MARCH 19TH PHANTOM FINE TUNING UPDATE

[Gire]

1. Phantom is useless and underpowered
2. Buff Phantoms cloak and health
3. Nerf Phantoms cloak a little bit
4. Still complain that he needs a delay.

[Deathi]

The underlying problem is, as many, many people before me said, you can’t balance around visibility. To many players having other resolutions, better or worse eyes and better or worse reaction-times.
So you will never find a setting where everybody (“skilled or unskilled”) is able to see him at the same time or range. Not even talking about cheaterscum using exploits in the graphicssettings to make him more visible.
IF you want to balance it for all players, you either have to have him fully cloaked or not cloaked at all.
So if you want to keep him as Phantom, you will have to make him fully cloaked, but change other stuff to balance him… If you want to keep him.

But as you see, devs know better. Console4ever…

[STARRYSOCK]

@Deathi said:
So if you want to keep him as Phantom, you will have to make him fully cloaked, but change other stuff to balance him… If you want to keep him.

Not necessarily. You can just make it so his cloak isn’t the reason people play him, like he was before the patch.

Invisibility doesn’t really fit in DB anyways, so I don’t see why the devs are pushing it. I’d rather he be kept as an EMP focused merc with a shield as he was before.

Pre-patch, what you mentioned was never really an issue just because no one really played Phantom for that.

[Someordinaryguy]

@STARRYSOCK said:

@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)

3. 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 @$!# 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”.

But adapting and countering someone’s play is the vital part of any class based game. I may be a terrible Guardian but I’ll switch to her to protect Bridge generator from nade spam. I may not like it but guess what? We burn the enemy’s clock

And about Redeye requiring good sniping skills…Dreiss and Grandeur are for those who prefer CQB power over long range. Like you spot a Phantom with IR Gogles and pretty much hold m1. Dreiss can be pretty much hipfired at most ranges.

Also suicidal Phantoms like that are just bad Phantoms that target even worse people or newbies. A “decent” and up Phantom will either wait for teammates distraction or pick off the lone targets/backline since that way he doesn’t tie the killcount.

Traps are not Phantom only, they punish anyone cocky enough to rush blindly. Like I’m still baffled people with a few hundred hours in the game will rush the train cars on Terminal last when the enemy team has 4-5 Proxies.

I don’t mean stop, you can just switch to your pistol and take some potshots with hipfire. At best, you’ll hit him and startle him.

And about Medic, unless Phantom has Chopper, he can only 1stab Aura and Sparks. Phoenix can long jump and tap heal/charge a bit, Sawbonez can drop packs.

Also yes DB is a fast paced game but that doesn’t mean just blindly holding m1+w all the time, soviet army style. Reasses your options, wait for backup, stop trickling. Or wait a bit and use hotheads on your team as bait. If you’re medic, you might get some heal/revive exp as a bonus

Oh and one more thing, if Phantom screws up in any way, he’s just a glorified assault with only guns. No 90dmg nades, no rocket. Punish him if it happens.

[Darkwolf3802]

@Lord_Coctus said:

@Darkwolf3802 said:
Yea this change did nothing to nerf phantom. He can still attack before decloaking and the sound is still so faint u cant hear it. And the sound is pointless when ur dead before phantom decloakes. OP issue fixed? Not at all.

It’s defiantly easier to see Phantom than it was before.

He still needs a delay before he can attack. Ur not guna notice him in a firefight

[bgyoshi]

The problem isn’t that phantom being invisible is OP. It’s not. Even before this patch, I learned how to spot him running around. His visibility was fine.

The problem isn’t that he was silent when coming out of cloak. There’s nothing wrong with that, he’s supposed to be sneaky.

The problem isn’t that he doesn’t decloak when being shot. He should just be slightly more visible, and he was. This was perfectly fine.

The problem is that being able to attack while invisible to get the jump on literally everyone without needing to be stealthy, is too good, and goes against the merc’s principles.

Literally, just stand in someone’s way while invisible. Don’t move. When they get in range, unload on their head. No one will be able to react fast enough. And if you’re good, you can win every 2v1 with a surprise attack.

Phantom should be discouraged from being a roadblock picking off cheap kills
Phantom should be encouraged to sneak around and flank
Phantom should be encouraged to sneak around and disable/repair/plant objectives

Making him more visible discourages sneaking around
Making him noisier discourages flanking
Making him more visible and noisier encourages standing still and picking off cheap kills

Revert phantom, give him a 1 second window after decloaking where he can’t attack (assuming decloaking is silent), and done. If decloaking is noisy, make it a .5 second delay. Phantom would be perfect.

That’s it

lol

[GatoCommodore]

i just realized how powerful phantom is on a teamfight

lets say theres a 6v6 firefight
1 phantom already walljumping his way to the back of the enemy team

when he decloaks and start attacking, it has just become 5v6 or even 5v5 because either phantom killed one or he drags one to fight 1 on 1 with him
worst case scenario, everybody in the enemy team would start to shoot at phantom too and ignoring the other 5 who are shooting at them too.

best scenario, team is ignoring because they cant hear the sound of katana and phantom taunts over their explosive spam

that would be 6v1 on phantom but phantom’s team is at advantage because his team are still shooting at enemies who tried to kill phantom.

i started to play like this only yesterday and realize how useful having 110hp phantom more than invisible soundless cloak

get that crappy cloak outta here, phantom is initiator now.