I’ve been playing my F2H Banshee for a few days after unlocking it, and I’ve had some good games in it (including my first jet Ace), but the experience sometimes feels miserable. As soon as you get uptiered to 7.7, you encounter La-200s, and while I’ve heard that it’s brought down by its players, I have never encountered a bad La-200 player. As soon as there’s an La-200 player in the lobby who has altitude over everyone (they always do), the game is pretty much done. It gets to a point that getting uptiered to 8.0 is better because at least you have Sabers on your team to deal with that, but even then, you encounter MiG-15s, and they’re just better than you (in your 7.3 straight wing jet) in every way.
Now, I’m not going to cry about “Russian bias” or whatever, I do believe American offerings at this BR are quite decent (from what I’ve heard at least, I haven’t played any jets apart from the Banshee), but I think American teams around this BR bracket are brought down by the players. F-86s, which are probably some of the most competitive planes around the BR, are either in small numbers or played by people who might be watching TikTok while playing. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not doing much to carry my team sometimes, but this whole thing just sucks the fun out of (almost) every game.
In short : American and Russian early jets are pretty evenly matched, but American teams at this BR make playing it miserable.
It’s not a you problem, the LA200 performs like it’s got an afterburner and good players abuse it. It should be 8.0 at the very least but since the guns are weird to aim and flying it well requires braincells it will likely never go up. I’m going to be real there really isn’t much you can do in your banshee if a good LA200 player targets you, simply put, they will never, ever let you get a gun solution on you and will patiently drain your ass of energy until you’re floating helpless, ready to be gunned down (more like exploded considering the guns the LA200 gets).
Sabres and Mig15’s should also be higher but, once again, bad players dragged them down and fucked up the entire bracket.
In my opinion GJN killed this BR range.
In downtiers you have to fight a lot of props, in full uptiers you face planes doing everything better than you.
It’s compressed like hell.
All Sabres and Migs went down in BR, though it was a weird BR (7.3) before anyway. Before the BR change you never faced F9F-8, Mig15bis, F86Fs.
Additionally 20mm cannons got nerfed while .50cals are massively buffed today. I played Sabres some weeks ago and i needed half the ammo to get the same results like in the past. Especially at full rear aspect the difference to 20mm is massive.
The La-200 always was a plane for special players. An average player most of the time isn’t able to do anything with it, while a good player can rule the whole lobby.
For real. I’m flying the TU2S44 in the Chinese TT right now (don’t ask why, I just hate myself) and the Shvaks do NOTHING it’s wild.
early jets are quite terrible. Gaijin ruined them
If you want a really bad experience i reccomend trying the british venon at 8.7. its got 8.0 capabilities when facing mig 21s with radar missiles
I feel like this has always been the case though, at least for as long as I’ve played. ShVaks hit more like 12.7s, generally in my experience
I was told to unlock the tracer belts asap because they’re really good once you get them but was also told that the infamous HE bug they reintroduced in Levathian also turned Shvaks into a watergun. Fun!
The FI rounds are still pretty good, but depends on angle. As I said, from rear aspect you barely get hits. You need your enemy in profil.
Are we talking about the same ShVAK that the Yak-3 gets? Because those slap… they are the cannon I wish the MG151 could be. Did they get changed this patch? I haven’t flown much outside the U.S. or Germans since Leviathans dropped… might be I just don’t have enough game time to notice the difference.
Oh, and on topic - yes, early jets are rough. I went through the F-80A-5 and the F2H-2 and… never went back. Well, not entirely true, I played one match in each just as a reminder of why I don’t play them. I spaded them, moved on to the Sabre… and that’s a whole thing in itself. The MM is brutal, but at least I can try to improve.
HE bug is back and completely fucked up canon damage making props a pain in the ass to play. Although you can mitigate this by using AP belts.
That is unfortunate. Why is the HE bug so hard to put to bed? Surely with as long as it has persisted someone has come up with the root cause, no?
I guess I can just bask in that U.S.-bias and enjoy my .50 cals… they are consistent, if not spectacular. Early jets seem pretty fragile too - hitting a control surface or an engine is often enough to take someone out of the fight and put them into the ground.
It’s realshitter. That’s literally it. They could just remove that thing and things would improve. But no.
The current issues are not because of realshatter, it’s the netcode in general. Just look at all the rubber banding happening everywhere, and all the “tank drives to direction so penetration values get messed up” problems. Realshatter or not, if the projectile fragmentation occurs at the wrong location, then you will not get consistent damage.
Iirc, they remove realshatter like a year ago no ?
Again, planes are compared that are incomparable to each other.
The problem is in the use of planes in the game. You encounter machines that you would never encounter in real life, but in the game anything is possible.
Although Gaijin adapts the game as it needs, it also tries to stick to reality to a certain extent…
In short, the F2H was no competitor for any swept-wing plane, not even for such a heavy plane as the La-200 was supposed to be.
The F2H was fast at high altitudes … and that’s all …
And it excelled as a reconnaissance, escort and sometimes bomber …
I would probably compare it figuratively to the P-51 Mustang, the lower it is, the bigger the brick …
Against the MiG-15 it was an outdated piece of junk …
Against the La-200 it could only have an advantage in a sudden ambush from an ambush if they ever met …
The La-200 was built primarily against B-29 bomber squadrons and just before the Korean War even the one prototype they built was already outdated …
I used the F2H as a fighter-bomber, secondarily to engage in combat …
The La-200 … Canberra or Tu-4, or iL-28, if the MM somehow puts it together, are pretty good at shooting down, otherwise it will destroy anything on the ground …
In general, a lot of players want to play combat, but they don’t find out if they have the right plane for it…
If a plane is known in real life as a legend, don’t expect it to be so in the game, be it propeller planes or jets…
A lot of players were disappointed that many legendary planes played so badly, but they were good only in a certain type of air combat… No legend, no game changer here in the game…