Haven't played much COH2 this patch, and what I have, was mostly as Ostheer because they are the coolest.
Just my fair warning that the following should be taken with a pinch of salt.
But I always liked using the Ost sniper before the patch, to my mind, he had 3 issues in 1's.
1. Fragile as feck, now he is more like two grens rolled into one with great camo, so that is pretty much a non issue anymore.
2. The sniper original design with the relationship between the Ost Sniper and Soviet sniper teams. 2 man sniper teams were a poor choice imo and too tough to kill, the Ost sniper got some significant benefits to try and offset this, and now has a similar health pool, albeit more vulnerable to counter sniping. So now both sniper variants are pretty tough for what you would think as a pretty fragile unit type.
3. Large map sizes and the resource system in COH2 promotes aggressive capping pretty hard, so snipers have to put in a good shift to earn their bread, which for snipers, is killing infantry and causing a constant manpower drain. A tougher Ost sniper means you can take more risks and keep him popping off modals for longer. But if you invest in an early sniper, you are sacrificing map and resources for an investment in winning the manpower war long term. Snipers of either variant still require support in close enough proximity, thus you concede map early on.
Which leads me on to the natural solution that I used as Ostheer in the past vs soviet snipers, spam infantry and cap, cap, cap. Then out tech your opponent. I imagine soviets with cons can do a similar job. Not so sure about USF, their tech structure and economy is a bit wonky that way.
I'll have to play more to test out the balance, but whilst I think snipers of both original factions are too durable now, I think we should wait a bit to make a judgement as for allot of players, this will be the first time people really see the Ostheer sniper on a regular basis and an adjustment period is fairly inevitable.
On a side note, I used the Ostheer sniper with the encirclement doctrine the other day. Fairly mediocre commander, but the Ost sniper with sprint was racking up kills like no one's business as I was constantly using it to sprint forward for shots or to backpaddle and not have to retreat. Ala the old soviet sniper when they had sprint, except the Ost sniper fires faster and cloaks better! I think Relic perhaps forgot that trick when they took away the Soviet sniper sprint.
Ireland
pod.AKECHETA
Bryan
Zero
Relic Entertainment
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