Phantom all but a fun merc / lacking an identity

[Azure]

[quote=“Amerika;60591”][quote=“BushDweller;59740”][quote=“Azure;59651”]

1.You keep on saying you play him as a gunner which pretty much defeats the point of picking Phantom over any Merc. You rather rely on RNG to get a kill which any other class can do better at.

2. Phantom is RECON and Fragger is ASSAULT http://dirtybomb.gamepedia.com/Mercs
   They are and should be completely different in play styles.

3. Why do you keep trying to dismiss the other classes obviously better abilities to make Phantom sound better??? You sound like someone with a serious case of buyers remorse…[/quote]

4. RNG? Huh? How does RNG have a role in this at all? Using a gun, how does that defeat the point of phantom? The point of phantom currently is being able to flank and get around the enemy easier.

5. Vasilli is RECON and Fragger is ASSAULT??? They both use guns???
   Redeye is RECON and Fragger is ASSAULT??? They both have throwables+guns???
   Whats your point? A recon class isn’t tied to a specific weapon lol

6. Huh…? Phantoms ability is great, if I could go invisible with any class, I would.[/quote]

He simply doesn’t want to post rationally. Making up things to prove a weak arguments makes this discussion not worth it. I like good discussions…not zealotry. Some people will say anything to try and get what they want regardless of the rational or logic behind the words.[/quote]

Recon - Able to scout locate the position of the enemy

Assault - Frontline attacker

Is it really that hard to work out something is wrong here…

Phantom is Recon if his only use is playing like an assault then he is literally a nerfed (insert any other assault merc here)

Vasilli uses a sniper rifle a very long to medium range weapon (Limited to single fire)
Vasilli gets an Heart Beat sensor which helps to find the enemy by revealing their position in a small area.

Vasilli’s play style is to sit back and snipe in an area and show the position of enemies advancing. With a sub weapon to give him a chances in close range fights

Fragger uses an Assault Rifle or an LMG Both flexible in long to short range fire fights with the LMG being effective at pinning people down.
Fragger gets a grenade which allows him to dislodge a group of enemies from an area by either killing then outright or moving them into a bad position.

Fraggers role is to be up front pushing the enemy team back, killing anyone that gets in range with his increased health pool and weapon loadout.

They both have completely different playstyles. One does actual recon while the other does actual assaulting…

[Ronan]

@tulipRowboat

Why take the time to give him a temporary span of 100% invisibility? I mean, I don’t think that’s what they were going for. They were looking for near invisibility, which is what he had. If they tweaked it back to what it was, I think a lot of people would be happy. Temporary 100% doesn’t really… go do much.

If you think about it, Phantom worked well where he was. Hell, if they were to keep some of the changes that they implemented to pre-closed beta Phantom, it’d stop most of the people saying the only one to play him is by flanking with the kek10, and even some people saying he doesn’t need said kek10.

[Vulcan]

Ronan going in, I see.

But i agree, Phantom was fine how he was, People just did not want to bother with learning to counter him (Simply walking backwards and Firing) or just had bad enough awareness to where they didnt notice him cloaked, All they did was bitch about how ‘OP’ he was, if you played Full Melee like i did you would know that he wasnt very OP because to begin with, Full Melee Mercs are extremely hard to play as, Phantom has a few things making it easier but it’s still quite hard. Most of the reason he’s called OP is because he can one-shot the lower-health Mercs with the C94 Excellent Operative (Undercover, Cool, Chopper, Kek-10, Katana).

I also find it very ironic how Phantom was “OP”, So people bitched about having him Nerfed, He got Nerfed the shit out of him, And now he’s on the free Merc rotation. Enjoy Feel our Pain.

[Vulcan]

Something I’ve suggested and will suggest until the day I die is the the fact that Phantom should get something like the Payday 2 crew gets. The ability to ‘mark’ someone during his cloaked duration. This would be on a charged-based system, and it’d have 2-3 charges. Phantom uses a charge to mark out crucial targets whilst being cloaked, haling to his ‘recon’ based title. Let marked enemies be shown through walls for a set duration. Because right now, it’s as if Phantom just has a sheet thrown over his head, thinking he’s invisible. It’s not stealthy whatsoever.

I like this because as of the moment (And Somewhat before the Nerf) Phantom did not really have a role to contribute to the Team. His job was to kill, which he can’t do very well now, But he’s lacking something to help the team overall. Yes killing helps but doing the objective helps more. Im not saying he SHOULD get the Ability Ronan is suggesting, Im suggesting that he get an ability that actually contributes to the goal of the team, which is Winning/Completing the Objectives. As i stated before, increasing his speed could help make him into an Objective-Runner like Proxy or Aura. Just something.

[deerMirror]

[quote=“Ronan;60520”]Something I’ve suggested and will suggest until the day I die is the the fact that Phantom should get something like the Payday 2 crew gets. The ability to ‘mark’ someone during his cloaked duration. This would be on a charged-based system, and it’d have 2-3 charges. Phantom uses a charge to mark out crucial targets whilst being cloaked, haling to his ‘recon’ based title. Let marked enemies be shown through walls for a set duration. Because right now, it’s as if Phantom just has a sheet thrown over his head, thinking he’s invisible. It’s not stealthy whatsoever.

I like this because as of the moment (And Somewhat before the Nerf) Phantom did not really have a role to contribute to the Team. His job was to kill, which he can’t do very well now, But he’s lacking something to help the team overall. Yes killing helps but doing the objective helps more. Im not saying he SHOULD get the Ability Ronan is suggesting, Im suggesting that he get an ability that actually contributes to the goal of the team, which is Winning/Completing the Objectives. As i stated before, increasing his speed could help make him into an Objective-Runner like Proxy or Aura. Just something.

[/quote]

I think it’s hard to really justify him even if he were to get an ability like that at this point. Redeye is so great at spotting threats from a distance, even if it takes a moment for it to actually pop up for your team to see.

Not to mention the fact that it makes it easier for him to land shots, see through smoke yatatata that stuff we already know about Redeye. Just I don’t see the point of giving him something like a mark to put on people when Redeye can do that, unless for Phantom he does it in some kind of different way.

It’ll get even more difficult to justify his usefulness when Aimee eventually makes it in with her freaky third eye cameras and or motion sensors (I’ve seen some conflicting information about what her ability is)

It’s as if our little ghost will never find his place in this game, and that would be really sad.

[Ronan]

@deerMirror

Before I go into my post, as I’m sure others will see it and know that I’m an avid Phantom player. I’ve been playing Dirty Bomb since the Founders cards were about, and I’ve seen Phantom’s ups and downs. He was strong, nerfed to the ground, came back strong, and nerfed into oblivion once more. I’m sure the next time tweaks happen, the wonderful people at Splash Damage(love you guys) will be able to find a nice medium for our loved/hated spooky ghost man.

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Which is why I’d like to see them go back to how he was with a mixture of closed-beta to open-beta. A comfortable medium to take some of the completely broken from closed-beta to implement some of the changes done to him. IE; he used to have 90% invisibility closed-beta during all times, now… his invisibility is roughly around 70-80% standing still, 50% walking, and +60% running.

People want Phantom to do his job, which is fine. I mean, any merc in the game should do their job, but Phantom’s only job was going through, not around, the front-lines normally. It allowed him to get behind people and they’d not notice him mid-fire fight. Which, is why his initial shield on his cloak was added, to assist him with such. It’s why they could’ve nerfed the shield like it is currently, and put the visibility where it was at. Hell, if they removed the shield, but him back at 90% invisibility. Because as everyone knows… well, right now he’s a guy running around with what’s basically a sheet covered in some sponges bought at the dollar store. Absorbs some damage, and barely cloaks him.

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Now, onto keeping the SMG or removing it on him. I’m a bit partial on this matter. I liked him when he was melee and a semi-automatic pistol. A katana swing and a few handgun bullets knocked a target out, and you kept going. That’s how it should be. That’s why I feel the cooldown should be 8 seconds and his visibility is turned back to what it was pre-nerf. If not tweaked to 90% sure, keep the SMGs, but, if they do put it back on 90, I loved the katana and handgun style he was shown with on the Scrubs trailer, and played with during closed-beta.

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On another note. Redeye’s been released, and one of the things said about our favorite solid-snake looking Recon was;

“Better yet, any enemies near the center of Redeye’s vision will be Spotted, including invisible Phantoms”

They keep pushing that Phantom is invisible, when they, along with 99% of the database, even people who didn’t like Phantom can see he’s far from such. Maybe this is a hint at changes to his cloak? I don’t know. Only time can tell.

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That’s the end of my little post. Of course, I hope everyone has a wonderful day and of course, keep playing Dirty.

[Vulcan]

[quote=“Ronan;62742”]@deerMirror

Now, onto keeping the SMG or removing it on him. I’m a bit partial on this matter. I liked him when he was melee and a semi-automatic pistol. A katana swing and a few handgun bullets knocked a target out, and you kept going. That’s how it should be. That’s why I feel the cooldown should be 8 seconds and his visibility is turned back to what it was pre-nerf. If not tweaked to 90% sure, keep the SMGs, but, if they do put it back on 90, I loved the katana and handgun style he was shown with on the Scrubs trailer, and played with during closed-beta.
[/quote]

I didnt play during the closed beta so i feel i cant be much help on this topic, besides my personal opinion.

Phantom having just a Pistol/Machine Pistol and his Katana is something i’ve mentioned and suggested in previous posts (I was unaware of him actually being like that in Closed Beta)

The majority of people, When you think on Ninja’s, you dont think of an SMG Wielding one, You think of a Ninja with a Katana and possibly a handgun on the side for messy situations. And thats why i started pushing to have the SMG removed from Phantom, The pistols in this game are good enough to be considered primaries if used correctly. (Im not a fan of the Hand Cannons though, They just feel inaccurate, and i dont like having to fire slowly with them to hit shots the majority of the time)

What @Ronan is suggesting is something i really feel would make me, and a lot of other players actually want to play Phantom again.

One last suggestion, Somewhat stated in Ronan’s last comment. Just remove the Armor altogether and Buff his Cloak to where he is significantly less visible. Or at least decrease the amount of Armor the Cloak gives you. Im willing to sacrifice Cooldown and Armor for a better Cloak.

Melee… That’s another topic entirely. Im not really familiar with the changes that they made to Melee, never actually read that part of the patch notes, I just know that it destroyed Melee-Only Phantom players such as myself. The sad part is, Mercs like Proxy and Aura can Out-melee a Phantom, As seen in a video from ‘Archivian’ Titled: Dirty Bomb - Phantom Fail.
It was on another post on the Forums yesterday but i cant find it. Possibly blind but oh well.

[TheOrangePhantome]

[quote=“Kaori1;58946”]How dare people wan’t to improve the game by making it’s characters more unique!

You two must REALLY hate phantom I guess. [/quote]
ALL HAILE TIRYAN

[Killerbee1]

[quote=“Ardez;57232”]Use phantom to flank, not to rush headfirst into an enemy. You can easily get off the first shots if you get behind them.

Focus on gunplay, not as much on melee. He is a very strong merc for exploiting the flanks of an enemy team. Use the shield as extra health when crossing open spaces, not as much for invisibility(as he is fairly visible with it active).[/quote]

“Use phantom to flank, not to rush headfirst into an enemy. You can easily get off the first shots if you get behind them.”

Anyone can get first shots if they get behind the enemy.

Focus on gunplay, not as much on melee.

Why? He uses the katana to backstab vasili in the trailer, has a katana in his visual art and came out as primarily katana oriented. That’s like basically saying “hey this guy looks like a melee focused merc but hes not lol”

Use the shield as extra health when crossing open spaces, not as much for invisibility(as he is fairly visible with it active).

So what you are saying is we should use him as a discount fragger. Why even call him phantom then if his stealth is so terrible? What’s phantomy about him?

[Sussepus]

with all the threads going on about the combat abilities for this merc i almost forgot he isnt assault but recon class. i see some have already mentioned this but why doesnt phantom, as a recon, have any spotting ability to help the team?
he feels more like an assault class than a recon class and most discussions are reflecting this.
either design him as recon with the right abilities for the role or re-class him to assault and buff him to be one.

[Amerika]

I’d be game for him to keep his current melee and guns, give him less HP, make him a bit harder to see and give him a spotting ability where you press a button to individually spot targets similar to what you see in the Battlefield series of games. This would give him a similar ability to the other Recon mercs and possibly make people stop comparing him to Fragger (which I still don’t understand).

If he got better invis but lost his SMG access I still wouldn’t want him to have a 1 hit kill on anybody. That’s just cheap and not needed in this game. Some of you might like the cheap kills but they tend to drive anybody not playing those classes nuts. This is true across pretty much every single game that has ever had stealth classes from FPS games to MMO’s. It is an extremely common topic among games that include classes like that and the universal agreement is that it’s fun to play as the stealth class and get the cheap kills but not fun to play against. Which makes it a highly divisive mechanic that isn’t good for a games overall health.

[GrandMasterFalcor]

I just read through all the posts in this thread (over a hundred holy shit) and I just want to reply specifically to Amerika. Though I don’t totally agree with everything you’ve said in this thread, I think your last post (the one above me) is totally spot on in every way. I just want to elaborate on why people have been comparing him to Fragger because I think it is integral to his balancing issues both before and after the nerf. I watch your (Amerika’s) youtube videos pretty often and have seen how you play with Phantom. I actually play phantom very similar to you (maybe not as well, but at least the same strategy) and agree that the best way to play Phantom right now is to use the damage soak on his shield to get the upper hand in firefights. However this is makeshift at best, and makes what was intended to be a stealth measure, his cloak, be used offensively, which totally nullifies his merit as a recon merc and makes him play more like a week assault merc, hence the comparison. Just because something is functional in a game doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be better, especially if it completely ignores it’s intended purpose.

This misuse of his ability has been the main flaw in his balancing both before the nerf and now. Before, when phantom was over powered, people realized that that often the best use of his cloak would be to invisibly bum rush and go nuts with the katana, which is entirely offensive. Now that the cloak is awful, the only worthwhile way of using the cloak is a damage sponge on the frontline. I think if Phantom were balanced correctly, his main use would be using the cloak to get behind enemies, positioning himself, spotting as many enemies as he can, and then going nuts with the smg (or katana if appropriate) before escaping.

I’ve played every merc to some extent because of free merc weekend, and I can say that every merc plays and feels like their role (besides mall ninja of course). All assault mercs have abilities that increase their damage outputs and have good amounts of health to back it up which makes them perfect for dealing heavy damage on front lines. All the medics have healing abilities, each with a talent in a different one (Aura can restore health the best, Sparks can revive the best, and Sawbones can self sustain the best). All the engineers naturally are objective specialists and have abilities that can defend objectives. Vassilli and Redeye both can operate removed from the battlefield and can spot enemies. Phantom is the only merc who does not play in a way that fits his category. I think by following the suggestions made in this thread that Amerika referenced in that last post Phantom would both fill his role as a stealth merc and gain an identity that makes him interesting to play.

[Merci1ess]

Would’ve been hilarious that in the video trailer of Dirty Bomb, Phantom just appears near Vassili and starts spraying his SMG in his face. Wouldn’t be as appealing if he did that, right? His Katana is what makes him unique and fun.

Surprise mother fucker! BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!

It’s a shame.

[TheOrangePhantome]

Well this from a comment i made on a thread about a possible 2nd ability.

Well heres my go at it i hope u like this idea.
A EMP divice. Once its activated the enemies hood and abilities eg: nearby health stations, airstikes, turrets, orbital strikes (cus it pretty much an electronic device which marks where the orbital strike should be same goes for airstrikes or atleast i imagine them as such), atrilery, heartbeat sensor, red eyes IR goggles, sparks revive gun, phantoms cloak, fletchers stickys and etc get dissabled. And there would be some radius to the emp 25m less or above u decide. Cooldown 1:30mins or above so it doesnt get spamed. It lasts 7sec and its used to help ur team push out (if ur getting camped) or u just have to escort the ev for a bit more and the enemies have set up in a certan spot.

What do u think about it?

[Lumi]

[quote=“TheOrangePhantome;68170”]Well this from a comment i made on a thread about a possible 2nd ability.

Well heres my go at it i hope u like this idea.
A EMP divice. Once its activated the enemies hood and abilities eg: nearby health stations, airstikes, turrets, orbital strikes (cus it pretty much an electronic device which marks where the orbital strike should be same goes for airstrikes or atleast i imagine them as such), atrilery, heartbeat sensor, red eyes IR goggles, sparks revive gun, phantoms cloak, fletchers stickys and etc get dissabled. And there would be some radius to the emp 25m less or above u decide. Cooldown 1:30mins or above so it doesnt get spamed. It lasts 7sec and its used to help ur team push out (if ur getting camped) or u just have to escort the ev for a bit more and the enemies have set up in a certan spot.

What do u think about it?[/quote]

Sounds to me like an ability for a completely unique merc and not something for Phantom.

[Killerbee1]

[quote=“Amerika;65528”]I’d be game for him to keep his current melee and guns, give him less HP, make him a bit harder to see and give him a spotting ability where you press a button to individually spot targets similar to what you see in the Battlefield series of games. This would give him a similar ability to the other Recon mercs and possibly make people stop comparing him to Fragger (which I still don’t understand).

If he got better invis but lost his SMG access I still wouldn’t want him to have a 1 hit kill on anybody. That’s just cheap and not needed in this game. Some of you might like the cheap kills but they tend to drive anybody not playing those classes nuts. This is true across pretty much every single game that has ever had stealth classes from FPS games to MMO’s. It is an extremely common topic among games that include classes like that and the universal agreement is that it’s fun to play as the stealth class and get the cheap kills but not fun to play against. Which makes it a highly divisive mechanic that isn’t good for a games overall health.[/quote]

He just needs silencers on his weapons, no shield, better cloak and higher movementspeed along with as you mentioned ability to mark targets individually.

[Olipops1]

Phantom needs buffs buffs buffs!!!

[loonyTop]

Phantom has got an identity. And a purpose. He’s there to show everyone that you may be shit but at least you aren’t Phantom. It’s the gaming equivalent of pikeys/chavs/white trash, it’s nice to know you’re better than someone.

[Merci1ess]

[quote=“Amerika;65528”]I’d be game for him to keep his current melee and guns, give him less HP, make him a bit harder to see and give him a spotting ability where you press a button to individually spot targets similar to what you see in the Battlefield series of games. This would give him a similar ability to the other Recon mercs and possibly make people stop comparing him to Fragger (which I still don’t understand).

If he got better invis but lost his SMG access I still wouldn’t want him to have a 1 hit kill on anybody. That’s just cheap and not needed in this game. Some of you might like the cheap kills but they tend to drive anybody not playing those classes nuts. This is true across pretty much every single game that has ever had stealth classes from FPS games to MMO’s. It is an extremely common topic among games that include classes like that and the universal agreement is that it’s fun to play as the stealth class and get the cheap kills but not fun to play against. Which makes it a highly divisive mechanic that isn’t good for a games overall health.[/quote]

I get one shotted by mines, shotguns, grenades, martyrdom, Dr. Evil’s “Giant Laser”, artillery, snipers and the Revivr. I may be missing some… But yeah, Dirty Bomb is a brutal world.

I don’t understand why they would release Phantom if it isn’t good for a game’s overall health in the first place. They should’ve had some kind of disclamer warning people that this specific mercenary is hard to balance and may undergo drastic changes in bright warning red instead of advertising how awesome he is with his sword… Showing 70% of Katana gameplay in his Merc Role-call video, killing a sniper by impaling him with his sword, etc. It’s one thing to advertise your product as it is and it’s another thing to screw people. I’m not saying that it was in their intentions of doing so, I’m just saying that’s what it looks like to me and I’m sure that alot of those people who bought Phantom before the nerf feel the same way. Yes it’s a “beta” and the excuse would be that people should know this… Then if that’s the case, it wouldn’t hurt to add extra notices with blatant red text double-warning people of these things.

[Amerika]

[quote=“Merciless;76061”][quote=“Amerika;65528”]I’d be game for him to keep his current melee and guns, give him less HP, make him a bit harder to see and give him a spotting ability where you press a button to individually spot targets similar to what you see in the Battlefield series of games. This would give him a similar ability to the other Recon mercs and possibly make people stop comparing him to Fragger (which I still don’t understand).

If he got better invis but lost his SMG access I still wouldn’t want him to have a 1 hit kill on anybody. That’s just cheap and not needed in this game. Some of you might like the cheap kills but they tend to drive anybody not playing those classes nuts. This is true across pretty much every single game that has ever had stealth classes from FPS games to MMO’s. It is an extremely common topic among games that include classes like that and the universal agreement is that it’s fun to play as the stealth class and get the cheap kills but not fun to play against. Which makes it a highly divisive mechanic that isn’t good for a games overall health.[/quote]

I get one shotted by mines, shotguns, grenades, martyrdom, Dr. Evil’s “Giant Laser”, artillery, snipers and the Revivr. I may be missing some… But yeah, Dirty Bomb is a brutal world.

I don’t understand why they would release Phantom if it isn’t good for a game’s overall health in the first place. They should’ve had some kind of disclamer warning people that this specific mercenary is hard to balance and may undergo drastic changes in bright warning red instead of advertising how awesome he is with his sword… Showing 70% of Katana gameplay in his Merc Role-call video, killing a sniper by impaling him with his sword, etc. It’s one thing to advertise your product as it is and it’s another thing to screw people. I’m not saying that it was in their intentions of doing so, I’m just saying that’s what it looks like to me and I’m sure that alot of those people who bought Phantom before the nerf feel the same way. Yes it’s a “beta” and the excuse would be that people should know this… Then if that’s the case, it wouldn’t hurt to add extra notices with blatant red text double-warning people of these things.[/quote]

Mines can be heard and you typically know where they are, grenades can be avoided through simply being aware of who is in front/around you, martyrdom is easy to get away from even if they die on top of you, the laser is sort of hard to miss and easy to avoid, artillery has a giant red marker, snipers are snipers and that’s how they play. But Phantom, the way you want him, is to literally walk up to anybody and kill them with zero chance to respond. You are entirely at their mercy if they decide to target you or not.

And you want that to be his primary kill method. Just zero chance for people to avoid/respond because you want him completely invisible and you want to melee people down. I will never ever agree to that in a game that is mostly good due to it’s stellar gunplay. I will personally do all I can to never have the game have the skill floor lowered that much. This is not TF2. This is not Chivalry. It’s Dirty Bomb and melee characters just don’t fit what I want with DB.

You can disagree with that and you obviously do. But that is my viewpoint and I will never change and those are my reasons for why I will never change my viewpoint. It’s cheap and doesn’t belong. Yes, you can die to some random things but you can do a lot to minimize dying to those random things that you can’t with a fully invisible merc who can attack while invisible or directly after removing the cloak. And he was never advertised as being invisible anyway. It’s even called Refractive Armor. You are entirely at their mercy and that gameplay will never sound fun to me and I can’t ever see why anybody would want to play that way. Especially in a game that doesn’t really have a melee system. It’s literally just a left or right click.

Also, his role-call video didn’t advertise him as a melee only merc. Go watch it again. And yeah, bring up the CGI trailer that has tons of other incorrect things in it including a very easy to see Phantom.

And as far as them changing him after he was purchased. As you said…it’s a beta and it’s also a game that is getting constant updates. Do you need a giant neon sign that says, “hey, you just picked up hot coffee…don’t spill it on yourself or burn your mouth”? I play fighting games and I’ve played MMO’s. Character balance and vision changes is pretty commonplace so it’s not like changing a character in DB is out of line with any other game that is also getting constantly updated.