Profile of Spetznova

As long as we're on the subject of how much conscript abilities cost, does anyone know why you have to pay to unlock their anti-tank grenade and molotov? I would assume it's to make up for the fact that they don't require their own building, but it seems a bit unreasonable to charge so much for each of the upgrades - because honestly the abilities are the only reason to use conscripts, since they do so little damage otherwise. It's been bugging me because I'm trying to use fewer conscripts recently (1-2 squads), but in the end it doesn't really save much money since you still need to buy the upgrades for the conscripts to have any value. It would be more reasonable if the abilities also unlocked for penal squads, at least the anti-tank grenade.

As for oorah, I'm surprised they didn't try a smaller price increase first. Doubling its cost was a drastic change, and I honestly think it's overpriced now. Oorah already has a significant drawback built in, since it prevents the units from firing at all while moving.

I'm really disappointed though that there isn't an upgrade to make conscripts better in the lategame, like BARs in vCOH - and even the doctrinal PPSHs are outclassed by the standard LMG upgrade. Soviets are pushed to make a bunch of these conscript squads so they can throw AT grenades to disable tanks (though that function just got nerfed in a huge way), but they don't really have any further value and simply end up as fodder once LMGs and PGs hit the field.

I think it's fine as it is now, it's a doctrinal ability that can be countered by another doctrinal ability, and it lasts significantly shorter than the British button did. Plus it's a lot easier to break now.

From a plausibility standpoint, I do wonder why the tank can't move when the vision slit is broken from gunfire - and yet he can suddenly move perfectly fine when everything gets obscured in smoke.

On a more relevant note, I think it's pretty silly that button (40 muni) is canceled by an ability that costs less than half as much (panzer smoke 15 muni), especially since the guards require a 60 muni initial investment on top of that. I honestly don't think button should be cheaper, but panzer smoke is underpriced in my opinion. That's why you see it used all the time, since honestly when wouldn't you pay 15 muni to probably save your tank? Now it only costs 5 muni more than oorah fer christ sake.

The nerf to Oorah was huge, increasing its cost by 100%. The fact that infantry arms fire is still so weak means it will be even harder to flank and punish aggressive MG42 play. Consequently, Soviet players are likely to go T1 to get M3s or snipers to counter the MG42s (or possibly mortars instead, but they kill too slowly to be viable), and then the Germans will bring out the 222s to counter those. Of course this was happening to an extent before the patch, but the 222 buff and to a smaller extent the oorah nerf make it all the more likely.

If I recall correctly, in that Propagandacast the German player didn't make any P4s - so the SU85 wasn't necessary in the first place. Maybe it's just that I don't see it that often, but the T34/Stug dynamic is more interesting to watch than the P4/SU85 dynamic.