Phantom, the fragile Assassin (Rework Concept)

(ghostBase) #1

Bulletpoints (Explanation further below)

General Merc Changes:
-Reduce HP to 95
-Increase Sprint Speed to 440

Ability Changes:
-Replace “Refractive Armor” with “Refractive Cloak”
Refractive Cloak makes Phantom invisible for up to 10 seconds, can be toggled on/off and has a cooldown of up to 15 seconds, relative to the time of use. Refractive Cloak does NOT absorb damage and its energy is not drained when Phantom receives damage.
Refractive Cloak emits a constant ringing noise decaying over range up to 10 meters. The ringing noise is not emitted by Phantom himself, but is heard over the radio chatter instead.
Refractive Cloak does not end when Phantom is detected by a heartbeat sensor.
Invisibility is 100% when standing still.
-2.5% when taking damage (decays over 0.1 seconds)
-5% when crouching
-5% while “spotting” an enemy
-10% when walking
-15% when sprinting
-15% when jumping
-40% when moonjumping

-Add a second ability: Spotter
Phantom equips spotting binoculars which he can use to aim at enemies for 1 second to apply a stack of “spotted”.
“spotted” will mark the enemy for 3 seconds, in a similar way to vassili’s heartbeat sensor. One stack lasts 3 seconds and up to 5 stacks can be applied to an enemy at the same time (15 seconds). While “spotting” an enemy, Phantom is 5% more visible.

Arsenal Changes:
-Replace Blishlock SMG with Tolen MP
-Replace Crotzni SMG with MP400 MP
-Replace Kek10 SMG with Empire 9 MP
-Replace Smjüth & Whetson .40 Revolver with Selbstadt .40 Pistol
-Replace Simeon .357 Revolver with M9 Pistol
-Replace EVERY Iteration of Beckhill Combat Knife and Stilnotto Stiletto with the Katana

Katana Changes:
-Reduce cut damage by 5
-Reduce strong cut damage by 10
-Limited to only hit 1 eligible entity per swing
-Backstab Damage Bonus: Hitting an Enemy with a strong cut from behind deals 150 instead of 80 damage. Strong cut must hit within 1 second of initiating to cause backstab damage.
-Turnspeed Limit is removed
-During “lethal stance”, Phantom can only turn up to 90 degrees from his original swing angle
(90° in every direction; left, right, up, down)

Okay, now here’s the explanations for all of this:

All of these changes are designed to cripple Phantom’s ability to fight open battles. On the contrary side however, they also make him the best flanker, and the best merc to dispatch of isolated, high-priority targets, such as engineers, medics, or snipers.

HP and Sprint changes push him more into the rusher playing field. He’s extremely strong against Aura and Sparks, and with Chopper he can also onehitkill Proxy from the front. However all of these are also strong against Phantom if he fails to catch them off-guard. Both shotguns are able to kill Phantom with a single hit (if no pellets miss).
The changes in gun selection levels the playing field, so even Sparks has a fighting chance to outgun Phantom, with additional access to mini-meds, in case of a longer 1v1 engagement.

The changes to his Katana are necessary to emphasize the stealth-role of Phantom. His weaker regular cuts, in conjunction with the backstab damage, make it very important for Phantom to position himself correctly, and excersise extremely precise timing, before and when engaging. 150 Damage is enough to onehitkill every opponent except for Rhino (which won’t die from one hit even if Phantom has the Chopper Augment). This iteration of Phantom is supposed to be extremely punishing for players that do not watch out for the ringing noise of the cloak, the distortion in thin air (created by walking or sprinting Phantom) and/or the heartbeat sensor’s mark, very strong if the player manages to avoid detection, but doomed if he fails.
Oh, I also wanted Phantom to have the Katana in every loadout card because it’s his signature weapon, and the one that Phantom relies on the most in this concept.

The limitation to a maximum of 1 enemy hit per swing was made so that Phantom can’t score aces with one click, even in terrain that does not allow other classes to do this, such as the blocker carriage (trainyard primary objective 2).
The Turn speed limit was replaced by a turn angle limit to alleviate the issue that an enemy is literally unhittable by melee weapons if he keeps hopping left and right like a spastic, which currently is the case. This change should be applied to every melee weapon. 90° is debatable.

If you have further questions, feel free to ask them. I’ll do my best to answer them.
I hope you enjoyed reading this concept, and you agree that this Phantom would be better than the one we currently have.

Chris

(firebrickRetreiver) #2

I like this more or less, but the only thing I would remove is the 90 degree turning limitation. It sounds like it might be really gimpy as rigid.

Then again, I feel like I have arthritis whenever I melee now, so pretty much anything is better then what we have now.

(ghostBase) #3

[quote=“firebrickRetreiver;53653”]I like this more or less, but the only thing I would remove is the 90 degree turning limitation. It sounds like it might be really gimpy as rigid.

Then again, I feel like I have arthritis whenever I melee now, so pretty much anything is better then what we have now. [/quote]

We need some limitation.

(firebrickRetreiver) #4

[quote=“ghostBase;53661”]

We need some limitation.[/quote]

That’s more the problem with the extremely long duration it’s held out rather than the turning thing. With how fast people move (especially good Auras/Sparks), its very difficult to hit an aware enemy. It should either be far shorter, or be changed to some other move, like a legitimate lunge.

(Jojack) #5

I like the concept.

My suggestion:

  • 110 HP, 420 sprint Speed
  • No limit on amount of targets per lunge as long as it’s piercing and not turning into additional targets (this may require the coding to work like a short range vassili bullet)
  • If a successful backstab is accomplished it deals 150 damage AND instagibs.
  • No reduction in damage. Leave the katana damage where it is.

I think I like everything else.

(ghostBase) #6

Would you care to explain the reasoning behind these changes?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to imply that they make no sense, but how would they, in your mind, change the way ‘this’ phantom handles?

(Jojack) #7

[quote=“ghostBase;53684”]Would you care to explain the reasoning behind these changes?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to imply that they make no sense, but how would they, in your mind, change the way ‘this’ phantom handles?[/quote]

I assume you are talking to me. I just think the changes I made would make him more viable, fun and powerful. Now, add the emp grenade that @Watsyurdeal has invented and you got a really fun merc that contributes a lot to team play. Also, I forgot to add I would make it so he can’t attack or do anything from stealth. He must deactivate stealth before he can attack.

(watsyurdeal) #8

I have to disagree on the backstabbing thing for now, honestly I really liked being able to kill more than person with a single swing. But I also thing with the smaller damage window it’ll be harder, and therefore be more skill based rather then easy peasy. Plus, if people are bunched up together why shouldn’t I make a shish kabob?

(ghostBase) #9

Yes, I was addressing you, JoJack. Should’ve clarified this.

I personally don’t believe that Phantom needs to contribute to an objective in any significant way other than the way Fragger and Vassili do. Both are viable mercs, both are fairly common picks in the ranked games that I played, and all this despite the fact that they do not have any awesome supportive abilities. I tried to create something similar, but with the edge of stealth.

And to be honest, I’m kinda scared when I think of any way to give Phantom a way to support teammates in any possible way other than killing enemies. Because that’s how the damage-absorption from refractive armor came to be.

(watsyurdeal) #10

[quote=“ghostBase;53694”]Yes, I was addressing you, JoJack. Should’ve clarified this.

I personally don’t believe that Phantom needs to contribute to an objective in any significant way other than the way Fragger and Vassili do. Both are viable mercs, both are fairly common picks in the ranked games that I played, and all this despite the fact that they do not have any awesome supportive abilities. I tried to create something similar, but with the edge of stealth.

And to be honest, I’m kinda scared when I think of any way to give Phantom a way to support teammates in any possible way other than killing enemies. Because that’s how the damage-absorption from refractive armor came to be.
[/quote]

Well that can be abused for selfish reasons though. I don’t see how an EMP doesn’t benefit BOTH Phantom and his allies. Everybody wins imo.

And @Jojack, the way I envisioned it is that it disables whatever is in range, and stays there until someone destroys it. So there is counter play, it just encourages people to watch their stuff more.

(Snark) #11

Interesting ideas in this discussion.

The unshielded stealth + katana + sidarm iteration of phantom didn’t work so well outside of novelty when it was in. I think accommodating varied play styles is a good design goal but if they aren’t both competitive with other styles and fun to play with and against, they are right to be cut.

Regarding secondary abilites, with the above, not saying that there shouldn’t be more varied gameplay. I’d like to see all the mercs get weak secondary abilities or single use utilities/throwables to add more player agency in how to play mercs. They are currently far more simplistic than classes in Splash Damage’s other games. The antideployable emp has been raised in the past and I’d still like to see it happen.

Regarding melee, the new melee system is only partially implemented (source) so it’s obviously a work in progress. I’d like to see the full system introduced before we jump on board with the simple single hitscan “shot” per swing system of most fps games… although, the simple 1shot system on light slashes would make gibbing a lot more convenient. In any case, most people’d agree that the previous katana iteration didn’t require enough aim skill to use effectively.

(Jojack) #12

[quote=“ghostBase;53694”]Yes, I was addressing you, JoJack. Should’ve clarified this.

I personally don’t believe that Phantom needs to contribute to an objective in any significant way other than the way Fragger and Vassili do. Both are viable mercs, both are fairly common picks in the ranked games that I played, and all this despite the fact that they do not have any awesome supportive abilities. I tried to create something similar, but with the edge of stealth.

And to be honest, I’m kinda scared when I think of any way to give Phantom a way to support teammates in any possible way other than killing enemies. Because that’s how the damage-absorption from refractive armor came to be.
[/quote]

There’s no point in comparing him to Fragger. Fragger is an assault class, Phantom’s is recon. Fragger is going to be milling around objectives simply because that’s the best way for him to get kills. Objective = clumped enemies = massive nade kills. Plus he really needs an ammo supply to be effective. He’s going to be working with teammates.

Phantom’s current design pulls him away from objectives leaving him zero ways to contribute to the objective and helping teammates.

Vassili contributes to the objective by operating behind his own lines, removing high value targets AND supporting his teammates with his heart beat sensor.

Phantom needs to move towards Vassili’s domain (recon - Red Eye and Aimee both have ways to support the team as well) and away from Fragger’s. He needs to operate BEHIND enemy lines, removing high value targets AND supporting his team with SOME ability. I really like the idea of an EMP device, but it could be as simple as a way to spot enemies for teammates. He is currently the only recon that has been implemented without some sort of utility recon ability that helps the team.

(Flexington_Thor) #13

This is exactly the Phantom I had in mind, that I also wrote to SDLtd. just in a less precise way. Phantom now is getting pushed more and more into the fighter role, where he has to count on his armor and not the cloak. I would like if he gets changed more into the Assassin role like it was intended and this is a VERY good orientating point from where to start with.

(Sinee) #14

Eh. Being that fragile doesn’t suit the way the character looks. He’s a medium class and his stature reflects that… The weaker mercs are always smaller. Vassili is 110hp and he’s even smaller than Phantom.

To be a waif little speedy assassin, they’d probably make a new character altogether. Some ideas here are interesting but just probably won’t happen with the Phantom character/model.

(titaniumCrouton) #15

Not a fan of the weapon changes, at all.

(Sorotia) #16

I personally would love to see as more of a Samurai than a Ninja since the Ninja part doesn’t seem to mesh will.

I’d like to see him with 120 or more health, axe his stealth, and return the shield part they eliminated. But the shield shouldn’t be 360 degree protection…some degree of a forward arc only…so he can be that meat shield like the originally intended with his armor. No attacking while maintaining the shield…besides defense the shield would allow him a chance to get into melee range.

Maybe some mechanic though where the shield is more stable while standing still so it’s more effective playing meat shield than charging. This way it can be a effective team defense but so it isn’t as powerful and a iwin button the refractive cloak could be at times.

Just my 2 cents and if not Phantom maybe a new character?

(ghostBase) #17

[spoiler][quote=“cherryOctagon;54215”]I personally would love to see as more of a Samurai than a Ninja since the Ninja part doesn’t seem to mesh will.

I’d like to see him with 120 or more health, axe his stealth, and return the shield part they eliminated. But the shield shouldn’t be 360 degree protection…some degree of a forward arc only…so he can be that meat shield like the originally intended with his armor. No attacking while maintaining the shield…besides defense the shield would allow him a chance to get into melee range.

Maybe some mechanic though where the shield is more stable while standing still so it’s more effective playing meat shield than charging. This way it can be a effective team defense but so it isn’t as powerful and a iwin button the refractive cloak could be at times.

Just my 2 cents and if not Phantom maybe a new character?[/quote]
[/spoiler]

What you described is similar to an upcoming merc, Turtle.
He’s an engineer with a deployable shield, similar to the shield of the scorpio turret from roland (borderlands)

(Sorotia) #18

Well yeah I know…but I was thinking more of the energy shield to use to help get into melee and give him some more use than just a pure damage dealer.

But that’s just me…I kinda like the dude but from playing wow and other mmo’s I just could never really get into the stealthy assassin game.

Just a idea since he was OP before and kinda UP now…

(ghostBase) #19

I added another ability to the concept, which should help to flesh out the concept of a stealthy recon a lot more.

(ghostBase) #20

[quote=“Mercy;53877”]Eh. Being that fragile doesn’t suit the way the character looks. He’s a medium class and his stature reflects that… The weaker mercs are always smaller. Vassili is 110hp and he’s even smaller than Phantom.

To be a waif little speedy assassin, they’d probably make a new character altogether. Some ideas here are interesting but just probably won’t happen with the Phantom character/model.[/quote]

Fragger wears nothing but a Kevlar vest and has 150 HP, while Phantom, who wears a solid metal armor, originally had 120, and now has 110, which is as much as nader, who doesn’t wear armor at all.
I don’t think the visual appearance of a character is taken into consideration when applying balancing changes.