“Phantom should lurk in the shadows, strike and then go back to the shadows.”
I never said he didn’t play like that.
Phantom isn’t invisible, nor should he/does he play like he is. Phantom’s cloak is a cloak and that is how cloaks play in many other games. I’ve given examples. I am a good Phantom, I constantly do very well with him as i play him almost exclusively. However it is clearly apparent that if i switch to another recon, I will perform much better generally, even considering I have less than 1/18 of the hours I have with Phantom on all of the other recons combined.
You’re missing the point anyway. I’m not talking about pubs anyone can stomp in pubs. It means nothing. It is generally accepted that Phantom is the least useful merc in the game. As whereas I may be exaggerating how bad he is, my point still stands and it still is a big difference when you you’ve played long enough that you want to start playing with people your own skill level. It becomes increasingly apparent that playing Phantom is like playing with a disadvantage the better your opponents get. This isn’t that your opponents are better than you, but rather there is a cutoff point where Phantom just gets less and less useful as your opponents get better regardless of how good you are at him. The better you get at the game, the less useful Phantom will be to you except for in games with players below the cutoff point.
So sure he isn’t useless, but that’s not what i’m getting at.
Also I have never thought that Phantom should play like a spy. If you look at the Dystopia video, that is more along the lines of how i see him play.
However, it doesn’t matter. He either needs to be actually invisible and actually difficult to detect (at high level) or he needs to not be completely unable to do anything while cloaked as his cloak isn’t supposed to be used like that. Though i doubt they will make him completely invisible.
The problem is that Phantom is a flanker, but the flank isn’t easy to get (as in getting to the place you want to be to flank isn’t actually always possible). I’m talking about against higher skill level players. Against players who know how to play, and are checking corners when they hear you, you are forced to play Phantom more as a harasser, getting a few shots off before quickly retreating and cloaking and getting opportunity flanks when your team sets you up. It just isn’t worth picking Phantom to do this. It is just better to pick another merc with better firepower or more utility.
The fact that all Phantom can do with his cloak is try to re-position just makes it far too hard to use when you can be heard and when the enemy is actively looking for you, and against a team with good medics, you end up just not being able to output enough damage to make enough of an impact. The time it takes for the enemy to react just gets less and less as people get better until it kinda just ends up making Phantom too much of a pain to play. You can flank with any merc. You don’t need Phantom to do it. And even if you do flank with Phantom, once they know you are there being Phantom doesn’t help in any way.
If you have read how i suggested it be implemented, you’ll know that it would improve counterplay and compliment the only viable playstyle for Phantom at higher skill levels imo.
If you look at the above video, you can see that after firing a shot or attacking, the cloak is almost immediately turned back on allowing the player to , there and then , re-position and attack from a different angle. What i’m suggesting is very similar to that, except it is much easier to balance and it doesn’t conflict with Phantom’s ability coldown on the cloak.
If Phantom was able to play like that, it might actually fix him.
