Its immobile with no indirect fire capacity, isnt it? Never fielded it yet.
Precisely. It can turn, though, and does some devastating damage. It's better vs IS-2s than an Elefant, so that leaves you with free fuel to spend on other tanks.
To give you an idea on the range, it can shoot from the Northern Bridge (Pripyat) to the Central VP. |
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Not to mention "Overdrive" is another munition-free ability at Vet 1 M3. Vet 1 Blitzkrieg which does roughly the same thing is 30 munitions. Sure, it's on a tank, but I thought the logic of 60 muni AT mines vs 30 muni TM-35 was the effectiveness. So really, there should be atleast nominal costs to triggering abilities. |
"3. To counter "Flanking", spend 150MP+60 munis for an MG42 bunker and you can close off one flank for a solid part of the game. Depending obviously on positioning."
Ive been experimenting with exactly this, in 1v1, to some good effect. Especially now that I can build them with Grens as well. There are a number of locations with good open fire arcs covering multiple objectives and terrained flanks that, when positioned, allow me to concentrate force elsewhere and allow time to rush down with HT mounted infantry.
Admittedly I play at relatively low level though, and teching thresholds in higher lvl play may not allow the immobile expenditure.
I use this in compliment with a roaming MG-42, it's often very easy to foretell where the Sov will push next and with what. Usually I'll also have an AT mine placed at the riverbank (Pripyat), so I tend to not use Rifle Grenades at all for a while, instead relying on suppression to win engagements. |
I think, It is too easy to break. 
That's why you support it. It's a long-range AT Heavy Gun, and requires the due protection from infantry and possibly a tank. |
Fortune: What then is your view on indirect/artillery options for the factions?
Save for the insane benefits of being able to field a shall we say Mortar/Artillery Hybrid (120mm) the two factions are quite even.
The 120mm adds, in my opinion, "unneeded" pressure to any tight match up from the get-go, and anyone with a semblance of skill can indeed abuse that advantage to a crushing point.
What I would want to see, personally, is an Ostheer, perhaps doctrine-specific mortar unit that had a long range but can only Return Barrage, or something of that sort.
Apart from that the balance is quite good. The build that gives IeFH also gives Sector Artillery, which atleast I find to be extremely powerful, capable of taking out tanks in good fashion. The Soviet Artillery is strong, but only fires 8 round volleys. Ostheer's version fires 12 in quick succession and can saturate an area over time, allowing for more complex troop manouvering while the enemy is forced to either risk high losses or wait to make a counter-push.
Alot of this balance in the actual game falls to who picks what doctrine. The one who picks first risks not being able to field the appropriate hardcounters to the other. |
Starcraft had a winning formula and blizzard deviated very little from it to create a sequel that [most] everyone is happy with. So yeah, I kinda wish Relic did something similar.
That's your opinion.
My opinion is, that what Blizzard did was stale, boring and mainstream. And that furthermore, if Relic were to do the same with CoH2 I would be sorely dissapointed.
Everyone has an opinion. |
Fortune, I don't want to crap all over you, and in fact I agree with lots of stuff you're saying (CoH 2 does feel a lot more like a Dawn of War game than a CoH game) but if you're primarily a 2v2 player your opinions don't really have much meaning here.
We all love 2v2s for fun and blowing off steam and stuff but nobody would really call them the epitome of competition, in this game or in the original CoH, and certainly the game shouldn't be balanced around them or focused on what works in them.
I mean, my friend and I beat DrHorse and his buddy in a 2v2 once, and DrHorse was ranked #1 on every single 1v1 ladder at one point. Are my friend and I that great? No, we aren't.
2v2s are a joke. They're something to watch when you want to see a lot of pretty explosions and wacky shit. They're not serious games and when we put on our serious hats and talk about the nuts and bolts of what makes this game succeed and fail, 2v2s and up are just completely out of the picture, which is as it should be.
I think you're reading in too much on one snippet of what I said. While my "heart is in" 2v2 that does not mean I only play that gametype. I fully realize that 1v1 is much easier to balance and indeed is a better showcase of the game's overall health than 2v2 can ever be, but at the same time I disagree that choices and builds in 2v2 play a lesser role than in 1v1.
3v3 and 4v4 I would rule out completely as competition or a base for tournaments, but 2v2, in my opinion, comfortably sits in a green zone where competition and indeed tournaments are possible to arrange, though it is much more complex than simply having individuals play one another. |
Not only that but look at the stats of the mortars on CoH2stats!
Unless I am reading the stats completely wrong or if the stats aren't correct, the Russian mortar's barrage is more accurate and the mortar can move quicker after it. Their autoattack is pretty equal but the Russian one can once more move quicker after it.
And I'm not talking about the 120 mm mortar but about the difference between their standard 240 MP mortars. Needless to say that the Russian mortar has more crewmen, making decrewing it much harder and keeping vet on it much easier.
I'm increasingly starting to think that Soviet crewmen should simply have only 60 or so health instead of the full 80 every other infantryman has.
Please someone tell me I am wrong and just reading things into the numbers... I've had two games today where I needed to take out zis field guns and maxims and my mortars proved insanely inadequate and their weapon crews very resilient to even flanking G43 Grenadiers and Panzergrenadiers.
Were you using GrW 38 barrage, or right-clicking them to attack squads? |
Yes, as nondoctrinal indirect/artillery options, made worse by Panzeewerfer beinf inexplicably t4 and early access to doctrinal 120mm mortar.
Ostheers only equivalents are both doctrinal in the form of early mortar HT, which though it has good mobility, is inferior in terms of survival, cost and dmg output to the 120mm, and Howitzer which is late game and immobile.
Pripyat may be a shit map overall, but this kind of imbalance in indirect makes softening bridgeheads and crossings veryndifficult for Ostheer,mwhereas Sov can blanket the predictable positions of the enemy on the other side of the river with impunity and no indirect reprisal, leaving flanking as the only option, which again, is all the more predictable.
Thr net result of this indirect fire asymetricity, is it pidgeons Ostheer into overt and predictable tank actions that have to advance through predictable avenues. There is no sufficient basis for a "hangback and lob artillery at them" play, either for softening defenses before an assault, or for blanketing fire on likely enemy support weapon positions.
Id remove Barrage from ZiS and put a munitions cost on SU76 Barrage to even the odds in indirect fire options.
I disagree, the IeFH 18 is mid-game, not late-game. 4 CP is not hard to come by and 600 MP when compared to 1-2 Mortars is not an unheard of investment for what is essentially a hardcounter. Coupled with some solid AT protection you can start bringing in the pain at those 120mms, with some infantry harass to guarantee you don't let the enemy get any free resources or VP bleed. Yes, the 120mms make it out fast but at that point you already know the enemy's build, he's given away his advantage the moment you see the first 120mm. You just -know- he won't get long-range Heavy Tanks of any form, and should you get a Panther/Brummbar he's effectively lost the game once both that and IeFH are in play. Heck, Ostwinds and P4 could serve very well to force him to get AT, SU-85s and ZiS (I've found) are prone to not being microed alot, giving free exp to the IeFH.
Mortar halftrack incendiary is no joke.
And frankly if the Sov is going both ZiS -and- SU-76 that means no T-34s, T-70s or Halftracks. Now you know he won't have an armor buffer for his infantry, which instead are the buffer for his mortars and possible AT counters. Force him to invest in Guards and you can outgun and outmatch them with PGrens, constantly harassing VPs to keep the game going just that bit longer, to allow for IeFH/other late-tech counters to completely ruin his T-34/85s when they show up |
Its not about " ohhh i loose against russians, they are op !! ", cause i've played both factions, and here are my results : i'm a way better player at ostheer than russians, less things to manage and more micro than flanking but i loose like 9on10 times with ostheer and i get 6/7on10 win ratio with russians that i see i dont manage them well.
Russians get early advantage, like US did in vanilla, but the problem is that back in vanilla, germans had hard counter to M8, rifle spam, now as the T34 spams you had to choose either to spend 120 muni on double panzerschrecks (i would have never done that as a vanilla wher = loose one shreck for sure at one moment of the game) making them less effective against inf = they loose any 1v1 against middle game russians. I feel that germans dont have really anything to deal with armor AND inf AT THE SAME TIME, when i counter their tanks i got brainfarts managing inf vs inf cause its just coming from evrywhere ... dont tell me " learn to play its just the begining ", i never had problem managing mutliple units back in vanilla, was lvl 13 with wher, and when the m8 was coming very quick , or a quick sherman, that meant that their inf would be weak. Now, without the veterancy system, you have to deal with equal lvl infantry, but superior armor : i explain myself
When i mean superior armor its chronologically : yes ostheer have better tanks, but they come soooo late, that at a T moment, russians would be more likely to have a better tank than you.
Another "complain" on this balance problem, is the map that are mostly 2v2 ones, wiht large scale, wich didnt really fit for a german player as you get flanked from evrywhere, again the map are quite busy with objects evrywhere, and you speend quite too much time on dodging trees than on fighting, maps need some "battle areas" with hard covers and red ones : places where the game is decided.
I hope other have the same thoughts as me, and lets be constructive, don't " russians are op" or the opposite and don't " evrything will go perfect after the patch" 
1. I really recommend not comparing this to CoH1. The Ostheer-Soviet balance should not be compared to US-Wehr, it just doesn't work like that.
2. Panzershreks are great against infantry, they blow up models at point blank range and a shrek squad can inflict casualties on their Guard counterparts at a much higher efficiency. That's not to say they're amazing at AI, but they're by no means useless.
3. To counter "Flanking", spend 150MP+60 munis for an MG42 bunker and you can close off one flank for a solid part of the game. Depending obviously on positioning.
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