Pure speculation; the BR was lowered due to Gaijin monitoring the stats performance of the plane. Not because people whinged and moaned on the forum. Before the BR decrease, it was another dead plane on the very long list at this point.
Without any kind of all aspect missiles, IR or SARH, it really can’t do much when you’re facing things like 29s,16s, 14s and what have you with the whole kit.
You’re right, it doesn’t have to be meta but it wasn’t competitive in an up tier and lets face it, that’s all 11.0 was back then.
Kfir Canard, J35XS, MiG-21SMT/MF… fast deltas that can chase down the F-5E and one circle it. All F-5s struggle in the vertical so inversely even an A5C could out dogfight a F5E if it’s able to draw it into a vertical fight… the F5E isn’t just an insta win like you make it out to be.
I would, if you wanted to learn.
I have a 5.5 K/d ratio with 150~ kills and 28 deaths. I know it’s a good plane at that BR but it’s not the absolute king.
Unironically anyone who did any of this of this, aka average new US main that got spoonfed since br 1.0. Why run away from mig21? When all you have to do is dodge the nose on 1circle (easiest shit to do), after that it’s out of speed and basically dead. You can outrate and energy trap all of those planes, MF/SMT already has the ultimate handheld premium to worry about and you want them to fight the straight up better version. There is no point to take a vertical, it’s not like it doesn’t have flares.
This plane has no place in 10.7 and that’s my stance, the mig21bis at 11.0 is way worse in the meta than it but it still stays at that place because it will curbstomp lower
A question that will haunt this game until Gaijin release their collection methodology and decision process. From experience I can say that the F-5E had to work hard to gain position especially when it had no frontal offensive capabilities other than guns. If I was matching up against an F-16a, seeing as it was a plane it could face before the br drop, I wouldn’t gain position at all.
This goes back to my point of learning how to play the game or more accurately, learn the plane you are flying. The M2K suffers from the same issue however it reigned supreme over the Tomcat which had superior rating ability - fighting a F-5 in the horizontal is just suicide unless you can out rate it or out turn it.
Just don’t hold S in a delta and be amazed at what you can fight.
The issue isn’t the plane, it’s BR compression. With the engine nerfs, the MiG-21Bis should be downtiered to 10.7 as well. When it was first released, the extra stages of AB allowed it to practically hover whereas now it’s a bit more realistic? for lack of a better word.
In F-5E I had no real issues at 11.0 before some of the 11.7, 12.0 and 12.3 aircraft got added.
F-5E slaps F-4. Sure MiG-21 can ruin your day but is harder to handle and now suffers at 11.0 for some time now itself.
At 10.7 F-5 is decently placed.
lol Just lol. F-5E, a transonic jet at sea level… somehow slaps a 49J carrying mach 1.15 sea level jet… lol.
Don’t turnfight F-5Es, ENERGY FIGHT them.
They’re quite literally just a jet version of a Spitfire LF Mk9, not even A6M5 levels of hilarious.
Energy Fight requires certain level of knowledge in this game and many players doesnt know how to do that, thats why delta or planes with instant turn capabilites are much more popular then most energy fighters, F-16 is exception in this case.
Thats why most F4 Phantom players loses against F5E players.
Don’t quite get the first part.
F-5 is more of a 109 than a Spitfire.
F-4F at 11.0 is/was cannon fodder.
I played the US and Taiwanese tech tree F-5s when they were 11.0 and did well in them. The US one I had back when F-16 etc. were not in game yet and it was completely fine.