[quote=“Dracorion;166615”]Stealth is a rather annoying mechanic to face for many people so buffing his stealth in my opinion would upset even more people who already dislike him, especially if Phantom can sit still and one shot out of stealth the lower hp mercs if they end up running into him. Sure it takes timing and positioning, but there’s really not much counterplay to it.
Phantom having such a strong melee weapon + stealth is what makes it problematic. If he couldn’t one hit kill out of stealth and be forced to use guns every time, better players could still react and kill him easily as he doesn’t have any assassin benefits(bonus damage like Aimee does now…) and without the refractive armor he’s just a 110hp merc.
In all honesty, what Phantom really needs to be effective is information on enemy position, so you know when you need to use the stealth or simply run around, flank and either take them out from behind or have your team collapse on the enemies and shoot them from the back during the chaos.
In 6v6 and 5v5 games teams usually don’t run two recon mercs… ever… So Phantom is missing all the valuable information he needs.
In my opinion if Phantom could have a low cooldown pulse that detects nearby enemies without marking them would give Phantom enough information to make the most out of his refractive armor.
So lets say a Pheonix pulse with 2x or 2.5x the current range that gives only Phantom the enemy location for a full second or less maybe.
And @Redcap
I agree that he deserves to be a 120hp merc and have the noise from Refractive armor either reduced or removed entirely(pixel cloak and enemy spotters are enough counterplay in my opinion).
Phantom currently doesn’t bring anything to the team compared to other recon that have spotting abilities and I still think they should spot Phantom for counterplay, so you can always make Phantom visible withing certain key locations for your team so that he can’t just sneak in and one hit kill squishy mercs in a key location for example.
Instead of bringing Phantom more into team play, just leave him as a lone wolf, but just boost his capabilities.
I mean, Stoker and Fletcher can currently be considered as Assault mercs as their abilities are rather strong, why not Phantom?
If a Phantom does a great flank, it should be rewarded with getting the first shot as long as you don’t run into any spotting abilities, but at the moment instead of that you have the most awkward melee attacks(if you don’t want to alert rest of the enemies, but yet the katana slash sounds are extremely loud + no silenced pistols 
) and some noise from your Refractive armor for some reason.[/quote]
I do agree with you, but my only problem with the spotting mechanic you made was that only Phantom could see it. Maybe it should be like in Rainbow Six Siege. Where Phantom spots the enemy (in his radius) so that it shows up on teammates screen, but the spotting mechanics doesn’t follow the person like Aimee and Vassilis spotting does, instead it just shows the location of the enemy with a marker of where they were when they were spotted, but if they move the marker stays in place. So that your team has somewhat of an idea of where they are. the reason i say to have it on team mates screens is that nobody would pick him instead of Aimee or Vass because they couldn’t see the enemies location at all with the way you described it. @Dracorion
) and some noise from your Refractive armor for some reason.