Profile of Smartie

But trying to think of some alternatives:
Lower the FRP nerfs:

The cooldown after deactivation should be lowered to 0,5-1 min, and/or the reinforcement speed decrease should be less severe, by one or two secs

Im not sure what to improve about the units it offers though. Kinda like the OPs idea of Luchs and Flak HT swap, assuming the Luchs would get a free unlock with like 30-45 secs to delay it

I like this idea, Im honest I've forgot that this ability still exists
Will edit my original post and include this idea

HI guys,
I guess you also watched the UTT tourney and you saw OKW players always going Mechanized and building Puma+Stuka. And who would blame them because thats what you have to do if you want to have a chance in a highly competitive match up.
Yes, there is that other tech building but nobody ever used it in the tourney because it simply offers not enough.
That being said a rework for OKW battlegroup should be one of the priorities of the next (big) patch (if the mod team is still willing to invest time and energy - I dont take that for granted).

But its one thing to come to the conclusion that BG sucks and another one to have reasonable ideas to improve it. Pls use this threat to post your own ideas, maybe we can inspire the mod team.

Here's my idea:
Switch Luchs and FlakHt
- Moving the Luchs to BG would make the tech structure instantly more attractive. In contrast to the FlakHt the Luchs can operate on its own. The FlakHt would also fit well to Mechanized because, well its a mechanized unit and it would have decent synergy with the Puma.
- This change could also be done easily and would not require much work. To prevent timing issues the fuel cost of the Luchs and FlakHT should be adjusted.

I just want to remind us that USF also got a tech rework, Stuart and USFlakHt were switched, so there is no reason why we can not test this at least.

The combination of healing+Leig+Luchs would certainly make BG more attractive and OKW games not as stale. Right now its really boring to see the same strategy in every game because OKW players dont have a real alternative.

Edit:
Other ideas:
- Lower the FRW nerfs:
https://www.coh2.org/topic/105689/making-okw-battlegroup-viable/post/824030
- OKW sniper in BG (same timing like Brit sniper)
- Move a doctrinal unit to BG (like the Airlanding officer for Brits)
- Pak40 buildable in BG

Sorry for spamming the thread, but on a more general note on the stale feel of the tourney, I think the main cause for this is the 'teams must be mixed' rule. This has reduced the possible compositions from 18 to only 3. So it's no wonder every game is the same matchup.

+1 I think so too. Forcing mixed factions takes away diversity.

I tested this change and it was a minor nerf which barely made an impact on the average total damage caused by an incendiary barrage. Potential damage to an unbraced pit went from like 90% to 70-80%, and damage against a braced one from 60-70% to 50-60%, which still effectively means two barrages to kill one (one to force brace, second to finish it). The only things that really changed are that the UKF player now has a small chance to repair their mortar pit in between the barrages to try to save it (but there's only 15 seconds on the recharge), and that one incendiary barrage can no longer reliably kill almost the entirety of an unbraced mortar pit in one go (which was way too cost effective).

HI Sander,
thx for your post and the clarification! People like you that convince other with facts are the only reason why I still post here and there on this forum.

Here are my 2 cents about the first 2 rounds of the UTT. I will come back to some of the topics that were already discussed and add some additional thoughs:

The Mortar Pit's Reign of Terror
I'm really surprised that nobody brought up the recent balance changes to explain why the emplacements are a lot harder to deal with.
Winter balance patch
LE.IG/Mortar Half-Track Incendiary Barrage

The DOT against emplacements has been slightly reduced. Previously a full salvo would almost kill an emplacement if it was at full health.

DOT Incendiary +25% against Commonwealth Emplacement tag removed.
Brings DOT damage per tick versus defenses from 4.67 to 3.75

The best way to deal with emplacements were significantly nerfed. One of the few reasons to pick "Firestorm" was the incendiary shells for leigs that could deal pretty good damage to emplacements. Now the incendiary ammo- useless against almost anything else- is also bad against emplacements. The nerf was just too hard and a bad decision.

Lack of Axis Adaptation
If people want to know why OKW players dont build LE.IGs please look above. Besides that Doomlord summarized the problems of the mortar pit pretty good:
We're (essentially) back at the pre-nerf brace problem. While the mortar pit is counter-able, the amount of effort and resources required is massively disproportionate, and that over-investment leaves axis open to attacks from other units.

An axis team without a Puma is super vulnerable. Choose if you want to get punished by a T-70 or the mortar pit...

Allied Team Composition: Brits and Soviets
Players who have to play Allies in the tourney have the luxury to pick between 3 factions that are pretty good. Soviets are a no brainer and Brits are super strong (op), players did choose USF not because the faction is bad but the other 2 allied factions are even stronger.

Wolfheze is no tourney map!
Base volleys from Kathy / Landmatrasses from the mid of the map without fearing damage are ridiculous, period. To include the map in the map was a mistake, please take it out for the elite eight weekend.

The rise of German infantry
The doctrine was picked pretty often in the tourney. The reasons are imo:
- Tiger doctrines not attractive enough after the nerfs to the Tiger
(Btw can anyone show me a game where a TigerI made a difference?)
- Heavy Panzer corps needed because of Werfers.
- 5 man Gren squads, no explanation needed...

Weak OKW commanders
OP Specops is gone, OP Tiger is gone and suddenly its pretty obvious that OKW commanders are pretty mediocre. Look at the doctrinal tanks:
- Ostwind and Hetzer are in bad doctrines and come too late
- JT is a joke compared to SU-152
- ST trash as always (how often is the AVRE used in comparison...)

I still think the nerfs to Specops and Grand Offensive were good decisions. The problem is that most OKW commanders are now inferior to allied meta commanders. And its easy to explain: There are very few allied meta commanders (Im only talking about 2v2, I know that problematic commanders for 1v1 were nerfed) that got justified nerfs in the last years. Look no further than UK's Royal artillery and soviet commanders like Mech. Assault or Mechanized Support.

Hopes for the finals
- no Wolfheze, Axis players are no canon fodder
(In the finals of the UTT qualifying rounds, the Allied teams won 14/19 games.)

A personal note
Im happy for CN and Seeking and I will cross my fingers for them. Would be really cool to see fresh faces at the top of the mountain. And yes, there were some really nice tourney games so far (despite the problems) and I will probably watch the tourney again.
But I have to admit that I did not enjoy the UTT as much as the other 2v2 tourneys before and the main reasons are Wolfheze and the axis inferiority.