Regarding Phantom's Refractive Armor, here is a proposal

(watsyurdeal) #1

So here’s my proposal

Players have the following states that affect their speed

Standing still
Crouch Walking
Walking
Sprinting

My proposal is simple

Standing still - 100% invisibility
Crouch Walking - 100% invisibility
Walking - 84% invisibility
Sprinting - 67% invisibility
Taking damage - 50% invisibility

These values can be adjusted, but basically, Phantom’s visibility currently has little depth, it’d be nice to add a little more. His cloak would be directly affected by how fast Phantom moves, this skill indexes him further and rewards better play against smarter players.

Do you agree with these changes?

(Gi.Am) #2

Visibility is already affected by movementspeed (atleast including standing still, walking, sprinting) and taking damage greatly affects visibility since it will kill the stealth in no time.

While Phantom is now way too visible with the latest changes. having him 100% invisible while standing still and crouch walking would slow him down way too much and you would get a ton of bad phantoms that would try to crouch sneak all the time gimping your team pretty hard. This game is fast with very fast moving fronts and fights having phantoms slow sneak will mean he and his firepower will be absent from the fights way too much. I mean you are allready taking a risk right now in walking through high traffic areas to get behind.

(Kaori1) #3

An uncloaked Phantom is now more stealthy than a cloaked one.

#RedditBalance

(watsyurdeal) #4

[quote=“Gi.Am;51246”]Visibility is already affected by movementspeed (atleast including standing still, walking, sprinting) and taking damage greatly affects visibility since it will kill the stealth in no time.

While Phantom is now way too visible with the latest changes. having him 100% invisible while standing still and crouch walking would slow him down way too much and you would get a ton of bad phantoms that would try to crouch sneak all the time gimping your team pretty hard. This game is fast with very fast moving fronts and fights having phantoms slow sneak will mean he and his firepower will be absent from the fights way too much. I mean you are allready taking a risk right now in walking through high traffic areas to get behind. [/quote]

True but in order for Phantom to be a viable picking class like Fragger, Vasilli, or Nader, he needs to actually have his ability work with the tools he has.

If the enemy can see you coming from in front of them, then what is the point? Why not just play another class and flank them instead?

If you force a Phantom to walk instead of sprint to be invisible, yes, he will be slower, but that’s the point. He can’t just rush up to a Sparks or Aura, he has to move slowly and carefully until he gets within striking range, like a snake or a shark.

Crouch walking I agree is too slow, and I honestly would prefer this.

If he starts sprinting, he becomes visible

If he takes damage, he becomes visible

Any other period of time I’d rather he be completely invisible, 100%, I’d happily give up that armor crap to actually play stealthily.

(Eox) #5

You may want to tweak the values. I agree on the principle, but maybethe values you give does not suit. Also, maybe precise that this does not come alone. People may think that this is just another nerf added in addition of the most recent one.

I begin to wonder if we should make him invisible at 100%, but prevent him from attacking while invisible, and enabling contextual actions while invisible (helping up, disarming/arming C4, repairing, etc…). Like this, the invisibility would be a real stealth tool. Make it act like that :

  • 100% invisibility.
  • You can’t use your weapons while invisible.
  • Your character blink if you are hit by a weapon or touch an enemy.
  • It takes 1 second to exit the invisibility state.
  • Enemies can still hear footsteps and the humming sound.

This is heavily inspired by how the Spy’s invisibility from TF2 works. Maybe it’s the way to do it.

(watsyurdeal) #6

[quote=“Eox;51387”]You may want to tweak the values. I agree on the principle, but maybethe values you give does not suit. Also, maybe precise that this does not come alone. People may think that this is just another nerf added in addition of the most recent one.

I begin to wonder if we should make him invisible at 100%, but prevent him from attacking while invisible, and enabling contextual actions while invisible (helping up, disarming/arming C4, repairing, etc…). Like this, the invisibility would be a real stealth tool. Make it act like that :

  • 100% invisibility.
  • You can’t use your weapons while invisible.
  • Your character blink if you are hit by a weapon or touch an enemy.
  • It takes 1 second to exit the invisibility state.
  • Enemies can still hear footsteps and the humming sound.

This is heavily inspired by how the Spy’s invisibility from TF2 works. Maybe it’s the way to do it.[/quote]

Yes but the Spy can kill anyone instantly from behind, while Phantom can only kill 100 hp classes or less. So I have to disagree there, TF2 and Dirty Bomb are way too different to compare here.

Yes, you may still die if he gets in that first strike, but with the recent changes like the smaller window for dealing damage with the katana, makes this harder, even more so a follow up strike. And if the Phantom decides to use his gun well he’s no different than someone who flanked you, it’s just that Phantom would be specialized in that. I don’t think we should prevent attacking or any action till he’s uncloaked, just leave that aspect it as it is now. Like I said in previous thread the real issue here is the armor, but with the recent changes to damage bleeding through cloak to his health, and longer cooldown between uses…I think it can stay, and still be balanced.

I think Phantom could be very balanced if only sprinting and taking damage while cloaked were all that made him visible, the rest of the time he’s invisible to the naked eye. Unless you happen to be red eye, in which case you’ll see him, drain his cloak and he’ll be screwed.

(Snark) #7

100% invisibility for camping? How’s that fun for anyone?

(Gi.Am) #8

well I do agree that it’s ok that he needs to walk to get a reasonable invis. The visibility values as they are now are too high across the bank tho. Personaly I don’t want phantom to become “the Spy” TF2 has a different gameflow/speed different classes/mercs. The spy there fullfills a different role to phantom here and faces a different matchup. No use to shoehorn him into a role that is not needed in DB. I.e the whole sabotage aspect of TF2 is not present in DB the gameflow is quite a bit less static and deployables are easily destroyed by any merc (sorry if the TF2 stuff is off last time I played it it wasn’t F2P maybe it has changed since).

As far as “fixing Phantom” goes while I don’t think that removing the shieldgate was a good Idea, since they shifted the usefulness of it from good against single highdamage to good against small arms. playing with the overall health of the shiled would have been better imo preserving the protection against unforseen sudden stuff while making constant damage being able to cope better against it.

But that aside looking at where he is now and what I would do if I where in control:
I would scale the visibility down a bit maybe, to something between what we had before and what we have now. Right now spotting him is way to easy imo. The other thing is, for someone who is kinda build around the katana/melee he has no incentive to get close anymore. Hitting someone has become fairly hard and he is quite slow. I proposed it somewhere else before I guess, but now it makes even more sense.

Give him an 50% - 100% damage buff on a melee strike from stealth. Downside no matter how short the stealthtime was, it sets the cooldown to the full 10 seconds. This would do several things.
First of it would make melee more attractive (for obvious reasons).
Since melee and getting close and around unseen has become harder it would increase the skillfloor of phantom (since Phantoms would try to get close again instead of simply using the ranged weapons).

The other big thing that this would do, is that it would increase the range of viable targets for Phantom taking the pressure off the squishies who are pretty much the only ones phantom can threaten right now.
If he has the possibility to take out other mercs he suddenly has to prioritize based on what is actually a threat instead of simply killing proxy over and over again.

But because of the forced full cooldown after an atack from stealth (in effect he would get to modes either decloak first and maybe, shave of valuable seconds on the cooldown or disabling it with the attack and getting 10 seconds) he would also need to have an exit strategie after the kill.

(Snark) #9

Unlike a TF2 spy, Phantom is very combat viable in a 1v1 firefight. Is OP assuming that the kek and shield would be removed?

(watsyurdeal) #10

No I am not

But the Spy can instantly kill ANYONE he wants, whereas Phantom can not. Plus there’s no trick stabbing or crazy stuff like that.

Pretty much Phantom is screwed when fighting against more than one person. But the cloak change would at least allow him to get a pick, then disappear again.

I’d even argue for removing the freaking armor and cloak drain to have this, and the cooldown nerf reverted.

At least then he’d behave like an actual stealth class.

(MvMArcher) #11

[left][quote=“Watsyurdeal;51649”]
But the Spy can instantly kill ANYONE he wants, whereas Phantom can not. Plus there’s no trick stabbing or crazy stuff like that.[/quote]

How about having melee weapons deal more damage to the back of characters?
Not quite an insta kill like TF2, but a % bonus (the exact number this should be, I do not know).[/left]

(frolicsomeCrane) #12

I’m not even using the cloak for invisibility, I’m literally using it as a shield and to bail, Phantom is visible as hell now.

(kittenishPond) #13

Seems fair to me