Denerfing the Phantom

By Princezilla, in X-Wing

I've said it a few times, but there's really no fluff justification for a PS 1 Interceptor. PS 4-5 is pretty much what you have to be to be flying those things in the first place.

You may be a PS5 pilot in a TIE/ln, but a TIE Interceptor is a whole new beast. I can definitely see someone taking an effective PS hit when switching craft.

It's a bit like going from driving an SUV or minivan, and then driving a Mini Cooper. It doesn't matter how good you are at driving a boat, when you get behind the wheel of a responsive, ground hugging, car with high performance characteristics you simply won't have the reflexes.

That's going to help a lot. When you are running PS9 vs. a whisper, very often you are shooting before they do, or moving after so they can't get you in arc. Plus wampa can do damage without having to actually get through their mountain of evade dice. Your list is specialized out to kill phantoms.

Phantoms, E-Wings, Z-95s, and Scyks all hate Wampa. He's nice and flexible that way.

I still use the phantom to great effect. As matter of fact, with tlts in the meta, I've upgraded my phantom with sensor jammer. 4 dice, sensor jammer, double focus and palpatine is pretty hard for my opponents to punch through. Your view on the phantom is illogical. The only ppl who want the decloak to be "unnerfed" are those who where too inexperienced of pilots to fly it well to begin with. If you can't pilot your ships like an ace, then go play a fat rebel turret with eu. They require no skill and I'm sure you'd feel right at home.

Not true. Game engine's have boundaries and if you get too far out of them, there's no real cost that can justify them.

101 points.

...making it something of a novelty that is never seen in the top rounds of serious competitive play.

[citation needed]

You mean like these?

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1402

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1388

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1386

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1385

Oh wait, those have Phantoms on the top tables. What about these?

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1384

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1382

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1378

Whoops! Dang, those have Phantoms on the top tables too! Man, maybe page 2 of the most recent events will have more events without Phantoms competing at the top...

I've been nothing but civil throughout this whole thread dispite having half the members of the forums jump down my throat rather then actually engage in intelligent debate, I don't need your condescending lectures and I didn't pull these observations out of my ass. I'm a regular tournament goer and placed first and second in my last two store Championships, this was not a "I can't use this ship so it sucks" post I made this after watching a supposedly feared ship repeatedly fail to place at all in multiple large events and often dying in extremely embarrassing ways to very new players, in the last tournament a veteran player's Whisper went down on turn two to a guy who had been playing all of a month.

Go away. The phantom is fine the way it is.

Messing with cloak again now affects nearly the entire scum faction too because of cloaking device. The game is in a great spot. Chill yo. And remember as I always say...

Deal with it.

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...making it something of a novelty that is never seen in the top rounds of serious competitive play.

[citation needed]

You mean like these?

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1402

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1388

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1386

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1385

Oh wait, those have Phantoms on the top tables. What about these?

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1384

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1382

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1378

Whoops! Dang, those have Phantoms on the top tables too! Man, maybe page 2 of the most recent events will have more events without Phantoms competing at the top...

I've been nothing but civil throughout this whole thread dispite having half the members of the forums jump down my throat rather then actually engage in intelligent debate, I don't need your condescending lectures and I didn't pull these observations out of my ass. I'm a regular tournament goer and placed first and second in my last two store Championships, this was not a "I can't use this ship so it sucks" post I made this after watching a supposedly feared ship repeatedly fail to place at all in multiple large events and often dying in extremely embarrassing ways to very new players, in the last tournament a veteran player's Whisper went down on turn two to a guy who had been playing all of a month.

Phantoms are a trigger for a lot of people. They were auto wins against certain lists. people don't want to go back to that. Also, it's the internet and a forum, you're just asking for trouble. Phantoms were always glass cannons. you catch one in your site at range 3 through a rock and they blank out all their dice and you score a direct hit for it to explode. It happens. but on average, their dice keep them alive for a long time unless you are kitted to take them out. People hated flying against the old phantom because it wasn't that fun.

I still use the phantom to great effect. As matter of fact, with tlts in the meta, I've upgraded my phantom with sensor jammer. 4 dice, sensor jammer, double focus and palpatine is pretty hard for my opponents to punch through. Your view on the phantom is illogical. The only ppl who want the decloak to be "unnerfed" are those who where too inexperienced of pilots to fly it well to begin with. If you can't pilot your ships like an ace, then go play a fat rebel turret with eu. They require no skill and I'm sure you'd feel right at home.

I would argue that turrets actually do take skill to fly effectively. maximizing effectiveness of range, dealing with autothrusters and the fact that if enough shots come into you, you're toast. Good turret lists are difficult to fly.

Good turret lists are difficult to fly.

giphy.gif

This thread is pure gold, keep'em commin.

Was in the top 4 of a 51 person SC last weekend playing Whisper/Palp/Inquisitor. At least one other Whisper was in the top 8.

I don't think Whisper is "feared" anymore. Nothing should be "feared" by every list out there, that's a clear indicator of game balance problems.

In fact, in literally every game I've played outside my basement I've had a Phantom on the table. I think they are fine the way they are.

I suppose it's my fault for over estimating the maturity and intelligence of this community and thinking we could have a logical and civil debate about this. Honestly a few of the more dramatic first hand accounts of the prenerf Phantom were enough to convince me that reversing it was a bad idea, however I still feel that it is underpowered, no ship that expensive should have as many hard counters as it does.

Whisper is still great.

Perhaps a better question is how do you equip and fly low PS phantoms? ACD seems silly on a PS 3 ship since most everyone will have already shot unless you are facing a swarm. So you run the SPA instead for the evade. Then add recon specialist or sensor jammer. Anybody found any good way to build these?

IA + SPA on a PS3. Make the rest of your list a big bait, and let them forget the little phantom that only moves and recloacks every turn. Until you catch someone by surprise and kill somebody with one single shot. I've won fights with the phantom only shooting 1 or 2 times. But it was always the winning shot.

Edited by vtarin

Anything PS10 is a hardcounter to Phantom.

ANd the fact that there ARE so many PS10 is the fault of Whipster and Soontir. Because they have little to none counters outside that and Doom Deci\CaptiveDeci

At the risk of being considered "uncivil," "immature," or "unintelligent," I present to you this data[1].

Of the Store Championships held this year which had at least 24 players[2] and were entered into List Juggler:

- 175 had at least one TIE Phantom

- 44 made the Top 8 cut

- 34 made the Top 4 cut

- 21 made the final table

- 7 won

[1] Yes I checked the dates.

[2] I chose this cutoff because it requires at least 4 rounds of Swiss a top 4 cut, which should give us decent signal.

I suppose it's my fault for over estimating the maturity and intelligence of this community and thinking we could have a logical and civil debate about this.

I'm sure you feel piled on; it's hard to avoid that when your opinion is an unpopular one. But I think part of what's going on here isn't that people can't be logical about the Phantom, it's that a lot of us have already seen this particular dead horse beaten repeatedly and aren't interested in going through the issue again.

...I still feel that it is underpowered, no ship that expensive should have as many hard counters as it does.

I'm not sure which hard counters you mean. Effects like Proton Bomb, Advanced Homing Missiles, and Wampa that ignore shields hit Phantoms hard, but not really any harder than they hit other ships with 3 Agility. High-PS turrets hit them fairly hard, but with Kallus and Palpatine in the game you can armor yourself pretty well against at least one opposing ship. TLT hits them as hard as it hits every glass cannon, but Phantoms maneuver so well and hit so hard that just one or two TLTs usually aren't enough to silence Whisper.

I suppose it's my fault for over estimating the maturity and intelligence of this community and thinking we could have a logical and civil debate about this. Honestly a few of the more dramatic first hand accounts of the prenerf Phantom were enough to convince me that reversing it was a bad idea, however I still feel that it is underpowered, no ship that expensive should have as many hard counters as it does.

But people, including me, have also pointed out its success, too, in areas that aren't your own. They are still doing very well, they just aren't the meta warping ship they used to be. In fact, if you listen to a recent Mynock Squadron podcast, I think a player who made Worlds top 16 (post nerf!) with one seems to think that they're still too powerful.

I think that's the biggest case for it being a solid ship, btw.

Denerfing the Phantom would be literally one of the worst things you could possibly do to this game right now.

We calmed down the Phantom problem

TLT's stopped Fat Turrets.

Triple U-Boat puts an end to quad TLT, and buffed ordnance in general helps against the Acewing meta that arose during wave 7. The wave 8 meta so far is awesome.

And all these changes in the meta have been done without making the things that were dominating the meta unplayable. They just made them balanced. But people who are used to autowinning suddenly stop playing their formerly autowin ship when it starts losing on occasion.

At the risk of being considered "uncivil," "immature," or "unintelligent," I present to you this data[1].

What about "uncouth"?

Of the Store Championships held this year which had at least 24 players[2] and were entered into List Juggler:

- 175 had at least one TIE Phantom

- 44 made the Top 8 cut

- 34 made the Top 4 cut

- 21 made the final table

- 7 won

That means that if you made the top 8 cut with a phantom, you're 1.27 times as likely to win than if it were pure random (that's (7./44) / (1./8) = 1.27). There's also an amazingly strong showing all the way through the final table (21/44) / (2/8) = 1.9 times as likely to make it to the finals). That's incredibly good.

Clearly (sarcasm), that means that the Phantom is only flown by the best players, and needs to be denerfed.

I suppose it's my fault for over estimating the maturity and intelligence of this community and thinking we could have a logical and civil debate about this. Honestly a few of the more dramatic first hand accounts of the prenerf Phantom were enough to convince me that reversing it was a bad idea, however I still feel that it is underpowered, no ship that expensive should have as many hard counters as it does.

But people, including me, have also pointed out its success, too, in areas that aren't your own. They are still doing very well, they just aren't the meta warping ship they used to be. In fact, if you listen to a recent Mynock Squadron podcast, I think a player who made Worlds top 16 (post nerf!) with one seems to think that they're still too powerful.

I think that's the biggest case for it being a solid ship, btw.

At the risk of being considered "uncivil," "immature," or "unintelligent," I present to you this data[1].

Of the Store Championships held this year which had at least 24 players[2] and were entered into List Juggler:

- 175 had at least one TIE Phantom

- 44 made the Top 8 cut

- 34 made the Top 4 cut

- 21 made the final table

- 7 won

[1] Yes I checked the dates.

[2] I chose this cutoff because it requires at least 4 rounds of Swiss a top 4 cut, which should give us decent signal.

I have no issues with arguments like this where people were reasonable and presented evidence to support their claims. I already said that those people had convinced me that undoing the nerf was a bad idea.

I suppose it's my fault for over estimating the maturity and intelligence of this community and thinking we could have a logical and civil debate about this. Honestly a few of the more dramatic first hand accounts of the prenerf Phantom were enough to convince me that reversing it was a bad idea, however I still feel that it is underpowered, no ship that expensive should have as many hard counters as it does.

Why do you feel it is underpowered? How many hard counters exist in top lists? What are your qualifications for civil debate? Why do you think talking down to the forum will make you well liked OR change anyone's mind?

(that's (7./44) / (1./8) = 1.27)

from __future__ import division

As a newer player, I think the mechanic is fine the way it is. The ship, in my opinion, is a touch over priced now. The fragility, plus the lower pilot skill the ship has standard is a bit of a hit, and having VI is almost a requirement. Now mind you, this is from someone still learning, and my opinion is subject to change based on how my skills in the game progress.

As a newer player, I think the mechanic is fine the way it is. The ship, in my opinion, is a touch over priced now. The fragility, plus the lower pilot skill the ship has standard is a bit of a hit, and having VI is almost a requirement. Now mind you, this is from someone still learning, and my opinion is subject to change based on how my skills in the game progress.

Well-caveated. +1

As a newer player, I think the mechanic is fine the way it is. The ship, in my opinion, is a touch over priced now. The fragility, plus the lower pilot skill the ship has standard is a bit of a hit, and having VI is almost a requirement. Now mind you, this is from someone still learning, and my opinion is subject to change based on how my skills in the game progress.

Well-caveated. +1

Thanks.

I needed to have that, because I do realize that experience really does matter in games. I've been playing X-wing for almost 2 months, and have gotten around 12 games in, mostly losses, and all with the phantom. What can I say, I like the ship. I've always liked the hit and fade playstyle for games, so it is a natural fit for me, just haven't figured it out in this game yet. I have been playing games, in general, for well over 25 years.

Edited by megatrons2nd

I'm not sure which hard counters you mean. Effects like Proton Bomb, Advanced Homing Missiles, and Wampa that ignore shields hit Phantoms hard, but not really any harder than they hit other ships with 3 Agility.

Most of those other 3 Agility ships don't spend most of their time flying around with a functional 5 Agility though.

And a good chunk of those 3 Agility ships also have a 3 Hull, which prevents them from getting one-shotted by those weapons.