[1.04] IL-2 ability

i just lost 4 complete vet3 pe grenadier squads in the first run (1st plane attacking)... did anyone experience the same? or was i just to slow to move my units? i know it's a late game ability but i have seen it destroy complete armies (tanks and inf) so many times... it i think it should not be useable on command territory (own and enemy). otherwise you rush the soviet base and the enemy just kills your army and counter attacks....

i have never experienced this, and i usually have beaten the soviet player before he gets this.

vise verse, as a German player you get the hell out of there. I would say that it was more of a bad luck having all PE grenadier squads die then a balance problem, remember it takes 10 experience points to get the IL-2 ability.

-Narizna

it was not the first time.
this time i played prokhorovka and finally rushed the last base. the soviet player called in the il-2 and killed all i had but 2 units... i won in the end, but i think it is too strong considering that he can also call in isu-152 as many times as he wishes.

the henschel run for example is ineffective vs inf, strafing/bombing runs are just one attack and not multiple...

a possible solution would be to make the player unable to use it on command territory.

Question, did you have Group Zeal and was it Attack or Defense Vet?

The question is not about withstanding the strafes, rather its all about avoiding them.

I think you should see the yellow circle markers on the ground right after he placed the ability in the area.  Just retreat your infantry right away and keep your vehicles away from that area until it wears off.  Alternatively, if you are confident about your micro reactions, you can try to hide your tanks behind buildings as the bombing runs come.  IMO its much better to deal with than the USA strafe that comes with no warning.

At any rate, even if you don't see the yellow markers, the incoming plane on the mini-map should be warning enough to retreat your infantry.  Also if the map is big enough, I don't think the IL-2 strafe is instant like the USA one.

Last edited March 2, 2010 at 5:07 AM by Chancellor

i had everything researched and i saw the markers, but the problem was that i moved my troops away and the plane came right into that direction though they weren't even close to the markers anymore...

it has a big radius, about the same as the PE panzernacker. Do as chancellor says though hid a squad next to each building and he will bomb himself to oblivion and get more AA (Flaks, whirbls, ostwinds) at least get your bud too.

kingtiger wrote:
it i think it should not be useable on command territory (own and enemy). otherwise you rush the soviet base and the enemy just kills your army and counter attacks....

something similiar happend to me as well.
lost a lot of halftracks and a hummel right after the first time the IL-2 was there. Than i tried to retread my tanks but it also took one of my Panzer  IV.
Its seems to be too strong besides the ISU as well.

sounds like a solution to me:

kingtiger wrote:
it i think it should not be useable on command territory (own and enemy). otherwise you rush the soviet base and the enemy just kills your army and counter attacks....

OH by all means I love it when I use tanks and they use the IL2 run in their command sector... I use it to quickly destroy the base... its hilarious

That should not happen, same as god of war they cannot target a base...they're not meant to anyways.

They can use it in their own command Sectors, but if you have it in the German Command Sectors then they probably put it as close as possible to the edge of the sector to  hit you're base

kingtiger wrote:
i had everything researched and i saw the markers, but the problem was that i moved my troops away and the plane came right into that direction though they weren't even close to the markers anymore...

Infantry can't withstand or dodge the strafes no matter how upgraded they are or how hard you micro, just retreat them right away.  As for the vehicles, it is possible to dodge the bombing runs.  If you are trying to opt for escape, just be aware that the AoE is big, so you might get bomb runned once or twice before you get out of the radius, so be prepared to micro them hard anyways (don't run them away in a straight line and spread out a bit).  Provided you are a half-decent player, one eye should always be right on top the minimap.  Plan ahead what direction those planes are coming from.
 
If he put the marker near your base sector, then you are screwed, because although the markers cannot be put directly into the base sector, the AoE still effects the base sector, therefore even if your infantry retreated, they will get strafed to death in front of their HQ building.  At that point, you just have to pray those noob PE base flaks actually hit something.

Last edited March 3, 2010 at 1:18 AM by Chancellor

I was playing a 2vcpu not long ago and my king tiger managed to avoid and survive about 4 or 5 IL-2 attacks on it despite going down to 1% health at one point.

Strafes are anti-blob abilities. Dont blob and you want get mass strafed.

Just watched a game where commando squad used smoke and run into a blob 2 grenadieres (no MGs) and 2 pios (only 1 flamethrower). For the fatherland(defensive) was used and Commandos lost 4 men and had to retreat.
These tough grens (vet 2) have to got a weaknees. You cant make them bomb proof.

did a game and the Russians did the ability.

i retract my earlier statement and i will have to say that the IL-2 Ability needs a small nerf.

i dont think it should both strafe AND bomb.

-Narizna

Maybe something like a 37mm Cannon barrage that does damage to vehicles and infantry alike?

Do you mean like the Henschel but worse?  The Henschel used a Pak 40 with an L for Luftwaffe in the designation with 15 or so round drum magizines firing at 200rpm (about twice as fast as the the game thinks) using tungsten carbide rounds (the stuka did as well actually). The Henschel was way rarer than the stuka though in the aspect of ground attack strafing and only a couple henschels of this type were ever made and even fewer saw combat before the end of the war which is another example of how Relic controls history and physics to the most realistic extent *sarcasm*. One way to check it might be to either
A. Less bombs more strafing
or B. Something I saw in blitzkrieg mod a while back with rockets, which the IL-2s used extensively which would cause far less damage to infantry and then have some strafes?

I'm sometimes going mad as well with these Il-2s (or Tempests ;D), but not because of the bombs - I love them, one Panther, and you kill all Soviet troops in the area by linking bombs with the Panther - but I experienced, that the cannon attack effects right at the moment, when the plane appears on the map, even if it flies in on the other side of a large map. I think this is not very "realistic" and perhaps a little bit buggy, because it doesnt matter if you are with one eye on the minimap. If you see the plane your Grenis arre already nailed on the ground...

it just happened again... ??? we were about to destroy the last building, but then the soviet player used it on his own command territory and this time i retreated my units when i saw the marker, but the first il-2 bombed the retreating grenadiers and killed about 50% of them with a single run...

another question: can it be used when the hq is down? as far as i know, no abilities can be used when the hq is down, but all enemy hq were already destroyed when he used it?!

Last edited March 5, 2010 at 4:55 PM by kingtiger

if you where playing a 2v2 then it could have been his allies, either that of he called it in right before you destroyed his HQ

it was a 3vs3, but all hqs were down just an armory remained

Probably called it in right before you destroyed it

kingtiger wrote:
it just happened again... ??? we were about to destroy the last building, but then the soviet player used it on his own command territory and this time i retreated my units when i saw the marker, but the first il-2 bombed the retreating grenadiers and killed about 50% of them with a single run...

another question: can it be used when the hq is down? as far as i know, no abilities can be used when the hq is down, but all enemy hq were already destroyed when he used it?!

Did you keep your eye on the map and retreat them the moment the yellow marker appeared?  Or were you caught off guard by his no-hq call in and hesitated for a second or two?  If a bombing run hit your infantry, there was probably one of your vehicles nearby baiting the run.

i saw the marker and retreated my units. they were standing near a hetzer tank of my ally but they were already retreating to my hq and were not even close to the tank anymore when they got hit....

Paciat wrote:
Strafes are anti-blob abilities. Dont blob and you want get mass strafed.

Just watched a game where commando squad used smoke and run into a blob 2 grenadieres (no MGs) and 2 pios (only 1 flamethrower). For the fatherland(defensive) was used and Commandos lost 4 men and had to retreat.
These tough grens (vet 2) have to got a weaknees. You cant make them bomb proof.

I agree. I would think the majority of these players are blobbing, and if you blob and then get rapped by a IL-2 strafe then you should stop blobbing or accept these possible outcomes. If however this is not the case, then the best way to settle this is to start with uploading the replay where it happend.

blobbing isn't the problem, even if you put your units in some distance from each other they will most likely get hit by one of the attacks.
i agree that strafing run is vs. blobbing, but then it's just 1 plane and the henschel isn't so deadly against infantry...
il-2 isn't just vs. blobbing, i've seen a panther driving away and being bombed anyway. the ostwinds we had were quite useless against multiple planes from multiple directions.

kingtiger wrote:
blobbing isn't the problem, even if you put your units in some distance from each other they will most likely get hit by one of the attacks.
i agree that strafing run is vs. blobbing, but then it's just 1 plane and the henschel isn't so deadly against infantry...
il-2 isn't just vs. blobbing, i've seen a panther driving away and being bombed anyway. the ostwinds we had were quite useless against multiple planes from multiple directions.

Well then like I said, replays please. I for one haven't found it too overpowered, and since most will agree right now the Soviets are a little underpowered they need all the firepower they can get vs those nasty Axis blobs. Sure it can be devastating, blobs or not, if used at the right place at the right time, but costing minimum 10 CP's plus the lengthy cooldown it damn well should be.

Polo wrote:

kingtiger wrote:
blobbing isn't the problem, even if you put your units in some distance from each other they will most likely get hit by one of the attacks.
i agree that strafing run is vs. blobbing, but then it's just 1 plane and the henschel isn't so deadly against infantry...
il-2 isn't just vs. blobbing, i've seen a panther driving away and being bombed anyway. the ostwinds we had were quite useless against multiple planes from multiple directions.

Well then like I said, replays please. I for one haven't found it too overpowered, and since most will agree right now the Soviets are a little underpowered they need all the firepower they can get vs those nasty Axis blobs. Sure it can be devastating, blobs or not, if used at the right place at the right time, but costing minimum 10 CP's plus the lengthy cooldown it damn well should be.

I agree that dual Soviets are a little underpowered 2v2, but on the other hand in 1v1 they are also a bit OP.  The ppsh should be nerfed to the American engineer's SMG stats for example.  It just doesn't make sense how a 150 manpower squad (who are also immune to mines guarding flanks, and can neglect MG fire with the Major's charge) can rape a 300 manpower grenadier squad even at vet3.  Same with the partisans...those guys are like commandos combat-wise; the booby trap points are perfectly fine, but the demo they lay on buildings can't be manually targeted by small arms fire.  Other than that, the ZiS and conscripts need a buff and the USSR mortar just needs a slight nerf to its minimum range.

Last edited March 6, 2010 at 7:22 PM by Chancellor

Chancellor wrote:

Polo wrote:

kingtiger wrote:
blobbing isn't the problem, even if you put your units in some distance from each other they will most likely get hit by one of the attacks.
i agree that strafing run is vs. blobbing, but then it's just 1 plane and the henschel isn't so deadly against infantry...
il-2 isn't just vs. blobbing, i've seen a panther driving away and being bombed anyway. the ostwinds we had were quite useless against multiple planes from multiple directions.

Well then like I said, replays please. I for one haven't found it too overpowered, and since most will agree right now the Soviets are a little underpowered they need all the firepower they can get vs those nasty Axis blobs. Sure it can be devastating, blobs or not, if used at the right place at the right time, but costing minimum 10 CP's plus the lengthy cooldown it damn well should be.

I agree that dual Soviets are a little underpowered 2v2, but on the other hand in 1v1 they are also a bit OP.  The ppsh should be nerfed to the American engineer's SMG stats for example.  It just doesn't make sense how a 150 manpower squad (who are also immune to mines guarding flanks, and can neglect MG fire with the Major's charge) can rape a 300 manpower grenadier squad even at vet3.  Same with the partisans...those guys are like commandos combat-wise; the booby trap points are perfectly fine, but the demo they lay on buildings can't be manually targeted by small arms fire.  Other than that, the ZiS and conscripts need a buff and the USSR mortar just needs a slight nerf to its minimum range.

I don't see where you're comming from with the ppsh nerf. Remember that the sappers only get those ppsh's once the 200MU upgrade has been researched, and most people would spend those munitions on many other upgrades first. Even so, I doubt a vetted sapper squad can take out a fully vetted grenadier one, I'd like to see that. As for the partisians, considering they're cost of CP's and MP, I think they're effectiveness is about right. ZIS seems fine to me, other than that recrewing problem. Although I think you may be right about the Soviets mortar range, only slightly though like you said.

Polo wrote:

Chancellor wrote:

Polo wrote:

kingtiger wrote:
blobbing isn't the problem, even if you put your units in some distance from each other they will most likely get hit by one of the attacks.
i agree that strafing run is vs. blobbing, but then it's just 1 plane and the henschel isn't so deadly against infantry...
il-2 isn't just vs. blobbing, i've seen a panther driving away and being bombed anyway. the ostwinds we had were quite useless against multiple planes from multiple directions.

Well then like I said, replays please. I for one haven't found it too overpowered, and since most will agree right now the Soviets are a little underpowered they need all the firepower they can get vs those nasty Axis blobs. Sure it can be devastating, blobs or not, if used at the right place at the right time, but costing minimum 10 CP's plus the lengthy cooldown it damn well should be.

I agree that dual Soviets are a little underpowered 2v2, but on the other hand in 1v1 they are also a bit OP.  The ppsh should be nerfed to the American engineer's SMG stats for example.  It just doesn't make sense how a 150 manpower squad (who are also immune to mines guarding flanks, and can neglect MG fire with the Major's charge) can rape a 300 manpower grenadier squad even at vet3.  Same with the partisans...those guys are like commandos combat-wise; the booby trap points are perfectly fine, but the demo they lay on buildings can't be manually targeted by small arms fire.  Other than that, the ZiS and conscripts need a buff and the USSR mortar just needs a slight nerf to its minimum range.

I don't see where you're comming from with the ppsh nerf. Remember that the sappers only get those ppsh's once the 200MU upgrade has been researched, and most people would spend those munitions on many other upgrades first. Even so, I doubt a vetted sapper squad can take out a fully vetted grenadier one, I'd like to see that. As for the partisians, considering they're cost of CP's and MP, I think they're effectiveness is about right. ZIS seems fine to me, other than that recrewing problem. Although I think you may be right about the Soviets mortar range, only slightly though like you said.

Well, it takes a ZiS 4-5 shots to kill a PE AC, and you can't even re-crew it if it dies.  For the ppsh case, 200 munis is hardly close to the cost for vet3 (dont forget you must upgrade your grens with shrecks too if you invested in vet3 inf, and 3-4 of those cost more than 200 munis already), and yes, a 150 manpower upgraded engie squad can really kill a 300 manpower vet3 grenadier squad 1v1.  This is not even counting the dual flamer upgrades they can get and the re-enforce cost comparisons.  The partisan are a little too strong (maybe only slightly too strong), but the main concern is that they can demo (which are invisible) buildings.  Its not as bad as the British commando demos who can outright lay them randomly on the ground, but still irritating.

Last edited March 7, 2010 at 4:49 AM by Chancellor

Ya, agree, the IL2 ability is too strong, i experience this few times where 2 groups of my vet3 wehrmacht never survived the IL2 attack.  :'(

Like the HS129 run, if you get out of the radius of the mark of the ability, you won't get strafed.

If you blob, and I've seen shit loads of people use Vet blob vs soviets and you should be punished for it.

Hell, I've seen 3 Vet3 KC squads run around the battlefield pawning all soviet infantry and then Faust a couple of T34s to death before being forced to hit retreat

Zerstörer wrote:
Like the HS129 run, if you get out of the radius of the mark of the ability, you won't get strafed.

If you blob, and I've seen shit loads of people use Vet blob vs soviets and you should be punished for it.

Hell, I've seen 3 Vet3 KC squads run around the battlefield pawning all soviet infantry and then Faust a couple of T34s to death before being forced to hit retreat

I don't believe this.  The slow ability and the grenades the guards get with the upgrade are maddog, and so are those ppsh engies....and who lets their T34s get fausted to death....I can understand you lose a vehicle or 2 at most to shrecks from fighting with grens, but seriously...fausted to death?  Unless its some kind of late game noob 4v4 what kind of idiot would waste their munis like that ...the idiot on the other side must be an even bigger noob to rts who never knew how to spell the word "kite".

i would not say soviets are underpowered at this moment.

and his is again, talking about IL-2 ability, NOT how the other soviet units or abilities.

it seems like an overpowered ability, and can be used so easily. again, i think it needs a small nerf with the strafe, because it seems to be more for killing the German tanks.

But, Vet3 Germans ARE that strong, and KCs no less.

-Narizna

Slow down ability is gone next patch...but don' give me rubish about the PPS Sturmovie when compared to MP44 squads and KCs or infact other Assault troops. The two grenades on the Guards are less damaging than 1 US nade and barely scratches vetted troops...hardly insane...
Lets not even mention what LMG42 grens do to soviet infantry...
Everyone knows how to kite but even the top 10 Seb,12azor etc will always have their vehicles fausted/sticked in a game, that's the way it is, none of that 'noob learn how to kite stuff'. 

Anyways, this isn't about the above its about the IL2 ability which may need further nerfing...we'll see

Zerstörer wrote:
Slow down ability is gone next patch...but don' give me rubish about the PPS Sturmovie when compared to MP44 squads and KCs or infact other Assault troops. The two grenades on the Guards are less damaging than 1 US nade and barely scratches vetted troops...hardly insane...
Lets not even mention what LMG42 grens do to soviet infantry...
Everyone knows how to kite but even the top 10 Seb,12azor etc will always have their vehicles fausted/sticked in a game, that's the way it is, none of that 'noob learn how to kite stuff'. 

Anyways, this isn't about the above its about the IL2 ability which may need further nerfing...we'll see

lol ok  Good luck with your next patch then.

Zerstörer wrote:
Slow down ability is gone next patch...

This sounds very very good for me.
The mod team is still showing us that they can balance this mod.

This was suggested by a lot of ppl already, im really happy now that you did something about that.

but now .. hmhm im wondering about ya' solution.
Let us know :)

There is no ability that is more powerful than IS-2. It can target vehicles and infantry. There is no way to defend from it even if you have multiple anti aircraft units. I think it should be at least a bit weaker against infantry because one run can destroy multiple units no matter their veterancy or numbers.

krajsnik wrote:
There is no ability that is more powerful than IS-2. It can target vehicles and infantry. There is no way to defend from it even if you have multiple anti aircraft units. I think it should be at least a bit weaker against infantry because one run can destroy multiple units no matter their veterancy or numbers.

Dude... did you see that the last post was in march and the topic was about 1.04 patch? If you want to discuss the balance of that ability create a new topic instead of reviving an old one.

Let the old threads rest in peace.

EDIT: My mistake it already exists.

http://easternfront.org/forums/index.php?topic=4387.msg46318;topicseen#new

Last edited September 26, 2010 at 2:09 AM by blackbishop