@Someordinaryguy said:
Or you know, learn to counter him aka:
1)Use Redeye and spam him to death with Dreiss. He’s a great but underused merc that can wreck squishies and Phantom
2)Use tankier mercs that can survive 1 katana attack or a few shots and duel him (especially Thunder, drop concussion nade longjump and shoot his sneaky ass)
- Go in groups (you know, learn to teamplay in a TEAM game?) I mean 1 may die but Phantom is pretty much dead if you focus him
4)Bait him into mines etc. (he has to use emp now to get around them) Or have a Bushwhacker turret nearby so he has to make a choice whether to emp turret which is basically him screaming “HEEY GUYZ I’M CLOSE” or attack you and get targeted by turret
5)Keep in mind there are spots Phantoms lurk at (like side tunnel near the restaurant on Chapel)
Honestly, y’all whine about Phantom without even learning how to counter. Phantom is a merc made for picking lone, unaware or squishy targets. He relishies in the chaos in a similar way to flanking proxy doing a pizza delivery or a Fragger poping a cooked nade into a firefight.
But if you use his counters, learn how to play instead of blindly rushing/camping, he’s easy to kill.
There are some gripes of course, like no cloak flicker on being shot or emp bolt not disabling his cloak when not used, but it can be fine tuned.
I’ve played the shit out of this game, had phantom as one of my semi-mains for a while, and typically main squishier mercs. I’m not annoyed at the new phantom just because I don’t want to fight back, I’ve played both him and his victims a fucktonne, I’m annoyed at him because he has a lot of valid problems.
Phantom can be fought. The reason we’re so pissed off is that he requires so much more conscious and specialized effort to fight off than literally any other merc.
Want to stop an aura? Easy, nader, stoker, fragger, hunter, phantom, etc. She’s a powerful merc, but there are plenty of ways to counter. Phantom on the other hand is way more limited, and you said so yourself.
-Red Eye, a sniper who’s pretty much useless in the hands of anyone except a godly sniper main being the only merc who can properly counter him.
-Telling players to just play tanky mercs, when merc versatility is one of the entire draws of dirty bomb. An Aura can still fight back against a rhino fairly easily with a good medstation and some well placed headshots. An instant kill from someone you can’t even see, not so much.
-Staying in a team doesn’t stop phantom from attacking and doing a lot of damage. They get at least one almost guaranteed kill, so most phantom players I’ve seen usually just run in, kill the medic and any deployables, then let themselves get killed. Sure it’s not the most professional strategy, but it happens a hell of a lot, and it’s really not fair to whoever is playing the medic.
-Not all phantom players are blind, and it’s not easy to lure them into traps. Besides, those traps are very important, using them only to counter one merc just doesn’t fit DB at all.
-DB is supposed to be a fast-paced game, not a “shoot into any corner even if it looks empty” simulator. Yes, you should always be aware of your surroundings and what to expect, but that’s pretty damn hard to do when you can barely notice what you’re looking for. And considering how often things can change, it’s not practical to look at every corner every second and interrupt your gameplay because of one merc, something no other merc requires.
People should always have a chance at fighting back. Fragger and proxy are each easily countered by a plethora of strategies, whereas phantom’s is pretty much “You might get stabbed, so try to ignore everything else that’s going on and only focus on the phantom”.
Can he be countered? Yeah. Does he fit in DB as he is? No, not at all.
He’s annoying to fight against and cheesy as hell to play as, believe me, there’s a reason why we’re “whining”.
