The loveable AVRE

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[Mysthalin]

As the 2(rough estimate) people that have been using AVREs, you must have noticed the immense ammount of cooldown time added from pre-Relic-Fuck-Up(PRFU henceforth) to what it is now.
PRFU it was 80 seconds(IIRC) each shot at vet 0, and even then the AVRE was just not used that much. It's not that good at killing blobs due to rather low and inconsistent splash, only a single(and still not accurate) round fired, and overall rather low damage. Not to mention the obnoxiously long wind-up time that gave away the shot to the enemy before it was even fired.  It was only good at killing garrisoned units such as MG42s, and buildings, so it was effective to a certain degree in urban settings. Required immense ammounts of micro, and loads of sappers to repair after each shot due to the inevitable pak snipes as it limbered slowly towards it's target, fired off a shot, and limped back.
Now it is 160 seconds at vet 2(not certain about vet 1), 130 at vet 3. Frankly, that is way too much - it's the same recharge as a howitzer, which has the following pros as oposed to the AVRE :
1) Much longer range.
2) No warning as to WHERE it will hit, only the when.
3) Can be fired properly into the FOW.
4) Fires multiple shells that cause suppresion, as well as damage and have considerably better splash damage.
5) Is quite a lot cheaper
It of course has cons as opposed to the AVRE :
1) Immobile.
2) Slightly less accurate.

Thing is though, that if a pak gets hit by a howitzer - bye bye crew. If a pak is hit by an AVRE... the crew lives. Not all of the time, but 1 in 2 cases, the shell hits the front shield and does nothing to the men behind it. You'd at least expect the shell to destroy the pak itself maybe, but no, it's left at a solid 100 health, to then shoot your AVRE. Taking into account the immense ammount of shots you took just to get that one round off... it's a rather bad trade-off, especialy compounded with the obscenely long cooldown!

We can also compare the AVRE to the priest, at which point the prices would be nearly the same, but the Priest would lose the point of "immobility". The recharge times are still roughly the same, why on earth is it like that? And if we compared it to the damage output of a calliope... The usefullness ratio of both units is very, VERY apparent.

I would like to ask the balance team as to why the AVRE was nerfed in the first place - there were very few users of them PRFU, and if there was anything the AVRE needed - it was a buff to make it more attractive, not a nerf so severe. And I doubt there's any players left at all nowadays that would bother using the AVRE. Or in general the RSE tree - the standard churchill is still as usefull as a church hill, the AVRE now obsolete, and the croc very expensive in terms of PP(LOVE that unit, though the tetrarch is even more appealing).

So yeah, as they say MMORPGS :
"Buff pl0x"

[brn4meplz]

Could have sworn AmPm read off his cooldown timer to me just yesterday as 80 seconds. Which granted still seems a tad long, but when you consider it can insta kill HMG squads and snipers and apply massive damage to multiple squads(maybe not kill) but damage is damage isn't it also like only 8 pop or something? it has that going for it

[Bubz]

Yes, I agree.

[RikiRude]

avre friggen blows. i was really excited to get it with my other british company before things got reset, and i found it incredibly useless. by the time the shell lands the enemy has already run away. it's supposed to be good at taking out entrenched enemies but will get shot about 4 times from a pak and as said wont kill it. a stuh is a thosand more times effective then the avre. they both play about the same role, the problem is stuh can get an MG, and can shoot i dont even know how many rounds in the time it takes an avre to recharge. you can move an mg out of the building before the avre fires, so even then it shows it's uselessness. i have yet to see an avre used effectively against me or anybody else. an ability like that just needs shots that are more consistent then it currently is or a longer range (if the cooldown is 80 seconds then that is fine)

[AmPM]

It is insanely long now, Brn I was thinking prenerf.

A adjustment of the cooldown to 80 seconds, with buffs to damage or range instead of cooldown with vet would make it much more useful.

I still love it, its like a retarded puppy. Sure it just sits there and pisses on your floor, but its cute.

[Killer344]

Powerfull too lolz... I used to have 1 in my brit company before the reset.....

[CafeMilani]

all my paks u and pak shot were completely destroyed...the avre is one of the units i fear most

[Mysthalin]

Pak gun health = 300
AVRE shell damage = 200, 1.0 modifier vs towed_gun target type.
It just can't happen.

[Killer344]

But it can effectively decrew it.

[CafeMilani]

Pak gun health = 300
AVRE shell damage = 200, 1.0 modifier vs towed_gun target type.
It just can't happen.

as pak, i guess he destryed more than just my pak with it

[Mysthalin]

Thing is killer - it can't effectively decrew a pak. If the shell lands atop the shield, the pak crew is considered behind a heavy cover obstacle, basicaly removing any splash damage.

[Killer344]

No, it doesn´t remove the splash, the main reason I got the avre was to decrew and kill the paks for the church croc :p, you may just had bad luck.

[panzerjager1943]

CrocoChurchill can handle Paks with great ease; as the Pak provides green cover, it toasts them.
Although, you do have to find the Pak, but so does the AVRE.

[Tymathee]

Croc vs Pak = crew roasted
AVRE vs Pak = crew saved!

nuff said. AVEE if you're using it to kill blobs, you're using it wrong. It's an urban weapon that's used to clear houses and take out structures.

[AmPM]

AVRE kills PAKs and Snipers good.

Also good vs suppressed blob (go go BAR rifles).

The only problem with it is the looong cooldown.

80-100 seconds would be much more reasonable.

[Mysthalin]

1. How on earth do you manage to hit an invisible sniper with a unit that takes 5 seconds to wind up, is beyond me. Must have fail sniper microer. Paks - no, it just doesn't kill them, just like it doesn't kill any infantry in heavy cover(think strafing run style!). If the shell falls behind the shield, not on top of it, the crew dies, but you got to have some very epic luck for that to happen, not unluck for it not to happen. If the pak is moving(why would it stay at point blank vs a shooting AVRE?), it's impossible to decrew it with the spiggot.

2. Does better vs suppressed blobs by squishing them than shooting them. Splash radius just too negligible to really do anything to a blob.

3. BAR rifles + AVRE, how about we bring in airborne into the equasion as well - that they kill paks before the AVRE comes in and kills the HMG? If you had said MMG bren, wickers, it would be understandable, but riflemen into the equasion is a bit broken. Not to mention that the poor splash damage just.. doesn't allow you to kill the suppressed blob.

What tymathee said was right - AVRE is not meant to fight blobs, but to fight in an urban terain. Frankly - just not viable even in that setting with such a long recharge time.
I'd think more around the constraints of 70-80 seconds for a vanilla AVRE, to be honest. It was 80 seconds PRFU, and it was quite a rare sight, maybe setting it to 70 would help?

And finaly

[panzerjager1943]

But the AVRE ignores all cover types. (Except trenches)

[spinn72]

imo the AVRE is meant to be a stuh that Hits a lot more, but has an extremely slow fire rate.

All the AVRE has at the moment is survivability.  It should have scare factor like the stuh does when it crosses infantry, or the panther does when it sees any normal tank or light tank.

Every shot should be the equivalent of a cannister round in that, the range is already there, the hit percentage is about 70%, it takes quite a while to get the shot off (a bit longer than a cannister round) and the AVRE actually does serious damage to light armour too and buildings.  That is why you pay so much for it, it can really turn a game with 1 or 2 well placed shots that destroy 6-7 infantry like a cannister round can bring off an infantry blob.

[Mysthalin]

Panzerjaeger - in theory, yes, the shell should ignore all  cover types, but in reality, anything protruding 5 cm higher than the landscape stops the shockwave. It's just wierd :S.

Apparently, the AOE modifiers are as follows :
Distance - Range - Accuracy - Damage
Short - 2 - 1 - 1 (theoreticaly, anything right under the shell, and 1 cm away from right under the shell)
Medium - 5 - 0.75 - 0.4 (better than a 25 pdrs 4 range, it is a surprise why the shell does so much less damage).
Long - 8 - 0.5 - 0.1 (better than a 25 pdrs 7 range, but at this kind of distance from the shell explosion, the men either dodge it(0.5 accuracy), or the damage is negligible (0.1 damage modifier).

And aparently, the AoE damage beyond Short is indeed impacted by the standard effects of cover. Resulting in units behind sandbags losing one or two guys that were touching the sandbags that just got hit.

[Scyn]

The AVRE is meant for urban combat.. it's much more efficient than a stuh in the fact that a stuh has very little armor and much less health and always does some amount of damage when it fires. Just like an AVRE not decrewing a Pak when it hits the front shield.. a Stuh cannot decrew a 57 from a direct hit to the front. You won't get anywhere charging an AVRE into the frey just because you 'think' it will pay for itself with the shot it gets off.. that's like saying if it were  a stuh, "I'll just charge this 57mm that can 2 shot me with AP rounds in hopes I get a shot off that does some damage."

There's nothing wrong with the AVRE except maybe costs a bit more fuel than it should.