The Truth about the Hotchkiss

[Warhawks97]

I gonna tell you guys what really changed the hotchkiss and why there is suddenly such an outcry about being OP.
There have been many speculations. Has the AoE damage been increased? Is there a bug?

The truth is, nothing essential has been changed in terms of damage an AoE. Before the Hotckiss dealed 402,5 damage per direct hit on a allied tank, now its 472,5. A slight increase but the chance to score such a hit decreased as the AoE bracket of a direct hit has been lowered from a radius of 2 range to a radius of 1 range. Beyond that AoE range the damage dealed to tanks has been drastically decreased. So why is it "suddenly" more deadly?

I had a talk last night with Frost and i told him the truth. Now i decided to let you all know the truth.


What has changed? The range has changed. Simple as that.

I used the hotchkiss always in pair that stood close behind a hetzer or something and shooting from never more than 150 range, usually less, against targets. And it proofed incredible effective and only Priest were the kind of enemie that caused trouble. But shooting two hotchkiss from closer range has always been highly effective.
And i kept saying it over and over again in games and forum not to fire blind from max range (it was 175) into the fog of war. But again nobody listened. Now we got a necessary range reduction to these "ICBM´s" from 175 to 135 range which is in my opinion the range at which stukas and most rocket arty is used best and most effective. The scatter at this range is lower and thus the they hit better.
I made similiar changes on my private BK version by limiting the range down to 120 and not even increasing the damage in the center. The results have been similiar.


So its basically the old story. A unit has always been like that but people used it simply wrong. In this case they used it for brainless spam and counter arty. Now by changing the behaviour of a unit or lets say restricting its usage by force (limit range in this case) people get forced to use it correctly and suddenly its OP.

This combined with a significant speed increase allows it to get close, fire a deadly accurate barrage and escape even faster than before.

[kwok]

Nail. On. The. Fucking. Heading.

And that’s exactly how I’ve been teaching some players prior to the range reduction “buff” to use the hodgekiss/maultiers/rocket jeep. Don’t want to name names, but maybe he will come out and admit his over attachment to hodgekiss s from ages ago, not just now.
The new veterancy system is letting them be spammed like crazy.

I don’t think this is as much as an issue in larger maps cuz hodgekisses aren’t as defended so easily. My concern is still the priest that acts like a rapid fire grill, but that should be updated along with arty in general soon

[Mr. FeministDonut]

> I've been teaching/telling

First time I hear this. Too much ego, but thanks for the info, never too late to know such thing

[kwok]

Cuz you literally don’t listen from me. Every time we play you don’t try to learn, you complain.

[Mr. FeministDonut]

Every time we play

I guess problem is only in you and your ignoring ego, that you even admit it to yourself.
Playing from 2014, when I was kicked from every expierienced players kick to current moment, bringed me to the up, while I was catching any possible tips or strategies from the forum to improve my gameplay, don't blame me on that.

[kwok]

Did I ever kick you? Friends hate me because I DONT kick people.

EDIT: talk on steam

[Walderschmidt]

The Hotchkiss has always been this way, it just used to be that people fired them from max range, so the scatter made up for some of the deadliness.

I love Hotchkisses and happily abuse them, though I am slowly weaning myself off of them. I discovered them December 17/Jan 2018 and the never really had any changes until arty changes from recent betas.

Wald