Just started to get into Jets in the USSR tree, and while I’m not the most positive in these planes, the Yak3P, U, and VK107 are some of the easiest planes to fly. I didn’t touch the lower BR models due to the fact that the 45mm on the yak 9 is so fun. Despite the guns, and top speed, these things are absolute UFOs.
The 3p flies like it’s in Arcade yet has a battle rating of only 5.3. There’s something wrong there. Also I’ve noticed on both ends that damage resulting in fires usually goes out, and damage to the Airframe seems to not hinder its performance enough.
Does this need a performance nerf or BR increase? Everyone seems to complain about it. I personally thought there was something fishy about them even a few years ago.
I understand that the plane perfectly fits the meta which might exacerbate the issue. But since they seem to pair quite a bit with Germany against UK, US, and France, I just don’t see how you’re suppose to fight these. On one hand they’re really bad in a dive and have a slightly lower rip speed, which is fine but on the other hand they also can just level out and not chase you, then just follow you around the map at level flight holding the altitude over you.
The only way to really have a high chance at downing one is hitting them when they’re not paying attention, head-ons, or trapping them with a team mate. All of these would mean the pilot would have to have a smooth brain.
Being on the user end of the yak3p is just sort of easy. There’s not many situations where I feel like I’m at a disadvantage maybe aside from the guns? But even that seem minor. I can have a P51, Tempest, FW190 basically anything designed to BNZ pounce on me and I can just follow them back up into the stratosphere and end them.
There’s already a whole thread on this - but yes, the Yak-3 needs to go up, the 3P could potentially stay where it is, the 3U should go up. They are bonkers. The Yak-3 is a little lighter than the 3P… so it’s even better, BR for BR.
For being a “low altitude” fighter, they are just so incredibly strong over all that they are a threat up to and beyond 4500-5000 meters. Where do most matches take place?
The Yak-3U absolutely CRUSHES the P-47M and F4U-4B to well past 5500 meters. It hammers the Bf 109 K-4 through ~2500 meters… and the nearly keeps up with it. For giggles, the P-51H-5 is on there… the “strongest/best prop in the game” at BR 6.3. I am not saying the Mustang isn’t good (and some would say it should be 6.7)… just a point of reference.
The current BRs of the Yak-3 family reflects game play that doesn’t exist - if they had to fight over 6000 meters on the regular… I could see it, sort of. They don’t, though, and they can prevent planes that out perform them at altitude from climbing above them in the first place 9 times out of 10.
ETA: Bf 109K-4. Since I wanted at least something on the chart that looked a little competitive. ;-)
In the past Shvaks used to be absolute garbage but this combined with gaijin’s hidden vehicle efficiency score + statistic based balancing has kept many Soviet props from moving up. You can observe certain trends with the air playerbase where you can see for the majority of them, firepower is more useful than flight performance. Gaijin then balances planes accordingly. Yak-3s with 120rpg Shvaks doesn’t allow for brainless trigger holding to bruteforce. Meanwhile plenty of planes with mediocre to absolutely appalling flight performance with “high firepower” sit at stupidly high BRs (hello J7W).
However now there are basically 0 excuses to not move up planes like Yak-3, Yak-3U, Eremin’s, Yak-1B, Yak-9U, La-5FN as Shvaks now aren’t absolute trash.
This isn’t as much of a weakness as many think, you can just shallow dive above your enemy and the path you’re taking IS shorter than theirs if they went at a much steeper angle, so you will catch up.
