Comparing T-34/85 with IS-2 [1.23]

I personally think that T-34/85 is right now the best tank ingame, while IS-2 is underpowered. T-34 /85 has Churchills armor and similar HP and a great gun that can be used for anything. Its better in every way than a upgunned Sherman without an MG and its cheaper. It can take 2 StugIV on and win.
On the other hand theres the slow IS-2. Its gun does more dmg but reloades slower. It has 10% lower accuracy than T-34, much lower accuracy vs infantry and its accuracy drops even more when its on the move.
It has better armor and HP but circlestrafing and rear shooting it is easy. T-34/85 (Churchills) armor is also the strongest armor to rear shots, stronger than IS-2 (Pershings) armor. IS-2 also has much lower aera of effect. Killing 2 grens with 1 shell T-34/85 is as common as killing only 1 gren with 2 IS-2 shells.

The only thing IS-2 is better at is killing Tigers (*1,4dmg), Jagdpanthers (*1,25dmg) Panthers and PzIVs (1,15dmg) (0,5 deflection mulitlayer compared to 0,15 of T-34 and most other guns) but 2 T-34/85 will do it better anyway.

A few months ago I posted a topic comparing Stugs and T-34/85. Its related to this one so:
http://easternfront.org/forums/index.php?topic=4533.0

Last edited November 28, 2010 at 7:02 PM by Paciat

I think the T-34/85 is too strong right now, but I think it was one of the best tanks in the war so it will be hard to nerf it without all the people who cares more about history than balance to complain. Maybe the upgrade from 76 to 85 could be more expensive, or it could have less AoE. It is just stupid how fast it kills infantry. 
Also your poll has to few options.

At the moment I more often find myself building T-34's over IS-2's mainly due to the munition drain and resources available, not their overall performance to be honest. And if i want a breakthrough tank i more often than not have the ISU-152 on hand to take out Tiger's etc. (tankwise that is)

Last edited November 27, 2010 at 4:12 PM by Raider217

IMO-The thing that gives the T-34 the edge is speed, a pack of 3 or 4 T-34's circle straffing the bigger tanks is lethal.

Paciat wrote:
I personally think that T-34/85 is right now the best tank ingame, while IS-2 is underpowered. T-34 /85 has Churchills armor and similar HP and a great gun that can be used for anything. Its better in every way than a upgunned Sherman without an MG and its cheaper. It can take 2 StugIV on and win.
On the other hand theres the slow IS-2. Its gun does more dmg but reloades slower. It has 10% lower accuracy than T-34, much lower accuracy vs infantry and its accuracy drops even more when its on the move.
It has better armor and HP but circlestrafing and rear shooting it is easy. T-34/85 (Churchills) armor is also the strongest armor to rear shots, stronger than IS-2 (Pershings) armor. IS-2 also has much lower aera of effect. Killing 2 grens with 1 shell T-34/85 is as common as killing only 1 gren with 2 IS-2 shells.

The only thing IS-2 is better at is killing Tigers (*1,4dmg), Jagdpanthers (*1,25dmg) Panthers and PzIVs (1,15dmg) (0,5 deflection mulitlayer compared to 0,15 of T-34 and most other guns) but 2 T-34/85 will do it better anyway.

A few months ago I posted a topic comparing Stugs and T-34/85. Its related to this one so:
http://easternfront.org/forums/index.php?topic=4533.0

You've presented the problem better that I will ever do. I also think there is a problem regarding soviet late game tanks.
T34/85 is, in my opinion, overpowered, regarless of its real performance on the battlefield. Great gun, great armor, high speed... it need a nerf, because its not a upped T34, its a totally new unit regarding its possibility in COH. This tank is not only very decent; its also so cheap. Even a pz4 is more expensive and less efficient on the battlefield, by far.
When you have access to T34/85, all other tanks become suddenly useless for the player. Thats not interesting for me.

The IS-2 should have a better effect against buildings and infantry at least than T34/85. Its not the case. Destroying a bunker take much more time to IS-2 than to T34/85, due to a lower accuracy reload time, and damage. Why?
I can understand that the reload time is awful, but IS-2 should contain elite crews, meaning that there are more accurate, plus late war soviet optics were good. And we are talking about a 122mm gun, not a 85mm one. Its an expensive toy, nothing more.

Yeah, I agree t34/85 is just too cheap (the manpower has to be raised, or the upgrade cost, or even both), and is2 is too ineffective. That does need to be corrected.

IJoe wrote:
Yeah, I agree t34/85 is just too cheap (the manpower has to be raised, or the upgrade cost, or even both), and is2 is too ineffective. That does need to be corrected.

I think, the upgrade and unlock costs are high enough.
The only thing you could do is to raise the Manpower demand of the T34 a bit and buff the IS2.

I dont use tanks that often, only if necessary. I prefer the soviet infantry...  :)

Red_Stinger wrote:
The IS-2 should have a better effect against buildings and infantry at least than T34/85. Its not the case. Destroying a bunker take much more time to IS-2 than to T34/85, due to a lower accuracy reload time, and damage. Why?
I can understand that the reload time is awful, but IS-2 should contain elite crews, meaning that there are more accurate, plus late war soviet optics were good. And we are talking about a 122mm gun, not a 85mm one. Its an expensive toy, nothing more.

The reload time does coincide with real life however (i know real life isnt a great thing to go off for CoH) as the 122mm sheel of the IS-2 came as two parts so crews had to prepare it then load it in order to fire IRL giving it a fire rate of once every couple of mins. The crew isnt a major factor this time just the loading procedures.

Last edited November 27, 2010 at 11:39 PM by Raider217

revoluzer wrote:
The only thing you could do is to raise the Manpower demand of the T34 a bit and buff the IS2.

Agreed on the manpower cost raise for T34/85 only (and the IS2 buff, of course)

Last edited November 27, 2010 at 11:44 PM by IJoe

Raider217 wrote:

Red_Stinger wrote:
The IS-2 should have a better effect against buildings and infantry at least than T34/85. Its not the case. Destroying a bunker take much more time to IS-2 than to T34/85, due to a lower accuracy reload time, and damage. Why?
I can understand that the reload time is awful, but IS-2 should contain elite crews, meaning that there are more accurate, plus late war soviet optics were good. And we are talking about a 122mm gun, not a 85mm one. Its an expensive toy, nothing more.

The reload time does coincide with real life however (i know real life isnt a great thing to go off for CoH) as the 122mm sheel of the IS-2 came as two parts so crews had to prepare it then load it in order to fire IRL giving it a fire rate of once every couple of mins. The crew isnt a major factor this time just the loading procedures.

I was talking about crew affecting accuracy -.-

Red_Stinger wrote:

Raider217 wrote:

Red_Stinger wrote:
The IS-2 should have a better effect against buildings and infantry at least than T34/85. Its not the case. Destroying a bunker take much more time to IS-2 than to T34/85, due to a lower accuracy reload time, and damage. Why?
I can understand that the reload time is awful, but IS-2 should contain elite crews, meaning that there are more accurate, plus late war soviet optics were good. And we are talking about a 122mm gun, not a 85mm one. Its an expensive toy, nothing more.

The reload time does coincide with real life however (i know real life isnt a great thing to go off for CoH) as the 122mm sheel of the IS-2 came as two parts so crews had to prepare it then load it in order to fire IRL giving it a fire rate of once every couple of mins. The crew isnt a major factor this time just the loading procedures.

I was talking about crew affecting accuracy -.-

My mistake

IJoe wrote:

revoluzer wrote:
The only thing you could do is to raise the Manpower demand of the T34 a bit and buff the IS2.

Agreed on the manpower cost raise for T34/85 only (and the IS2 buff, of course)

I also wanted an armor change of T-34. Heavy tank armor (Churchills) is too strong for the fastest medium tank ingame.
It could get an armor anti penetration bonus after vet 2 or 3.
Shermans armor is still better than PzIV and only a little weaker to frontal hits than Churchills. T-34 will then be much weaker only to side/rear hits and StugIVs but a still more powerfull than a US Sherman (becouse of the gun and extra HP).

Last edited November 28, 2010 at 3:31 PM by Paciat

I questioned the churchill armour when it was first put in. I agree that it is too powerful on such a fantastic all-round tank. The T-34/85 is without a doubt the best tank in the game. The only thing that makes it too good however is the armour type, which should be brought back down to sherman as you say. The IS2 is fine in my opinion. That thing has a ridiculous amount of health and beats panthers. It's more like a KT than anything, able to take ridiculous punishment and be the focal point of your attack while support units do their thing. Great breakthrough unit. You could make it more accurate against infantry so it snipes more reliably like the panther though I guess.

I think it would be a good idea to change the armour type of the T34/85 and see how this effect the gameplay before we make more change to it.

Paciat do you know what type of amour the T34/76 has? It doesn't seem like that tank need a nerf, but it would also be weird if it got a worse armour when it got upgraded.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
You could make it more accurate against infantry so it snipes more reliably like the panther though I guess.

Its a 122mm naval gun. How about making its aera of effect higher instead of increasing its accuracy?


@SavageWorld  T34/76 has Sherman armor.

Paciat wrote:

GodlikeDennis wrote:
You could make it more accurate against infantry so it snipes more reliably like the panther though I guess.

Its a 122mm naval gun. How about making its aera of effect higher instead of increasing its accuracy?


@SavageWorld  T34/76 has Sherman armor.

T34/85 armor type will be changed in the next patch.

I say accuracy because higher AoE damage would be difficult to balance with small WH squads and we wouldn't want a bunch of mini Tigers running around. The panther is very well balanced against both infantry and tanks and is a nice template for a endgame AT tank.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
I say accuracy because higher AoE damage would be difficult to balance with small WH squads and we wouldn't want a bunch of mini Tigers running around. The panther is very well balanced against both infantry and tanks and is a nice template for a endgame AT tank.

Allmost all Allied medium tanks have large AOE. I dont want IS-2 to be as powerfull as the Tiger I, I just want it to have at least the same AOE stats as T-34/85. I alsodont mind rerfing T-34/85 a bit right now (its AOE or accuracy) as they do more dmg than allied tanks, being faster and cheaper too.

If youre comparing IS-2 and Panthers AOE than compare PzIV and T-34/85 AOE. Both german tanks get an MG at vet 2...

A mostly ineffective MG. Shermans have fantastic AoE while also having a great MG. That argument isn't valid.

The T-34 doesn't really have an impressive AoE so if you want to add that to the IS2 fine. There should be no reason though to add the AoE of a sherman to the anti-tank vehicle.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
A mostly ineffective MG. Shermans have fantastic AoE while also having a great MG. That argument isn't valid. The T-34 doesn't really have an impressive AoE so if you want to add that to the IS2 fine.

Sherman is slower, more expensive and has a weaker gun. True their AoE is fantastic but its the same as the T-34/85. (but T-34 gun is 20-25% more powerfull)
The US turret MG is a fraction "trademark" just like British tank commanders or WH armored skirts. Soviets were just known of their big guns and fast tanks.

Quote
There should be no reason though to add the AoE of a Sherman to the anti-tank vehicle.

IS-2 is IMO a do it all breakethru tank. The true AT unit of Soviets is SU-85/100. Same with StugIV if being compared with SU.

blackbishop wrote:

Paciat wrote:

GodlikeDennis wrote:
You could make it more accurate against infantry so it snipes more reliably like the panther though I guess.

Its a 122mm naval gun. How about making its aera of effect higher instead of increasing its accuracy?


@SavageWorld  T34/76 has Sherman armor.

T34/85 armor type will be changed in the next patch.

I really hope IS-2 will also receive change, because it's kinda weird to have a heavy tank which fire at a low rate, and keep missing its target so often.  :(

I hope also that dev will not raise the muni upkeep of T34/85 (or other tanks) to balance its cost, it would be the wrong answer. IMO the muni upkeep is anyway a bad idea that break the pleasure of playing COH as soviet.

Red_Stinger wrote:
I really hope IS-2 will also receive change, because it's kinda weird to have a heavy tank which fire at a low rate[...]

that's just realistic, IS-2 was firing very slow because it used 2 seperate parts for ammunition:

[...]used a separate shell and powder charge, resulting in a lower rate of fire and reduced ammunition capacity[...]

IMO all the IS2 needs is a slightly better accuracy. Its low fire rate balances its high health and damage