Except we don’t just kneejerk cry about it. We look at things from a competitive view of balance. Everyone knows that these mercs are useless and at best situational. Why use them when we have Fragger, Red Eye, Stoker and Nader? No reason at all. The only one worth using is Rhino and that’s to hold one specific spot on a map with a pocket Aura.
Or are we going to balance for pubs now? That’s a terrible idea.
I think Phantom would greatly benefit from a speed increase. Nothing drastic, but making him as fast as Fletcher would make him better without having to rework him at all. They do have the same health pool so it wouldn’t be unfair.
Fletcher Speed: 420
Phantom Speed: 410
Very slight increase, but notice how much jumpier Fletcher is compared to the other 110 HP mercs.
He still wouldn’t bring anything to the game that other mercs can’t do better though. He’s this wannabe-recon with no purpose.
[quote=“signofzeta;122067”]The problem why some people keep on thinking Phantom is Assault because of the whole “Phantom can only kill” quote from Splash Damage, and then they come up with some fallacious arguments.
I’m just going to mention an illicit minor fallacy
Fragger is an Assault
Fragger is a merc who just kills
Therefore all mercs who just kills are assault.
Or the affirming the consequent fallacy.
If this merc is an assault merc, then it is a merc who only kills.
This merc only kills.
Therefore it is an assault merc.[/quote]
@signofzeta
All mercs besides Phantom are defined by their support abilities. Look at the categories in Dirty Bomb:
Medic: Heals and revives
Fire Support: Provides ammo
Engineer: Completes and protects objectives
Recon: Provides information
Assault: Murders
Phantom is the odd man out in terms of these categories. He’s an outlier in this logic, and since the outlier isn’t that dramatic the logic still stands.
[quote=“JJMAJR;122958”][quote=“signofzeta;122067”]The problem why some people keep on thinking Phantom is Assault because of the whole “Phantom can only kill” quote from Splash Damage, and then they come up with some fallacious arguments.
I’m just going to mention an illicit minor fallacy
Fragger is an Assault
Fragger is a merc who just kills
Therefore all mercs who just kills are assault.
Or the affirming the consequent fallacy.
If this merc is an assault merc, then it is a merc who only kills.
This merc only kills.
Therefore it is an assault merc.[/quote]
@signofzeta
All mercs besides Phantom are defined by their support abilities. Look at the categories in Dirty Bomb:
Medic: Heals and revives
Fire Support: Provides ammo
Engineer: Completes and protects objectives
Recon: Provides information
Assault: Murders
Phantom is the odd man out in terms of these categories. He’s an outlier in this logic, and since the outlier isn’t that dramatic the logic still stands.[/quote]
It doesn’t matter. All Splash Damage said was Phantom only knows how to kill. That’s it. They never said anything of what an Assault or a Recon is. Assault being murderers and Recon providing information is what YOU say Assault and Recon is.
Assault is the take the enemy head on with big guns trope. This is true because LMG’s are only available to assault class, and the two mercs who don’t carry LMG, have a special heavy weapon ability.
Recon is the spy, assassin, sneak around, make sure enemy doesn’t see you trope. This is true because all of Phantom, Vasili, and Redeye specialize in attacking enemies without the enemy seeing them. They are the “I see you, you can’t see me” merc. It’s just that Phantom is a selfish recon merc.
I stated what each category of classes are. With only one outlier. Nader can play sneaky as well, and get rewarded by murdering the enemy team with knives and self-destruction.
Not only that, but at the ranges which snipers become viable Kira, Arty, Stoker, and Thunder can take out enemies too, because of their battle rifles. Arty’s abilities are also pretty stealthy too, while Stoker and Skyhammer have to throw a projectile and Kira has a big warning to her laser, Arty is a lot more subtle.
[quote=“signofzeta;123072”]Assault is the take the enemy head on with big guns trope. This is true because LMG’s are only available to assault class, and the two mercs who don’t carry LMG, have a special heavy weapon ability.
Recon is the spy, assassin, sneak around, make sure enemy doesn’t see you trope. This is true because all of Phantom, Vasili, and Redeye specialize in attacking enemies without the enemy seeing them. They are the “I see you, you can’t see me” merc. It’s just that Phantom is a selfish recon merc.[/quote]
Vasilli and Redeye aren’t that skilled in hiding from sight. They are mainly used to make it easier for the rest of the team to develop a strategy against the enemies through information, or watch the team’s back while they are ahead.
Redeye is godforsaken crap too because his spotting ability is weak. If you think that using smoke and mirrors is going to make your team invisible, you are just being a hindrace. Even a redeye rush is shit against a balanced/competent team because that the other team can play assault and fire support to clear the way.
Using multiple smoke grenades isn’t stealth at all, it’s just making a wall of bullets, for you and the enemy team. So nothing really changes.
Heck, even Thunder is a stealthier class than Redeye. Flash someone’s face. I see you, you can’t see me…
And Thunder’s pretty garbage after the fact.
Personally, I think Thunder needs to have a way to just mess with people’s vision as seen when you have a player in the blast radius but not in direct line of sight of the bomb.
Restriction or loss of mouse control one way or another back but no more blinding people anymore since it means enemies still see health bars and their Hud. Taking into consideration that someone being blind could mean they’re not even remotely near the blast radius of the grenade’s stun movement speed area snare.
Hoping more for the former than an outright blinding the entire enemy screen as it seams more fun and because Flashbangs =/= Concussion Grenades, a nice touch on how to tell who is more concussed is maybe having a lightning strike or concussion grenade symbol over enemies, that’s more opague based on how much the concussion grenade has affected them.
Rhino, My only gripe is that Rhino isn’t good at attacking.
Rhino’s extremely dependant on a medic and this can be solved with just swapping him with a Fragger/Nader/Thunder with ammo every now and then, Which also work equally as effective on attack and defense which contradicts many of Rhino’s lines of actually being a good front line charger to soak up damage.
My only thoughts would be for his walking speed with his minigun’s barrels spinning be the same as his walking speed without, thus taking away the even slower “shoot me I’m here” walking speed that turns his head into a bullet magnet, at the price of no sprinting/jumping with the minigun equiped, I think.
Phantom, I’ve got a couple of posts suggesting just removing the shielding aspect of Phantom’s Refractive Armor as it makes no sense in the games context of health/speed, but instead make him a 120-125 HP merc at the speed of a 100-110 with it explained that it’s because his armor is that light.
Maybe making it so that when Phantom stands still his cloak doesn’t drain at all or maybe even recharges.
Finally the one I bring up constantly is a copy of Brink’s Comm’s Hack, in which Phantom uses his enemy’s communication network to spot all enemies. Fitting his “Don’t trust him with your phone” bit of his bio, making him in a way the Recon equivalent of a True Sight character, of course at the price of exposing himself while hacking an enemies phone which the other Recon mercs don’t have to worry about. That really makes him better at taking out lone players and damaging the rest of the team at maybe a larger cooldown than other Recon abilities and a short window of opportunity to interact with downed/dead but not gibbed enemies for it to go off… and maybe a really loud obnoxious “HAHA GUYS I’VE GOT YOUR PHOOOOONE~!” line coming from Phantom, because he’s that much of a Dick.
Hell, give Phantom a flashbang, if you’re going with that Thunder route I said, one could quickly katana an enemy to death while they’re blind in a hit or two.
Yeah, that’s what I’d like Phantom to do. Either get a spotting ability, or get a piece of area denial, no matter how temporary. His cloak takes out things that the concussion grenade deals with in the latter situation, so it doesn’t even need to EMP stuff.
[quote=“Jaeger;121609”]I’ve been summoned apparently.
Phantom needs something to make him more of a teamplayer, or just anything that doesn’t make him the meatshield with a gun he is right now. Something, at this point I don’t even care what it is as long as it picks him up from the Useless-pit.
Thunder just needs more concustency (pun intended) with his nades and more efficiency. Half the time you can’t tell if the group is actually being concussed or not and it just got worse with the removal of cooking. Seriously, why did they remove cooking concunades? Then there is the fact that I’m leaning more towards what @LCTR mentioned in his video; Whether it might be better to swap Fragger and Thunder with each other in terms of health and speed. The more I think about it the more it makes sense really.
When it comes to Rhino, I would honestly say he is in a somewhat okay spot. He fills the niche role he is built for and does a good job at it. The loadouts are just badly balanced if you ask me.[/quote]
I Defintely Agree about phantom he really needs to be updated to become more of a teamplayer because right now all he can do is run with armor that might as well not even be invis since ppl can clearly see you and ppl can hear the camo since for some reason it really freaking loud. About Thunder they do need to make some sort of indicator to let the person know they have stunned someone and they really need to allow the cooking again, and honestly Rhino okay the moment, if you use him you just need to set him in the right place so that he can actually work, but most people tend to just round with him acting like they can survive anything but they forget how bad the accuracy is on the minigun.
@Tommy I agree with yah! (About Phantom) hmm it seems thunder recently got a buff, rhino might need it in the future but for know people are \focusing on different merc’s … So i think 3 months ago phantom was OP, and newbies could try him once and get 1st with him, so they buffed him and he is know UP (UnderPowered) so i do hope that Devs could buff him. I honestly don’t really care how they do it, I just want to have fun with Phantom again! thanks and have a amazing day!! God bless, -Kristin-
I don’t see why Rhino needs change.
He is just very situational, but strongest than any other merc in some limited situation.
So what makes him strong is his positioning, and medic.
Everybody terrifies to meet him close range already.
If someone ever played World of Tanks, Rhino is like T95 you know.
Two worst mercs are Thunder and Phantom right now.
Phantom’s problem is Assault-like location and lacking base movement speed, and Thunder’s problem is way too low HP with MK.46’s underwhelming firepower.