Pathfinders should have been brought up to JLI offensive (accuracy....) and defensive (RA) levels and made CP2.
Pathfinder where CP2 and did not work because there was little room for one to get them.
In addition JLI are CP 1 not CP 2, require tech and mu to upgrade and are much more expensive.
Start off with long range carbines or something and upgrade to snipers, same as JLI.
However, then pios should get the sight bonus locked behind vet so that no starting infantry can scout out right out of the gate (especially potent in 3v3s).
Scott should have had 60 autofire range and a high scatter, fast barrage that can act as sort of a retarded katyusha barrage. Slower, not as high a saturation as many rockets at once, but you get autofire in return.
Basically a mini brummbar.
Pak howi should have had an autofire accuracy nerf, and a buff to barrage so it's more against static opponents. Not just straight up nerf the AOE by 50% and in return give it one extra man which does not help it survive one bit.
M1919s should have been locked behind the major so that rifles don't lose as hard against grens late game on most large, open maps. Grens should have been reworked because they are currently the most potent mainline, especially in 3v3s+ where you can blob them with LMGs and just melt away infantry (especially USF as USF is close range).
OKW should have been looked at with the KT spearhead + commander/HEAT shells combination. HEAT shells themselves should have been reworked.
There are plenty of things that could have been made better in my opinion. But with the current state of the US, pathfinders are necessitated by facts:
Grens are long range, combined with pios sight + MG42 wide cone, makes it a horror to play against on lane-y maps (Rheine, Redball, ...)
Volks are long range, and you want to spot rushing spios to position the REs as perfectly as you can since REs deal 0 dmg in reality.
OST also has a sniper which can be a cancer to USF. Can't remember how many times I've flanked a sniper only to fail to kill it in multiple volleys from medium-long range (rifles are close range).
Biggest weakness, once that I've seen exploited many times in 3v3s by fellow USF players that played Airborne into scott is the absolute lack of AT/snare. M1 57mm is generally not enough to contest OKW P4 without a muni sink (which goes into pathfinders to make them viable later on with double BARs). With the caches and all, you can get the OKW P4 and a brummbar quite fast, which spells doom against pathfinders/scott. (unless all OKW team)
Best you can hope is to close the game before minute 15.
Hell, I pretty much exclusively play Heavy Cavalry and I'm around rank 10 as USF in 3v3s, which kinda does mean that Pathfinders are not as necessary as they seem to be at first glance. But they do make the game easier. What I have to do basically is send the RE first to get pinned and reveal the position of the MG, and then play 3 rifles vs 3 grens + MG42 + pio with superior positioning and micro. After those starting engagements against spios and MG42s it gets easier and I usually have the Pershing around minute 19-20. Still, having pathfinder sight makes it sooo much easier. Sure the pathfinders are quite shi* in combat until BARs, but the starting sight more than makes up for it.
Little is really relevant to Pathfinders which is the topic of this thread.
And what is relevant is not very accurate for instance Pathfinders are not "quite shi* in combat". |
that was 2017 pre nerf BAR finder 2017. After that, nerfed pathfinder from 2017 is the same as 2022 pathfinder.
Nope CP 0 is December 12th 2018.
That change is the most important since it allow a unit with elite carbines to become mainline infatry.
Even if pathfinder where identical the USF as faction and the commander they are available are not (mostly IR&pathfinders). |
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Probably. I don't pay enough attention to balance patches since they do not affect me in any way. I just keep hearing they are OP and no one has said why they are all of a sudden OP. So that was my question, why now?
There are many reasons since buffs included:
Population from 9 to 6
- Reinforce cost from 37 to 30
- Reinforce time from 7 to 6
- CP 2 to CP 0
That in addition to changes to tech that allow USF to challenge axis indirect weapons allowed Pathfinder to act as mainline infatry and USF to change the play style to indirect weapon attrition relying on the superior scouting. |
They're only problems if you weigh the negatives against the positives and they don't match up
In 1v1, they don't. Add teammates and the benefits increase significantly. Its far from the only unit in the game thats only useful in either team games or 1v1, but not both
And the majority of things I pointed out would make it better in 1vs1 without impacting 4vs4 significantly. |
I read that post, you didn't even mention the 1 reason anyone builds the unit. No mention of the aura, no mention of how it's clearly a team game unit
That's not useful analysis by any definition
It highlight the problems of the unit and thus useful by my definition.
You are entitled to your opinion thought. |
Why else would they be there? There are other commanders above them that have howitzers or elefants and spotting scopes. And yet still people pick them enough to be top 10
You need to elaborate. You didn't respond to anything he said. You just said "I never see it"
I can't make my point any clearer. It's amazing with an arranged team
You have not responded to my question and this is going nowhere.
I have explained what the problems with C.Pz are in post 2 and I am moving on. |
Only Relic could conceive of giving a unit ridiculous vision and have them actually have some offensive ability. Then put that unit in the faction that has Scotts that can erase your inf from a million meters away and are much more accurate with said path vision. And can eat a couple of shots before exploding so tank dives are almost useless.
But haven't Paths always been OP. Its not like they were suddenly buffed. I remember people playing BarFinders all the time in 2017.
So is it really just that the balance team has done such a good job that now paths are one of the few remaining issues?
Just like no one complained about DSHK until VonIvan started using them after a balance patch... OP begat OP
Think you oversimplifying since Pathfinder have received several buffs including reduction in CP and can now be used as mainline infatry.
USF as faction has little to do with USF of 2017...
Same goes for IR&Pathfinder (who had 3 entities) and recon commander. |
I didn't say it was, though it would be bizarre to pick that cmdr just for spotting Scopes. You're the one who brought up commander pickrate for Jaeger Armor.... There are 2 in the top 10 with cmd p4. That's just a fact
If you claiming that this commanders are in the load out because of the C.Pz you will need more top make your case.
Calling it off meta is an exaggeration
Not sure why you are asking me this, it was literally in the post you just quoted:
It's an received damage aura bonus that effects your team. I'm not sure why that needs to be explained as being useful in team games
I was responding to a comment by Hannibal who wrote:
"It is incredibly strong in team games when you can support your teammates' forces and literally buff units worth >100 population for a coordinated push."
If you agree with the comment pls elaborate, if you disagree or you want to say something else on the subject there is no need to quote me.
If you simply do not like my argument its fine by me. |
You know Fortified isn't the only commander with the cmd p4 right? That's not a relevant point at all. Spotting Scopes synergy with the elefant being amazing doesn't have anything to do with the command tank. German Mechanized is very popular too
My favorite commander is also not important, that's literally the point I was making Vipper... You just said :
This has just as much value as me saying my favorite commander in team games. Which is close to none. It's a personal observation
The command p4 is amazing in arranged teams, there's a reason the bonus had to be nerfed from 20% to 10%. Despite that it's still really good in teams
And just because German mechanized is more popular does not mean that it chosen for the C. Pz4 and not the spotting scope.
What exactly is the point you are trying to make here? That C. Panzer is so good that is being used all the time in large modes? |
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Congratulations. I also have played a lot of team games, Fortified Armor is my most used wher commander the last year or so
It's much more common to see it with arranged teams then random ones
You are entitled to play off meta.
Stats:
https://coh2stats.com/stats?range=range&statsSource=all&type=4v4&race=wermacht&fromTimeStamp=1631145600&toTimeStamp=1656201600
498.661 games with Jaeger Armor Doctrine in load out
164.824 games with Fortified Armor Doctrine in load out |