But again. What are chances that one of those 3 shells will land perfectly on a squad and wipe? Quite low..
Regular shells, both auto and barrage, pretty well vs units in yellow cover because everyone clumps up. For some reason they have much less scatter than HEAT.
Of course if you get hit by HEAT in cover, you're probably dead. Obviously it's either RNG or you've moved the pack howie up closer.
And how many heat shells pack howie shoots? 3? Now add huge scatter and chances for wiping stuff will be lower than 1%.
I'm not going to post the stats because they're so readily available, but everyone readily ignores them, but pack howies and ISGs have less scatter than their mortar counterparts that also have a similar number of shells per barrage.
Trenches have been made cheaper, but they no longer remain under the players control when garrisoned. Players can no longer leave these unattended and expect to retake them at a moment's notice while their opponent must spend time destroying the trench with AT or flamethrowers.
-Manpower cost from 50 to 25.
-Now reverts ownership to neutral when de-garrisoned.
Tank Commander
Reduced some of the bonuses provided by the tank commander. Previously they were too high for an upgrade that costed very little. This mainly targets the detection and veterancy gain.
-Veterancy bonus from 1.2 to 1.1.
-Camouflage Detection increase from 20 to 10.
Churchill Crocidile (Thanks to Mr. Smith for idea and implmentation)
The Crocidile now has its main gun as the primary weapon while the flamethrower receives attack commands. The Flamethrower can now be toggled to either obey attack commands or ignore them. Removed the flame sweep weapon and placed some of the stats to the regular flamer. Will do some adjustments afterwards depending on feedback.
-Toggle ability added allowing the Flamethrower to no longer receive attack commands or obey them.
-Flamesweep weapon removed.
-Flamer damage from 10 to 12.
-Regular flame range from 25 to 30.
OKW
ISG 75mm
Modified the ISG's veterancy while re-introducing a new version of the Hollow Charge Rounds ability.
-Veterancy 2 modifiers to 0.75 reload on Barrages.85 on Auto-Fire while smoke range increased by 33%.
-Veterancy 1 1.05 range boost to Hollow Charge. A single hollow Charge round is fired at a single target area and deals 120 damage to armoured vehicles with 400 penetration. Projectile has very fast speed and no scatter, but does not track vehicles, deals less damage to infantry and has no AOE. Low cooldown.
-Veterancy 5 changed to fire double Hollow Charge Rounds.
Jagdpanzer
Added a delay to the camouflage ability so the Jagdpanzer cannot suddenly disappear when the ability is activated.
-5 Second delay added to the the Jagdpanzer camouflage ability. Speed penalties still occur upon activation.
AEF
Pathfinders
Reduction cost in their reinforce. Previously it was too high for the squad's durability and firepower compared to most other units in the game.
-Reinforce cost from 37 to 32.
Assault Engineers
Reduction cost in their reinforce. Previously it was too high for the squad's durability and firepower compared to most other units in the game.
-Reinforce from 33 to 30.
BARs
There is now a unique version of the BAR for USF elite infantry who pick up the weapon to better emphasize their stats and to make BARs and weapon racks a viable option for elite infantry which is a core USF feature. Units like Panzergrenadier or Obers picking up this BARs also receive the bolstered version.
DPS 0/10/15/20/25/30/35
Regular BAR:
13.9/10.5/8.0/7.0/6.03/5.2/4.4
Elite Infantry BAR:
15.0/12.9/11.0/9.5/7.9/6.5/5.3
Also, for units such as Rangers or Paratroopers picking up the BAR, they gain Assault Fire. Weapon cooldown is decreased along with giving the squad a movement increase for 12 seconds. 35 munitions.
the ISG fire in a semi-low arc. Assaulting the gun piece can be dangerous because it travel in an almost direct arc.
Given its 40 minimum range, and the fact the ISG always needs to fire at a 35 degree angle, minimum, assaulting an ISG isn't that difficult unless you're in a cover-to-cover shoot out, but at that point, all indirect-fire is generally deadly, especially if you're not in heavy cover. It's hardly like the old days where they had a near flat trajectory. The round will always be lobbed in an arc and have a noticeable delay barring any weird stuff like ISGs firing in a near 90 degree angle on some occasions and then missing horribly. Furthermore with a auto-attack range nerf
@Gustybreeze Yes smoke would be very useful alone, but if there is one other change that would need to be added, its the damage vs structures themselves so an ISG would be able to whittle down garrisons sooner if you want them destroyed.
If people are so worried about accuracy, then adjust its scatter slightly so it's actually a piece of indirect-fire rather than being this odd sniper cannon that is literally hit-or-miss. Furthermore, with the range reduction, unless you're 24/7 barraging which means you're actually microing, you won't be blasting people as hard from range 100. You can still blast emplacements from a reasonable distance if you barrage and the ISG already has one of the faster cooldowns on its barrage at 30 seconds which is counting down the moment it starts.
As for the AOE, that can always be tuned, but the ISG's drop-off shouldn't be so harsh where anything outside of a direct hit is not noticeable at all.
Currently the ISG is in my opinion, terrible unit with its current purpose mainly being to blast British emplacements from a safe distance and be an annoyance that can generally be overlooked. Furthermore it requires a specific tier structure to get access to in a tier that has major issues clearing structures and dealing with entrenched infantry and forces Volks or other infantry to do the heavy lifting.
To compound this, with the ISG being ineffective at its role, it leads to the faction having massive issue versus entrenched opponents and HMG teams manpower-wise as their non-heavy, non-fuel based indirect-fire cannot reasonably clear those units or force them to retreat unless they're clumped to the point where an SU-85 shell could kill everyone or you're waiting a good minute for the ISG to do its jobs.
Below I'm going to list a number of issues and post my solutions to solve them, though we will start with the single nerf before going onto the buffs the unit should get.
ISG Auto-Fire
ISG have a slow rate of fire outside of barrage, but they require almost no input due to their long auto-fire range. If the ISG were to be buffed, it needs to have more micro required to be effective to avoid it from just becoming a mortar emplacement when set-up around a truck when given no player input.
With the upcoming buffs we'll be talking about, the ISG, will be quite effective when microed properly as the barrage recharges quickly which would maintain its 100 range base.
Solution: Auto-Fire from 100 to 80.
ISG AOE
The ISG's AOE is probably one of the worst the game for indirect-fire to compensate for its range and scatter to the point where the unit barely does any damage outside of direct hits. The AOE drops-off very quickly and its AOE radius isn't particularly good so you end up with the ISG really needing direct/near-direct hits on infantry to actually cause damage.
Here's the comparison:
Ostheer 81mm Mortar AOE
Near Distance: 1
Mid Distance: 0.5
Far Disance: 0.25
Near AOE: 1
Mid AOE: 2
Far AOE: 3
AOE Area: 4
ISG 75mm AOE
Near Distance: 1
Mid Distance: 0.4
Far Disance: 0.2
Near AOE: 0.75
Mid AOE: 1.5
Far AOE: 2.25
AOE Area: 3
From this, the ISG reaches its Mid AOE sooner and reaches its maximum damage limit far more quickly as well. Its OHK radius is also smaller than a standard mortar along with the radius in general.
I have no issue with the ISG having worse AOE given its accuracy/scatter, but I do have an issue with how it drops-off. To make the ISG be more consistent, it should have a slower taper-off to its far AOE and a bump to its mid AOE to match mortars. Its OHK radius barely changes and it still doesn't deal massive damage, but it can at least have noticeable AOE effects, something indirect-fire needs to hit infantry formation or forcing weapon teams to relocate sooner. A slight AOE boost should also aid in the ISG being able to splash hostile infantry.
Furthermore, the ISG's AOE profile does not follow the standard mortar shells. They are set to HE Shells which have a far greater penalty versus mortar shells meaning the ISG has a major issue destroying buildings which OKW has issues with outside of using Stukas or grenading it to death. If the ISG cannot harm or level structures, then you're better off using flame grenades to clear the building out in a more timely manner or even stolen mortars.
Solution:
-AOE Distance profile from 0.75/1.5/2.25 to 0.75/2/3.5
-AOE from 3 to 3.5.
-Building Damage Profile to match Mortars.
Smoke Rounds
Outside of Pumas, and Ober Vet 1 grenades which can harm you if you enter the cloud, OKW has absolutely no ability to smoke-off areas to let their troops assault defensive positions. Almost every other faction has some way to fire smoke without throwing a vehicle in front of the line, so why not let the ISG have smoke rounds? OKW is generally an aggressive early-mid, yet they lack one of the most vital tools to perform this task.
Solution:
The ISG should fire anywhere between 3-5 smoke rounds with a reasonable or even short cooldown to allow OKW to push defensive lines or just having that utility.
Veterancy
I'll be brief on this as this a general OKW thing in general with their 5 veterancy levels, but the ISG needs its veterancy reworked. Currently it has defense/speed boosts for a unit that does not operate at the front/near the front. Maybe it did in Alpha, but it definitely does not work that way now.
If anything, the ISG should have gotten Hollow Charge rounds at veterancy 1 which works like a Targeted ability where the ISG fires a single round at the vehicle at long-range. The rest of its veterancy can then be adjusted either to match indirect-fire units, or shifting it so its actual offensive boosts come earlier with the defenses coming last as the little extra from veterancy 4 and 5 or giving it need ability at rank 4 and 5.
TLDR: Buff ISG AOE, give smoke, lower auto-fire range.
Anyways feel free to leave your opinions and comments so we can discuss this. And please note discuss, not random tantrums please, simply because a unit got buffed/changed.
SturmTigerN.W.Fresh
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Relic Entertainment
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