly because they simply cannot keep up in veterancy with allied stock infantry. I am not advocating that these units, especially Obers, should be able to solo the 4-5 rifle squads the allies can field, but as it currently stands, once the vet discrepancy kicks in they cannot really hold their own against high vet allied units. Seeing Obers have no AT capabilities, it stands to reason that they are meant to counter allied infantry, which they are simply not effective enough at with their current rate of vet.

Furthermore this problem is exasperated by the fact that it is difficult to keep the small elite squads on the field. They are extremely vulnerable to vehicles, artillery of any sort and off maps. Allied players have a number of options to deal with Obers, and currently they cannot even properly stand against allied infantry they are supposedly able to counter. This is one of the reasons why leIGs are so popular- OKW have no other effective alternatives to effectively deal with allied infantry.

Additionally, all OKW elites are often prone to be wiped fairly easily by artillery, off maps and tanks. This makes it incredibly frustrating when a squad of high vet Falls, Sturms or Obers is wiped, getting them there in the first place is difficult enough already. This in conjunction with units underperforming really stack the odds against OKW elites.

A Proposed Solution:

Thus, in order to somewhat forgo these problems my solution to this issue would be, as previously alluded to, to increase the vet gain of OKW and thus the scaling of elite infantry units. This would look as follows:

A) Rework the vet system for OKW entirely, and probably get rid of the vet 5 system.

B) Make it so that a selection of units gain vet 20% quicker. I don’t really know what would be an appropriate number here, but 20-25% increased rate of vet sounds reasonable enough. There are several units which should benefit from this, which are (off the top of my head): Sturms, Obers, Falls, Pfusils, and also the flack halftrack which suffers from a similar problem.

This would go a great deal to ensure the viability of infantry outside of Volksgrenadiere.

Some other Matters:


MG 34:

This is a suggestion only, but I really think that OKW’s early game would be far better with this unit and the Kubelwagen swapped out. Kubelwagen is pretty iffy, great on some maps, useless on others. It feels much more like a situational doctrinal unit. If the MG34 is made non doctrinal, it would be fun to see its interaction with the officer, Panzerfusiliers etc. I think this would bolster OKWs early
game a lot and make the faction much more interesting.

It also seems kind of weird for a German faction not to make extensive use of MGs.

Sturm Offizier:

Currently he is a huge risk medium reward unit. Pray to RNG that your officier does not take all the damage and be the first model to drop, or a whole engangement will be lost. I have been playing around with this guy quite a bit, but he really drops off lategame where he can just be gibbed so easily by arty or tanks. Maybe replace the retreat thing with a debuff aura when he dies or something. You also cannot get him unless you get the medic HQ. If he cannot heal and enters combat with lower HP he becomes incredibly risky to use.

Also this man takes ages to reinforce. If I recall a few patches ago this was the case with a lot of the OKW infantry, so the time should be brought down too. Probably reduce the reinforcement price, because currently he costs 50 mp to reinforce, which is kinda steep. Maybe compensate with these changes by somewhat nerfing the Ober body guards he has if he is overperforming, but I don’t think this is necessary seeing he has no vet gain.

Panzerfusiliers:

Reduce their G43 package to 60 munis. There is no real reason why this should be 90.

Flak Halftrack:

Maybe increase its survivability a little and nerf its damage? I have been using this unit a bit recently, and although requiring a lot of babysitting, it actually performs quite well. The only issue I have found is that often after 1 AT gun shot it is affected by the yellow engine critical (forgot what it was called). I assume it is a bug because no other unit has this, but if it’s not it should really be changed because I haven’t noticed it happen to any other halftrack unit.


TL;DR:
- Buff OKW elite inf (Sturms, Falls, Obers and Pfusils) vet gain so that they can scale better into the late game.
- Make MG34 buildable from HQ and move Kubel to doctrine.
- Change Storm Offizier a bit
- Buff Flak Halftrack a bit