Phantom, Ninja (Assassin) or Samurai (Combatant)

[Amerika]

After more deliberation I want him to stay exactly where he is but gain an extra ability that makes him more valuable. Give him an EMP or a spotting ability and call it a day.

Also, he’s not a ninja or a samurai. He’s a military guy nutjob who stole some armor from a program he was participating in and considers himself a legend. And the Katana isn’t an ability he has. It’s one of the melee options he has on 3 of his loadout cards. It does not define him and it will be added to other mercs in the future.

So I choose option 3. A military nutjob who has armor, can keep from being noticed/targeted if you aren’t rushing directly at a person, the best melee options in the game (but you won’t be winning matches with it), and has another ability that allows him to be a spotter or have an EMP ability. I think this is more in line with his backstory and how Dirty Bomb plays.

[GottaBeGreg]

I agree with Amerika.

The current way that Phantom needs to be played in order to be truly successful anywhere outside of a level 7 average pub match is a fusion of both of the options presented inside the poll. He can be stealthy and sneaky, alike a ninja, focusing on taking out the high priority, more difficult or troublesome characters ( eg. Sniper, Aura on a med station, lone wolves etc.) with little resistance, whilst avoiding overly large amounts of head on contact with groups. He can then flow into a tactical delay combatant capable of waiting invisible on the objective for a planter and then quickly eliminating said planter. This buys time for the team and allows a potentially crippling spawn delay to being somewhat recoverable. Not to mention the strength of the SMG’s he is provided with.

There is one thing I wish to dispel though, and that is the idea that the Refractive Armour should not function as damage reduction. This would be a complete destruction of the merc as this currently allows the escape of an unfavourable situation, and that is what this character is all about. Phantom has always ran from his problems, and the refractive armour should help him do so without catching the damage of a bullet to the back.

However, considering that the slot he would need to take up on a competitive team would that of a Fragger considering his lack of Engineering ability, he is lacklustre. As much as it annoys me at the moment, Fragger is the current merc of choice for damage output, nearly completely without exception. As such, there is no reason to sacrifice said high damage spot to a niche lone wolf character without any spotting ability. If he was to get either of the two abilities suggested I would much rather he got the spotting ability, however, this would make Redeye completely redundant. So perhaps his ability could be limited to one at a time on the map. High Priority Target perhaps. Maybe call it Marked for Death, referencing some of that Borderlands Zer0, giving it a much longer spot time, perhaps double or even triple as long, with a custom message, as in not just the detected at the bottom, a proper pop up of marked for death.

I think that currently the way that Phantom interacts with equipment placed by Engineers is more than satisfactory, with all of these pieces of equipment able to counter him in some way, whilst also being susceptible to him at the same time.

So I shall refrain from posting a vote, as I believe that he is something in-between. As said, I also believe that he is, in his current form, a Pub stomper, with big dreams of making it into the competitive leagues, but currently Nader, Fragger and Vasili are standing steadfast over his headless, blown to smithereens corpse.

[watsyurdeal]

Just give him the Heart Beat Sensor from Vasilli, but instead of spotting enemies it just disables deployables within it’s radius. A new mode and retexture and whamo.

As for his Refractive Armor, I can not understand the logic for keeping the shield aspect of it, if his cloak aspect was just good at what it’s supposed to do to begin with.

[Amerika]

[quote=“GottaBeGreg;82512”]I agree with Amerika.

The current way that Phantom needs to be played in order to be truly successful anywhere outside of a level 7 average pub match is a fusion of both of the options presented inside the poll. He can be stealthy and sneaky, alike a ninja, focusing on taking out the high priority, more difficult or troublesome characters ( eg. Sniper, Aura on a med station, lone wolves etc.) with little resistance, whilst avoiding overly large amounts of head on contact with groups. He can then flow into a tactical delay combatant capable of waiting invisible on the objective for a planter and then quickly eliminating said planter. This buys time for the team and allows a potentially crippling spawn delay to being somewhat recoverable. Not to mention the strength of the SMG’s he is provided with.

There is one thing I wish to dispel though, and that is the idea that the Refractive Armour should not function as damage reduction. This would be a complete destruction of the merc as this currently allows the escape of an unfavourable situation, and that is what this character is all about. Phantom has always ran from his problems, and the refractive armour should help him do so without catching the damage of a bullet to the back.

However, considering that the slot he would need to take up on a competitive team would that of a Fragger considering his lack of Engineering ability, he is lacklustre. As much as it annoys me at the moment, Fragger is the current merc of choice for damage output, nearly completely without exception. As such, there is no reason to sacrifice said high damage spot to a niche lone wolf character without any spotting ability. If he was to get either of the two abilities suggested I would much rather he got the spotting ability, however, this would make Redeye completely redundant. So perhaps his ability could be limited to one at a time on the map. High Priority Target perhaps. Maybe call it Marked for Death, referencing some of that Borderlands Zer0, giving it a much longer spot time, perhaps double or even triple as long, with a custom message, as in not just the detected at the bottom, a proper pop up of marked for death.

I think that currently the way that Phantom interacts with equipment placed by Engineers is more than satisfactory, with all of these pieces of equipment able to counter him in some way, whilst also being susceptible to him at the same time.

So I shall refrain from posting a vote, as I believe that he is something in-between. As said, I also believe that he is, in his current form, a Pub stomper, with big dreams of making it into the competitive leagues, but currently Nader, Fragger and Vasili are standing steadfast over his headless, blown to smithereens corpse.

[/quote]

He is pretty much in-line with what is considered a traditional recon merc who typically have either CQC explosive, sabotage or long ranged sniping abilities with stealth typically being an option. He wouldn’t be competing for the Assault slot that Fragger, Nader and Rhino currently occupy and Thunder will eventually have. Also, the number of characters per “class” in Dbomb that have been known/announced agrees with him being recon…but for some reason missing recon abilities.

4 fire support - Skyhammer, Arty, Kira, Stoker
4 medics - Sawbonez, Aura, Sparks, Phoenix
4 engineer - Bushwhacker, Turtle, Proxy, Fletcher
4 Assault - Fragger, Nader, Rhino, Thunder
4 Recon - Vassili, Redeye, Aimee, Phantom

So yeah…give him some type of team helping recon ability. I mentioned I wouldn’t mind seeing his cloak be fully invisible if there was no chance he could attack out of it, could be seen/heard if he made the mistake of coming close or was found and allow him to be a setup guy/spotter/emp guy.

[GottaBeGreg]

Currently, if he does not have the spotting ability, there is zero reason to not let him attack out of camo. This is not the same pace as TF2 or any other game, and if he had to uncloak behind enemies just to attack them he would have no hope of killing anyone. Not to mention currently that he is so loud that you will hear him the moment he moves. Even if he did have a spotting ability, talking purely in competitive games, he should not have to uncloak in order to attack, as if he did he would have no hope of ever getting a kill, as he is simply not strong enough to tank some shots nor fast enough to chase people down. The cloak having armour allows a small degree of chasing down back pedallers while under fire, and honestly it isn’t even that strong. Personally I have (Post patch) never had trouble taking down people trying to face tank me as Phantom.

Concerning his bids at the slot with the assault classes, in his current state, without recon abilities he is bidding for the assault slot, only hes trying to do this by stabbing the enemy in the back rather than blowing them to smithereens. Personally I believe they should (for the purposes of competitive play) decrease the sound he makes when moving. He is so loud he has no hope of killing anything with a headset, even the down syndrome snail that stole his brothers old headset can hear him when he takes a step. Said snails pissed off brother in the room next door can hear Phantom activating his armour through his pounding Lincoln Park, along with the rest of the players on the map. So when he does get close he shouldn’t have to wait 2-3 seconds to uncloak and then pull out his katana again. The reason he got nerfed into the ground in the first place was because of the newer players complaining so much about him, and now he is sadly unable to effectively play in the competitive games with the big boys.

In his current state I believe he interacts well with all of the engineers abilities, the invis cancelling the Sentry from in front, the Armour protecting from some of the damage of mines and stickies, both of these pieces of equipment still have a chance to stop him and he has a full chance to completely negate the equipment as well.
I could agree with the EMP utility but I personally believe that his current player-slayer state is more Phantoms style. If you were to give him a mechanic perk anywhere on his cards it would almost seem right, but clearly the devs do not believe him to be an objective/ equipment focused merc, probably a lot of the reason why Redeye hates him so, considering how objective focused an efficient Redeye is.

Basically, at the moment he is not a recon merc, no two ways about it. He has the potential to be a recon merc but he needs to have something more than just a retextured heartbeat sensor. The last thing he needs is to be slowed down in terms of efficiency and to be honest he already interacts well with the equipment. The only logical way for him to go would be to get a spotting ability unique to him, thus making him an actual recon class.

[Someordinaryguy]

I voted for ninja. My dream Phantom would be a high-risk high-reward character designed to pick off lone wolf players, HVT targets (Engineers, Medics) and cause general paranoia. I’d trade his “tanking” for more stealth and speed so he isn’t that obvious to spot on some maps ( cough Bridge cough)

Also make him a truly melee focused class: instead of this weird assault/recon mash-up give EVERY loadout a katana and a pistol as secondary (like in the Scrubs trailer). Speaking of Katana, since it no longer has “2s kill period”, which allowed the infamous “Beyblade/Chopper” Phantom to destroy the game, buff it’s range (right now it has 120 range while the knives and bat have 115 [It’s a giant ass sword FFS]), fix the wonky hitbox and bring back the old Chopper augment (20% not 15%)- this will allow him to m2 kill everyone up to Bushwhacker/Fletcher/Sawbonez/Phantom. Also getting a kill with m2 attack should insta-gib (but only on 90 degrees back attack).

Without SMG’s he’ll suck in direct combat/running head-on and versus groups of organised people. And make the cloak noise less obvious, maybe something like this https://youtube.com/watch?v=23FGKf11sZY (Spooky Scary Phantom anyone?)

And about EMP, how about instead of “throwable/grenade” idea we give Phantom an AOE “EMP discharge”. You would use your remaining cloak energy (the more cloak you have left=the bigger the radius, up to 1,5x of Aura’s HS AOE [maybe give this ability a “charge” mode similar to Phoenix’s Heal Pulse?]) and it will shut anything electronic (sentries, mines, HBS, HS, Ammo Stations) and STOP C4 TIMER FOR A FEW SECONDS ! This would make Phantom a valuable asset in comp and give him an ability to buy a few precious seconds for his team. But the cooldown would be 30s so you can’t spam it (also when C4 is already “stopped” another Phantom using EMP wouldn’t affect it [same goes for other things EMP shuts down]). Flashbang effect on enemies would also be neat (so EMP can be used as “getaway” ability after taking out a HVT target)

With all those changes I think Phantom would be a true assassin/ninja that sucks in direct combat (especially versus groups of organised people, with 1 RedEye/Vaseline to spot him) but able to destroy lone wolf players. With my EMP discharge idea he would also be a gamechanger, buying his team a few precious seconds to defuse C4 or making an crack in enemy’s defense lines

[Sussepus]

considering he is a recon the answer is kinda given, isnt it?

[gg2ez]

considering he is a recon the answer is kinda given, isnt it?

He is a recon but he plays like an assault. He is the only recon merc that hasn’t got the defining ability of recon mercs, spotting abilities.

[Grave_Knight]

[quote=“Amerika;82486”]After more deliberation I want him to stay exactly where he is but gain an extra ability that makes him more valuable. Give him an EMP or a spotting ability and call it a day.

Also, he’s not a ninja or a samurai. He’s a military guy nutjob who stole some armor from a program he was participating in and considers himself a legend. And the Katana isn’t an ability he has. It’s one of the melee options he has on 3 of his loadout cards. It does not define him and it will be added to other mercs in the future.

So I choose option 3. A military nutjob who has armor, can keep from being noticed/targeted if you aren’t rushing directly at a person, the best melee options in the game (but you won’t be winning matches with it), and has another ability that allows him to be a spotter or have an EMP ability. I think this is more in line with his backstory and how Dirty Bomb plays.[/quote]This!

That and I’d like to point out that Ninja were Samurai. Literally the only difference between the two were ninja specialized in guerrilla tactics. Yagyu Jubei, Hattori Hanzo, even Fuma Kotaro were samurai (granted Yagyu was closer to a special investigator than a ninja warrior). But enough about history.

If Phantom is close to anything it’s crazed lunatic who played way too many video games.

[gg2ez]

[quote=“Grave_Knight;82660”][quote=“Amerika;82486”]After more deliberation I want him to stay exactly where he is but gain an extra ability that makes him more valuable. Give him an EMP or a spotting ability and call it a day.

Also, he’s not a ninja or a samurai. He’s a military guy nutjob who stole some armor from a program he was participating in and considers himself a legend. And the Katana isn’t an ability he has. It’s one of the melee options he has on 3 of his loadout cards. It does not define him and it will be added to other mercs in the future.

So I choose option 3. A military nutjob who has armor, can keep from being noticed/targeted if you aren’t rushing directly at a person, the best melee options in the game (but you won’t be winning matches with it), and has another ability that allows him to be a spotter or have an EMP ability. I think this is more in line with his backstory and how Dirty Bomb plays.[/quote]This!

That and I’d like to point out that Ninja were Samurai. Literally the only difference between the two were ninja specialized in guerrilla tactics. Yagyu Jubei, Hattori Hanzo, even Fuma Kotaro were samurai (granted Yagyu was closer to a special investigator than a ninja warrior). But enough about history.

If Phantom is close to anything it’s crazed lunatic who played way too many video games.[/quote]

No. God. No. Samurai were distinct elites in Asuka to Edo Japan belonging to high and noble families. Ninjas were mercenaries and spies for hire. They would work under different conditions and would use different methods of warfare. In Asuka - Edo Japan, the generally accepted term was that to be called a Samurai, you either belonged to a non-hire military unit. Ninjas are not Samurai, they’re experts in stealth and reconnaissance, in fact, many high-noble Samurai soldiers would have thought it an insult to be associated with ninjas because ninjas all came from working classes.

Represent, historical masters degrees son.
But I kind of agree. Phantom is really just a maniac with a sword.

[TheOrangePhantome]

Well @Whatsyurdeal i and a couple of more people suggested the idea for an EMP jammer which ia like vasilis HBS but it disables all depoyables or a EMP nade.

Also @Amerika you can’t tell me that the invisibility doesn’t need a upgrade.
One example is: I was crouched in a corner waiting to ambush a part of the enemy team (i don’t do that a lot btw) and when they rounded the corner it was way to easy for them to spot me.

So a suggestion many of us hve requested is remove the armor aspect and give him 85% or 90% invisibility or or the armor can take only 10% or 15% dmg
but still have 85% or 90% invisibility.

[Sussepus]

i have said it before and say it again. SD needs to decide what kind of class phantom is supposed to be and design him to be that class. right now he is a recon without any recon abilities or a mislabeled underpowered assault.

[Merci1ess]

1. Take away his shield.
2. Give him 120hp.
3. Make him faster.
4. Make him completely invisible.
5. Give him a MoA.
6. Give him 2 grenades.
7. Give him 4 claymores.
8. Give him the ability to spot and tag enemies.

http://i2.wp.com/www.elfarandi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/creepy.gif

No but seriously… As he is at the moment it’s not too good. Phantom, Ninja (Assassin) is what sounds better to me. Fast, deadly and precise. Always loved that concept. Make him require a certain amount of know how to master and be effective… Sounds pretty good to me.

[Amerika]

[quote=“TheOrangePhantome;82704”]Well @Whatsyurdeal i and a couple of more people suggested the idea for an EMP jammer which ia like vasilis HBS but it disables all depoyables or a EMP nade.

Also @Amerika you can’t tell me that the invisibility doesn’t need a upgrade.
One example is: I was crouched in a corner waiting to ambush a part of the enemy team (i don’t do that a lot btw) and when they rounded the corner it was way to easy for them to spot me.

So a suggestion many of us hve requested is remove the armor aspect and give him 85% or 90% invisibility or or the armor can take only 10% or 15% dmg
but still have 85% or 90% invisibility.[/quote]

In his current form it’s perfectly fine if you aren’t trying to melee only with him. If you are then you’re ignoring his best tools. The only good way to fix that is to make him in-line with current recons by giving him a spotter/emp ability. That would make him a lot more useful in both pubs and competitive environments. Then you can up his invisibility but you’d have to remove his ability to attack out of cloak quickly or we’ll go back to the same problem that blew up reddit, steam forums, steam reviews, these forums etc. with tons of melee only types getting kills in the cheapest way possible (some people seem to forget about this). I’d personally be fine with near 100% invisibility as long as you could hear him while moving fast and see him at least 10 feet out from you to prevent the YOLO melee guys from being able to pick targets without that target being able to react along with the inability to attack while still cloaked.

He has decent melee due to his weapon options. But the Katana isn’t unique to him and doesn’t define him and is not an ability. Hell, it’s only on 3 of his 9 cards. It’s just a melee weapon just like the Kukri is only a melee weapon. In no way was he ever advertised as an invisible melee only merc and his lore doesn’t agree with that either.

Instead of trying to make him into the TF2 spy he should be made into something useful in all environments that doesn’t lower the skill ceiling of the game drastically.

Also, I do the same thing as you do after flanking on new spawn waves. Except I’ve picked out darker parts of the maps that make it near impossible to see me as opposed to just sitting in the middle of a room. That’s what I like about Phantom now. You actually have to think about what you’re doing.

[watsyurdeal]

[quote=“Amerika;82804”]
Instead of trying to make him into the TF2 spy he should be made into something useful in all environments.[/quote]

raises hand

Um, Spy is actually really useful, if you’re not playing him 24/7

In Invite TF2, 6v6, Spy was actually used a lot. You play a life with him and then go back to Soldier or Scout, it was a gamble that was a TOTAL game changer.

Huge upsets because of the Spy at the right time

I’m totally happy with Phantom being sparse as well in 5v5, as long as he’s actually good enough at being stealthy to fool even the best players.

[Amerika]

You shouldn’t cherry pick one part of my sentence while ignoring the other part You can certainly make a TF2 spy-like character useful for competitive but then he’d increase the salt level on public servers to maximum. It works in TF2 because there is always a direct counter available to everyone but that’s not how DB is balanced…which you know.

I wouldn’t mind seeing cloak changed to be more invisible…as long as it didn’t lower the skill ceiling. And I’m all for him gaining extra abilities that makes him valuable. Being able to have full or nearly full invisibility (with said attack restrictions) and spot people or emp targets and then uncloak and attack in a well setup position while playing is perfectly fine in my book. It would allow people to react but still give you the upper hand. You can position a Phantom in a competitive match where when you start your push you already know where people are/have their stuff disabled and the Phantom can uncloak and attack with everyone else.

That would make him more like what you want while not allowing him to simple run up behind people and kill them before they can react. And it would make him useful in pubs and competitive. And he wouldn’t be the TF2 spy that, in DB, would not have an always accessible counter.

[discerningCaptain]

I really like the Phantom merc, find him usefull to flank enemy and back stab some medics, altough his only ability is… hmm too weak. He’s just fine after last patch/nerf but the % of his invisibility should be higher i think.

[watsyurdeal]

You shouldn’t cherry pick one part of my sentence while ignoring the other part You can certainly make a TF2 spy-like character useful for competitive but then he’d increase the salt level on public servers to maximum. It works in TF2 because there is always a direct counter available to everyone but that’s not how DB is balanced…which you know.

You mean Pyro?

No, the Pyro was actually pretty ok at countering Spies who are used to it, you can work around the Pyro and how he works and still come out on top. The biggest counter to Spy was communication and awareness, telling people where he was, when and where he killed you, and listening for audio cues like the decloak sound and so on.

If we have those same sort of aspects already for Assault Mercs like Fragger and Rhino, and Recon mercs like Vasilli, I fail to see the problem here.

The difference between a good Phantom and bad one then would be bad Phantoms are easy to predict. A smart one adapts to his enemy, but that takes a lot of skill in itself.

[quote=“Amerika;82818”]
I wouldn’t mind seeing cloak changed to be more invisible…as long as it didn’t lower the skill ceiling. And I’m all for him gaining extra abilities that makes him valuable. Being able to have full or nearly full invisibility (with said attack restrictions) and spot people or emp targets and then uncloak and attack in a well setup position while playing is perfectly fine in my book. It would allow people to react but still give you the upper hand. You can position a Phantom in a competitive match where when you start your push you already know where people are/have their stuff disabled and the Phantom can uncloak and attack with everyone else.

That would make him more like what you want while not allowing him to simple run up behind people and kill them before they can react. And it would make him useful in pubs and competitive. And he wouldn’t be the TF2 spy that, in DB, would not have an always accessible counter.[/quote]

As long as full invisibility has those restrictions I think it’s perfectly balanced, after all, not only can you hear the decloak, but it’ll take a bit of time to get used to when and where to deactivate it. Kinda like how people assume Fragger’s nades are easy to use, but there is actually a lot of strategy around them. It comes down to spawn timers and predicting where your enemy goes, so they’ll run right into the nade as it explodes.

Being able to attack while cloaked I think is a bit too strong for this game, and is honestly probably where most of the saltiness comes from. It leads no room for counter play, you need to give the player a chance, an audio cue, a delay, etc, things like that.

I mean imagine Skyhammer’s Airstrike without the time it takes for the the plane to swoop in…oh God.

[TheOrangePhantome]

Also @Amerika i never said anything about only meleeing so yeah that’s that.

And that’s a good and interesting idea having to decloak yourself before attacking would solve some problrms but i dont think he should ever be 100% invisible i think that 85% or 90% invisibility is fair cuz u still have a chance to see him and he wont be easy to see at those percentages so u would have to pay some atention.

And funny enough i have some ideas on the stats of the EMP ability and how i see the spotting ability is phanton pressing “E” or another button and if he’s aiming at that enemy it would get spotted for a couple of seconds not being specific on how many secs.

[watsyurdeal]

[quote=“TheOrangePhantome;82987”]
And that’s a good and interesting idea having to decloak yourself before attacking would solve some problrms but i dont think he should ever be 100% invisible i think that 85% or 90% invisibility is fair cuz u still have a chance to see him and he wont be easy to see at those percentages so u would have to pay some atention.[/quote]

But if he can’t attack, defuse, plant, etc while the Refractive Armor is active…then why should be visible? He’s no threat until he’s able to do something, the Refractive Armor should have 100% invisibility so it becomes a perfect positioning tool. Something that no other class would have.