Profile of MMX

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.
Especially with tanks that use a long reload like the IS2, this would be very interesting. Units fall out of meta because they are simply unreliably when you need to count on them. Especially if a heavy does not perform by pure chance in the first engagements a lot of the shock value is gone. Making them more reliable was also one reason for the rework. Looking at the AoE changes this has been achieved 100%, but being able to deal not enough damage within the first 10-15 seconds of the engagement can still be a breaking point.

This is a very good point and something that isn't really well portrayed by the averages in the graphs, as you've mentioned. Actually, I'd even take it a step further and say we'd need not only the probability distribution for the 1st shot, but for the whole duration of the firefight to make an educated guess about how reliable the damage output/kill rate is.

I've actually had a bit of time to spare on collecting some more data yesterday, and the results are quite interesting. However, since this expands the problem into a 3D data set it's a bit hard to visualize properly, but for the three heavies in question it looks something like this:

Show Spoiler

In these graphs, the x- and y-axes represent the number of shots fired and damage dealt (divided into 40 damage intervals) or kills scored, respectively, while the height of the surface/columns shows the probability.

Taking the Tiger for example, it's quite obvious that there is a rather huge variability in damage dealt for the 1st shot (anywhere between 40 and 300, with 120 -200 being the most likely), but dealing no damage at all has only a ~15.4% chance. This quickly shifts towards higher average damage and a narrower probability distribution the more shots are fired, and it is actually quite unlikely (less than 10% chance) to deal less than 200 damage after the 2nd shot.

With respect to model kills basically the same applies, although here the chance not to drop one or more models with the first hit is a staggering 76%. This goes down naturally as time progresses and after the 2nd shot (or ~ 11 s) there’s only a 26% probability to not having killed a single entity.

The differences between the heavies are actually relatively small. The IS-2 and Pershing are a bit less likely to completely miss (as in deal no damage whatsoever) with the 1st shot and the most probable results shift a bit to higher average damage numbers. Also interesting, the Pershing has a small chance (5%) to kill 3 models with its alpha strike, whereas the Tiger and IS-2 can’t kill more than 2.

As said before it’s a bit hard to read these graphs as you can’t rotate them to get a different perspective, so for those interested I’ve uploaded the source spreadsheet with all graphs and additional data for the preWBP heavies plus the Pz.IV, T-34/76 and HE-Sherman
here for download.

EDIT:
For the more stat focused guys: It combines some of the worst TD stats in the game. Low accuracy, VERY high scatter (50% larger area than the Jackson). Medium range advantage but without the armor to bounce a shot if you don't micro perfectly. Low to medium penetration. Due to the price it must go with some of these, but it should probably not get the short end of the stick in almost all categories.
It is super mobile and relatively cheap, but that is about it. And the turret. Almost forgot that one.

ouch, that's indeed painful. agree that a buff in any of these departments would be very welcome.

Also out of interest: how do you allocate MG damage? Start at model one and switch to the next one ones it dies?

yeah, pretty much. all mgs use the same target as the main gun and switch to the next in line as soon as the targeted model dies. this may not be 100% accurate but helps to keep things simple. damage is properly randomized though as a function of accuracy and number of bullets fired, also taking "over damage" and ready aim time upon target switching into account.

I think 1 of the ways to improve heavy tank performance is to buff their acceleration and/or speed, so that they could gtfo faster. It also makes them more viable as in assaults, better at rotation etc.

Apart from straight AOE buffs, there are also options like price, pop-cap adjustments, timings etc. Like with almost everything in life, price/performance is a viable metric in COH2 imo.

Fully agree to the last part. In fact, if i were up to me I'd probably go for a slight price reduction (maybe around 10%), but that's it. Performance-wise there's no doubt that heavies are decent; they provide good AT paired with excellent AI (with the possible exception of fighting units in heavy cover) and great survivability. A buff to mobility would probably require quite a bit of a rework, as this would eliminate one of their key weaknesses (in particular the slow turret/hull rotation). At the very least the range boost the Tiger and IS-2 get at Vet 2 would have to go in this case. However, I personally see the extra range as kind of a defining trait and would rather not have it replaced by something else.

If im reading this right, the HE Sherman has about the same AI as the P4.

Didn't they always have about the same AI? Generally? HE Sherman having shock value due to hitting generally smaller squads (vs OST) and having larger AOE (4 vs 2.5) but comparable distances. Meaning, the extra far distance you get with 4 AOE does not generally do much unless vs multiple squads? But to answer the question. No. HE Sherman has better AI than OST P4, in first shot or so, doublish.

I'd say it depends what metric you choose to compare the two, but in general the HE-Sherman is superior to the P4 by quite a large margin (as it should be considering the HE shells do next to nothing to armored targets). If you consider alpha strike kills only, both are relatively similar since the number of model kills here only depends on scatter and OHK radius (despite the slightly smaller OHK radius the Sherman wins here the greater the distance to the target gets due to superior scatter characteristics, but not by much). But the damage output per shot of the M4 is much higher (mainly because it affects more models on average thanks to the huge AoE radius), so the longer the firefight draws out the more models reach such a low HP threshold that any further AoE hit or MG salvo will kill. This gets pretty obvious if you take the average T2K as the basis for comparison; here the P4 would take about 25% longer to wipe a clumped 6-men squad at 35 m (as in the example in the OP).



Of course this doesn't even take the better moving accuracy and lower moving scatter of the Sherman into account, yet. For the Sherman, scatter only increases by a factor of 1.5 as compared to 2 for the P4. Hence, when chasing a retreating unit the odds of the M4 to hit anything are still about 44% of what they would be if stationary, whereas the P4 will only be 25% as likely to hit.

The greater AoE radius of the HE-Sherman will obviously be more useful the more models can be hit at the same time. But this isn't limited to fighting multiple squads, or blobs, as it will also increase the odds to do any damage at all to single models or squads. A P4 shot missing a unit by 3 m won't do any harm, while a Sherman HE shell at the same distance deals 16 damage. This adds some consistency at the very least, which I'd consider quite useful.