Profile of Mauser

not at all, ladder position is solely based on ELO, w/l ratio has nothing to do with it.
When you play with people stronger than you and win, you get a lot of points, but if you lose you don't lose much.
Other way round when you play lower ranked players, you win just a few points but risk of losing a ton of them.
That's why you can't climb to the top if you're matched with people with lower skill all the time, you might win 10 games in a row but then in just a loss you lose all that they gave you.

I know perfectly well how the elo system works, maybe i should re-phrase my post. Like you correctly said, Elo has nothing to do with w/l, it has to do with who you beat and who beats you. However there are some other factors here:

• Firstly w/l is important for players competing against themselves and I for one like to have a good w/l.

• Secondly, in my hypothetical example of the guy who just started playing the game (who lost a lot in the learning process). This guy will now have a bad Elo as result (and also a bad w/l for that matter). However, he learnt a lot from his mistakes and got better(with a very steep quick learning curve), and is now winning games. He will have to win an awful lot to make up for the bad elo(resulting from his earlier losses) in order to climb to the elo up to where he belongs.

Seasonal reset solves this problem, and just makes sense in general. That's why they have seasons in sc2 and also in sports in general. It's nice to have a clean sheet every now and again. Also, if you know the ladder resets every 3 months, you can experiment more with builds and dont have to worry too much about losses. If the ladder never resets you cant really experiment in automatch, or if you do experiment those losses will always be with you and you cant get rid of them.

maybe this is not clear for you: when you see the kv8 and you haven't the right stuff to face it you have to insta-retreat.
what I see all the time is people going "let's see what happens and then maybe when it's down to one man I'll retreat my squad": wrong.
Germans players aren't used to do something like this because their units are too flexible ("mmm....lemme check my grenadiers abilities, have they got one to instagib heavy tanks...nope...maybe I can upgrade them..."), while soviets have to do that A LOT (forgot to add the strafe run to the stuff forcing insta-retreat).
Again, the reason you find the KV8 so annoying is that soviets don't really have anything that kills infantry so it might seem a little strange to see your masses of grens die.
Personally I find it stranger that to deal with infantry properly soviets have to rely on a doctrinal/high cp unit and I find strange that german infantry can still swarm and dominate the field against both Infantry and Tanks with LMGS and shrecks even in late game

The problem is, you have to insta mass retreat if it finds a bunch of your guys. The even bigger problem is, even if you retreat the very second you see it, it still follows your squad(s) to your base, and kills absolutely everything. I think as said above, the burst duration and range (and perhaps the dps) of the flames is too large.

It has twice the killing power of a brummbar vs inf, it has more armor(240 KV vs brumm 200) more hp(960 KV vs brumm 800) while being faster and it costs just a little more than an ostwind.

Cost comparison:
KV = 360mp, 135 fuel; It also doesn't require a building, comes at 4cp's.
Brumm = 520mp, 170 fuel + teching costs(600mp, 155 fuel), thus total = 1120mp, 325fuel.(assuming you dont build other buildings)

Note:
Why is the brummbar the closest comparison to the KV8? Cos the germans dont have any tank that can kill infantry that fast, and the brumm is the only dedicated AI heavy tank. Ostwind has about the infantry killing of a t70(maybe less but ostwind is a bit tougher in terms of hp and armor). Flame Halftrack, well that is a litte better than an m3+flamer or comparable to the m5+quad50, but not comparable to the kv at all.

Any other vehicle in the game, even an Ostwind you can delay long enough to get some emergency AT usually without losing any units. Any competent player that catches opponent off guard with a KV8 is going to kill half his units before he can field a counter.

Exactly this. There is no time for stalling when the kv8 rolls out, and it will often follow you into your base killing 2/3 squads and maybe an at-gun. You might think you are in a good position vs tanks when you got one or 2 paks and a schrek squad, but the kv will maul them all. Sure you can then get a p4/stug, but the kv is just a tad too good at killing infantry thats all. Maybe buff its AT 45mm cannon ever so slightly if needed, but nerf the flame damage.

Kv8 costs 135 fuel, you cannot possibly have Kv8 and Su85 vs player of any decent ability (at the time when Kv8 can freely roam the map, and that is before stug or piv)

I know what it costs ffs. I was referring to late game, which often happens when both players are of similiar skill. Not everyone base rush suicides with it(and loses it to a mine+schreks+pak or w/e), it can be very deadly when used with support and to deny capping, thats what i was saying. (a base rush can also work against an under-prepared german player though).

If the russian rushes it, it can freely roam the map, (denying capping). He then keeps it alive while teching to su85. The german will get a counter out-p4/stug (not pak lol cos kv8 eats paks for breakfast). However, if the german doesnt manage to kill the kv8(due to soviet player not being a dumbass and not over-extending), it becomes even more deadly used in combination with the su85. It will also probably have killed a couple of schrek squads in the mean time, meaning that the german hasn't got an answer to the su85(which will eat his t3 tanks).

No-one can deny that it shouldn't be able to chase down two or three pgren squads on retreat and kill all of them.

It certainly isn't overwhelmingly OP, but it sure as hell needs a small nerf to flame damage(especially vs retreating) or a slight cost increase. Neither the crocodile nor the churchill was that powerful.

All these arguments about HP and armor seem vain. The whole counter-sniping will not really be solved by changing hp or armor. The point is Russian sniper can retreat after being sniped, while german one cannot. This is the biggest problem.

If it takes two shots for the russian snipers to kill a german sniper it could help, but then the german one will prolly be op since russian ones shoot slower. This is such a stupid solution if you could have just changed it to one man snipers on both sides with similiar stats but different vet abilities.

Mortar damage to snipers will also be more balanced if russian sniper was 1 man (as a soft counter). The buff to 80hp for german sniper might make it a bit more durable to mortar fire, but still I feel making both sides one man snipers is just plainly the best solution by far.