Please buff phantom in the next patch.

(Killerbee) #1

I know this has been mentioned a million times before but I’m going to bring it up yet again in hopes that the devs give phantom much needed buffs in the next weeks fine tuning patch.

With redeye released phantom now has a hard counter to go along with vasili’s heartbeat sensor, so there is no real excuse to leave phantom the way he is right now because people can now pick to counter him if he does too well in the event that you do buff him.

Right now phantoms main problems are that his cloak is too visible and too loud. Any player that has played more then 10 games can easily spot and kick him out of cloak even half a map away. It makes sneaking around against aware people nearly impossible as most maps don’t have too many back doors to begin with. Another issue is that ambushing is totally invalidated by how loud his cloak is even when standing still, how am I supposed to kill people 1v1 when they can hear me sitting behind a corner?

PLEASE buff his cloak to actually be a cloak, take away the shield if you have to but give him a reliable way to actually do his job : getting behind the enemy and killing key targets. I understand that advanced requests like giving phantom silenced weapons and a secondary ability related to assassination is asking too much right now but consider that too.

I made a thread on the dirtybomb reddit about this as well if you want a longer version of whats currently wrong with him. I hope this does not fall on deaf ears as he is by far the weakest merc in the game I’m sure both casual and competitive players can agree with me here.

(JC916) #2

I’ve changed my phantom playstyle recently, and I’ve come to a conclusion.
He’s not a bad defender. If you wait in a corner standing still then use the katana against squishy mercs, you can insta kill them. You should also move around less. If a heavy merc comes by, use the smg. In my experience using a katana against a heavy merc if way too risky.
Despite all this, phantom still doesn’t hold up as a viable merc. Fragger is a better killing merc than him in pretty much every way.

(Killerbee) #3

[quote=“JC916;65159”]I’ve changed my phantom playstyle recently, and I’ve come to a conclusion.
He’s not a bad defender. If you wait in a corner standing still then use the katana against squishy mercs, you can insta kill them. You should also move around less. If a heavy merc comes by, use the smg. In my experience using a katana against a heavy merc if way too risky.
Despite all this, phantom still doesn’t hold up as a viable merc. Fragger is a better killing merc than him in pretty much every way.[/quote]

Currently phantom only really works because he has the best SMG in the game the kek. It’s also part of his best loadout that also makes katana heavy attack 1 hit 100hp classes like vasili. If the kek gets nerfed (and it probably will as it makes every other smg seem like total trash in comparison) then phantom will be totally unplayable since the crotzni and blishlock fire too slowly to make ambushing viable.

Right now the best way to play phantom is to try your best to slowly sneak around the fight and kek peoples heads in while they are distracted with something else. I still do very well with him in pubs but that is purely because 90% of the time there is nobody on the enemy team who is experienced with fighting phantom. The moment a good player picks up on what I’m doing my life becomes 200% harder because I know that one person will see me sneaking around on the side and reveal my position every time.

Playing phantom against competent people is the most frustrating thing in this game honestly. You will never get to 1 shot kira, vasili, aura, proxy, sparks with katana because they are all faster then you and the cloak makes such a huge noise nobody will let you even close. Even if you get close enough to try and do a heavy melee swing there is no way you will hit it as its so slow and clumsy now its pretty much worthless against anyone who is not standing still.

(Conqelson) #4

Nope.

(-0wnage-) #5

Nerf him or buff him… doesn’t matter because he will always be stopped by a Red-Eye now. Long gone is the OP Phantom which stomped holes in enemy lines greater than a freaking rhino.

(gg2ez) #6

[quote=“JC916;65159”]I’ve changed my phantom playstyle recently, and I’ve come to a conclusion.
He’s not a bad defender. If you wait in a corner standing still then use the katana against squishy mercs, you can insta kill them. You should also move around less. If a heavy merc comes by, use the smg. In my experience using a katana against a heavy merc if way too risky.
Despite all this, phantom still doesn’t hold up as a viable merc. Fragger is a better killing merc than him in pretty much every way.[/quote]

That’s a pretty narrow playstyle, I’d rather Phantom go on offensive. If you can focus fire on an enemy and strafe left to right while running up to them, you can pretty easily quick knife/Katana them to kill.

It’s not that Phantom can’t be a defensive merc, but he still works OK as a flanking attack.

(Killerbee) #7

and yet he has still 0 buffs to his name

(Olipops) #8

I must agree with this fine gentleman!

(ludicrousBlast) #9

Make him less visible and (hopefully) add a new ability that helps his team more. He should not be considered recon if he can’t do anything but kill people.

(AlexanderSaladin) #10

When I play him I have another strategy. I cloak, sneak behind enemy lines and then try to attract as many opponents as possible and then run as far away from my teammates as I can. When I do this I plan to die but do so distracting as many opponents as possible to try to allow my team to push through.

(Despaniard) #11

I mainly play as Phantom. I enjoyed him when he came out because I knew he was going to be nerfed. Unfortunately, new players got a hold of the developers ears and whispered their complaints to them so he got a fist full of divine smiting. I still have my good loadout cards which give him a 20% increase to damage and ability duration but it’s not the same now.

It does seem however that THAT is what Phantom is destined to be. A distraction. I’ve gotten experienced with him, and can tango my way out of most gun fights with experienced players, but that is because I have my team behind me. He just is not strong enough anymore and until they change that, he is going to be weak.

(planetaryArtery) #12

[quote=“Killerbee;16267”]I know this has been mentioned a million times before but I’m going to bring it up yet again in hopes that the devs give phantom much needed buffs in the next weeks fine tuning patch.

With redeye released phantom now has a hard counter to go along with vasili’s heartbeat sensor, so there is no real excuse to leave phantom the way he is right now because people can now pick to counter him if he does too well in the event that you do buff him.

Right now phantoms main problems are that his cloak is too visible and too loud. Any player that has played more then 10 games can easily spot and kick him out of cloak even half a map away. It makes sneaking around against aware people nearly impossible as most maps don’t have too many back doors to begin with. Another issue is that ambushing is totally invalidated by how loud his cloak is even when standing still, how am I supposed to kill people 1v1 when they can hear me sitting behind a corner?

PLEASE buff his cloak to actually be a cloak, take away the shield if you have to but give him a reliable way to actually do his job : getting behind the enemy and killing key targets. I understand that advanced requests like giving phantom silenced weapons and a secondary ability related to assassination is asking too much right now but consider that too.

I made a thread on the dirtybomb reddit about this as well if you want a longer version of whats currently wrong with him. I hope this does not fall on deaf ears as he is by far the weakest merc in the game I’m sure both casual and competitive players can agree with me here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dirtybomb/comments/3ga946/now_that_redeye_is_out_can_you_buff_phantom/[/quote]

This is another reason why I quit.
I actually gave a massive post about him personally 6 months ago that got loads of attention; not all positive mind you as this is the internet… but people even tried tagging the devs in, got no reply from them. They don’t care, they couldn’t be bothered to give us a proper sequel to brink and instead sold out for a basic revenue generating online shooter that will die as soon as overwatch is released, and I’m not even a massive blizzard fan, and I wasn’t looking forward to it until recently, but yeah. Do what I did, because nothing interesting has developed with this game since I left. I just thought about coming back and tried to find anything that would, there’s nothing.

(Naonna) #13

Even once Overwatch is released, i’ll gladly play DB. It’s not a shooter with the craziness of a dwarf hammering a sentry, but it’s not as serious as COD where only head shots matter. The reason I personally enjoy DB, even if i’m not great at the game, is the mix of abilities and the more classing elements of the First Person Shooter genre.

(On a side note, the fact that the personalities of each Merc shine through is also a great deal of fun.) - Also, +1 up-vote for this topic’s creator.