I’m not surprised that the F-4S is unplayable on that BR. 4 obsolete IR missiles and 4 AIM-7s that are easy to defeat by notching. I crush them almost all the time with the MiG-23MLD, which has significantly better flight characteristics and more effective missile armament (2x R-24T + 4x R-60M).
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Theres only 1 bracket to play Navy Phantoms and during that time nobody wants to play that BR because of the Phantom spam. At least make it 11.7 in sim so in only 1 bracket it will face 4th gens.
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Ok then, take your F-4J and try to fight against some MiG-29s. Or maybe Japanese F-16s or F-15s.
MiG-23ML/MLDs R-24 is faster at close ranges. And you can’t use AIM-7s range advantage because once you fire they will immediately notch, you always get kills in close range. Also R-24R has IOG, making it better against notching.
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As someone that got gifted the F4S and bought the MIG23ML to grind top tier cuz I’m lazy to go through every low tier jet cuz I can’t stand them, I don’t mind the F4S, it’s not a bad jet at all. When I first got it, I hated it and played like garbage in it and was so negative on it, it was probably .25K/D and I didn’t care to pick it up again but I did and have slowly climbed it to a near 1.0K/D. But the Mig23ML, that was a beast until the last update and now it’s garbage and so bad I don’t even touch it anymore. But I have the RU side finished to my liking anyways. If either of these jets were your first jets, you’re bound to hate them no matter what but as you learn other jets they really don’t seem so bad. Especially after learning what to look for with RU’s bad radar and US’s good missiles, you can start to pull together a decent skill gap in most jets VS what you fight against. Which is all time consuming but learn as you go. Do I think the F14’s should go up in BR because of the 54s. Yes because they are overpowered when half the team is just spamming them in a 12.0BR lobby. Doesn’t matter if they are easy to dodge or not because they are, but add that on top of the cheaters that radar lock through mountains and rock pillars, it’s annoying enough to say they need to be 13.3+ or the F4S should be dropped down to 11.3. Either way, it’s a viable jet to get a handful of kills every game unless yours in a 13.0 game getting ARH spammed by AV8Bs and F14s, but that’s a topic that’s been battered so much it’s useless to bring up just like the same nations on both sides shouldn’t be a thing but it is because everyone favors one country over all others in top tier of anything.
Done it multiple times. It is hard but not impossible. The F-16 and F-15 are really harder to fight. URSS radar are quite bad in game so if you learn how to play against them it is a easy win
For the Mig-23 the R-24 are useless. The radar is so bad that it can’t lock anything after 1 chaff if you are higher. + The last flight model change made it incapable of dogfighting (I have win every dogfight against Mig-23 with my Tornado Gr1 recently)
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Those Mig29 pilots must be really bad, in SB if you get killed in a Mig29 by a Phantom is because you are fighting someone else, and the F-4S takes profit …
Hm, just realized: That is indeed a tricky situation: more than half of the possible aircraft for 12.0 matches are Phantoms, and the only way to get out of this is to join 12.7 matches (as there are no 12.3), which means a whole two BR-steps higher…
I feel like the average level of sim players is decreasing these days. I don’t know if it’s related to the event but the players are really getting worse and worse.
Yep, during events a lot of people that doesn’t play regularly SB come to SB
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Wrong
The fact that you’re whining about your plane being ineffective in a max up tier is really funny. (USSR/Germany have no broken, under tiered 13.0 planes)
Try playing the MiG-23ML in an 11.7-12.7 bracket and then get back to me.
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All Floggers shouldn’t see 12.7, just like Phantoms. At least theres only 1 bracket for that to happen. Phantom only has one playable bracket and nobody wants to play the red team during that bracket is active.
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There aren’t many (if any) 12.0 red team planes, so there’s no reason to play that bracket.
And while I agree that playing late 3rd gen jets against early 4th gens is tough, the F-4S has it way easier than the MiG-23.
Only plane that I know has it better is the F1C-200, but that one’s not really multirole capable so it’s a tradeoff.
None actually. At 12.0 we have in Sim:
- F-4J (US)
- F-4S (US)
- F-4J (UK)
- Tornado F.3 (UK)
- Tornado ADV (IT)
- JA37D (SE)
- F-4E Kurnass 2000 (ISR)
As the next BR-rotation available is at 12.7, those vehicles basically can just fight each other (for which there are barely matches), or then the 12.7 rotations with those adversaries:
- F-14A/B
- F-16A
- F-20A
- Mirage 2000D-R1
- Mirage 2000C-S4/S5
- Su-25SM3
- MiG-29
- Yak-141
- Harrier GR.7
- MiG-21 Bison
- JH-7A
- F-4EJ Kai
- F-15J / Baz
I’m also of the opinion now that the 12.0 BR is the worst possible…
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I figured as much. This is why I just bomb in my F-4S.
Try playing the MiG-23ML in an 11.7-12.7 bracket and then get back to me.
Sure thing (not exactly ML but MLD):
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Ah yes, the nerved Mig-23s wich have crappy radar now and get defeated by chaff easily. Literally fly above 2000 meters and you defeat the MTI (it needs ground clutter). Done. You defeated the R-24.
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I think the logical solution is to add a BR12.3 battle to the loop, and as the matchmaking limit is stretched, the number of loops should be increased from 4 to 5.
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Well, pointed out main problem already… 11.7 (somehow mainly russian jets). Enjoy being top of the food chain 2 out of 4 and extremely competetive once, resulting in being in highly competetive rotation 3 out of 4 times, 12.0 or 12.3 is absolutely SCREWED in new brackets. Questionable as MLD is easy 12.0 material if F-4J is.
Meanwhile 12.0 is on top ONCE and then getting destroyed by way superior jets. 12.3 cant be even top tier now.
Whoever did new brackets, wasnt thinking whatsoever.