Now I don't remember how it was last year since I played for like 100h and stopped for half a year. But now it seems that heavy tanks are comming out a lot sooner in game.
Like 16min-18min soon. I don't think that you should be able to pull out a crocodile and steamroll your opponent in 18min where his army is mostly inf or pak guns that get melted in seconds. I don't think that you should get a tiger or IS2 in 16-18min either. That should be the time where mediums roam the field not a heavy tank.
When you get a Tiger or Crocodile or is2 you are bound to get a firefly or cromvel or pz4 or t34/76/85 in a few minutes because your opponent is hurting bad at that point. This forces you to play commanders that have heavy tanks at 9/10 points because all other commanders will get crushed in the early heavy game. OFC you can say just zone them with AT (doesn't really work with crocodile) or deny map controll but cmon we all know that even if you deny it it just means that instead of 18min tiger it will be a 20min one instead.
Idk how it is in 1v1 since I don't play it, but 2v2 and up it is heavy rush every single game. You just know to expect a tiger as their first tank.
I reccomend that they get moved to 12 points for call in. ISU can stay at 14, but i don't think that IL2 strikes that cost 180 ammo have a right to be 12 but a tiger or crocodile to be at 9 points to call in.
Yes they were changed from no-tech requirements and 13 CP (except for Command Panther 11 CP) to 9 CP(10 for IS2) but requiring tech. They also got a AOE adjustment which was supposed to make them more reliable but less able to randomly wipe units. As it turned out they wipe even more than before now so heavy tanks have just become too good compared to medium tanks and in the case of Axis Panther and Brummbär.
Before you had multiple LVs into heavy tank cancer which was very annoying to play against too. Maybe one day the balance team will get the heavy tanks right, we can only hope for the best as no news has been leaked recently regarding a new balance patch.
.