Nerfing Phantom Kills him

(TheRealGamingN) #1

Isnt SD really dumb to nerf him to the point of extinction then buffs him again to nerf him…im phantom main and i can say SD doesnt know what balancing is…they have made hunter in a way that other snipers like vaseline and aimee have become useless…

(kirinichiban42) #2

I am actually proud of SD because they have put in a lot of effort into making Phantom viable when they could have left him in his previous state.

In my opinion, Phantom is the hardest merc to balance.

This is because invisibility (if handled incorrectly) can be an insanely powerful ability which, when coupled with a 90 dmg dealing katana, can be a nightmare for any merc. Any 90hp or below merc (Aimee, Aura, Proxy, Kira, Sparks) can be insta-killed on a moment’s notice given that the Phantom is at least competent.

In general, there is little one can do against something they don’t even know is there. I think giving Phantom total invisibility was the right move, but allowing him to attack without decloaking fully is a bit much. Right now, the only way to even detect a Phantom is to equip Redeye and use infrared vision. From personal experience, I have consistently gotten over 2 kills per every death with Phantom which is ridiculous given that I can’t even those numbers with mercs designed solely to kill other mercs (Thunder, Nader, Fragger, or Rhino). Overall, competent Phantoms can wreak havoc on matches with little risk to themselves.

And no, Hunter does not invalidate the other snipers. His projectile-based weapon is vastly less reliable than any of the hit-scan sniper rifles (except for maybe the grandeur :’( ). He excels in mid range, but is noticeably less effective in long and short range engagements. Plus, his tracking ability only works if you hit people.

With everything said and done, Phantom just doesn’t feel fair to play with. As it stands now, Phantom will most often get the first shot in an attack which gives him a distinct advantage over other players. I do want Phantom to have a full invisibility cloak, but there just needs more skill involved to make it work to your benefit.

(Mr.Cuddlesworth) #3

Vassili mains love Hunter. I’ve seen so many noob Hunters getting rekt by him.

(TheTwinkie) #4

Invisibility is not the issue here. Phantom IS basically an op tf2 Spy. If they want to do a stealth merc they will unfortunately need to copy tf2. Meaning : no noise or visibility while moving but uncloaking makes noise and switching melee takes a bit of time (since you can face-stab) that would prevent the phantom out of nowhere kills, and maybe a bit less health, maybe

(Roscuro) #5

A few changes I’ve been thinking about for Phantom, the only detection that Phantom should be immune from while invis is Aimee. The cam can’t see him to tattle on him, it makes sense. Redeye detects enemies by looking at him, you can still see him but you can’t detect him, doesn’t make sense. And the heartbeat sensor, I don’t see how his armor hides his heartbeat. Hunter’s arrows should if a Hunter manages to tag an invis Phantom.
Something else is a one or the other change, not both. I like the near complete invisibility, but being able to attack right out of invisibility is kind of ridiculous with the katana+chopper. My proposition is either make him have to uncloack himself to give a delay for enemies to maybe catch on, like the TF2’s spy. Or make his emp as loud for enemies as it is for you, I suppose this could be equated again to the Spy’s Dead Ringer in TF2. I would suggest the prior idea as making him really loud just seems to defeat the purpose, a Phantom in the shadows is much more fitting.

(Cordyceps) #6

@TheTwinkie said:
Invisibility is not the issue here. Phantom IS basically an op tf2 Spy. If they want to do a stealth merc they will unfortunately need to copy tf2. Meaning : no noise or visibility while moving but uncloaking makes noise and switching melee takes a bit of time (since you can face-stab) that would prevent the phantom out of nowhere kills, and maybe a bit less health, maybe

Sure, the spy can disable electronics, but he has to uncloak to do that, and can only do it one at a time. Also, phantom can not disguise himself as other mercs. Once he’s uncloaked you know that’s an enemy phantom. TF2 was a great game, but no game will ever need to copy TF2 to play good.

(fryszopen) #7

“Phantom main” Aight kid, I know it’s hard to admit for you but, in he’s current state his op. He definitely needs another change.

(TheTwinkie) #8

Nevers talked about electronics. And tf2 is still a great game still hasn’t died. It doesnt but I am not sure there is many ways to make such merc balanced and the one they use isnt one of them

(Da_Mummy) #9

@Cordyceps said:
TF2 was a great game, but no game will ever need to copy TF2 to play good.

What do you mean WAS :3 .
No but funny enough if I wanted to I could give every merc in TF2 at least one merc from DB and similar things could be said about OW. You just can’t design anything in FPS games anymore without taking a bit from other games.
As for Phantom a 0,5s decloak wouldn’t be a bad idea because he really doesn’t need a visibility change and if he starts to roar like a jet engine again he might as well run around with a massive billboard attached to his back saying: “plz shoot me or I’m going to kill people”
Another idea that I had was giving Phantom a friendly or at least neutral outline so that he doesn’t stick out like an Irish man in an african bar.
Just don’t undo your whole work just because it didn’t work as intended at first glance.

(TheTwinkie) #10

@Da_Mummy said:

@Cordyceps said:
TF2 was a great game, but no game will ever need to copy TF2 to play good.

What do you mean WAS :3 .
No but funny enough if I wanted to I could give every merc in TF2 at least one merc from DB and similar things could be said about OW. You just can’t design anything in FPS games anymore without taking a bit from other games.
As for Phantom a 0,5s decloak wouldn’t be a bad idea because he really doesn’t need a visibility change and if he starts to roar like a jet engine again he might as well run around with a massive billboard attached to his back saying: “plz shoot me or I’m going to kill people”
Another idea that I had was giving Phantom a friendly or at least neutral outline so that he doesn’t stick out like an Irish man in an african bar.
Just don’t undo your whole work just because it didn’t work as intended at first glance.

We agree. They need to work on the decloak not on the sounds and visibility while cloaked. I’ll say longer decloak and a decloak sound making it very hard to decloak in front of the mercs face

(ZenVirZan) #11

Turning him into the TF2 spy doesn’t work, as the reason Spy works is due to the disguise, not necessarily the stealth.

(GatoCommodore) #12

@ZenVirZan said:
Turning him into the TF2 spy doesn’t work, as the reason Spy works is due to the disguise, not necessarily the stealth.

both actually

and you can just make it work with the cloak only or the disguise only.

(TheStrangerous) #13

EMP and cloak being together is what kills him. Poor Phanty and his abusive abilities…

(QuantumIdiot) #14

Phantom is OP. You can easily tell from trying to play against him that there is just no way to counter him. If you’re playing the objective and then just die from an enemy that you had no way of defending against is (and I think you will agree with me) unfair. If you can kill two enemies in three seconds before dying that can devastate their defense with little effort. It’s a cheap way to kills and phantom NEEDS to be redone, I understand that he is a hard merc to balance and I truly believe that he has a place in DB but something needs be done.