I would like to share my opinion about phantom. After the latest patch, phantom gets slowed down when he cloaks or uncloaks. Even tho melee got buffed a bit, this is another nerf for phantom. Certainly with redeye around you get detected everywhere you go. Besides, the cloak is too visible when sprinting, it looks more like phantom pulled a bag over his head and thinks nobody can see him. I think that phantom should be undetectable when he is cloaked and that the cloak should become less visible again while sprinting. Phantom only has one ability atm which isn’t really too useful, hope he gets tweaked soon.
Phantom
AirborneVolley
(AirborneVolley)
#3
So I should rather use it as a shield in fight to reload for example or to get closer with the katana?
Amerika
(Amerika)
#4
That has always been the best way to use him even during his launch version. Sure, you could rush into 1-2 people that saw you, survive and cut them down (only to be killed instantly after) but the most successful way to play him has always been sans melee (unless it made sense). I have multiple videos that show this off and I still use him pretty often today because it’s fun to figure out how to use/abuse his mechanics to your advantage. He requires intelligent play now which I like as opposed to rush down tank that gets killed despite being seen and shot at.
I’m OK with him being changed but I am adamant that he is still pretty good in a pub sense. He was never viable in comp considering the current meta. My idea of giving him a spotting ability ala the BF series would help in that regard while also making him slightly less likely to be seen + give him more utility and be in-line with the other recon mercs.
AirborneVolley
(AirborneVolley)
#5
Problem is that phantom doesn’t support teammater either so it makes it useless to attack with i think. For defending it could come in handy to take down people who try to plant a c4 or repair the EV. I’ll try to use phantom differently from now on and see if I actually play better.
Ottah
(Ottah)
#6
Devs, whatever you do, please dont ruin Phantom. For example by giving him a mediocre spotting ability and then reducing his HP and/or Cloak.
I really like how Phantom is right now, he is still really strong if you play him right but certainly not downright OP like he was on release. The skillcap certainly has been raised, wich is good and I 100% agree with Shoe’s stance on Phantom.
He is still a tanky berserker that can vanish and appear without any warning, just use the cloak right and decide what you want out of it in a perticular situation.
Want to vanish? just run around a corner and sit still, line up them headshots and suprise your opponent or just use a katana stab if its a low hp merc, or just let em walk by.
Want to be shielded? just slap it on and run, ask mr skyhammer for ammo and reposition yourself.
Also, you dont always need the cloak when you have already flanked, you are just giving your enemies an audio cue like saying “hey guys, look behind you!”
Honestly, i dont think the merc needs any buffs. If you have ever played an MMO you would know how crazy strong full blown stealth is and often there is zero counterplay to it.
Phantom sits in a ‘just right’ position now for a game as dirty bomb imho.
Edit: only thing I dont like is the melee turn limiter, but that is not Phantom exclusive. glad it got removed from the slash attacks.
AirborneVolley
(AirborneVolley)
#7
I tried the sitting and defending strategy on terminal nearby the containers. After every kill I made I changed my position a tidy bit. I barely died and killed multiple proxies who tried to plant. Perhaps phantom doesn’t need a buff indeed, he is already powerfull but he is not a ninja as i thought he was. Thanks for the tips @ Ottah and @Amerika.
TheOrangePhantome
(TheOrangePhantome)
#8
What up. Which primary do you guys prefer on phantom? I personaly prefer the Crotzni. Also here’s a tip about meele. 1 at a time pretty much pick 1 of and run away. DON’T get greedy or you’ll just end up dying and hating the katana. Also try to sneak around and wair for some1 to come around the corner but with the katana you need patiants. And try to ingage you’re target smartly. It’s always handy when you’re enemy has their back to you but if they see make sure to have the cloak on when runing at them so you can sak up some dmg and get close enough. But don’t always try to do that to targets with more than 100 health but if you do that ALWAYS keep you’re enemy close and don’t let them escape because if they have the room to do so and just back peddle and kill you then you should just give up on trying to get them before they do so.
Thats all rly.
Amerika
(Amerika)
#11
If you are trying to melee only he will suck. Stop doing that if you’re doing it.
Ethalin
(Ethalin)
#12
@Amerika It kind of saddens me that hes not as viable with melee as he was promoted in the trailer and such. Phantoms much better now with the latest update but its still true, you have to use a mix of guns and melee. Don’t even bother if you have a knife load out though.
Kaori1
(Kaori1)
#13
[center]Phantom was nurfed within a week or so after his release by DB’s new balance team: Reddit. Was he a bit too powerful? Yes, but messing with his cloak visibility and its audio was a horrible mistake.
In reality though there’s probably nothing we can do about it now. Stealth characters in any game are always looked down upon by the majority of their respective communities. All that we can hope for is that the Devs actually take the proper time and consideration before nurfing the ever living crap out of the next fun merc that comes our way.
Phantom (and the community) pre nerf:
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/626348527290367965/38A8DCDD66E974B01D812F8036DA4BB0647AF445/
I’m not saying he was perfect when he was released in this beta…but didn’t they remove him at some point prior to this OB so that they could work on him? If he was so unbalanced, then why was he re-released the way he was? [/center]
Szakalot
(Szakalot)
#14
[quote=“Kaori1;69769”][center]Phantom was nurfed within a week or so after his release by DB’s new balance team: Reddit. Was he a bit too powerful? Yes, but messing with his cloak visibility and its audio was a horrible mistake.
In reality though there’s probably nothing we can do about it now. Stealth characters in any game are always looked down upon by the majority of their respective communities. All that we can hope for is that the Devs actually take the proper time and consideration before nurfing the ever living crap out of the next fun merc that comes our way.
Phantom (and the community) pre nerf:
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/626348527290367965/38A8DCDD66E974B01D812F8036DA4BB0647AF445/
I’m not saying he was perfect when he was released in this beta…but didn’t they remove him at some point prior to this OB so that they could work on him? If he was so unbalanced, then why was he re-released the way he was? [/center][/quote]
stealth is terrible to code. Its very hard to make something ‘slightly visible’. People will either see it or not. Newbies will not see phantom. Experienced players will see phantom instantly.
If you make him completely invisible, well thats pretty OP, right?
Visibility of phantom was never a big issue. It was all about how easy his melee kills were, how much hp +phantom armor hp he had.
Phantom’s ability seen as armor is a much more interesting take on the merc, than some semi-invisiblity that any experienced player will spot instantly anyways. Plus it gives him the samurai flavor, charging head-on with a ‘magical’ breastplate to take the first few hits.
facileKennel
(facileKennel)
#15
[quote=“Szakalot;69909”][quote=“Kaori1;69769”][center]Phantom was nurfed within a week or so after his release by DB’s new balance team: Reddit. Was he a bit too powerful? Yes, but messing with his cloak visibility and its audio was a horrible mistake.
In reality though there’s probably nothing we can do about it now. Stealth characters in any game are always looked down upon by the majority of their respective communities. All that we can hope for is that the Devs actually take the proper time and consideration before nurfing the ever living crap out of the next fun merc that comes our way.
Phantom (and the community) pre nerf:
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/626348527290367965/38A8DCDD66E974B01D812F8036DA4BB0647AF445/
I’m not saying he was perfect when he was released in this beta…but didn’t they remove him at some point prior to this OB so that they could work on him? If he was so unbalanced, then why was he re-released the way he was? [/center][/quote]
stealth is terrible to code. Its very hard to make something ‘slightly visible’. People will either see it or not. Newbies will not see phantom. Experienced players will see phantom instantly.
If you make him completely invisible, well thats pretty OP, right?
Visibility of phantom was never a big issue. It was all about how easy his melee kills were, how much hp +phantom armor hp he had.
Phantom’s ability seen as armor is a much more interesting take on the merc, than some semi-invisiblity that any experienced player will spot instantly anyways. Plus it gives him the samurai flavor, charging head-on with a ‘magical’ breastplate to take the first few hits.
[/quote]
Stealth is easy to code, its just basic transperancy. IT may seem its hard but its just the 4th value in color information. They also added some additional visual effects to cudas to them for the detail
Amerika
(Amerika)
#16
He wasn’t promoted as viable. The rolecall trailer showed him using his Katana and it introduced it. The CGI trailer had all kinds of things wrong/different and wasn’t a promotion of anything but the game. I know some people really want this game to have a melee option but it’s a shooter. Trying to balance a character that can do melee extremely well will only make people who want to use guns get pretty pissed and the whole community dies pretty soon. See Jedi Knight 2.
facileKennel
(facileKennel)
#17
He wasn’t promoted as viable. The rolecall trailer showed him using his Katana and it introduced it. The CGI trailer had all kinds of things wrong/different and wasn’t a promotion of anything but the game. I know some people really want this game to have a melee option but it’s a shooter. Trying to balance a character that can do melee extremely well will only make people who want to use guns get pretty pissed and the whole community dies pretty soon. See Jedi Knight 2.[/quote]
A shotgun 1 hits everything for way llonger distance than katana , why people are getting so mad if someone can sneak behind them and stab them? Every game has that option, BF4 , Blacklight , CS and so on.
What i like about him is being able to get behind enemy ranks and kill them from there, however since im quite visible, phantom fares not so much better than other mercs. And other mercs are significantly more effective IF they manage to get behind enemy ranks.
Amerika
(Amerika)
#18
He wasn’t promoted as viable. The rolecall trailer showed him using his Katana and it introduced it. The CGI trailer had all kinds of things wrong/different and wasn’t a promotion of anything but the game. I know some people really want this game to have a melee option but it’s a shooter. Trying to balance a character that can do melee extremely well will only make people who want to use guns get pretty pissed and the whole community dies pretty soon. See Jedi Knight 2.[/quote]
A shotgun 1 hits everything for way llonger distance than katana , why people are getting so mad if someone can sneak behind them and stab them? Every game has that option, BF4 , Blacklight , CS and so on.
What i like about him is being able to get behind enemy ranks and kill them from there, however since im quite visible, phantom fares not so much better than other mercs. And other mercs are significantly more effective IF they manage to get behind enemy ranks.[/quote]
Because you actually have to aim for the head with a shotgun and most of the time it still won’t be a one shot due to spread pattern. Also, those classes that have a shotgun don’t also have invisibility which allows them to get behind people. Which is something many people seem to want despite how cheap it is. I get that certain types of people want it, I just don’t agree with it.
CS doesn’t have a way to get behind people easily and 1 shot them. Neither does BF4. I have not played Blacklight so I don’t know there. So exactly what is your point by referencing the other two games (and possibly the 3rd)? You don’t get the same feature set in those game like what you get with Phantom in DB. So could you please elaborate on this?
The only merc I can think of who might be better IF he got behind you is Fragger. But Fragger is also better than you in front of everyone too. He’s an assault class so killing people is sort of his bread and butter. Phantom is a recon and when it comes to the other recon classes he is MILES better at getting behind people and using his shield to kill/escape than the other recons and much better than almost every other merc. No other merc matches his ability to initiate a battle at his choosing or escape at his choosing.
So, the way I see it, he’s fine right now and works great. He just doesn’t work for the “melee only” folk. And I am perfectly fine with that. I wouldn’t’ mind seeing him change in a few different ways but I DO NOT want him to be a melee-centric merc who gets cheap kills and drives people who want to play and FPS away from the game (much like his initial release die).
facileKennel
(facileKennel)
#19
Phantom does not have invisibility neither, its quite visible with massive alarm which is completely pointless. If he is going to stay like this he might just aswell kill everything spin with katana. If he actually gets invisibility im fine with current situation of melee.
Blacklight has invisibility + huge sprint speed + katana with charge attack and NO ONE ever complained. Unfortuantnly bad publishers that did not release updates for months killed that game but it was legandary on its good times.
You dont need to aim for headshot, aim for torso from close quarters and it 1 hit kills.
See the problem is, his melee is fine, i play him mostly melee only and when you get close, you can still do some amazing things thanks to the range of katana. But the problem is invisibility does not work properly at all and his sprint speed is too low for a guy with SMG.
You may be fine with his current situation but obviously something is seriously wrong when half of the merc discussion is filled with phantom threads, and i doubt Nexon likes his current form neither. Perhaps they even have the chances ready for the patch.
And im open to new ways which would make phantom a fun-to-play champ. Which he currently is not. Im mostly trying to use him to camp invis near objectives, since people are not focused they do not notice me, allowing me a nice stealth kill. But its really dependant on level curve and high levels easily notice me.
Killerbee1
(Killerbee)
#20
He wasn’t promoted as viable. The rolecall trailer showed him using his Katana and it introduced it. The CGI trailer had all kinds of things wrong/different and wasn’t a promotion of anything but the game. I know some people really want this game to have a melee option but it’s a shooter. Trying to balance a character that can do melee extremely well will only make people who want to use guns get pretty pissed and the whole community dies pretty soon. See Jedi Knight 2.[/quote]
A shotgun 1 hits everything for way llonger distance than katana , why people are getting so mad if someone can sneak behind them and stab them? Every game has that option, BF4 , Blacklight , CS and so on.
What i like about him is being able to get behind enemy ranks and kill them from there, however since im quite visible, phantom fares not so much better than other mercs. And other mercs are significantly more effective IF they manage to get behind enemy ranks.[/quote]
Because you actually have to aim for the head with a shotgun and most of the time it still won’t be a one shot due to spread pattern. Also, those classes that have a shotgun don’t also have invisibility which allows them to get behind people. Which is something many people seem to want despite how cheap it is. I get that certain types of people want it, I just don’t agree with it.
CS doesn’t have a way to get behind people easily and 1 shot them. Neither does BF4. I have not played Blacklight so I don’t know there. So exactly what is your point by referencing the other two games (and possibly the 3rd)? You don’t get the same feature set in those game like what you get with Phantom in DB. So could you please elaborate on this?
The only merc I can think of who might be better IF he got behind you is Fragger. But Fragger is also better than you in front of everyone too. He’s an assault class so killing people is sort of his bread and butter. Phantom is a recon and when it comes to the other recon classes he is MILES better at getting behind people and using his shield to kill/escape than the other recons and much better than almost every other merc. No other merc matches his ability to initiate a battle at his choosing or escape at his choosing.
So, the way I see it, he’s fine right now and works great. He just doesn’t work for the “melee only” folk. And I am perfectly fine with that. I wouldn’t’ mind seeing him change in a few different ways but I DO NOT want him to be a melee-centric merc who gets cheap kills and drives people who want to play and FPS away from the game (much like his initial release die).
[/quote]
I agree, he should not be melee centric at all. It’s why I’ve been pushing his stealth / medium range combat archetype. I think turning him into a silenced weapons recon that flanks and kills high priority targets like squishy marksmen and medics will be very healthy to the game.
Redeye is supposed to be a vasili counter but I honestly don’t see it happening, there are too many explosions in this game and I doubt they will change the interaction they have with destroying the smoke so it does not let redeye do his ideal smoke-up and pop the vasili while he can’t see you. On top of all that he can just toss a pokeball and detect the redeye in the smoke or simply relocate or wait until the smoke clears.
So who else can deal with vasili? Another vasili? Sniper duels are really retarded both for the teams and the game overall. The only other merc that can effectively deal with vasili is phantom, even with HBS a phantom can usually get to vasili and gun him down in a range he is not dominant at. Having one merc able to get behind the enemy and slow down or disrupt the push is very healthy to the game.
I really hope they scrap his melee and give him recon, stealth and more ranged options instead.