4Game

I've been holding off on this for a while (cause it's a touchy subject) but i thought it'd finally be worth sharing. On a fundamental level, whats wrong with artillery the most? The fact that it can sit in a static position, hit targets in a overhead view and still be able to see them regardless of view/render range without any counterplay (besides CB)

What i find to be a constructive and positive change would be to just make them more active, and force artillery players to devote to a flank, just like any other type of vehicle.

The main new mechanic idea I would have for artillery is that they should have something akin to siege mode, in that they can keep their godview, and their current/slightly better accuracy, but in return can't traverse. When not in this new set up mode, they cannot access godview and would have to use direct fire only. (this mechanic also makes sense to me as most, if not all SPGs would have to be stopped and setup before firing anyways). The setup time could also be a rather good balancing factor against SPGs with higher rate of fire as they can't move or shoot while this is occurring, as it will cancel out the transition.

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The second part to my idea is that by forcing a damage reduction on artillery past a certain range, it would force them to devote to a flank. Say, past 700 meters (on the high tiers) there would be a 25-50% reduction on alpha damage, similar to how AP loses penetration over distance. On top of this, past 5-700 meters (based on the artillery) the stun effect would no longer apply.

On top of these changes, artillery would probably need a bit of an HP buff/slight HE alpha buff (keep the current pen) and that's it. They shouldn't infringe on tank destroyers role in the game by getting pen buffs.

And with that, boom. In my opinion, that raises the skill floor for artillery, makes it more active and important part of the match, forces them to devote to a flank, makes it unable/unreasonable to shoot targets from across the map, and gives a decent balancing idea to the godview.