The general for me is just an AI duty here. Yes, it is OK against infantry, but what is the point in this tank when we can have an ostwind to complete AI duties? Just 2 percent reduced damage?
It gives -20% damage reduction to anything around it. That means all your tanks and vehicles can take one extra shot and Brummbars and Panthers (and Elefant) can take two extra (160 dmg) shots. That's huge. Infantry and support weapons are more durable too, especially versus indirect fire. |
The Vickers has terrible suppression and just okay damage, at least the maxim kills stuff.
The Vickers has decent suppression and basically identical DPS compared to the Maxim. Both HMGs are pretty much identical to the HMG 42 in terms of raw DPS. Though the Vickers could use a tiny bit more suppression. The reason the Maxim deals slightly more damage is because the suppression damage reduction on enemy squad kicks in later because it deals less suppression. If the suppression on the Vickers/Maxim were to go up, their effective DPS would go down. |
Comparing AOE with out taking account damage is simply misleading. C. PzIV does half the damage PzIV does.
Which is exactly why rather than the raw AOE stats I presented Cruzz' quantified AOE rating, which includes the difference in damage.
|
Commander PIV is annoyingly weak for it's price if you ignore a call-in fact. Maybe we can finally have a normal cannon on it, not that stubby one?
Its anti-infantry performance is actually easily on par or even better than a normal Ostheer Panzer IV's. It compensates slightly weaker AOE with significantly less scatter and a faster reload. It's actually surprisingly good considering its anti-infantry is mostly a secondary role (the damage reduction aura being its primary role).
panzer_4_75mm_short_mp
AOE: 5.12
Reload: 3.75s
Scatter: 5.5 scatter angle, 0.25 distance offset, 1 distance ratio, 5.4 distance max
panzer_4_75mm_mp
AOE: 6.32
Reload: 5.75s
Scatter: 7.5 scatter angle, 0.25 distance offset, 1 distance ratio, 6.4 distance max
The normal P4 needs the top mounted MG to achieve roughly similar TTK, but that is under ideal circumstances (at medium distance and in neutral cover, giving the MGs maximum DPS). |
What broke Mobile Defence was providing a T2 hard light vehicle counter to Ostheer.
I think what made it broken was the ability to call in a techless AI medium tank on top of having the Puma, more than the Puma itself, as this combo gave an endless supply of call-in AT and AI without ever needing to go past T1. I think in hindsight the wrong vehicle was nerfed and what should've gotten put into tech was the Command P4 rather than the Puma.
Although of course making the Puma a call-in or only require T2 would risk seeing MobDef nearly every game again because an easily available Puma simply fixes Ostheer's most glaring weakness. |
Also, the spearhead ability is pretty busted. The amount of sight you get is insane! Couple that with the bulletin He isn’t called ace for nothing! that gives +10% sight radius you get vet 3 T70 levels of recon.
For the record, Tiger Ace sight would be 35 x 1,5 x 1,1 = 57,75
T-70 at vet 3 has 68,5 in recon mode.
A vetted 222/251 with a spotting scope has 91 view range.
Spearhead also makes it move slower (-25% speed) and locks the turret in a frontal 90 degrees arc, so the tank is (theoretically) pretty vulnerable to medium tank dives when in this mode.
Though perhaps on the Ace, the movement penalty needs to be higher since the -25% is originally based on the King Tiger. |
Rocket artillery's for clearing out late-game team weapon walls though. The Pack Howitzer and M8 Scott serve a strategic role much more akin to that of the Sniper: long range manpower bleed. They don't have the firepower to attack team weapons in the back line and are much more effective autofiring at infantry squads in the front.
If you wanted the Pack Howitzer to serve a similar role to rocket artillery, the Land Mattress is the unit to emulate in my opinion. If it's meant to serve as a rocket artillery equivalent, make it like the Land Mattress. Remove the auto-attack and give it a powerful, wide area, extended duration barrage that forces the enemy to reposition.
That's pretty much how I'd envision it personally, maybe with its HEAT barrage turned into a wanabee rocket arty strike (good AOE and fast ROF), perhaps still with a mediocre auto attack (similar to ISG). But I doubt Relic would allow such an extensive overhaul. |
Do you consider the Pack Howitzer to be one of these necessary crutch units?
If so, which important role does it serve that USF would lack without it?
It's the closest USF can get to the nondoctrinal rocket artillery role (countering blobs and large concentrations of team weapons). The M8 Scott, while very annoying and good in numbers and dealing damage over time, doesn't have incredible DPS/DPM or alpha damage (although it does sometimes if you get really lucky with the scatter) either, nor the range and FoW scatter. Flat out nerfing either one of these would possibly (or even probably) leave the USF vulnerable to the basic strategy of turtling as they do not have any other stock alpha damage indirect fire piece like the Stuka, Panzerwerfer or Katyusha to support their pushes or defensive line with.
Therefor I do consider the Pack Howitzer's role in delivering high DPS indirect fire to be crutch. I would personally for both the Pack Howie and the M8 Scott decrease autofire performance while making the barrage slightly better (faster cooldown etc.) to their shift power into the micro department. |
A) You do not have to guess what Relic will allow or not, you can simply ask them.
I do ask them. Unlike some of us who just keep coming up with one unrealistic suggestion after the other.
|
Just in general, they both need to be reworked so they actually hit within the target circle on terrain that isn't perfectly flat. if that means changing the projectile arc to be unbelievably high, so be it.
We actually tried this, and we managed to make the Sturmtiger fire in a "howitzer" arc (it could fire over buildings even) but the speed of the projectile can not be changed so it would effectively have been a nerf, because it took 4-5 seconds to hit max range which normally takes only 1-2 seconds. It could perhaps be introduced at some point as a secondanry firing mode. |
Netherlands
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
