Profile of Firesparks

I'm not talking 2v2 btw because of the presence of a possible OKW ally giving them access to puma which hard counters the m5 and also if both are Ost they can each get 1 pak denying the effectiveness of the M5 which is to attack where there's no pak present.

Of course Ost will lose some level of map control. That's the entire point of a 'shock unit" like the M5, to swing map control to the soviets until Axis armor comes in. Another thing to point out is that Soviets don't have the luxury of your "fact". The fact is Soviets are forced to choose either T1 or T2 so that's either cons+support weapons or penals+snipers+cons, Soviets have to sacrifice either an effective infantry(penals) or support weapons to begin with. No one is going for both T1 and T2 unless they really need to or its already late in the game and is also contrary to the point of a fast M5 since T1 and T2 consts fuel thus it would delay T3 and ultimately the M5 if both were gotten.

Is Ost fighting an uphill battle when it comes to light vehicle? No one quite knows yet since the patch is still a week old and the meta has not yet stabilized, so until the meta has stabilized and majority of the top players think that T3 sov tech timing is broken it is assumed to be fine as is the opinion of the majority at the moment.

the only unit the sov will really miss is the sniper. Penal is replaceable by your choice of guard or shock, and the penal is hardly an "effective infantry" to begin with. The penal have worst dps than the conscript >15 range.

soviet t2+t3 is hardly risky. There's almost no risk to using the quad m5 since it allow on field reinforcement as well. The only blind spot is the wehr sniper.

I am quite confident that t3 arrives too early, but the soviet is going to be put in a no win situation.

So good as the sov t3 is, it's still going to be at a disadvantage against the wehr t4.

There's no good way to properly time this new soviet t3. The ost just doesn't have the unit selection to present a good match for it. ost t2 is too weak for it but the ost t3 is too strong for it.

If the t3 timing get delayed, it's going to force the soviet player into situation where they are forced to fight panzer4 with su-76 with their t4 far ways away. The t34-76 and the su-85 are not exactly amazing units to begin with and having it early later than the pziv puts the soviet at a disadvantage. (guard motor is another thing entirely)

The new soviet tech tree make the t3 arrives too early and at the same time make the t4 arrives too late. Since any cost increase to t3 is going to inevitably delay t4 it's going to screw over the soviet. Unless they offset the increase to t3 with a cheaper t4 or make t3 entirely skippable.

Btw, Guard motor is still the best doctrine for the soviet, even if it's not as cheese after the nerf to guards and call in mechanic.

Basically the teching changes plus call in fixes destroyed the old meta and there is no real new meta. I have seen more than one viable strategy for Soviets and Ostheer. Strategies that looked like meta can be easier countered than the old broken meta and do not necessarily require a certain OP commander to choose in order to be able to beat them. We will see how the process of finding viable strategies will go on in the next weeks but as far as I can tell I have not seen a broken strategy which can only be countered by one or two commanders.

I do not know about the WFA factions though since I have not played them yet.

what actually fixed the call in was making them an unlock. The e8 could have easily be made an unlock without having to change the cost of major and captain. (weapon rack change is fine.)

i don't understand where's your problem, ost now gets T2 faster and i think at lower price, battle phases unlocks are cheaper while Tiers are more expensive which is good because before patch, ostheer could deploy t3 tanks much faster, now it focuses on earlier infantry battles.

Soviet tech changes are good IMO, T3 is now viable because it has AI unit, AT unit and halftrack, cost is not high so they can be deployed quickly, some strats now focuses on fast fuel harrass so like M5 can be build at 7 min which is OP.

I dont get why USA changes are bad, major is 30 fuel more expensive which is usually less than 2 minutes to get that, that change was necessary because USA could get Sherman at 10-12 mins

the ost t2 building is merely 20 mp earlier, unless you decided to skip t1 building. It's hardly a focus on infantry battle since the stated intent was to expand the light vehicle phrase. What end up happening is the Soviet light armor now arrive way earlier than they should.

the SOV t3 is going to end up nerfed. At its current strength it's too powerful for its arrival time. Which is a shame since we've just buff the su-76 to be viable late game and now we have to nerf it.

the USF lt -> major route is 30 fuel more expensive. The USF capt -> major route is only 10 fuel more expensive. Incidentally the Capt-> major is also the new meta.

And why is it ridiculous to depend on the pak? The fact that Ost has never had to rely on the pak only reinforces my point, you have the tools to hard counter the m5/sU-76 BUT refuse to use them because of mundane reasons as them being slow, if fact it only highlights the need to use proper positioning something that is integral to the CoH experience. The Ost player is simply denying the fact that the pak is now an important element of their game, something they no longer have the luxury of skipping over.

There will always be times when the flow of the game shifts from one side to the other and in the light vehicle phase the flow has simply shifted to the allies. Until the next patch comes you either adapt or you lose.

in a 2v2 a player might get away from bunkering down on a portion of the map, but in a 1v1 the ost is going to lose map control badly if their army is tied to the pak.

It's simple logic that a sov army with support weapons and light armor is going to win over an ost army with just support weapons. It's a fact that the ost is fighting at a significant disadvantage. It is a structural fault of the new tech tree that the ost are forced to fight a uphill battle against an armored soviet with no armor of their own.

Just because the tech changes made USF useless

the tech change broke the USF and made them useless. How is that not bad?

sov: the t70, the m5 quad, and the su-76 were previously balanced with the expectation the axis will have armor soon. Now that they arrive early the ost is stuck with paks and schreck to deal with the light armor trio. At least the okw get their anti-tank weapon early.

Ost: the patch try to extend the light vehicle phrase, except the Ost have the weakest light vehicle in the game. Even with the buffed 222 the ost is still going to lose horribly against the sov light armor trio.

USF: previously both the LT and the capt were viable first tech option, but now they are forced into capt to keep up with the light vehicle arms race the new patch brought.

Okw: actually fine. the cheaper reinforcement on the sturmpio is good and they get a more dependable pziv in exchange for the gimmicky sturmtiger.

USF might still be viable if you go Capt + armor company, but it's still a down-grade from the previous patch where the USF had the option to go either lt or capt first.