Any tricks for managing Phantasm?


Call Me Awesome

 

Posted

With GR, I brought my ill/rad redside to go big game hunting with Scirocco's arc. Phantasm now has the new-ish pet AI to go into melee, as most of you know by now. So now he gets whacked by various aoes. This is proving to be a bummer to my dps, as instead of spamming attacks, I have to either heal Phanty or resummon him.

So I post this to see if anyone has found any tips for dealing with this. What I end up doing is standing to the side of him (so I avoid cones) with him just on the periphery of my heal radius. This is fine and at the end of the day the AV/Hero is defeated, but I'd like to minimize this problem, especially since Lord Recluse will be coming up shortly and I'll need to be at max performance for him.


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Posted

I really, really hate the new AI of Phanty going into melee. It is stupid, since he has no melee attacks. He is supposed to stay back and blast from range, using his decoy to draw aggro.

I have changed my playstyle to adjust, but it really slows me down if I want to stay safe and keep him alive a bit more. I have been staying at the edge of my range, hitting a few foes with Deceive, and then moving in closer to let Phanty cast his decoy. Once the decoy is cast and Phanty has aggro, I then try to move a little bit away from him (laterally, if there is room), but close enough for my heal to reach him. He seems to stay back more if I stay back more. Deceive definitely reduces the number of attacks he gets.


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Posted

Yep, the way Phanty works now he's downright broken. I've been finding that I don't bother with him some of the time, particularly against nasty foes. He has all the negatives of Fire Imps without the benefits.

I soloed Requiem a few days ago and the entire fight I don't think Phanty lived longer than 20 seconds. After a while I just cast him shortly before PA were ready to cycle as an aggro monkey... lord knows he wasn't worth a damned any other way since he'd get maybe 2-3 attacks off before he'd run in and suicide on the AOE the AV was outputting.

Fortunately I wasn't relying on him that much with perma-PA and Spooky along with the Rad debuffs. It's still very irritating.


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Posted

Phantasm is actually way worse at surviving than imps now against tough single foes.

With imps the fire controller is usually standing back from them and the actual pc draws the agro because they outdamage each imp. The result is that the AV may never even take notice of the imps and attack them.

With phantasm the AV is agro'd onto your melee range PA and melee range decoy so phantasm ends up biting it nearly immediately due to aoe's.

It's persistent bugs like this that make me wish it had been one of the other lead devs on the layoff list as opposed to BaB's.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lolblaws View Post
Phantasm is actually way worse at surviving than imps now against tough single foes.

With imps the fire controller is usually standing back from them and the actual pc draws the agro because they outdamage each imp. The result is that the AV may never even take notice of the imps and attack them.

With phantasm the AV is agro'd onto your melee range PA and melee range decoy so phantasm ends up biting it nearly immediately due to aoe's.

It's persistent bugs like this that make me wish it had been one of the other lead devs on the layoff list as opposed to BaB's.
BaB got laid off? Last I'd heard he just quit taking PM's.


COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

 

Posted

I'm finding I am almost better off not summoning him.

Depends on powersets. Ill/kin I use phanty selectively, Ill/FF I can pin things against the walls.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deacon_NA View Post
With GR, I brought my ill/rad redside to go big game hunting with Scirocco's arc. Phantasm now has the new-ish pet AI to go into melee, as most of you know by now. So now he gets whacked by various aoes. This is proving to be a bummer to my dps, as instead of spamming attacks, I have to either heal Phanty or resummon him.

So I post this to see if anyone has found any tips for dealing with this. What I end up doing is standing to the side of him (so I avoid cones) with him just on the periphery of my heal radius. This is fine and at the end of the day the AV/Hero is defeated, but I'd like to minimize this problem, especially since Lord Recluse will be coming up shortly and I'll need to be at max performance for him.


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Posted

By the way, are devs aware about this problem with Phantasm AI?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by NordBlast View Post
By the way, are devs aware about this problem with Phantasm AI?
Good question, I've /bugged it twice so far. Of course the (non) feedback you get from that is the form letter "Thanks for reporting ............." is pretty meaningless.

Anyone PM'd Castle about it yet?


COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

 

Posted

Strange. My Phantasm seems a lot more resilient than described here, even against Giant Monsters and EBs. About the only time he dies is if he's on the other side of the critter from me and takes a few too many AoEs while out of range of Radiant Aura, or if I'm on a team where there's too many critters for my Phantom army to hog all the aggro or for the Spectral Terror to lock down...

Do you folks not make any effort to heal your Phantasms?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JD_Gumby View Post
Strange. My Phantasm seems a lot more resilient than described here, even against Giant Monsters and EBs. About the only time he dies is if he's on the other side of the critter from me and takes a few too many AoEs while out of range of Radiant Aura, or if I'm on a team where there's too many critters for my Phantom army to hog all the aggro or for the Spectral Terror to lock down...

Do you folks not make any effort to heal your Phantasms?
It doesn't matter. Phantasm has no business to go into melee range. And he didn't do it until recently.

He has 3 attacks:
Power Bolt - single target, 70 feet range
Energy Torrent - AoE cone, 40 feet range
Decoy Phantasm - summon, 60 feet range.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JD_Gumby View Post
Strange. My Phantasm seems a lot more resilient than described here, even against Giant Monsters and EBs. About the only time he dies is if he's on the other side of the critter from me and takes a few too many AoEs while out of range of Radiant Aura, or if I'm on a team where there's too many critters for my Phantom army to hog all the aggro or for the Spectral Terror to lock down...

Do you folks not make any effort to heal your Phantasms?
If you're facing mobs with AOE Phanty will rush into melee and literally get killed in seconds. I was facing Requiem last week on my perma-PA Ill/Rad and it got so I hardly bothered with Phanty. I'd summon him, he'd immediately run into melee with the AV and die within 15 seconds. PA always had the aggro but he'd still get pasted in seconds from splash damage.

Phanty has no business in melee and with mobs I'm not running in to heal his worthless butt and catching the same damage that's dropping him. PA is supposed to melee for aggro, Phanty is supposed to stay at range by you. Illusion is a set best played from range, there's no reason to run into melee. Because of Phanty's broken AI he's far less useful than he used to be.


COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JD_Gumby View Post
Strange. My Phantasm seems a lot more resilient than described here, even against Giant Monsters and EBs. About the only time he dies is if he's on the other side of the critter from me and takes a few too many AoEs while out of range of Radiant Aura, or if I'm on a team where there's too many critters for my Phantom army to hog all the aggro or for the Spectral Terror to lock down...

Do you folks not make any effort to heal your Phantasms?
Before this behavior started I took down a few of the easier GM's with my ill/kin. Phantasm and I stayed at range except for when I need to dart in for Transfusion or Transference. Now even the Transfusion spam (for -regen) doesn't keep him from getting tossed by the GM. I've had to time casting him and hope he'll cast decoy without splatting to fill in PA cool downs.

On a team, the drop in performance isn't noticeable, but it's definitely there when solo'ing hard targets.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome View Post
Good question, I've /bugged it twice so far. Of course the (non) feedback you get from that is the form letter "Thanks for reporting ............." is pretty meaningless.

Anyone PM'd Castle about it yet?
I PM'd Castle about it months ago with my main account. No response.


 

Posted

I honestly don't think this is intended giving the Phantasm is range oriented.