So… what if Phantom had a shotgun?
OK, OK, put the pitchforks down!
Seriously though, Phantom’s biggest problem is that his health and speed don’t compensate for his playstyle. He’s not fast enough to stab someone and then get out (especially against higher health pool mercs), he doesn’t have the health to fight someone 1v1 with the heavy pistols, and he doesn’t have the resources to fight someone with SMGs.
If he had a shotgun, he’d be able to fight people easier up close, without necessarily having to get into melee range, and wouldn’t have to rely on the… well unreliable hand-cannons. While I don’t think Phantom should ever be without the katana, this new shotgun Phantom probably wouldn’t have it. That would be a little too much burst damage, imo. He probably would switch to the normal pistols, too. Wouldn’t need the hand-cannons. There would need to be a decloaking sound and duration, so that way he doesn’t just delete someone’s head when they try to defuse, or something.
Just an idea.
A (probably stupid) Phantom Idea
Idk what people are talking about, his SMGs are godly. The cloak means you always get the first shot, and you can pretty easily line up a string of headshots faster than the other person can even react.
I’ve tried phantom out a few times since post-rework, and he felt OP af. He’s basically got a guaranteed kill button now, you just have to get behind someone, which is nowhere near as hard as it used to be.
I feel that the real problem with phantom is that people keep trying to play him as an assault merc, which he’s not. Even if he doesn’t fit it perfectly, there’s a reason SD put him into recon. I mean, vassili isn’t suppose to kill the entire team, he’s supposed to annoy them, not be some all purpose slayer. Phantom is the same way. He’s meant to mess with the enemy team, not completely wipe them out. Kill a medic, EMP a deployable, shoot a mine next to someone, etc. Once you realize his strength is in being able to annoy people and run away, he becomes an extremely useful merc. It just takes some understanding of how to play him. Not rushing with the katana, not standing next to the person with a pistol. Standing near cover from medium range, taking one or two people, out, popping behind cover, reloading and recloaking
I used to main phantom before the rework. Sneaking up on people was challenging, but rewarding. Once I got used to him, I was regularly pulling in more kills than my assault mercs with far less deaths too. I barely play him now because I actually find him too easy. You just have to know how to play him.
besides, shotguns are usually criticized because of the easy one or two hit kills they bring. The only downside to them is that it’s usually easy to move out of range and fight back. But when you can’t see the person to fight back, all you end up doing is pissing people off. Which is SD’s reasoning for reworking phantom in the first place.
I forgot to say that there would be a delay between attack and decloak…
EDIT: Fixed
@MuddyGrenade said:
… he doesn’t have the health to fight someone 1v1 with the heavy pistols, and he doesn’t have the resources to fight someone with SMGs.
So doesn’t Sawbonez, and I doubt anyone would disagree on him being one of the strongest merc. Sure he’s a medic, but as Phantom, he can only rely on his weapons to kill. Phantom’s issue doesn’t come from his arsenal, it comes from his utility (or lack of to be precise).
@MuddyGrenade said:
I forgot to say that there would be a delay between attack and decloak…
Still tho. With his current weapons, even after he starts firing there’s still time for the other person to react and run away or even kill the phantom if they’re lucky.
If you give him a delay, it’s basically the same amount of time to react anyways (assuming decloaking is still loud af) before you can get off a shot, so he’d essentially be back to the same issue you identified in your post, only now he can’t do ANY damage in that delay. People could just run out of optimal range and you wouldn’t really be able to do anything except follow them, likely into a pile of other enemies, which of course phantom isn’t designed to face.
For phantom’s loud decloak, the only options are either to be far away from anyone who can hear you when you decloak, or be able to react fast enough that it doesn’t matter. A delayed shotgun can’t do either of those things.
Nah it doesn’t make any sense at all
Uses His ability
Gets in front/back of enemy
Uses Shot Gun
Gets an instant Kill
The only problem with Phantom is his katana , remove it and here you have a good merc and not a rushing "wannabe " ninja.
But a little buff speed is welcome.
He should be a she, or at least a skinny she-male ( is censured for real this word…)
@Ptiloui said:
@MuddyGrenade said:
… he doesn’t have the health to fight someone 1v1 with the heavy pistols, and he doesn’t have the resources to fight someone with SMGs.So doesn’t Sawbonez, and I doubt anyone would disagree on him being one of the strongest merc. Sure he’s a medic, but as Phantom, he can only rely on his weapons to kill. Phantom’s issue doesn’t come from his arsenal, it comes from his utility (or lack of to be precise).
I’ve never seen people trying to coordinate attacks from a phantom + Nader/Fragger + Medic on deployables, but on paper, that sounds awesome. But your point is totally true. There’ll always be a better -or at least more versatile- merc for a said situation 95% of the time. Same for Guardian, Proxy, Kira, Rhino, Bush and the list goes for pretty much a good third of the mercs available.
I don’t play Phantom, but I do like Guardian. But if I’m going for a medic session, I won’t pick her without Aura, Sawbonez or Phoenix as well.
Before you hit the disslike button its an idea im not saying its a good idea and seems a little over powered at times. Its a thought i played around with. That being said
I always tinkered with the idea of taking his emp and adding pheonix healing pulse. Remove emp ability to go through walls since nanites cant go through walls. Phantoms nanites heal/revive teammates but have limited time emp like affect on visible deployables. With exception of sparkles and possibly guardian all medics require you to be on top of downed merc to revive and all mercs need to be close to give health which puts them at a dissadvantage of getting shot down before you could heal/revive. This is where phantom could be usefull as he could be able to get closer to downed/low hp merc and revive/heal a lot easier since by the time he un cloaks he would have already healed.
Like guardian he could do multiple simultanious revives, though i still think they should both be able to revive with out abilities. I still cant figure out logic between sparks being able to crouch down and heal but guardian cant.
His healing abilities would have a cool down obvioulsy and his healing emp would be same as it is now a pulse limited to a max of once per cloak with a slighty longer cool down than the cloak. We dont want make the other medics less usefull so a longer cool down on the emp healing pulse as well as phantom would not get defibs or medpacs those will be reserved for aura sparkles and sawbones.
I also thought about another idea of taking his emp and adding a snitch/heartbeat aproch to his emp
Where hos emp would tag enemy players for a few seconds to alert teamates of ememy location
Again just an idea i played around with
The only way I can see fixing him is they need to make changes to his stealth, changes that they’re unwilling to make.
@Gire said:
God plz dont touch Phantom anymore with nerfs/reworks
SD reworked him because in their words, he was unfun to play against. From the complaints I see in game, he’s even more unfun to play against now than ever. So I doubt this is the last we’ll see of phantom reworks
@STARRYSOCK said:
Idk what people are talking about, his SMGs are godly. The cloak means you always get the first shot, and you can pretty easily line up a string of headshots faster than the other person can even react.
I’ve tried phantom out a few times since post-rework, and he felt OP af. He’s basically got a guaranteed kill button now, you just have to get behind someone, which is nowhere near as hard as it used to be.I feel that the real problem with phantom is that people keep trying to play him as an assault merc, which he’s not. Even if he doesn’t fit it perfectly, there’s a reason SD put him into recon. I mean, vassili isn’t suppose to kill the entire team, he’s supposed to annoy them, not be some all purpose slayer. Phantom is the same way. He’s meant to mess with the enemy team, not completely wipe them out. Kill a medic, EMP a deployable, shoot a mine next to someone, etc. Once you realize his strength is in being able to annoy people and run away, he becomes an extremely useful merc. It just takes some understanding of how to play him. Not rushing with the katana, not standing next to the person with a pistol. Standing near cover from medium range, taking one or two people, out, popping behind cover, reloading and recloaking
I used to main phantom before the rework. Sneaking up on people was challenging, but rewarding. Once I got used to him, I was regularly pulling in more kills than my assault mercs with far less deaths too. I barely play him now because I actually find him too easy. You just have to know how to play him.besides, shotguns are usually criticized because of the easy one or two hit kills they bring. The only downside to them is that it’s usually easy to move out of range and fight back. But when you can’t see the person to fight back, all you end up doing is pissing people off. Which is SD’s reasoning for reworking phantom in the first place.
First shot doesnt mean much against a shotgun merc or a rhino
@HadronZodiac said:
@STARRYSOCK said:
Idk what people are talking about, his SMGs are godly. The cloak means you always get the first shot, and you can pretty easily line up a string of headshots faster than the other person can even react.
I’ve tried phantom out a few times since post-rework, and he felt OP af. He’s basically got a guaranteed kill button now, you just have to get behind someone, which is nowhere near as hard as it used to be.I feel that the real problem with phantom is that people keep trying to play him as an assault merc, which he’s not. Even if he doesn’t fit it perfectly, there’s a reason SD put him into recon. I mean, vassili isn’t suppose to kill the entire team, he’s supposed to annoy them, not be some all purpose slayer. Phantom is the same way. He’s meant to mess with the enemy team, not completely wipe them out. Kill a medic, EMP a deployable, shoot a mine next to someone, etc. Once you realize his strength is in being able to annoy people and run away, he becomes an extremely useful merc. It just takes some understanding of how to play him. Not rushing with the katana, not standing next to the person with a pistol. Standing near cover from medium range, taking one or two people, out, popping behind cover, reloading and recloaking
I used to main phantom before the rework. Sneaking up on people was challenging, but rewarding. Once I got used to him, I was regularly pulling in more kills than my assault mercs with far less deaths too. I barely play him now because I actually find him too easy. You just have to know how to play him.besides, shotguns are usually criticized because of the easy one or two hit kills they bring. The only downside to them is that it’s usually easy to move out of range and fight back. But when you can’t see the person to fight back, all you end up doing is pissing people off. Which is SD’s reasoning for reworking phantom in the first place.
First shot doesnt mean much against a shotgun merc or a rhino
Means something against most mercs though, lol.
And the others if you’re at a decent range
@STARRYSOCK said:
@HadronZodiac said:
@STARRYSOCK said:
Idk what people are talking about, his SMGs are godly. The cloak means you always get the first shot, and you can pretty easily line up a string of headshots faster than the other person can even react.
I’ve tried phantom out a few times since post-rework, and he felt OP af. He’s basically got a guaranteed kill button now, you just have to get behind someone, which is nowhere near as hard as it used to be.I feel that the real problem with phantom is that people keep trying to play him as an assault merc, which he’s not. Even if he doesn’t fit it perfectly, there’s a reason SD put him into recon. I mean, vassili isn’t suppose to kill the entire team, he’s supposed to annoy them, not be some all purpose slayer. Phantom is the same way. He’s meant to mess with the enemy team, not completely wipe them out. Kill a medic, EMP a deployable, shoot a mine next to someone, etc. Once you realize his strength is in being able to annoy people and run away, he becomes an extremely useful merc. It just takes some understanding of how to play him. Not rushing with the katana, not standing next to the person with a pistol. Standing near cover from medium range, taking one or two people, out, popping behind cover, reloading and recloaking
I used to main phantom before the rework. Sneaking up on people was challenging, but rewarding. Once I got used to him, I was regularly pulling in more kills than my assault mercs with far less deaths too. I barely play him now because I actually find him too easy. You just have to know how to play him.besides, shotguns are usually criticized because of the easy one or two hit kills they bring. The only downside to them is that it’s usually easy to move out of range and fight back. But when you can’t see the person to fight back, all you end up doing is pissing people off. Which is SD’s reasoning for reworking phantom in the first place.
First shot doesnt mean much against a shotgun merc or a rhino
Means something against most mercs though, lol.
And the others if you’re at a decent range
Yeah but staying there long enough to get a kill but not get shredded by enemy team is still unlikely
@Gire said:
God plz dont touch Phantom anymore with nerfs/reworks
Yes, please don’t just touch him, simply remove him. 
@STARRYSOCK wasnt he reworked because he was utterly useless against players above copper tier skill?
@teflonlove said:
@Gire said:
God plz dont touch Phantom anymore with nerfs/reworksYes, please don’t just touch him, simply remove him.
Please take Vassilli with him.