Yet another Phantom thread, but follow me on all this

(watsyurdeal) #1
  1. Instead of an EMP field, give Phantom a spotting field. But spotted enemies, do not get the “DETECTED” icon on their screen, he stealthily displays their location.
  2. Give him an EMP grenade, basically Thunder’s concussion nades, minus the blinding, concussion, etc, it’s just a plain and simple nade.
  3. Change his invisibility to make him completely invisible when standing still, 5% visible when crouch walking, 10% visible while walking normally, 20% visible when sprinting.
  4. Change how much damage his Refractive Armor can tank if needed.

Call it a day

(Naonna) #2

er… maybe? I’m a bit skeptical, given the number of throwable objects in the game already. The idea of a spotting field which doesn’t give a notification goes against the rules of every previously implemented recon ability. Perhaps just make the emp trigger when he de-cloaks, but give it a larger range and less sustainability.

I dunno. I won’t pretend to know the perfect answer, in this situation. Have an insightful click.

(Someordinaryguy) #3

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;32192”]1. Instead of an EMP field, give Phantom a spotting field. But spotted enemies, do not get the “DETECTED” icon on their screen, he stealthily displays their location.
2. Give him an EMP grenade, basically Thunder’s concussion nades, minus the blinding, concussion, etc, it’s just a plain and simple nade.
3. Change his invisibility to make him completely invisible when standing still, 5% visible when crouch walking, 10% visible while walking normally, 20% visible when sprinting.
4. Change how much damage his Refractive Armor can tank if needed.

Call it a day[/quote]

Fix cloak being ultra visible through smoke (without IR goggles, almost certain it’s a bug)

How big would the spot radius be ? How long would it last ?

Same goes questions for EMP nade+cooldown ? Also would it be cookable ? Usable when cloaked ?

  1. What about the cloak noise ? And would it have old cooldown ? (IMHO release invisibility was almost perfect)

Opinion: I’d prefer less tanky but faster Phantom so he can flank, assassinate and escape better. You could even copy Reaper from Overwatch mechanic, where if he goes “spoopy ghost mode” he moves faster?

Anything on katana ? Or is Kiratana enough ?

(Naonna) #4

A long while ago, I mentioned giving him a speed boost, but only while under cloak, assuming the default visibility was lowered.

(UndeddJester) #5

The problem you have is visibility of a cloak is consistently one of the most difficult things to manage in gaming. Partially rendering something to a set visibility that will appear the same on all screen settings, video settings and resolutions is virutally impossible. Hell even something as simple as smoke causes the same problems in games like Counter Strike and COD.

Take the infiltrator on Planetside 2. My rig was decent but couldn’t run on max settings, and to me infiltrators were pratically invisble. To me a lot of the time the infiltrator seemed broken and totally unbalanced, even when I knew they were there, I couldn’t do anything about it most of the time. On max settings however you could see them pretty easily, making them severely weak and underpowered against those players.

Trying to balance something off of the “Scale of cloak” is far more work than is worth it. With a cloak you kinda have to go all in, or not at all, and I think that relucatance to really play off his cloak has always been a big part of Phantoms problem.

I could go on for ages about it but I don’t want to write an essay. In short I personally I liked the idea of a full cloak he has to hold in his hands to use. Could possibly allow him to use his pistol right off the decloak, but the other 2 weapons you can force him to have to swap.

With a cooldown that works solely off of remaining charge (unless completely dissapated), a cloak that requires a weapon swap would be far from broken. Perhaps I’ll make a thread about it one day, but I cba to write about it just now :slight_smile:

(Amerika) #6

That encourages melee only playstyle. He is not a melee character. It’s also frustrating for many that in a game that is extremely focused on gunplay mechanics to get some person running up on you and meleeing you down because they are super fast and can’t be seen. That’s why Phantom’s ability to be seen was increased and ability to be heard was increased. Sure, you might love it but it legitimately causes players to quit games because it’s simply not a good for for DB. Go look at DB’s Steam reviews around the time of Phantom’s release for a good idea of how your suggestion would play out.

Do you want to be playing a support on your team and get targeted by two Phantom’s that can’t be seen, be heard and move much faster than you with very little chance to stop them? Does that sound fair or fun when done to you over and over again? That’s why it’s not being done. And even if you don’t want to melee it still directly benefits the playstyle which isn’t good for the game.

I still think all they need to do is take the EMP that is around him and turn it into a grenade as suggested by @Watsyurdeal or a dart similar to Aimee’s. Let it go through walls similar to how the current personal EMP field works. Since it’s not tethered to his cloak and it has some range it opens up a lot of strategic options for Phantom’s use in a lot of relevant competitive situations that would shake up the meta. As it currently stands his use is severely limited due to the EMP being only a field around him and tied to his cloak. Also, it would allow SD to revert the cloak cooldown change which makes him even worse than he was before.

I honestly think that is all that is needed to make him useful in competitive play. He’s still and always has been useful on pubs. But he’d be even more useful with a ranged version of the same EMP mechanics and he’d be a solid choice to have in a squad in 5v5 matches even if he still won’t be a constant pick.

(watsyurdeal) #7

That encourages melee only playstyle. He is not a melee character. It’s also frustrating for many that in a game that is extremely focused on gunplay mechanics to get some person running up on you and meleeing you down because they are super fast and can’t be seen. That’s why Phantom’s ability to be seen was increased and ability to be heard was increased. Sure, you might love it but it legitimately causes players to quit games because it’s simply not a good for for DB. Go look at DB’s Steam reviews around the time of Phantom’s release for a good idea of how your suggestion would play out.

Do you want to be playing a support on your team and get targeted by two Phantom’s that can’t be seen, be heard and move much faster than you with very little chance to stop them? Does that sound fair or fun when done to you over and over again? That’s why it’s not being done. And even if you don’t want to melee it still directly benefits the playstyle which isn’t good for the game.

I still think all they need to do is take the EMP that is around him and turn it into a grenade as suggested by @Watsyurdeal or a dart similar to Aimee’s. Let it go through walls similar to how the current personal EMP field works. Since it’s not tethered to his cloak and it has some range it opens up a lot of strategic options for Phantom’s use in a lot of relevant competitive situations that would shake up the meta. As it currently stands his use is severely limited due to the EMP being only a field around him and tied to his cloak. Also, it would allow SD to revert the cloak cooldown change which makes him even worse than he was before.

I honestly think that is all that is needed to make him useful in competitive play. He’s still and always has been useful on pubs. But he’d be even more useful with a ranged version of the same EMP mechanics and he’d be a solid choice to have in a squad in 5v5 matches even if he still won’t be a constant pick. [/quote]

Pretty much this

And I understand the point about cloak being all or nothing, but the thing is as long people can attack while cloaked that aspect will be overpowered, this isn’t Tribes Ascend where people have crazy fast speeds, nor is it Team Fortress 2, so the cloaking and decloaking time shouldn’t be so slow that people will kill you before you even can attack.

(TheStrangerous) #8

I do not see cloak working. That’s the biggest problem.

100% invisible = OP
Slightly visible = UP

I’d be fine if they replaced it with something else. My 2 cents.

(watsyurdeal) #9

[quote=“TheStrangerous;203082”]I do not see cloak working. That’s the biggest problem.

100% invisible = OP
Slightly visible = UP

I’d be fine if they replaced it with something else. My 2 cents.[/quote]

It’d be fine with 100% cloak, if you couldn’t attack, say what you want about Spy in TF2 but they did cloak perfectly.

(TheStrangerous) #10

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;203088”][quote=“TheStrangerous;203082”]I do not see cloak working. That’s the biggest problem.

100% invisible = OP
Slightly visible = UP

I’d be fine if they replaced it with something else. My 2 cents.[/quote]

It’d be fine with 100% cloak, if you couldn’t attack, say what you want about Spy in TF2 but they did cloak perfectly.[/quote]

Assuming he can go behind enemy lines with 100% cloak and going purely ghost.
Then what what’s afterwards? Shooting enemies from behind. And besides that, there needs to be something more.

(watsyurdeal) #11

[quote=“TheStrangerous;203094”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;203088”][quote=“TheStrangerous;203082”]I do not see cloak working. That’s the biggest problem.

100% invisible = OP
Slightly visible = UP

I’d be fine if they replaced it with something else. My 2 cents.[/quote]

It’d be fine with 100% cloak, if you couldn’t attack, say what you want about Spy in TF2 but they did cloak perfectly.[/quote]

Assuming he can go behind enemy lines with 100% cloak and going purely ghost.
Then what what’s afterwards? Shooting enemies from behind. And besides that, there needs to be something more.[/quote]

Um…pretty simple really, you decloak, and start shooting people. What part about that would be hard to understand?

(TheStrangerous) #12

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;203097”][quote=“TheStrangerous;203094”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;203088”][quote=“TheStrangerous;203082”]I do not see cloak working. That’s the biggest problem.

100% invisible = OP
Slightly visible = UP

I’d be fine if they replaced it with something else. My 2 cents.[/quote]

It’d be fine with 100% cloak, if you couldn’t attack, say what you want about Spy in TF2 but they did cloak perfectly.[/quote]

Assuming he can go behind enemy lines with 100% cloak and going purely ghost.
Then what what’s afterwards? Shooting enemies from behind. And besides that, there needs to be something more.[/quote]

Um…pretty simple really, you decloak, and start shooting people. What part about that would be hard to understand?[/quote]

Come to think of it, shooting from behind might be enough to cause havoc and paranoia.

Maybe this is enough, to make him a proper assassin. I would have to try it out.

(watsyurdeal) #13

[quote=“TheStrangerous;203099”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;203097”][quote=“TheStrangerous;203094”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;203088”][quote=“TheStrangerous;203082”]I do not see cloak working. That’s the biggest problem.

100% invisible = OP
Slightly visible = UP

I’d be fine if they replaced it with something else. My 2 cents.[/quote]

It’d be fine with 100% cloak, if you couldn’t attack, say what you want about Spy in TF2 but they did cloak perfectly.[/quote]

Assuming he can go behind enemy lines with 100% cloak and going purely ghost.
Then what what’s afterwards? Shooting enemies from behind. And besides that, there needs to be something more.[/quote]

Um…pretty simple really, you decloak, and start shooting people. What part about that would be hard to understand?[/quote]

Come to think of it, shooting from behind might be enough to cause havoc and paranoia.[/quote]

Gun Spy

Look it up, people like Evan, Ghost, Solid, etc

I did some of it myself but not quite as good as they were.

(incisiveDetour) #14

As a nade for him I was always thinking of some caltrops that would fit the character and spread on a zone (similar to the napalm area of smoker) that debuff enemy speed and causes a very little DoT while in the zone. This would provide support to team’s assault or to Phantom’s own attacks. with this, yo ucan almost remove the invisibility cloak altogether because the slowed down enemies in caltrops are less likely to run away from the melee easily, so you can jump+heavy melee to the first and slash away at the others more easily. Yo uwill need to flank without the cloak yes, but it seems more interesting to me than trying to fix an ultimately unfixable cloak mechanic, no ?

(TheStrangerous) #15

By the way, anyone knows what’s Phantom speed when he equips his forearm (default key “4”)?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/X6jP_TZfw7A/hqdefault.jpg

Could it be, that you run faster with this, instead of melee?

(watsyurdeal) #16

[quote=“TheStrangerous;203102”]By the way, anyone knows what’s Phantom speed when he equips his forearm (default key “4”)?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/X6jP_TZfw7A/hqdefault.jpg

Could it be, that you run faster with this, instead of melee?[/quote]

You do actually, works like the sticky bombs or nades in that you have no speed penalty.

(TheStrangerous) #17

Speed problem solved then. He could even carry a sledgehammer, long as his forearm provides the fastest speed he can go. :wink:

(Reddeadcap) #18

I know this isn’t anything new but why not just remove the damage absorption and instead make that another ability where Phantom is really visible, it would make him tankier than other 110 health characters and would drain as he took damage and would have to wait for it to recharge to use it or his stealth, It could even be named Re-Active armor.

(watsyurdeal) #19

Because that makes too much sense, now get out.

(BananaSlug) #20

can we just reverse the emp update, and give him back old cd? and then give him spotting ability like granade, wave or even that what you said

3 abilities is just too much