Phoenix/Paco Viability

(Laionidas) #1

So when we got Phoenix, whom I generally refer to as ‘Paco’, most of us were happy with a third free merc, but at the same time not too impressed with the one we got. Paco doesn’t heal as much as Sawbonez, doesn’t have Sparks’ safe revive and sniping potential, lacks Aura’s continuous area healing ability, and his self revive is for “noobz”, but doesn’t have much value for serious players as you either shouldn’t get killed or have a buddy to get you back up.

That said, I actually tend to do well with him. If you go full support, and not let the self revive seduce you to lone-wolf, his radial heal ability cab be quite underestimated. The cooldown is low, and with the ‘Healing Reach’ augment, the ability to constantly heal large groups of teammates, yourself included, on the move, seems to be very potent. The only issue seems to be his loadouts (C83 & KE42), as the only two cards that have the ‘Healing Reach’ augment have rather sub-par second and third augments. The KE42 also has the Hochfir, which is garbage, but that might be personal.

Now I was wondering what other’s think of him. Does Paco need a little more love?

(WaffleMonster) #2

He needs a reduction to the cooldown of his healing ability, his healing power just isn’t as good as sawbonez.

(Eox) #3

Phoenix can sustain himself nicely as well as boosting offensives greatly with an instant, powerful heal. However this come with a cost : he can’t sustain the team as well as Sawbonez and Aura can do. He’s extremely good to lead pushes. He’ll hard to play as the only medic of the team though (once again due to the team sustain issue), but you can still expect to sustain your team with healing more than Sparks can do. Like Sparks, he’ll be much more potent as a secondary medic, and can bring more than a second Aura or a second Sawbonez.

His weapons are very good. KEK-10 is just the most consistant SMG you can find, and Hochfir somewhat became a monster due to repeted buffs (seriously, Hochfir is great, give it a second chance). Crotzni is still very potent.

His self revive is somewhat gimmicky, but pretty much forces the enemy to gib you. This can put someone in a dangerous situation just to make sure that you won’t get up again. I think this is something that you can exploit.

I think he’s pretty neat so far. Not a medic that can play alone though, but if there’s a medic that can make a push successful, that’s him.

(Naonna) #4

The moment immediately AFTER a pulse is released makes Pheonix’s ability suffer - Said ability is good once. You can’t use even a small pulse until the firefight is over: even with teammate support, due to its cool down.

(Xan) #5

Well i use him more than sawbonez, because others have a special medpack dodging skills

(Szakalot) #6

i have highest kill/min and score/min with phoenix out of all the medics. phoenix is a beast on pub servers, with lots of players and lots of chaos. in an organized 5v5 his healing suffers a lot though, and is basically a sawbonez lite.

great merc to go on pubs, you can rambo, you can heal a lot, kek with drilled mows people down

(Laionidas) #7

I think I’ll have to agree with all of you. Having Paco as the only medic probably IS bad for the team. However, that says nothing about his viability, just about the role he’s ought to play. Also Xan has a point: in pubs, aid-dodging by teammates in general is a serious issue, and Paco’s ability is less hindered by this because of his mobile radial heal.

Hmmm,… maybe we just need a different charge method for his ability. Like if you release a large pulse it takes longer to recharge, but you can still release a smaller pulse as soon as the charge requirement is met.

(Eox) #8

[quote=“Laionidas;134269”]I think I’ll have to agree with all of you. Having Paco as the only medic probably IS bad for the team. However, that says nothing about his viability, just about the role he’s ought to play. Also Xan has a point: in pubs, aid-dodging by teammates in general is a serious issue, and Paco’s ability is less hindered by this because of his mobile radial heal.

[/quote]

He is viable. Don’t worry about this. He might not be played that much in competition, but he definitely have his niche. A big pulse at the right moment in an offense is oftenly the small boost needed for a push to pierce through… Unless your team is really bad, but that’s more a team balance issue.