Replace them with UKF style smoke self repair
If
A - You want to replace Vehicle Crews as a whole with smoke repair, god no. I highly disagree with the perfect mirroing of factions unnecessarily. Vehicle Crews can be balanced with a litany of options if need be.
B - You want to replace elite vehicle crews with smoke repair, why? Vehicle Crews already exist. That's arguably less useful than just having the repair speed.
Though funnily enough, maybe giving Vehicle Crews something along those lines would work. Maybe an activatable repair where the crew drops a smoke grenade at their feet, or just straight up give them a smoke grenade since they already get Thompsons. I'm sure there's some cheeky shenanigans that could be done with that. Maybe even synergize with the Thompsons and make the squad more useful than a glorified repair bot if they abandon tank as it dies. |
I think they previously had (or still have?) Thompsons to be semi capable fighters plus something else. But their whole design never worked out since it is stupid to leave the vehicle. Atm they basically just repair faster.
Not really worth a commander slot currently
The best part about the original iteration was that not only did you have to leave the Vehicle, but you didn't get upgraded repair speed, upgraded vet, and had to upgrade them and the upgrade both took 30 seconds and reset if they entered the Vehicle again. Was genuinely the most worthless upgrade in the game next to the Advanced Warfare IL2 Strafe.
I wouldn't be against buffing it in some form. The question being how since it's a very fragile subject and there's not much room to buff Vehicle Crews for it to matter or not be broken. Also they still have VC level RA and no combat veterancy so they drop models worse than Partisans. |
On the topic of Armor Company and by extension other USF doctrines. Armor Company really doesn't do anything that strong to warrant wanting to pick it. Ass Engies are fun but not particularly overwhelmingly powerful and get their duty stepped on by the trifecta of Riflemen Molotovs in Urban Assault for garrison clearing, Cav Rifles in Mech in the short range DPS game, and Riflemen Field Defenses/M20 for Mines. The M10 feels more like an "Oh no I'm losing" press the cheap TD button rather than something I'm actively striving for like the 76mm (rip in balance patch) and the Bulldozer seems more of a luxury than anything while being invalidated by the CalliOP for actually killing things. Elite Vehicle Crews is also pretty low impact most of the time, I never feel like the repair speed is actually saving that much time to be able to take advantage of it, and the artillery barrage is what it is.
When you look at other USF doctrines, Mechanized is brimming with good things. Cav Rifles, 76mm, Jeep is still okay. Urban Assault has Rifle mollies, Calliop, Sherman Dozer Blades, Airbourne has tech skipping team weapon drops, Pathfinders and Paratroopers which are both great infantry. Recon Support has IR Pathfinders, Butterfly Bombs, the super cheap Pack Howie Paratrooper drop.
When you compare the value and the desire to pick these doctrines compared to Armor Company you're kind of comparing a feeling of wanting to use all of these things because they're useful and powerful. Compared to having a Rifleman sidegrade and a bunch of underwhelming/irrelevant things. The doctrine feels like it needs something genuinely powerful to go along with Ass Engies. |
Other than that, Rifles are the best. Then IS, then grens, then volks, then conscripts -- Overall IMHO.
Cons are significantly better than Volks. Conscripts in Green Cover win pretty much any engagement vs mainlines and even some elite infantry. 7 Man and SVT's compound this even harder. Volks only truly win fights for a short while after STG's pop, and before Vet 2/3/Weapon Upgrades come out and only in specific scenarios.
It's a matter of the length of viability of the infantry ultimately. Cons get their upgrade at 11-12 minutes which is the latest, but it's probably one of the most powerful upgrades (Or 3m for SVT's lmao) and it carries them through to the rest of the game. Grens, Rifles and Sections get theirs earlier (Roughly in that order from earliest to latest) and it also carries them through to the end of the game. Volks get an upgrade and it only lasts for about 5-6 minutes before being completely invalidated before mediums even show up.
This is why Volk veterancy needs to be reworked. Volks have the earliest weapon upgrade (Unless you're SVT Cons lmao) and they have to pay for it with anywhere between 15 and 50 minutes of irrelevancy for the rest of the game once other mainlines upgrade their weapons and place Volks into the dumpster. The idea is that Volks gain a power spike earlier than other mainlines, settledown into the late game to give Allied infantry their time to shine, then come back swinging in the back end of the match with a strong Vet 5 to bring them back into the fold and allow Volks their early upgrade without granting them excessive power for the rest of the game. |
One can start by lowering Pop/XP value and changing vet bonuses to better feet the role.
The gun could use changes. One could try to firing mode indirect firing similar to Stug-E (with less range) and oen direct firing hollow charge rounds.
I don't believe the Vet needs to be changed, either the vet rate or the bonuses themselves. It's not particularly difficult to vet and is consistent with the standard P4 and the Stug G/E. Not only that but it provides bonuses that do still positively affect the P4 Command Tank (Or rather, it doesn't provide any irrelevant or quirky buffs in it's veterancy.)
Honestly I think the best solution would to simply improve the firing rate of the main gun by a small amount. Adding a brand new ability is messy and requires a lot of work that can be solved in a much easier way while also intruding on the role of the Stug-E. Considering the absolute negligible impact of the Command P4 in an armor fight (Terrible Pen, halved damage) I can't imagine this would impact armor fights too much and would probably be fine, especially if traded for the irrelevant infantry damage reduction. |
I've got to say, I've never felt more justified in my life on the topic of G43 Grens watching them be so prevalent and effective yesterday at the top level of play. |
but Command p4 lose blitzkrieg right? and the mark target is for more accuracy I heard and not like the command panther mark or the soviet one.
Command P4 Mark Target provides Penetration and Accuracy according to the tooltip. Upon doing some testing I'm actually incredulous to find that the Command P4 is really not that much better vs Infantry than just a P4, and if the P4 has a pintle it's pretty much equivalent in ttk on most infantry. I think that should probably be buffed for the Command P4. Since it only costs 20 less Fuel and as will be mentioned below, doesn't provide enough of a benefit for either the P4 or Infantry, it seems almost useless if you decide to go Tier 3 over Tier 4 honestly.
The P4 Command Tank does lose Blitzkrieg, but also provides passive damage resistance which does affect both Vehicles and Infantry while allowing a P4 to go from 4 hit to 5 hit against other Mediums, but at the same time if I can afford a Command Tank, why would I not simply wait for another P4 to double my effective health and damage instead. While as for the Infantry Damage Reduction (10%) I barely felt any relevance. It seemed to not even do anything most of the time which was a touch disappointing to see. The main benefit the Command P4 seems to provide is the smoke shell, which while good, does not make up for it's effectively terrible performance across the board elsewhere.
In tests against Heavies with the P4 the Command Tank didn't help all that much either even with Mark Vehicle. A P4 and the Command Tank together both lost quite badly while the Heavy had ample time to leave at any moment during the fight given the parameters but generally came out on top killing both the Command Tank and the P4. (Comet and IS-2)
The Panther seemed to have the biggest Impact when it came to the Command Tank. The Command Tank provided the Panther an extra hit (From 6 to 7) and allowed a weakness to be filled by providing a role as a Tank with consistent AI damage while allowing the Panther to comfortably force away a Comet and slug effectively with an IS-2 if needed. Although I find this not particularly appealing as far as engagements go. The Panther can already beat the Comet in a straight fight most of the time, while being able to leave into AT Guns if RNG strikes, while the IS-2 has such pitiful range and speed that the Panther can often just fight from outside it's boundaries to begin with negating the need for slugging, denying it's ability to participate at all.
I think I'd like to retract my statement on the Command P4. In practice is felt decent, but from raw tests it just doesn't do anything that couldn't be done better with another P4 or even an Ostwind in Tier 3, while Tier 4 the benefit you gain is almost negligible ultimately. I feel as if more needs to be done to provide the Command P4 some benefit to justify it in some fashion. I personally would simply scratch the Infantry Damage reduction because it doesn't effectively do anything in practice, and place that benefit somewhere else, be it in the Mark Target ability which could have a useful hand vs Heavies (Higher Pen chance, or even giving the recon plane to the Command P4's Mark Target.) Or perhaps give it a better gun vs Infantry to allow it to actually step into a stronger AI role, akin to a weaker AI Ostwind that can provide At capability in a minor form. The only things I would recommend against are more Damage Reduction because that would become very obnoxious very quickly, especially with Panthers and Brumbars or even Infantry if strong enough. |
The bleeding more is reduced by the free med kits and recc acc. This saves mp (and muni) in the same sence as reduced reinforce for 7th man. Who bleed the most models by far in the game. For them it makes sence. Soviets is mp starved the most.
Bleeding mp for more field presence isent bad. It translates into more recources in fuel and muni as you will probaly hold more or take more ground.
Conscripts dont get an lmg or cant get svt or ppsh with 7th man. It would be to strong. Wich the old vsl was as proven.
VSL Grens aren't worth it at all right now. They are absolutely terrible in practice because they don't win fights like MG42 Grens do. They attempt to have a universal average effective range, but this ends up with them losing fights at pretty much all ranges because they don't have a strength in combat meaning not only do they lose map control, but they bleed harder and take longer to reinforce due to having extra models.
Free Medkits are nice, but they don't actually allow you to skip Med Bunkers because your Pios and your Stormtroopers and your MG42 still need to heal and you can't spend all your mainline's time healing other units with a single target ability. If this ability was akin to the Infantry Section group heal it would be significantly better for VSL's ability to skip medics.
Conscript 7-Man upgrade is good because it doesn't have better competition, it bolsters their strength which is fighting from Green Cover at distance, and it provides other unique benefits to Cons such as better ability to merge, cheaper reinforce cost and faster vet. VSL Grens don't fulfill the same role having to directly compete with MG42 Grens which is the premier distance fighting upgrade so it attempts to turn Grens into some Jack of all Trades squad which ultimately doesn't work, and it only provides a singular minor benefit in free medkits while having several weaknesses such as the aforementioned heavier bleed, slower reinforce time, and the lack of damage output that the MG42 upgrade would provide.
Also shame that command p4 isn't getting light artillery, it would actually revive dead commanders like the 2nd elefant commander as they will have munition sink.
Don't sleep on the Command P4. It's quite good vs infantry and giving it Mark Vehicle is quite a good buff to give it some relevancy against armor. |
Incendiary barrage kills paks with noway to avoid and actually need a nerf not a buff.
Try moving.
Sock does not have recon
https://www.coh2.org/topic/108342/commander-patch-2021-line-up
Soviet Shock Army Tactics
ML-20 Howitzer replaced with T-34/85
IL-2 Sturmovik Attack replaced with 152mm Howitzer Strike
Conscript Assault Package replaced with IL-2 Recon Run
??? |
It did and fortifications is still a meme because the flak doesn't even vet up
Doesn't surprise me. Doctrine is basically designed to fail and it has to hold up to Breakthrough in teamgames which is never going to happen.
The issue of healing should be solved non doctrinally. OKW teamgames player can rely on Ostheer ultra cheap bunkers as healing but forcing to an 1vs1 a backtech of 35 fuel for healing is one of the many issues that causes imbalance between faction viability in 1vs1 vs teamgames.
For what it's worth, I don't think the Opel Blitz is meant to solve OKW healing in 1v1, but to provide some relief to the muni price of medkits and give reason to go mechanized if you're someone more comfortable with Battlegroup. I think it's fine personally, just could use some shuffling around to provide players a gameplan when picking doctrines as previously stated.
On the other hand, Opel Blitz allows to have their cake and eat it too and whatever doctrine will have it will be extremely popular, not on the merits of a good synergy between units and abilities as it should be but because of the one key unit that lets you skip 15 fuel
Not, necessarily. OKW has significantly more pressing needs than a lategame 15 Fuel boost in a fake ambulance. It's a nice boost for sure but not backbreaking by any means. As discussed in the thread Volks are what need looked at primarily for this faction.
Similarly, incendiary munitions doesn't mean that Feuersturm need to "fit" Battlegroup builds. Incendiary munitions was a terrible idea and needs to be bundled with something more than a single secondary ability for an uncommon unit sitting in a specific tier.
Like I proposed for example, an Obersoldaten toxic smoke shell for the Panzer IV similar to the Cromwell smoke shell, since it would extremely benefit OKW Mechanized builds that can't count on leIGs
I'm torn on this in particular. On one hand, Incendiary Munitions is an absolutely garbage ability on it's own. But when we start playing lego with every ability in the game it becomes difficult to discern doctrine identity as we start stapling random shit to doctrines outside the scope of what's intended to be changed, or we end up with ridiculous situations like Mechanized having 8 or 9 abilities in a single doctrine because everything comes bundled together. This also runs into the problem of power creep which is an incredibly difficult beast to tackle, especially when there's a very hard limitation on what specifics can be changed. This gets very tricky.
As for a P4 smoke shot. Considering how infuriatingly powerful Panzer Tactician is, I don't think we should be giving P4J fast access to any sort of smoke on their own. Honestly I would just opt to move the Le.i.g to the HQ truck and limit it in a similar manner to the MG34. Battlegroup already provides your primary source of healing and the Flak Trak which are both powerful tools. I see no reason to limit the Le.i.g there too. Perhaps it's a relic limitation or just something that hasn't been fully considered yet.
I do agree with changing Airborne Assault, and that Luftwaffe doesn't need further buffs, but I'll always say that every single slot must be useful to a certain degree if the commander is reworked
I don't actually agree with the notion that every slot needs to be useful, or more specifically, the ability for every slot to be useful. Inherently in any system with multiple options by virtue of there being a limited number of ways you can go about something, or the situational use of abilities, or the things you need to answer, or the skill of the players behind the abilities, etc there are going to be things that are just more or less powerful based upon external or even intentional factors that can't be balanced around reasonably. We only see the face of it and not the dirty work behind it all, sometimes mistakes happen, sometimes things need to be bad to not be oppressive or lock out other options, sometimes the thing that's "bad" just doesn't fit your playstyle or needs. Balance is hard because it's this massive intertwined system that all interacts with itself and every change brings about 100 ripples elsewhere. |