Profile of Descolata

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Did its suppression work? Or did it just murder the infantry?

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That super late game is due to super efficient, effective, forgiving, late game units vs enemies who can't punish it. USF and UKF die to the elite infantry blob, high impact, forgiving heavy armor, and shock artillery. Soviets do too, but they at least have a chance even if the Katy is mediocre.

If we really want to do that, there's super easy changes that basically fix the issue. These can't and won't happen, but if you really wanted to shift late game, make a few of them. From most-to-least impact:

1. Make LM and Calliope non-doc and change LM rockets to Calliope rockets (LM rockets suck, seriously). Lack of shock artillery makes late game Axis blobs annihilate Allies, while Axis shock artillery bleed Allies. Sanders said this was vetoed. Really should happen. Sanders snuck LM into another commander I believe, and everyone is still just going to keep playing Urban Assault as USF in big team.

2. Increase penetration on all allied HTD by 20ish%. Heavy armor is now dramatically less forgiving and Vet 2 P4s get penetrated guaranteed. The Firefly can't guarantee pen the OKW P4. Someone was complaining about P4 vs Calliope sometimes not penning... Twas vetoed.

3. Decrease Lethality of all Axis Explosive Weapons. Seriously, slap OHK radius on everything. Make P4 no longer consistently pop models first shot. They have a sizable advantage in OHK tools except vs the Calliope (notice the complaining) and the B-4 (le Meme cannon). The P-4 is a better Sherman that doesn't need to swap ammo. Not gonna start with the leFH, thank god CB is gone. I'm waiting for the explosives rework, but not really expecting anything.

3. Increase the pop cost of generalist units. Panther counts, it has enough AI to force retreats. Suddenly relative TD efficiency shoots up. Add 2 pop cost to all generalists. Now getting 2 panthers costs 40 pop instead of 36.

4. Remove MGs from Panther. Its now a TD, not a heavy tank and is now hard countered by Super Zooks instead of MGing them to death and AT guns can't be circle strafed. Ain't gonna happen, Panther is iconic in its current very forgiving form.

5. Remove retreat from Raketen. Its a high damage, long range Pschreck team in application, not an AT gun. I don't see people blobbing 3 Paks like I do Raks. Otherwise, crank its RA up to 1.25 so it actually dies when shot at, like all other AT guns.

6. Move SZF behind Panzer authorization. This mostly stops dumb cheese. Everyone has to deal with early entrenchment without their shock arty.

Map-wise, we need new maps. More Hill 400 style maps with more width than depth. Spread out the bases need be. There needs to be ACTUAL space to flank. The Express maps need the bases moved closer 10-20% on both sides. It takes too long to get into the fight.

Make any of these changes and Axis will lose more often late game. Change #1 would massively shift the dynamic.

PATCH DAY!

That makes sense honestly. It seems like the balance devs wants the Vickers to be a bad HMG for a reason then. UKF early game strength is with the IS

... yes, that's why the UKF meta for ages was 4 IS and body enemy inf till LVs, but IS are expensive, predictable, and dont have a snare. So they keep trying to nerf IS and provide other options, but the other options are horrificly undertuned. Assault Officer (he has no approach vector), T0 Ro.E (still unhappy about vet1 cover requirement), Sniper (slowest reload time of any sniper, and doesnt do shit to vehicles anymore while still being full price). The other early game crutch was the Bren Carrier. Nerfing that (its basically manditory vs OKW) made UKF take longer to tech and extend its LV vulnerable period. Which is fixed by the manditory AEC, as their other AT options are either too expensive or too immobile.

They need to make Ro.E not suck out the gate (bolster, I hate you), the Vickers not a garbage HMG, and give UKF some kind of actual, not super bleedy, early game tool for dealing with MGs. Not Pyro, as that costs 70 munis for your first smoke call down, which has equal range to an MG 42, so you can't smoke the actual gun without getting suppressed.

The recovery engineer change, the snare cd change, and the addition of a LOT more 81mm mortars are attempts to do just that.

The problem is, a good long range mainline, good T0 HMG, and engis to protect it is literally OST early game. The 6 lber is already a Pak 40 clone.

Well that's awfully strange cause the guides I read about HMG34 said it was worse than the HMG42 in every way

Every way except for Suppression, the only way that matters.

The VICKERS is just a worse MG42.