Its similar, but little different situation really.
You can skip T2 and get DSHK.
DSHK also arrives later.
If MG42 call-in is still 1CP, then we have superior weapon which arrives earlier then stock one as you most likely won't put up a truck before 3rd minute and will unlock MG34 regardless of which truck you build first.
I honestly haven't paid attention to CP of it(was playing elite ops and scavenge on preview), so someone who has used it can confirm its CP value.
3CP
It's certainly a replacement for the 34 but not in a timely manner. If you pick the doc you have to be judicious with the amount of 34's you make knowing that you will likely be replacing them. |
I appreciate the devs walking through their intentions.
Having to take Penals seriously is new and sort of weird. They are deceptively tough when they are down to 2 guys and can make really short work of a fight you thought was totally in your favor about 2 seconds ago.
Taking T34's seriously as well is also a bit of a change. Usually you can ignore them in favor of better targets but now they are much more of a priority. 2-3 T34's + an ISU is actually quite a good armoured force late game.
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When volks did not have a snare it was FAR easier to just yolo a T34/Crom/What have you into them and push/crush as best you could. This was a completely viable way to punish a blob.
There were times where this was utterly frustrating horse shit but they were rare. Eg : My infantry get out of a building at the wrong time and are rundown by a stray P4. While frustrating I could have easily avoided the situation by using another door.
Don't blob and if a tank is doing the dance to crush your squad it's time to retreat. If you don't like that there's not much that can be done for you. Unless you just walked around the corner at the wrong time and lost a squad there is usually a good bit of warning that's what hes going for. |
I've been playing the mod more with some friends and my over all observation of the rak is that it's closer inline with what other ATGs are while being a lighter version.
At vet 1 it is better than it was previously because you can hide lure in vehicles with its newfound range and firing arc.
The direct comparison to soviet AT dynamics I think is flawed. Cons DO provide much the same service as volks (snare) for the AT gun to finish the target. Soviets can get their own (better) version of PanzerJaeger with a call in (which is almost like a tech choice in the Soviet tree) to help supplement those particularly pesky vehicles which are always just out of reach of the ATG even snared.
While locking a soviet player into a doc to get Guards is a pretty heavy investment, there are ALOT of docs with Guards to choose from and they are likely to be picked anyway.
Locking an OKW player into Medtruck is less of an investment (you were likely going to build it just for the healing later) and is a direct tech choice. They also get a much diminished form of Guards for nearly the same price. They are not an efficient option if you don't NEED them early game. You could have gotten a rak killed for example and you are being overwhelmed by light vehicles.
A good example of this is as a Soviet player using double penal car into Guard car to help deal with the luchs or flak HT you know is going to be coming. A single squad of Jaegers could deter alot of the ballsy run-ins you can get away with right now as Soviet.
Much of the same could be said for an early jeep from the US (not that many folks use it) where it is a complete surprise until you engage it and its maneuverable enough to invalidate a single rak. Your option is to be kited until you can get its pathing to do something dumb and then faust.
Yes, Fausts help and if they drive at you and don't kite the faust is SUPER cost efficient but if they kite you're kinda out of luck unless you can make it walk into your rak's line of fire.
Ultimately I don't think they are a make or break unit, just something that would make the tier more attractive and reduce the overt effectiveness of some particular openers vs OKW. |
They tried that a little bit. They significantly lowered the accuracy of the shrek to make them less likely to alpha strike light vehicles into the ground. The issue persisted because of the sheer number of shreks that were likely to be around.
The issue with that was the volume of shreks. If you reduced them further they were individually unsatisfying and bordering on useless. When firing in a 4+ squad pack they were about right but you'd never use them unless in a pack.
As far as handheld AT the mechanics need to be very carefully fine tuned. Shreks came too early, shut down too many options for allied commanders and were over all just a sort of no brainer.
I would look at Guards as a very well balanced unit. They come in at a good time, have decent combat abilities and are generally useful but not in a blobby/spammy way. I think dissection of what makes Guards balanced is key to making hand-held AT useful, unique and balanced. |
What alot of people are neglecting here is that okw in the balance patch get smoke via isg.
Smoke the Bofors, apply nades/Faust. People tend to use them as hard points and if it's not firing people usually don't have enough AI around it to stop you. |
I think you could reduce its damage and have it still be viable. The issue is usually that the atg is going to eat a tonne of damage that it's too slow to avoid.
The suppression effect is fine, it just hits a little hard and people are volks-shrek tier bitter about how easily it's been abused this last little while. |
My understanding is that it's a whole sale import so I will bring in the notes
Raketenwerfer
Now has pinned penalties to match other weapons and a delay on cloak. The delay was to stop Raketens from hiding the moment they see sight of the enemy. Increased the arc and range of the raketen for better field control to engage vehicles due to the lack of panzerschrecks.
-Now has weapon penalties when pinned.
-Added a 6 second delay before the camouflage activate when the ability toggled.
-Arc from 30 to 35.
-Range from 50 to 55.
-Cost from 270 to 300.
-Camouflage now arrives at veterancy 1 with the speed boost in stealth moved to veterancy 4.
The Rak isn't bad. It is prone to getting wiped by AOE but it gets to retreat where other atgs don't.
Ideally it should always be supported by a squad of volks or it should atleast be turning tail to run WITH them should it come up.
I am not suggesting the PanzerJaeger because the Rak isn't doing its job, I'm suggesting it to make the medical truck a more worthwhile investment that helps keep you mobile against things like penals into guard-car which can really ruin a flaktrack's day.
They fill a small niche of mobile, somewhat decent AT early game and later on they can become more useful, the popcap cost means they are going to generally be inefficient compared to a single well used rak. |
Is there a reason the idea is canned so quickly? Not being a dick, just an actual question.
It's been my (limited) experience that the mech truck is the best truck to go with first. There is almost no reason for me to go with a medical truck first, the bleed I'm suffering (usually) isn't terribly high at the point in the game where I am making truck choices as well as it doesn't unlock units that I have a pressing need for.
-The Flaktrack is good, no question but an MG34 is sometimes just as good for what I need. More importantly a flaktrack (unvetted) isn't very durable and offers no help vs that early 70/stuart/aec that you know is coming with the current meta. Yes, I COULD use it to punish penals and shocks and rifles...or I could just build a luchs and wipe the squad.
-The ISG is good, I love that I get smoke now, but isn't something I usually need early on. There are rarely enough MG's to warrant me smoking and assaulting a position rather than just going around.
-The owl is a gimick and I don't even consider it unless I'm already winning.
The Mech truck gives me much better offensive and reactive options.
-Luchs if they decided to run around without AT (Soviets going penals is going to be more popular I'd imagine, LT openingings, boffors emplacements, etc)I am going to punish them. Hard.
-Puma is self explanatory. The early vehicle that they are in all likelihood going to push out is going to get eaten by the Puma pretty handily. As long as I can keep it alive until he gets some mediums out then I am in a pretty good spot.
-Stuka is a weird "maybe" depending what Im up against.
OKW has no lack of AT but all of the options to chase or hunt down armour in the early game are in the mech truck. Hard counters to infantry spam are in the mech truck. Hard counters to emplacements are in the mechtruck...Until I NEED the healing for Obers I don't really need the med truck since volks are so cheap to replace.
So a basic proposition; have the med truck acquire PanzerJaegers
"PanzerJaegers" - 300/8 (3 for the squad, 1 for each individual member)
-Volks stats/Price to reinforce
-Copy pasted PTRS rifles from Guards
-Copy pasted Mosins from Engineers, renamed to their german counterparts.
-Start with the PTRS
-T3 unlocks the upgrade for shreks, they pay 120mu and they trade in their PTRS clones.
300 Cost keeps them as a dedicated "do not build this if there is no armour" unit which is less efficient but more utilitarian than a racketten
Can't spam them, because they're an awful combat squad against infantry. Later on they become even less useful vs infantry if you upgrade the shreks.
Synergizes well with the medical truck (more infantry and all) as well as providing the same basic functionality as guards : finish off/spook light vehicles.
Synergizes well with raks since they are not directionally faced and can turn about to scare off a poorly executed flank. If the T70/stuart is already ontop of your rak the snare from the volks doesn't do much to help it. It has to retreat.
Synergizes with volks-swarms to be their light AT backup. They all benifit from the med truck and they work basically like guards+Conscript teams
Relieves the MU cost of spamming fausts which can get fairly expensive if you've had resource interruptions.
Just a thought. It seems like its the easiest answer to the idea of players wanting to go with an infantry heavy medtruck build that doesn't involve tweaking the Rak to the point of mirroring the dynamics with Conscript AT nades and Zisguns. |
I wouldn't mind two buttons, one for the STGs and one for the PTRS clones. Make them mutually exclusive and there ya go. |