Phantom Rebalance

[JJMAJR]

Okay, here’s some things that I want to get straight into people’s heads before everyone gets triggered:
[spoiler]Phantom’s EMP ability just reveals his presence to any enemies that are dealing with him. Not only that but in order to prevent it from being spammed its cooldown is now complete trash.

This is an excuse for Phantom to be balanced to be equally good on offense as he was on defense, before he was a defense specialist. This is not a good reason to make Phantom completely visible for defensive forces to start running Fragger or Thunder as a counter to him.

With the EMP aura he nerfed some of the weakest objective specialists in the game (in relation to their actual ability to use their deployables defensively) and thus created a magnificent world where a Bushwhacker and a Proxy can contribute to the team even less than what they do right now.

As long as Phantom has the EMP aura he would always be an offensive character, and pale in comparison to most other mercs in the game in such a role.[/spoiler]
Now that’s out of the way I can begin.

Phantom should have all changes post-EMP reverted. I realized that SD wanted to do this in order to make Phantom contribute to the team more than he does right now. Oops, I’m getting into a loop.

Health/Speed
[spoiler]I think that Phantom should have a rebalanced health/speed ratio. The first number in each row is the current numbers. The second is my suggestions for what those numbers should be. The third is, for a comparison, Nader’s current statistics.

Health: 110 -> 120 (120)
Speed: 410 -> 420 (420)

So in other words, Phantom should be rebalanced to be on par with Nader’s movement speed and health ratio.

I was thinking of Phantom being able to have the best health/speed ratio in the game for the purpose of delivering objectives, but I think it would be wiser to just keep it as a hint for what he could be, and let the community debate over it.[/spoiler]

Anyways, Phantom should have his stealth based abilities augmented via either an ability that kills things or an ability that spots enemies on the map. There are several different options as to achieving this goal besides making his cloak a big “shoot me” sign.

[spoiler]-Comms Hack (my favorite, makes him a true recon while supporting his camp-and-ambush playstyle)
-Kunai (made difficult to support on the fact that heavy pistols now serve such a purpose; probably kunai bombs instead, that explode and spot enemies in a microsecond for 10 seconds?)
-Objective Specialist (my least favorite but probably the most effective in some peoples’ eyes)
-Riot Shield/Rifle Shield a la Rainbow Six Seige[/spoiler]

All of these abilities would not ruin the purpose of the cloak, but would also serve to increase Phantom’s level of competence to something that is above par.

And now, I’ll invite some guests (because I want a quick response) and anyone else is free to join in this cluster****.
@THUNDA @Amerika @Apofenas @Szakalot @BananaSlug @LifeupOmega
Can’t think of anyone else to invite. I’m sorry.

[Apofenas]

EMP is a very good ability. But it doesn’t work well in concept CD implemented. It nerfed cloak hard as his main ability with that CD and with ability to “detect” him through disabled deployables.

First of all i would suggest to separate EMP from cloak so Cloak has pre-nerf CD numbers.

Than make make his EMP to prevent Skyhammer/Arty/Kira to call their Air/Arty/Laser strikes; Red eye and Vassili to spot anybody inside EMP radius; may be cut Phoenix healing abilities, Sparks REVIVR and all defibs in half. Add visual effect to EMP so you can spot Phantom who blocks your ability like glowing armor or some parts. Let Phantom shoot while EMP is enabled. EMP disables if EMP HP is taken out.

Being separated doesn’t mean they are different abilities. If you use one, CD grows also on another.

HP: 110->100;
Speed 410->430;
Cloak HP = 30;
EMP HP = 30;
EMP duration = 12 sec.
EMP CD = 15 sec
Katana speed multiplier 97.5%->95%;
Refractive armor XP: 1->5

This way Phantom becomes very good as a supporting merc and stays a good one as “lone-wolf”. May be my numbers are a little OP, but that’s the concept i’d like to see.

[BananaSlug]

Buffing speed is dangerous, it may increase suicide runs with katana, soo it would also need katana speed changed. Really i want is to have my old cooldown back, idc about the emp, its stupid because you need to reveal the fact that you are around, and then rambo aura station kill and run for your life if there was entire enemy team on it.

and now they even took away his knifes, soo you need to run around like mad man with hand in front if your face.

and he wasnt that bad on offence, you just needed to “place” yourself like a turret that is camping spawn exit, you cant buff his killing potential, because it would be too broken, now you can 1v1 from behind most of people without even getting hit,

and can you tell me how comm hack would work?

[TheStrangerous]

For some reason SD doesn’t want spotting ability, which is a shame, since he is suppose to be a recon.
Plus I’ve seen a rumor (not sure if true) on how SD doesn’t want stealth gameplay in DB. If it’s true, then it’s quite ironic giving a merc refractive armor, which doesn’t provide much stealth.

[JJMAJR]

Can you tell me how comm hack would work?

-You kill person.
-You find their dead body.
-You express your necrophilia.
-Everyone on the map is spotted for 6 seconds.
-60 second cooldown; context action.

[quote=“Apofenas;197977”]EMP is a very good ability. But it doesn’t work well in concept CD implemented. It nerfed cloak hard as his main ability with that CD and with ability to “detect” him through disabled deployables.

First of all i would suggest to separate EMP from cloak so Cloak has pre-nerf CD numbers.

Than make make his EMP to prevent Skyhammer/Arty/Kira to call their Air/Arty/Laser strikes; Red eye and Vassili to spot anybody inside EMP radius; may be cut Phoenix healing abilities, Sparks REVIVR and all defibs in half. Add visual effect to EMP so you can spot Phantom who blocks your ability like glowing armor or some parts. Let Phantom shoot while EMP is enabled. EMP disables if EMP HP is taken out.

Being separated doesn’t mean they are different abilities. If you use one, CD grows also on another.

HP: 110->100;
Speed 410->430;
Cloak HP = 30;
EMP HP = 30;
EMP duration = 12 sec.
EMP CD = 15 sec
Katana speed multiplier 97.5%->95%;
Refractive armor XP: 1->5

This way Phantom becomes very good as a supporting merc and stays a good one as “lone-wolf”. May be my numbers are a little OP, but that’s the concept i’d like to see.[/quote]

I suggested 120 and 420, even hinting at 430. I don’t like the idea of making Phantom a glass cannon though.

[spoiler]I also don’t like the EMP because it hard counters many things way too much. There’s no point in playing an engineer on defense with that thing existing on a character that is actually competent. Fortunately for engineers, Phantom isn’t competent.

Unfortunately for people who like playing strategically, taking advantage of the fruits of the field, Phantom holds so much potential to both empower their creativity and destroy their opportunity to shine, depending on if this EMP aura ends up being able to come into full force.

Also, Bushwhacker and TF2’s engineer have vastly different levels of power. TF2’s engineer thus has a counter, the spy. Bushwhacker is weaker than TF2 engie and thus is balanced so that counters to his strategy don’t outright obliterate him.

EMP aura is a hard counter, and it’s too much.[/spoiler]

Please, I just want Phantom’s offensive abilities to consist of “tougher than most people of his speed” instead of “hard counters 90% of a person’s play style”.

[TheStrangerous]

They could convert covert ops class from W:ET in to phantom.

His SMGs could have silencers, just like Sten MkII S. Same with pistols.

Throwing knives could be his secondary ability, as it has been suggested before.

Remember how covert ops could detect landmines with binoculars? Phantom could have an ability to detect enemy deployables for team mates to see. Instead of disabling them.

Covert Ops could backstab from behind, so why can’t Phantom? The new melee system requires precision, anyway.

Now I don’t wanna suggest stripping clothes for disguise coughfemalecoughmercscough, but it has been suggested many times before, his refractive armor could just be a cloak. Making him completely invisible, just to get behind enemy frontlines. Only Phantom wouldn’t be able to attack and perform actions while invisible, he’d have to manually decloak in order to do so. At the cost of getting rid of armor’s damage sucking ability.

[Apofenas]

There are too many mercs with 120 HP and only one left with 100. In my suggestion Phantom wouldn’t exacty be a glass cannon. Sure if you decide to rush into somebody with Katana and cloak, you would be a fast 100 hp merc, but if you decide to stay with team and enable EMP field instead, you would be temporary 130 HP merc with 430 speed which counts exactly as “tougher than most people of his speed”.

And if “countering other merc play style” is a problem, than why do spotters (especially Red eye) counter Phantom’s cloak? For this situation i suggested to have 2 abilities - one gets countered by spotting, other counteres spotting.

EMP sometimes gives false sence of safety when you disable Proxy or Fletcher trap and than you get surprised by manual detonation…

Bushwhacker (after reclaim nerf and EMP introducion) needs one buff - change turret so it instantly locks on spotted people on its line of sight and can slowly rotate itself toward spotted targets. That would make Spotters very usefull combined with Bush and Phantom very usefull against that combo. I wanted to post this in some Bush thread yesterday.

One thing i didn’t mention is the way EMP should work. Remove its ability to disable stuff throught walls. Once it’s done, it will be much harder to disable deployables through walls.

As for Fire supporters, i do believe an ability to delay air strike or force enemy team to place it twith less effect has a huge offensive utility for Chapel, Bridge and hopefully Dockyard. I believe Arty/Kira would still be able to call a strike via walls above Phantom and Skyhammer to place marker to hit the desired target with his huge AOE.

[UndeddJester]

I still think that Phantom’s biggest problem is his lack of kill power compared to other recons.

Skip spoiler for TLDR.
[SPOILER]Unlike the sniper recons, who have hard hitting weapons that can both down and execute an enemy very efficiently, Phantom has to be exposed for a couple of seconds, first putting enough bullets into his target to drop them, then another round of bullets to execute his target. Not to mention being in close range so likely going to be fighting 1 on 2/3.

Traditionally his method of dealing damage was to get into melee range (Using the stealth/tankiness of his cloak to get close), and slice his opponents down. Followed up with a slice to execute and hey presto, you have your efficient kills and executions.

Now it is just far too hard for him to get into melee range majority of the time. His cloak does not tank at all, so he can only do it via stealth, and his stealth is just not good at closing gaps with any kind of speed.

His only option is to crouch in and surprise targets with his guns. If targets don’t know he is there then he has the advantage, but if an enemy supports his target he will most likely lose, and when 1 on 1 (if he gets seen) it puts him in 50/50 skill battle with the likes of Sawbones and Stoker, but with no way to recover HP afterwards or fall back on a molly.[/SPOILER]

I like the EMP on the cloak personally as the idea of a refractive technology slinging out a constant EMP sounds very cool lore wise, but also agree from a gameplay point of view that it causes problems because it reveals his presense.

The changes I would think about would be some combination (Or possibly all) of:
1 - Speed and health boosts, which would be useful for his general fighting power.
2 - Seperating the emp and cloak, which would allow more tactical usage of the cloak/emp, and also make balancing the usage of both much easier (Cloak could have a reduced cooldown, emp can be given longer to deal with that counter specific mercs point, etc).
3 - Allow Phantom to play more off his cloak and get into melee range again by allowing him to WALK completely invisible. Running reveals you like normal, but walking would allow him to keep his cloak and position himself effectively for the push or wait for a good oppurtunity.

All 3 of these together might be overkill, but taking point 3 specifically: -

• he could scout out defenses while completely cloaked and decide how he wants to attack without blindly running and hoping.
• he could really give himself great angles and surprise positions on opponents to truly start getting advantages in fights.
• at walking pace he could actually get into melee range of his target again and use his main strength.

With the power that true cloak provides he probably wouldn’t even need the speed and health boost. You could even have some cool weak dependency between the cloak and EMP like making the emp fire when Phantom triggers it, but requires 30% of his cloak in order to pull it off, you can then look increasing the cooldown of the cloak, so using the EMP is an all in go for broke type deal.

But that is all getting ahead of ourselves.

[UndeddJester]

Adding on to my previous post, the cloak could provide a very small emp, with a shorter knockout duration, enough to allow him slip past proxy mines for example, as that kills his stealth gameplay. His EMP bomb would then be the full 5 seconds knockout, large AoE ability.

I’m still thinking in regards to the heart beat sensor. Perhaps when walking he cant be detected, but running he can, or just a flat immunity while cloaked would work too.

[Amerika]

The re-work completely missed the point of fixing Phantom as a character that doesn’t have a place at all in competitive play. He always worked fine in pubs due to less organization and more chaos in general where he can thrive. He was always bad in competitive play because organized teams can deal with his shenanigans, there is less chaos in 5v5 organized play and he didn’t bring any team helping abilities that another merc choice brought.

The EMP that is attached to his refractive armor should be removed from it and RA should go back to it’s old mechanics. The EMP should then be put onto some kind of projectile that would be Phantom themed (think Aimee’s dart) and be shot into areas so that teams can push. This gives Phantom back his RA gameplay that he had before, doesn’t give away his position, it can be shot from a distance so that he doesn’t even have to be there for the push or he could shoot it at the wall and disable a turret/station inside the room (think first OBJ Terminal) and go inside with everyone else as opposed to sitting there with cloak up.

That fixes virtually every issue he has and suddenly makes him a good pick in some competitive situations. He becomes a team player and he also doesn’t get more powerful in the LOL MELEE area that is about as useful as the back of the map Vassili players.

[JJMAJR]

[spoiler][quote=“Apofenas;198009”]There are too many mercs with 120 HP and only one left with 100.[/quote]
It is a bit of a bad reason to have Phantom at 100 HP. The character shouldn’t be buffed with regards to speed, but at the same time he shouldn’t be terrible, or a hard counter to deployables and force people to run assault classes like Fragger or Nader.

Sure if you decide to rush into somebody with Katana and cloak, you would be a fast 100 hp merc, but if you decide to stay with team and enable EMP field instead, you would be temporary 130 HP merc with 430 speed which counts exactly as “tougher than most people of his speed”.

I don’t think that the extra HP would come in when it counts then. Sure, it emphasized Phantom’s defensive abilities, but it weakens his ability to deliver carryables, repair objectives, or plant explosives more than ever before. You know why?

Phantom’s abilities deactivate when he’s interacting with objectives.

And I won’t be surprised if his EMP would act similarly to his cloak in that respect.

And if “countering other merc play style” is a problem, than why do spotters (especially Red eye) counter Phantom’s cloak? For this situation i suggested to have 2 abilities - one gets countered by spotting, other counteres spotting.

I think that Phantom should be able to be immune to spotting while standing still, at the very least. I also don’t want Phantom to be characterized as a melee-styled character.

I also think Phantom should be able to ambush players, not try to sneak around a heavily guarded cluster***k, which is nearly impossible to do in this game.

Bushwhacker (after reclaim nerf and EMP introducion) needs one buff - change turret so it instantly locks on spotted people on its line of sight and can slowly rotate itself toward spotted targets. That would make Spotters very usefull combined with Bush and Phantom very usefull against that combo. I wanted to post this in some Bush thread yesterday.

The “Bushwhacker’s turret automatically locking on to spotted enemies” idea was mine, by the way. It would bring synergy between Bushwhacker and spotters but won’t be incredibly overpowered to justify a character being able to hard counter it. It’s just to make Lock-On less powerful than it is right now while giving a small yet significant buff.

One thing i didn’t mention is the way EMP should work. Remove its ability to disable stuff throught walls. Once it’s done, it will be much harder to disable deployables through walls.

That makes Phantom unable to counter the spotters’ main deployable: heartbeat sensors.
What a twisted tale of irony, if you ask me.[/spoiler]

[spoiler][quote=“Amerika;198040”]The EMP should then be put onto some kind of projectile that would be Phantom themed (think Aimee’s dart) and be shot into areas so that teams can push.[/quote]
Actually I think that Aimee having such an ability would be a lot cooler than Phantom having that kind of thing. Aimee herself needs a rework too.

I don’t know, I just want an ability that REWARDS Phantom for PLAYING SMART instead of going LOL MELEE! Which obviously won’t be what Phantom would be with an EMP projectile, but I find a je ne sais quoi about it that I don’t like.

Also, having a spotting ability for Phantom would make his past stealth-based play style stronger. You know, the patience-based style of waiting for a sucker to come along to taste your pistol-calibre rape bullets?

One of Phantom’s advantages on defense is that he can camp an objective or a choke point from any location he desires. But the EMP and the cloak’s noise detract from that.[/spoiler]

[spoiler][quote=“TheStrangerous;198000”]They could convert covert ops class from W:ET in to phantom.

His SMGs could have silencers, just like Sten MkII S. Same with pistols.

Throwing knives could be his secondary ability, as it has been suggested before.

Remember how covert ops could detect landmines with binoculars? Phantom could have an ability to detect enemy deployables for team mates to see. Instead of disabling them.

Covert Ops could backstab from behind, so why can’t Phantom? The new melee system requires precision, anyway.

Now I don’t wanna suggest stripping clothes for disguise coughfemalecoughmercscough, but it has been suggested many times before, his refractive armor could just be a cloak. Making him completely invisible, just to get behind enemy frontlines. Only Phantom wouldn’t be able to attack and perform actions while invisible, he’d have to manually decloak in order to do so. At the cost of getting rid of armor’s damage sucking ability.[/quote]

@Amerika has some thoughts about the backstab gimmick.

The “TF2 Spy” cloak would be better for balancing out Phantom’s offense and defense power, so I guess that could be an alternative to all these ideas.

Also silencers would be a lot cooler as an augment, making it easier to hear stuff while firing weapons and harder for enemies to hear you.

I suggested it in another subforum.[/spoiler]

Okay, I typed too much.

[Amerika]

Aimee already has a pretty good ability. I don’t know why you’d want to replace that with an EMP. This isn’t musical chairs even if Phantom and Thunder started going down that road

I’ve mentioned many times to that a cheap/easy solution would be to give Phantom a spotting ability similar to the BF series where he could go stealth and mark people as he went. Or just give him charges that refreshed over time that could be used even out of stealth. That would also give him a recon-like ability and make him fit into that group more since he is listed, or at least was listed, as a recon.

But the EMP as I described would actually work in a lot of competitive scenarios where he’d be a solid counter-pick to some common setups if his EMP could be fired in an area but still worked exactly as it does in going through walls and being a giant bubble. That would be more useful than just another spotter.

So with that change he goes back to requiring intelligence to use his refractive armor correctly, the cooldown reverts back to what it was and he suddenly becomes a solid choice. And it’s not a lot of work for the devs since it would mostly just refitting abilities already in the game.

[TheStrangerous]

[quote=“Amerika;198049”]Aimee already has a pretty good ability. I don’t know why you’d want to replace that with an EMP. This isn’t musical chairs even if Phantom and Thunder started going down that road

I’ve mentioned many times to that a cheap/easy solution would be to give Phantom a spotting ability similar to the BF series where he could go stealth and mark people as he went. Or just give him charges that refreshed over time that could be used even out of stealth. That would also give him a recon-like ability and make him fit into that group more since he is listed, or at least was listed, as a recon.

But the EMP as I described would actually work in a lot of competitive scenarios where he’d be a solid counter-pick to some common setups if his EMP could be fired in an area but still worked exactly as it does in going through walls and being a giant bubble. That would be more useful than just another spotter.

So with that change he goes back to requiring intelligence to use his refractive armor correctly, the cooldown reverts back to what it was and he suddenly becomes a solid choice. And it’s not a lot of work for the devs since it would mostly just refitting abilities already in the game.[/quote]

Then it’s up to SD then, it’s either the easy way (that spotting ability you mentioned) or the hard way (far fetched gimmicks).

Even Phantom himself claims to be “Recon” type.

TubeChop - Chop YouTube Videos

[MisterBadmin]

I’m a little hurt I wasn’t pinged in this thread, but let’s move past my ego and onto Phantom’s.

Phantom is in a really weird spot. Invisibility is a really difficult thing to balance around, especially when also making a melee character in a First Person Shooter. He doesn’t have any way to spot anything, the signature of Recons, and is sort of just a bad Nader on the Assault front.

I’d like to propose a radical rework:
HP: 110 -> 100
Speed: 410 -> 425 (Fragger has a speed of 385, setting a precedent for speeds that are not multiples of 10)

These stats are very close to Phoenix’s (100 HP, 430 Speed), with lesser movespeed only to give Phoenix a chance to get away if the Phantom has the Katana-only mindset.

Abilities:
Optical Cloak: Phantom charges his armor for up to 5 seconds (think Phoenix Pulse). Each second of charging gives 2.5 seconds of invisibility. Does not grant armor. Duration is determined by charge time and not consumed faster/slower based on movement speed. Phantom spots anyone within 15 meters if he has line of sight to them while invisible. Shooting or meleeing breaks invisibility. Can be charged while sprinting.

Refractive Armor: Phantom dumps any remaining charge into his armor, gaining 8 HP of armor for each second of charge left, for a max of 40. Phantom gains armor at a constant rate of 8 per 1/4 second (1 every 1/32 second, not in increments of 8). If Phantom hits 0 armor while charging, charging stops (i.e. putting bullets into Phantom while his armor is gaining strength can stop it entirely). After charging, armor degrades at a rate of 2 per second (1 every 1/2 second), but can be canceled to regain a portion of the energy. (Idea I’ve been thinking about, but remain unconvinced on: Fully charged (charge completed, not necessarily 40HP charge) armor releases an EMP on destruction.) Attacking does NOT disable the armor.

While neither ability has been active for 5 seconds, Phantom regains energy at a 1 energy-second per second. (Fully expending armor will give a total 10 second downtime.) Both abilities use the same energy.

I did say radical.

Thunder lost the EMP to avoid having a Swiss-Army Knife toolset, yet they added the EMP to Phantom, who already had a single ability that served as his Swiss-Army Knife. Splitting Phantom’s Cloak and Armor into two separate abilities might help mitigate that one-ability, every-encounter situation he’s currently in, and make him more of a Recon-Assault hybrid, without making him the best at either role.

[Amerika]

[quote=“MisterBadmin;198059”]I’m a little hurt I wasn’t pinged in this thread, but let’s move past my ego and onto Phantom’s.

Phantom is in a really weird spot. Invisibility is a really difficult thing to balance around, especially when also making a melee character in a First Person Shooter. He doesn’t have any way to spot anything, the signature of Recons, and is sort of just a bad Nader on the Assault front.

I’d like to propose a radical rework:
HP: 110 -> 100
Speed: 410 -> 425 (Fragger has a speed of 385, setting a precedent for speeds that are not multiples of 10)

These stats are very close to Phoenix’s (100 HP, 430 Speed), with lesser movespeed only to give Phoenix a chance to get away if the Phantom has the Katana-only mindset.

Abilities:
Optical Cloak: Phantom charges his armor for up to 5 seconds (think Phoenix Pulse). Each second of charging gives 2.5 seconds of invisibility. Does not grant armor. Duration is determined by charge time and not consumed faster/slower based on movement speed. Phantom spots anyone within 15 meters if he has line of sight to them while invisible. Shooting or meleeing breaks invisibility. Can be charged while sprinting.

Refractive Armor: Phantom dumps any remaining charge into his armor, gaining 8 HP of armor for each second of charge left, for a max of 40. Phantom gains armor at a constant rate of 8 per 1/4 second (1 every 1/32 second, not in increments of 8). If Phantom hits 0 armor while charging, charging stops (i.e. putting bullets into Phantom while his armor is gaining strength can stop it entirely). After charging, armor degrades at a rate of 2 per second (1 every 1/2 second), but can be canceled to regain a portion of the energy. (Idea I’ve been thinking about, but remain unconvinced on: Fully charged (charge completed, not necessarily 40HP charge) armor releases an EMP on destruction.) Attacking does NOT disable the armor.

While neither ability has been active for 5 seconds, Phantom regains energy at a 1 energy-second per second. (Fully expending armor will give a total 10 second downtime.) Both abilities use the same energy.

I did say radical.

Thunder lost the EMP to avoid having a Swiss-Army Knife toolset, yet they added the EMP to Phantom, who already had a single ability that served as his Swiss-Army Knife. Splitting Phantom’s Cloak and Armor into two separate abilities might help mitigate that one-ability, every-encounter situation he’s currently in, and make him more of a Recon-Assault hybrid, without making him the best at either role.[/quote]

He is not and never was a melee character in his release state. He was only a melee class back in the alpha class for a short while. But he was also a completely invisible sniper too at some point IIRC.

Also, your idea for a rework is a touch convoluted in regards to what he actually needs to be a pick in 5v5 organized play. Some of your suggestions would also encourage melee playstyle which is not effective even on pubs let alone organized play.

[yesser]

i was just thinking of giving him some kind of galasses or eye lenses that would make him see through walls in a limited area and if there is no wall between him and an ennemy he would send to his team more details about the ennemy like health abilty cooldown ect…
like this he still can be ‘‘sneaky’’ with his cloack and still help a little his team as a recon
and it would give more focus on that xp he gain when watching an ennemy while cloacked (forgot it name but i remember it have a rate of 4 per sec)
i really think that the emp should be forgotten for phontom and give it back to thunder so he ruturn to what he is a recon

[Drac0rion]

Firstly, if the EMP is going to be kept on him, just make it ranged.

Secondly, if SD plans on making more than 4 mercs per role(if there will be Javelin), abilities are going to repeat. So for an easy solution just give him similar spotting ability to one of the existing recon mercs and slightly adjust it to fit Phantom.

1. Add shades to the mask and have it function like Redeye’s IR eye. Phantom could use it while invisible.
2. Give Phantom Vassili’s HB sensor, adjust it to be used more frequently. Maybe lower radius and longer cooldown and have it last less, but give it two charges? Just so Phantom can scout the areas better before advancing as sneaking past a corner is probably most dangerous to him.
3. Give Phantom Aimee’s ability, maybe in the form of a Kunai as @JJMAJR suggested above, but it would limit the ability to affect only a single target and maybe have a few charges on it, but would actually make Phantom an assassin who has some bonus damage.

While I’d love to quote myself from over half a year worth of Phantom posts, I’m pretty happy with my tiny wall of text mostly inspired by the comments above.

[LifeupOmega]

Speed buffs will only promote melee and not actually help him in the slightest when it comes to actual competitive. Stop asking for speed buffs.

[Apofenas]

[quote=“JJMAJR;198045”]
It is a bit of a bad reason to have Phantom at 100 HP. The character shouldn’t be buffed with regards to speed, but at the same time he shouldn’t be terrible, or a hard counter to deployables and force people to run assault classes like Fragger or Nader.[/quote]

Sure, but fast merc that suddenly appears before you with Katana is same frustrating as Aura or Proxy with shotgun with the exeption that 80/90 HP mercs are easier to kill. And ofc i would like to have at least some diversity in health pool for mercs. Also if u look at my suggestion, the 30 HP boost for 120 hp merc would be too much, don’t you think?

The “Bushwhacker’s turret automatically locking on to spotted enemies” idea was mine, by the way. It would bring synergy between Bushwhacker and spotters but won’t be incredibly overpowered to justify a character being able to hard counter it. It’s just to make Lock-On less powerful than it is right now while giving a small yet significant buff.

Never saw that, sorry.

That makes Phantom unable to counter the spotters’ main deployable: heartbeat sensors.
What a twisted tale of irony, if you ask me.

I guess you didn’t understand what i wrote there. I mean not to disable spotting ability, but to prevent it to mark your team mates as long as they stand inside your EMPJamming field.

[watsyurdeal]

Maybe I am a pessimist for this sort of thing…but

I think removing the Armor, and getting a better cloak, 120 hp back, along with changing the EMP field to a Recon Field would be great.

And, to add an extra layer to it, enemies spotted by this Recon Field do NOT get the Detected signal, why? Because it’s a close range mobile radar, and the detected signal would too easily give away his position, it adds to his stealth role while also adding to his recon role as well.

I think that’s a much better, more contributing Phantom that everyone would like.

If his cloak is perfected I think he’d at least be used situationally in competitive play.

I am not expecting him to be an S tier merc, but at least making him have a specific role as a close range Recon merc would really help a lot.