Phantom Feedback by Einde : who ya gonna call ? Phantombusters !

(Eox) #1

Phantom was just introduced yesterday, and it didn’t take too long for a huge part of the community to complain about him. However, where Sparks just recieved a few hate threads that were almost always brought down in a few seconds, that guy seems to attracts waves and waves of angry crowds with pitchforks and torches. I can actually almost hear a priest : “VADE RETRO, SATANAS !”. So, is Phantom diabolic ? That’s what I tried to figure out.

Default testing :

First of all, keep in mind that all that testing was made with the default loadout.

Once the merc bought, I didn’t waited to try our trashmouthed poltergeist in pubs. What I concluded was a bit surprising : I wasn’t that good ! I mean, my skill didn’t magically increased once I put my hands on that guy actually. Yet, I kept feeling that I got some very cheap kills from time to time, especially due to how melee works.

You see, if you execute a heavy melee attack and miss, there still a small time where your knife is visibly out, stabing thin air. During that animation, you can quickly wipe your mouse left or right. If you manage to look at someone close enough during that time, you’ll hit him. Exactly, you’ll hit the poor guy that you missed at first. It especially works well on the Katana because of the extended range, but it actually work with any melee weapon. I’ll make a video about this later, if I am not too lazy.

The Katana range is really big, and can actually hit you without the blade being visible in your body. But it’s the case for all melee weapon.

[center]http://i.imgur.com/SKLye2d.jpg
This is actually the most long range where I was able to hit my friend with a heavy attack.[/center]

About the invisibility : you are perfectly invisible if you are standing still. Moving during the invisibility will make you more visible though, but not a lot. Anyway it’s efficiency harshly depends of what player you are fighting. Not only it depends of the merc your enemy use (ex : Kira will have more trouble at aiming at you than Rhino), but it also depends of his graphical level ! I think you will have a slightly harder time to aim for him if you have a high graphics setting than a low one. And we didn’t even tried one of those potato configs ! I hope it does not allow you to litterally bypass his skill.

[center]http://i.imgur.com/KwCUy3N.jpg
High Graphics…


…And low graphics ! If you can’t see him ? Heh, he’s invisible… Or maybe he just left to buy a sandwich.[/center]

But people are not really complaining about his camouflage anyway… No, the biggest issue is his armor. While it’s only effective while cloacked, following the other feedback, that armor allows you to bypass bullets, knives, buckshots, grenades, mines, nukes, orbital strikes, asteroids, planetary annihilations, zombie apocalypses and even unicorn attacks ! Wow, that feels pretty much too powerful to be true, is it ? Is the community overreacting a bit ? Yes. From why I tested both on the field and with a friend, I am able to “tank” around 75 damage before my invisibility vanishes. Getting damaged while invisible will also drain your invisibility. There’s however once thing that is totally wrong with it in my opinion : as long as you have your armor activated, even if you only have one single percent of invisibility left, even if you are only able to stand one more hp before the skill goes out, the next damage source you recieve will be simply totally negated ! This explains why Phantom is able to tank a Fragger nade at ground zero without taking any single damage. In my opinion, this has to go. Excedant damage to your armor should go in your HP pool, and not vanish in space. I’ll make a video about this later too… If I am not too lazy.

Last but not least thing about the invisibility : that thing have the insane cooldown of SIX SECONDS ! This is just totally nuts. I can litterally stay half of my game invisible. Invisibility should be used in a much smarter way, and shouldn’t be that spammable. So on that point, I think Phantom’s skill needs a heavy nerf. 12 seconds cooldown between invisibilities should be enough.

I still need to test some of his most infamous augments though. This will be my part two. I’ll post that second part when I’ll be able to get those KEK loadouts.

(Eox) #2

The KEK-10 issue :

This done, I had to grab one these KEK-10 loadouts. I didn’t managed to make a good bronze loadout card for him, so I had to use an iron loadout instead, with Double Time and Enigma on it. Double Time is actually very useful on Phantom, allowing yourself to reload while sprinting… Even better, allowing you to reload while sprinting AND being invisible ! Pretty nice huh ? A very nice upgrade, and not powerful enough to feel the urge to toss it away. It can stay IMO. But let’s focus on the KEK-10, and not that lovely augment that is Double Time (man, I could talk about Double Time all the day !).

I can now understand why the KEK is considered as the most powerful SMG in the game ! I never though I could say it, and actually I wish I never could, but that thing is just too precise ! That thing is the second fastest firing rate of all SMGs, with 11 damage per bullets, and I can litterally snipe a Vassili from one side to another side of Chapel ! This is just insane, I was litterally chaining headshots at every range. Heads were melting so fast that half a second I though I was actually beating the crap out of that Kira with a microwave… Well, actually that thing may look like a microwave, so go figure.

The KEK-10 is one of the factor about why Phantom can be considered as overpowered by a lot of people, though it’s not really Phantom’s fault if that gun is so powerful… Yet this is by far the best choice you can get in my opinion. Crotzni is another strong choice, but is not as precise as our (not so) beloved KEK-10, though it’s DPS is slightly above KEK-10’s.

But the most complained loadout is by far the C94 excellent operative. Extended duration of invisibility (that has probably an impact on how much damage your armor can tank), +20% melee damage, a KEK-10, and a Katana ! That loadout just allows Phantom to one shot Vassili with his melee weapon while melting your head with the KEK, and with and even more efficient armor. I have yet to try that thing…

Playing against Phantom : where the hell begins.

Now this is where I almost lost my mind a couple of times. If on the paper that guy is not that strong, in practice he can make your games a living hell. The Katana WILL ruin your day. The KEK-10 WILL ruin your month, both combined with the reflective armor and all the mess that I described above WILL ruin your entire year, and seeing that guy insulting you right after will just ruin your life.

He’s just litterrally unpleasent to play against : you always get the feeling that you died for nothing, in a cheap and insulting way. He’s okay when he’s on your own team, but when he’s in front of you, that guy is just a giant suppository. In short, he’s extremely annoying ! Like those “pro snipers”, except that you don’t even need to be that good. That guy is in the end very easy to play, since the Katana by itself is enough to give you the urge to throw your computer out of the window. Just add to this the SMG and as soon as he activated his armor and can use the movement system a bit, you are just litterally screwed. As it is, that guy is too powerful in 1vs1 scenarios. Especially with that C94 card : the absolute pain in the butt.

Lots of people have already mentionned their ways to get rid of him, like “staying mobile”, “being careful of your surrounding”… Of course it helps, but let’s face it, it’s much more easy to say than to do. Especially that it’s not a bot that you have in front of you, but a real player (that visibly decided to ruin your day by picking him). A lot of things matters, and especially againt him, tips you can find on the internet won’t work that much.

This it mainly what I blame to Phantom : being litterally infuriating to fight against. You got downed, just because that guy decided to pass by, and you can’t learn anything from it, mainly because you are too angry for it, but also because sometimes there’s nothing to learn : you were cut or gunned down by a guy, with a big knife, that magically appeared from Unicornland.

Phantom and teamplay :

So, I’ve been trying Phantom a bit more. And at the end I just noticed that when I play him, just nothing mattered ! Who even need teamwork ? I am an invisible and annoying prick with a sword who’s main role is to infuriate people !.. Well, maybe I am going too far. I saw that one Phantom that was actually kind enough to revive me a couple of time as a Medic, unless it was in order to bait Proxies. I’ll never know.

The point of that guy’s combination of an armor plus invisibility was to both allow him to sneak AND protect allies by acting like a meatshield, which explains why that new kind of “human shield” xp came out. The main problem you see, is that it’ll never, ever be used like that. Not only how that xp is awarded seems broken, but also why would I go and tank bullets for an ally when I can tank bullets for myself and just rush you with a Katana and a KEK-10 ? Not only the shield system is infuriating for most of players, but it also had the reverse effect than the one planned.

A rework about this seems really welcomed in my opinion.

(Eox) #3

Conclusion :

While I didn’t get that C94 loadout yet, I can already tell you that this guy is here to give you a bad day. Is he OP ? Not that much. Stupid phantom players will still be easy targets. But he’s way too easy to play for a “stealth based” character, and extremely infuriating to play against. Even with my extremely poor ability at ambushing things (I was a poor Spy in TF2, expect me to be a poor Phantom player in DB), I always managed to climb at the top of every scoreboards by a large margin (pub’s disorganisation helped a lot though). That guy is stressful whatever the player is using him, good ones are almost always unexpected, and very oftenly the way they beat you give you the urge to throw your PC through the window.

Some of you may say “if at the end you say that he’s not OP, then he’s perfect as he is”. And this is totally wrong. You see, besides the balance there’s another important factor : the fun factor. The game have to be fun to play for everyone, whatever is the character you play. You can have fun by using a character, and it’s perfectly understandable that you have fun while playing Phantom : his voicelines are pretty nice, and it’s always satisfying to chain up three guys with your melee weapon from behind. But if that character is way too unfun to deal against for the enemy team, there’s a problem, and not a small one.

Another problem is also the way he’s meant to contribute to the team. The armor mechanic, mainly meant to allow you to tank damage for your allies, thus giving Phantom a teamplay function, is just a total failure and needs to be removed entirely in my opinion. Let’s not directly spit on it : it was a good idea, but the bad idea was to give it to a merc who’s main function is to “stealth kill”, while it would have been much more fitting for that Turtle guy, that we never saw so far.

I do hope that he’ll be subject to some heavy tweaking, that will heavily skill index him, without ruining the fun of both the enemy team, but also the Phantom player.

Suggested rework :

  • Decrease health to 110.
  • Get rid of the damage mitigation part of his armor : this is absolutely not used to block bullets fired to an ally, and will never be used like this. Better replace it by another teamplay tool, fused with the invisibility skill or not. I suggest a “sensor wave” thing, that you can trigger around phantom to spot nearby ennemies for your team for a short lapse of time, in a big radius : send Phantom behind the enemy lines, he triggers his wave, and begins the backstabbing ! Yay teamplay !
  • Nerf the KEK-10.
  • Tweak the invisibility so he’ll be only sort of visible if he runs at full speed.
  • Make his invisibility last slightly longer. Two more seconds should be fine.
  • Greatly increase the cooldown of his invisibility ! This should be used much more wisely that it actually is. He already have already a SMG to defend himself, he shouldn’t be allowed to be invisible for half of the game.
  • Allow him to stay invisible while reviving someone or doing objectives. It’ll give him more teamplay options.

Another suggested rework (inspired by @BBYipho ) :

  • Stealth and armor are now split, and make to abilities.
  • Triggering one of those abilities will give you a cooldown to both abilities (you have to pick one ! You can’t activate both of them). This avoid an exploit like “I go stealth and I poop my armor at your face at the very end to get a multikill”.
  • No cooldown nerf. No health nerf.
  • Primary weapons replaced with machine pistols.
  • You can now sprint while activating your stealth, since you can’t activate both your armor and your stealth, I think it’s welcomed.
  • You’ll be only visible if you run at full speed.
  • Activating your armor reduce your speed.
  • You armor takes 1 second to activate.
  • Shooting and attacking does not cancel your armor anymore : there’s no problem with this I think since you can’t combine stealth and armor, and armor will decrease your speed.
(savoryLettuce) #4

If you have to change Phantom (while i think he is balanced as he is) leave the cloak and instead take away the SMG.
I in general think though that people just need to get used to him as long as i have him now there was a big difference when you had a team playing together and even remotly working together i had a hard time killing anything with Phantom, because you get spotted while approaching and get butchered by the enemy.
The problem is when people are not playing together, when they mistake the game for a Team Deathmatch and walk off alone, then they often die and i get nice killstreaks.

The things you say about the cloak/armor are true but we also need to be clear that this is his special ability when we think about Skyhammer with Airstrikes and Ammopacks if you take those or nerf those skyhammer loses his most important things, its the same here, Phantom has Cloak and Katana but thats all for Katana you need cloak and at least some HP otherwise you get nearly always butchered because you have to close in and die to fast, you have to have the ability to actually get out again because first you have to close in other classes just work from the distance thats the difference.
Thats why the cloak needs to be the way it is, so that you are actually able to close the distance to a target to use your special trait otherwise you are just a sawbonez without any revive or Medic capabilities.

If you raise CD of cloak to 12 Seconds you can engage once, you have no chance to leave in any fast time (12 seconds is forever) and are after ONE strike you lost your whole advantage the only thing you can do is to pray that noone sees you.
Again look at skyhammer, his airstrike can obliterate entire teams and he never has to get close to them but that somehow seems “fair”.

(savoryLettuce) #5

Sorry forgot something:

[quote=“Eox;13811”]Yet, I kept feeling that I got some very cheap kills from time to time, especially due to how melee works.
[/quote]

You can get very cheap kills with him but also get very cheap deaths, the enemy just turns when you are closing in etc.
Most of the “cheap kills” though are in retrospect (at least when i get them) kills where the enemy just didn’t check his surrounding or wandered off the group.
If an Aura runs alone far away from all the others through the map, i might get her cheap but should she actually be there ?
And even then she can spot me and possibly kill me when i make a mistake or just run out of luck.

(Eox) #6

Feedback updated.

(Gi.Am) #7

Solid post and nice finds, was doing some small testings (cloak durations) and tripped over the shieldgate aswell.

I’m on the fence here, I can see the reasoning for it. It allows phantom to escape sudden strong impacts (like a grenade or 1 sniper shot) at the cost of his cloak/shield, but keeps decloaking with smaller arms reasonable easy. 75-80 hp would mean it takes at most 10 shots (weak guns like the empire) to drain a full shield and atleast 1 before he gets any damage (tho one has to point out if his cloak is almost up he will decloak anyways so no need to waste a bullet).
Hmm I don’t mind that a sniper needs two shots especially considering that they could strip him with spotter abilities. But I honestly don’t like that the main looser of this mechanic is Proxy, who is allready the punching bag of phantom.

Lets see the shieldgate means no matter where he is, in his cloak duration or how much HP he still got he will survive a proxymine, a fragger grenade, airstrikemarker, Snipershot and a Nader direct. Not sure about shotguns propably not I guess. The Firesupport AOEs all deal damage multiply times so while he is negating parts of the damage he would still die standing directly in it.
I think the important part is “no matter how much HP he has left” the Idea might be to have a escape tool or shield others from incoming Damage (ie blocking a snipershot). If the gate wasn’t there a Phantom with 20 HP left couldn’t do that.

I’m not suggesting that this is how it plays out in reality, but that this might be the intention behind it based on the descriptions in the merc rolecall and the fact that we get XP for tanking now.

Still not sure wether I like it or not.

(Eox) #8

Feedback updated.

[quote=“Gi.Am;41793”]Solid post and nice finds, was doing some small testings (cloak durations) and tripped over the shieldgate aswell.

I’m on the fence here, I can see the reasoning for it. It allows phantom to escape sudden strong impacts (like a grenade or 1 sniper shot) at the cost of his cloak/shield, but keeps decloaking with smaller arms reasonable easy. 75-80 hp would mean it takes at most 10 shots (weak guns like the empire) to drain a full shield and atleast 1 before he gets any damage (tho one has to point out if his cloak is almost up he will decloak anyways so no need to waste a bullet).
Hmm I don’t mind that a sniper needs two shots especially considering that they could strip him with spotter abilities. But I honestly don’t like that the main looser of this mechanic is Proxy, who is allready the punching bag of phantom.

Lets see the shieldgate means no matter where he is, in his cloak duration or how much HP he still got he will survive a proxymine, a fragger grenade, airstrikemarker, Snipershot and a Nader direct. Not sure about shotguns propably not I guess. The Firesupport AOEs all deal damage multiply times so while he is negating parts of the damage he would still die standing directly in it.
I think the important part is “no matter how much HP he has left” the Idea might be to have a escape tool or shield others from incoming Damage (ie blocking a snipershot). If the gate wasn’t there a Phantom with 20 HP left couldn’t do that.

I’m not suggesting that this is how it plays out in reality, but that this might be the intention behind it based on the descriptions in the merc rolecall and the fact that we get XP for tanking now.

Still not sure wether I like it or not.[/quote]

That “shieldgate” part could be much more interesting if it was actually designed in another way IMO. Like something that reduce incoming damage instead of generating a shield, with a bigger resistance against explosives to make him even more interesting at doing the human shield. But I feel like invisibility cumulated with an armor is way too much. That guy have too much form him : defense, stealth and offense. We need a middle ground, but we ESPECIALLY need to make him not as infuriating to play against than he is now.

(avidCow) #9

If it were not for Fragger being so strong already, Phantom’s shield would probably make him a great point-man. Peek a corner, hit q, aim your shot while soaking some pre-fire (even a Vassili headshot or grenade) and then drill some heads with the KEK.

I don’t think we have even seen his full potential yet.

(Gi.Am) #10

Personaly I think in the long run his Shield will be the only thing he has going for him. It allows him to cover some distance even when he is spotted. And he gets spotted more and more. I played min lvl 10 yesterday with him, now I’m not a good phantom quite frankly I suck at melee almost as much as I do with snipers, but it is already a whole different situation (compared to first day). People are far better spaced out (no multikills), spot you 75% the time the second you come into view and quite often imidiently jump out of reach and blast you with gunfire.

On a side note I did notice the shieldgate quite a bit now that I know it is there. I think it is ok. Only problem is the proxymine imo, maybe buff the mine with a single spotter ping upon activation.

My gripe with the armor is that while a great offensive tool it is a bad escape tool.
Reason the Q activation time is way too slow. You can’t activate it the second you see a grenade/sniper/airstrike incoming to block that.
Likewise you can’t activate it when a fight goes south and run for the hills. While it might sound like a weird change. I would like to see his armor part (including shieldgate) only work for the first half of the cloak duration and cutting the acitvation time in half.
That would buff the cloak/shields defensive capabilities a bit. Maybe increase the cooldown of it or atleast give it a rigid cooldown (right now if you decloak at the halftime you get a 3 second cooldown). That way you have to make the decision shall I enter with cloak and propably still have cooldown, or am I going in uncloaked and have it ready for the escape.

(Eox) #11

At this time, with a KEK-10 and 120hps, I can hardly consider him as weak. I’ll reconsider if the KEK-10 finally gets a nerf.

Two thing have to be worked on in my opinion : making him much less infuriating to play against (you can be not OP, but extremely annoying. If the only person that gets the fun is the Phantom user, there’s a problem), and making him a better teamplayer. My third post will be dedicated as solutions for his status. Stay tuned.

(metallicCandle) #12

the phantom is designed to take out lone wolfs, especially aura or proxy running around with shotguns flanking.

In my playing as him and agianst him, There are 4 ways to counter him.

  1. stay near each other. the lone wolf dies alone…with a sword in his chest. This means you aura, proxy. no more flanking with shotguns, that just feeds phantom kills.

  2. COMMUNICATE! this bears repeating, COMMUNICATE! If I hear “phantom flanking from right”, it usually means I get a kill.

  3. use those devices, proxys mines, vasillis heartbeat sensor. both are anti-phantom.

4.Or lone wolf it and be really, really good at killing something that can one hit aura, spark, proxy

“who knows what evils lurk in the hearts of men, the shadow does, but the phantom will stab you regardless”

personally I like that hes forcing Aura to act as medic rather than tf2 scout.

If you don’t agree you probably main a shotty character…and flank often

(Eox) #13

Feedback updated. We’re getting to the end. I may add post feedback thoughs later.

(Glot) #14

Great stuff there, Eox!

(watsyurdeal) #15

Dude…totally agreed with everything here, Splash you better take notes

Also, in regards to a second ability…why not just give him spotting?

You press a key, and whatever enemy player you are looking at will show up, it can used every 5 seconds and is nowhere near as powerful as Vasilli’s ability, but it doesn’t need to be. Since Phantom can sneak in and point out things more easily whereas with Vasilli it’s a throw and hope something comes by.

(Eox) #16

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;42583”]
Also, in regards to a second ability…why not just give him spotting?

You press a key, and whatever enemy player you are looking at will show up, it can used every 5 seconds and is nowhere near as powerful as Vasilli’s ability, but it doesn’t need to be. Since Phantom can sneak in and point out things more easily whereas with Vasilli it’s a throw and hope something comes by.[/quote]

Yeah, I suggested this as my second rework point : he unleashed a wave around him that spots every players around. It seemed like a good idea.

(watsyurdeal) #17

Eox, about the Katana, what if they got rid of chopper and instead took notes from Counter Strike Global Offensive?

When you use the power attack, if it misses the recovery time is long, leaving you exposed for a lot of shots, but if it hits, the recovery time is much quicker, allowing for a combo of hits. This would add a lot more depth to Phantom I’d think.

(Eox) #18

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;42591”]Eox, about the Katana, what if they got rid of chopper and instead took notes from Counter Strike Global Offensive?

When you use the power attack, if it misses the recovery time is long, leaving you exposed for a lot of shots, but if it hits, the recovery time is much quicker, allowing for a combo of hits. This would add a lot more depth to Phantom I’d think.[/quote]

I don’t think a katana nerf should be done, especially if you apply the integrality of my rework. He’ll not be able to rush to your face with a total impunity anymore I guess, so that issue is more or less fixed. If he catches you from behind you somewhat deserve to die IMO. Like with every other merc.

This said, it’s probably a nice idea to remove the chopper + katana combo. Not sure already. I need to get that crazy Chopper + Katana loadout first.

(Jojack) #19

[quote=“savoryLettuce;41675”]If you have to change Phantom (while i think he is balanced as he is) leave the cloak and instead take away the SMG.
I in general think though that people just need to get used to him as long as i have him now there was a big difference when you had a team playing together and even remotly working together i had a hard time killing anything with Phantom, because you get spotted while approaching and get butchered by the enemy.
The problem is when people are not playing together, when they mistake the game for a Team Deathmatch and walk off alone, then they often die and i get nice killstreaks.

The things you say about the cloak/armor are true but we also need to be clear that this is his special ability when we think about Skyhammer with Airstrikes and Ammopacks if you take those or nerf those skyhammer loses his most important things, its the same here, Phantom has Cloak and Katana but thats all for Katana you need cloak and at least some HP otherwise you get nearly always butchered because you have to close in and die to fast, you have to have the ability to actually get out again because first you have to close in other classes just work from the distance thats the difference.
Thats why the cloak needs to be the way it is, so that you are actually able to close the distance to a target to use your special trait otherwise you are just a sawbonez without any revive or Medic capabilities.

If you raise CD of cloak to 12 Seconds you can engage once, you have no chance to leave in any fast time (12 seconds is forever) and are after ONE strike you lost your whole advantage the only thing you can do is to pray that noone sees you.
Again look at skyhammer, his airstrike can obliterate entire teams and he never has to get close to them but that somehow seems “fair”.

[/quote]

You’re problem is you are using Phantom as a melee only character. You forget he has the best SMG in the game, maybe the best GUN in the game. Only melee when you are completely undetected and there are a few one shot mercs you can safely get. Otherwise, use your invis to get good positioning and drop enemies with the kek. Too many Phantom players use him as a suicide rusher and make people think he’s actually balanced.

Against bad players, you can melee all day long. Against good players, you have to play smarter because closing to melee distance is too hard against aware players and most of your kills will be Kek kills. It’s much easier to close to kek range and surprise, then re-cloak and reposition. I easily lead the min 10 servers with him. Most kills were from the Kek.

He’s still broken because he ruins the fun factor. Don’t judge his ability based on bad players playing badly.

By the way, great post Eox. I completely agree with all your findings and you presented them very well.

(watsyurdeal) #20

[quote=“Jojack;42612”]
He’s still broken because he ruins the fun factor. Don’t judge his ability based on bad players playing badly. [/quote]

Thing is fun is subjective

I think the key here with balancing Phantom is making it so he’s fun to play if you’re a smart player, but also fun and rewarding to shut down when you can through his tricks.

Not “lol I have armor bro”, no we had enough of that shit in TF2. Even I was just resorting to Amby Spy at that point.