So, is suppression fire useful or not?

[Abe86]

I've read and heard a lot of the beta players swearing by the Suppression fire upgrade, however this thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=531106 makes a very good point against it.

So, beta players or other experienced players, what's so good about suppresion fire ?

[brn4meplz]

I have it on a few units myself but I've stopped taking it.

the bonus is meh. I suppose with other morale busters its ok but the speed reduction is negligible.

I know it worked good with my buddy, My shogun2 Avatar uses Scare enemies and the Hideous Mempo mask so I can set crap units to wavering just being near them. in that case any -Morale ontop of that is good.

[Majuts]

I don't notice a big morale hit when I use it. The increase in reload also doesn't compensate the loss in accuracy when firing against other lines. As in they would have killed more without using suppressive fire.

Guess the extra reload could be useful against charging melee units as you need less accuracy the closer they get. But in the end I don't take them anymore.

[Chris lol]

Reload gives +10 per upgrade
Accuracy +5 per upgrade

Suppresive fire gives -20 accuracy for +20 reload. So you lose 4 accuracy upgrades for 2 reload upgrade, effectively losing 2 upgrades. And you spent an upgrade to do that, so you actually lost 3 upgrades. If you are concerned about reload speed, i would advise to simply get upgrades in reload instead.

The supressive fire does give -1 morale and -5% running speed to the unit you are shooting at though. But then again, supressive fire is only a temporary ability rather than a toggle on/off ability, so you wont even get the maximum benefits from it the entire time. At most i would consider getting it on a cheap line unit such as a white tiger, but i would definately not make it one of the main upgrades for my line.

EDIT: nvm white tigers have 15 accuracy, using supressive fire would take them down to 1 accuracy. At maximum use it on a single bear infantry if you are really scared of getting rushed (FoTS vs Vanilla mainly). In line vs line however, there really is no point whatsoever in using the upgrade.

[krisslanza]

I'm not sure if the accuracy matters on Suppressive Fire. I imagine if you're using it, your goal isn't to hit the enemy so much as to give them the "Suppressed" debuff that'll hurt their speed and morale. I've had it used against me a few times, and it certainly can cause a rout depending on how much morale damage your piling onto that unit.

Suppressive Fire doesn't seem to be nearly as morale-crushing as Whistling Arrows though, which seems to cause "Confident" units to plummet right to "Broken"...

[SuicideNooch]

I don't see how it would be useful on its own in just a stand in 'line battle' but in conjunction with artillery and cav, or some melee it will cause routes rather quickly.

[Abe86]

I'm desperately waiting on someone to tell me why I havent messed up the upgrades on most of my army's line and elite veterans .

I dont know, it might be good for causing a mass rout later in a firefight.
I'm also not sure it actually causes less casualties than standard fire, if someone wants to test all that out with me to have a definitive answer on suppressive fire, send me a private message and we'll set up a battle-list game to check it out.

[Knowing Crow]

Suppressive Fire is an ability that is useful for a single front line unit when dealing with charging units such as melee infantry or cavalry. I would not recommend giving every unit Suppressive Fire, or even more than one unit really. It can only benefit against a cavalry charge, as you'll still fire despite being in melee and having the cavalry so close makes accuracy completely negligible. We can look at it in terms of cost, that we are effectively spending four upgrades in Accuracy for two upgrades in Reload, but that completely ignores the point of suppressive fire. You don't suppress opposing line Infantry in a shoot out, you don't suppress marksmen on the other side of the map. You suppress the Yari Ki or Shogitai that are rushing for your throats, where accuracy is useless and reload is king.

[SuicideNooch]

Realistically suppression fire is a means of providing cover by fire for other battle field elements to advance. It's called 'fire and maneuver'. It has nothing in reality to do with halting advancing units. If anything you want even more accurate well timed shots when that happens. So who knows where CA is going with this whole thing. Maybe it was supposed to be used as an ability when you have 2 opposing infantry lines. Rather than rush them all up at once to receive fire you have 1 or 2 units use suppressive fire and then maneuver the rest onto the line. Game mechanics don't really allow for this though... =/

[[LONG]gabrielcai]

euh, last time i checked, suprresive fire is like -4 morale. But yeah, i am not able to read the lastest patch data.

[Abe86]

euh, last time i checked, suprresive fire is like -4 morale. But yeah, i am not able to read the lastest patch data.

It's strange how morale is presented in this game, morale on the unit card doesnt change when troops are near their general, for example, even though their tooltip will say: encouraged, general nearby. Unit cards will show a +1 morale when under the influence of the rally ability, however.

Units caught in suppressive fire do not show a change to their morale value on their unit card.

It's hard to tell how much of a morale hit suppressive fire imposes, but I suppose it's the same way with taking friendly fire, seeing friendly units routing or getting charged in the flank and so on, those are changes that cause a morale hit but dont show a value on the unit card but on the tooltip and morale meter above the unit flag (correct me if I'm wrong here). I suppose only the rally ability shows on the unit card because it also affects maximum morale ?

I wonder where the -1 value and -5% speed value for suppressive fire come from, I havent found anything precise buried in the encyclopedia.

[Chris lol]

It's strange how morale is presented in this game, morale on the unit card doesnt change when troops are near their general, for example, even though their tooltip will say: encouraged, general nearby. Unit cards will show a +1 morale when under the influence of the rally ability, however.

Units caught in suppressive fire do not show a change to their morale value on their unit card.

It's hard to tell how much of a morale hit suppressive fire imposes, but I suppose it's the same way with taking friendly fire, seeing friendly units routing or getting charged in the flank and so on, those are changes that cause a morale hit but dont show a value on the unit card but on the tooltip and morale meter above the unit flag (correct me if I'm wrong here). I suppose only the rally ability shows on the unit card because it also affects maximum morale ?

I wonder where the -1 value and -5% speed value for suppressive fire come from, I havent found anything precise buried in the encyclopedia.

The 5% is quite easy to find out. If you use surpressive fire on a unit with a single spped upgrade they will move at regular speed.

The morale though... its lower than the warcry and whistling arrow debuff. Coul be -2 but still it really does not seem to do all that much.

[[LONG]gabrielcai]

The 5% is quite easy to find out. If you use surpressive fire on a unit with a single spped upgrade they will move at regular speed.

The morale though... its lower than the warcry and whistling arrow debuff. Coul be -2 but still it really does not seem to do all that much.

did you checked the data files with pfm?

[Chris lol]

did you checked the data files with pfm?

Tried and failed

[bushranger]

After putting it on everything and using it alot at the start i have pretty much stopped using it now.It can be usefull against a non command gen though as they struggle to keep morale up.If you have the -1 morale retainer plus sup fire will nearly put any unit not near there gen in to red morale.It's not very effective against Shogitai because there morale is so high anyway,honestly they are a ridiculous OP unit,what they can do they should be priced at 1300 each.

Sup fire should nerf morale by 1, slow units down by 20% and give -20 reload for it to be worth while.

[Abe86]

I tested this out myself and it does look like only a -1 morale penalty, maybe -2. Depends, white tiger (4 base morale) dont have their morale meter (bar floating above their flag) to full when not near their general and getting hit by a low accuracy suppressive fire, only killing three, brought their morale to the red, meter still about halfway full. Dont know if that's a -1 or -2. Not very significant, in any case.

EDIT: this was in a custom battle though, and there seem to be a few undocumented differences between avatar multiplayer and custom battles.

[[LONG]gabrielcai]

i checked it in the beta, and it was like -4 morale and -.5 speed.

[Abe86]

Some good players are getting suppression fire on their veterans, for example watch Pointman's or bossroberts multiplayer videos, so maybe we're missing something ? Or perhaps it was really good in the beta, like gabrielcai is reporting, and they havent realized how it's been nerfed.

[Ares1214]

Some good players are getting suppression fire on their veterans, for example watch Pointman's or bossroberts multiplayer videos, so maybe we're missing something ? Or perhaps it was really good in the beta, like gabrielcai is reporting, and they havent realized how it's been nerfed.

Good players don't always know the best upgrades. It's honestly not all that amazing to be totally honest, I think of it like Rennyo's teachings. Buff one stat, nerf another, and pay for it. The -1 morale that it gives is...well not very decisive, I dont think Ive ever seen a unit rout from it like I have from War Cry or Whistling arrows. The +20 reload is always nice, but the -20 accuracy is pretty horrible, especially on regular line infantry like White Bears. It basically halves their accuracy, and they fire noticeably more into the dirt or sky Not to mention it's kinda a 1 use thing, its not like a firing mode, so...not worth it in my opinion, unless you are playing S2TW players with melee rush, but that's hard to predict and already easy to beat.

[bushranger]

Good players don't always know the best upgrades. It's honestly not all that amazing to be totally honest, I think of it like Rennyo's teachings. Buff one stat, nerf another, and pay for it. The -1 morale that it gives is...well not very decisive, I dont think Ive ever seen a unit rout from it like I have from War Cry or Whistling arrows. The +20 reload is always nice, but the -20 accuracy is pretty horrible, especially on regular line infantry like White Bears. It basically halves their accuracy, and they fire noticeably more into the dirt or sky Not to mention it's kinda a 1 use thing, its not like a firing mode, so...not worth it in my opinion, unless you are playing S2TW players with melee rush, but that's hard to predict and already easy to beat.

I have had units rout because of sup fire.If morale is already down and the line is not near a guard it's a hard hit.I think it might be more then -1 morale by what i have seen it done.
even if it is -1 a gun gen's standard line that is fresh and untouched will get hit to 6 morale with sup fire and the -1 retainer.