It's time we turn phantom into a objective specialist tbh

The changes introduced this patch to how disarm / objective progress / notifications etc don't show up unless someone is directly overlooking the process happening are clear buffs to phantom. I actually ninja defused a C4 on market a few hours ago while 5 people ran around looking for me. When the disarm happened everyone went crazy and it was a very fun experience for both me and my team because I did a really good job sneaking past everyone. I say its time we just cut to the chase and give phantom a PDA + blowtorch, he already had a PDA in the trailer anyway and this role would not only suit him with the way his kit is designed but it would also add a huge positive shakeup to the meta and staleness of some maps that is currently present.

Think about how cool it would be to sneak around to the EV on bridge and repair it to full or get a huge chunk done before anyone notices, or bypass the grind that is the last part of underground for a stealth plant giving your team a huge window to push in while everyone runs back to defuse / clear the site. Sneak into the generator room and plant a C4 while everyone is occupied immediately turning the situation around. I honestly can't think of any negative aspects to this change :

• It will satisfy all the people who whine that he brings nothing to the table in a objective oriented game like dirty bomb
• It will buff him much more then any changes to his cloak or kit ever would
• It will greatly improve the variety of the objective specialist class by adding in a totally unique take on the role
• It will directly go against bad phantom habits of running around being a killwhore with a shield and encourage using his cloak to sneak around to help your team by doing sneaky objective work
• It will not introduce some balance destroying strategy because all his counters are already there (heartbeat, redeye, actually paying attention)
• It will add new strategies to comp and shake the meta up (good phantom can constantly pressure a plant on underground with coordination form his team and force certain counters like redeye making the enemy team comp more predictable)

I mean lets be honest here, there have been a million suggestions on how to buff him by now. Hell ive written a lot of them myself because phantom is pretty much the only reason I play this game anymore. While my opinion on what kinds of buffs he needs have changed over the course of me playing 220+ hours of him I have finally come to the conclusion that he does not need some AOE disable like u/SmoothUK wants to add, or stat changes to make him more beefy or gun buffs to make him better at killing shit.

People seem to want to turn him into a true recon and I'd be all up for that but honestly what would he even do? We already have a very good aoe detection tool, manual callout spotting would be just a shitty version of what redeye does, aimee already has drones that do recon stuff so giving phantom some gadget stuff would just conflict with what aimee is supposed to do. I think the recon department is perfectly fine as it is and shifting phantom towards assault is a bad idea because hes already very dangerously good at killing unaware people so it would only create another phantom release style backlash because pubs simply cannot handle stealth / element of surprise in any game. This leaves him perfect to socket into the objective specialist unless you want to make him a stealth medic.

All he needs is :

• PDA + Blowtorch
• Movement speed that matches a 110 hp merc
• Less visible and audible cloak in exchange for shield removal or lowering
• Lower cloak cooldown if you remove the shield portion entirely
• Stealth version PDA and torch that make little to no sound to further stick with his identity as a stealth objective spec

So yeah this is my opinion on him, I play him pretty much every day and I have tried all his loadouts and all his strategies and this is honestly what I think would be best for him.

#Phantomlove