I hate these things so much.
But Gaijin seems to think they are the best thing since sliced bread.
Sick to death of these OP mother cluckers.
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Yaks, by themselves, are not overpowered.
What the issue is that russian WW2 doctrine involved close-range scrambling and intercepting at low altitudes.
Yaks perform amazingly under 3.5 km altitude. Go higher, and they begin to struggle as they do not have nearly strong enough engines for fighting effectively at 5 and 6 km altitudes. They also got horrible controls if you fly fast enough and rip easily - meaning, if you are fighting at 5-6 km altitude and start losing, you can easily dive and disengage. Even if they do manage to stay on your six, you can outmaneuver them and leave them behind.
So to reiterate - yaks are not powerful. They are just uniquely suited to the unfortunate air RB meta of everyone flying at each other under 2 km altitude and turnfighting indiscriminately or groundpounding.
Now, they also have a pretty decent climb rate so it’s hard to tackle them with BnZ tactics until they drop to lower altitudes.
What we need is not nerfing yaks, they are fine. What we need is multiple airfields and objectives spread across the map to encourage people to climb and not clump up in the middle where yaks rule.
nota bene, yak 9s do not suffer from the high altitude as much as yak 3s. However, it seems people use them far less for some reason (probably low speed maneuverability being worse? idk).
nota bene 2: most common way I died to yaks relearning air RB was their prop hang. They can kill you with a prophang if you fly lazy over them less than 2 km advantage. It’s easy to avoid if you expect it though.
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Which Yak… or at least, around what BR? There are quite a few of them over quite a large BR.
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food for my a7m, dunno why people think they are op
most capable dogfighter NOT OP plane tbh
As long as the player has any remote dogfighting skills, it’s OP.
For example, considerably, me fighting my friend in the JA37C (Pre incorrect FM nerf) and his MiG-23ML (Also Pre correct FM nerf) I would mostly win, not by luck, but playing my cards right. As a great man once said, you need know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
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Then, America, Germany and Italy has counterpart of Yak-3 that is called Bf 109 F-4 so, it is fine.
Then you can be saying this about Spitfires, Bf 109s, G.55s, P-51H, Ta 152H, B7A2s and many more as well. Apparently the skill ceiling isnt low enough for you.
I havent tested the Viggen since the patch, but you are the person that really likes to say the Gripen is underperforming. I cant trust this.
Russian bias isnt real. Yak-3 isnt broken or busted or overperforming.
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Not massively underperforming, just a few °/s off.
Viggen or Gripen?
Either way, JAS-39 holds its speed far better than it should, same with Block 10 F-16As, while getting huge AoA.
Gryffon; it’s because of its light weight airframe design. It’s still the most maneuverable fighter aircraft in europe.
Most of it is withheld because of its layout and design, being a separate control Delta Canard acting as your aileron and elevator.
Yak-3s are insane
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The overpowered comes from the way too low BRs.
Overpowered: Mediocre or low skill players get kills just due to plane performance and not by skilled game play.
Yaks and especially Yak-3s/9-Us and 3Us are classic examples of how a Russian company glorifies the subpar stuff the USSR produced during WW2 (or post war like the Yak-3U) - simply by applying way too low BRs.
Seriously? A 1940 aircraft (F-1 operational October 1940, F-4 in June 1941) is a counterpart they never saw irl???
A short reminder - the Yak-3s saw combat mid-late 44 - so a contemporary opponent would be a 109 G-14 or G-10 at 5.3 and 5.7 - but at at least a G-6. Or a Spit LF Mk 9. Or a F4U-4…
Placing the Yak-3 at 4.0 / 4.3 is a pure joke - have in mind that these BRs were somehow comprehensible due to the low damage output of their 20 mm cannons some years ago.
But these times are long gone; real shatter 3.0 plus the nerf of almost every other 20mm regarding ballistics created a low alt monster.
Edit: Flag attack…
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The overpowered comes from the way too low BRs.
Overpowered: Mediocre or trash players get kills just due to plane performance and not by skilled game play.
This I can definitely agree with. Russian vehicles tend to be a better fit for the style of gameplay that comes naturally, and has been encouraged by recent developments both for ground and air - allowing players to massively screw up and still survive and either get away or even win.
Another thing that helps yaks (and spits and zeros) is the instructor and mouse aim. A lot of the bullshit moves they can pull is because the instructor makes sure your turns are coordinated and you don’t stall out and aiming the nose is easy even in a 90 degree vertical prophang.
I imagine if the instructor was reduced to just a rudimentary fly-by-wire system that managed your control surfaces without working to correct idiotic maneuvers, things would be much different in terms of what is overpowered and what isn’t.
Rudimentary FBW like the Kerbal Space Program mod, “AtmosphericAutopilot”'s mouse director mode. A lot of idiotic maneuvers that’d stall my Ferram Aerospace plane designs in KSP are harmless in Warthunder. The amount of times I tore a plane apart in FAR/AA from sideslip getting out of control is way higher than in Warthunder, that being dozens to zero.
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A Zero is slower than a heavy bomber, a Yak on the other hand is a 100km/h or so faster than a G-2 with insane energy retention and acceleration.
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To be fair they will never change this, and for good reason.
In the current meta with 16 vs 16 and quick games, the Yak-3 is a better pick than the La-7 - which is why you see so many more Yak’s than La’s in games.
Based on that, the Yak-3 should be 5.0.
I think the 4.3 battle rating was partly due to Shvaks being trash back in the day, but now they are one of the better 20mm’s, which makes Yaks extremely good.
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When I hear or see Yak-3U(FO) near me, I just run. I only ever managed to beat it in the Spitfire and Ta 152H.
I’ve seen low level players have 4:1 K/D in it so don’t give me the “ItS tHe PiLoT, nOt ThE pLaNe” BS.
In many cases it’s the pilot, with the Yak it’s the plane.