Bandaid Phantom with buffs. I don't want to wait months until you fix him.

(p4v) #1

Knowing that you are currently working on maps and two new mercs, it’ll take you months to add 2nd ability for Phantom. He needs life support asap.

Bandaids that won’t make him as annoying as he was before huge nerfs:

  1. Give him back his previous speed. That means +10/+20 buff.
  2. Fix heavy attacks so they are less punishing. Increase their hitbox if you want to keep them sluggish? I lost count how many times I missed with my katana when I attacked from behind because the enemy moved slightly to left/right.
  3. Decrease further his visibility when he walks, so he will become more effective in sneaking.
  4. Reduce his noises by 20%. Sneaky augment is useful for Phantom but his default noises should be reduced anyway.
(RyePanda) #2

[quote=“p4v;22465”]Knowing that you are currently working on maps and two new mercs, it’ll take you months to add 2nd ability for Phantom. He needs life support asap.

Bandaids that won’t make him as annoying as he was before huge nerfs:

[list=1]
[] Give him back his previous speed.
[] Fix heavy attacks so they are less punishing. Increase their hitbox if you want to keep them sluggish? I lost count how many times I missed with my katana because the enemy moved slightly to left/right.
[*] Make him completely invsible when he walks.
[/list][/quote]

Not really sure about completely invisible when he walks. Maybe completely invis when still, and make the sound quieter?

(NightingaleZ0) #3
  1. I like fast assassin not fatty phantom
  2. Ninjato just feels off really, pretty sure they somehow nerfed it like you said
  3. Invisible while still but moving should be visible
  4. Yes
(Drac0rion) #4

Phantom needs way too much work out of any merc to be honest.

His loadouts need a desperate rework. I could probably write maybe a 500 word analysis just about his loadouts as they are and what they should be in my opinion, but I doubt anyone would really be interested so I’m going to skip that.

He doesn’t fill his role either way, other recon mercs can at least get information on enemy location with their spotting abilities, Phantom doesn’t have that and he’s not an assassin either. He just carries a fancy katana and has a stealth ability.

Assassins in most cases have higher damage at the expense of their defenses. Phantom has only higher damage at melee range and compared to kukri or cricket bat there’s only a 5 damage difference.
For and assassin being at 110HP isn’t exactly good either, considering all assault mercs and 3/4 fire support mercs have higher hp than him as well as Redeye from recon. Sure he does have his shield, but currently the shield only has 75? hp(correct me if I’m wrong) and as soon as it wears of you’re at your 110hp. Now assuming you are being shot by the enemy and can’t run into cover, you make the best of your shield and sink as many bullets as you can, but as soon as you return fire you will most likely be at a disadvantage as enemy has their bullets already fired, in the air, while you’re just pulling the trigger. In general I would just like if Phantom had a little more health.

I’m not saying he should be like a rambo assassin, but honestly I wouldn’t mind it, as if he’s too great at stealth he would also be just as problematic. I really hope SD doesn’t make Phantom more melee focused than he already is, at least as he is for the newer players.

If people are afraid that with better stealth he becomes too powerful I wouldn’t mind if he couldn’t attack from stealth and had to go through the deactivating animation for it as it’s not long anyway. Currently refractive armor’s purpose in my opinion should be to enable his flanking power, but it really doesn’t help that much.

The current stealth on refractive armor is rather ridiculous in my opinion, as long as I’m aware of him, he can even be crouching completely still in a dark corner and he’s still no problem to spot. I’d like Phantom’s walking stealth to become what’s his current standing still stealth is and make him completely invisible while standing still if he has to deactivate stealth to attack anyway.
The noise from refractive armor, I would like for it to be gone completely or at least give him more Sneaky augments and buff it to like reduce noise by 75% + or so. I still don’t think it would be overpowered, at least you would feel rewarded from flanking without being given away by your own ability.
The current shield health the refractive armor has. I do think he needs it, as he wouldn’t really have much of an effect attacking from a flank with half his health or so after taking a few shots while flanking. I honestly like the armor part more than stealth about refractive armor. I would like the shield health to be back on 150hp as long as he needs to deactivate it to attack and I doubt it would be too strong on him.

I’m sure many of you have many different ideas for Phantom, but to be honest strong stealth and melee are unhealthy for a first-person-shooter. I don’t consider my ideas nowhere near ideal, but without knowing what SD’s intentions are for Phantom’s role or what type of second ability he might be getting I can’t really come up with much better suggestions from the top of my head right now. I don’t claim to be a Phantom expert or even a great Phantom player either as he’s fallen out of my favorite mercs to play for quite a long time now, but I hope he will get back there sooner than I expect. :slight_smile:

He’s still going to stay my favorite merc as he was the first one I bought and I have plenty of other ideas for him, but it’s hard to balance if I’m not sure what to focus on.

All of the suggestions above are all considered that Phantom cannot attack from refractive armor and has to deactivate it first.

(Amerika) #5

[quote=“p4v;22465”]Knowing that you are currently working on maps and two new mercs, it’ll take you months to add 2nd ability for Phantom. He needs life support asap.

Bandaids that won’t make him as annoying as he was before huge nerfs:

[list=1]
[] Give him back his previous speed.
[] Fix heavy attacks so they are less punishing. Increase their hitbox if you want to keep them sluggish? I lost count how many times I missed with my katana because the enemy moved slightly to left/right.
[] Make him completely invsible when he walks, so he will become more effective in sneaking.
[] Reduce his noises by 20%. Sneaky augment is useful for Phantom but his default noises should be reduced anyway.
[/list][/quote]

From your post I can tell that you are playing a melee Phantom. From my experience I can tell you to not play him as a melee character as he’s not a melee character. If you stop doing that you’ll do better. This allows you to band-aid him yourself through playing correctly rather than trying to do something he wasn’t designed to do.

(p4v) #6

@Amerika I use him mostly with guns (because I only go melee in 1v1 from behind). So you are wrong. But his design was supposed to be melee, so he should be more effective in closing distance gap between himself and the opponent. Splash Damage always said that Phantom is the only melee-oriented merc. He got Katana for a reason.

I’m not saying he should be only melee. His ranged potential is okay. It should stay as it is but he doesn’t offer anything else than just “a mediocre ranged” merc.

If he is supposed to be only effective with guns, Nader and Fragger are both better. His design is to be a stealthy ninja. It doesn’t work, thus he needs love.

(Amerika) #7

[quote=“p4v;135697”]@Amerika I use him mostly with guns. So you are wrong. But his design was supposed to be melee, so he should be more effective in closing distance gap between himself and the opponent. Splash Damage always said that Phantom is the only melee-oriented merc. He got Katana for a reason.

If he is supposed to be only effective with guns, Nader and Fragger are both better. His design is to be a stealthy ninja. It doesn’t work, thus he needs love.[/quote]

His design was not supposed to be melee. SD never said that. In fact they have said quite the opposite with Exedore (lead designer) even apologizing for the state Phantom was in on release that made him more melee-centric than they intended. One of his original designs was melee focused but that was years ago in the alpha phase of the game (back when he had a rush move and only a pistol). They threw out that design when they found they had issues not only balancing it correctly but because it felt cheap.

He is not a “stealth ninja” in both his gameplay or his lore. He’s literally just a guy who stole armor and a sword and is a crackpot. Just from his lore alone he should be great with guns and terrible with swords.

(thoroughPistachio) #8

@Amerika then can we make him great with guns? The armor is useless if you shoot first, or 2nd… anything but running away or trying to let the enemy empty his clip a little on unlucky bodyshots if SMG…

Every defense for Phantom’s current state is widely viewed as poor, even taking into account he’s not a melee main merc.

Little less loud. Right click melee little easier to hit with (even tho you’re a gun main, I get it, but DAMN…), little more speed OR hp (I prefer speed), and a team ability.

He would be balanced as heck (and still not as ridiculous OP as Spark’s REVIVR which for some reason is fine). I love going 10k+ points in Execution just because I go sniper Sparks… who revives, and heals, and melee’s better than Phantom anyways most of the time… then there’s Fletcher, who gets points for existing… :slight_smile:

The approach is a discussion, but this thread’s title is so true. Devs suck at screwing stuff over and leaving it to rot, then wonder why they aren’t the next biggest thing on the web.

(Amerika) #9

Please outline how you play with him and how he isn’t great with guns. Please consider what I’ve said on how I believe he should be played and compare what you are doing to what I’m doing. I also have tons of Phantom videos on YT that show exactly how I play if you need a visual example.

(Black) #10

I almost never pull my knife out or katana out with Phantom. I still believe how the knifing system in this game works is bad which is why I don’t use it with Phantom. Contrary to popular belief, the loadout with undercover, cool, and chopper is not his best loadout.

His best loadout is actually:

High mobility, faster reloading, and faster ADS and movement while ADS?
What more can you ask for? That benefits him in so many ways.

Even though Phantom was supposed to be a recon merc I still think his role is still played best as a behind enemy lines assault merc.

Don’t believe me? Look at one my recent games with him with that loadout:

(Ritobasu) #11

Phantom would be a hell of a lot more competitive if they gave him access to shotgun/semi auto sniper primaries with machine pistol secondaries, on top of some team helping ability

(gg2ez) #12

Thinking of an Ahnulds Phantom.

climax

Honestly, I think that Phantom is so watered down right now that even a complete change of weapons wouldn’t fix it. There is so much wrong with the cloak right now, plus, the only thing he does to help the team is kill people and let’s be honest, every other merc can do that just as well or better.

(p4v) #13

@BlackFro 1-10 lvls. I can do the same with melee RedEye vs low levels. What I wish to see is Phantom becoming viable versus more experienced players.

(Black) #14

Regardless Phantom is more viable than people think. They are just using him wrong.

(Drac0rion) #15

I think Phantom can be a pub stomper, but against more experienced players(20+) and especially in ranked matchmaking, any merc(maybe not Thunder) will perform better than Phantom as his current only role is killing.

(Reddeadcap) #16

  1. Why not give him 120 health but the speed of a 100 health merc? This could just be explained that his armor is light weight but still pretty durable, but no more shield.

  2. My only thought on the Ninjato is just increasing the reach.

  3. Visibility when crouch walking and simply running should be lower, but sprinting is just right imho, maybe having it not drain at all or even recharge when stationary would be great.

  4. This makes a lot of sense, I’ve spotted Phantoms from almost half way across a map due to how loud this is.

(gg2ez) #17

Regardless Phantom is more viable than people think. They are just using him wrong.
[/quote]

More viable than we think still isn’t as viable as anyone else. I don’t give jack squat about your “use the voice comm to spot for your team” argument. Quite frankly it’s a load of bullsh*t compared to an actual ability.

(Reddeadcap) #18

Regardless Phantom is more viable than people think. They are just using him wrong.
[/quote]

More viable than we think still isn’t as viable as anyone else. I don’t give jack squat about your “use the voice comm to spot for your team” argument. Quite frankly it’s a load of bullsh*t compared to an actual ability. [/quote]
Could I point you to my comm’s hack idea?

Basically Phantom would take a recently killed/downed player which would have a timer on them, once Phantom interacts with them he could mark the rest of the team for 10 seconds. At the price of a much longer cooldown compared to other detection abilities and leaving Phantom vulnerable while doing so.

Really fits his “Don’t trust him with your phone” part of his bios.

(gg2ez) #19

Regardless Phantom is more viable than people think. They are just using him wrong.
[/quote]

More viable than we think still isn’t as viable as anyone else. I don’t give jack squat about your “use the voice comm to spot for your team” argument. Quite frankly it’s a load of bullsh*t compared to an actual ability. [/quote]
Could I point you to my comm’s hack idea?

Basically Phantom would take a recently killed/downed player which would have a timer on them, once Phantom interacts with them he could mark the rest of the team for 10 seconds. At the price of a much longer cooldown compared to other detection abilities and leaving Phantom vulnerable while doing so.

Really fits his “Don’t trust him with your phone” part of his bios.[/quote]

Yup. You’ve told us that one before. It’s nice but I hope it only works within a certain radius of a killed player. Insta spotting the entire enemy team would be hella-harsh for them.

(Black) #20

I’m not denying any merc will play better than Phantom in a competitive setting, which is why I never use him in one.
The main reason why Phantom is lacking vs all the other mercs is simply because of his lack of a team supporting ability such as a spotting ability or an assault ability.
Add any other one of those abilities and Phantom be just as good as any other merc.

Regardless Phantom is more viable than people think. They are just using him wrong.
[/quote]

More viable than we think still isn’t as viable as anyone else. I don’t give jack squat about your “use the voice comm to spot for your team” argument. Quite frankly it’s a load of bullsh*t compared to an actual ability. [/quote]

I’m not arguing that. I’m actually for another ability for Phantom. However the ability should coincide or at least benefit his invisibility.
In my opinion I feel like SD should drop this ninja/assassin stealth cliche and just make his refractive armor a shield moving him more towards a front line pusher.