Phantom

[deviousOrangutan]

I’ve been playing Dirty Bomb for awhile now and I’ve really gotten to like Phantom, but he’s not exactly what you can call good. Mostly because the only good thing he has is his Katana and his armor is pretty good but it’s nothing to brag about. So I was wondering everyones thoughts on Nexon can make Phantom actually good, so much so that can be played in competitive.

[darlingClaymore]

he can, although the amount of skill required, could be translated into any other merc, would be more effective. He is fun, but not effective

[deviousOrangutan]

[quote=“darlingClaymore;124334”]he can, although the amount of skill required, could be translated into any other merc, would be more effective. He is fun, but not effective[/quot
what you said only sorta answered the question, as you said that all that skill could be translated, but really he just needs some added ability so that can actually help the team, instead of having to pour a shit load of skill into him, his invis also needs a lot of tweaking

[Jostabeere]

It seems it’s not planned to change him in the near future since even @RazielWarmonic disagrees with a Phantom fix.

At his release he was strong, indeed. And in my opinion SD listened to the reddit people too much.
Phantom was shown in the trailer as an invisible merc with a katana and a pistol.
And I would love him that way. An invisible merc, centered around melee combat.
Let’s be honest. He was designed as a blatant Spy-clone. A pistol, getting invisible, melee weapons.
People in TF2 rarely make such waves of “Nerf Spy thread!” and the Spy can cloak as someone from another team.
Te biggest issue in my eyes was giving his cloak an actual shield. He was an invisible, unkillable merc with a stupid Beyblade exploit.
SD nerfed him into oblivion. And every other merc who wanted to use melee weapons.
Then they slightly buffed him again, but he is still a godawful merc. Sure, there are people who can dominate with Phantom, but said people can also dominate with every other mercenary, and probably even better with any other merc.
I had a discussion with a friend on his stream, and he said: “You expect Phantom to rush in a room and clear it from players. If he could do it, he would be OP”
Well, everyone can clear a room in seconds with Fragger or Rhino. Why not Phantom?
But enough talking around.
Even if it’s very unlikely, I hope our new CM @RazielWarmonic will look into this as Phantom needs a full rework or a buff to be viable to the team as a merc which he was designed to be. A cold killer.
My suggestions:

Cloak
- Completely remove any damage absorbing from his cloak. It’s a cloak, not a force shield
- Remove the sound of the cloak or reduce it drastically
- Drastically reduce the visibility while walking, slightly reduce the visibility while sprinting
- Completely deactivate a viewmodel while standing still cloaked

Weaponry
- Remove primary weapon/Change it to weaker ones: Tôlen/MP400 or the stronger pistols

Melee
- Focus him more around melee, so he’ll become a special merc
- Give all loadout cards the Katana or atleast the Cricket bat (Knifes are pathetic)
- Increase the damage window of the stab to a level where you can correct your attack on moving targets and not missing them but not a stupid Beyblade-level like it was before

Optional gimmicks
- Add things like a backstab killmove with an instant kill (Maybe like that dogtag thing from Battlefield
- Add a chargeable attack. (You become visible, charge by standing still for 2 second and lunge several meters forward dealing damage and instagib “dismember” enemies)
- Add a second ability to deactivate mechanical objects similar to the concussion grenade
(Like a small EMP-gun with one rechargeable shot. Small range, deactivates mines and turrets, can be used while cloaked)
- Keep the absorbing effect of the cloak active for its duration even if Phantom starts attacking an enemy, but make it lose its invisibility so a Phantom has an advantage in firefights against mercs with active abilities

[Black2]

-snip-

Firstly I’d like to agree that when phantom first came out he was so fucking OP it was nearly impossible to kill him at short to mid range.
If I remember correctly his cloak initially had like a three second cooldown or something and his heavy attack hit box was longer and bigger.

However at his current state I believe Phantom is completely fine. Not too strong and not too weak. Well balanced. Although I don’t understand the invisibility absorbing damage, don’t see how that fits his play style but it’s a bonus defense for him.

Alot of people are still coming with this assumption that Phantom is supposed to be this merc where you go around stabbing people with a katana and that’s really not it. The katana is not unique to him, other mercs can equip it, there just hasn’t been any announcements or upcoming releases for them.

His cloak is what’s unique to him. It allows him to slip behind cover, give away enemy positions, and get the upper hand in a shootout.

[XavienX]

[quote=“Jostabeere;124351”]-snip-

Firstly I’d like to agree that when phantom first came out he was so fucking OP it was nearly impossible to kill him at short to mid range.
If I remember correctly his cloak initially had like a three second cooldown or something and his heavy attack hit box was longer and bigger.

However at his current state I believe Phantom is completely fine. Not too strong and not too weak. Well balanced. Although I don’t understand the invisibility absorbing damage, don’t see how that fits his play style but it’s a bonus defense for him.

Alot of people are still coming with this assumption that Phantom is supposed to be this merc where you go around stabbing people with a katana and that’s really not it. The katana is not unique to him, other mercs can equip it, there just hasn’t been any announcements or upcoming releases for them.

His cloak is what’s unique to him. It allows him to slip behind cover, give away enemy positions, and get the upper hand in a shootout.
[/quote]

Thing is, can other mercs like Aimee, Turtle or Javelin who weld snipers, shotguns and rocket launchers be compatible with shields compared to a invisible merc that backstabs Vassilis noobs? I’m really wondering about that match and how things will play out. If that happens, Phantom is just an average merc who has a ability to cloak and become a invisible assassin who’s cloak sounds louder than a lawnmower.

[Jostabeere]

You’re right. He was very, very, very strong to begin with.
And yes, I don’t understand why an invisibility-cloak absorbs bullets, too.

His cloak is what’s unique to him. It allows him to slip behind cover, give away enemy positions, and get the upper hand in a shootout.

Now here. Sorry mate, but slipping behind corner and giving away enemy positions gives me jack-shit in a public game.
Objectively-spoken: Why the hell should I slip past an enemy and giving away his position if I can blow up his face with a frag-grenade, or melt his ass with the minigun.
Phantom is designed to kill people. He’s not a spotter since he doesn’t get any points for spotting and isn’t able to do so by default (I know, things like teamspeak and voicechat exist, but those aren’t core features.)
But this is interesting. He could get a spotter feature, like all Recons. This would make him interesting for the team.
I forgot. His cloak would give an advantage in a shootout if it would still be active and absorb damage even if I start shooting, but loses its invisibility.

Phantom is just inefficient at killing people. There are mercs who are way better at this. So either he needs a buff so he can be on-level with other killer-mercs, or he need a different role.
You don’t top-score with picking-up and punishing single enemies occasionally here and there.

[3rsh]

[quote=“Jostabeere;124351”]It seems it’s not planned to change him in the near future since even @RazielWarmonic disagrees with a Phantom fix.

At his release he was strong, indeed. And in my opinion SD listened to the reddit people too much.
Phantom was shown in the trailer as an invisible merc with a katana and a pistol.
And I would love him that way. An invisible merc, centered around melee combat.
Let’s be honest. He was designed as a blatant Spy-clone. A pistol, getting invisible, melee weapons.
People in TF2 rarely make such waves of “Nerf Spy thread!” and the Spy can cloak as someone from another team.
Te biggest issue in my eyes was giving his cloak an actual shield. He was an invisible, unkillable merc with a stupid Beyblade exploit.
SD nerfed him into oblivion. And every other merc who wanted to use melee weapons.
Then they slightly buffed him again, but he is still a godawful merc. Sure, there are people who can dominate with Phantom, but said people can also dominate with every other mercenary, and probably even better with any other merc.
I had a discussion with a friend on his stream, and he said: “You expect Phantom to rush in a room and clear it from players. If he could do it, he would be OP”
Well, everyone can clear a room in seconds with Fragger or Rhino. Why not Phantom?
But enough talking around.
Even if it’s very unlikely, I hope our new CM @RazielWarmonic will look into this as Phantom needs a full rework or a buff to be viable to the team as a merc which he was designed to be. A cold killer.
My suggestions:

Cloak
- Completely remove any damage absorbing from his cloak. It’s a cloak, not a force shield
- Remove the sound of the cloak or reduce it drastically
- Drastically reduce the visibility while walking, slightly reduce the visibility while sprinting
- Completely deactivate a viewmodel while standing still cloaked

Weaponry
- Remove primary weapon/Change it to weaker ones: Tôlen/MP400 or the stronger pistols

Melee
- Focus him more around melee, so he’ll become a special merc
- Give all loadout cards the Katana or atleast the Cricket bat (Knifes are pathetic)
- Increase the damage window of the stab to a level where you can correct your attack on moving targets and not missing them but not a stupid Beyblade-level like it was before

Optional gimmicks
- Add things like a backstab killmove with an instant kill (Maybe like that dogtag thing from Battlefield
- Add a chargeable attack. (You become visible, charge by standing still for 2 second and lunge several meters forward dealing damage and instagib “dismember” enemies)
- Add a second ability to deactivate mechanical objects similar to the concussion grenade
(Like a small EMP-gun with one rechargeable shot. Small range, deactivates mines and turrets, can be used while cloaked)[/quote]

This is absolutely prefect!

Why? Because his knife load outs are far INFERIOR compared to any other mercs.
plus I agree on everything especially the Melee and optional gimmicks.

I have got a CR51 from the containment war event case, and I felt like this:

there are only two loadouts (the ones with the Katana) you MUST use to get the best out of phantom. (in my option)

[Black2]

[quote=“Jostabeere;124359”][quote=“BlackFro;124355”]

His cloak is what’s unique to him. It allows him to slip behind cover, give away enemy positions, and get the upper hand in a shootout.
[/quote]
Sorry mate, but slipping behind corner and giving away enemy positions gives me jack-shit in a public game. I am direct here: Why the hell should I slip past an enemy and giving away his position if I can blow up his face with a frag-grenade, or melt his ass with the minigun.
Phantom is designed to kill people. He’s not a spotter since he doesn’t get any points for spotting and isn’t able to do so by default (I know, things like teamspeak and voicechat exist, but those aren’t core features.)
But this is interesting. He could get a spotter feature, like all Recons. This would make him interesting for the team.
I forgot. His cloak would give an advantage in a shootout if it would still be active and absorb damage even if I start shooting, but loses its invisibility.

Phantom is just inefficient at killing people. There are mercs who are way better at this. So either he needs a buff so he can be on-level with other killer-mercs, or he need a different role.
You don’t top-score with picking-up and punishing single enemies occasionally here and there.[/quote]

You are asking me to rationalize the effectiveness of Phantom’s cloak in line with your strategy. Regardless of it Phantom’s effectiveness is not determined by a user’s skill, but his strategy and if it’s not the “right” one you are not going to be able to use Phantom effectively.

Also Phantom is not a recon merc if that’s what you are implying. He’s an assualt merc. His shield absorbs damage and he carries a high damage melee weapon sometimes.

Phantom being able to shoot and have invisibility is really unbalanced because it means while he’s shooting he has a shield and is still invisible. This would make him a 1v1 stomp monster. Not cool.

Phantom is only inefficient at killing people if, like I said previously you apply the wrong type of strategy. Other mercs can do better because their skill ceiling is way lower than his. People don’t understand that each merc requires a level of skill to use. Like vassili for example. If you don’t know how to get headshots than you are going to be a shitty vassili. The same applies with Phantom, if you don’t know how to use him right you are going to be ineffective.

I’ve flat out wrecked people with Phantom to the point where people have said I was the best Phantom they have ever seen. Why? Because I know how to play him right.

In the screenshot below, I was playing against level 10+'s and they all left because I was pissing them off:

[Jostabeere]

This is indeed a very nice screen. But, is a Phantom player able to pull this off every time?
Wait…How in hell you pulled this off in such a short time?

[Drac0rion]

Making Phantom pretty much melee only would be the greatest nerf imo, it’s an FPS, while other mercs can unload countless bullets and could take out 3-5 enemies, Phantom would only have a chance to pull that off if they’re literally stacked together. He would just run and kill 1 person and pretty much die if anyone else is in vision but too far from his reach.

Phantom is recon and yet while the current other two recon mercs can actually assist the team by spotting enemies, Phantom is just a lone wolf, flanking with his cloak and picking off enemies alone and unaware.

While assassins usually have higher damage and lower defense, Phantom has just about equal damage to the other mercs, excluding his melee, but still he has less defenses that your average merc. While ALL the other mercs either bring utility or damage for their team through their abilities, Phantoms cloak just absorbs some damage. He is not nearly invisible enough to really close the distance for his melee attacks and on top of that his cloak is so extremely loud, as if he didn’t have enough counterplay already with two other mercs who can spot him and invisibility bad enough for every experience player to notice most of the times.

Right now his assassination attempts are extremely lacking, he’s not scary to any experienced player and the only mercs he can feel superior to when catching off guard are those with 100 or less HP.
But even so, I don’t feel like Phantom is extremely helpless, I believe that he could only use just a tiny bit extra HP so that even when he breaks the cloak, he isn’t at a disadvantage in a straight up 1vs1 firefight. While we know Phantom should have the advantage while cloaked, but in most cases he uses melee to run around for more movement speed and a more experienced player starts to open fire spotting him “unexpectedly” to the Phantom.
If Phantom were to have either about 10hp more or just make the damage absorption persist for like a second right after he leaves his invisibility, I believe he would be able to deal with those situations a lot better (assuming he won’t become any more invisible).

Also, remove that damn cloaking noise already!

[darlingClaymore]

I feel like we should just add to what he has now, I don’t want him to lose his shield, its sorta of his protection and it makes him really strong against skyhammers, naders, kiras preventing them from insta killing him. What he needs is more health, a new skill, more melee capabilities. The spike in phantom threads is insane. Then again if it can cloak, it makes people salty

[Jostabeere]

I feel like we should just add to what he has now, I don’t want him to lose his shield, its sorta of his protection and it makes him really strong against skyhammers, naders, kiras preventing them from insta killing him. What he needs is more health, a new skill, more melee capabilities. The spike in phantom threads is insane. Then again if it can cloak, it makes people salty

I believe after the nerf of his cloak an airstrike still kill him. Before he survived it 100% of the time since the cloak an infinite amout of burst-damage Now it chews into his health, and I am very certain an airstrike deals more damage than his cloak+his health HP.

[Black2]

[quote=“Jostabeere;124363”]This is indeed a very nice screen. But, is a Phantom player able to pull this off every time?
Wait…How in hell you pulled this off in such a short time? [/quote]

Almost everytime, you’ve just got to find the right Phantom players.
I pulled this off in such a short amount of time because I wasn’t running around with the katana trying to stab people like an idiot.

I also did it this with this loadout:

I don’t know why player’s swear the below loadout for phantom is the best because it’s really not and if your using this loadout you are probably using Phantom in a completely ineffective way:

[Jostabeere]

Well, it has an augment which increases his ability you spoke of being important.
And the Kek is a nice gun.
:neutral: I have the feeling something ain’t right there tbh.

[Drac0rion]

Phantom is only bad really, because he requires a lot more strategy compared to the most mercs, as I’d say his ability is weaker compared to what other mercs can bring. His main issue is just the positioning, as his cloak is only half invisible, that’s why usually his strongest allies are the other two recon mercs, giving him the information he needs in the battle field not to run into unfavorable situations.
In my opinion, Phantom is like playing that annoying stealth game on extreme difficulty, where you get rekt pretty much as soon as you give away your position and there’s more than 1 enemy around, while someone like Fragger is pretty much like “Rambo”, if he gets caught off guard, he takes his sweet time to react and still pulls off a double kill out of his ass without even using a nade.
His skill ceiling to be efficient is too high compared to the other mercs, it’s easier to show some good skill on Sparks next to a Sawbonez than it is for Phantom next to… anyone really.

The way I mentioned before about buffing his Refractive armor, if he opens fire and the damage absorption persists for just a little while, he gets his assassination bonus, but if he’s taking fire while cloaked, don’t give him this bonus as a punishment for not playing to his strengths, I prefer assassins in most games, good positioning and having the first strike should be a bit more rewarding than just putting you into a straight up firefight without any real advantage. (Again in my whole comment I only consider good players vs Phantom, those who manage to notice his half-invisibility most of the times.)

[watsyurdeal]

[quote=“BlackFro;124393”][quote=“Jostabeere;124363”]This is indeed a very nice screen. But, is a Phantom player able to pull this off every time?
Wait…How in hell you pulled this off in such a short time? [/quote]

Almost everytime, you’ve just got to find the right Phantom players.
I pulled this off in such a short amount of time because I wasn’t running around with the katana trying to stab people like an idiot.

I also did it this with this loadout:

I don’t know why player’s swear the below loadout for phantom is the best because it’s really not and if your using this loadout you are probably using Phantom in a completely ineffective way:

[/quote]

Hence why I disagree with @Jostabeere on making Phantom a more melee centric class, but I also disagree that he’s an assault merc, because let’s face it, by that logic he is still the most underpowered merc since Fragger, Nader, hell even Thunder are better at those roles.

I believe a second ability of some kind is in order, a scrambler or decoy that he can use to misdirect enemy intel and lure people away from their team where he can pick them off on his own.

As for the cloak and shield, as long as Phantom can be see he is useless imo, he essentially has to gun down people because actual stealth does not work. And his armor is cheap because it means Phantom can sponge damage until he’s close enough to attack, and it’s not fun to fight something you can’t see if his invisibility was buffed anymore.

I know a lot of people are against the idea of copying the cloak from tf2, but you also have to understand that Phantom doesn’t instantly kill people from behind, and it’s the only thing that would balance full cloak and having the best positioning tool in the game.

In his current state, sure I CAN play him, but that doesn’t I mean I SHOULD. He’s not worth using in a squad of 3, I’d take Nader any day. So, I’d say he needs a rework, like I described above.

[Black2]

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;124496”][quote=“BlackFro;124393”][quote=“Jostabeere;124363”]This is indeed a very nice screen. But, is a Phantom player able to pull this off every time?
Wait…How in hell you pulled this off in such a short time? [/quote]

Almost everytime, you’ve just got to find the right Phantom players.
I pulled this off in such a short amount of time because I wasn’t running around with the katana trying to stab people like an idiot.

I also did it this with this loadout:

I don’t know why player’s swear the below loadout for phantom is the best because it’s really not and if your using this loadout you are probably using Phantom in a completely ineffective way:

[/quote]

Hence why I disagree with @Jostabeere on making Phantom a more melee centric class, but I also disagree that he’s an assault merc, because let’s face it, by that logic he is still the most underpowered merc since Fragger, Nader, hell even Thunder are better at those roles.

I believe a second ability of some kind is in order, a scrambler or decoy that he can use to misdirect enemy intel and lure people away from their team where he can pick them off on his own.

As for the cloak and shield, as long as Phantom can be see he is useless imo, he essentially has to gun down people because actual stealth does not work. And his armor is cheap because it means Phantom can sponge damage until he’s close enough to attack, and it’s not fun to fight something you can’t see if his invisibility was buffed anymore.

I know a lot of people are against the idea of copying the cloak from tf2, but you also have to understand that Phantom doesn’t instantly kill people from behind, and it’s the only thing that would balance full cloak and having the best positioning tool in the game.

In his current state, sure I CAN play him, but that doesn’t I mean I SHOULD. He’s not worth using in a squad of 3, I’d take Nader any day. So, I’d say he needs a rework, like I described above.[/quote]
His kit seems to be a lot in favor towards combat. 110 health, shield that allows him to avoid combat and adsorb damage, and the katana.

He surely cant be a support, even his role call seems to support the idea he’s an assualt merc.

Thunder, Nader, and Fragger as I explained before are not necessarily better at performing but simply have a lower skill ceiling then Phantom.
If you use Phantom right you can easily surpass other mercs.

@Dracorion explains this really well.

[watsyurdeal]

[quote=“BlackFro;124518”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;124496”][quote=“BlackFro;124393”][quote=“Jostabeere;124363”]This is indeed a very nice screen. But, is a Phantom player able to pull this off every time?
Wait…How in hell you pulled this off in such a short time? [/quote]

Almost everytime, you’ve just got to find the right Phantom players.
I pulled this off in such a short amount of time because I wasn’t running around with the katana trying to stab people like an idiot.

I also did it this with this loadout:

I don’t know why player’s swear the below loadout for phantom is the best because it’s really not and if your using this loadout you are probably using Phantom in a completely ineffective way:

[/quote]

Hence why I disagree with @Jostabeere on making Phantom a more melee centric class, but I also disagree that he’s an assault merc, because let’s face it, by that logic he is still the most underpowered merc since Fragger, Nader, hell even Thunder are better at those roles.

I believe a second ability of some kind is in order, a scrambler or decoy that he can use to misdirect enemy intel and lure people away from their team where he can pick them off on his own.

As for the cloak and shield, as long as Phantom can be see he is useless imo, he essentially has to gun down people because actual stealth does not work. And his armor is cheap because it means Phantom can sponge damage until he’s close enough to attack, and it’s not fun to fight something you can’t see if his invisibility was buffed anymore.

I know a lot of people are against the idea of copying the cloak from tf2, but you also have to understand that Phantom doesn’t instantly kill people from behind, and it’s the only thing that would balance full cloak and having the best positioning tool in the game.

In his current state, sure I CAN play him, but that doesn’t I mean I SHOULD. He’s not worth using in a squad of 3, I’d take Nader any day. So, I’d say he needs a rework, like I described above.[/quote]
His kit seems to be a lot in favor towards combat. 110 health, shield that allows him to avoid combat and adsorb damage, and the katana.

He surely cant be a support, even his role call seems to support the idea he’s an assualt merc.

Thunder, Nader, and Fragger as I explained before are not necessarily better at performing but simply have a lower skill ceiling then Phantom.
If you use Phantom right you can easily surpass other mercs.[/quote]

If that’s true then why do we not see him used in 5v5?

If he’s an assault class then why is he defined as a spooky sneaky ghost? Rather than an in your face merc like Fragger or Thunder.

You can’t deny that even though he plays like an assault merc due to a terrible execution on Splash Damage’s part, that he was always meant to be a stealth class. Even in Alpha he was meant to be that way but was nerfed because they can’t get it through their head that fighting someone you can’t see is frustrating.

[WaffleMonster]

Phantom is a merc that should not exist in this game, buffing him would piss off a huge amount of the community. atm he’s a fun TDM merc and there isn’t any need to change that.