Taking the meta base bombing loadout (6x Grom, 1 FAB-3000 UMPK, all GNSS guided) will net you around 900 score in battle.
That’s about as much (a little less actually) as a kill and an assist or 1 kill every match and 2 kills every other match. 1 1/2 kills per match is something I’d expect the average WT player to be able to achieve, but…
The Su-34 is overtiered and therefore inadequate for A2A combat, meaning that even more people bomb in it. The GNSS bombs are almost always guaranteed give you a baseline of about 900 score as they can be dropped far away from the battlefield as long as you have altitude. So while any argument that it’s “dumb to play as a fighter, just bomb bro, it’s better bro” or “just play it right and bomb with it bro” are going to be true for the average WT player it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Overtiered fighter-bomber → Can’t do A2A well → People bomb with it instead as it gives them more SL and RP → “Well it wasn’t made for A2A, just bomb bro, it’s better bro” upon critique of it being overtiered → Overtiered fighter-bomber stays overtiered
Oh and for the “well actually” folks out there, yes the Su-34 carries two more flares than the others. What a game changer. Yay.
What I wanted to show here was how these 3 planes are roughly equivalents. Having used the N001 a lot myself I have to say that while it isn’t great you’re not going to be using it for BVR anyway with a missile like the R-77 so it’s less of a weakness than if these planes carried something like the R-77-1 or AIM-120.
The Su-34 is also not going to be able to get as many opportunities for kills either due to how slow it is so you’ll have less use of that improved missile kit than what a J-11A or Su-30MK2 may have.
I know that there’s room for lying with charts like these (not so much when they’re derivatives of the same plane and with similar kit) but I have tried my best to bring up the most important things to have in Air RB but also what sets them apart.
I know. But when it got moved up to 13.7 there was no reason for me to play as it was the same BR as the Su-27SM (better in almost every way). But now when we have 2 equivalents at 13.3 it’s just insulting. But if you look at Statshark it has that incredible 0.43 kills/spawn. Which is to be expected from a plane which most people bomb in. But we’ll have to wait until December to see the SL/RP stats of the other 2 as they were recently added or changed to draw a fairer conclusion.
Having SPO-15 be shown as yellow and not red is quite disingenuous IMO. I’d rather the Su-30MK2 and Su-34 be 13.7 than being 13.3 and probably too good.
Damn I really like the chart you made for this topic! Now I can rest easy thinking that the Su-30Mk2 isn’t as overpowered or meta-breaking as I thought. Thank god the F-18 premiums can still go toe to toe with it.
The reason it was performing above expectations seems kind of silly, even if it was performing well in the 13.3, it’s a very heavy plane, anything can beat it in a dogfight and it doesn’t accelerate very quickly even with better engines. For it to remain in the 13.7, I hope it at least beats the R77-1.
i kinda understand why its 13.7 and not 13.3, the radar alone make it better than most plane, maybe not with the r77, but in bvr, its can use the r27er better that the r77, the fast scan of the radar make the r27er even better.
now i am not saying it should be back at 13.3, but we can under stand that gaijin make the rule and its that
if you have 6 base mid bvr perf, it would be 13.3, but 8 or more would be 13.7
but if you got good bvr capable fox3, like r77-1 and aim120-c5, its would 13.7 for 6 missile, and 14.0+ for 8 or more missile.
Thats just cherrypicking really.
Try adding other 13.3’s (SMT, 16D, ADF’s…) to the image and suddenly it all seems like 34 is exactly where it need to be, so are SMT and 16D, and 30mk2 is in fact undertiered (since it is clearly better than 13.3’s and kind of on par with current 34).
gaijin rates vehicels by their reward effeciency, not just kill/respawn, like most overtiered strike aircrafts. they are overrated because they have A2G payloads.
it’s okay for gaijin making players suffer at some veihcels, just to avoid them getting too much rewards.
The SMT could go to 13.0 as it is right now. The MiG-29 airframe is already underperforming at low speeds so now imagine what happens when you make it heavier but don’t add the improved engines. That’s the SMT for you.
The F-16D Barak II, while still being the worst performing F-16 in terms of FM you can still feel how it can hang with most planes if not exceed many of them in terms of dogfighting ability AND speed. That cannot at all be said about the Su-34. You also get 30% more CMs than the US F-16C which is a very nice change.
The only downside is that the Derby has no range. So I like to take ~10km shots with them if I can (which it most often can safely do). The Derby also feels easy to notch but that’s only my personal experience. I don’t feel limited by the missile amount in it (but it may be because I only take close-idh range shots and simply don’t get many opportunities).
The F-16A ADF with the meta loadout (full AMRAAM) is functionally identical to the F-16C at 13.7 but with 2 differences, those are:
No HMD
45 CMs
The J-11A and Su-30MK2 are definitely on the strong side of 13.3 but would be horrible at 13.7. No matter if you agree/disagree that they’re 13.3 (in large part due to compression) I want to show to Gaijin how they’re about equal so if those 2 get moved up to 13.7 I don’t want to see the risk of the Su-34 getting moved to 14.0.
The lack of HMD isn’t going to hurt it as much as the Su-34 for example. It’s already nimble so there’s little worry about bleeding your speed to lock soneone. You can also overcome HMD partially by using your radar to the fullest (manual radar controls, changing scan/ACM boxes). And in DFs where HMD is very crucial for things like the Su-34 you do just win against all but a few planes in-game.
The 45CMs are just barely workable, in large part to the F-16’s FM. There are the Dutch+Norwegian F-16s at 13.7 that also only get 45 CMs but it’s absolutely a weakness so you need to be conservative with the flares/chaff in battle.
Yes the radar and kit is good but you TRADE those 2 R-73s for the extra R-77s, so while it still is an upgrade it’s not you getting extra missiles overall.
And you’re slower so it’s much more unlikely you’ll actually be able to get 10 shots with the missiles unlike the other 2, making the upgrade less useful than it would be on the J-11A/Su-30Mk2 (while still being an upgrade).
The R-27ER can absolutely still be used at 13.7, but it’s more limited and niche than the R-77. In a BVR engagement the enemy plane will see the launch warning the moment you launch it. Even if they continue flying straight and if you intend to turn on the radar when the ER gets close their AMRAAM is going to have about the same range as your ER (as any enemy you face is faster than you) and you’ll have to go defensive and then your ER is going to fly to Narnia.
If they see the launch warning, turn 45° and launch a fox 3 against you you’ve lost. They can turn 180° if they want and their missile will still pull in.
There are few things the R-27ER can practically do that the R-77 or even R-27ET can’t do. And they’re more versatile (if you don’t want to trade kills).
But the bombing strat is going to work as well at 1…0 as 14.3, assuming that the pilot has any self-preservation skills.
So shile the end goal is good the means to achieve it are wrong. The stats get balanced not by fixing the 0 skill zomber loadout but by mashing its usefulness for anything else.
The base bombing strat isn’t nerfed - instead it’s just made comparatively better.
The strat would be just as succesful at 13.3 as at 13.7 as they are glide bombs with ultra-long range.
Instead it punishes those who want to help out the team by playing it for air-to-air.
They could just remove the Groms and/or FAB-3000 UMPK and move it to 13.3 if they want to ignore that the average player could do better in it by playing A2A (especially at 13.3).
