Hey all,
Over in this thread here, conversation got quite hot on Phantom and how to tweak him to make him more effective. I thought it would be cool to give that conversation it’s own thread to get your thoughts on our masked menace so we can see where you think he is and what you think would be good tweaks for him.
Post away!
Where do I begin
First off, let’s start with his Refractive Armor, the emp field is nice, but I feel like that could be it’s own nade rather than a field on his armor. Like a EMP nade as a secondary ability for Phantom.
If anything, he should have a spotting field, so he can function as a walking EV of sorts, and use the field to know where enemies are behind walls.
I also feel like there needs to be a discussion on where to take his invisibility. Should it maybe be less visible for walking, crouch walking, and standing still? Should it completely act as a piece of gear, while it’s active you can not use weapons or interact with anything? BF2142’s Cloak, and Blacklight Retribution’s cloak are more or less what I am getting at. When you equip it it’s like a separate item, so you can not possibly have the cloak and your guns equipped at the same time.
These are ideas you can discuss with the dev team, but the critical issues with Phantom that I see are as follows
Some bullet points to discuss are
Thanks shoe!
Guys this is our chance; the devs are listening! EMP device or bust.
The biggest thing I’d like to see changed is the amount of noise he makes while cloaked. He’s still somewhat visible to a good eye (this is fair), but he is way too loud when he moves around and upon entering/exiting his cloak especially. It’s counter-intuitive if you ask me. Beyond that, I’ll let everyone else contribute because I don’t care for Phantom much at all. Here’s a fun one because throwing knives have been mentioned a lot, though:
How about a ranged EMP throwing knife? He can silently toss it and once it sticks to a surface it disables equipment within ‘x’ vicinity? I think this sort of kills two birds with one stone while also reducing how easily he can be detected. Again, as if the noise wasn’t obvious enough, all of your team’s equipment going down alerts you that he’s nearby.
@Wintergreen said:
The biggest thing I’d like to see changed is the amount of noise he makes while cloaked. He’s still somewhat visible to a good eye (this is fair), but he is way too loud when he moves around and upon entering/exiting his cloak especially. It’s counter-intuitive if you ask me. Beyond that, I’ll let everyone else contribute because I don’t care for Phantom much at all. Here’s a fun one because throwing knives have been mentioned a lot, though:How about a ranged EMP throwing knife? He can silently toss it and once it sticks to a surface it disables equipment within ‘x’ vicinity? I think this sort of kills two birds with one stone while also reducing how easily he can be detected. Again, as if the noise wasn’t obvious enough, all of your team’s equipment going down alerts you that he’s nearby.
Whatever works, I mean, it would even make sense for his lore, how do you think he stole the suit?
How about a secondary ability which allows him to spot single targets similar to how Redeye uses his goggles, except to a lesser use. That way besides disabling building he could support his team by marking an important target over others.
@Lord_Coctus said:
How about a secondary ability which allows him to spot single targets similar to how Redeye uses his goggles, except to a lesser use. That way besides disabling building he could support his team by marking an important target over others.
This is a neat idea. Single target, but a much longer spotting duration sounds awesome. Nab that little weasel Proxy trying to flank and sneak plants.
I keep hearing people screaming for a Phantom buff, but to be honest I mostly feel like people doesn’t play him correctly at all. I mostly blame his advertisement as a lone-wolfing, melee merc over anything else.
Phantom seems to shine mostly as an attacker in tight areas or zones with a cover available to work around, and should be used primarily as a tool to disable enemy defenses. Honestly, I don’t know any better merc for pushing against a defense team stacking Aura stations and/or Turtle shields. But that only work if the Phantom player would like to work with his team and actually use his primary weapons for once. The EMP by itself just can be THAT powerful to break through deployable based defenses and justify alone the fact that Phantom’s invisibility isn’t as efficient as it should. Honestly, if all Phantoms would push with their team and use their guns instead of rushing people with a Katana, we would likely only get half the complaints we currently have.
Phantom isn’t meant to be a melee merc. No merc is actually. I greatly hope that next generation of loadouts will go back to something more in line with gen 1 loadouts so people start to stray away from the idea that Phantom is made to rush at people with a big stick. If anything, gen 2 loadouts greatly comforted people with that horrible mindset by giving to all Phantom loadouts either Katana or Cricket Bat.
Phantoms do also have a few moments of cheap kills as well, that is usually known by “real” Phantom mains who actually know how to use Phantom intelligently. Indeed, Phantom seems to be able to sit at one place fully invisible (or very close) as long as he doesn’t move. This effectively leads to ambushes that are painfully frustrating to deal against. It sounds like nothing, but it feels incredibly cheap when you’re the victim.
If anything, I would refuse any kind of direct buff to Phantom as the EMP is already incredibly strong at its job. Honestly, Phantom has his own niche and does it well. However some kind of rework could be interesting to pull out if it corrects the current design flaws, like the whole “melee merc” mindset and the issue tied to people remaining invisible in a corner. Here’s the kind of changes I would suggest.
This would properly turn the refractive armor into an effective repositionning and escape tool, making Phantom extremely potent at flanking but also at pushing with the team thank to the EMP skill. To be honest, I even think turning Phantom’s so called “invisibility” into full invisibility would be too much paired with the EMP effect. But it’s still an interesting change in my honest opinion.
Newer players are generally very confused when their stuff gets disabled for seemingly no reason, the EMP effect is hard to understand if you don’t know what you’re looking for. It’s mostly just hard to associate Phantom’s cloak with an EMP.
Experienced players understand right away when a phantom is nearby, and they’ll look around to assault him, but him EMPing your stuff through walls can be very annoying, and hard to combat against if he’s just sitting there almost completely invisible. It doesn’t feel very rewarding to sit there and get XP for disabling stuff for 10 secs.
I do suggest changing his aura when cloaked to a spotting effect instead of EMP. Give him an EMP nade as a secondary ability, its a lot easier to communicate to players when their stuff gets disabled from an EMP nade.
@Eox said:
I keep hearing people screaming for a Phantom buff, but to be honest I mostly feel like people doesn’t play him correctly at all. I mostly blame his advertisement as a lone-wolfing, melee merc over anything else.Phantom seems to shine mostly as an attacker in tight areas or zones with a cover available to work around, and should be used primarily as a tool to disable enemy defenses. Honestly, I don’t know any better merc for pushing against a defense team stacking Aura stations and/or Turtle shields. But that only work if the Phantom player would like to work with his team and actually use his primary weapons for once. The EMP by itself just can be THAT powerful to break through deployable based defenses and justify alone the fact that Phantom’s invisibility isn’t as efficient as it should. Honestly, if all Phantoms would push with their team and use their guns instead of rushing people with a Katana, we would likely only get half the complaints we currently have.
Phantom isn’t meant to be a melee merc. No merc is actually. I greatly hope that next generation of loadouts will go back to something more in line with gen 1 loadouts so people start to stray away from the idea that Phantom is made to rush at people with a big stick. If anything, gen 2 loadouts greatly comforted people with that horrible mindset by giving to all Phantom loadouts either Katana or Cricket Bat.
^ This. Thank you for this. I just had to quote it for truth because it doesn’t get said enough.
Now I do think the current “camo” should promote playing Phantom the MGS3 way (blending into environment, waiting around for ambush/peaking around each corner before moving) instead of TF2 Spy way. So maybe some minor tweaks in that direction?
Now regarding his EMP.
I’ve suggested thinking outside of box and turn it into a separate ability. Only this time it should in a form of “EMP Bubble”, much like guardians Revive Bubble. Disabling deployable nests from a distance, and having sense for an invisible hero to have it. Much like Violet Parr from the Incredibles and Invisible Woman from Fantastic 4 
When would this Phantom Change be released? Or is it already?
An idea of my own:
•Phantom really needs a secondary ability, much like other people say, an EMP grenade would work. However, would it be able to be thrown while invisible?
Phantom having to be physically standing with the enemy team to disable their shit means that he’s likely to get TK’d by explosive spam. Don’t design a Merc who’s job is suicide disabler.
Remember, the shitfest that is non-FF 8vs8 is irrelevant.
Melee is just another dimension of combat in Dirty Bomb as much as Gun Play and abilities are concerned.
Perhaps if his EMP can enhance other team skills like giving Aura’s health station 50% more healing rate, Bushwhacker’s turret having 150% more health, Guardian’s Sky Shield with 0% cool down, Turtle’s Shield with ammo regeneration capability and Ammo stations with insta-ammo top ups his skill will be more synergized with the rest of the team. These EMP skill synergies on deployables should be given an visual cue to the enemy to let them know that an enemy Phantom is enhancing the deployed device.
No synergies for Proxy’s mine and Fletcher’s Stickies.
The ability of Phantom being able to boost allies’ own deployables would make him more viable (obviously), but if he could both EMP enemies and boost allies, this would make him seem more support-based, if one would say. His Refractive Armor could boost, while he has a secondary EMP grenade. This could make the armor not an all-around use.
I can’t word things well.
I’ve been under a lot of suspicion from Phantom players on how I can shoot them when cloaked. Truth of the matter is, sometime I don’t see them but I see the fizzing device that was deployed which gives me the visual cue that he’s around. However, he can disable the device even behind a wall and the next thing that will give him away is the sound of his armour whirring, so at fair distance, I shoot and if with Kiratana, banzai !!!
@Melinder said:
Phantom having to be physically standing with the enemy team to disable their @$!# means that he’s likely to get TK’d by explosive spam. Don’t design a Merc who’s job is suicide disabler.Remember, the shitfest that is non-FF 8vs8 is irrelevant.
Except that you don’t have to be in the middle of enemy lines to make your EMP work. It has a gigantic range and goes through walls as well. Just following your Fragger would be enough to make the best use of it most of the time. In other cases, you can just find a quick flanking way to disable everything without taking the risk of being teamkilled.
@Eox said:
@Melinder said:
Phantom having to be physically standing with the enemy team to disable their @$!# means that he’s likely to get TK’d by explosive spam. Don’t design a Merc who’s job is suicide disabler.Remember, the shitfest that is non-FF 8vs8 is irrelevant.
Except that you don’t have to be in the middle of enemy lines to make your EMP work. It has a gigantic range and goes through walls as well. Just following your Fragger would be enough to make the best use of it most of the time. In other cases, you can just find a quick flanking way to disable everything without taking the risk of being teamkilled.
Still have to get to their setup which is hard enough when you’re super visible and make a deafening sound, and unable to shoot while activating cloak.
First, I’d like to link everyone to this to share my opinion on what recons could be in general.
Now Phantom.
The reason I find that the current Phantom needs a buff is because it’s far too difficult to make any use of him compared to literally all of the rest of the mercs.
To really play Phantom to his full potential he currently requires another recon to do the spotting for him, just to pull off successful flanks. What’s the point of picking a merc that requires another merc to truly be effective?
The EMP effect isn’t quite needed that much to pick Phantom over other mercs.
The EMP field and the Refractive armor both are extremely flawed and definitely shouldn’t be tied together.
The Refractive armor heavily favors defense. It’s far easier to sneak around and set up ambushes on defense with the armor, but it’s rather rare for the enemy to drop a deployable on the offense that Phantom could still reach.
But when playing Phantom on offense, EMP has lots of potential, but due to having to sneak into enemys vision instead of waiting for them, it makes it extremely difficult to reach the enemy deployables with the EMP field.
Next I’d like to ask what should be the purpose of invisibility in the Refractive armor?
Is it to reposition and flank? Or…
Is it for surprise attacks, to get the first hit on the enemy?
Currently it doesn’t help either of those purposes.
The suprise attacks in my opinion really shouldn’t be the reason for invisibility. Since it’s just another cheap trick. Sitting in a tight hallway or something and waiting for those >90hp mercs to run into your katana for one-hit-kills with no counterplay, which is just as frustrating as running into a shotgun at that range, except you won’t even see it before you’re dead. It’s not fun to fall for, nor is it fun to take extreme precaution to play around it.
So if we’d like to use the invisibility for repositioning or flanking it should function just for that and not allow the surprise attacks.
As it’s been stated in comments above, the Refractive armor should function similiar to what Sombra does in Overwatch as a working example in another “shooter”.
You can move around fully invisible, but you can not use any actions other than movement before you disable your invisibility.
Since the maps are already rather narrow and tight with very limited amount of routes I believe this to be the only way to really turn the invisibility into something useful equally on offense and defense.
Next is the EMP.
I think I’ve already made it clear why EMP simply doesn’t work with Phantom as he is now, so instead I’d like to add suggestions on how to make it work for him.
First it should definitely be ranged, not to compromise Phantom’s own position. Since the new Guardian drone already absorbs all the explosive projectiles, I also think a throwing knife with the EMP effect would be pretty fitting for a recon (As stated above by @Wintergreen ).
Depending whether newer recons will also have EMP effects, these could easily be balanced by the ability cooldown and the EMP effect alone.
If the EMP effect won’t stick to Phantom, or if these throwing knives could have an additional effect, it could have different functions depending on it’s target.
Example 1:
When the knife hits a deployable or ground, the EMP effect kicks in within X range.
Example 2:
When the knife hits a player, it does a very low amount of damage, but applies the Snitch debuff. (The 25% bullet damage alone would enable Phantom to either play the assassin himself or set up a target for his team. As a reminder, Snitch applies 25% bullet damage, spotting and stops all hp regen.)
Either way, I believe EMP might become more traditional within recons and become more valueable as long as future mercs will bring more deployables to the game.
Also for the most frontline recon I believe he deserves 120hp. I understand what his release was like, but all the nerfs combined were an overkill.
! To address whether EMP needs a counter from the other thread.
! Short answer to it would be no.
!
! EMP itself is a short soft-counter ability against the deployables. It only disables them for a short while, it doesn’t actually destroy them.
! The deployables on the other hand can possibly have 100% uptime (with the exception of SkyShield) and require full attention to be destroyed (or with damage abilities, ability for an ability). The EMP simply allows you to ignore them for a short while.
! It’s the same way how SkyShield isn’t exactly a hard counter to explosives it absorbs. It’s a soft counter cause:
! 1. Limited range
! 2. Limited duration
! 3. Limited drone life
!
! Both the EMP and SkyShield are far too limited and situational to require direct counterplay to disable them.
Just ban the guy who stays near you while you are invisible. Guys like this one are annoying.
The thing that I hate the most is :
Joking with half of truth aside, he is almost fine for me.He just lacks some speed run. Kira with Phantom’s ability could be funnier. A card for boosting his run speed would be nice. Like every time you lose 10 hp you gain + 10 speed run. So - 100 hp = + 100 speed run or 50.
The problem is to face a shotgun with your katana, so an armor anti-shotgun can help. But still you don’t have to use Phantom just because of his katana like I do xD.