Phantom Balance post #5012

(Cswic) #1

Katana is not OP in and of itself. Phantom as a whole is unbalanced, particularly vs light (90 HP and under) classes. Stealth is his bread and butter, it should be the center of the class so leave that as is imo.

  1. Remove shield or cut it in half. (preferably remove it)

  2. Make his HP 100 or 90 and bump speed to 440 / 450 to compensate.

He can stealth / camo. He can 1 shot lights. He can tank around 200 HP worth of damage so even if a light sees him coming, he will likely be able to close the distance in time to 1 shot with melee. The stealth also means that more often than not he gets the first strike. This would be fine (vasilli relies on getting the first strike more or less too) except he is extremely tanky currently.

Without the shield and with only 100 / 90 HP that means light classes have a better chance to gun him down with SMGs or 1-2 well places shotgun shots should the phantom decide to go for the melee.

If it is a standard firefight then 100 / 90 HP on phantom will be no different than fighting any of the medium classes.

Against heavier classes such as rhino and fragger phantom would (and should) need to rely more on stealth to get the jump on them.

TL;DR: 1 shot melee + 200 EHP + stealth = bad time for light classes. Remove shield and nerf HP / and increase speed to compensate in order to make things more fair.

(ATTEM) #2

Phantom has 120 HP as of now not 200HP.

(Cswic) #3

EHP = effective hit points. His shield is around 80 HP. He has 120 HP. 200 EHP.

(ATTEM) #4

Ok. Did you test it out or it’s on the game website?

(seriousSconce) #5

“Phantom as a whole is unbalanced” can not agree more. but i don’t think that a nerf will be enough he’s not fun to play against and fun is why i’m playing

(viridianMiner) #6

I giggled internally, I used to go on melee rampages with Aura solely because of her movement speed. In the hands of a competent player movement gives you a lot more survivability than 20hp.

Trust me, you really don’t want a fast Phantom, right now half the mercs can kite him and stay out of melee range. If he has 450 movement speed the proxies/auras/sparks will have to draw their melee weapons to dodge him (right now squishies with primaries are faster than Phantom with melee)

The character is fine, the new players just need to understand the game better.

(Cswic) #7

[quote=“viridianMiner;40929”][quote=“Cswic;13744”]

  1. Make his HP 100 or 90 and bump speed to 440 / 450 to compensate.

[/quote]

I giggled internally, I used to go on melee rampages with Aura solely because her movement speed. In the hands of a competent player movement gives you a lot more survivability than 20hp.

Trust me, you really don’t want a fast Phantom, right now half the mercs can kite him and stay out of melee range. If he has 450 movement speed the proxies/auras/sparks will have to draw their melee weapons to dodge him (right now squishies with primaries are faster than Phantom with melee)

The character is fine, the new players just need to understand the game better.
[/quote]

Eh. I don’t agree as it’d open him up to be 1-2 shot by shotguns easily which is where proxy / sparks / aura melee only run into trouble. But yes, it is sort of a pick your poison case. I think in general the player base would prefer to fight a squishier but faster phantom rather than the tank phantom out currently, but obviously that’s just an opinion.

Also, the higher mobility / lower HP version would be more skill oriented. You even mention in your own post that a competent player makes the extra mobility count for more and I agree. The point is that right now the current phantom is easy to use for all level of players.

The higher mobility / lower HP version would punish those players who try to bull rush. It hopefully would create a higher skill floor and also increase the skill ceiling.

You can find plenty of bad aura / sparks / proxies trying to melee-only only to for them to get blown away constantly. Right now even the bad phantoms can still get some kills due to his high EHP.

(distinquishedSandwich) #8

I think the problem is just mostly the stealth.
It lasts for too long making him able to run’n gun for multiple seconds really.

(N8o) #9

Did Phantom come out when I wasn’t looking?! :dizzy:

(cornJester) #10

He’s out now. Came out today.

[quote=“distinquishedSandwich;40954”]I think the problem is just mostly the stealth.
It lasts for too long making him able to run’n gun for multiple seconds really.[/quote]

You cannot shoot without breaking the cloak, so him running and gunning is like any other.

(_Sniff_) #11

He seems OP because there are so many of them you die to them often. Learn to headshot him and for the love of god do not stand still as a light. You always have the option of running away as well. You don’t have to fight every fight head on or alone.

#2

(Cswic) #12

Screw it. This post was made because I wanted a faster phantom and I disguised the post as a “balance” post. The end.

(elegantRoyalty) #13

dont think its fair to list it as 200 health , he cant attack with his cloak up

Ill agree as someone who plays mostly aura/proxy hes a serious threat to light types, but if its not his role to get in and kill the medic im not sure what use he would be, hes got no support or objective skills.

i think if you made him faster and lower health he would actually be more dangerous, i could see an argument for lowering his base speed and having the cloak incorporate a speed boost.

but frankly i havent found him to be OP, i definitely think its far to early to call it, people arent used to spotting the cloak yet. give it a week see how it feels.

(scrub_lord) #14

Shooting drops his cloak. It depletes as you use it, so you almost never get the full effect of the shield and there’s a delay to activate it. His ability is fine. If anything it would need a longer CD.