Profile of Hannibal

are you retard ?
M26 and IS-2 not gonna win 1v1 WITHOUT ANY inf SUPPORT. That is the fact we have right now. Even you pay more price, limit in doctrine, yet Balance team and most of people would let Alies Heavy tank actually win Panther on 1v1 because " BALANCE ".
If you play alies, better get TD, medium and fuck Axis hard and fast before shit happen later ( Thanks to Stumtiger, KT and panther ).

That's nonsense. While a win is not guaranteed, Allied heavies have a decent chance of winning against a Panther. They might be heavily damaged which can be up for discussion, but suggesting that a Panther will easily kill Allied heavies is nonsense.

Kitting is really map dependant and Axis have overall better access to extra range vision on their basic units:

Pioneer
Kubel
222

Then Axis also have better doctrinal tools/units to provide vision.

I agree on this. However, at least for larger team games, I have the feeling that sight range does not matter as much since tanks do not operate on their own as often. To put it easily: Unit density is so high that there is always an infantry squad in front of your tank, rendering the tank sight less important.

Imo the problem of balance is overall centered on Allied TDs being heavily dependent on RNG to penetrate Axis counter-part. We can all praise the Jackson's stat on paper but when it fails to pen the OKW Pz4 (sometime multiple time in a raw) and the Pz4 can't fail to penetrate it in return, here we have a balance issue.

USF is particularly impacted here, how many times I've lost simply because the ATG or Jackson simply didn't penetrate because of RNG.

To be honest, that's at the very heart of how CoH is supposed to work. Unless there will be special code for "after two misses the next shot is a guaranteed hit" or so, all RNG based games will have occasions of the game itself screwing you (or your opponent) seriously over. These games are not about who was able to precisely estimate the power discrepancy between two armies, but who was able to estimate the most likely outcome by gut feeling.
Too much RNG will never feel rewarding. On the other hand, it adds an additional layer of constantly being forced to re-evaluate your situation based on single events within that fight. Unfair outcomes will always happen, but their frequency should be minimized. In your example, a Jackson failing to penetrate a P4 even twice is less than 0.4% even on max range. It WILL happen if you play often enough, but if this system really bugs someone then CoH is probably the wrong franchise.
To what it's worth, CoH2 does a decent job of balancing out RNG and tactics. Because the scale is so small and tanks worth so much, there will always be issues with games being decided by just "that last shot" penetrating or not. Sometimes I knew that I was being screwed over or actually my opponent was being screwed over by the game itself, but we shouldn't forget that people will always attribute a great move and won fight to their own great tactics, whereas that loss of a tank is always due to shitty RNG. This in the end leaves everyone with the assumption that they are a good commander but the game screws them over regularly, forgetting all the times they were a shitty commander but the game got them the victory (which is also bad), and most of all forgetting all the times where they played well or badly but regardless got what they deserved.

Meanwhile i get told that a increase off 5 range makes no difference when going panther vs pershing but somehow 10 does , how does that even compare? Meanwhile you can just go spotting scope doctrine and put it on par with all other allied TD's while having double the armour and double the health with on top good reload and mobility.

50-60 range difference gives you the ability to kite, as well as a good chance to not constantly get fired at by enemy ATGs
45-50 range difference means you get the first shot off, but unless you have godly micro you won't be able to kite your opponent. You will also always be in the range of ATGs.

And while Panthers are an issue in team games, for most modes your points are exaggerated. The Panther is a dedicated AT counter, obviously it should be able to go toe to toe with generalist tanks that cost more.

I kinda see where you're coming from, which allows me to disagree. Increasing su76 AT damage doesn't make it too similar to an su85. That logic is like saying that the stug is similar to a JP. Just because SU76 and SU85 are in the same faction, doesn't mean that they're too similar, or will be too similar if their performance is tweaked. They are distinct, and at the same time, the Su76 is currently a bit weak at AT.

I can't fully follow you on this one. Both vehicles being in the same faction is a huge difference. Unit overlap has been an issue for ages. I don't want to stroll too far off topic, but we could/can still see it with USF Sherman variants that often do similar things. For two functionally similar units, there must be a decent performance gap to justify having both (like the T34 variants). Even an upgrade on the StuG would keep it distinct from the Panther. If the JP4 were in the same faction, we'd create more overlap though. And this is what in my opinion would happen to the SU76/SU85.

If the Su76 is meant to be a flanking unit, but is casemate, then it should perform like one (agility, speed etc). If its meant to remain static mainly and fire into the enemy's front armour, then it needs better damage to be relevant.

edit: for example, I think even a luchs could rush a su76, get behind it and take it out. I can see a 222 doing the same. That makes it a weak AT unit.

I agree that the current SU76 is kind of bad, but as I said not because of its stats.

This is my way of thinking about the SU76's AT performance:
Compared to other LVs at the time as well as the units it is supposed to counter (LVs and OST T3), the stats are alright. There might be some tweaking here and there, but overall it is doing okay. Buffing the SU76, which I'd term an overall decently balanced unit regarding cost and performance, could therefore be dangerous. Another reason that could justify a buff are special circumstances within the faction. But do Soviets have these special circumstances? Do they really lack means to deal with (Ostheer) mediums? They have the SU85 that does that just fine. T2 builds have the ZiS, T1 builds a back tech or to some extend at least PTRS. Soviets do not have an issue with mediums, mostly because the ZiS and the SU85 do just fine. Buffing the SU76 against mediums will overlap with the SU85. So unless the SU85 gets a new place, a buff to the SU76 is probably a bad idea. With CoH3 (and even AoE4) on the horizon, Relic will surely cease support for CoH2 soon, and reworking both TDs is risky and might need another 2 patches.

Which type of buff would you suggest for the SU76 then?
- Mobility? Will set it apart from the SU85 for sure. Overall I'd assume it will be hard to do because the SU76 is a casemate. I assume this will also scale very differently depending on the mode, but that's a general issue with casemates.
- Damage to I assume 160? This will make it a supreme choice over the SU85 for mediums. The only way I could see this happening is an unlock for the SU76 at T4 which also costs fuel. However, this increases overlap of both units.
- Penetration? Helps mostly against OKW. Again increases overlap to the SU85.
- Timing? Not a big fan personally. This does not change the fact that Soviets to not need an AT vehicle early on. If there is no need to build it early and the ZiS/SU85 cover your late game, no amount of timing changes will do well enough for this unit.


To make it short: I don't think AT capabilities will really fix the issue. Current Soviets need AI when T3 is build, so the only way to make any unit worth building at this time point is by giving it AI. Which is why I'd like it to behave like a mini Stug E. Or at least lower the cost of the barrage or something.

Also considering that the SU-76 is basically the Soviet version of the STUG, I find it funny how the Balance team nerfed the SU-76 because it could penetrate heavy tanks (OMG MY POOR TIGER) meanwhile no such change was made for the STUG which when also spammed like the SU-76 could demolish Allied Heavy Tanks (shocker). Which is basically like saying Soviet made 5 ZIS AT Guns, lets make a Tiger and send it in and expect it to not get destroyed. Then you see the ZIS for being effective at its role it ends up getting nerfed and can no longer penetrate anything.

Thr SU76 comes much earlier. They also are in completely different factions. With the SU85 being mechanically the same unit 60 range casemate), it only makes sense to balance the SU76 towards LVs and mediums.
OST T3 is much too late to justify any balancing towards LVs, the StuG and the Panther are functionally so different that they force different playstyles. The Panther is not an upgraded StuG, and OST having two AT options for the late game makes for much more interesting gameplay than Soviets.