Profile of Hannibal

I like how it went into discussing damage, which is fine. Survivability of 120mm isnt fine, not its damage.

Its being placed in a tier list with pack howi and IGs, but both cant retreat and die fast enouth even to weaker counters if played incorrectly.

120mm not only has supperior firing profile (since mortars arent effected by shot blockers as much) but also have the best survivability and retreat on top of it. Its just too much even for a commander unit.

I would have undertand if 120mm had the shittiest range therefore it needed its survivability, but its not. There is not a single reason for a unit, which already can outrange almost all awaible counterparts (untill rocker arty) and effectively stay out of a danger, to have surviability of a frontline unit and firepower of a glass cannon artillery piece.

IGs at least have the worst AOE and the wost barrage, Pack howi dies like a fly if placed agressively or being fired upon but 120mm dont have any of mentioned disadvantages.

There is some trade off between damage and survivability.
The PaK Howie is usually similar to even better than the 120mm. The leIG is somewhere in between normal mortars to the Howie/120mm. Usually closer to the mortars, but takes the first place. We also should not forget that the 120mm costs more population and compared to the leIG, also MP.

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Come on, it is very clear what he said. Max damage stays the same.

And it could very well be that the larger visual effect tricks players into thinking this mortar is better than it actually is.

Arranged teams shouldn't be the alfa and omega for balance. The game shouldn't be balance primarily upon pre-determined combination of players because we see where we are today, with a faction that stand on one leg and people saying its fine because when its combined with another faction providing a second leg they can walk.

I don't think AT should be the guideline either. My point was more that AT can work around shortcomings, implicitly suggesting that randoms probably won't. I did not clearly type out the latter, so yes, easy to misunderstand my post in that regard.

Balance team arguments about Relic denying stock Caliope is just an excuse, it didn't stop them to butcher USF late game, make Pakhowi and Scott irrelevant at the same time and later revert some of the nerf on the Scott.

If Path&Scott happen to be nerf again then we would see USF go down where it was before the strat came to light. With a balance team saying a mix between they can't do anything about it and its fine because arranged teams!!

As I said, I am not happy with all indirect changes that USF got either.

We have to be realistic: There will 99,9% be no larger patch with hotfix for CoH2 anymore. Even this whole discussion about an ever so tiny Pathfinder/Scott nerf might already be futile. There is no sense in saying "if this strategy gets nerfed, then USF needs to get buff X as well". I think what we need to discuss in this thread and where also Sturmpanther's previous thread fell a short is whether this strategy is actually OP or just "cheesy".

If it is OP, it needs nerfing to a "competitive" level, even if the rest of USF were not healthy. Having only one single strategy somehow work does not make the whole faction great, and conversely nerfing that one strategy does not make the faction as a whole shit. It's a one trick pony, and you can only do this trick so often until it gets boring anyway. If this strategy is the only one that is viable, there is no real "USF gameplay" anyway. And again, the nerf should be to a "competitive" level. It should be okay and viable, but not unfair to the Axis factions.

If the strategy is just "cheesy" but not OP, well then it is already in a "good" spot balance wise. Shitty for gameplay, but as I said, there will be no larger patches, maybe not even a smaller one. Hence, no gameplay patches as well. If there are proper counters to the Path+Scott strategy that don't force the opponent to overly invest resources, leave it be.

At some point, USF players will probably get bored of it enough and start playing UKF and SOV, at which point the problem "fixes" itself.

AI Rangers were buffed with a new stock weapon and by switching around their veterancy bonuses. I don't really think there's any way to buff them even more without making them OP. They're already very good imo.

I was just wondering since you basically said that zook Rangers prevent Rangers from being 9 population, while it could be reasonable for AI Rangers. Which in turn means that AI rangers are slightly weak for 10 POP, which could lead to a buff.

I find them good to. Good enough for 10 POP? Not sure. But I still regularly buy them for Thompsons, so probably yes.

Imo pop is also related to the role of the unit.

Specialized unit should have lower pop than their intended targets. For instance lets say a medium tank has a pop of 12 and it being hard counter by a TD with 14 pop.

If player A builds that medium tank and player B that TD player A can simply avoid engagements and have the advantage of bigger size army and lower upkeep.

I think this is a too general statement to make.
It depends on how effective the counter is. A TD with double the fire rate needs higher POP than if it had half the fire rate, even if it the targets are worth less population.
I agree to your example as a general thought, but it does not have much to do with CoH2. Every unit has more than only one target. Even TDs that specialize towards mediums can contribute decently against higher armor targets. And who guarantees that there will be a ratio of 1 TD to 1 medium? No one. If the TD is good enough to counter 1-2 mediums, there is no reason for the TD to be cheaper. This obviously translates to all units, as we can see with the Elefant and Jagdtiger.