Profile of GGnore

OP makes very good points and speaks from experience in higher tiers of gameplay. ISU is a huge bully in teamgames and its ability to wipe retreating vet3 full health squads at 70 range is absurdly frustrating, and as he also points out, requires next to 0 input from the player in terms of micro to pull it off. Let's not forget it nullifies its only logical counters as well, AT guns, thus forcing a player to pick Ele or JT just to have a CHANCE to counter it (doesn't guarantee jack.) A single T34 supporting that ISU-152 and you can bet your Heavy TD is getting rammed down its throat whenever it tries to engage said ISU, then donkey-punched by the rest of the Allied players' entire army.

Dropping standard HE range to 55 or 60 (I think AT guns are 60, right?) would help a lot with the incredible abuse an ISU can lay down without even being micromanaged. It doesn't necessarily have to be as low as 50, but it definitely is waay too long right now. This thing has no real counters that aren't buried deep in a doctrine, and even those are soft counters, there is no hard counter. It destroys pretty much everything available non-doctrine from Axis period.

This guy gets it. It should be powerful, its a end of tree heavy tank but its current 0 input wipe machine status does not belong in the current version of the game, if it had 50 range on the he barrage it could still drive into pak range and take it out if you leave it there but you have a chance to get it out alive and keep its veterency.

Someone else suggested giving both ammo types 60 range and changing its aoe profile, it would help but unless you nerf its frontal armor its still going to be immune from return fire from anything outside of a ele.

If your enemy is that well dug-in with slow units, take your fast panthers and support your allies on the other side of the map for a quick victory on that side of the map and then push back on the slow Soviet player with your teammates.

Alternatively, you can first focus down the SU85 since the ISU will be reloading anyway and then assess if you should pull back or keep on fighting.

I'm sorry that there is no 1-unit A-move solution for defeating a dug in enemy, but that just isn't how the game works.

Your argument holds no weight because the ISU is the definition of a do it all A-move unit, with a spotter its literally the only unit in the game you could attack move across the map, stopping only to change ammo types and snipe both infantry and tanks without receiving any damage due to its 70 range, and unless there a elefant on the map or you dive with a expensive panther horde that's what it does.

If it keeps its 70 range for at rounds and 50 for HE there is a clear way to approach taking the ISU down.

If it had 70 range HE shells and 50 range AT rounds it would be clear how to kill it.

At least the tigers & is2's have to come into return fire and snare range to fuck your infantry & tanks up.

Right now its a combination of the old sturmtiger wiping your units out of the FOW and a elefant.

Brumbar is the unit similar to the isu and is balanced by having weaknesses, none of which the isu has. My point with the panther is, its the only nondoc unit able to pen it and its so expensive to get that its incredibly hard to counter.

When facing a ele you shift your army more towards infantry and its nullified, when facing ISU thats not an option.

The Isu-152 being able to fire high explosive shells to out to the same range as it's armor piercing shells(70) is a relic from earlier iterations of the game where the ele was non doc from wehr and the jt could pierce world objects. Thankfully both of those are gone but the Isu one shotting vetted rakettens and high vet squads from the fog of war remains and it is by far the most cancerous thing in team games 2v2 & up.

There have been so many positive changes to prevent cheesy units wiping squads and deleting veterancy over the years but this one slips through the cracks every patch cycle somehow. It forces one player on your team to always pick breakthrough doc or ele and its tiresome to pick a doctrine to potentially counter one unit while the isu counters your entire army and promotes stale and cheesy game play where the sov player will eventually amass a isu and 2 su85s with focus sight so spot for it with there 75 sight range(which in itself is absurd) and shocks/guards 7 man cons to screen and then just creep forward deleting every squad/team weapon or tank in front of it.

The only comparable unit, the brumbar fires a slow projectile that will miss squads at long range unless you anticipate there movement with attack ground which creates a large micro tax to get the most out of it while the ISU's projectile travels the same speed as a regular tank shell so it can hit moving squads at 70 range and requires 0 input or micro to wipe out infantry.

The brum also got some heavy nerfs recently to both armor(260/320 at vet 2 to 240/288 at vet 2) & range(40 to 35) because it could take out at guns frontally wile the isu can do the same from a range the at guns cant even return fire and your counters are ineffective, stugs and jp4s will penetrate 52% of the time since it also has 340 armor which forces you into the extremely expensive panther which is a terrible design choice to force players to spend 185 fuel to hope to penetrate a tank(64% chance even then) while the 3 allied factions spend between 130-145 to hard counter tigers & brums from well out of return fire range

I propose a reduction in the range to at least 50 for the HE rounds so that it at least has to come into range of its one non doc counter, the panther to wipe infantry and at guns or to make it a timed ability or a barrage ability like the JT to promote some counter play.