Profile of EtherealDragon

M3 half-truck can be given to allies, while keeping the assault engineer crew. Giving an M3 to Soviet player for instance allows viable reinforcement and healing anywhere on the map, that can create a number of issues.

Actually M3 has very little reason to the only half-truck to provide healing in the first place.

How often does this happen though? You're assuming A) A highly coordinated AT B) A willingness to use Mechanized in a Team Game C) That healing crates pushes M3 into OP territory over the Soviet just building their own M5.

I'm sure there are probably more random games out there where this will never even happen so that eliminates a lot of the worry. Even if the gifted M3 was OP then Mechanized as a whole is still a pretty trashy commander whose best aspect the Mortar HT is getting nerfed this patch also - so the USF teammate would more or less be gimping themselves. Even-even then, field healing outside of Tommy medkits is very rarely used in my experience both playing and watching casts. Nobody wants to dump medkits in an area they might have to retreat from and waste munitions on medkits the enemy can steal. It's just very much a non-issure and far from the most concerning thing about this patch.

General Reactions by Faction

OST

200 MP for new buffed 222 is - it's going to be the 444 - 666 patch all over again. Particularly against Brits - which will shoehorn their builds into AEC or AT Sections I fear.

Panther armor to 260 is "interesting" - I understand that mediums will need to be able to Pen it easier with it's extra health and nerfed TD Popcap but will be one of those changes that will need to be tested extensively and likely tweaked.

Rest were all nerfs to units generally considered to be over-performing. I'm also kind of curious how G43 escaped changes. And *Pet Cause* CAN WE PLEASE CHANGE TIGER ACE.

UKF

I fear for Brits in 1v1. Mostly nerfs to a faction who have had all their OP stuff methodically nerfed in all of the recent patches. Ouch. I worry Infantry Sections (and upgrades) were overnerfed - not sure how they will compete with Elite Infantry in the midgame. Mortar Pit buff is only silver lining as Brits sorely need the help with indirect fire. I'm not sure if balance team thought through the barrage time reduction and how that will stack with garrison bonus. **Pet Cause** We can haz viable Artillery Regiment plz?

USF

Pretty much all no-brainer changes. Pak Howie and Mortar changes are very welcome as 60 range mortar was so absolutely aggravating to use on certain maps where 80 range mortars could camp behind shot blockers but you had to go out in open to counter barrage. I don't think Greyhound was overperforming vs. vehicles but seeing as how it's supposed to be primarily AI I can't argue against that too much. Edit- Clusterbombs were nerfed? I personally think it's already a pretty bad ability.

SOV

Mostly nerfs - can't argue given how much of a boon they got from December Patch. +1 to PPSH nerf being kind of iffy - it does make the upgrade seem not very attractive now.

OKW

Good stuff all around - hoping this will equal out the viability of BG and Mech. ISG Buff is welcome but I'll probably hate it when playing against Truck City campers.

Mortars and Snipers

Honestly I think these changes are game changers (pun intended) and look pretty great on paper. Garrisons should be a lot less dominating on certain maps and you'll properly be rewarded for hard countering them with snipers and mortars. Likewise you'll be rewarded for barrage micro with Vet 3 Mortars, awesome! .9 Yellow cover means not more cheesy full health wipes due to bunching behind "cover" like you are supposed to (honestly I think this should be applied to grenades too). Just to be clear - The Vet 2 Accuracy bonus on mortars is for auto attack scatter right? Patch notes made it sound like it was barrage accuracy but honestly it's hard to tell with tool tips. Not sure how I feel about removing auto attack scatter (just removing/reducing the many mortar bulletins to prevent stacking abuse might be sufficient)

I'd say map dependent - on maps that are more closer quarters/lots of green cover/garrisons then STGs are more viable. Also against certain builds (PPSH Cons, Shock Troops, Commandos, etc.) where STGs are much more effective at negating the benefits gained by heavy SMG use. Even then - LMG34 is so good at bursting down models/support weapons that you're never going to regret getting that either; which is why you probably don't see a lot of STGs.

Unfortunate I'm going to remove heavy cav it seems. I've always found the pershing very useful but I was a major user of the double tap, which is now gone. I do love E8 spam though since those tanks are IMO OP for their fuel investment. Flares I love as well as fireup, just don't like the debuff of fireup. WP barrage I havn't been able to find extremely useful in 1v1, but I may try it eventually to cover advance on schwer HQs or pak walls as suggested.

One of my favorite uses of WP Barrage is for OKW truck city turtlers - it can be game ending if you drop it on their forward retreat point/ ISG battery and then follow up with mortar/pak howie pressure and/or Sherman dive and clean up with pintle .50 cal fire. Flares are also a godsend for Flak HQ sieges with AT Guns, Flare + 2X AT Gun = gone in seconds.

Personally I've been struggling with whether to have both Airborne and Recon in my loadout - I feel like it has too much overlap but I like the flexibility to go either Recon + LT or Capt + Airborne and cover myself with Support Weapon Drops either way. Just not sure which one I would take out if I wanted to add a different commander.

If anything this would be even more of a nerf to Panther - slower and higher HP (cough cough Churchill) doesn't really do much in the game. A slower Panther is just fodder for TDs and more HP doesn't help at all because of the high Pen Allied TDs have.

Panther should have an easier time bullying vanilla medium tanks because it's supposed to hard counter them. Even then most people would say that Panther is underperforming for it's cost (mostly due to it's RoF).