Who the fuck made these phantom changes?

[watsyurdeal]

[quote=“loonyTop;53203”][quote=“Hadouken;53115”]Phantom was already a shitty character, and it’s hilarious to see relatively new players attempt to persuade people who have been playing this game for hours on end otherwise. He’s useless. He doesn’t contribute to the team in terms of kills(ay fragger with an SMG, cute),he can’t detect other mercs like other recons, he cannot resupply the team, he can’t repair the objective (or damage any in a meaningful way), nor can or will he ever be able to deny areas with his toolset.

So what exactly can he do? What is his niche; what does he excel at? crickets

And thus he will never be touched.

It’s borderline insane at this point to think
Any one would do the disservice of picking him for your team.

You’ll see him a couple times maybe, due to missions.

You’ll see him, in compilation videos, titled on YouTube “LOL WRECKING NOOBS WITH THE SHITTIEST MERC IN GAME” or something along those lines. Before long, you’ll see more players react to him being on their teams, rotting at the bottom of the scoreboards as dead weight.

I’m glad I was never interested in him, but I do genuinely feel bad for any players who would have been interested in picking him up.[/quote]

And that’s the issue most of us have. Phantom players (at least before the patch) only give a shit about their K/D ratio. They only give a shit if THEY are enjoying the game, not whether those who try to work as a team towards the objective are. This patch has been a fucking god-send to the rest of us because now you get maybe one Phantom per team instead of four and we can actually enjoy the game again instead of dying by some cheap ass lowly faggatard stabbing you in the back with no skill.
[/quote]

Why? so you can continue your usual strategy without having to adapt to new circumstances? So the enemy team doesn’t have another option or way to deal with an overwhelming amount of medics, proxies or kiras?

And people can play other classes and still contribute jack squat to the team. All those Phantom players who didn’t contribute will just do the same thing with another class. While the rest of us who were getting stealthy plants and getting key picks on problem players, are going to have to pretty much toss that aside since it doesn’t really do much.

Sure, I can play Phantom, but doesn’t mean I should, when other mercs have the same health, weapons, and better abilities.

[loonyTop]

Not at all. I adapted to Rhino and I adapted to Nader. But with both of those they didn’t just camp cloaked and make easy kills with no effort. And sure, some players will always be selfish but they can’t get away with it as easily as they could with Phantom and at least practically every other Merc serves the team in some way.

[capriciousParsely]

I don’t know if it always was like this but Phantoms cooldown on stealth is only the full 10 seconds if it completely breaks. If you engage an enemy before delpeting it, the cooldown is really short. I used this to fly around the map and picking of stranglers and moving again. He seems to be viable, at least for me. But then again I would probably do better as my main Fletcher.

[Crunchy_Donut]

For me I feel the changes made switched his gameplay focus. Before the nerf he could basically run straight to the back line with his katana and 1-2 stab the enemy. With the nerf though he feels more like an ambush character that requires more strategy. There is more focus on his primary for larger targets which he can ambush with headshots, but still has that one shot katana for lower health enemies. Currently I like the changes, but I still feel I need more time to come to an ultimate conclusion on where he is since it is still fresh.

[Gh0st1e]

Objectively, the two things that I don’t see Phantom fans arguing is the necessity of the damage negation of his cloak and the nerf to the KEK.

That being said, can we agree that if only those changes had been made then Phantom would be more balanced all around?

Personally, I cannot find any justification as to why a character like Phantom should have a damage negating shield. The KEK was in need of a nerf Phantom or no Phantom, not that he should have been able to use the stronger SMGs to begin with. He is a fast, ninja like character, give him something like the Empire-9 instead.

[Ghosthree3]

There’s no doubt he can still do work. My problem with him right now is that because the cloak doesn’t really cloak and only acts as a small shield, he’s essentially Fragger with a worse weapon and no grenades. By my definition, he’s useless.

Take this example, if we took an exact copy of Fragger and put him in the game calling him Fragger2 but removed his grenades would anyone consider him useful? Sure he can still do his job getting kills, but there’s really just no reason to play him when original Fragger does his job better.

EDIT: And yes, I realise he’s not an ‘assault’ class, and that he is a ‘recon’ class. But he’s not any more is he, not with the cloak as it is now.

[Kaos88]

[quote=“moonlitAbility;50508”]hahaha… yep, its stupid. they literally realized my worst fear in balancing him. because they balanced him around 1 single loadout (katana + chopper). The one loadout everyone had a problem with. Instead of balancing that 1 OP loadout by replacing chopper, or making the katanas hit box / speed a little toned down, they balance the whole class around 1 hit kills by lowering his shields/hp/etc.

So instead of toning down katana and encouraging different play types (tanky or gun based phantoms), they make the other 8 loadouts COMPLETE garbage, with the katana/chopper being the only way to play it. people will still be raped all match by good phantoms. only difference now is you actually have to be good

edit: lol i just continued reading the patch notes and noticed they did tone down the melee hit box and chopper augments[/quote]

It wasn’t that 1 loadout at all. That was just extra salt in the wounds. It was his whole playstyle and lack of skill required to play him and get kills. While a actual good player had a field day playing with his broken ass.

[Ronan]

What I’d like to see them do is allow Phantom to ‘mark’ enemies, sort of how you can do in Payday 2 on the bigger, badder guys. But in this case, all enemies. This can be done whilst he’s cloaked, and only when he’s cloaked, and it’d have a charge based thing, like a grenade, ammo pack, etc. See a Vasilli camping on a roof somewhere that teammates are missing? Cloak and ‘mark’ them, letting them highlight up through walls, etc.

Something to hold his ‘recon’ class title up to.

[loonyTop]

[quote=“bistreVittle;54110”]What I’d like to see them do is allow Phantom to ‘mark’ enemies, sort of how you can do in Payday 2 on the bigger, badder guys. But in this case, all enemies. This can be done whilst he’s cloaked, and only when he’s cloaked, and it’d have a charge based thing, like a grenade, ammo pack, etc. See a Vasilli camping on a roof somewhere that teammates are missing? Cloak and ‘mark’ them, letting them highlight up through walls, etc.

Something to hold his ‘recon’ class title up to.[/quote]

Actually I think this would be a good idea, give him a good purpose that benefits the team.

[Ronan]

[quote=“globalMonitor;53327”]Objectively, the two things that I don’t see Phantom fans arguing is the necessity of the damage negation of his cloak and the nerf to the KEK.

That being said, can we agree that if only those changes had been made then Phantom would be more balanced all around?

Personally, I cannot find any justification as to why a character like Phantom should have a damage negating shield. The KEK was in need of a nerf Phantom or no Phantom, not that he should have been able to use the stronger SMGs to begin with. He is a fast, ninja like character, give him something like the Empire-9 instead.

[/quote]

Except if you look at his overall speed, he’s really not that fast.

“Phantom is a cloaking commando who is an action hero in his own mind” -Phantom merc role call video

They couldn’t give him an assault rifle, and he’s too slow for the super-fast SMGs, so, they stuck him in the middle of the two. I’ve no problem with the weapon choices.

– Never really states his ninja-y. Sneaky, stealthy, and a spooky ghost? Yes. But, never meant to be very fast. He’s an infiltrator, at best.

[Ronan]

[quote=“loonyTop;54145”][quote=“bistreVittle;54110”]What I’d like to see them do is allow Phantom to ‘mark’ enemies, sort of how you can do in Payday 2 on the bigger, badder guys. But in this case, all enemies. This can be done whilst he’s cloaked, and only when he’s cloaked, and it’d have a charge based thing, like a grenade, ammo pack, etc. See a Vasilli camping on a roof somewhere that teammates are missing? Cloak and ‘mark’ them, letting them highlight up through walls, etc.

Something to hold his ‘recon’ class title up to.[/quote]

Actually I think this would be a good idea, give him a good purpose that benefits the team.

[/quote]

It’d especially be nice when someone like Red Eye comes out that is a direct counter to him. Phantom cloaks in, albeit if his cloak visibility is made not as much of a sheet draped over him, run through the smoke no one but Red Eye can see through with his IR vision, mark someone like an Aura, or even Red Eye himself, and get out before he was even noticed with the exception of said Red Eye.

[GregHouseMD]

[quote=“bistreVittle;54169”][quote=“loonyTop;54145”][quote=“bistreVittle;54110”]What I’d like to see them do is allow Phantom to ‘mark’ enemies, sort of how you can do in Payday 2 on the bigger, badder guys. But in this case, all enemies. This can be done whilst he’s cloaked, and only when he’s cloaked, and it’d have a charge based thing, like a grenade, ammo pack, etc. See a Vasilli camping on a roof somewhere that teammates are missing? Cloak and ‘mark’ them, letting them highlight up through walls, etc.

Something to hold his ‘recon’ class title up to.[/quote]

Actually I think this would be a good idea, give him a good purpose that benefits the team.

[/quote]

It’d especially be nice when someone like Red Eye comes out that is a direct counter to him. Phantom cloaks in, albeit if his cloak visibility is made not as much of a sheet draped over him, run through the smoke no one but Red Eye can see through with his IR vision, mark someone like an Aura, or even Red Eye himself, and get out before he was even noticed with the exception of said Red Eye.[/quote]

Doesn’t Red Eye also spot for the team? I never got to play him - joined to late for that - but from what I’ve heard, that’s the case. Do correct me if I’m wrong.

[Ronan]

[quote=“GregHouseMD;54175”][quote=“bistreVittle;54169”][quote=“loonyTop;54145”][quote=“bistreVittle;54110”]What I’d like to see them do is allow Phantom to ‘mark’ enemies, sort of how you can do in Payday 2 on the bigger, badder guys. But in this case, all enemies. This can be done whilst he’s cloaked, and only when he’s cloaked, and it’d have a charge based thing, like a grenade, ammo pack, etc. See a Vasilli camping on a roof somewhere that teammates are missing? Cloak and ‘mark’ them, letting them highlight up through walls, etc.

Something to hold his ‘recon’ class title up to.[/quote]

Actually I think this would be a good idea, give him a good purpose that benefits the team.

[/quote]

It’d especially be nice when someone like Red Eye comes out that is a direct counter to him. Phantom cloaks in, albeit if his cloak visibility is made not as much of a sheet draped over him, run through the smoke no one but Red Eye can see through with his IR vision, mark someone like an Aura, or even Red Eye himself, and get out before he was even noticed with the exception of said Red Eye.[/quote]

Doesn’t Red Eye also spot for the team? I never got to play him - joined to late for that - but from what I’ve heard, that’s the case. Do correct me if I’m wrong.

[/quote]

Personally, I’m not sure. I never got to play Red Eye when I was in the closed-beta. I was there for Phantom, and that was about it.

[Jojack]

[quote=“GregHouseMD;54175”][quote=“bistreVittle;54169”][quote=“loonyTop;54145”][quote=“bistreVittle;54110”]What I’d like to see them do is allow Phantom to ‘mark’ enemies, sort of how you can do in Payday 2 on the bigger, badder guys. But in this case, all enemies. This can be done whilst he’s cloaked, and only when he’s cloaked, and it’d have a charge based thing, like a grenade, ammo pack, etc. See a Vasilli camping on a roof somewhere that teammates are missing? Cloak and ‘mark’ them, letting them highlight up through walls, etc.

Something to hold his ‘recon’ class title up to.[/quote]

Actually I think this would be a good idea, give him a good purpose that benefits the team.

[/quote]

It’d especially be nice when someone like Red Eye comes out that is a direct counter to him. Phantom cloaks in, albeit if his cloak visibility is made not as much of a sheet draped over him, run through the smoke no one but Red Eye can see through with his IR vision, mark someone like an Aura, or even Red Eye himself, and get out before he was even noticed with the exception of said Red Eye.[/quote]

Doesn’t Red Eye also spot for the team? I never got to play him - joined to late for that - but from what I’ve heard, that’s the case. Do correct me if I’m wrong.

[/quote]

Yes, is infrared ability spots everyone he sees while active for his teammates just like a HBS.

notice the “spotted assist” xp he gets.

[GregHouseMD]

In other words, Phantom just gets doubly screwed by the smoke. As it should be, honestly.