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Elite Riflemen: Insta vet is bad design and I don't like it. In my opinion either lowering vet requirement, providing additional levels of veterancy, or making it a later game option (by making it take twice as long to train the rifles for example) would solve it in a way. Or make it unlock weapon upgrades for free so that you get more versatile rifles out of the bat?
Soviet weapons teams: If Soviet teams get to 4 men, they need to also spread out more and be less vulnerable somehow. Axis weapons usually have higher DPS to compensate for Soviet squads having more men. If you nerf one without nerfing the others, Soviet weapons teams will start dropping like flies, and it's the one thing keeping them in the game against OKW considering their piss poor core infantry.
Long Range combat: Ugh, please. LMGs are just way too prominent and powerful right now. Obers and 1919 rifles/paras can just a-move across the map, or plop themselves in cover, and annihilate almost any infantry that is sent their way effortlessly. Shocks still manage to be relevant thanks to their armor and high DPS, but others like Penals, PGrens and Thompson paras struggle immensely in the current meta because they can easily get cut down before dealing damage. It also makes snipers less attractive when an Obers squad can just walk up to one and kill it in two MG34 bursts from max range. I much prefer elite infantry being close-combat flavored. |
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So yeah, Katyushas as basically as deadly as Walking Stukas now. The damage is insane, AoE and increased accuracy means it will cause losses even if fired into the fog of war. I once forced a mass retreat of an OKW blobber, fired it at his medic truck later, boom, 16 kills in one salvo. It's an extreme example, but this thing is now friggin dope.
Still very vulnerable to a vehicle rush, so I wouldn't nerf it to the ground again. Lower damage and accuracy a bit and it should be a powerful artillery. |
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Very much a justified nerf. The only reason there wasn't more of an uproar about this OP unit is because there aren't many people who got the commander. |
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US also struggles on the offmap department apart from Airborne, but that's more due to having only 3 commanders and the ''wonderful'' War Spoils system making so you could be stuck with those 3 commanders for months. Yet their mobile artillery, the Priest, is nowhere near as good, as well as doctrinal to boot, despite being fairly similar in price.
I'm comparing the Zu Fuss to its counterparts, the mobile artillerys. And in that comparison it is a very, very clear winner. Priest is OK, Panzerwerfer is RNG dependent but decent, Katyusha mostly sucks, walking Stuka is awesome. Sure, OKW units are supposed to perform well, but that doesn't mean their units cannot be OP. And if the ISU-152, a costly doctrinal direct fire unit, is considered overpowered for its ability to wipe squads, it seems to me that an indirect fire unit that costs much less yet can do the same is just wrong.
It's especially stupid against AT guns. I played a game where my opponent had a screen of them and used them well along with his T-34s. 3 barrages later, 1 gun decrewed, one captured and one outright destroyed. I also wiped a Maxim that retreated as soon as the rockets started falling and still got gibbed. I felt like the walking stuka handed me an easy win. Artillery being a blob and support weapon counter is one thing, invalidating them by its very presence is quite another. |
People are allowed to play game modes other than 1v1
Not every unit and every doctrine is equally good across all maps and all game sizes
I play a lot of 2V2 and it's the same problem. Everyone has the ISU doctrine, the rest is a mix between counterattack, Guards motor, and IS-2, with sometimes Advanced Warfare. And in practice almost every game you either take the IS-2 or ISU, or both if double Soviets. All the other doctrines I barely see at all because they grant no late game power or no Shock troops. And unless you spam the hell out of Maxims, you basically need Shocks to stand a chance against a decent OKW player. I don't think I've even seen a Guards squad since WFA hit, people get the doctrine for the T-34/85.
And yes, I would be in favor of the 2nd Soviet building in a tier to cost less. So if you built T3, T4 costs, say, 80 fuel instead of a whooping 120. It's still an investment, but at least you aren't forced to get only 2 buildings for the whole game. |
To hear people speaking of the Stuka, you'd think it launches six tactical nuclear missiles that automatically destroy a screen's worth of support weapons without fail and without any sort of warning. Sometimes it fails spectacularly, killing a total of six crewmen while shooting at 4 perfectly lined up weapon teams or infantry blob.
Anything mobile / garrisoned that gets hit by it I'd say is not on the Stuka but on the receiving player. Static weapon teams though...
In my experience I can actually predict when a barrage is due if I keep my eye on the clock. If ~2 minutes passed from the previous barrage, and the enemy has sight on my positions (a firefight breaks out, or I am shelling with 2 mortars which are in proximity to one another, or a flare / scoutplane is launched etc.)... it is actually possible to dodge the worst of the barrage provided you move as soon as you hear the sound (Allied MGs especially pack up super fast, AT guns are a different matter but ultimately doable).
I consistently get more kills with Infantry support guns throughout the game than with Stukas. As I said before, obviously the problem with the Stuka is the shock value - it's not that it kills more than other artillery, it's that it has more of an alpha strike, resulting in more squad wipes than other artillery. I have no problems with this within the framework of the OKW faction. For example, Obersoldaten have an accuracy bonus versus retreating troops. This tells me that the faction appears to be designed to not only have uber veterans, but also have more ways to rid the enemy of veterans. This might be broken design, might not be - not mine to say.
But as I said, it is the most expensive rocket arty in the game, with the longest cooldown in the game, in a fuel starved faction (meant to have few, but effective, units). What do you want from it?
It's very much bad design. Squad wipes (of full health squads, I mean) should always be preventable, or cost a lot for what it does. Support powers squad wiping, or shots costing lots of ammo from units on the map, yeah not that big of a problem since you can see it coming and it's a hefty resource expenditure from your opponent. Demo charges need a long setup time and can be seen and shot. Stuka is the most expensive arty in the game, but also the most mobile (try moving a Katyusha around), the toughest, the most accurate, and the only one that has a concentrated barrage as a default rather than a 60+ ammo ability. It's not like you don't get what you pay for and then some.
No it doesn't destroy entire armies each shot. But one destroyed AT gun and any other wiped squad and it pays for itself, because you can't afford that level of attrition later in the game. It's also supremely hard to take down considering it moves fast, can take a bit if a beating and the OKW usually has a good defensive setup, including the flak truck which is a giant no-infantry, no light vehicle zone. Counter-barrage is also useless thanks to its mobile nature. As someone said, a suicide T-34 is the only viable counter unless your opponent(s) has built no AT whatsoever, and that's just stupid, not to mention not likely to work.
I would have no problem with the Stuka being powerful and more durable artillery. But its spread needs to be increased so that it wipes less squads. Or make its current barrage an ammo cost ability, and give it a wider one Panzerwerfer style for its free attack. |
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Apart from a small cost increase, I'm pretty sure the E8 doesn't need a nerf. It's a powerful, doctrinal medium tank, sure, and the armor is sweet, but 640 HP leaves not a look of margin for errors. Maybe reduce its AI power a bit.
The vet 2 rifles off the bat, well that's a bigger problem. IMO the doctrine should give you vet 1 rifles, with no additional XP, out of the gate at the price of a cost increase, maybe to 320 MP or something like that. It still gives you the smaller, more powerful army flavor without allowing to unleash the rifle's vet 2 bonuses that early on.
I'm fine with a AA HT nerf by all means but I'd like US early game to be less one-dimensional. You pretty much have no choice but to go 3x rifles then LT, unless you get assault engineers (for some reason) or an early ambulance. Rear echelons are fairly worthless until late game when you need repairs. |
Yah! As if it would be the only unit in COH2 capable of squad wiping. Soviets can have that, but when it comes to OKW, they are not allowed to squad wipe.
Only Soviet unit that can do it reliably is the ISU which is doctrinal, direct fire, slow as hell, has a much smaller AoE, and costs more than twice as much.
The ISU is also widely considered overpowered. You cannot say it is, then say the zu fuss is fine. Not without being hugely biased at any rate. |
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The problem is not the blob-countering potential; the problem is the squad-wiping potential. This thing can very, very easily obliterate lone squads that are out capping or somesuch. Engineers, conscripts, shock troops, paratroopers, nothing can survive a concentrated barrage if RNG allows it. And that's just pure bullshit, unless one is supposed to counter a two-click barrage with moving all their infantry at once.
Yes, it's expensive, blah blah blah. It's still way too powerful, especially compared to conventional artillery that hits way less hard had gives you much more warning while not being much less expensive (the Priest for example). it's area of effect needs to be increased. Buff its penetration to compensate, it seems to not do much to vehicles. |
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I feel they could use a bit of a bump somewhere. For 360 MP doctrinal infantry that needs an upgrade to be useful, they feel kinda lackluster, at least compared to the beastly Shocks. The PTRS is very underwhelming and can barely damage anything bigger than a halftrack. Button is useful, but without it their usefulness vs vehicles is very limited. Their AI is decent, but in the WFA meta of elite infantry with crazy long range DPS (1919 rifles/paras, Obers, panzerfusiliers, jaegers ect.) I feel they cannot really compete anymore.
It doesn't help the doctrines that have them usually aren't the very best. |
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