You are either forced to fly defensively for 10 minutes and hope to sneak up an AAM-3, or pray that one of billion fox-3 missiles won’t hit you.
No matter how great its radar is, it means shit when all you get is AIM-7M, which easily lose lock (for like 0.1seconds) and go to waste due to lack of data link. Meanwhile, even in a rare 12.7-13.0 lobby, enemies are usually fitted with 27ers or AIM-7P.
Sure, AAM-3s are great, IF YOU GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO USE THEM, which is almost impossible in these constant uptier matches.
I would not even give a darn about all of it, but it is the only option to grind top-tier jets for japs. What is with the curse of japs getting dogshit ADTWs?
It’s more of a compression issue but the devs refuse to actually fix it cuz muh Su-30 premiums need to cater to pepegas even more.
Dw, anything tech tree is even worse off, especially when stock
Its honestly my favorite aircraft for this br as its actually incredibly good
BUT the matchmaker definitely screws it as 90% of the time i end up uptiered to 14.0 which just makes it unfun
Decompression would easily fix this but we all know how gaijin is
It carries rather limited armament, and the AGM missiles behave inconsistently. Quite often, out of two missiles fired at a target, only one actually reaches it. Sometimes they struggle to destroy tanks, or they switch to something else after locking on — not necessarily another vehicle.
Overall, though, the aircraft is fairly maneuverable. So far, I’ve had trouble against the F-106 and the Japanese Mitsubishi F-1 — it’s hard to out-turn them. Other than that, it seems to be more of a fighter than an attacker. The aircraft also performs reasonably well at BR 10.7.
The problem is the Fox 3 meta bleeding down into non-Fox 3 carriers, which result in their effectiveness being determined entirely by “How well can they handle Fox 3 spam”.
It’s why the F-15A/J got moved down, because their answer to that question was “Not at all”.
The F-2 ADTW is in a similar boat, due to an identical missile loadout, but it does have advantages. The AESA RADAR makes the AIM-7Ms slightly less of a joke, and gives you much better situational awareness. You also have a better flight model for the altitudes you’re capable of fighting in, which will allow you to club just about anything that you survive the merge with (If the game even gets to that point).
Of the 13.0s, it’s among the best, but as with all of them it needs the competant Fox 3 slingers moved way up and out of it’s BR range.
If you go full defensive, by the time the initial missile spam ends, one of the scenarios happen:
Your team is dead and you can’t do much
Enemy team is dead and you can’t do much
Balanced exchange, you now get a chance of going into a furball and actually having fun.
Also, AIM-7Ms with their trash speed and range require you to shoot them quite close, which is enough for any FOX-3 slinger to instantly fling a pitbull missile and notch, while you have to commit fully to the radar lock due to lack of DL.
Radar, despite being really good is buggy af, and can randomly lose lock for a millisecond and relock no matter range, which, of course, means that AIM-7M goes to shit.
Seems like Gaijin doesnt like that I called this aircraft a scam… Imagine only if you could test any premium aircraft in an actual battle before wasting your money on it? Amazing idea… not gonna happen. I feel sorry for my 40€ wasted on this thing…shouldve played it safe and go for the Su30 for obvious reasons
