Phantom in his current state

(Fap Fap Master) #1

Whats your opinion on phantom right now? Balanced? OP? Underpowered?

(Sinee) #2

He was nerfed just a wee bit too hard and there’s not much use for him now. I believe that’s the general consensus about it.

(Fap Fap Master) #3

No plans to buff him, funny.

(Sinee) #4

I don’t think he necessarily needs a buff, but some adjustments for more adequate usability would be nice. Mostly melee and his cloak. Melee was completely borked for all mercs, and it still could use some fixing. His cloak is too obvious now too.

Other than that, I found all the other adjustments fair, like his health nerf etc etc.

(Ghosthree3) #5

He’s not so underpowered that he’s a complete push over. He can still DO things, it’s just he’s not really exceptional either. He doesn’t fulfil his role which was to be a stealth recon type merc, his cloak only serves as a shield and not a perfect one either since it disables when you shoot anyway.

He’s just really, really, average and unless you have a boner for him there’s no real reason to pick him.

(DMaster2) #6

He is fine imho. Can still surprise people not paying attention, getting an advantage in the firefight. You cannot go rambo anymore which is a good things actually.

(Merci1ess) #7

Well the reason why I played Phantom was because of the melee aspect. I loved his gameplay. Now that fun aspect has be completely butchered and royally f*cked. Now you get to play with his SMG more. Absolutely useless.

I can do the same thing with Fragger. I just have 40 more HP with better weapons and 2 grenades. I just lose the ability to become invisible cough not.

(Edzer) #8

Now try and do that in competitive. Any decent player will catch you out of stealth, might aswell just play melee aura since you’re just as easily caught.

(elegantRoyalty) #9

never did think he was really overpowered i think the problem is more how he does it not how affective he was, just like vasaline he was anti fun to play against

(Jostabeere) #10

Underpowered because his role is fucked up. Is he a sneaky mercenary-leader with a dangerous katana like in the trailer? Nope. Is he a mercenary with an SMG and a half-visible cloak that only helps negate some damage while running behind next corner and a melee weapon that can’t hit moving targets and nearly useless? Yes. You can get some newbies who don’t know about the games speed and crouch down while ironsighting in max-lvl-5 games down with it, but you’re hopelessly underpowered against anyone who can play the game.

(watsyurdeal) #11

Underpowered, and my reasoning is simple

If the class seems to only be useful against pub players, there is a problem.

The cloak should be good enough that even top tier holy shit good players shouldn’t be able to see you easily, but still be skill indexed enough to where you have to use it properly to make good use of it.

Personally, I am opting for full invisibility for everything but jumping, sprinting, and taking damage, but no armor, and no cloak drain. A Phantom who has to walk everywhere to stay undetected is hardly as threatening as one as you can clearly see, but can tank all sorts of damage before he reaches you.

(Fleshpound) #12

If a Merc is a waste of using him on Competitive then Phantom can be on that list.

Anything included to gameplay from trailer is nerfed and he is only viable to doing non-stealth things like flanking which anyone can do it or running to delay the death by 3 seconds.

(Ottah) #13

Save your 50k, not worth buying atm. terrible merc vs competent players. Get the Alienware Chopper card for Aura (its free) and you’ll have a much more thrilling melee experience if thats what youre after.

(aRagRappy) #14

I wouldnt say phantom is underpowered, they just made it so you couldnt do stupid stuff like charging directly at people. The problem is phantom has never added anything to the team so there’s no reason to ever pick him. They really to give him some utility to fit his playstyle of sneaking around the enemy and striking from unexpected spots. Even If phantom is supposed to focus on getting kills like vasilli, vassili also has the heartbeat sensor for recon utility and insta-gib on headshot to put pressure over an area. Phantom lacks anything to help his team or even his identity as a stealth merc with his cloak being far more visible and being more focused as a shield.

(Ottah) #15

Only bad phantom did that and even if they got a katana kill or two, they would just get devoured by the enemy team.

With the nerfing of the cloak the dev’s also ruled out phantom from skilled plays that would have been possible in games with a competent phantom and a competent enemy team, essentially ruling him out from comp, while with his old cloak he might have been picked as a side class like the Spy in TF2 comp games.

Sure would make the game alot more interesting and dynamic.

(GrandMasterFalcor) #16

Phantom has been the merc I play with the most both before and after the nerf, and now that I have gotten more used to his update, I’ve been able to play pretty well with him. He is a capable merc right now, and underpowered or overpowered are not really apt descriptions. The main problem with phantom, as mentioned in other threads, is that he is not committed to a specific role. He’s not much of a stealth class, or a melee class, or whatever else. His abilities are scattered and ultimately strip him of a specific scenario where he excels. I don’t think he should be buffed or nerfed; I think he should be reworked. Some attributes should be taken away or nerfed in exchange for new attributes or buffs. For instance, worse armor for better invisibility.

(firebrickRetreiver) #17

He was uselessly outclassed before the nerf, since every other merc can get more kills than him while having more utility.

Fragger has more health, the strong M4, and the insanely strong grenades.
Nader has strong area denial with her grenades.
Vassily can lock down entire areas down and pinpoint enemies with the HB.
Phantom can… kill a single enemy every, what, minute?

As a killer, he was the least efficient. Then, they nerfed him even more. Now, he’s a weaker version of pretty much every other merc.

(Reddeadcap) #18

Before I believe the only problems with Phantom directly were that the Katana was too powerful for the obvious high damage and many frames and high mobility of the stab and the recharge rate on his cloak was too quick, these were solved but a lot of unneeded changes were done, Yes there were some generally needed changes such as making the SMG-9 more powerful by making the Kek and Crotzni less so.

These are my general thoughts on the changes from both perspectives:

10 less health wasn’t necessary as the main problems were his refractive armor’s shield, mostly his ability to withstand too much damage without the damage sinking into his health, this was removed and it’s cooldown was increased, which was also necesary.

As an example of what these means 10 health left on Phantom’s refractive armor and sinking vs a Fragger grenade that does 150, even if the armor was knocked down to 1 “health” by it draining for being active that explosion wouldn’t affect Phantom at all, that change was understandable, but 10 health in Phantom’s case is a lot.

Making him more visible when moving broke the idea of him cloaking in the first place. It’s understandable that he shouldn’t be 100% invisible while moving but before it made sense since he wasn’t noticeable at a distance, at medium range it required some focusing and at his effective range you’ll easily hear him if he is moving or see him if he is coming right at you, Now he completely visible or not visible at all when standing still, which will be less effective since Redeye is now available.

My only possible idea for a change besides bringing back the last two would be to have his cloak only drain when moving as it would make him a perfect meatshield for his teammates with that bonus cloak and let him sit around to pounce on enemies rewarding patience and being still in a similar aspect to other Recons not moving to snipe, maybe only if he has his Katana out.

With these in mind the only other aspect I believe should’ve been kept was having Phantom unable to cloak if detected by another Recon merc.

@EdSir it doesn’t even have to do with competitive play, you can spot him at any distance off the corner of your eye the very instance he moves.

(Kevin) #19

Underpowered. Supposed to be a Recon Class, but he doesn’t even have a recon ability. Has his Refractive Armor, but it doesn’t show where your enemies are it does just the opposite. It shows where you are.

(Reddeadcap) #20

I can understand that he lacks it due to other’s having focusing on detecting enemies, look at it like this

Aimee has a camera, letting her locate and even see enemies from a safe distance, if destroyed it blinds enemies if the unreleased weapons showcase is anything to believe, making them vulnerable and She can snipe, I’m guessing she’ll have the Vasilli’s MOA, her default PDP and Redeye’s Grandur.

Vasilli has his sensor, it can be tossed at great distances and locate enemies near it, even through walls but has no ill effects if destroyed and can snipe, having access to his MoA, The FELIX and Aimee’s PDP.

Redeye can hide both himself and teammates through smoke and can only detect through direct line of sight and is less sniper-y than Aimee and Vasilli’ having his only official sniper being Aimee’s PDP, His Grandur which fits the middle ground of a sniper rifle and the Dreiss and finally Arty’s Dreiss which is a strong long range battle rifle.

Phantom doesn’t seem to need it as he’s more of a perfect concealment for him self that is, he’s ment for hit, sneaking behind enemy lines and run and unsuspected attacks and lacks all forms of sniping in favor of smgs, the only one being for long ranges being the Blishlok that works line a mini M4 and his Katana.