Does phantom need adjustment?

(JJMAJR) #41

[quote=“FatalJ;195587”]But yes, I do agree that at high levels of play Phantom is almost always going to be on for hard times.

Take this with a pinch of salt, as I have never, nor will ever start playing in the competative scene… but I personally think his kit is fine as far as design goes. Seperating the EMP/cloak and careful tweeking to the numbers is all I think he needs to be solid again. He won’t be great in all maps, but in Underground, Bridhe, and a few areas of Terminal/Trainyard I can see his kit doing a lot of work.[/quote]

Dirty Bomb is supposed to be balanced around competitive play. The highest level of competitive play. And Phantom… doesn’t pull weight right now.

(UndeddJester) #42

Ok, so following this conversation I realised I haven’t ever really played Phantom that much with more experienced players. Mostly because getting an even game is tough at the best of times, and even then someone is always taking a Sniper or something, so I felt trying to use him with team comps lacking appropriate support wasn’t a fair analysis.

I basically insisted on it this time, and played him across 5 games on the trot to assess him properly, and the short of it is, you are right…

[SPOILER]My God does he feel weaker than I remember him… as someone who used to play spy a lot in vanilla TF2 (Back when you know, it took some degree of skill), I’m quite versed in using trickery and such to my advantage.

I will confess his kit isn’t total garbage, surprise attack is always a thing, and a few times I was able to do some real work with Phantoms EMP allowing my team to break into the enemy sites, but the oppurtunites to do it are very few and far between, and at the end of the day when it comes shooting it out with a Stoker or Sawbones, it is still a 50/50 based on player skill, but without heals to recover with, or a molly to back you up. God help you if you are up against a Fragger or Thunder.

By far his biggest problem is if he gets spotted coming in, his cloak does not provide any protection at all. 2 bullets and it is gone, and at that point you’ve pretty much lost the gun fight.

I think at its core, the EMP is a useful counter for deployables and makes his cloak much more effective, but his skills and play style have too many contradictions.

  • He has medium health which means MUST be at full HP to fight effectively, but his skillset makes him a lone wolf, making sustain a problem.
  • His main attacking strength is focused on flanking and surprising his opponents, but his cloak punishes movement and discourages him from flanking.
  • He has medium speed meaning he can’t close on targets that easily and must rely on his cloak to achieve it. (see above).
  • He is intended to burn down key targets, but can’t kill and execute them fast enough to achieve that with enough time to get away.
  • His melee power is strong… but see all of the above…[/SPOILER]

I think that maybe splitting the EMP and cloak, combined with making his cloak actually absorb a decent whallop of damage would make him more playable, but I don’t think that will address his main problem, which seems to be that he simply lacks kill power.

The other Recons can headshot a target, then execute them quite efficiently and from relative safety. However Phantom simply can’t kill with that level of efficiency… even giving him the ability to spot wouldn’t help because at the end of the day, if you can’t reliably kill your target, you aren’t going to win.

(Szakalot) #43

Phantom was FINE before the patch. The lack of cooldown activation cost allowed Phantom to always have armor ready when peeking a corner. You could very effectively harass enemies with hit&run tactics, pulling their aim off the choke.

He was always too weak for comp, just because in 5v5 you don’t really have scenarios where a lone wolf would help out - its all about the big teamfights where you need good heals and lots of firepower. Even the most OP phantom at release with 120hp, 80hp armor, and last part of armor absorbing a single source of damage, even a sniper headshot - was still considered too weak for comp at the time.

In a slower playstyle, e.g. execution; phantom is a lot better; as the recon value is higher and getting a drop off and assassinating an exposed player can be useful.

(yesser) #44

so how about just… ruturn to the old phontom . make the emp as a pulse that would drain the clock energy and increase the coulddown so that we will have a lone wolf flanker and an anti turret and station in 5vs5

(Dysfnal) #45

I like the idea of a pulse mechanism that would drain the armor, you’d still have to know proxy mines are there to deal with them, but you wouldn’t have to drop your cloak

(Someordinaryguy) #46

#MakeBeybladeGreatAgain ? xD

No but seriously, it would be cool if he had an EMP nade (maybe resembling one that Thatcher has from Rainbow Six:Siege?) and release stats (apart from OP armor and beyblade), but less tanky and more focused on stealth&speed&surprise

That way he could be sneaky, mess with “crutches” such as mines, stations, turrets…but it would not be an instant F You button f.ex. when fighting against Fletcha and would require a bit of timing and skill, instead of sitting behind the wall/above/under and watching lvl 1 Aura shoot her station a few times (always makes me chuckle, poor Auras ; ^ ; ).

Also it would kinda buff Redeye/Aimee since their spotting would not be affected/able to be emp’ed by a nade

And quoting beloved Thatcher once more for how it would look like: “GPS satellites, unmanned drones, fucking laser sights. The more crutches you have, the more it hurts when they’re kicked out from under ya. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that a six inch blade never loses reception” :smiley: Just change six inch blade to katana and voila !

(Naonna) #47

Who would ever ask for MORE cool down time on his ability? @yesser - His entire play style currently revolves around waiting 7 seconds in between each kill as a minimum to get your armor back, and thus, your durability in a 1v1 fight.

(yesser) #48

i’am not asking for more cool down @Naonna i thought by making it like this the phontom would choose to be sneaky if he stay sneaky he would have x sec cool down if he use the emp pulse it will be x+y cool down
or we just seperate it from the cloack as a bomb and make it an ‘‘e’’ abilty

(konakona) #49

Nobrain melee-oriented concept will never be good, not after 100 “reworks”. Last night i saw a beatiful dream about godlike assault-assasin phantom without katana at all, but, instead, with a dreiss ar. Similar to redeye, but, at the same time, different. With an instant invis, but only worked near the walls. Yep, that was sweet dream that will never happen.

(remarkableBusiness) #50

Give him the dreiss take away his crotzni give him back his pre-emp stuff add emp as an E ability and a little more health and you may have a viable merc again

(Wedgebox) #51

Phantom is actually a really playable & decent merc. The only problem is these noob Phantoms acting like 5 year olds thinking no one can see them, and thinking they can easily kill everyone with there Katana by running towards them and slicing them.

(cloudgazer) #52

Phantom is still damn fun.

(sgtCrookyGrin) #53

There’s no option for me so I decided to type it all out in this post, please type what you think there.
http://forums.dirtybomb.nexon.net/discussion/32219/phantom-thread-to-help-him-out-please-read#latest