I wanted to right an extensive post about Phantom/Thunder/Proxy but no time so here is a quick rundown of my views:
Phantom
- almost at the right spot, don’t think he needs a secondary recon ability
- main issue with non-katana (the only THEORETICALLY comp viable version of the merc - yeah, you wont ever be able to balance a melee weapon at high skill levels without making it OP on pubs) Phantom is that he doesn’t bring enough to the table. The armor doesn’t regen fast enough, he is quite visible, and doesn’t have any special killing potential/utility.
- imo Phantom is almost viable as a hit&run flanking merc but suffers from some of these issues:
*armor is pretty weak now that it doesn’t absorb infinite amount of one-off damage
- armor activation is very slow and almost never works as a run-away tactic against good opponents
- armor deactivation is slow and clunky, lowering his ability to be all around.
Imo the most interesting change would be to increase armor activation speed and/or allow Phantom to activate WHILST SPRINTING. This would allow Phantom to poke opponents and quickly run away, potentially making it a viable strategy in comp.
If SD is truly fixed on a secondary ability my favorite option is a cloak-field generator. Phantom can throw a generator similar in size/style to the heartbeat sensor that, in a few pulses would cloak all teammates (no armor, just cloak) for a short period of time. using any ability would decloak said teammates. Thus Phantom would have a direct teamplay (rather than indirect, by pulling enemies off choke, etc.) ability that would help his team to get through dangerous territory, and provide interesting ambush options (now a teammate can team up with phantom to 2-on-1 an opponent). Sensor can be destroyed just like vassili’s and cloak should be relatively short in duration (no more than half of phantom’s default sprinting cloak length)
Thunder:
-Main issue with thunder remains the lack of killing ability compared to nader/fragger. Concussion is kind of nice atm. but it just simply cannot match with an instakill&instagib nade, or the enormous utility of Nader spam.
-Imo the easiest way to make thunder viable is to make his non-concussion advantages more pronounced: since his hp is at a nice 160, the most interesting aspect to buff is thunder speed.
-Atm. he is too slow to be the pointman, just like rhino, can’t push; his lack of speed gets him cornered and outgunned. Give Thunder speed of Fragger and suddenly that bulky 160 hp can bull-rush any single opponent and dominate them with huge HP. I suppose he could have 170hp while we are at it. This way Thunder is the non-CQC version of rhino that has to be feared due to his enormous HP pool. Atm. there is nothin to fear with how slow he is.
Proxy:
very short, the easiest way to make proxy viable is to allow mines to stick on walls - QW mines.Ability to shoot them would present very interesting trap setups, while keeping her balanced in comp where FF-on makes proxy more a hindrance than an asset.