Profile of BasedSecretary

Because this strat is purely about snowballing and winning the game as fast as possible. Rifles and unit combinations are good if you plan to play properly. Pathfinder\airborn meta on the other hand is just plain and simple abuse.

I've watched video op gave, and the guy on the video summed it up pretty good. Basically he said that in order to have a chance to beat this strat, you just need to blob and concentrate your units as much as possible to kick the USF out before the Scotts hit the field, if you dont do this its over.

And as I was saying, path strats wont win you 30+ mins games, but if you allowed enemy to stay in the game using path strats you've failed at it. Premades on the video pretty much mastered this soy strat and games were literally already over for axis around 15 min mark.

On top of that, Airborn provides access to both AT gun\HMG so you are completely free to pick either LT\Cpt or delay them in favour of zooks. Not to mention that by paying 60 muni for support paradrop (AT gun), you save up to 53MP if you crew it with RE, 25MP with Pathfinders, 33MP with rifles, meaning that 4th reinforced model basically comes for free, plus paradrop allowing you to save huge amount of time via skipping building time and getting unit to the front line. It gives way too much flexibility, you see that enemy blobing? You drop 50cal. Enemy goes for LVs? You drop AT gun. Enemy is slacking behind, you dont drop anything and arm yourself with zooks.
And surely as a bonus airborn has access to one of the best Elite Inf in the game and has one of the strongest AT skillplane call-in.

In other words Paths+whole airborn tool kit allows you to just be on top of the enemy pretty much until early late game, if executed right, by the time serious threats hit the field game is basically over anyway.

As for paths performance main argument brought is JLI\Fallshims\PFs. But huge difference here is not even timing and resources required, its the Pop-cap. JLI\Fallshims cant be called at 1 min mark, you cant replace volks from the get go, meaning that even if you want to spam JLI\Fallshims you either have to kill off your volks to free your pop-cap, to be able to actually build something later or somehow play with very few volks squads.

PFs with G43 are cancer, but again you either mix them volks to stay somewhat competitive or you go full house PFs and give enemy an upper hand untill you mass G43s. In 3v3\4v4 they are more problematic, because of unit concentration.

In all honesty I think you are overplaying the power of USF Pathspam.

Yeah sure it's annoying and yeah sure it kinda works (the same way 2 sniper UKF might work) but let's be honest you are going against a faction that has Falls, Obers and flank locking FlakTrack. OST have assault support that instapins any blob for 125 munis and good luck getting your ambu out of there in time to support a regroup. Don't even get me started on Mortar timing, sniper counterplay, Flametrack counterplay.

It's a decent tactic that maybe sometimes plays out. But far far from gamebreaking or "too efficient". The same way Sturmtiger, a single shot casemate that has 40secs reload time, was "too OP". No, it's not.

They are an above average call in. Nothing more and nothing less.

[...]

They are all good points and valid but unfortunately there is no other way for a decent player to go USF. OKW/OST mainlines just shred riflemen. So the USF player must and will go with the doctrine most efficient to him.

Path spam is only dangerous against early game OST. OKW, with their access to sniper JLI fuck them amazingly. Not to mention the kubel play (which apparently you cannot do -no offense- since kubel is paper armor but amazing bleeder). Yeah early game OST has problems, since he invested in an MG to hold ground/make push and at best 1 engie 1 gren until the first 3 paths pop up.

What I usually do against this is go for early sniper (OST have) after 2nd gren and play them toe to toe whilst bleeding them. Sniper vets very fast so after vet1 I spam the incediary ammunition which not only drops a model but stuns the whole squad. 1 MG pushing, 2 grens in green cover, 1 engie spotting and 1 vet1 sniper usually can make the play. After that bring PAK to counter early LV stunts and just tech up after that. Don't go for P4, too weak against zook blob. Go for panther/tiger.

But again I love snipers that's why I incorporate them so much in my games. The same can be done with any decent bleeder like 251 (which again, you must be careful to not get too close). Do remember that Paths have no snares. Hell, even FlameHalftrack could work now that I think about it.

I am all in for that, but first let's make sure to NOT turn every match into a 25minute fight for fuel. Manpower points should be a good first step. Then we talk about modes.

If I could pick one, I would make a "zombie apocalypse" type thingy that you just fight an endless horde of Nazis/Allies and try to make the best score with buddies. Full of choke points etc.

I know there is a mod for that on COH2, but it's complicated because it requires another whole tech structure.

Balance team was too toxic, inconsistanly about their point of view.

Very correct, and it applies to all the non-vanilla factions. Right now all the doctrines suck barring a few which have created the """"meta"""" of a faction. USF is Airborne, UKF is Lend Lease Assault, OKW is JLI one (can't remember) and Breakthrough.

Thank god the vanilla factions keep their good balance and mechanics so they can work regardless of doctrine. One can meme with Festung Support (absolutely useless in almost any game) for OST or Urban Warfare (the one with the fallback point on build) for SOV and nobody bats an eye... try to use Commando or Special Weapons on UKF it's insta gg. Same thing with USF...

I hope COH3 will work better.

I do think it's debatable. Maybe when cons had 3 ptrs while penals only 2 this wasn't debatable.

Is it a squad with useful and more versatile abilities? Certainly. But the better vet and vehicle-locking satchel snare put the penals on par for AT "strength" in my opinion.

True, but cons are dirt cheap and expendable squad. I would much rather have a 240mp squad which I don't really care about throwing in front of tanks and hmgs rather than semi elit Penals that drop like flies. True the mini nuke can work wonders if you can time it properly.