Profile of EtherealDragon

+1 to Miragefla

Its mostly about them being cost prohibitive and the risk/reward of them being 1 shotted by an offmap (especially in team games) resulting in them currently being not worth it. A token fuel cost in exchange for MP makes sense (it's what relic did for Land Mattress).

I'm kind of intrigued by Brad's suggestion to drastically reduce price but also reduce range to promote more forward building of Howies. It would make them more accessible AND more effective due to the reduced scatter of being closer. I don't think it would solve the problem but it's a good starting point to think from.

Totally OT, but Mr. Smith should totally write a "How to make a Balance Thread" guide that is required reading before you can create a post there.

The more and more I play COH2 the more I am beginning to dislike the game. I have already posted about rifle nades insta gibbing squads (or bringing them down to little to no health making them easily wiped out by the attacking squad) but why the removal of snipers and flame units? It seems that the only way to remove someone who masses MG squads is by constantly throwing away 60-90 munitions per since it railroads you into going grenades.....is there a more cost effective way to deal with an opponent who just spams MG squads?

Historically US didn't train Snipers... aside from that Relic purposefully designed WFA factions to not have Snipers and Flamers like the Vanilla factions, just doctrinal pseduo-Snipers AKA Pathfinders and JLI for OKW. USF never had flamers either aside from Rifle Company (which still has them on RE).

Regarding HMGs you have to get used to flanking (purposefully spread out your units and attack from multiple angles). You have the right idea with smoke but if you can get multiple squads attacking an HMG it'll go down fast. HMGs are often sitting it in predictable locations - hug edges of maps and take non-direct routes. Aside from that going LT for a fast M20 or AAHT can quickly for retreat HMGs off field - if your opponent is building multiple HMGs he has few screening troops or AT. You'll want to get Bazookas soon after for 222s. Another thing to keep in mind is to not bash your head against an HMG wall if you don't have to - cap around it and/or try to cut him off until you have the proper counter.

+1 on using the State office for advice - people tend to not like threads in the balance section that aren't really about balance

T-34 is soviet late - Panther is Axis late. Panther is dominating - T-34 is expendable shit.

That's what I call - "B(!)alance"

Panther is also considerably more expensive (especially when you consider OST Teching). Without crunching the numbers I'd assume you can easily get 2.5-3~ T-34s for the cost of one Panther. (assuming both players rush straight for them). In a vacuum that's a pretty fair fight and outside a vacuum both sides have plenty of counters to deal with supporting troops. If you lose the first and/or 2nd T34 before the Panther arrives and then find yourself on the backfoot to superior armor thats more about your unit preservation than balance.

The thing with Rifle nades is that half the battle is anticipating when they are likely to be used against you. Once you get used to that they become much easier to dodge. My general rule of thumb is if I have a "I would rifle-nade me right now" thought I have that squad selected and ready to dodge just in case. I do wish the animation was a bit more obvious though compared to other faction's wind-up animations.