A whack ability idea I had concerning Phantom's armor

(SzGamer227) #1

Just something that came to mind. Thought I’d post it just to know what you might think of it.
¯_(ツ)_/¯

Phantom’s ability is strictly limited to combat situations, since it disappears whenever you play an objective or try to revive teammates. Phantom as a team player is even more outrageously out of his element than a Vassili doing the same thing. So what if Phantom could use his stealth armor while playing objectives and doing other things a teammate should be doing?

The idea I had is for an Armor Lock ability that can be activated while Phantom is stealthed. It’s function is to force the refractive armor to stay active when performing activities that would otherwise cause it to deactivate. This effect would last 8-10 seconds, cannot be disabled once used, and have a 40-50 second cooldown afterwards.

While Armor Locked, Phantom would be able to plant and disarm C4, repair objectives, and pick up teammates while stealthed, giving him a few hits of shielding and potentially confusing the enemy. The downside of this would be that firing your gun or landing melee attacks would inflict damage to your own armor, meaning you would either be forced to retreat if engaged or waste both of your abilities.

What this would add is a tactical and even supportive element to Phantom, who is otherwise a lone wolf with a gun and knife and nothing in particular to do, without outright making major changes to his capabilities and play style.

So, that’s the idea, what do you think?

(gloomyRequirement) #2

Phantom is already really strong as he is(he’s much like Vassili, just not useful in the hands of the plentiful mediocre players). He’s an assassin and his job is to kill, definitely not to play objectives if it can be avoided.

The whole suggestion is like saying “make Vassili plant bombs faster plox”. Which makes no sense, as it’s simply not his role.

IF Phantom ever needs a change, and imo he’s in a very good spot atm, they should allow him to instantkill in the back with melee. Also fix his loadout cards, noone wants a fucking flipknife with a katana as alternative.

(CCP115) #3

Phantom needs to be reworked.

Attacking out of invisbility/armor is dumb and unfair and unfun to play against.

He is also not a teamplayer, and a weak combat merc, getting 1 kill every now and then, and he isn’t even a skilled merc.

He’s just kinda in a bad spot, and SD just needs to tweak some things to improve him.

(gloomyRequirement) #4

[quote=“CCP115;145546”]Phantom needs to be reworked.

Attacking out of invisbility/armor is dumb and unfair and unfun to play against.

He is also not a teamplayer, and a weak combat merc, getting 1 kill every now and then, and he isn’t even a skilled merc.

He’s just kinda in a bad spot, and SD just needs to tweak some things to improve him.[/quote]

I disagree with literally everything you said. He’s not weak, he’s definitely not weak in combat and if you “sometimes get 1 kill” you’re as good as a vasili with no aiming skill.

I’ll prove that he’s not weak to you one day. If they’d rework him I really want my money back for I genuinely think he’s in a good spot as he is now.

(SzGamer227) #5

[quote=“gloomyRequirement;145603”][quote=“CCP115;145546”]Phantom needs to be reworked.

Attacking out of invisbility/armor is dumb and unfair and unfun to play against.

He is also not a teamplayer, and a weak combat merc, getting 1 kill every now and then, and he isn’t even a skilled merc.

He’s just kinda in a bad spot, and SD just needs to tweak some things to improve him.[/quote]

I disagree with literally everything you said. He’s not weak, he’s definitely not weak in combat and if you “sometimes get 1 kill” you’re as good as a vasili with no aiming skill.

I’ll prove that he’s not weak to you one day. If they’d rework him I really want my money back for I genuinely think he’s in a good spot as he is now.[/quote]

No no no, Phantom genuinely underperforms as a combat merc, and is weak in general combat by virtually every standard. Shall we compare him to a few other mercs?

Let’s start with Fragger. A well-placed frag grenade that has been properly cooked is far more devastating and just as surprising as any Phantom attack could ever hope to be. Fragger has 40 more health and can use his ability around corners, behind cover, and against groups of enemies just as easily and more effectively than he can against one.

Now Nader. A direct hit with a grenade launcher deals just as much damage as a thrust with a Katana, and has a much greater attack rate and effective range. Nader has only 10 more health than Phantom and is arguably weaker, but (like Fragger) she can use her ability around corners, behind cover, and against groups of enemies more easily and effectively than she can against one.

Now Fletcher. A direct hit with a sticky bomb deals 100 damage (more than any of Phantom’s melee weapons except for a Katana with the Chopper augment) and is equally capable of being used to assassinate unwary mercs… even more so considering two or even three stickies can be stuck to an enemy before detonating. Stickies can be used to set up surprise attacks and defend objectives, but unlike Phantom, they last indefinitely, and Fletcher doesn’t have to be sitting idle nearby to spring the trap. And then there’s the fact that Fletcher is also an objective specialist, so he isn’t even restrained to just performing combat activities.

The only up that Phantom has on any of these mercs is his refractive armor, which gives him a much greater ability to hide or run away than any other merc. But is lying in wait waiting for an ambush or running away from a fight any sort of thing a proper teammate should be doing? His refractive armor should at least be more useful for a broader array of battlefield activity, because Phantom isn’t shaped up to be anywhere near as effective as he should be.

(sgtCrookyGrin) #6

If you have a skilled Phantom, he will do good but in general can’t support the team since his playstyle requires you to fight on your own.

If you have a skilled Nader/Fragger/Fletcher, They will do good on their own AND their teammates will push and fight with them because those classes fight well in both scenarios.

Which one is obviously better? Because playing with just one teammate straight up doubles both of your DPS.

(KattiValk) #7

Phantom being able to do objectives while cloaked would be really annoying and frankly, really cheesy.

Personally, I want two changes done to Phantom. First would be a secondary ability of some sort (like a false spotting tool to confuse the enemy). Second would be changing the way the auditory part of his cloak works. Instead of making him about as loud as an overclocked computer gasping out its last cycles before spontaneously combusting, I think it would be better to let him have an AOE effect around him that dampens and even flat out removes sound at its strongest. It would be passively tied to the cloak and IMO would make him significantly more effective while still giving the audio warning with the absence of any sounds.

Also giving all his load outs the katana would be really nice though not necessary. I’ve been swapping between Kek-10 w/ katana and combat knife and frankly the katana opens up a lot for Phantom especially considering it is kind of his thing.

(TheVulpesFox) #8

I think this could work. I dunno about shooting etc. damaging your armour, maybe making it so you are absolutely disabled from shooting.
Your idea sounds better actually