Improving the current AB? Some recommendations, and feedback.

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[Smokaz]

The current AB is kinda bad. What's been thrown around is stuff like "AB doesn't need buffs" - Leophone - and I know spinn72 puked up some similar stuff (too lazy to dig up the posts). Not to shit on anyone's parade but I don't see why if the base unlocked units are balanced they should not get comparably good combat buffs to the other doctrines. Right now the entire doctrine seems like it was deathly scared of giving the paratrooper doctrine more traditional stat buffs.

So what's airborne supposed to be about? Well first of all I think AB has a strong history regarding it's supposed "theme" and I would like to point these out early. Some of it is based on how AB has been before.

- Strategic deployment through airdropping units
- A strong infantry focus
- The Hit & run factor of RR's
- The introduction of a elite AI infantry for AB (now more or less crapped on)
- Little armor focus
- Little light vehicle focus
- More "elite" support teams - something that was introduced later
- No artillery
- The best american offmaps
- Temporary buffs, "Raid" type of benefits to your units

I understand we have these doctrine guidelines, but are they intended to make airborne a split between ab's "core values" and armor doctrine? That can't be what they try to achieve.

T4 changes suggestions

Aerial Supremacy
-Airborne riflemen should receive +20 hp per man to match regular AB squads. Pure AB armor alone is not much of a buff as we know from the bottom T3 of luft which seems stronger than this entire T4.
-Offmaps fired into fog of war is kinda dumb. Why would you fire on something you dont know is there? How about this T4 giving more line of sight, like +10 to all infantry squads. Reflecting their superior airspace and ability to have planes spotting for them, yada yada.
- Airborne medic and support team buffs for this one is otherwise fine.

Night Raid
Kind of "okay-meme.jpg" buffs, but if "Gilly Suits" got removed I have to say that theres no way to play a themed "stealthy ab". I would suggest the ditching of the cloak in cover which we already have for luft and add something else.

Alternatively, it could be kept and the T4 could be reworked to be more in line with this.

I would think it aclever and fun idea if it was possible to remove the paratrooper icon showing up on the minimap, and having the AB drop cloaked. Once they finish dropping they should receive a temporary buff, much like raid assault. Night Raid should be the ninja flank assault T4. I'm thinking a max health buff that lasts for a minute, a small reload modiifer (0.

Would make this T4 really fun to play with.

Death from above
This t4 kind of suggests to use airborne with the lmg's as a AI unit. However this necessitates using cover to fire the stationary-only lmg. I would suggest that a compensation for the AB armor then becoming useless with a bonus to using cover equal to the benefit of being on the move with ab armor. It should of course only apply in cover and not make them even harder to hit and damage on the move.

T3 changes suggestions

Secured Landing Zones
If you look at luftwaffe top T4, it gets the boss buff of -15 deploy time on top of some pretty serious accuracy buffs. Look at top t4 and top t3 for luft, and compare to AB's. Pretty shitty how AB ends up looking, huh?

The light vehicle buff seems out of place here. I don't like it enough. If its supposed to help players have their armored vehicles up to the front fast to help it should also apply to their tanks.

#1 change would be extending it to all tanks as well. I would probably go as far as 33% seeing as it only last for 30 seconds. Keep in mind its not supposed to suck on the larger 4v4 maps. Yeah tanks will be fast on RTC, but I dont really see the problem with that.

Airborne overhead
While apparently it looks like this thing gives a lot of buffs, it doesn't really add up to that much.  Luftwaffe players are grabbing the T1 60s early deployment regardless of doctrine builds since its a T1 which everyone gets all of.

Add in some small combat buff here.

Covered Operations
The territory buff here is the problem. Unless playing traditionally with moving up from spawn, this isn't going to get used very often.

T1, T2s
Generally I like these.
Eagles nest is great for a T2. I would like if the +5 range applied to normal cover as well as this T2 would be a great pick to counter-act the forced mobility of AB, allowing for AB to sometimes "hole up" and ambush tanks etc. Trench cover doesn't make sense, AB can't even build them!

Other suggestions

I think it would be great if AB riflemen actually became 100% "paradropped riflemen" while the AB squad was the "elite" infantry unit. Meaning that AB would have this maximum range of options available to them:

Bars
Lmg
RR
Grenade
Satchel

Depending on what you unlock. Specialize them in what you want.

AB = Elite
AB "Rifles" = Just rifles, that paradrop

Airborne riflemen should be just be Disposable rifles. 200 mp with same vet and weapon options as rifles. Same prices. I dont think its neccessary to even have them as a "separate" unit. Just let whatever buffs planned to affect ab rifles, affect riflemen. Make airborne be the doctrine that allows you to paradrop riflemen. Replace the bottom T1 with "rifles now paradrop".

I would also like paradropped engineers to be added using the same general approach to it as the ab rifles above.

Most important issue:
Lack of combat buffs for their infantry compared to other doctrines.

[Smokaz]

About flying doctors.

Look at the current available healing options for allies.
They are great. In team games you'll have CCS's and triages almost always.

Airborne medics aren't really worth of a T3 unlock. I'm not sure how it should be re-arranged, but seeing as they are just performing a triage like function it seems unnecessary for them to be a T3. Kinda overkill, bzap.

[spinn72]

Oh shit I didn't know that people actually listened to me!

Clearly current AB isn't strong enough. The reason I didn't think AB needed buffs was because they were doing fine non-doctrinally (and I was personally doing fine with them, but you know, you should never let personal experiences affect the entire community, so I apologise in hindsight) until Terror came out. Clearly the most powerful doctrine in the game, it's set off the balance, also, the fact that vet 3 is harder to get also plays a factor... Before vet levels were upped, everyone was running 4-5 vet 3 ab squads with cooldown doc buffs stacking with doc buffs .

Airborne has traditionally been the wtfop doctrine. HP, LoS, Range +5 and Reload/Cooldown (in moderation) are all viable buffs to directly affect AB troops. I'm also one that believes that a binocular-esque ability should be available for AB snipers on cooldown of like 6 minutes. Something like mark target just to provide sight for what is on an area, with green smoke dropping on the area that the sniper is looking at. AB is about hit and run, picking your engagements etc, this fits in nicely.

I like this article, Smokaz has made a series of open ended suggestions, hopefully this can turn into a productive thread.

[nugnugx]

Stronger AB will be OP.

[LeoPhone]

AB Riflemen already are 100% rifles that just paradrop?

[skaffa]

hopefully this can turn into a productive thread.

+1

[Tymathee]

very nice smoker.

AB Riflemen already are 100% rifles that just paradrop?

i think he's more focused on giving rifles and ab rifles the same buffs so that they streamline, not one or the other.

I Love night raid, i never thought of cloaking paradropping units but that'd be infinitely useful and fun as heck but without being OP.

[RikiRude]

I have to say I agree with most of what smokaz says, except for one thing. right now night raid afaik barely works.

enemy unit call in timer +33%, +6 pop, and covered operations 3x capping speed all is not working, and i hear sniper garand rifle is underwhelming.

but shit man, enemy gets longer call in timers AND you cap 3x as fast? this is an AB players wet dream! i see quads with RR support dropping on the side lines and back capping the shit out of the enemy and once the enemy realizes he's getting back capped, he already has a +33% call in timer so will be slow to counter the back capping. plus with +6 pop cap you can always keep an AB sniper on and still run your normal company.

also i think the SL getting extra HP from before should not have been taken out because it was a great T2 that helped.

also what ever happened to eagle eyes? what was it atg and rr accuracy and/or penetration buff?

[tank130]

We walk a very fine line with AB. It takes very, very little to make them OP.

I disagree with comparing AB with Luft. Luft are near useless with out doctrine buffs where as AB can stand their own with out any buffs.

Aerial Supremacy
-Airborne riflemen should receive +20 hp per man to match regular AB squads. Pure AB armor alone is not much of a buff as we know from the bottom T3 of luft which seems stronger than this entire T4.

Buffing Rifles would just create blobs of the best AT weapon in the game covered by strong AI. EIR has always been about cost / reward.

-Offmaps fired into fog of war is kinda dumb. Why would you fire on something you dont know is there? How about this T4 giving more line of sight, like +10 to all infantry squads. Reflecting their superior airspace and ability to have planes spotting for them, yada yada.

 Not a bad idea....

Night Raid
Kind of "okay-meme.jpg" buffs, but if "Gilly Suits" got removed I have to say that theres no way to play a themed "stealthy ab". I would suggest the ditching of the cloak in cover which we already have for luft and add something else.

I use this ability and it kicks some serious ass if used correctly. I think you are underrating this ability.

I would think it a clever and fun idea if it was possible to remove the paratrooper icon showing up on the minimap, and having the AB drop cloaked. Once they finish dropping they should receive a temporary buff, much like raid assault. Night Raid should be the ninja flank assault T4. I'm thinking a max health buff that lasts for a minute, a small reload modiifer (0.

One or the other of these abilities would be cool. Combined they would be OP imo

Death from above
This t4 kind of suggests to use airborne with the lmg's as a AI unit. However this necessitates using cover to fire the stationary-only lmg. I would suggest that a compensation for the AB armor then becoming useless with a bonus to using cover equal to the benefit of being on the move with ab armor. It should of course only apply in cover and not make them even harder to hit and damage on the move.

I agree that a lmg for AB AI needs some work.

T3 changes suggestions

Secured Landing Zones
If you look at luftwaffe top T4, it gets the boss buff of -15 deploy time on top of some pretty serious accuracy buffs. Look at top t4 and top t3 for luft, and compare to AB's. Pretty shitty how AB ends up looking, huh?

The light vehicle buff seems out of place here. I don't like it enough. If its supposed to help players have their armored vehicles up to the front fast to help it should also apply to their tanks.

#1 change would be extending it to all tanks as well. I would probably go as far as 33% seeing as it only last for 30 seconds. Keep in mind its not supposed to suck on the larger 4v4 maps. Yeah tanks will be fast on RTC, but I dont really see the problem with that.

Tanks rushing to the enemy spawn on small maps would indeed be a big problem.

Airborne overhead
While apparently it looks like this thing gives a lot of buffs, it doesn't really add up to that much.  Luftwaffe players are grabbing the T1 60s early deployment regardless of doctrine builds since its a T1 which everyone gets all of.

I think it is wrong to compare AB to Luft.

Covered Operations
The territory buff here is the problem. Unless playing traditionally with moving up from spawn, this isn't going to get used very often.

This is a team game. Your team mates connect to spawn, you can back cap like crazy. This is a good T3 imo

I think it would be great if AB riflemen actually became 100% "paradropped riflemen" while the AB squad was the "elite" infantry unit. Meaning that AB would have this maximum range of options available to them:

They are just airdropped Rifles

I would also like paradropped engineers to be added using the same general approach to it as the ab rifles above.

Rifles, RR's, Engies with flamers & mines....... That sounds like blobs of doom to me!!


Very well written smokaz. Well thought out as well.

[PonySlaystation]

Airborne medics aren't really worth of a T3 unlock. I'm not sure how it should be re-arranged, but seeing as they are just performing a triage like function it seems unnecessary for them to be a T3.

I agree. It would make more sense if the unlocks were grouped like this:



-AB sniper is a strong unit, it should be a T3.
-AB riflemen should be with regular AB, I see no reason why they should be separated.
-AB Medic should be a T2 because it's not worthy of a T3.

[PonySlaystation]

As for the rest of the doctrine I have done a simple draft and changed the current doctrine just to give it a better outline, many abilities aren't so bad, it's just the placement of them.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgvuGxm5v1-wdDF6SmIxV3dSYkljU2todkQ0YW1jX2c

- There is now one tree for Support, one tree for Infantry and one tree for RRs.
- There are now useful T3s. The old ones were utility based and there was point in picking two T3s.
- By doing that I have also fixed the very strong T2s.
- I have fixed the very controversial sniper buff at T1, it didn't make much sense.
- The offmap buff is now more useful.
- There are now much needed combat buffs.

EDIT: Carbines may be used in Infantry doc so you can scratch that one. Suggestions for a T4 that can replace the Death from Above unfinished T4 are open.

[MorkaandBorka]

Ok....so why does none of the AB doctrine actually work anyways?  I mean ITS THE ONLY DOCTRINE THAT HAS A COUPLE T4'S AND T3'S not even working for gods sake...and yourstill able to make it a relativly easy game.  I would love to have my airborne actually have real buffs and doctrine for the 1st time this past year, but Im afraid it will indeead make them too powerful. 

I really wish gilly suits were back in the game tbh, it was one ability that I felt was unique and kidna fun, you could never move while cloaked but got a really cool ambush ability. 

Smokaz I honestly agree with all of what your saying, placements and otherwise, I hate that all the shit still doesnt work...for gods sake I still have to wait 30 seconds for my ab to drop even if i have the top T4?  It sucks..

On an off note is there any way that someone can tell me which T3's/T4s are actually working and what parts of them work?

[Smokaz]

Them not being implemented or bugged shouldnt bother anyone, the actual abilities sucking is no fun though

[MorkaandBorka]

But smokaz, do they really NEED buffs?  Honestly for newer players maybe it'll be better but we've been using non doctrinal airborne for what 8 months or whatever and its totally fine. 

The abilities do suck though, I think the balance team was just being cautious more than anything.

[Groundfire]

You guys should just let me design AB.

If my terror is any indication, I think I could design a crack airborne doctrine.

[MorkaandBorka]

You guys should just let me design AB.

If my terror is any indication, I think I could design a crack airborne doctrine.

please do...Your like the golden child now with your RGD skills right?!

How fast can you get one done?  Why dont you and smokaz work together to make something interesting. 

[Mister Schmidt]

lol if I was Ground I'd respond with hate to you morka

[Smokaz]

I'm logging out because you're embarassing me morka

[Hicks58]

At the least Groundfire, I'd like to see you start putting out some more doctrine layouts in your style. Terror's good, but the other doctrines need to be brought up to specification.

[MorkaandBorka]