Profile of thedarkarmadillo

Idk I'd like cons to be viable without a weapon upgrade. They are supposed to be the backbone of the Soviet force but every strat is designed around avoiding them like the plague because they are weak to start and don't get any stronger. Weapon upgrade is the easy way but doesn't suit the unit imo.
Id like to see some small bonuses to cons earned as a passive when teching up. They wouldn't match the power levels of the main lines of the other factions but they are not meant to! Soviet are chock full of options that cons COULD help support. Oorah COULD provide a weak AOE buff (this new inspire ability on the kv-2 and kv8 for example) would work well in conjunction with maxims for example, whom themselves are dog shit outside a spam, unable to support themselves let alone weak conscripts. or earn small amounts of shared vet so just being around has benifit. They don't need to be a formidable fighting force but they do need to bring SOMETHING to the fight. You already have 3 combat units fighting for relevance, don't make cons another unit that only lives on the buffs/nerfs of the other 3

93 games were played as USF during GCS.
30 games saw a mortar for a total of 33.

4 games saw it as a 4th unit, 3 games as a 5th unit.

Mortar is dispensable on 1v1 early on. In fact most mortars are dispensable in 1v1 and in general after the nerfs to autofire.

You can see the drop between GC2 and last year tournament meta analysis.

Of the 93 games how many were against Ost tho? (I don't actually know) because the mortar is much less useful against OKW. 1 MG is easy enough to get around, multiple the mortar becomes more important. Against garrisons the new mortar profile does work. It's situational of course but it makes the grenade package less of a requirement. As a smoke dispenser it's great and doesn't delay teching in the same way that the grenade tech does nor does it eat into the BAR fund. And again, until upgrades start hitting the field rifles do not struggle for dominance against volks and grens outside a prepared defense, which the mortar does provide help against.

The drop in the mortar usage likley comes from it no longer being a 1 weapon war winner with the profile changes, and that's not a bad thing. being in 1/3 matches is pretty good for a non required (like an AT gun for example) support weapon.

Idk. The tools are there to allow the usf player the flexibility to focus on quick teching or beefing up rifles and to me that's a good thing

For OKW there's a few things they could do to balance their vet and still keep it unique and in line with the game. They could have the standard 3 levels of stat vet and add 2 active abilities so that they are not passively superior but have a higher skill ceiling. Alternatively they could simply spread out the 3 levels of vet across 5 levels making the net gain the same as other factions would have but the benefit from earning them slightly sooner. Sorta like the way Ost battle phases SHOULD be applied. Half steps with small boons..

You and the guy you've quoted probably are too young to remember, but that's how it was at the start and it was dreadful, IS-2 couldn't hit literally anything, but when it did once the planets aligned, it was a wipe.

You literally want to make is another KV-2, because KV-2 is at the moment exactly what you're asking for.
So before you go wild, play with KV-2 and think again if you want IS-2 to be that shitty too.

Is-2 would hit fine, but could lose to the ass of a p4 because it's pen blew. Then it's accuracy got nuked because it was wiping squads every shot. then it got a ROF increase and damage decrease iirc then a pen increase and finally a slight accuracy increase and now we are here.
An ROF decrease and damage increase as well as an AOE tweak (the one I've been suggesting for years, like the Brum and isu got) could make it unique and desirable

Edit: I also agree more deflection damage units would be good. Paying a but load for units that could possibly do nothing is silly

Because it's almost as if having 2 extra men on a weapon who's biggest downside is it's survivability makes the raken useable.

Which amplifies how bad The Maxim is... Even with the most durable crew it's still hot garbage