I regularly play the F-2A ADTW
and can even do well in full uptiers
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you are garbage at this game, you have negative KDs in every airplane you’ve played more than 50 matches in.
get better at the game before spouting this garbage nonsense.
@MiGoon_Fox-3
Ah, the classic “Look at my YouTube” defense. While I respect your personal skill, using individual performance to justify systemic imbalance is a textbook example of Survivor Bias.
Let’s be logically rigorous here:
1. Skill is not Balance:
If a professional driver wins a race in a tractor against amateurs in sports cars, it doesn’t prove the tractor is “competitive.” It proves the driver is exceptional. The fact that it takes a 99th-percentile player to make the F-2A “do well” while an average player in an F-16C or Su-27 can achieve the same results with half the effort is the definition of an unbalanced game.
2. The “Effort Gap” is the Issue:
Balance should be measured by the machine’s potential relative to its peers, not by how much a pilot can suffer to overcome its flaws. If I have to play a “perfect game” of constant notching, terrain masking, and reactive defense just to get a single SARH kill, while my opponent in a lower-BR F-14 can fire a Phoenix and grab a coffee, the system is broken. You are effectively arguing that “the plane is fine as long as you are a God-tier pilot,” which is a nonsensical metric for a $70 commercial product.
3. Ignoring the Argument:
I presented specific tactical points: The asymmetry of ARH vs. SARH at 30km, the “Nation Bias” regarding fire-and-forget capabilities, and the fact that a $70 multi-role fighter is being forced into a ground-striking role just to finish a grind. Posting a highlight reel doesn’t address any of these structural problems.
4. The “Gatekeeping” Trap:
Telling customers to “just be better” when they point out that a premium product is logically inconsistent with its BR is peak gatekeeping. If the F-2A ADTW is only “good” when you ignore its multi-role features and play like a competitive sweat-lord, then it has failed as a 13.0 premium aircraft.
I’m happy for your YouTube views, but your personal success doesn’t fix the fact that the F-2A is structurally handicapped in the current ARH meta. I am still waiting for a logically sound reason—not a personal anecdote—as to why this plane deserves to be 13.0 without its native ARH capabilities.
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you notch for like 5s and it’s defeated
it provides 0 actual threat and is a mild inconvenience.
you have can use teammates as bait, position in ways to avoid getting shot at and defend from their missiles
If someone’s spamming missiles at you constantly from 30km you know they’re dumb and can just repeatedly defeat them easily which means they run out.
sure, but don’t talk about balancing when you don’t have a single vehicle that you actively play that you have a KD higher than 0.6 in
It is disappointing to see that when logic fails, personal insults and stat-shaming are the only tools left in your box. @DarkSilentNights, is calling other players “garbage” and launching ad hominem attacks now the accepted standard for “civilized debate” on this forum? I suggest you review the Forum Rules regarding respectful behavior before continuing.
Let’s address the desperate attempt to use K/D as a counter-argument:
1. The “Grind” vs. “Stat Padding”:
My goal is the tech-tree research. In the current ARH-saturated meta at 13.0, focusing on base bombing and opportunistic AAM-3/Type 90 kills is a rational survival strategy to finish a painful grind. I value progress over “padding my stats” to impress elitists on a forum. Using my K/D to ignore the technical asymmetry of SARH vs. ARH is a classic logical fallacy.
2. Performance Variance:
Yes, I can and do get 3 to 5 kills in a match when the situation allows. But individual “high-score” matches—or your YouTube clips—do not define the baseline balance of an aircraft. If a $70 premium requires a player to play “perfectly” just to be a side-grade to 12.3 hardware, then the product is flawed. Balance is about the floor, not just the ceiling of God-tier players.
3. The Deflection:
You attack the player because you cannot defend the system. You have yet to provide a logically sound explanation for why a 13.0 premium must remain nose-on and exposed (SARH) while lower-BR opponents can fire and maneuver freely (ARH). “Just notch” and “Get better” are not balance arguments; they are excuses for a broken matchmaker.
4. To the Moderators:
I was told my previous post was “not fit for a suggestion” due to my tone, yet we have users here openly calling others “garbage.” I hope the rules of conduct are applied equally here, or is “toxic elitism” the officially sanctioned tone for discussing Japan’s air tree balance?
If your only rebuttal is to check my profile instead of addressing the 30km SARH vs. ARH disadvantage, then you have already conceded the debate.
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@MiGoon_Fox-3 @DarkSilentNights
Your responses have moved from tactical debate to a fascinating admission of toxic playstyles and persistent logical fallacies. Let’s dissect this:
1. The “Teammate as Bait” Doctrine:
@MiGoon_Fox-3, if your best advice for making the F-2A work is to “use teammates as bait,” you are effectively admitting the aircraft cannot stand on its own in the current meta. A $70 premium fighter should not require the “sacrifice” of teammates to achieve basic utility. This isn’t a balance argument; it’s a confession that the platform is structurally incapable of leading an engagement.
2. The “5-Second Notch” Fallacy:
You claim a notch is a “mild inconvenience.” In high-tier BVR, 5 seconds is an eternity. During those 5 seconds:
I lose my SARH lock, effectively deleting my fired missile.
The enemy maintains total freedom of maneuver.
I am forced into a defensive, reactive posture where I am not contributing to the match.
If an enemy can neutralize a 13.0 fighter’s offensive presence for 5 seconds simply by pressing one button (Fox-3), they have won the tactical exchange. Ignoring this asymmetry of effort proves you are looking at the game through the lens of a duelist, not a 16v16 match participant.
3. The K/D Obsession (The White Flag of Debate):
@DarkSilentNights, since you’ve brought up my K/D for the third time, it’s clear you have no technical rebuttal left. Let me be clear: I am playing to efficiently finish the research grind for the tech-tree F-2A in a hostile meta. I value tactical analysis and goal-oriented progression over padding a digital ratio to win forum arguments.
If having a high K/D were a prerequisite for understanding game mechanics, game developers would be the best players in the world—which we know isn’t the case. Attacking the messenger because you hate the message is a concession of defeat.
4. The 30km “Dumb” Argument:
Dismissing 30km launches as “dumb” ignores the necessity of Energy Tactics. In a SARH vs ARH fight, if you don’t pressure the ARH carrier early, you allow them to dictate the terms of the engagement. Your advice is essentially “let them get close enough to kill you before you try to fight back.”
To the Moderators:
I’m still waiting for a single logically sound explanation as to why a legacy F-14A deserves fire-and-forget capabilities at a lower BR while the F-2A is denied its native equipment at 13.0. Instead, I am being told to “use teammates as bait” and being harassed over my stats. Is this the intended “quality discussion” for the War Thunder forums?
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no it isn’t, get better at the game and you’ll automatically have more fun.
you cannot even attain a positive kill/death ratio in the F-4EJ ADTW, you will not attain a good kill/death ratio in the techtree F-2A. FOX3s do not play the game for you.
the aircraft is too powerful to be under 13.0, that’s the defined baseline balance of the aircraft. you have an AESA radar, the second best flightmodel in the entire game, boatload of countermeasures, decent FOX1 missiles, the best FOX2 missiles in the entire game, and one of the best cannons in the entire game.
no you are literally just bad at the game and deflecting this onto your false idea that the F-2A ADTW is unbalanced.
it’s peers are at 13.0
let me run some comparisons
F-14?
the only “advantage” the F-14 has is 6 shitty Fox-3s that you can easily spot and defeat, after that you win every scenario
MiG-29?
I shouldn’t have to bother
2nd worst 4th gen airframe with just two ERs and R-73s
SPO-15 and just 60 cms
this is a free kill
any 3rd gen Fox-3 carrier:
they just have 2-4 Fox-3s going for them
you roflstomp them the moment they run out of Fox-3s
which is easy to do by again, simply notching.
your radar is superior as well, letting you locate and be aware of them significantly better
Gripen A?
only aircraft that’s able to be dangerous in a df
it has better defensive kit
worse radar overall (AESA vs mechanical)
worse + less missiles
Mirage 4k?
free food
I shouldn’t have to explain why
the only true challenge are the flankers due to R-27ERs
however the Su-33 you can bully with AAM-3s thanks to low CM count
all flankers have worse flight perf, worse radars and worse RWRs (SPO-15 on J-11 and Su-27)
The only planes I consider better than the F-2A are the flankers
every plane benefits from laying your teammates out as bait, this isn’t exclusive to your precious 70 euro pack vehicle
you can turn back in and re-lock, the AIM-7M has a wide field of view.
BVR doesn’t exist in warthunder, any missile you fire past 20 kilometers will be defeated one way or another whether you’re using FOX1s or FOX3s
i’ve literally been stating through and through, gaping holes in your logic and most of them also point back to you being bad at the game one way or another.
you do not know how this game works, you are bad at this game, you are suggesting to change things about the vehicle that would destroy the entire battlerating if the vehicle doesn’t immediately have its battlerating adjusted to reflect its new capabilities.
I suggest trying out TRK MEM + sidelobe-ing your sparrows
balance is about the vehicle’s peformance compared to its peers
low skill floor alone does not make a vehicle good
if we balance by skill floor that ends up with many vehicles sitting too low ready for anyone with functioning braincells to abuse tf out of and ruin the match for everyone else
@MiGoon_Fox-3 @DarkSilentNights
Your arguments have devolved into a desperate mix of elitist gatekeeping and contradictory tactical advice. Let’s look at the “logic” you’re actually presenting:
1. The “AESA” Myth vs. Reality:
You claim the radar is “insane” and “superior.” In practice, even in STT, the F-2A’s radar lock frequently flickers, blinks, and vanishes entirely. An AESA label doesn’t mean anything if the game’s implementation allows a lock to drop the moment a target maneuvers slightly. Claiming a radar is “superior” when it cannot maintain a stable track for a museum-grade Sparrow is the definition of a paper tiger.
2. The “Teammate Bait” Confession:
@DarkSilentNights, your claim that “every plane benefits from laying your teammates out as bait” is a pathetic excuse. If a $70 premium vehicle requires me to sacrifice my team just to find an opening, it is fundamentally incapable of standing on its own. You are defending a broken balance by promoting a toxic, anti-team playstyle as a “solution.”
3. “BVR doesn’t exist” vs. 30km Reality:
@DarkSilentNights, if BVR “doesn’t exist,” then why are F-14s and ARH carriers firing from 30km and forcing 13.0 SARH carriers into defensive maneuvers? If a missile forces me to drop my lock and defend, it has successfully achieved its tactical objective. Denying the existence of BVR while advocating for “just notching” the very missiles that define BVR combat is a massive contradiction.
4. TRK MEM and “5 Seconds”:
@MiGoon_Fox-3, suggesting “TRK MEM” doesn’t change the physical reality. Even if a lock is partially maintained via memory, a SARH carrier is still tethered to the target. During those “5 seconds” (which you call a mild inconvenience), I am a flying target for every other ARH in the sky, while the enemy who fired at me has already turned cold and reset their engagement. This asymmetry of risk is what makes 13.0 SARH combat a logically failed experience.
5. On Personal Attacks and Stats:
@DarkSilentNights, calling me “garbage” and “literally bad” for the fourth time doesn’t make your argument stronger; it just makes you a violator of the Forum Rules of Conduct regarding harassment and personal insults. My K/D in a grind-heavy meta where I prioritize efficiency (base bombing and opportunistic kills) to finish the tree has zero impact on the mathematical fact that SARH vs. ARH is an imbalanced matchup.
To the Moderators:
I have attempted to discuss the technical and systemic disadvantages of the F-2A ADTW at 13.0. In response, I have been met with persistent personal insults (“garbage”, “literally bad”) and elitist gatekeeping. If the moderation team expects a “constructive suggestion,” I hope you also expect users to refrain from toxicity and ad hominem attacks when they run out of logical rebuttal.
I am not here to impress stat-padders with my K/D. I am here to highlight that a $70 product is being sold as a competitive 13.0 multi-role fighter while being structurally relegated to a “bait-dependent” ground attacker. That is not “skill issue”; that is bad product design.
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Phoenixes should only kill you if you’re afk or just kind of fly into them and I don’t get being upset over the fact that someone wasted a few of them on your bombs that do nothing to help your team win.
@Refrain300
It seems we have another player dismissing technical flaws by hiding behind “meta relevance.” Let’s address the fundamental error in your reasoning:
1. The “Broken Product” Reality:
Whether or not you think bombing “helps the team win” is a subjective tactical opinion. The objective fact is that the F-2A ADTW is marketed and sold as a $70 premium multi-role fighter. If a core feature of that product (JDAM-ER) is intercepted by AAMs in a way that renders the standoff payload useless, it is a technical and mechanical failure. Defending a broken mechanic just because “bombing is bad” is like defending a car with a broken navigation system because “you should already know the way.”
2. The Interception Absurdity:
You say someone “wasted” a missile on a bomb? No, the issue is that the game’s logic allows a 13.0 environment to effortlessly neutralize precision-guided munitions, making the concept of a “standoff strike” a complete joke. If my $70 precision weapons are treated as target practice for 12.3 legacy hardware, the “Multi-role” label is fraudulent. It’s not about the “team winning”; it’s about a paid product functioning as advertised.
3. The Persistence of the “AFK” Myth:
Again, the “Phoenix only kills AFK” trope misses the point entirely. It is not about the kill probability; it is about Tactical Suppression. If I have to spend the match dodging “trash” missiles while being unable to return fire with my museum-grade Sparrows, I am being suppressed. A 13.0 fighter should not be structurally forced into a reactive, defensive-only role against lower-BR opponents.
Conclusion to the thread:
The recurring theme from the elitist side of this debate is: “Ignore the broken radar, ignore the useless JDAMs, ignore the missing ARH, and just play perfectly.”
If your only response to systemic technical disadvantages is to tell customers to ignore the very features they paid $70 for, then you aren’t defending the game’s balance—you are defending a defective product.
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It’s one of the best 13.0s and saying anything otherwise is just cope
Maybe save its multirole capabilities for the mode where attacking ground targets actually contributes to your teams success?
your arguments are nothing but a fundamental misunderstanding of real life and warthunder combat mechanics.
this is because your target is trying to defeat your radar and your missile, genius.
everything you keep saying is a pathetic excuse
the price of the vehicle has nothing to do with this, but okay
the F-14 literally only serves as a filter to weed out sleeping people like you, it’s completely useless outside of the initial 50km volley where the tomcat dies 5 minutes later.
you could literally turn around with your radar in track memory mode and your sparrow will still hit the target if its within 10 ish kilometers
it does, because your failures fundamentally stem from you misunderstanding how air combat works and being bad at it
look buddy if you’re salty that you’re bad at using the plane you dropped 11 thousand yen on that’s fine, but there’s nothing wrong with the aircraft’s capabilities or its battle rating position
@Refrain300 @DarkSilentNights
It is increasingly clear that when faced with structural criticism, your only defense is to resort to technical misinformation and “go play another mode” deflections.
1. To @Refrain300: The “Wrong Mode” Fallacy
Suggesting I should “save multi-role for another mode” is an admission that the current Air RB balance is broken. If a $70 product features JDAM-ERs, they should be viable in the primary mode they are sold for. Telling a customer to play Ground RB just to use a basic feature of their aircraft is a defense of poor game design, not a valid counter-argument.
2. To @DarkSilentNights: Blatant Technical Misinformation
You claim that I can “turn around in TRK MEM and the Sparrow will still hit within 10km.” This is physically impossible in War Thunder. The AIM-7M is a Semi-Active Radar Homing (SARH) missile. It requires continuous illumination from the parent aircraft’s radar to the target. If the F-2A turns away, the radar stops illuminating the target, and the missile loses guidance immediately.
If you are going to lecture others on “misunderstanding mechanics,” I suggest you first learn how SARH missiles actually function before providing “genius” advice that would result in a self-destructing missile.
3. The “Filter” Defense
Calling the F-14 a “filter for sleeping people” is a poetic way of saying “I enjoy having a low-effort, high-reward advantage over nations I don’t play.” If a lower-BR aircraft forces a higher-BR aircraft into a purely defensive, 90-degree notch just by existing, it has dictated the entire tactical flow of the match with zero risk. That is the definition of imbalance, regardless of whether the pilot is “awake” or not.
4. The Value of the Product
You say the price “has nothing to do with this.” As a consumer, it has everything to do with this. When a company sells a premium product for 11,000 JPY ($70) as a “Top-tier Multi-role Fighter,” the customer has a right to expect a machine that isn’t structurally handicapped by museum-grade armament in a modern ARH meta.
5. On Continued Toxicity
“Look buddy,” “garbage,” “sleeping people”—your reliance on condescension and personal insults only proves that you cannot win this debate on technical or logical grounds.
If your final stance is “the plane is fine as long as you use your teammates as bait and ignore the fact that the radar drops locks that a mechanical dish would hold,” then you have already admitted the F-2A is inferior. You aren’t arguing that the plane is balanced; you’re just arguing that you’re okay with it being broken as long as you’re not the one suffering.
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