Any downside to panther?

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[aeroblade56]

Is there any real downside to taking a panther?? at 450 fuel for some of the strongest Armor ingame and available to all axis factions, along with that You can also if going blitz you can get 2 panthers and 1 tiger. for some of the toughest tanks ingame.

Now, from what i see the Pershing  will lose to a Panther often without HVAP with the panther kiting the tank to death.
with the moving accuracy being pretty bad and i do not know if the Panther is anyworse but it seems the Pershing misses alot more when trying to give chase to panther.

Isnt really a balance issue as much as it is for general discussion, and im sure hix could come clear up some stuff somehow someway.

Anyway i dont think there is a downside to  panthers. discuss what the downside is.

[hans]

well one downside is probably that panther gets useless if the enemy has at least 2 atguns on field + it snipes infantry well, but against masses of infantry u actually have a bad choice with ur panther.

[aeroblade56]

anything gets uselss vs 2 at guns. and isnt it 14 pop? that isnt a whole lot considering a pershing is 16.

[NightRain]

Any pershing user knows that they can beat a panther 1 on 1 so you're doing something wrong if you aint winning that encounter.

Adding in skirts to a panther will up the price to 490 fuel which gives it the damage and sticky crit decreases.

The Panther indeed is one of the strongest heavy armor available to axis- on the downside it is the only viable vehicle you can rely on. You can't rely on P4 or StuG to do hard work for you as they are blown to smitherins by anti tank gun (Thank god StuG has better armor), neither of them are enough fast and dont posses the range.

At max you can carry 3 panthers in your company, that means more general resources for other units (positive thing) compared to P4 or StuG companies that struggle to bring support for these medium vehicles so I see a quite clear reason why I'd choose panther over a horde of medium/assault guns.

Now to the downsides. Because in fact you'll only carry 3 anyone who has more armored vehicles will easily outration a panther company, on the other hand ANY infantry heavy companies which always carry the proper anti tank support will be able to force panthers to be obsolete due to their lower accuracy versus infantry compared to other tanks which results 14 pop being practically useless.

While panther armor is great, its no Tiger. Its health is higher than P4s but lower than Tigers therefore it works somewhere in the middle. This means the more shots penetrate, the faster it has to go and repair itself.

So far having a panther doesn't have any highly noteable downside but there ain't anything else that seems viable in non-doc Axis arsenal.

[Poppi]

To quote an axis player in a 3v3 match.

"Panthers are the solution to any problem in EIR"

Im not saying thats a good thing.

[DarkSoldierX]

Is there any real downside to taking a panther?? at 450 fuel for some of the strongest Armor ingame and available to all axis factions, along with that You can also if going blitz you can get 2 panthers and 1 tiger. for some of the toughest tanks ingame.

Now, from what i see the Pershing  will lose to a Panther often without HVAP with the panther kiting the tank to death.
with the moving accuracy being pretty bad and i do not know if the Panther is anyworse but it seems the Pershing misses alot more when trying to give chase to panther.

Isnt really a balance issue as much as it is for general discussion, and im sure hix could come clear up some stuff somehow someway.

Anyway i dont think there is a downside to  panthers. discuss what the downside is.

If your loosing your pershing to a single panther your doing it wrong.

And the downside is that you have very small splash and bad acc vs infantry.

The reason why panthers are used to much is metagame, and the fact that a panther crutches a players micro compared to owning multiple stugs/P4s.

[Hicks58]

and im sure hix could come clear up some stuff somehow someway.

*Ears perk up*

Aight, here is why the Panther is such a boss.

Not only can it take out every single piece of Allied armour in a 1 v 1 environment, it can also reliably kill infantry. When I say all Allied armour, I include the Pershing and Firefly too. Ironically, to defeat a Pershing you have to pull a Firefly routine (Back away and snipe from range, take him down piece by piece rather than in one engagement) and to defeat a Firefly you have to pull a Pershing routine (LOLCHARGE!).

The Panther has 742 health. That's more or less 100 more health than a Sherman, on a platform that can reliably bounce every tank based weapon besides the Firefly. It's speed is 5.2, but it's acceleration clocks in at 2.5, making it gather speed twice as fast as a PIV - If it needs to be out of a bad spot, it can be out and fast. Combine this with heavy crush so hedgerows and the likes aren't an issue for pathing and the map is your playground for mobility whilst using the Panther.

Against any form of armour and in the hands of a competent player the Panther is nothing short of a wet dream. It really has no outstanding weaknesses.

So what about it's anti inf? Well, it has 0.6 accuracy against infantry, and a 0.5 moving modifier. Basically, if a squad stands still there's a pretty solid chance of scoring a hit. Even if they move it's still a 0.3 chance, which is pretty fair.

Now take all of these strengths, and then multiply it by three because that's how many of the buggers you can get per company.

Throw in Blitz doctrine running HEAT Rounds/Panzer Aces combined with double repairs and you'd have to really suck with vehicle micro to do poorly with them.

[Smokaz]

Hard question, one answer is that panther can cause you to get outcapped by inf and that it moves faster than most of its support so its better at a creeping defense, it can only go on scouting defenses because getting disabled or is really bad for it.

[PonySlaystation]

The reason that it's so popular in the current metagame is because there is no AB doctrine and AB RRs are super effective against Panthers.

[TheVolskinator]

Tbh, the P4 is decent in my eyes, better then a Sherman (imo--maybe not in reality).

The Panther is nigh unbeatable when it comes to armor in CoH. It does everything short of massacring blobs of infantry and does it well, better then any other platform in the game.

I usually only run 1 Panther in a company and use it as a sort of tank ace, with P4s scurrying around as the company mainstay. Any more Panthers then that is doing it wrong, IMO. The Panther is so great at just staying at max range and just sniping everything. The armor and speed are just 'oh shit' buffers for getting away from suicide TDs for me, I just love the range and the ability to kite everything reliably. Maybe I'm just too conservative in my axis armor play, but anywho, to directly answer the question, no, there's no downside to using a Panther. It's the swiss army knife of armor and outclasses everything in the game in its utility and cost effectiveness when properly used.

There isn't a peice of Allied armor thats even remotely comparable, and Axis armor still lags behind and lets the Panther take the head. The only thing thats more utilitarian then the Panther is the Jagdpanther.

[Heartmann]

Imo, the panther is only a real option if you get acc buffs via a doctrine, also get a scout or the blitz panzer aces which gives it +10 sight, which makes it able to see nd shot things and then get away.

it is as smokaz and other have stated, if anyone does a back cap, spec early game its hard to balance holding and attackcing while sending units to deal with the back capper,since its 14 pop of tank that needs support no matter how good you are with it.

Even my vet 3 ones need support they die fast to any viable atg sheilds and there fore need lots of mgs and mortars, spec mgs to counter riflemans charging it, since a dmg engine tank, even a panther with the speed, is a very easy target for creeping atg and fire fly. = DEAD

So you must have mgs. and as i stated you need things that can counter atg walls, like snipers, mortars or stukkas.

basically its a good unit that has no major flaw, and a bigger adv, BUT needs a lot of attention and a build to support using it if you ahve more than one.

[johnnyaustin]

Panther is amazing. i dont see a really big counter to then besides atg with AP rounds.