Pathfinder are pretty much balanced atm, they're good early game but start losing engagement once squads get vetted and elite infantry hit the field.
There isn't a strategy that evolve around Pathfinder dominating the battelfield from start to end.
The most common strat today is about turning them into zook blob with Scott behind to do the infantry killing. And if you don't put zook on them then they just become expensive spotters for your scott and Jacksons on the late game.
Kind of, those Elite units need to vet up first to beat down Pathfinder with bars. Since Pathfinders vet pretty quickly compared to other squads fighting a Vet3 double Bar with say a PG ain't the best idea unless you catch them out of position. The increased damage along with the native crit chance can cause a otherwise decent engagement to go sideways. |
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Couple pointers
1. You seem to randomly build sandbags, think about putting them where your enemy cant benefit. For example the sandbag at the VP could have been put behind the fence to the left instead. That way destroying it takes a lot longer while also allowing only you to benefit from green cover.
2. Units take increased damage while building, you lost a unit due to that and took extra damage earlier since you built close to the enemy
3. Why did you rush Battlegroupe? If it was to get your MG out earlier you need to be more agressive with them. The one covering the gas literally did nothing for a minute or 2. Match was 10 mins so quite a waste.
4. Maybe try playing the comp a few times to practice build order and capping. I would get the VG out first so you can put down sandbags and then get fussies so that benefit from them until they get their G43s. |
Ofc its unique. Every (semi-)elite unit arrives around CP2-3. Only OKW needs its most expensive tech structure to get them (their elite) out. If you dont rush T4 its gonna take some time until you get them out. Therefore the shock value between Lmg Obers and Lmg Paras is vastly different.
Ostheer and Soviets dont even need elites, cause they have the best mainline inf in the mid and lategame. In theory USF doesnt really needs elites too, cause their mainline scales good enough to be useful lategame. But their weapon tech/upgrade is a little bit too costly.
Compared to Ost/Sov Okw has way bigger popcap problems. I dont understand how you can think that OKW has an easy time getting 2 Obers on top of 3/4 mainline squads and support weapons with their heavy popcap tanks.
What your saying is a bit strange, every allied elite comes CP2-3 while PG can come earlier especially if your talking team games. Falls are CP2 but are doctrinal like most allied elites. In your last statement you say tanks which means your talking mainly team games if POP is that big of an issue. If your not then fitting in 2 Obers is feasible along with 2 MG and 2 raks which is fairly meta. Only when your talking Panthers is POP that big of a problem.
Going to your original post, aside from combat performance, players go for Fussies for their Utility such added sight and Flare which ends up being fairly useful in all modes. I think that is where VG should get a buff, maybe the ability to throw down a cheap AI mine that drops only 1 model similar to the soviet doctrinal one(7 muni I think). This way VG would be able to dictates fight better with out messing with overall balance.
I agree in theory about USF, but in practice since they are designed to assault they need to get in close with double bars which causes a unstainable amount of bleed which is fairly well known. The whole Pathfinder/scott meta allows the USF player to bypass this massive weakness while still paying similar to the same in weapon upgrade cost(1 or 2 Bars) along with same tech cost.
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There are units who can hold off Obers (Paras long range, Shocks, etc), but its a 4men T4 unit. It takes ages until you get atleast 2 Obers vet 2. Just use your tanks or arty. Have you ever played with Scotts against Obers? Thats just free manpower bleed.
What you described is pretty much every elite AI unit so it is not a unique problem. Now I am not sure if you meant Two Ober squads to Vet2. Which is a lot of initial cost/bleed but it is supposed to be. OKW seems to be the only army that can easily fit in several Elite squads with out wipes.
Soviet: most elite players go 3 conscripts 2 guards or 4 conscripts 1 guard. Other elites seem to be out of favor due to MP bleed or lack of utility.
USF: Before Pathfinder spam going for 2 or more Para's was a resource drain due to their target size and late arrival. Rangers were even worse since they due the exact same things rifle due but without snare. So at that point why even make it.
Ost: How often do you see high end players go for 2 PG let alone 1 outside of non-meta strats.
The point is you can't buff one without thinking of the other due to how blobby all WFA are. |
literally nothing changes (you still have the insane view range to defeat people who crutch with support weapons)
At that point, its that players problem. The game is dynamic, if someone found a counter you got to counter that counter with a counter. Jokes aside, reducing their base performance means they can't be spammed to open a game. Even if their vision isn't reduced there is less vision overall due to the USF player having to make more Rifles. On top of that if all those changes were implemented aside from synergy with crewing weapons or spotting they would be irrelevant.
EDIT: What about making them similar to Jaeger command squad, only one can be called in, increase in price, CP1 or 2 so that they still provide beacon for Paras. |
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Since the earlier game was quicker than I wanted I decided to try and do another SMG penal with back tech. I noticed he didn't have a fusi commander so I had a chance of making it work.
2 engi to clown car opening trying to cap as much as possible. He rushes my gas with VG and sturm so I stall as long as possible with engi and clown car. Keep them separate so they don't focus down car, send penal to reinforce but they beat me back. My 2nd engi rushed over to his gas and capped it to slow his capping, threw a mine down to weaken any attackers. Worked since his VG only had 3 models it took for ever to force my engi to retreat. Back to my gas I push with 2 penal squads and clown car, don't meet much resistance so I hurry up and decap as much as possible and rush to decap his closest point so even If I don't decap everything he wont get resources unless he takes the time to recap. I see him attack with JLI and not fully reinforced squads so I assume he is holding off reinforcements to get out as many units as possible. I get enough CP to get MG and SMG, I try to use MG to catch him out of position but he gets me instead. Luckily my MG made it out ok, I also get LMG airborne to bully his slow firing JLI. I push his side of map again and rush him with SMG scout car, I don't get a wipe but I force 3 squads to retreat and 1 soft retreat so I am in good shape map wise but lost car. At some point he wipes a engi squad but I catch VG out of position and get a wipe and a little later I make him pay for not fully reinforcing another VG squad with a mine and get another wipe.
He eventually get his Schwerer down and gets out Ober, I do a decent job of avoiding it or not letting it do to much damage to slow his VET. Due to his infantry pressure I haven't had time to put down T2 which is why I am floating resources. I decide to just rush to T4 which worked out since his Ostwind hit just as I started building T34. I mass retreat which he chases to my base, don't think he realized how much gas I had since I attack him as he gets there and get the kill.
Due to my hoarding I have enough gas to get 2nd T34 fairly quick which I use to pressure him. I push him off of the left side of the map but he does a good job of keeping VP drain on me. Since I only have 1 engi it takes me a bit to repair so he keeps pressure on. He ends up making 3 Raks total to keep AT pressure on me, I keep rotating tanks to try and keep his units from digging in. He attacks my 4 model LMG airborne with Sturm Pio but he doesn't notice nade until to late and I get it down to 2 models with low health which I wipe.
His P4J hits the field and he pushes for his gas back while trying to set up an attack on my T34 with his RAKs and tank. I see he is in a lane with not much area to move so I call in Airstrike which hits him hard while at the same time wiping his Obers with SMG penals.
P4J is low health, no way to repair and I have Inf superiority so he throws in the towel. GG
His early pressure was intense, getting those JLI out worked really well for him. Maybe if he avoided rushing Rak he could have reinforced a bit more and kept momentum going a bit longer. |
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Been thinking about adapting T1 start with T2 back tech along with my favorite SMG Penals. Not as good synergy with commander as KV8 but thought it would be fun to try. Really quick game, about 10 mins felt like it was fairly fast pace and fun.
Start with direct T1 penal opening, since opp is OST I don't want to make clown car unless he went assgren and don't need the extra engi so early. I cap my close regular points and go for gas with engi, he pushes me with pio and MG. Cool send Penal to his gas to fight off his inf and decap.
When I get there I see another pio and start to bully him when I notice he has 2nd MG. I hide behind trees and take shots at this pio while 2nd Penal loops around to flank MG. He see and retreats both units so I decap gas and cutoff. Since he is skipping Gren I make clown car and go to decap behind my stolen gas. He sees my car and instantly retreat so I am free to start decaping. He then pushes again with PG which beats up a penal squad but I do a little health damage and retreat. I place mine on gas with engi and bait him to attack my engi as he goes for decap. He doesn't walk over it until he see car, I use it come in to do kite damage and as he adjust his squad he hits mine and it drops 2 models leaving him with 1 model. He tries to retreat but I get the wipe, since he has no snares I go for SMG Penals and call in Airborne Guards at house near middle VP. I see has scout car so I stay in building to keep his car occupied while rest of army caps/decaps. I kill an engi squad that was attempting to decap my gas with LMG airborne so I have more field presence. I see he has another PG squad so I rush him with SMG clown car get another wipe and finally get AT gun out.
He surrenders as I start to put more pressure on him. GG
I think a flame truck from him would have done wonders, everyone like to get the scout car but it is fairly rng dependent until VET2. |
If you are speaking about accuracy it cant solve this problem. I have no idea what mambo jambo should have been done with target sized and modifiers to ajust TD perfomance against.
I can imagine what could have been done to LVs in order to make them less vulnerable, but I dont think that accuracy and target sizes alone can even slightly fix the issue of how TDs are effective against any other armored units in the game.
Because to stay resonable, TDs chances to hit medium shouldn't be lover then 70% imo and considering that pretty much all scored hits will be penetrating one it would hardly make a difference, at best it will increase chances of medium escaping.
Not to mention that even if TDs were nerfed and some perfect formula would have been found, people would have still used TDs just because you dont really have other options. Its either AT guns and TDs against anything heavier then medium.
I am in the camp that when they fire they should hit reliably maybe not penetrate but they should be hitting. I personally think ROF should be attribute that ought to be tweaked. If everyone is making 2 AT guns then it makes it hard to react. Same with TD, 2 jacksons can autodelete a P4 fairly without any counterplay aside from smoke. Longer ROF by about 2 secs but increased pen to compensate. That way super heavies don't get to roam free. |
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Just saw Propaganda cast with Baoliang using my new favorite commander. He did a LV skip so I decided to try the same thing since I cant seem to get it to pay off consistently. I wrote in the comments I have been pushing this commander for about a month but he deleted my comment which is cool I guess.
Going up against Ost so I decide to skip scout car and feel him out first. Find an mg, so I know where that is but then I see a 2nd MG a little later so I assume he did T1 skip but his commanders didn't have AssG. I make scout car rush an over aggressive MG decrew and cap. I chase the other one away and deal with his PG rush. We go back and forth with his PG doing fairly well but I am expecting more which he never makes. I get an Engi wipe and I also get Airborne LMG to beat him up from a safe distance. Since I decided to skip LV I first got T2 to get AT guns. My positioning isn't the best but I do good enough to scare him off. I was surprised at how fast the tank came due to his lack of map control but he did save a lot of MP so he could have put down caches. I eventually get up to T4 and have double AT ready for his pushes.
He finally does and I blob him with double AT, KV8 and Inf support. I think I wipe a PG at the time and also throw him off his game plan. He doesn't seem to have any AT other than PG and P4 aint strong enough to reliably beat me up. He makes an Ostwind and pushes me with all tanks but my AT get him while stolen MG stop his PG shrek blob. I kill the Ostwind and get a SU85 out. Game is now in my hands, he seems to refuse to adjust his strat and I kill a P4 that got out of position and ran over mine. In his attempt to defend tank I also wipe 2 PG shrek squads and steal 2 shreks with penals. I continue to grind him down until he drops match. GG
Game went fairly well overall, the tech skip let him get his tank out first despite lack of map control. I think with his surplus of MP he should have gotten out at least one more PG squad to wrestle map back from me.
I was pretty happy with the army - 2 engi/3 Penals/1 LMG airborne/2 AT guns. 2nd AT gun would probably hit around the time of his P4 if he had teched normally. I also got lucky that I didn't make T70 because those shreks would have wrecked me. Thanks and if you watch let me know any improvements in strat. |
even OKW mechanize sees rare play these days, i wish they would lower all units' pop by 1, there arent enough units compared to Sov at 100 pop
If you are talking about OKW tech, that in no way shape or form help the tech choice. The main issue for 1v1 and 2v2 is the lack of Luchs lethality. It does great health damage but does not drop units with ok range. The Luchs needs to perform well enough to encourage the OKW player to forego base healing for muni based healing since lack of healing can lead to MP bleed which is what you are attempting to do to the enemy.
I think any easy fix would to give it stock the 5 range it gets from Vet. That way it can provide a bit more bang for buck and allow it to chase down retreating units a bit better. A cost increase would probably be warranted to make it the same price as all the other LV tanks.
As for POP, I think they should go the other way and increase POP for all units. The current Meta is pretty much to blob up units. 2AT guns, 2MG and so on. Increasing cap would make each unit more impactful and require more tactical use. |
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