Profile of The Dave

Happens more than you'd like to think. This also wasn't addressed in the patch notes as far as I know. It's been voiced before by me and other members.

I love how everyone complains about the SU-85 when it's the only viable build for Soviets. In anticipation of a SU-85 nerf, I've been playing without T4 just to see if I can make it work (kinda like Nullist's recent "play with the Stug" campaign). It doesn't work.

A P4 can dominate anything that Soviet T3 has. The ZiS is just too slow and almost always gets flanked and overrun before it kills the P4 (ignoring Pripyat because that's a chokepointy trash map). You can ram if you like losing your T34, but the question is why you would ever do this. And even then, you still have to have something that's actually capable of finishing the thing off. The Soviets have to have an answer to German armor, and right now the SU-85 is the only reliable thing.

The only way I've been able to reliably win without the SU-85 is if you've been able to push him off his fuel for a long enough time to surprise him with a T70, but if that happens, you'd probably have won the game regardless. Long story short, until the ZiS and/or T34 gets way more effective (or the P4 gets more expensive or less effective), then complaining about the SU-85 is pointless.

That aside, this patch has some great changes. They fixed some cheese on both sides. Soviets got the HTD nerf (making it effectively worthless as far as I can tell) and Maxim spam nerf and Germans got the strafe nerf. Hopefully the input lag is reduced too. Not to mention the new map. These are things to be happy about.

SU85 wasn't nerfed and the P4 was...so...

Heard from one but not all so I'm bumping this up

Speaking of audio warnings, I hate the one when your troops retreat to your HQ/reinforce and shout something about guys dying -- it always makes me think a squad is under attack.

ha in the blizzard, they are. You can sometimes lose 2 people on retreat depending on how far they have to go.

I see your point. Going straight to T4 will have its risk of being overwhelmed by lower tier units, but that's what balances a rush. It is a risk/reward. Maybe the costs of going to T4 should be lowered a bit to balance it properly.

T-70 is wonderfully countered by ostwind. An ostwind is a better counter to T-70 then a PIV is.

My current problem with the PIV is that it gives you an all round great unit, so a great reward, without the risk. In coh1 PIV was also in the latest tier, just as a sherman. You could go for them quickly and have a big advantage, but you had to skip T3 so you were vulnerable for a while. Going T3 for wehrmacht and US gave you a safer option of having AT and AI quicker, but the disadvantage of investing in weaker units then T4 units.

Ostwind wouldnt have to be buffed, its fine as is. Maybe a tiny cost reduction. I usually get an ostwind out or have it already building at the moment a T-70 appears.

Stug only needs a cost reduction and maybe small things like a tiny bit faster turn rate etc.

Panzerwerfer in T3 would have to be nerfed. (lower AOE, less damadge, longer cooldown and maybe higher cost)

Concerning SU-85. Soviet going for T4 usually means not having any AI in the form of vehicles. You should use this by avoiding the SU-85 with your tanks and investing in infantry instead of vehicles. Your infantry can then gain ground and chase the SU-85 around, just denying your opponent use of all the resources that have been invested into the building and SU-85. A mistake a lot of people often make (including me) is that they think they have to kill a SU-85 or any other "big" unit. While denying it any usage will be more cost effective (it will cost you less losses and increase the upkeep of your opponent).

I don't really see the problem of not having a PIV. You can manage just fine with only an ostwind and stugs supported by pak 40 or (pak 43 if you're facing SU-85). You can't dominate the map with that, but can secure a part of it. So again, it's a lower risk, but also smaller reward of having less map control.

In my opinion of course.

***This is going to be harsh because sometimes you guys totally neglect the simple realities existing from an objective standpoint.***

First, please don't compare the two games based on balance arguments. Gameplay or technical comparisions are fine, but the two games really cannot be compared. You can't say:

"My current problem with the PIV is that it gives you an all round great unit, so a great reward, without the risk. In coh1 PIV was also in the latest tier, just as a sherman. You could go for them quickly and have a big advantage, but you had to skip T3 so you were vulnerable for a while. Going T3 for wehrmacht and US gave you a safer option of having AT and AI quicker, but the disadvantage of investing in weaker units then T4 units."

without my response being:

Just because you lost to a German player with a p4 does not mean it needs to be nerfed. It simply is the best option for the Germans at the moment. It does have a risk. You lose a P4 quickly and it can be game over. Furthermore, the last two sentences of your above statement aren't saying much for your ability to critique strategy in vcoh. Rarely if ever did you see T3-T4 builds. You usually saw T2-T4 or T1-T3 and sometimes T2-T3 - never T1-T4 unless you had already won by that point. Saying that "you were vulnerable for a while" has me perplexed and confused. Vulnerable from what exactly? Are you saying T1-T4 (which nobody did) made the Germans vulnerable? I'd agree there because it made them vulnerable enough that a. they couldn't do it because they were destitute of resources after being out-teched, overrun, and game over or b. They were playing Scheldt against the easiest of computers. Furthermore, P4's themselves were rarely used in comparison with their use in this version so I'm not entirely sure where that is coming from.

The counter to the SU85 being a "Pak43" is totally pinning the German player into a doctrinal choice from a defensive position rather than being one that can actually help them win a game. You're asking them to play not to lose rather than play to win. Why should a german player have to use a doctrine to counter the most commonly used soviet tank in the game? A tank that can be built by any soviet regardless of their own doctrine choice? That is not a very well thought out statement.

The Stug suggestion is ludicrous. There was just a plea from a community member for people to try to incorporate them into their build. It didn't work. They're simply useless at the moment and provide nothing in the way of "tank" or "destroyer" because of their range vs su 85's or effectiveness to infantry waves. The idea of giving it a quicker turning radius is also not very well thought out as that is the Achilles heel of the stug to begin with, but it's supposed to be a good tank hunter. Right now it's outclassed, overpriced, and never used. 2 Stugs for the price or a tad bit above the price of one p4 would make it more viable, but I'm not sure how that would play out in an actual game.

And in regards to the rest of your statement, no an ostwind is not a better counter to a t70. It just isn't, sorry. Furthermore the P4 is significantly better at destroying the next thing coming from the soviet's T3 - the T34, so it's really a no-brainer to go P4 over ostwind every time.

You also want the Panzerwerfer moved to T3 and then nerfed. This would render it even more useless then it already is and make the Soviets probably win almost 90% of the time with 10% being reserved for people who drop at the start due to P2P issues. What about the Katyushka? I suppose it should just stay the same as it is????!!! It's in the best Tier and highly effective right?

And lastly you do have to kill an SU85. They can see farther than you meaning that they can slowly creep up and kill your units without recourse at the moment until you are pushed over. Unless you're playing against incompetent competition, which I'm actually pretty sure you are if this is your opinion, the SU85 is the most dominant presence on the battlefield when it appears. The entire game changes when it enters, and the Axis player enters into the immediate quandary of countering it.