Profile of Doomlord52

So with CoH3 being released, I'm guessing we're never going to see a fix for this. It's pretty tiring to see Bar-Finders into PakHowie/Scott every game without fail. At this point I'm almost tempted to quit when seeing PFs, as it's just an un-fun experience; doesn't matter if it's a top 100 or 1000 player doing it.

Is there a viable counter for this? The only 'counter' I've found so far is flawless double-sniper play, both in terms of constant MP drain and unit preservation. Against good players though, that's incredibly difficult, considering PFs are reasonably forgiving.

Hopefully CoH3 gets ranked soon.

It depends on the commander. Commandos from Commando Regiment I legit haven't seen in the past year or so.
If I do see Commandos at all its from Mobile Assault Regiment (Infiltration Commandos). Most of the time I see either Churchil Avre commander or Lend Lease since that covers all of UKF's weak spots. Though UKF is kind of rare compared to Soviets from my experience.

Even in recent COH2 tournaments UKF were kind of rare as well.

Interesting; I would say I almost always see Commando Regiment in UKF loadouts, and with UKF being present in well over 50% of matches. What modes/skill level are you playing at, out of curiosity? I could understand if this was the case for 1v1, but within the top ~200 of 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 this is definitely not the case.

There are no such thing as "excel far more in every type engagement", default commando only excel within 10m like most other smg squad, further than that and their dps drop off very fast, which is why they are given the assault cammo in the fist palce, to get into that close range. Sure, they can do well with bren at long range but the setup is sub-optimal and require further invesment.

I did say "barring long-range" because that's now how they're intended to be used - Commandos aren't going to beat LMG Grens at range, and no one is expecting them to. My point is that when used correctly they're far better than anything else; they can use smoke to clear that range gap, they can use their "moving camo" to close that range gap, and most of all, they can throw an incredibly powerful grenade from cover once they get to that "close" range (it's 20m, though). And then, if somehow they lose, they pop smoke on retreat greatly improving their survivability (even if it's on cooldown).

No other unit can do this. No other unit can come close to doing this as they're missing pieces of the kit; grenades, but no moving stealth. Moving stealth, but no grenades. Moving stealth and grenades, but no close quarter weapons. Commandos have all three, and then some extra on top.

And if you think 50mp is a "small price difference", see how far ober can go with 60mp more compare to riflemen or event other elites with similar price like guard/para.

Except at max vet, Obers lose handily to Double Bren IS' in cover (green vs. green, yellow vs. yellow), and are quite challenged by LMG Paras in similar situations. Additionally, Obers are locked behind two levels of tech, equaling over 100f in investment (not to mention MP), and then a further 80muni for their LMG (without which they will lose to rifles). Commandos just require you to survive to 3 points, and nothing else.

Thre are many thing can deal with them, namely Steah detection unit like ober with stg infared, air recon or anything with wheels that are bigger than a kubel.

One of the core design principles of the game is that no doctrine unit requires another doctrine to beat it; that would make the game inherently pay-to-win, as well as imbalanced if you had a sub-optimal load-out - so IR-obers are out.

Air recon is a viable option, but costs 40-60muni and has a cooldown, so can't be used at-will. This also requires the use of specific doctrines, which again falls into the "pay to win / imbalanced" category above.

As for vehicles, only specific units have good stealth detection (i.e. above 5m). The Kubel and 222 can detect at 25m, but the Luchs for example is limited to 5m. So again, this isn't a solution, as they can easily avoid the vehicle. Outside of doctrinal units the only vehicles with long-range detection are the Kubel and IRHT for OKW, and the 222 and (I believe) 251-HT for OST.

I've been playing a bit more recently after taking a ~6month break, and while the state of the game is mostly good, I have to say I'm a bit surprised that UKF Commando's camouflage still hasn't been tuned down a bit. While not necessarily 'OP' by itself, the synergy with the unit's other abilities seems to make this unit far too strong in my opinion.

Firstly, the Commando's camouflage stays active while moving. There are other units that have this "movement" camouflage, notably Storm troopers, JLI, Falls at Vet2 and Partisans - however, two of these units don't have CQC weapons, and Storms (which have to pay for them) don't have an explosive grenade. As a result, the commando's "Grenade from Moving Camo" combo is entirely unique, and it's on arguably the strongest CQC unit in the game.

Secondly, the Commando's camouflage stays active for incredibly long after leaving cover; in my testing, they can move about 15m out of cover before de-cloaking (and of course, they don't de-cloak if they re-enter cover). With the exception of Stormtoopers, this is again another 'outlier' in terms of unit stats. Of the units which can move while cloaked, JLI and Partisans can only move 5m and 10m respectively (Vet 2 falls are also 5m). Again, while this is comparable with Stormtroopers, they lack any form of explosive grenade, and are a 4-man squad.

Thirdly there is the matter of the "Ambush Bonus": if the unit fires from camouflage it gains increased stats, typically damage, although some also have movement bonuses. From my understanding, only three infantry units have this ability; Falls, Partisans at Vet 2 and of course, Commandos. As a result, attacking from Camo (which they can be moving in) gives Commandos incredibly high DPS, especially when combined with their grenade.

Lastly, there are veterancy bonuses. At vet 1 commandos gain their smoke grenade ability, much like other infiltration-type units, and they also gain the ability to self-heal (Falls vet 4, Storms Vet 1). At vet 2 they gain improved cooldown on their grenade (to 20s from 30s, which no other infiltrator gets), +30% weapon accuracy, and +35% movement speed when ambushing (unique). At vet 3 they deploy smoke on retreating (again, unique) in addition to -10% RA.

In my view, while individually none of these are excessive, when combined these things make Commandos far too powerful, especially once they hit vet 3 and are used in the heavily cratered maps of the mid/late game (i.e. cover/camo everywhere); there simply doesn't seem to be a downside to this unit. They can move long distances while camouflaged, even out of cover. They can throw explosive grenades from camouflage, massively reducing the opponents ability to react. They can then gap-close incredibly quickly due to their ambush movement bonus, all the while doing increased damage. They can self-heal. They have a smoke grenade. They auto-deploy a free smoke grenade on retreat (at vet 3) making them very difficult to chase. They have arguably the best CQC weapons/stats in the game, even when ignoring camo and grenades. All of this would be somewhat understandable if they were incredibly costly; but they're not. At 390mp to call in they're only 50mp more than Falls, but they don't need to pay 60muni for FG42s, cost less to reinforce, and have a 5th model.

Isn't all of this a bit much on a single unit?

My suggestion to 'balance' the unit would be to simply remove their moving camouflage. While still strong, they would no longer have the ability to freely move around enemy units without detection, meaning more player skill required to perform sudden squad wipes.

4- so you're saying that this still isn't the case?

5- jaeger armor removing the spotting scope on the elefant is a placebo nerf - it doesn't do anything because you can do the exact same strategy with another vehicle sitting next to the elefant. You might as well not suicide that 222 and instead use it to spot half the map for your elefant

6- this...is still in the game, don't you know? any pak-43 in both factions can shoot through smoke and walls

4. It was much, much worse.

The May 2018 update did this:

• Barrage reload increased from 0 to 1.25
• Auto-attack reload increased from 4 to 6
• Veterancy 2 auto-attack scatter bonus removed
• Veterancy 3 range bonus replaced by 20% increase to barrage accuracy; applies to all barrages except smoke
• Smoke barrage ranged changed to 85

And an even earlier patch nerfed the reload by a lot:

Reload increased from 2.4 to 4

Basically, it fired 2.5x faster, gained accuracy at vet 2 and range at vet 3, while gaining more accuracy from bulletins. It was quite the thing. Other names for it included "OST Turbo Mortar".


5. Yes, the nerf though was making the Command Tank auras no longer affect teammates.
The April 2017 update did this:

+sight/+range parts of vehicle-affecting aura no longer affect teammates
Vet 5 infantry-affecting aura no longer affects teammates

Before you could have OKW and OST auras affecting a scoped-elefant, which was ridiculous.

6. Yes, I crossed it out because I was mistaken. Not sure what I was thinking of.

either: "not working properly, glitchy, etc." or you can take it to mean "batshit OP, so poorly balanced it's absurd, etc."

It's this. By a long shot.

The USF minigun tanks glitch

This was so incredibly broken that it made the game basically unplayable in all modes until it was fixed. Unless you could somehow win before any USF player could rush a tank, you would lose. Not only that, it wasn't just the Sherman that could do it - the bug was (iirc) a buff stacking when crews re-entered their vehicle - so it worked with Shermans, Scotts, Stuarts, M18s, and I think even Calliopes as they still had crews. The Sherman was just the obvious choice as it was relatively cheap, had high HP, and both decent AT and AI stats - so when it switched to full auto, it tended to delete everything.

Other notable "OP/Broken" things:

1. UKF at launch. As others have said, everything in their kit was incredibly strong. Additionally, structures could brace indefinitely (the duration was longer than the cool-down), and they could be repaired at full speed while braced. As a result, picking the "Advanced Emplacement" doc meant having basically indestructible emplacements. As OST, you were effectively required to have a Mortar Halftrack in one of your docs, exclusively for the incendiary barrage. Team games were really, really bad at this time.

2. Soviet "Hit The Dirt" at (or around?) launch made units effectively immortal.

3. Soviet "Sniper Clown Car". At launch and for a while after, you could put a sniper in the scout car. The sniper was immune to counter-snipers while garrisoned, but could fire at full accuracy while the scout car was moving. This basically removed any downsides of having a sniper, while giving it incredible mobility. Your only hope (as OST) was a lucky mine, or rushing a 222/Pak.

4. OST "Laser Guided" mortar. At one point, the OST mortar was much more accurate than all other mortars in the game. This could be boosted further with various bulletins, making it effectively 'laser guided'. Any sort of support unit play was effectively impossible, and counter mortars didn't work as OST had counter-barrage on theirs.

5. OST "Jaeger Armor" Elefant stacking buffs. At one point, you could give the Elefant spotting scopes, which buffed it's LOS to something like 85. In team games, you could park an OKW Command Panther and OST Command P4 beside it to buff it even more. I believe at its worst, the Ele had something like 100 LOS, and massively increased armor.

6. OST PaK43 "Wall Hack". Early on it ignored collision, buildings, terrain - everything really. If the unit was in range, it could hit it. As a result, everyone build them right behind walls or other shot-blockers, creating "1-way force fields".