Reddit's reaction to Phantom.

[Jojack]

[quote=“Jojack;42163”]Can you tell me how it will be depleted so low? Why would a Phantom activate his shield so long before an engagement that it’s over 50% depleted by the time he actually needs it? The cooldown on this ability is laughable. Activate it for a couple seconds at a time, as needed, to get into position. It’s constantly off cool down…like literally constantly. As long as your not an idiot and have it running 24/7 when you don’t need it. And even if you are an idiot it takes like 3-5 seconds for it to come off of max cool down. Everything about this character including his obvious best load out is completely broken and I feel like I’m getting trolled by the devs. They can’t be this stupid.

Depends how attentive the enemy team is I guess. The only time you can probably pull off having it near full charge is catching enemies out of spawn if you did manage to sneak behind. Otherwise you’re going to want to be using it to try and avoid them noticing that you’re coming.

Against bad teams, yeah, I guess you could hide in a corner and let it recharge. I doubt attentive players will let you though, they’ll just come kill you, then you’ll have to fight with no shield at all.[/quote]

Read my previous post that outlines how I play Phantom. Wait for enemy to get into firefight with your team, flank and take out high value targets, retreat, wait, repeat. It’s not hard, takes very little skill, just takes a bit of patience. They can’t hunt you when they are being shot at. They can’t defend themselves. The main time you need the shield is to retreat after taking out high value targets. They can’t follow you because they are being shot at.

Playing against a Phantom player like that is just not fun. Like I said, it’s not necessarily that he’s OP from a raw power perspective. It’s that he changes the game into a ghost hunt that just doesn’t fit with the general flow of the game that most people have fallen in love with.

[ironicPlot]

The problem is that he destroys the “front line” that normally exists in matches. Previously, you knew pretty much where your team was, and where the enemy was, and you could judge where was safe accordingly. Now you have to check behind you the whole freaking time and even still you get killed from behind all the time. It means you never feel safe which really takes away from the experience in my opinion. I like the idea of a character with a big sword thats deadly up close, But dont give him a goddamn invisibility cloak that lets him so easily sneak up behind me and kill me before i have any chance to react.

[Ghosthree3]

[quote=“Jojack;42181”]Read my previous post that outlines how I play Phantom. Wait for enemy to get into firefight with your team, flank and take out high value targets, retreat, wait, repeat. It’s not hard, takes very little skill, just takes a bit of patience. They can’t hunt you when they are being shot at. They can’t defend themselves. The main time you need the shield is to retreat after taking out high value targets. They can’t follow you because they are being shot at.

Playing against a Phantom player like that is just not fun. Like I said, it’s not necessarily that he’s OP from a raw power perspective. It’s that he changes the game into a ghost hunt that just doesn’t fit with the general flow of the game that most people have fallen in love with.[/quote]
Yes, I do play that way tbh. But I feel I could still be countered, especially if a single Vasilli placed a good HBS down. HBS truly ruins Phantom’s day.

[Jojack]

[quote=“Ghosthree3;42195”][quote=“Jojack;42181”]Read my previous post that outlines how I play Phantom. Wait for enemy to get into firefight with your team, flank and take out high value targets, retreat, wait, repeat. It’s not hard, takes very little skill, just takes a bit of patience. They can’t hunt you when they are being shot at. They can’t defend themselves. The main time you need the shield is to retreat after taking out high value targets. They can’t follow you because they are being shot at.

Playing against a Phantom player like that is just not fun. Like I said, it’s not necessarily that he’s OP from a raw power perspective. It’s that he changes the game into a ghost hunt that just doesn’t fit with the general flow of the game that most people have fallen in love with.[/quote]
Yes, I do play that way tbh. But I feel I could still be countered, especially if a single Vasilli placed a good HBS down. HBS truly ruins Phantom’s day.[/quote]

That’s true, but if a Phantom forces the HBS to be used defensively instead of as a the powerful scouting tool it was intended to be, he’s already effected the game positively for his team. Needing to do nothing else, he is already a positive member of the team. Now, as long as he is aware enough to avoid the tiny radius of the HBS it’s all gravy. Even if he doesn’t, a 120HP merc with a kek 10 is a really valuable member of any squad.

Sidebar: The biggest problem I ran into last night was a really good vassili, who covered himself with a HBS and had a Bushwhacker turret guarding his flank just inside of the HBS sensor. End result was if you flanked him, you lost your shield, got shot by a turret which subsequently alerted him to your presence so he could finish you off with his tolen. If you tried a straight approach he rarely missed the head shot.

That’s a nice counter, but requires a really good vasilli with a pocket Bushwhacker and also sacrifice two valuable tools for your team (the HBS and the turret) to try to counter one guy on the other team that may or may not attempt a flank on the sniper position.

[scrub_lord]

[quote=“scrub;42134”]All it takes is a few shots to take out his shield and it is almost always depleted quite a bit before engagements anyways. Phantoms charging you are just easy headshots.

You gotta be kidding me. ANYONE charging you are easy headshots, they are also usually bad players. Quit justifying the class based off terrible usage of the class. You will rarely see a good Phantom because a good Phantom will wait until you are shooting someone else to insta kill you. His shield will be depleted before the engagement? You’ve really played against some trash Phantoms. His shield should NEVER be depleted before engagements. How on earth would it get depleted BEFORE engagements?[/quote]

Your arguments are so conflicting that it’s hilarious. If a Phantom is going to wait to engage, he has to be far enough away or up close while cloaked. Both of these will deplete his ability a lot before he can engage with his Katana. This is why most charge in head-on, because they get the most out of their shield and because most players suck.

If he decides to flank he has to do it while cloaked, which will use up basically all his shield, and your entire team has to be completely oblivious, allowing people to get behind you which would be a problem against other classes too.

The problem to me sounds like players are just lacking awareness. Have you even played Phantom? Sprinting quickly uses up his shield. The only time Phantom should ever be a major problem for anyone is if they run into him while flanking or pushing alone.

[Ghosthree3]

If he decides to flank he has to either do it while cloaked, which will use up basically all his shield, or your entire team has to be completely oblivious and allowing people to get behind you which would be a problem against other classes too.

Yeah this is pretty much how I see it. There’s no real reason he should be getting behind a team.

[ayybailey]

It’s simple. Phantom is for people who only care about their K/D rate and not about the team or objective.

The thing is, he can drop behind enemy lines and one-shot/two-shot 3 or more mercs at a time because his HP/Speed/Damage makes him hard to stop before he can do a lot of damage to a team’s dynamic.

When you’re losing half of your team 4 out of 5 times a Phantom respawns, it’s going to be difficult to complete an objective.

[Jojack]

[quote=“Jojack;42155”][quote=“scrub;42134”]All it takes is a few shots to take out his shield and it is almost always depleted quite a bit before engagements anyways. Phantoms charging you are just easy headshots.

You gotta be kidding me. ANYONE charging you are easy headshots, they are also usually bad players. Quit justifying the class based off terrible usage of the class. You will rarely see a good Phantom because a good Phantom will wait until you are shooting someone else to insta kill you. His shield will be depleted before the engagement? You’ve really played against some trash Phantoms. His shield should NEVER be depleted before engagements. How on earth would it get depleted BEFORE engagements?[/quote]

Your arguments are so conflicting that it’s hilarious. If a Phantom is going to wait to engage, he has to be far enough away or up close while cloaked. Both of these will deplete his ability a lot before he can engage with his Katana. This is why most charge in head-on, because they get the most out of their shield and because most players suck.

If he decides to flank he has to do it while cloaked, which will use up basically all his shield, and your entire team has to be completely oblivious, allowing people to get behind you which would be a problem against other classes too.

The problem to me sounds like players are just lacking awareness. Have you even played Phantom? Sprinting quickly uses up his shield. The only time Phantom should ever be a major problem for anyone is if they run into him while flanking or pushing alone.[/quote]

I’ve played Phantom almost exclusively since he released. Everything you said is wrong. You use the shield for a couple seconds as the enemy runs by. You then engage the enemy from behind. You then cloak up and escape. Why is that hard to understand? It’s not hard to find a place out of vision of a rushing new spawn wave. Give yourself 95% invisibility while standing still and it’s very easy. This takes a couple seconds of shield. leaving your cloak off cooldown completely and no reason to even cloak because the enemy is engaged with your team by now. You take out high value targets, cloak up and escape using your 195 HP and your team as cover.