[quote=“Killerbee;69701”]He just needs silencers on his weapons, no shield, better cloak and higher movement speed along with as you mentioned ability to mark targets individually. [/quote]Oh wow, that’d be sweet. Silenced weapons+better cloak combo sounds sexy.
I hope we get to see silencers back in-game at some point. I think for Phantom, even the Selbstadt .40 with the silencer would just be all kinds of cool. 
[quote=“Amerika;76143”]
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.[/quote]
The way Phantom was you could’ve heard him too and not only that… you could’ve avoided him too. I’ll agree with you on martyrdom and artillery… But what I’m trying to say is that other mercs have the power to one shot others with not much effort. I main Vassili. So, I know how sniping is and I wouldn’t want my headshots to be taken away from me obviously. It takes a certain amount of know how and that’s what I like about him. It’s rewarding when you master it.
I’m all about balance. I don’t wanna have an advantage over anyone. But you have to be pretty blind to think that Phantom, in his current condition, is 100%. You hate Phantom. I get it, but other people enjoy playing him. In his current condition, he’s not a fun merc to play with and isn’t viable. In other words, he’s useless.
Right. Which is also the reason I clearly specified 70% of the video. Not the complete video. Yes, I bring up the CGI video… Nader kills Rhino with one grenade, it’s not the real deal… But at least the weapon that makes Nader, Nader… Is fully functionnal and used 80% of the time.
I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re a mod… don’t mock me. It’s not that hard to display a warning message stating that this merc can undergo drastic changes. So the product you first purchased might end up differently. When I buy a coffee, I buy a coffee. It doesn’t change into a fuckin’ French Vanilla. And believe it or not… There is warnings on cups stating that it’s hot. As far as I know you don’t purchase characters in MMOs… and if there is any changes you still feel as if you’re playing the character you bought. I can live with tweaks/nerfs… But when my card has been bombarded with 10 nerfs, I have the right to be pissed off and ask for changes that won’t make other people spend 10 dollars on spaghetti that will turn into a pile of hot steamy shit.
First of all, this a video game that’s constantly being updated, you better learn now that a game can change at any time if the devs think it’s in the best interest of balance.
I’m not talking about the game turning into something entirely different, but tweaks, bug fixes, etc, those are things are totally in the right for the devs to make.
If you want refunds or compensation for stuff like that, then fuck I wanna be compensated for how much they changed TF2 and how they basically destroyed it’s Quake roots for the sake of making it a casual shooter.
Second of all, you are not entitled anything, you know what you’re buying, you bought a merc, and you know that at any point that merc can be tweaked and changed, so if you don’t like that, use in game credits instead and save your cash. Don’t blame the devs, and don’t talk shit to Amerika.
Only me and @Ghosthree3 can do that. ;D
[quote=“Watsyurdeal;76175”]First of all, this a video game that’s constantly being updated, you better learn now that a game can change at any time if the devs think it’s in the best interest of balance.
I’m not talking about the game turning into something entirely different, but tweaks, bug fixes, etc, those are things are totally in the right for the devs to make.
If you want refunds or compensation for stuff like that, then fuck I wanna be compensated for how much they changed TF2 and how they basically destroyed it’s Quake roots for the sake of making it a casual shooter.
Second of all, you are not entitled anything, you know what you’re buying, you bought a merc, and you know that at any point that merc can be tweaked and changed, so if you don’t like that, use in game credits instead and save your cash. Don’t blame the devs, and don’t talk @$!# to Amerika.
Only me and @Ghosthree3 can do that. ;D[/quote]
I’m aware of that. It’s a “Beta”… Yes. That excuse comes out alot. If I make a game and stamp Beta on it, it makes so that mistakes and changes are excusable. That’s fine. Comes with insane pricing on stuff… Micro transactions that are 100% functional 24/7 but it’s alright. I didn’t think Phantom would stay the way he first was released… but I also didn’t expect this would happen either.
http://puu.sh/jDMnB/4bb837eb68.jpg
The way MissMurder was talking about the potential changes went towards Phantom losing health… but nothing major.
And don’t tell me what I can or cannot do. If someone mocks me then he shouldn’t expect me to bake him a pie. Phantom was the first merc I bought with money. I didn’t spend a dime on mercs after the nerf and it’s not in my intentions to do so either. The only thing I’m suggesting is a warning before purchase stating that the merc can undergo drastic changes and it might not end up like when it was first purchased. What’s the problem with that? There shouldn’t be any problem with it unless someone is trying to screw people.
http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/0/1/0/3/0/7/Ass-Kisser-Award-160775285663.jpeg
“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”?”
Wow, that’s mocking you?
Shit you better get used to that on any forum you go to, cause that’s more or less a comparison. He was pointing out that you were annoyed that you spent money on something, and because it changed, now you’re pissed. It’s more of a “what did you expect” rather than a “what are you stupid”.
And that’s not to say that I disagree, I think Phantom in his current place is just…there. He has no real purpose and nothing that he does anything better than would warrant a niche for him. Sure he’s usable, but that doesn’t mean that he’s balanced.
[quote=“Watsyurdeal;76203”]Wow, that’s mocking you?
Shit you better get used to that on any forum you go to, cause that’s more or less a comparison. He was pointing out that you were annoyed that you spent money on something, and because it changed, now you’re pissed. It’s more of a “what did you expect” rather than a “what are you stupid”.
And that’s not to say that I disagree, I think Phantom in his current place is just…there. He has no real purpose and nothing that he does anything better than would warrant a niche for him. Sure he’s usable, but that doesn’t mean that he’s balanced.[/quote]
Coming from a mod that expects other people to respect him… Yeah. It bothers me. He has the power to ban people who don’t respect the mods/devs. I felt mocked, so I answered back. If it was somebody with as much influence as me, I wouldn’t care.
Like I said… I don’t mind changes. But it changed so much that the merc I used to chill with when I needed a break from my main merc became unplayable for me. So, yeah. I was pretty upset about that. Still kinda bothers me that I’m not enjoying my 10 dollar investment.
I don’t think he expects respect, but rather expects a good argument or for people to back up their claims without resorting strawmans or making unfair comparisons.
He comes off as a dick but so do I, so…yea.
@Watsyurdeal I feel pretty confident that Amerika is a fully capable individual who is able to hold his ground on topics, even if they get somewhat heated.
Either way, some people are passionate about defending Phantom’s nerfs, others are passionate about him being nerfed too much. It is what it is, but I do know that @Merciless has the unfortunate curse of being extremely good at one of the most constantly challenging mercs to play in the game; Vassili. So… when the E3 trailer was released, we were mega-hyped. I think everyone has a merc that they powerhouse with, and then a merc they fall back on to take the edge off to keep the game fun. And for someone that mains a fragile sniper in fast-paced environment like DB, I can’t blame Merciless for badly wanting Phantom. When he got him, it took the edge off— not because Phantom was too easy, but because it was simply a merc that interested him that he could get enjoyment out of instead of white-knuckling it all the time. Also after ages of the RNG gods hating him, he got lucky with the perfect cobalt loadout for Phantom. It was practically Christmas.
Then SD turned around and nerfed Phantom HARD into the ground; just on C94 Excellent Operative, there were 10 nerfs. That’s insane. They made him redundant, because instead of listening to seasoned players’ opinions, they listened to those that couldn’t figure out how to counter him. It was just really… really crappy how they went about it. Then they released Red Eye on top of that, as if Phantom needed a counter-merc anymore.
Amerika is in a bit of a minority of people who defend the way Phantom was nerfed (in his defense, if I recall some posts, he doesn’t agree with everything though and has good ideas on how to make Phantom more viable), and that’s obvious from the fact he debates Phantom pretty regularly against people who are unhappy about it. Unfortunately though, a lot of people would like to see Phantom looked at again.
I appreciate people who stick to their opinions on both sides. Personally, I feel Phantom was nerfed too hard and could use some more viability instead of being as redundant as he is now. I do believe some nerfs were fair though… Even Merciless can agree some nerfs were fair.
Some, not all. I think the feeling is that it was just overkill.
I don’t think Phantom was nerfed too hard so much as his concept was trash, I didn’t like how things looked from the beginning. Though I didn’t him hard to deal with personally as a victim.
I think the biggest problem with Phantom is the same problem Fragger had, counter play.
Cooked nades had zero counter play, and instead of nerfing that or reworking that concept, they just nerfed Fragger.
Difference is Fragger is still good, Phantom was already a meh choice in competitve, and now he’s a meh choice on pubs.
If they want Phantom to work, he needs to not simply be tweaked, just reworked.
Simplest way to do this is take some hints from TF2
This solves pretty much ALL the problems on both sides and gives something that’s an awesome compromise imo. He’ll work, and if he doesn’t, just revert it all, it can’t be that hard to do.
[quote=“Watsyurdeal;76218”][/quote]
I like your suggestions. I think SD has a lot of different approaches they could take to either tweaking or just giving Phantom a rework. He’s a bit in limbo as to what he can be— there’s several ways he could be taken very easily, since there’s several ways you could essentially play him. Melee or gunner… and the cloak could be used as armor or stealth. I agree with the initial point of the thread that he lacks an identity. I feel like SD had a lot of clashing ideas they put into one merc; instead of making Phantom one thing or another, they made him an odd combination of things that don’t tend to go well together. That makes him hard to balance.
He could be an armored assault tank or a quick and fragile veiled assassin. -shrug- I feel like they wanted him to be both, in an odd way. Maybe we need another Dazzler situation for Phantom. 
I honestly can’t see armor being fun at all to deal with, I mean Rhino is annoying as it is.
But then again who knows, could work.
[quote=“Merciless;76171”][quote=“Amerika;76143”]
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.[/quote]
The way Phantom was you could’ve heard him too and not only that… you could’ve avoided him too. I’ll agree with you on martyrdom and artillery… But what I’m trying to say is that other mercs have the power to one shot others with not much effort. I main Vassili. So, I know how sniping is and I wouldn’t want my headshots to be taken away from me obviously. It takes a certain amount of know how and that’s what I like about him. It’s rewarding when you master it.
I’m all about balance. I don’t wanna have an advantage over anyone. But you have to be pretty blind to think that Phantom, in his current condition, is 100%. You hate Phantom. I get it, but other people enjoy playing him. In his current condition, he’s not a fun merc to play with and isn’t viable. In other words, he’s useless.
Right. Which is also the reason I clearly specified 70% of the video. Not the complete video. Yes, I bring up the CGI video… Nader kills Rhino with one grenade, it’s not the real deal… But at least the weapon that makes Nader, Nader… Is fully functionnal and used 80% of the time.
I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re a mod… don’t mock me. It’s not that hard to display a warning message stating that this merc can undergo drastic changes. So the product you first purchased might end up differently. When I buy a coffee, I buy a coffee. It doesn’t change into a fuckin’ French Vanilla. And believe it or not… There is warnings on cups stating that it’s hot. As far as I know you don’t purchase characters in MMOs… and if there is any changes you still feel as if you’re playing the character you bought. I can live with tweaks/nerfs… But when my card has been bombarded with 10 nerfs, I have the right to be pissed off and ask for changes that won’t make other people spend 10 dollars on spaghetti that will turn into a pile of hot steamy shit.
[/quote]
I didn’t mock you. I made an analogy of the situation and for some reason you took it personally. You don’t need a giant sign that is very specific to tell you things might change when the whole, “Open Beta” watermark is staring you in the face. And even if the game wasn’t in beta it will still be balanced. Just because something was released broken doesn’t mean you are entitled to having it stay that way. You can’t say you’re all for having balance then be perturbed when the developers balance issues. You can be pissed off about them…I know I have been. But you should expect things to change.
And I don’t hate Phantom and I am not even certain how you came to that assumption if you’ve read pretty much any of my other posts. Quite the opposite. I most likely have more hours with Phantom than most of the people making these threads and posts. He’s one of my go to mercs on a daily basis. I do not like melee only Phantom. Especially one that can walk up to anybody and kill them without any chance of a response or avoidance outside of spotting abilities you or your team might or might not have access to. DB isn’t like TF2 where you can always switch to a counter class.
You bring up Nader yet forget that Nader has been changed multiple times to get her balance right too. Also, I am not a fan of making up fake percentages when debating topics so lets stick to facts. And if a player is using Nader’s grenade launcher 80% of the time they are not very good with Nader. Just like bad Fletcher players use sticky bombs exclusively.
I just caught up on other replies. I do not expect to be given respect because I am a volunteer mod. I should be respected like anybody else posting here should be respected.
This forum has been pretty good when it comes to intelligent debate. If you have an opinion/ideas/desires/proposed changes then feel free to share them. However, you are not entitled to people agreeing with you and you should be prepared to defend your position intelligently. Because people, including myself, will ask for an explanation or point out how your suggestion doesn’t quite work either from a factual standpoint or an opinionated standpoint.
@Amerika
If you do enjoy Phantom then you know that there’s things that should be tweaked/changed. Even maybe a rework like @Watsyurdeal pointed out. I’m not very good at giving suggestions on mercenaries. I just play and when I do, it just feels like something’s not quite right when I’m playing Phantom. If you’re not playing melee Phantom then why are you even playing him at all? I’m not saying to forget about his weapon. Obviously that comes in handy at times but mainly you wanna play with the Katana right? Am I crazy? What else would you choose him for? His cloak? It doesn’t work. I see Phantoms very well when they’re cloaked which makes it useless. Which leaves me with what? I have a half functional Katana with a Kek-10. Yeah I’ll play Nader, Proxy or Bushwhacker. They all use similar weapons to the Kek-10 but they have useful abilities that make them worthwhile.
So anyways… Like you said, we have different opinions. I’ll be sticking to mine and you’ll stick to yours, forum janitor.
http://gifsec.com/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2014/06/Salute-gif.gif?gs=a
[quote=“Watsyurdeal;76218”][list=1]
[] Make it so Phantom can no longer attack while cloaked, this way people don’t feel like they’re being cheated when they are killed, they can do something about Phantom before he makes a move.
[] The cloak is now fully invisible, so people can’t see him, only if he takes damage, this allows him to get in position and do his job.
[] Cloak takes 1.0 seconds to activate, giving people plenty of time to stop him before he gets away and encourages clever tricks, like illusions.
[] Cloak takes 0.5 seconds to deactivate, giving people plenty of time to deal sufficent damage to kill Phantom, or at least severly weaken him before he attacks.
[] Armor does not kick in until he’s fully cloaked, and disappears the instant you want to decloak.
[] You can not attack until you are fully decloaked
[/list][/quote]Doesn’t this take away from a fast play style? 1 second to use the “oh shit button”, half a second before you can kill anyone. Armor already doesn’t kick in until fully cloaked.
Rather they should undo the nerf to his visibility, and either give him back his 10hp or increase his speed (rather have the speed increase, it would make him better at getting melee strikes). I also think he should have the tagging power suggested, though I think it should work like a close range version of RedEye’s ability able to mark multiple targets (but doesn’t work through smoke).
Another thing might help is if Phantom was considered an Advanced Class which would require players to be at least Level 5 to play him, so not to introduce steamrolling mechanics to newbie players. By Level 5 players should be learning counter play, and advance movement quickly (or not at all). (Mind you, I think the tutorial should be reworked to include advance movement.)
[quote=“Merciless;76501”]@Amerika
If you do enjoy Phantom then you know that there’s things that should be tweaked/changed. Even maybe a rework like @Watsyurdeal pointed out. I’m not very good at giving suggestions on mercenaries. I just play and when I do, it just feels like something’s not quite right when I’m playing Phantom. If you’re not playing melee Phantom then why are you even playing him at all? I’m not saying to forget about his weapon. Obviously that comes in handy at times but mainly you wanna play with the Katana right? Am I crazy? What else would you choose him for? His cloak? It doesn’t work. I see Phantoms very well when they’re cloaked which makes it useless. Which leaves me with what? I have a half functional Katana with a Kek-10. Yeah I’ll play Nader, Proxy or Bushwhacker. They all use similar weapons to the Kek-10 but they have useful abilities that make them worthwhile.
So anyways… Like you said, we have different opinions. I’ll be sticking to mine and you’ll stick to yours, forum janitor.
http://gifsec.com/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2014/06/Salute-gif.gif?gs=a
[/quote]
I guess you have missed my 9000 posts about this particular topic hehe 
I never took Phantom as a melee only merc. I saw the rolecall video and the first thing I thought of was, “oh god that armor is going to be broken”. And I’ve been using it ever since.
I use the armor/cloak to win firefights. I use the armor/cloak to flank easier by taking basically no damage if somebody shoots me as I’m crossing a well defended area. They then have to either come track me down or ignore me and hope I don’t come up behind them. No other merc can do that.
I also knew, from day 1, that the Katana did not define him. It was “introduced” in the rolecall video and the devs said that it wasn’t exclusive to Phantom and would be available for use with other mercs in the future. I had nothing in my head telling me, “hey, you should completely ignore the awesome guns they gave Phantom and instead just melee people down”.
I love using him intelligently to win firefights and evade in situations where you shouldn’t win. I love that he has a kek10 and that he is better in melee than other mercs and I have it as an option…but I don’t try to use it exclusively. This game is not built around melee and he has not abilities built around melee. And melee isn’t that fullfilling as it’s just a left click and a right click with nothing else in the game to make it a compelling playstyle. Also, before the melee nerf, a good player would never do that well just running melee only. All it did was allow lower skilled players who hadn’t quite gotten experienced with their aim yet to do much better than normal against higher skilled players. He was annoying to play against, not overpowered as melee only. That is what caused the GIANT community uproar and backlash that caused SD to, incorrectly, nerf Phantom.
I have my ideas of what I would be OK with if Phantom were to go a few directions. They have been discussed in a lot of threads. @Watsyurdeal is pretty familiar with them and we are both pretty close to agreeing. I’m even willing to give up how Phantom currently plays, despite my love of how he currently plays, to make some changes that would benefit Phantom competitively. Of course I would just love to see his cloak go back a bit more the way it was in regards to being seen, lose a bit more armor HP as not to encourage the LOL MELEE RUSH DOWN FROM CLOAK people to come back and be given a spotting ability of some type or even the awesome idea of the EMP pulse that was brought up. That would leave my personal playstyle intact, help out people who want to be the stealthy ninja (which he’s not…he’s a really awful action hero wannabe) and give him a lot more utility and incentive to use in competitive play instead of bringing a Vassili or RedEye. Hell, I’d be onboard with leaving him as is but making him an engineer specialist.
So yeah, that’s my thoughts on the matter. Also, this is how I play Phantom. This was only day two so I hadn’t quite figured out the best way to use him yet. Now I do some pretty hilarious stuff with sitting in dark corners behind spawn waves and you can’t be seen and pick up stragglers then go after the main body. It’s rather hilarious, fun, they still have a chance somewhat and it leads to some great chases sometimes (them chasing me mostly) where I will go back to some other dark corner and sit then ambush again.
I agree that he is a very fun merc. Phantom is a merc I actually rarely use to flank. The katana is actualy not my favourite weapon in his arsenal, mine are his guns.
The Crotzni, and with the same loadout with the S&W? That sounds great to me. When people see me out of cloak, I’ll already be shooting them, giving me an advantage, unless they catch me out of cloak, in which case they only could have flanked me.
That’s just my opinion though. Play Dirty
I agree that he is a very fun merc. Phantom is a merc I actually rarely use to flank. The katana is actualy not my favourite weapon in his arsenal, mine are his guns.
The Crotzni, and with the same loadout with the S&W? That sounds great to me. When people see me out of cloak, I’ll already be shooting them, giving me an advantage, unless they catch me out of cloak, in which case they only could have flanked me.
That’s just my opinion though. Play Dirty
[/quote]
@Boorseye , you’ve gotta stop necroing threads, seriously buddy, read the dates.
@Amerika @Faraleth @Ardez