Hello,
After playing a lot of Phantom this week, I have found he is hilariously fun to play. I am enjoying playing him in the team oriented role he can fill. I often find myself running flank routes and picking off the backline medics or the people supplying area of denial. Obvious people have issues with the TDM route a lot of people pick, and say he has no role in the game. I am aware others have explained this. Most people underestimate the power of disrupting the back line during an offensive or defensive push. I often find myself hanging back with defense sometimes if I know they have a Phantom trying to kill our medics and I’ll guard our back of the line Sparks for a little while, and then move on to clearing out objective rooms, or killing disarmers, etc.
Asides from what has already been discussed I’ll state my opinion of Phantom based on being on the unfavorable side of the blade.
My main class I play is Sawbonez, last night I spent a good amount of time playing him. I will say dying to a sneak attack from Phantom is…annoying. I would not say he’s ruining the game or blah blah unfun. I actually love the challenge and the new dynamic he brings, and killing a Phantom as he’s trying to sneak up on you (Or when he misses his stealth strike and you beat him to death with a cricket bat and circle strafing) it is a very rewarding feeling. Detecting him is more difficult than I expected. Two of the three tweaks involve increase (very slightly) the ease of detecting him outside of abilities.
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The high pitched ambient hum his armor emits. This I am getting better at hearing, but it’s still tricky. It’s more difficult as a medic as I am around people firing constantly, but off solo it’s a lot more noticable. I feel like boosting the radius of when you can hear his armor humming would be a nice and slight adjustment. I’m not talking huge, I’ve just noticed that it is almost too late when you hear it, and it’s situationally different, some times its hugely obvious, sometimes not. I don’t think it should be incredibly loud, just maybe increase the radius by 15% and the volume by 10% (Maybe not even mess with the volume level.)
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The Invisibility effect. I know what to look for when fighting, but for some reason it is very difficult to see depending on the back drop and he’s a derp phantom just B-lining towards you, or if he’s competent and doing long jumps into wall bounces. Maybe a 10% increase into his opacity, just slightly more visible.
The last change I think would increase the skill cap on the Phantom class itself.
- The damage absorption when invisible. I loved the idea SD had where you could time it right and negate a headshot. I love that I can run over one proxy mine and soak it up at the expense of being invisible. However when I have been fighting Phantoms, it does seem to be slightly overkill, and a little skill-less when it lasts the whole duration. Something that requires good timing should require some punishment when it’s botched. My idea for the absorption is to keep it, but it only lasts for the first 1-2 seconds of invisibility, so you can still activate to negate an explosive or a headshot or use it to shrug off damage to escape. With a dual function you can choose to use it offensively to sneak in and maybe eat a mine, or defensively to avoid heavy damage and escape.
Aside from that, I feel like he is fairly well balanced, I enjoy the challenge of playing against them, and I love how I went from wrecking people tuesday night, to tonight, where people are obviously starting to adapt; which is forcing me to think more intelligently.
TLDR:
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I feel like boosting the radius of when you can hear his armor humming would be a nice and slight adjustment.
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Maybe a 10% increase into his opacity, just slightly more visible.
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My idea for the absorption is to keep it, but it only lasts for the first 1-2 seconds of invisibility, so you can still activate to negate an explosive or a headshot or use it to shrug off damage to escape.
What is the rest of the communities response?