Spent an hour specing Phantoms for gunplay. Probably about 90% of gun battles lost without cloak

(KayDubz) #1

The title explains it really. I know there’s been an uproar over Phantom and numerous thread. But after reading very very good posts from @Eox and @Jojack , I decide to spend some time specing how people use Phantom and what their skill level was.

Didn’t matter if it was a lvl 6 or a lvl 10 in a server full of low levelers, and it didnt matter if it was a level 19 in a lvl 10+ server…what I mostly saw was people getting into position with cloak and giving them a katana in the back. And if the opposing them saw them first…they would either rush forward and try to get the kill with cloak…or turn and run away.

Whenever caught in a gun battle with his cloak dropped, 90% of the time it seemed like the Phantom lost. Thus Im in agreement with many people who think he’s a very noob friendly merc.

And of course despite this, the Phantoms were at the top of their teams anyway. Seems like a lot of people dont use him skillfully and simply catch people by surprise. Personally I think he’s a imbalanced merc that doesnt really belong in DB. The game plays differently now. But because money is involved now and the game is public, I know they wont remove his ability completely.

There’s just something extra lame about a melee character who racks up sword kills in an FPS game supposedly centered around skillful gunplay. I think invisibility is too big of an advantage, along with the shield, and too dependent on graphics settings. (Eox and others have shown us that graphics settings have a good affect on how easy it is to spot Phantom. Pretty lame for an FPS game)

(watsyurdeal) #2

What I find funny is how people complain about him, yet people seem to be catching on very easily how to take him down.

He kills anyone who goes off alone with ease, groups and sticking together is where he has significant trouble.

That, and I’d honestly trade the damage absorption and cloak drain on hit for the same cloak the Infiltrator has. Where it drains based on speed, and the only time he’d show is when running.

Think about it, 80% of the time you are running and it’s something you can do constantly. So forcing Phantom to walk to get complete visibility actually forces him to think tactically, rather than just rush in and swipe everyone that moves.

(Kroad) #3

pub phantoms aren’t very good, like 90% of them use only katana when they should be using kek10
kek10 has higher dps than m4, phantom has more or as much hp than all but fragger and rhino and he should always have the jump on enemies. Phantoms should be winning all gunfights they enter, no reason to lose them at all.

(Tytaine) #4

He has 120 hp without cloak and a kek-10, Bushwhacker seems to do just fine with his kek-10 and similar hp. I don’t see why Phantom would have any trouble with gunfights.

(stealthyBass) #5

[quote=“Kroad;43223”]pub phantoms aren’t very good, like 90% of them use only katana when they should be using kek10
kek10 has higher dps than m4, phantom has more or as much hp than all but fragger and rhino and he should always have the jump on enemies. Phantoms should be winning all gunfights they enter, no reason to lose them at all.[/quote]

He has potential HP with the shield. It’s not a full time thing or at a constant level. Plenty of them lose gunfights either because they are sword obsessed or like me haven’t adjusted to the aim punch added in.

(frolicsomeCrane) #6

What I don’t understand is why people prefer katana over the stilleto on phantom, they have roughly the same damage, but the stilleto is way faster, even though shorter.

(deerMirror) #7

I love the stilleto but the amount of reach on the katana is reeeaalllyy nice. In general the katana is a lot more forgiving if you miss with it because of the reach, that’s a big selling point on it if you aren’t exactly the best at melee.

(KayDubz) #8

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;43222”]What I find funny is how people complain about him, yet people seem to be catching on very easily how to take him down.

He kills anyone who goes off alone with ease, groups and sticking together is where he has significant trouble.

That, and I’d honestly trade the damage absorption and cloak drain on hit for the same cloak the Infiltrator has. Where it drains based on speed, and the only time he’d show is when running.

Think about it, 80% of the time you are running and it’s something you can do constantly. So forcing Phantom to walk to get complete visibility actually forces him to think tactically, rather than just rush in and swipe everyone that moves.[/quote]
Except the videos and numerous evidence of him kamikaze-ing a group and getting at least 2 kills…and sometimes 3 or 4.

(KayDubz) #9

Stiletto cant kill 2 or 3 people in a single animation can it? Katana can.

(deerMirror) #10

[quote=“Kay-Dubz;43237”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;43222”]What I find funny is how people complain about him, yet people seem to be catching on very easily how to take him down.

He kills anyone who goes off alone with ease, groups and sticking together is where he has significant trouble.

That, and I’d honestly trade the damage absorption and cloak drain on hit for the same cloak the Infiltrator has. Where it drains based on speed, and the only time he’d show is when running.

Think about it, 80% of the time you are running and it’s something you can do constantly. So forcing Phantom to walk to get complete visibility actually forces him to think tactically, rather than just rush in and swipe everyone that moves.[/quote]
Except the videos and numerous evidence of him kamikaze-ing a group and getting at least 2 kills…and sometimes 3 or 4.[/quote]

In my experience as playing and playing against, he gets one maybe two if there’s a sparks or proxy nearby and then immediately goes down even if he’s jumping all over the place. It’s when nobody realizes that he’s even there is when he pulls off crazy multi-kills because most people don’t pay attention to their surroundings.

In a lot of videos I see, a many victims of phantom don’t appear to even respond to the creepy dark shadow b-lining towards them regardless if they can kill it or not.

(Ghosthree3) #11

I do kind of agree with this sentiment. If you get caught with your cloak down you’re pretty screwed if you can’t get away.

(Jojack) #12

As with any class, there’s a lot of bad players or just players that aren’t using him to his full potential yet. It’s a lot of fun to wrack up kills with the katana, and pretty easy too with a bit of patience and no skill.

The hard part is getting away clean, but I am definitely starting to see a rise in Phantoms that hit and run leaving potential kills but getting away cleanly. This is even more frustrating because the guys that just saw their medic get skewered and gibbed while they stood by helplessly and weren’t even able to get a revenge kill all of a sudden are playing the game very differently. Knowing the assassin is lurking and waiting for them to get distracted. That’s the element that slows the game down so much. Also, it’s just annoying to get insta killed when you had no chance to fight back (this is actually pretty rare against good players though, awareness truly is Phantom’s best counter).

Lately I’ve been taking advantage of the new aim punch. One of the most effective ways to assassinate someone as Phantom is to just stand their cloaked as they come rushing at you. Line up the head, pull the trigger. They die almost instantly to the kek and have no chance to fight back due to the new aim punch.

The more I play Phantom, the more I love him and the more I’m convinced he needs a pretty decent rework.

(watsyurdeal) #13

[quote=“Kay-Dubz;43237”]
Except the videos and numerous evidence of him kamikaze-ing a group and getting at least 2 kills…and sometimes 3 or 4.[/quote]

And yet the majority of the time it’s because they don’t bother to turn around or communicate, at all.

You can’t call a class op if your team work sucks, any class could exploit that. Proxy for example, I could easily flank with the shotgun and set mines everywhere. And nobody would stop me.

(Jojack) #14

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;43264”][quote=“Kay-Dubz;43237”]
Except the videos and numerous evidence of him kamikaze-ing a group and getting at least 2 kills…and sometimes 3 or 4.[/quote]

And yet the majority of the time it’s because they don’t bother to turn around or communicate, at all.

You can’t call a class op if your team work sucks, any class could exploit that. Proxy for example, I could easily flank with the shotgun and set mines everywhere. And nobody would stop me.
[/quote]

The shotgun would alert everyone to your presence, no need for them to communicate. People hear gunfire right next to them, they turn and look. Maybe people will become more alert to the more subtle katana slashing sound, but right now most people aren’t.

(watsyurdeal) #15

And that’s not the fault of Phantom, it’s just people not yet adapted to a new merc, like with every other character since the beginning.

(KayDubz) #16

^Its ok buddy, they wont nerf him too bad. Youll still get your kills, but you wont be topping the leader boards without a bit of skill moving forward

(because its pretty obvious you really dislike any talk of obvious problems with Phantom. The community has spoken, the devs have heard us…stop telling people to “just adapt”)

(watsyurdeal) #17

[quote=“Kay-Dubz;43282”]^Its ok buddy, they wont nerf him too bad. Youll still get your kills, but you wont be topping the leader boards without a bit of skill moving forward

(because its pretty obvious you really dislike any talk of obvious problems with Phantom. The community has spoken, the devs have heard us…stop telling people to “just adapt”)[/quote]

I could top the scoreboard with any merc, it really [url=“http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/540772204326023124/F819CD8C3599899F44A4087ADCCE20779CCE3318/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|1024:576&composite-to=*,*|1024:576&background-color=black”]doesn’t [url=“http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/540772204326022666/1589B7D31D49CF1CDCAB61A06A2FF8BC615899B7/”]matter.

The problem I have though is they’ll nerf him to the point where he won’t be usable at any level, which is my problem. I have no problem with them nerfing the cloak and the damage reduction that it has, but I do have an issue with the fact that the cloak doesn’t actually make you invisible. It’s pretty much the same sort of cloak Blacklight had, which was utterly useless even without HRV thrown in.

I want them to take notes from Tribes and apply it to their game. That’s all.

(Jojack) #18

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;43289”][quote=“Kay-Dubz;43282”]^Its ok buddy, they wont nerf him too bad. Youll still get your kills, but you wont be topping the leader boards without a bit of skill moving forward

(because its pretty obvious you really dislike any talk of obvious problems with Phantom. The community has spoken, the devs have heard us…stop telling people to “just adapt”)[/quote]

I could top the scoreboard with any merc, it really [url=“http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/540772204326023124/F819CD8C3599899F44A4087ADCCE20779CCE3318/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|1024:576&composite-to=*,*|1024:576&background-color=black”]doesn’t [url=“http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/540772204326022666/1589B7D31D49CF1CDCAB61A06A2FF8BC615899B7/”]matter.

The problem I have though is they’ll nerf him to the point where he won’t be usable at any level, which is my problem. I have no problem with them nerfing the cloak and the damage reduction that it has, but I do have an issue with the fact that the cloak doesn’t actually make you invisible. It’s pretty much the same sort of cloak Blacklight had, which was utterly useless even without HRV thrown in.

I want them to take notes from Tribes and apply it to their game. That’s all.[/quote]

That’s a legitimate fear, but I’m just wondering. Has this ever happened to any merc yet? Where they go from being very powerful to not even worth playing? I haven’t been around long but it doesn’t seem like this has happened. Is there an example of this happening?

Did Arty used to be super powerful? Because he’s the only merc that seems EVERYONE agrees needs some love.

(watsyurdeal) #19

Rhino wasn’t nerfed but I pretty much never see him anymore. People complained about him for about 3 weeks then they stopped. Because they realized teaming up on him wipes him out.

Phantom will likely be the same, but that’s to be expected due to his role, I just don’t want him to be just a pub stomper. If he gains cloak similar to the Infiltrator, he’ll be a great counter to players who are basically carry’s for their team.

And Arty was always underpowered compared to Skyhammer, his artillery isn’t that great, and his weapons are powerful but hard to use.

(Jojack) #20

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;43308”]Rhino wasn’t nerfed but I pretty much never see him anymore. People complained about him for about 3 weeks then they stopped. Because they realized teaming up on him wipes him out.

Phantom will likely be the same, but that’s to be expected due to his role, I just don’t want him to be just a pub stomper. If he gains cloak similar to the Infiltrator, he’ll be a great counter to players who are basically carry’s for their team.

And Arty was always underpowered compared to Skyhammer, his artillery isn’t that great, and his weapons are powerful but hard to use.[/quote]

Right. Rhino wasn’t changed at all. Nader was actually nerfed then buffed. I wouldn’t worry to much that they will nerf Phantom into being terrible, if they nerf him at all. They really want all their mercs to be viable and fun. I don’t think they will fail with Phantom.

By the way, through all my flag carrying for the “rework Phantom” crowd, I do still consider the possibility that I’m wrong and that the community will adapt and we will see that Phantom is fine. I don’t think that will happen, but I’m not closed off to the possibility.