Phantom and Thunder Updates

(doxjq) #41

I don’t like these changes to Thunder at all. The one good thing about Thunder was disabling enemy deployables, for rushing a group of people who are standing inside aura stations and things. Phantom simply doesn’t have enough slay power and he is too squishy to make the most of it.

He didn’t need any more health, 160 is enough. His grenade is mostly useless for blinding people, so taking away his EMP effect is basically removing most of his effectiveness in game. Not to mention with the 25% nerf to the fuse time it’s going to be even harder to blind people who are behind walls or fences now as it’s going to just explode in mid air.

RIP Thunder. He literally has no place in competitive play now.

(Reddeadcap) #42

Yaay, Changes!
:neutral: Let’s hope the Mk46 will get some loving.

(Xenithos) #43

[quote=“Dracorion;177689”]-snip-

While I understand it’s not great to take suggestions from the community as it’s hard to say who are competent enough to speak for the competitive side of the game, as the competitive side doesn’t really exist, but after all this time and only 10% pixel cloak duration and a barely useful EMP change? That’s it?

If this is confirmed as “THE rework”/his final changes. Welp, I guess all I can do is make another shitpost as by then I can confirm that SD isn’t looking forward to a balanced game, but rather slowly slightly change a few numbers around every now and then when the community gets too vocal and moans for too long about something being OP or useless.[/quote]

@Dracorion - Sorry friend. I’ve been on the whole Phantom rework thing for ages too. However, I have to completely disagree with you here. What on earth do you mean "ONLY a 10% pixel cloak duration and a “BARELY USEFUL EMP CHANGE”…

Like, do you realize how powerful that makes his cloak? It’s a spammy deactivatey! :sweat_smile: I can just see him now, chasing down the light mercs like he used to, but this time? He doesn’t need to land a crappily timed lunge attack. He only needs to swing hi twice or shoot the poop out of them.

And can you imagine on certain maps like chapel or bridge? Where everyone puts a heal station, a turret, and like an ammo crate next to the rock or in the generator room? If a competent Phantom walks in with a stoker or a nader or something, then that whole room is dead.

(AnonOmis1000) #44

Why didn’t the give him a recon ability. I’ve still yet to here a good answer.

(doxjq) #45

It sounds to me like it was a rushed idea. About a month ago they were saying they were still thinking of ideas on one of their streams, so they haven’t been working on this one for a long time I dare say. He is too squishy, if anything he needed an extra ability that let him do more damage, not something that another merc already did that was mostly considered useless by most people (I know it wasn’t entirely useless, but you get my drift)

(AnonOmis1000) #46

It sounds to me like it was a rushed idea. About a month ago they were saying they were still thinking of ideas on one of their streams, so they haven’t been working on this one for a long time I dare say. He is too squishy, if anything he needed an extra ability that let him do more damage, not something that another merc already did that was mostly considered useless by most people (I know it wasn’t entirely useless, but you get my drift)[/quote]

He’s recon. He needs a spotting ability of some sort. Right now he plays like an assault merc, not a recon one.

(Grave_Knight) #47

Hm. Still rather have a spotting power, but an EMP field definite improves things.

(Reddeadcap) #48

It sounds to me like it was a rushed idea. About a month ago they were saying they were still thinking of ideas on one of their streams, so they haven’t been working on this one for a long time I dare say. He is too squishy, if anything he needed an extra ability that let him do more damage, not something that another merc already did that was mostly considered useless by most people (I know it wasn’t entirely useless, but you get my drift)[/quote]

He’s recon. He needs a spotting ability of some sort. Right now he plays like an assault merc, not a recon one.[/quote]
My only wish would be that he’d have the most powerful Area of effect wise but the longest cooldown if he’d get one. like a global spotting ability but that said I can see why SD wouldn’t give him a detection ability.

Every merc class has 2 spectrums to their abilities and another 2 for character type

Medics: Healing and Revival, middle of a fight or father support playstyle.

Assaults: Indirect fire and direct fire, the more one is to one spectrum, the less they are in the other. (Best indirect fire Assault is Nader, but she isn’t tanky, Most tanky Assault is Rhino but no indirect fire.)

Fire Supports: Area of effect, Duration, Cooldown and Indoor/outdoor use and Long-Close range fighting capability. With Stoker being the best at indoor use, Skyhammer a close second, Arty the fastest cooldown, Kira the longest lasting and Skyhammer somewhere inbetween.

Engineers: Deployable or droppable defenses. Turtle has the most durable but it doesn’t really “fight back” besides being in the way, Bushwacker’s turret isn’t very durable but it’ll fight but also needs deploying. Proxy’s mines are dropped making them both good offensive and defensive weapons, Fletcher being more offensive than Proxy with his bombs being able to be detonated midair and his higher health.

Recons: Detection and Evasion, Extremely close or Extremely far range combat.

Phantom has the best Evasion, having a good selection of close range weapons, Redeye is the next only being a sniper when using the PDP and a simple detection tool, Aimee has a detection tool that also weakens her enemies but she’s also somewhere in the middle ground between Redeye and Vasilli and Vasilli finally being the pure sniper with a detection tool that can track through walls.

(AnonOmis1000) #49

Does it though? It makes it obvious that there’s a Phantom in the area when all the deployables start sparking

(NetflixandKill) #50

Phantom was already pretty good (and not hella broken) when used by intelligent players. I’m happy that Phantom has an actual role in the game, and acts as a counter, but he still lacks an actual recon ability. He is not a “recon” merc. Despite that, hopefully he will be a tad more “effective” now :wink:

(Koyotea) #51

Great changes!! Don’t pay attention to all the whiny Trolls, they haven’t even played the updated mercs yet so their complaints are unfounded. I like how you guys noticed Thunder wasn’t very viable vs. 1 on 1 engagements and gave him a little more health plus a speed and jump reduce on his conc grenades. You also noticed players weren’t using his conc grenades for it’s emp use, thus giving it to Phantom making him more viable. Can’t wait to try them out!! Now if only you could nerf Fletcher and his cheese smg sidearm…

(AnonOmis1000) #52

…not really?

(Grave_Knight) #53

Does it though? It makes it obvious that there’s a Phantom in the area when all the deployables start sparking[/quote]

Depends on the strength and limitation of the EMP effect. If the field is only a small area then he’d be relatively ineffective but if the area is large all you know is he is near-by and if the EMP field isn’t hindered by walls than near-by could be behind a wall, on the second floor, etc. If you’re in a fire fight the healing station suddenly sparking isn’t going to register right away, so much as the goes shooting you, and it would make Phantom very useful for blitz tactics, let him go in first which disable any working deployables while the rest charge in shortly after. When everyone is engage the Phantom can than attack their back line.

(AnonOmis1000) #54

Does it though? It makes it obvious that there’s a Phantom in the area when all the deployables start sparking[/quote]

Depends on the strength and limitation of the EMP effect. If the field is only a small area then he’d be relatively ineffective but if the area is large all you know is he is near-by and if the EMP field isn’t hindered by walls than near-by could be behind a wall, on the second floor, etc. If you’re in a fire fight the healing station suddenly sparking isn’t going to register right away, so much as the goes shooting you, and it would make Phantom very useful for blitz tactics, let him go in first which disable any working deployables while the rest charge in shortly after. When everyone is engage the Phantom can than attack their back line.[/quote]

That sounds rather OP

(NetflixandKill) #55

The people posting here have never jumped off a freeway overpass before, but don’t listen to them when they say it’s a bad idea! They’ve never done it, so they can’t really know if it will kill me.

(AnonOmis1000) #56

The people posting here have never jumped off a freeway overpass before, but don’t listen to them when they say it’s a bad idea! They’ve never done it, so they can’t really know if it will kill me.[/quote]

Nice one bruh!

Yeah, no one here is making wild claims that either merc is going to be ruined. In fact, no one is even speaking in certain terms, discussion possibilities and their personal opinions. This is one of the most civil videogame change discussions I’ve ever seen.

(Grave_Knight) #57

Does it though? It makes it obvious that there’s a Phantom in the area when all the deployables start sparking[/quote]

Depends on the strength and limitation of the EMP effect. If the field is only a small area then he’d be relatively ineffective but if the area is large all you know is he is near-by and if the EMP field isn’t hindered by walls than near-by could be behind a wall, on the second floor, etc. If you’re in a fire fight the healing station suddenly sparking isn’t going to register right away, so much as the goes shooting you, and it would make Phantom very useful for blitz tactics, let him go in first which disable any working deployables while the rest charge in shortly after. When everyone is engage the Phantom can than attack their back line.[/quote]

That sounds rather OP[/quote]

Theoretically, yes. Assume it works out. And I do admit with what we know about EMP effects it can be OP (Thunder’s grenade can disable things behind walls), I just hope they balance it so it’s not OP. And if it is OP I’m sure they’ll just super nerf Phantom again.

(AConfusedAlpaca) #58

These Thunder changes disturb me greatly. He just seems like a weaker Rhino now, perhaps if they’re blinded they should take more damage similar to how the snitch works, while they’re fully blinded no more no less.

(MilkyBear) #59

How about we wait for the update to drop first then decide if it’s a bad decision or not ?

(Tanker_Ray) #60

So many damn f-ing times I’ve been pointed out his OWN PRIMARY WEAPON FIREPOWER is the most crippling part of him, and yet you guys touch the concussion AGAIN?

What, is this a 'Take this and don’t come around again you minor Thunder users.’??

I really do appreciate 170HP buff,(eventhough I still think 180 is the right number to tank. Still think this isn’t enough as machine gun Thunder except Stark Thunder, but this isn’t his problem right? lt’s about burst rifles’ OPness.) and I hope there would be more Unshakables at 2nd genereation loadout for THUNDA, but this conc buff is just so absurd.

I’ll look on movement speed decrease buff, since right now the slow effect doesn’t work somehow because of the bug(only works sometimes.), but the fuse time is so damn stupid.

I can’t even throw it far away after you guys fixed the fuse time. Just give me back the damn cooking, ok?

Removing the Deployable Scrambling EMP effect? FINE. Just change the name conc’s name in to FLASHBANG.

Just give me stronger MK.46 that I can wipe out enemies faster with nice set of DPS and TTK, so I don’t have to expose my self further, and get my huge watermelon head smashed by enemies.

and seriously, PHANTOM is no longer a RECON. But I expect his ambush against healing stations, so that his katana swoosh won’t be meaningless.