I’ve been playing Phoenix a lot since he came out and he is a load of fun, but I can’t help but feel as though I would be doing a much better job of healing/reviving as any other medic.
Let’s compare Phoenix to other medics.
- Sawbonez’s med packs are able to heal teammates up to full HP very quickly, with the Potent Packs perk. Not only that, but Sawbonez has access to loadouts that have Extra Supplies/Potent Packs and Get Up (arguably the strongest perk, definitely the strongest for medics). So, this gives Sawbonez excellent healing and reviving capabilities. Sawbonez is also able to throw med packs on the ground and allow the cooldown to recover while those packs remain on the ground
- Aura’s healing station has a fairly decent healing rate, which can’t be interrupted and is also able to heal entire team, the damaged people are also able to come, be healed and leave whenever they want and if placed properly, the healing station can be difficult to take out without explosives. In addition to those points, Aura has access to loadouts with Extra Supplies/Healing Reach and Get Up, this results in her having powerful healing and reviving.
- Sparks currently is the best at reviving, she’s able to revive quickly, put those players onto decent HP and do it from a safe distance. Her healing currently is the worst (worse than Phoenix), but it makes up for her very powerful revives. She also has access to loadouts that buff both her reviving and healing (though Potent Packs is broken for her iirc, a bug is really not relevant to this, I’ll also be ignoring the fact that Potent Packs is allegedly broken for Phoenix too). Though, there is a few notable differences between her healing and Phoenix’s which, in my opinion, don’t make her healing very much weaker than Phoenix’s.
1. She has access to 4 med packs, allowing her to divide them as she pleases.
2. The med packs are instant healing, just like Phoenix’s healing pulse
3. They have a relatively short cooldown.
4. Once thrown, the med packs will remain on the ground. This allows her pile med packs on the ground and then have the cooldown recover. So, not only will there be ready healing for players to pick up whenever they are needed, it also allows Sparks to simultaneously carry healing with her.
With all that in mind, let’s now take a look at Phoenix’s healing. Phoenix’s healing can be an instant heal for quite a high amount of HP and is able to hit multiple people at the same time. Whilst that may appear to be good on paper, there are a few flaws.
- Phoenix only has access to one pulse at a time, if someone misses the heal, they will have to wait. It doesn’t drop on the ground like Sawbonez’s and Sparks’ packs and it isn’t permanent like Aura’s station.
- A tie in to that first point, if the pulse was used to heal a lot of HP, the cooldown is almost as long as the cooldown for the healing station. This means Phoenix is the least capable of any medic at sustaining healing.
- Phoenix is completely vulnerable whilst charging the healing pulse, he is unable to do anything except move around. Other medics healing takes less than a couple seconds to use and then they are able to be back into the fight.
Currently, the only way to make Phoenix’s healing as powerful as the other mercs is with the use of the KE81 loadout, but again, this is flawed.
Firstly, the Hochfir is his worst primary. The KEK-10 and Crotzni are considered by most to be better.
Secondly, this loadout lacks Get Up, an extremely powerful perk for medics. Considering other medics are able to buff their healing to be as good as Phoenix’s with this loadout, they will also have better reviving capability.
So, now comes my proposals to help improve Phoenix.
- Reduce the max healing of his healing pulse and give him an extra use of it. This would allow him to cover more people with his healing.
AND/OR - Reduce the cooldown of his healing pulse, allowing him to activate it more often.
AND/OR - Replace Cool on the KE81 loadout with Get Up. This will then give him healing and reviving as potent as the other medics.
Now, of course, many people will have different opinions on how powerful his healing is and that’s exactly why I’ve created this poll/thread. I really want to have a good discussion on where Phoenix’s healing fits into the game.
EDIT: I forgot to touch on his self-revive. With him having this ability, I understand that it is only fair that his healing is not as powerful. However, I do feel as though his healing is so much weaker that the self-revive does not make up for it. It’s an extremely situational ability and probably the hardest ability to pull off.
EDIT2: I also forgot to note that while Phoenix’s healing has the potential to be better than the other medics, it is exceedingly difficult to get it to be even on par with the rest.
