Profile of ZombiFrancis

Changing damage and penetration upsets a great deal of balance between all sorts of units, not just heavy tanks. It'd affect balance with trucks and light vehicles as well. Changing where and how the RNG affects gameplay (Accuracy, RoF) is much more preferable.

(Last thing we want is to have panthers always one shot halftracks or something, so they up the armor of halftracks to compensate, making panzerfausts and shreks deal hardly any damage, so they increase the damage of shreks, which makes SU85s die in half a second to shreks, so then health of SU85s gets skyrocketed, and then panthers can't even deal enough damage fast enough to SU85s so the damage of panthers seems like it's lacking again... You know, the standard dangers of balancing via raw numbers.)

The issue with both units is how the Soviet tier buildings work, not with the individual units themselves or their stats.

Ostheer panthers are just plain inaccurate. I get it that moving tanks have less accuracy, but the panther should be the least impacted by this. The tank's inability to hit even stationary targets it amazing. When so much of combat is decided by who gets off the first shot, accuracy and range reign.

But the panther's minor range advantage generally just means the panther is the first tank to miss. The spotting scope upgrade is the only thing that really takes advantage of the panther's range, but it has to be stationary to work, relegating it to a more defensive role.

Additionally, the panther's speed is not so great that it can circle strafe anything with a turret without its vet 1 ability. Even SU85s and ISU 152s are able to rotate fast enough to hit panthers until at very close ranges. (And if there's room for reversing, blitzkreig is required.) This is also assuming you're playing a map that actually has to room to drive a tank in a circle in the first place.

Thus, you have an inaccurate tank that has a hard time getting into a flanking position on even unturreted weapons. This means that you have to either go for t3 tanks, field more panthers, or get Tigers to make an offensive against allied armor.

The thing is, a solo panther performs woefully. (Much like a solo axis mortar, or a solo anything v anything.) Too expensive to be cannon fodder, and far too inaccurate and outclassed by heavier call-ins, they really aren't worth the investment. Even a group of panthers can't get enough hits to land to give them any sort of offensive shock value. When rear armor hits come in short, opportune windows, accuracy is everything.

Damage over time doesn't mean anything when the timing is wrong. Timing and position is everything, and panthers can't take advantage of either in their current state.

Conscripts scale wonderfully into the late game. Panthers can drive happily about untouched against any number of shock troopers, can absorb a ridiculous amount of Guards PTRS fire, and only the most absent minded will allow penal satchels to hurt them. Except for guards usually, more with threat of button than outright damage, you can just parade all over their faces.

Conscripts however, mean at nades. Instant engine damage if you get anywhere close. Nothing is more critically damaging to the axis than damaged engines which ATnades are 100% guaranteed to score.

Vet 0 or vet 3, doesn't matter, conscripts with AT nades are probably the most reliable infantry threat to Axis armor. To act like they don't scale well is ridiculous.

Also, molotovs pretty much ensure a cleared weapon crew, mortar, MG, or Pak unless it is packing up to reposition during the windup animation. Sure conscripts shoot their bullets poorly, but if you're relying on bullets to win games you're not playing CoH2 right.

Now, I have always loved Penal battalions, and have been sad that they've been rendered worthless. Even when they were the price of a sniper, I used them extensively on the virtue of the merge ability. They share(d?) the same armor as conscripts, making merge completely worthwhile. I used to save a ton of manpower while simultaneously having a fully reinforced squad on the front at all times by utilizing conscript merge with penals. However, merge has been an extremely micro intensive and clunky feature from the beginning, and the 10mp per entity saved with merge instead of base reinforcing rarely, if ever paid off.

That said, good use of satchel charges can eliminate mg bunkers and garrisons like crazy, which can completely alter the course of a game. I would often just satchel empty houses that I knew would be typical garrison points just to deny the enemy the strat. It's a great ability at the disposal of the Soviets.

But, because Penals lacked AT nades and molotovs, (and flamethrowers were their antithesis of being competent at long range) they always needed conscript support after minute ten. Even so, with their long range competency, the second a grenadier with an lmg42 hit, penals became worthless, as their ability to fight at range was completely overpowered.

A lot of the weakness of penals (and conscripts) has to do with grenadiers more than soviet infantry. The most effective way to kill grenadiers (with lmg42s) is at close range. The closer the better. Even though lmg42s are devastating at close range, when you're on top of the grens, the lmg42 rarely if ever can get any shots off because the AI can't aim and shoot without moving the lmg42s (which has to be stationary.)

This makes duking it out at range with grens a perpetual failure, and even with the slowest and weakest rifles being smack dab on top of the grens is the best manner of fighting them. (Hugging the enemy, as it was termed. But that was to deter/complicate CAS and indirect fire.) Any kind of fire fight that isn't shock trooper style overrunning of mg positions is just not worth it.

This makes total sense for tackling MG42 positions, but for grenadiers and their main upgrade lmg, there's really only one feasible way to fight axis infantry as soviets: runnin' and gunnin'.

The caveat with targeting individual squads with a set up MG is that one misclick means it's going to pack up and essentially commit suicide.

For, say, grenadiers, misclicking through the elbow of an enemy squad just means my grens all charge out of cover and dilly dally like idiots until I can get them to properly shoot the intended target.

For an MG, it means ten seconds of useless combat, meaning a likely zero chance of suppressing any advancing unit.

As far as using its vet 1 ability, I've had many squads be able to unsuppress or crawl within range to molotov or grenade the MG squad before they ever get more than one burst of heat rounds off. Reloading, (and if necessary having to reposition to avoid death by fire) generally eats up 75% of the ability's timer. Not to mention the MG usually likes to aim for a few seconds before firing one burst and waiting a few more seconds. This is assuming the gunner doesn't get shot, in which case god knows when the other crew member will decide it's time to get control of the gun.

And then they have to reload when its over.

Now, that complaining aside, I do honestly like the ability when it works correctly, it's just when combined with the prohibitive pack up and set up time, then with the reloading time AND the aiming time, the Axis MGs don't really perform that well. The ability is only good at just killing infantry squads that are just left to get shot at by the MG. (Which usually means a flank is incoming, but that's another story.)

But my point is, it takes more than enough time for enemy squads to either just waltz right up front to the MG, or at the very least to within nade range. Even in a great position it is far too slow to react to any light vehicle unless it just parks itself in front of the gun barrel and waits.