I normally refrain from commenting on the abilities and units from factions haven't played in a while, but being on the receiving end of OKW flares I feel its over performing.
There are three main problems with this ability, when compared to other standard recons:
1) There is absolutely no audio cue, green marker flare or green circle to indicate the ability is being used. The flares themselves are also sometimes difficult to spot on maps with white-ish terrain or are too high up in the air to notice. Quite often you don't know you being watched.
2) There is absolutely no way to counter or prevent the flares from providing vision of your position and then getting bombed back to the stone age by indirect and offmaps. For Brits, this is especially nasty as they rely a lot on team weapons and emplacements to get the upper hand.
There is just no risk in using this ability, just click, know where your enemy is and then bombs awway.
3) The cool down on the ability is about non-existent as it starts its cool down while its active. The flares last for about 35 sec, and the cooldown is 60 sec, so you need to wait 25 sec to use it again. Thats a bit much.
In team games, this ability gets used almost non-stop, probably owing to the popularity of the SpecOps commander and the commander not having anything else to really sink your munitions into. Recon and vision is such a powerful tool in this game and an ability that can provide it risk free and almost non-stop vision, in a faction that already has a non-doc maphack is just too much.
Suggested changes? Not sure, but a cooldown nerf and a green marker flare would be nice. Alternatively, swap it for a normal reacon plane.
Brit arty commander gets the sector flares which also can't be countered or have makers but it at least has the severe limit that you can't control where it goes, it only reveals front line sectors at random (some get flared, some do not) so it usually can't be used to reveal rear line fixed arty and has a long cool down.
Hmm how would you change them? A cost increase maybe? Cuz at least their area of effect is much smaller than scout plane and they also dont reveal camouflaged units.
Riflemen probably have the worst cost-efficiency in the game throughout the first 10-15 minutes IMO.
They need to close in vs volks and grens if they want to win the engagement, and by the time you are close enough vs a single squad you already dropped 1, sometimes even 2 models if you are unlucky. Means you may lose the engagement nonetheless. It feels like the only way to go here is to get some lucky early frag grenade hits. (Or hide them behind a sightblocker and wait, but not all maps offer that)
They are really good but only if they have 2 BARs and at least veterancy 2. And that is too much requirements.
Germany
![[NS] aerafield flag](/images/replay/okw_flag.jpg)
Relic Entertainment
