[5.1.5] Arty AoE Radius.

[Krieger Blitzer]

Hmm; I think something is actually wrong, not going to follow up with the "OP Hotchkiss" train that is very heated on Discord in particular...
As many people have recently complained about this unit over there...

However, after playing some more games... I came to realize that there might be really a problem.
I don't know.. but in general (not just the Hotchkiss) arty seems to be a lot more lethal in the current version.. more than any other time.

Examples;
Priest quickly killing JagdTiger in 4 hits, Hotchkiss destroying SP with 4 rockets.. and 95mm Churchill knocking out a full HP Tiger tank in 4 hits too!

What's going on? Seems like things aren't going as intended.. and I started suspecting there might be a glitch somewhere.

[The New BK Champion]

The new hotchkiss mini nuke carrier

15 range distance of AOE
350 damage each rocket
20% 50% 75% 180% damage

So one perfectly hitting rocket can deal 630 damage. Sherman has 700 hp, same as churchill

One-slavoing churchills since 1936

Old stats:

50% 50% 75% 100% aoe damage
max 12 distance

So the hochkiss got unexpected damage and aoe distance buff, nice. Walking stuka buffed the same way too

ALL ABROAD THE BLACK CHUBBY ROCKET TRAIN!

Yes it has been noticed and I think devs prepared some fixes already (not sure tho, I haven't played in a week cuz I can't)

[MarKr]

I did not have time to test all the arty units that were mentioned as "OP" in the last few days but sofar I have tried this: I placed several tanks on my test map (Pershing, Churchill, Jumbo, M36B1, M4E3, E8) and I fired at them from Hotchkiss and Priest (as those were mentioned most often) and then also from Wespe an Hummel (just two more random arty units for this test).
Since the complaints were mostly about Hotchkiss and Priest being too deadly, the focus was to observe damage dealt and any non-standard behavior.
For the refference - the AoE diagram I posted on Discord.

Test1: Hotchkiss vs Pershing - 4 shots fired, no direct hit. The HP loss was caused by the closest hits to the right and left. Again (judging by the remaining HP) these two shots were probably "yellow zone".

Test2: Hotchkiss vs M36B1:



No direct hit again, damage caused by the two nearest hits. The one to the side considered "yellow" zone, the one near the front was already "green" zone.

These were just two tests so it is not saying much, but so far I have a feeling that the damage is not the problem but rather the speed with which the the Hotchkiss fires the rockets. With normal howitzers you have a chance to move your units away after the first hit but Hotchkiss leaves very little time for reaction.

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Following tests are Priest shooting at allied tanks which is not real game scenario but I did not have time to change the map again and Priest has same stats as Wespe/WM 105mm howitzer in terms of damage now, so for demostrative purpose it is sufficient.
Test3: Priest vs Churchill (6pounder):

1st hit counted as "orange" zone but did not penetrate and so only dealt "deflection damage" (will explain below).

2nd shot caused damage, not sure if green or yellow zone.

3rd and 4th shots hit too far away, caused no damage, 5th shot was a direct hit (red zone)

6th shot landed too far, no damage


Test4: Priest vs E8:

First shot was a direct hit (red zone)2nd shot was probably orange zone (I guess based on remaining HP) - you can see between these two pictures that a direct hit deals a lot more damage than a very close hit


3rd shot landed too far behind (no damage), 4th shot caught the E8 in green zone (dealt tiny little damage - though this could have also been deflection damage, given how little it did).

Remaining two shots landed too far away.


"Deflection damage" can be dealt when a shot (or explosion in this case) did not penetrate the armor. Normally when a shot does not penetrate, no damage is dealt but weapons can be set so that deflections deal certain percentange of damage anyway - in this case it is 15%. For tanks it is about 30 damage but mostly less which is for tanks usually negligible. This was not in BK before, I experimented with during patch development and forgot to remove it from all arty so now some have it and some not. It will be fixed.

Anyway, the Pries does not seem to deal more damage than intended - direct hits are painful but otherwise the damage system seems to work as intended - with old damage the Pershing would remain on less than half HP, E8 would be destroyed, the M36 and Churchill would get out of it with more damage taken too. Comparing the Priest to Wespe, Priest shoots faster so it could get a slight nerf in this area too to give opponent some time to react but it is nowhere as quick as Hotchkiss.

Also given the fact that you're targetting a circular area, the rockets and shells almost always land in "line" - this might need some tweaking too (but was the case even before the update).

As I said - it was just one and relatively short test but damage seemed to be OK, the fire rate of some arty units is most likely the true problem here .

[Krieger Blitzer]

Comparing the Priest to Wespe, Priest shoots faster so it could get a slight nerf in this area too to give opponent some time to react but it is nowhere as quick as Hotchkiss.

Well... I can agree the problem may not be the damage itself, but rather the rate of fire. Though, I could safely tell that nothing comes close to the Priest rate of the fire.. absolutely no arty unit in the game could deliver too much damage as quickly as the Priest does, with such a precision too.

Specifically when using abilities such as "aimed salvo" or "OverWatch" and I guess the rate of fire becomes even higher with each veterancy lvl as well.
So ya, I would say you should probably check the rate of fire for the Priest more carefully.. it has always been so insane, and just too precise.

And ya, the Hotchkiss rockets are being fired too quickly.. that's something I approve as a problem, but I think the 95mm Churchill and 95mm Cromwell are also firing too quickly with such insane precision and damage. Literally knocking out a full HP Tiger1 with only 4 hits (Tiger1 got immobilized on 1st hit so there was no chance to drive backward) and also wiping out entire elite squads with great precision...

[Warhawks97]

Comparing the Priest to Wespe, Priest shoots faster so it could get a slight nerf in this area too to give opponent some time to react but it is nowhere as quick as Hotchkiss.

Well... I can agree the problem may not be the damage itself, but rather the rate of fire. Though, I could safely tell that nothing comes close to the Priest rate of the fire.. absolutely no arty unit in the game could deliver too much damage as quickly as the Priest does, with such a precision too.

Hummel fires faster.

My tactic:

1. Hummel+ tank commander
2. Static mode where enemie cant find me with ammo truck. Wait the few sec cooldown of the static mode
3. Use long range shots (only when enemie has priest) to outrange all enemies.
4. Target weak units or lets say dense populated areas to gain exp.
5. Reaching vet 2 with TC makes the Hummel a real sniper. With max vet it fires every 3 sec. Nothing is faster than Hummel.


Players mistakes:
1. They dont use stat mode believeing that it could hinder them to escape from counter arty which is not true bc you can deactivate the static mode very fast soon and you finish your salvo in half the time. You fire 15 accurate 150 mm shots with sniper accuracy over huge distant.
2. Players spend lots of res in many hummels and wespe. I prefer one Hummel with ammo truck and using it against high value targets later to deal max damage with minimum cost.



So pls, make sure you tell the full story next time. Hummel has 10 sec basic reload time but static mode drops it to 5 right away. Most players dont even know that.

[Krieger Blitzer]

One thing you forgot to mention is how the Priest costs only 50 ammo to fire but does the same job as the Hummel which costs 125 ammo, or slightly less when an ammo truck is nearby.. but even then, still more expensive than the Priest of course. Not to mention Priest requires 5 CP and Hummel requires 8 CP on the other hand... Hummel does more damage for sure, but the Priest is still more precise.. thanks to collection of superior abilities.

So, if you compare the 2 then the Priest has the following advantages;
Early available, insane precision and great damage... Combined with high rate of fire and cheap barrage cost.. in addition to superior abilities.
And I think the Priest also has very much higher rate of fire on max vet lvl, and not just the Hummel with static position on max lvl.

Hummel on the other hand;
Available very late, expensive barrage... Superior damage and high rate of fire too, with good precision.. but still not as accurate as Priest due to lack of magic abilities such as "aimed salvo" and "over-watch" so generally the Priest is simply better.

So, I did tell the full story.. just take a look at what I've said once again:

absolutely no arty unit in the game could deliver too much damage as quickly as the Priest does, with such a precision too.

However, that being said.. it doesn't mean that I'm fine with the insane rate of fire for either any of them.. both (Hummel and Priest) are insane.
Though, the Priest is clearly superior for sure...

[MenciusMoldbug]

@MarKr

Please check 95mm cromwell AoE, because the distance in my corsix for damage checks for distant and long is both set to 7, while the 95mm for churchill is different(7 and 5), thanks.

[The New BK Champion]

Ok, we understood you hate all kinds of arty Tiger. But don't forget that priest is the one of the only 3 doc specific units available for arty doc. If you nerf it too much, whole doc becomes useless, because it relies strongly on priest. I agree that priest is better than wespe and hummel, but RA has "only" priest, while SE has many other features like ammo trade, sabotage squad, 120mm bunker, all kinds of flame weapons, nashorn, panzer IIIn, etc.

[Warhawks97]

Well... I can agree the problem may not be the damage itself, but rather the rate of fire. Though, I could safely tell that nothing comes close to the Priest rate of the fire.. absolutely no arty unit in the game could deliver too much damage as quickly as the Priest does, with such a precision too.

I refered to this. It was simply a lie bc there is a unit that shoots even faster with even more devestating shells. It doesnt matter when things are available in this case. It would be wrong to say "Priest shouldnt kill tanks bc it comes earlier, Hummel can bc it comes later". The bottom line is that they leave no chance to react. 3 Secs between first and second impact doesnt leave you any time, not to mention acceleration time etc. And the Hummel does deliver a hell bigger punch than Priest does and thats why it costs more. However, its quite cheap still considering that you can snipe out any tank and no need for long range shots if the allied have no priests fielded.

I will just compare wespe (or all 105) to Hummels 150:


105 mm Howitzer

Damage: 335
AoE: 10
AoE Brackets: 1/3/6/10
Damage modifier: 1.8/0.75/0.5/03

Damage modifier vs (most or all) Tanks: 0.75

150 mm:

Damage: 400-600
AoE: 12
AoE Brackets: 4/6/8/11
Damage modifier: 1.8/0.7/0.5/03

Damage modifier vs (most or all) Tanks: 0.75

That means that the Hummel can oneshot tanks when the shell hits within a range of 4 arround the tank. A 105 cant oneshot a tank. Just get this straight. So even at a distance at which a 105 does not deal any significant damage anymore, the 150 can oneshot tank and slightly behind that still two shot a tank.

Sure, Priest reloads standard in 6 sec and has much less scatter than Hummel or Wespe (Perhaps its really a bit too good, idk).

[Mr. FeministDonut]

But hotckiss again. In discord, I was mostly focusing on their AI capabilities, not the tanks. I still don't get it, was it buffed in AOE/damage or not?
If you lose a few infantry squads, it will be a big impact on the game, than loosing a tank, because games starting on infantry gameplay, not on tanks and each time, you try to hold/concentrate, whatever tactic is needed with using multiply squads, hotckiss has high chances of wiping it.
So it would looks like, wipe for 55 ammunition and after Dev's possible fix, still wiping but after each longer cooldown?

[MarKr]

Please check 95mm cromwell AoE (...)

Yes, I will check it.

I still don't get it, was it buffed in AOE/damage or not?
(...)
If you lose a few infantry squads, it will be a big impact on the game, than loosing a tank

Hotchkiss (and Stuka and Nebel) rockets were buffed in the center of the explosion but slightly nerfed at the edges, however the effectiveness against infantry is the same as before 5.1.5. The rockets deal so much damage that even before the 5.1.5 if a rocket caught them in AoE (and they had no cover) they would die. Now the situation is pretty much the same - at the edge of explosion the rockets now deal less damage than before but still enough to kill soldiers without cover.

So the effectiveness against infantry is the same as before. The damage changes influence vehicles which now take lower damage from non-direct hits.

[The New BK Champion]

Thoughts on the recent patch