Wehrmacht Sniper op now?

The counter-play is to not stand still under mortar fire. I don't see what is wrong with the concept of using a mortar to deal with snipers. It seems to me that this would be an ideal way to deal with a long range unit. And this is what we see with Axis indirect fire against the Soviet Sniper: A direct hit will always kill the sniper (unless a pathing error forced them to split up, which does not happen often), and shells landing near them will often score kills as well due to the fact that they have low model health and mortars have pretty good AoE. I don't see what is wrong with Ostheer snipers getting killed on direct hits as well. When there are explosives raining from the sky, snipers should be terrified, but at the moment the axis sniper can just troll right through them because he can catch a shell with his mouth and still survive. With 80 hp he will still survive the AoE damage (unlike soviet snipers), but now mortars, grenades and rockets actually pose a lethal threat against him.

Hm. I don't agree. Even if you do constantly move - which does not by any means reliably protect you btw - I am not comfortable with the idea that the preservation of your 360 mp investment and possibly the game hinges on so much dumb luck. What I would like to see in order to deal with snipers is either to A: Catch him out of position and run down with light vehicle, or B: Set up conventional infantry flank centered on him with the goal of cutting off his retreat path. Both worked (too) well last patch IMHO, but the fundamental mechanic is sound and rewards good positioning on both side of the aisle. Then of course there is also the classic vcoh countersnipe as an option. A lucky mortar bomb landing on ones head (or not)is just too random, not to mention stuff like stray Pschreck/Zook shots etc...

Haven't played much COH2 this patch, and what I have, was mostly as Ostheer because they are the coolest. Just my fair warning that the following should be taken with a pinch of salt.

But I always liked using the Ost sniper before the patch, to my mind, he had 3 issues in 1's.

1. Fragile as feck, now he is more like two grens rolled into one with great camo, so that is pretty much a non issue anymore.

2. The sniper original design with the relationship between the Ost Sniper and Soviet sniper teams. 2 man sniper teams were a poor choice imo and too tough to kill, the Ost sniper got some significant benefits to try and offset this, and now has a similar health pool, albeit more vulnerable to counter sniping. So now both sniper variants are pretty tough for what you would think as a pretty fragile unit type.

3. Large map sizes and the resource system in COH2 promotes aggressive capping pretty hard, so snipers have to put in a good shift to earn their bread, which for snipers, is killing infantry and causing a constant manpower drain. A tougher Ost sniper means you can take more risks and keep him popping off modals for longer. But if you invest in an early sniper, you are sacrificing map and resources for an investment in winning the manpower war long term. Snipers of either variant still require support in close enough proximity, thus you concede map early on.

Which leads me on to the natural solution that I used as Ostheer in the past vs soviet snipers, spam infantry and cap, cap, cap. Then out tech your opponent. I imagine soviets with cons can do a similar job. Not so sure about USF, their tech structure and economy is a bit wonky that way.

I'll have to play more to test out the balance, but whilst I think snipers of both original factions are too durable now, I think we should wait a bit to make a judgement as for allot of players, this will be the first time people really see the Ostheer sniper on a regular basis and an adjustment period is fairly inevitable.

On a side note, I used the Ostheer sniper with the encirclement doctrine the other day. Fairly mediocre commander, but the Ost sniper with sprint was racking up kills like no one's business as I was constantly using it to sprint forward for shots or to backpaddle and not have to retreat. Ala the old soviet sniper when they had sprint, except the Ost sniper fires faster and cloaks better! I think Relic perhaps forgot that trick when they took away the Soviet sniper sprint.