Profile of The_Courier

I'll reiterate: I'd really like to see replays from people, illustrating any sort of methodical approach of how to deal with the ISU - outside of the Jagdtiger of course. Funny/condescending gifs aka Kreatiir don't necessarily change perceptions.

I would if I faced it with any kind of consistency. Either when playing as Axis or Allies, I see it less than most other late-game heavies. I do tend to pursue an aggressive strategy even in 2v2, doing my damnest to deny or cutoff fuel at the risk of overextending.

I know I see Tigers, IS-2s, T-34/85s and King Tigers more often than I see an ISU. Probably because it's incredibly map-dependant. On Kharkov or Minsk, yeah it will probably win the Soviets the game. On urban maps, or Heurtgen forest, or stuff like that? It will get flanked too easily, or will not be able to use its range. On more open maps like Veaux Farmland, the map is larger enough to flank it more easily.

I personally tick off most of the maps that favor ISU or Jagdtiger. So it may be why I see it more rarely.

Also, you want a consistent counter? PaK 43. Shits all over it if well positioned. As OKW, 2 Jagdpanzer 4s can slug it out against it.

Of course. That is why I suggested a slight reduction. It was a very crude conversion because trying to do a "fair" conversion is headache territory.
Point is, if it were a little cheaper, it might see a little more play without turning the game into Jagdpanzer spam or making the unit OP.

SU-85 takes a 120 fuel investment to unlock its tier alone. Not counting building T1 or 2.

Jagd comes out of a 40 fuel building that also heals your troops, with 0 prior investment required. When people speak of expensive OKW units, it seems they always forget they also have the cheapest teching in the game. Unless you spam the hell out of both units, relatively speaking your Jagd will always cost less.

I see the Jagd being played when the situation calls for it, IE on maps where you can use its strengths and when you need some extra help to crack Allied tanks. It's useful against virtually every single allied armor out there, as I found since I started playing OKW a bit. it,s a nightmare to destroy when properly microed, its high armor means you need to flank it with medium tanks which is risky. It's built less than the Puma because 1) T2 also offers the juicy Stuka, 2) the Puma is incredibly versatile and also very good, 3) as OKW, you don't need the Jagd to have good AT as you have several options already.

It's an hideously expensive (290 fuel) assault gun that has pretty bad penetration for its price; it should be a danger to infantry. I still think the AoE on the thing is too big, but an overnerf is definitely uncalled for. 2 flanking tanks can take care of it, and you never have to worry about Button when up against it (unless in a team game, but that's cheese game mode for you) so you can afford to be aggressive; even if you lose 2 P4s destroying it, you still come out on top resource wise.

Other ideas; use the Stuka as OKW, it deals a good amount of damage to it and the ISU is extremely slow so it cant dodge. If you can, use Truesight (or a halftrack) to sneak infantry by it, even 2 shreck squads kill it pretty fast and it can't run away, especially on urban maps. PaK 43 counters it, PaK 40s can scare it away somewhat. If you damage its engine, you've pretty much won since it's an absolute sitting duck. If you can, use a scout plane to reveal its position and plan a flanking attack; if you can get up close, it's scrap metal thanks to its horrible pathing and mobility. Elefant and Jadgtiger can also fight it toe to toe, and a friend of mine had some success with double Jagdpanzer 4s.

It's a pain to fight, sure. But so is the KT, which squadwipes just as much in my experience, yet I don't think they are too overpowered. The ISU can come too early, but that's a general call-in problem not unique to it.

I just had another idea:

Why not implementing an option to make the income of strategic points variable (random with a min and a max)that would be cast at the beginning of a game ?

As an example : (more thoughts would be needed for the min/max for sure)

A normal strategic point producing 3 fuel and 5 mun., could produce between 1 and 4 fuel and 2 to 6 mun.

A dedicated fuel point (7) could produce between 3 and 9 fuel income.

A dedicated munition point (11) could produce between 5 and 13 munition income.

We would have to look at the strategic map before making our planing....

As an option it could be disable for tournaments and events.( but would be on for all casual random matches)

I would also make the point's income value more random the farther they are from the starting front line.

Its would add to the replayability of the gameat the cost of some random. (but random balance on the long run)

Cookie cutter strategy would have to be more flexible too.

It's my wild suggestion, but it think i would like it.

What do you think ?

And exactly what is this going to bring to the table? it seems like a lot of work and RNG for no good reason. By your model, a normal strat point could give 4 fuel while a fuel point would only give 3, that's just way too counter-intuitive.

If a balance mechanism is added so that sides are fairly equal anyway, well, what's the point of RNG in the first place? You're just going to have arbitrarily slower or longer games depending on the dice roll.

Sorry, but I see absolutely no reason to implement this.

This seems to not be a big issue to me. Vet 5 is a bonus that the OKW factions get (their vet 1-3 bonuses are usually on par with other faction's if I'm not mistaken), but it doesn't mean they should get it often either. But unit conservation in a long game serves OKW better than any other faction; their infantry in particular is bar none the best in the game at vet 5.

It's not OKW unique either, it's just a fact of how vet calculation works. AT guns vet crazy fast because they don't cost too much and hit targets that cost more; for AI tanks, it's the opposite. Unless we start giving out special modifiers as to how some units gain vet how fast damaging some other units (which seems like a lot of work), I'm not sure how the problem can be solved.

I mean, you rarely see heavy tanks of all factions reach vet 3 (mercifully). Doesn't mean there's something broken there.