Overview
A comprehensive guide for people who want to get better at playing Phantom. Okay, perhaps a little too comprehensive.
Preface
I decided to write this guide as I’m approaching 1000 hours in Dirty Bomb. This is a way to give back to the awesome community of this game, I guess. That and too many people asked me how to be good at Phantom. So there you go.
I will first do an overview of everything and then I’ll go into more detail later. Don’t be confused if I seem to talk about the same thing twice.
Disclaimers
Phantom is very difficult to play well and his playstyle is very different to any other merc’s. As such, I strongly advise against buying Phantom before you are level 10-15; you should pick up a different merc and learn the game mechanics prior to playing Phantom. He is also barely (if at all) viable in competitive play as it stands right now; in fact, he is probably the most underpowered mercenary in the game. Be prepared for noobs to sputter swear words and insults at you when you actually get good (but that goes for any merc, really). Finally, I’m an idiot and I don’t know what I’m doing.
Oh, also, there will be no TL;DR for this guide. He who takes shortcuts fails miserably.
Introduction
So you’ve reached level 10 and bought Phantom (or you’ve ignored my advice and bought him on level 5). What next?
As awesome as it would be, it is impossible to get good at something by just reading theory or watching others do it. Yet, it can be beneficial for you to read this guide (obviously 😝) and watch other people play, even just a few videos. Dazz3601 is fairly good at playing Phantom; he’s probably the best Phantom youtuber out there (being the only one automatically makes you the best, right?). See what people do, analyse their tips and gameplay, and go from there.
As I said, you can’t go far by just doing research. You have to actually play Phantom, and play him a lot.
With that cliché ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out of the way, let’s move on with the guide.
Overview
Phantom fits into the “Recon” category (heh). He has 110 health and 410 movement speed. His one and only ability is his Refractive Armor, also known as his Cloak. He is armed with an SMG, a high calibre pistol, and a melee weapon. He has nine loadout cards in each generation.
The weapons available to him are:
Primary: KEK-10, Crotzni, Blishlok
Secondary: DE .50, Smjüth & Whetsman .40, Simeon .357
Melee (First Generation): Katana, Beckhill Combat Knife, Stilnotto Stiletto
Melee (Second Generation): Katana, Cricket Bat
I will look at which weapons are the best for him later.
Phantom’s Refractive Armor (I will refer to it as Cloak from now on) is activated by either pressing Q or pressing 4 to select the ability and then pressing LMB (although this is an incredibly stupid way to activate the cloak, it is still possible). It makes you less visible depending on how fast you are moving. When you are standing still you are almost completely invisible whereas when you are sprinting you are a lot easier to spot. You will emit a buzzing noise while the cloak is active. The faster you move, the louder the noise will be. It also absorbs damage, the cloak meter acting as a health bar. Finally, it disables deployables in a certain area around you. When you press Q while you are cloaked, you decloak. When the cloak meter runs out, you decloak. When you attack with any weapon, you decloak. When the cloak has absorbed enough damage, you decloak.
Phantom’s Role
Phantom is described as “Recon” in-game. This could not be further from truth. Your job when playing Phantom is to kill as many enemies as you can before you get killed yourself. You can still provide information to your team by using voice chat, but if you actually want to spot people for your team just go for Redeye or Vassili.
Your main role on the battlefield is to pick off loners (snipers, naturally) and medics and overall cause complete and total chaos; a paranoid team is a bad team. Just ask a Proxy main.
It is also your responsibility to take out good players; because of your cloak you (generally) have an advantage because you can attack first; use this to kill good players before they can kill you.
Shooty-Shoot or Stabbidy-Stab-McStab?
Okay, this is a big one.
A lot of people who pretend to be good at Phantom will tell you to only use your guns. They are wrong and they sound stupid when they say this. Melee weapons are extremely potent and are easy to hit with. They do a lot of burst damage. Finally, this is fairly counter-intuitive and sounds funny when I said it out loud, but melee weapons do Area of Effect damage. That means you can hit multiple people that are in a certain area in front of you which lets you get some sick collaterals sometimes.
So do you shoot or do you melee? The short answer is: it depends.
I will look at his tactics a bit later but for now, keep in mind that when you are playing Phantom, you want to get as close as possible to the enemy and hopefully melee them to death. If you are spotted before you can melee, you will use your guns. But you will need to prioritise melee over shooting in most situations.
Not to go into into too much detail, melee has several advantages over shooting:
- Melee requires very little aiming. If something is in front of you, chances are you can hit it.
- Aforementioned AoE damage. Two Proxies on a stick – there’s nothing like the taste of victory seasoned with some salt!
- Melee weapons don’t lose accuracy when jumping. You can use this when fighting opponents up close.
- Melee is not a very common occurence in Dirty Bomb (surprisingly). At most it is used as a last resort. As such, people don’t usually know how to deal with someone competent in melee and act very predictably.
Movement
To do well as Phantom, you need to learn the parkour system in Dirty Bomb as well as some of the common (and uncommon) places where parkour is used. You will usually want to use the jumps to get behind the enemy, to retreat from the enemy or to simply confuse your adversaries mid-fight. There are some amazing guides on how to jump and where to jump online, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a few.
It is very important that you get very good at jumping since you will be using long jumps and wall jumps a lot in combat. When looking at the environment a common player will see walls, chest-high cover, maybe a flank route or two. A Phantom player will see opportunities to travel quickly, close distance, confuse the enemy mid-fight and escape from a fight that can’t be won.
The most efficient way to close the distance between you and the enemy is to do a long jump followed by one or two wall jumps. You can simply long jump towards the enemy if the distance is not very long or if there are no walls around, but wall jumps will help you preserve momentum for longer. Remember that you can’t change your movement direction much when you are in mid-air; you will need to predict where the enemies will be after you land.
Jumping over the enemy’s head is a very good way to confuse them. It is wise to fight enemies in areas where you can abuse that, such as near a corner or in a corridor/alleyway.
Cloak aka Pixel Blanket™
Here is some in-depth discussion about the cloak.
The minimum cooldown on the cloak is 7 seconds. The maximum is 12 seconds (technically it goes to 13, but only for a split-second). If you tap Q and instantly decloak, you will be faced with a 7 second cooldown. The maximum cooldown is caused by fully depleting your cloak meter. The cloak cooldown works similarly to Redeye’s IR Goggles’ cooldown: it is a channelling ability, meaning that you will experience its effects for as long as the ability is active and you can disable the ability at any time. The longer you cloak for, the longer the cooldown will be once you decloak. However, there is one big difference: unlike IR Goggles, you can only cloak once the ability is not on cooldown.
You also need to know that Cloak cooldown is directly proportional to your cloak meter and not how long you have been cloaked for; if you only cloak for a few seconds and then your cloak is shot down by enemies, you will have a 12 second cooldown on your hands.
The amount of damage the cloak can absorb before disabling is approximately 50 (shoutout to ♠Lynch Mob♠ for helping me test this). However, keep in mind that the cloak meter also depletes with time, so it will never absorb all 50 damage. If the damage dealt is more than what the cloak can absorb, the rest will overflow into your own health bar. For example, if you take a 150 damage MoA headshot when your cloak can only absorb 30 points of damage, you will still take 120 damage (and subsequently die).
There are four main uses for the cloak: infiltration, damage absorption, retreat, and EMP.
Infiltration is fairly simple: you cloak when you expect enemies to be around and use flank routes and jump spots to get to where you need to be. This is used most commonly to get behind the enemy to either start a carnage or complete an objective. Yes, you still need to be mindful of what your team needs to do. If no one wants to play the objectives, you need to try to complete them for your (incompetent) teammates.
Damage absorption is, quite frankly, not a very efficient use for the cloak, but it can be employed nonetheless. Although the cloak HP is 50, you will only ever realistically get 30-40 extra HP out of it. This is usually used to get into a group of enemies and trade your life for the life of an important target (medic, objective specialist, good player). Just don’t forget to finish them off if there are medics around.
Retreating is a bit more tricky. Instead of cloaking and running away, try getting around a corner, then cloaking and staying stationary or slowly moving in a different direction. Remember that you are very visible when sprinting, so running while cloaked will not do you any good in this situation.
EMP is as much an ability as it is a hindrance. When you cloak, you will see a blue ring around you. No, teammates and enemies can’t see that ring, I was confused as well. This ring will show you the radius of your cloak’s EMP effect. When a deployable gets inside this ring, it gets disabled for as long as it stays within the EMP radius and for five more seconds after it leaves the ring, whether because you moved away or you decloaked. This is generally only useful against health stations, Fletcher’s stickies and (to a lesser extent) proximity mines. The downside to that is that the deployable will no longer work (duh), it will emit electricity particles and a buzzing noise and the “active deployables” circle on the HUD of the deployable’s owner will turn blue. All of these give away your presence to the enemy team. The only time the EMP is actually useful is when you have already been spotted or if you don’t intend to be sneaky in the first place.
Let’s take a look at the loadouts I recommend using (or at least the ones you can use before you get a good one).
Good Phantom Loadouts
Since Phantom relies on his melee and his cloak to do well, there are three main augments you should be looking for:
Chopper: 15% increase to melee damage. The bread and butter of any Phantom. Makes your Katana slashes hit for 69 (giggity) and your stabs – for 103.5. Has significant effect on damage combos as well as making it easier to kill wounded enemies.
Quick Slash: increases melee attack speed by 25%. The tooltip is lying to you. It only increases attack speed by 15% and Splash Damage can’t be bothered to edit the tooltip. Fairly good perk for Phantom; it increases your Katana DPS and leaves more room for error in case you miss.
Undercover: 10% increase to ability duration. This perk is exclusive to Phantom. You should be able to get lots of use out of it since you will cloak a lot. This perk also doesn’t increase cooldowns, which is great.
C94 (Second Edition): Use it. Chopper + Undercover + Focus – All amazing perks. Best primary, best secondary, best melee.
C64 (Second Edition): Another great card. Quick Slash is your main point of attraction here. Drilled and Guardian Angel are also great. I prefer C94’s Chopper though (more on that later).
BL64 (Second Edition): Not a bad card. Blishlok brings it down somewhat, but you still get a Chopper Katana and some good perks to boot.
BL94 (First Edition): It’s okay. Undercover, Drilled, Katana.
CR94 (Second Edition): Again, it’s okay. Undercover, Katana.
BL54 (Second Edition): This is a fourth “okay” card. Fairly good if you don’t like using the Revolver much.
Note: since this guide addresses a Katana- and revolver-heavy playstyle, these are my loadout choices. However, If you rely on your guns for most situations, you might want to pick a different loadout.
The Pointy End Goes Into The Enemy
The game tells you that your primary is the SMG. If the point hasn’t been made clear to you already, the game is trying to trick you. Your primary is your melee, and generally it will be your Katana.
I will repeat what I said before: your main objective is to get close to an enemy. From here, you can try to either turn them into a sashimi or a kebab.
LMB will do a light attack (from now on I’ll call it a “slash”). Slashing with the Katana does 60 damage. Great for making sashimi.
RMB will do a heavy attack (I will be calling this a “stab”). Stabbing does 90 damage. The attack you want to use to make kebabs.
A stab does more damage than a slash, but it is more difficult to perform. Also notice how the hit arc for the stab is slightly off-centre. Generally this isn’t a concern when it comes to killing people, but it is a lot more noticeable when you’re trying to hit health stations, heartbeat sensors, snitches, etc.
Classes that have 90 or less HP make great kebabs. You need to evaluate whether you will be able to land a hit with a first stab (or second stab if you are good at dodging, but that’s a stretch). If you can, stab. If you can’t, you will need to slash.
For classes that have more than 90 HP, you will generally want to use slashes. Anything below 120 HP will die in two slashes, anything below 180 – in three. Rhino will die in four slashes.
There are some situations where you want to use your guns as opposed to your Katana. These include:
This usually happens when you are defending the objective against an all-out attack. When a lot of enemies are running towards you there is only that much you can do with your melee. Instead of charging in, killing an enemy and dying, it’s better to gun them all down.
I am talking about situations when you cannot quickly close the distance by doing a wall jump or two. If you can close the distance – great. If you can’t – you should shoot.
If they are running away from you with their back to you, a quick wall jump will let you close the distance and finish them off. If they are shooting at you, however, you should return fire.
If you happen to find yourself in a group of enemies, all within katana range, just melee them all to death; remember about that melee AoE. If, however, they start spreading out or if they are too far away in the first place, you should shoot (or, even better, run away).
There is a lot of debate on whether it is better to have Chopper or Quick Slash. Chopper allows you to hit for more damage whereas Quick Slash allows you to swing more frequently. In my opinion, Chopper is better. It allows you to kill Phoenixes in one stab and Rhinos in two stabs; this is very big considering that Phoenixes are very popular medics and it gives you a chance against Rhinos in case you meet one in close quarters. I don’t see the benefits of Quick Slash as being too overwhelming since I don’t usually swing my Katana at full speed anyway. I prefer the slower approach here; instead of waving my sword around and hoping some of those swings will hit, I only attack when I am sure I will hit the enemy. Therefore, Chopper is the winner for me.
Submachine Guns
This section will be fairly short. There are two reasons for this:
- SMGs don’t require much explanation. Point at head, shoot.
- This should not be the main gun you use. Your main gun should be…
The Hand Cannon, or a Ninja’s Sniper Rifle
There are a few reasons you can use a revolver as a primary:
- It slows you down less than the SMGs do, which makes it easier to strafe with it. In fact, your speed with a revolver out is the same as your speed with the Katana.
- It is faster to switch to a revolver than it is to switch to an SMG; this makes killing retreating enemies faster and easier.
- It is 100% accurate unless you spam it at full RPM (which you shouldn’t do in the first place).
- It does a lot of burst damage, especially on a headshot.
What is burst damage? Burst damage is the damage dealt in a short time frame. This term is only really used when referring to things that do a lot of it. For example, “Arty’s Artillery does a lot of burst damage.” “Vassili’s sniper rifles do lots of burst damage.” “Phantom’s Katana does a lot of burst damage.” In contrast, you don’t usually hear people say that “submachine guns don’t deal much burst damage”.
If a burst damage and a saturated damage weapons do the same amount of damage per second, there are a few advantages and disadvantages to burst damage. The disadvantage is that if you miss with a burst damage weapon, you need to wait longer before you can try again (i.e. it is more punishing), whereas saturated damage gives you more room for error. The advantage is that you do a lot of damage the instant you press LMB, which can let you kill an enemy before they turn a corner, before they kill you or before a similar event happens which will prevent you from doing more damage.
When I’m talking about burst damage I also have to talk about Damage per Second (DPS) vs Time to Kill (TTK). Higher DPS does not always mean lower TTK. Shooters are not clickers where more damage per second is good. In shooters, you kill enemies that have limited health pools. Quite often burst damage weapons have a tendency to have lower TTK than their saturated damage counterparts. For the next few examples I will be using Arsonist Cow’s Dirty Bomb Weapons Stat-Sheet[docs.google.com]. Note that it has several tabs at the bottom.
A great example of DPS vs TTK is sniper rifles. They have literally the worst DPS in the entire game. However, with 100% accuracy and 100% headshot rate they kill mercs with up to 140HP in 0 seconds (the instant you press LMB).
Note that with 100% accuracy and 100% headshot rate the revolvers have better TTK in almost every HP category as well as better average TTK than any of the primaries Phantom has access to. You may say that 100% headshot rate is hard to get, but with revolvers it is easier than you think since you get plenty of time to adjust your aim before you need to fire again.
The revolver is best used when paired with a Katana. For example, if you slashed a 90 HP merc and they started running away, you can quickly take out your revolver and finish them off. You can also do the opposite, start a fight with a revolver headshot and finish the enemy off in melee.
Because of the revolvers’ accuracy, they can be used as poor man’s sniper rifles. Of course, they are not nearly as effective as sniper rifles themselves, but they will perform better than SMGs, at least. It is never a bad idea to pop a round into a sniper’s head across the map as you are relocating (or at least attempt to. Who knows, you might actually hit him). If they are slow enough, you can even manage to kill them in 2-3 shots sometimes.
If you are in direct confrontation with several enemies and none of them are in melee range, it is best to use your SMG. This comes down to room for error and cylinder size. There are only so many enemies you can kill with six bullets. On the plus side, the enemies will be surprised when, after firing off six rounds with the revolver, you pull out your SMG with a full magazine.
Granted, this section is only useful for people who can actually be accurate enough with a revolver. However, just because you are not all that good right now doesn’t mean that practice won’t fix that. I myself became a Revolver Phantom after playing with only my secondary and melee out of boredom. I wasn’t all that good, but when I got better I realised the hand cannon’s potential. The upside of getting to know your secondary is that you will suddenly become a lot better at playing Skyhammer, Fragger and other mercs that use revolvers as secondaries.
Damage Combos (OUT OF DATE)
Note: this section is out of date as of the Javelin update which nerfed bodyshot damage on Revolvers. I will update it at some point soon.
When you are pointing a gun at your enemy’s head, it can be beneficial for you to know how much damage it will deal, especially if it deals burst damage. Knowing how much damage weapons deal by themselves and in combination with each other will help you determine how many hits you need to kill your adversary; this will greatly enhance your gameplay as Phantom.
These lists will show you the most efficient ways to kill an enemy with a certain health pool. I will only be looking at combos possible with C94 and C64 as these are the cards you are probably using/should be using in the long run.
Note: you can multiply the number of revolver headshots by two to get the number of bodyshots required if you aren’t that great at aiming or if you want to specifically go for bodyshots to get a more reliable damage output.
Pure Katana Damage
60 damage per slash, 90 damage per stab.
Kills:
<=90HP mercs in 1 stab (90 damage)
<=120HP mercs in 2 slashes (120 damage)
<=140HP mercs in 1 stab and 1 slash (150 damage)
<=170HP mercs in 2 stabs (180 damage)
<=200HP mercs in 2 stabs and 1 slash (240 damage)
Pure Simeon Damage
30 damage per bodyshot, 60 damage per headshot.
Kills:
<=90HP mercs in 1 headshot and 1 bodyshot (90 damage)
<=120HP mercs in 2 headshots (120 damage)
<=140HP mercs in 2 headshots and 1 bodyshot (150 damage)
<=170HP mercs in 3 headshots (180 damage)
<=200HP mercs in 3 headshots and 1 bodyshot (210 damage)
Katana + Simeon Damage Combos
Kills:
<=90HP mercs in 1 slash and 1 bodyshot (90 damage)
<=120HP mercs in 1 stab and 1 bodyshot or 1 slash and 1 headshot (120 damage)
<=140HP mercs in 1 stab and 1 headshot (150 damage)
<=170HP mercs in 1 stab, 1 headshot and 1 bodyshot or 1 slash and 2 headshots (180 damage)
<=200HP mercs in 2 stabs and 1 bodyshot (210 damage)
Pure Katana Damage (with Chopper)
69 damage per slash, 103.5 damage per stab.
Kills:
<=100HP mercs in 1 stab (103.5 damage)
<=120HP mercs in 2 slashes (138 damage)
<=170HP mercs in 1 stab and 1 slash (172.5 damage)
<=200HP mercs in 2 stabs (207 damage)
Pure S&W Damage
34 damage per bodyshot, 68 damage per headshot.
Kills:
<=100HP mercs in 1 headshot and 1 bodyshot (102 damage)
<=120HP mercs in 2 headshots (136 damage)
<=170HP mercs in 2 headshots and 1 bodyshot (170 damage)
<=200HP mercs in 3 headshots (204 damage)
Katana (chopper) + S&W Damage Combos
Kills:
<=100HP mercs in 1 slash and 1 bodyshot (103 damage)
<=120HP mercs in 1 stab and 1 bodyshot or 1 slash and 1 headshot (137.5 damage or 137 damage)
<=170HP mercs in 1 stab and 1 headshot (171.5 damage)
<=200HP mercs in 1 stab, 1 headshot and 1 bodyshot (205.5 damage)
The Art of Assassination
Playing Phantom is a bit like Kung-Fu: everyone who mains Phantom plays him differently.
Some play slowly and steadily. Some prefer a faster, riskier approach.
Some people rely on their guns more than others.
Some people use the revolver. Some don’t.
Some people play aggressively. Some play defensively.
There isn’t really a “bad” playstyle. Some are more specialised for a specific purpose and some are more efficient than others. Even the gun-only playstyle has its place (somewhere (maybe)). Most playstyles, however, have similar aspects at their core.
The biggest advantage that Phantom has is the element of surprise. It is easiest to kill people when they don’t expect to be killed. Just ask a Proxy main. I find that Phantom is played best as a flanker, going behind enemy lines or being a distraction in the middle of an intense fight. I also find that Phantom is best played on Defence since attackers don’t usually expect to be flanked.
When flanking, try using side routes and jumps to get behind the enemy; remember to use your cloak. Even though it is quite visible when you are sprinting, it is usually still enough to not get you noticed in the enemy players’ peripheral vision. Be careful when flanking though, you don’t want to run into a fresh spawn wave or a large group of enemies. Try to mostly go for loners as they will have almost no chance of fighting back. Vassilis are a good example; they take so long to realise what is happening that you have plenty of time to finish them off with a second slash. I often go around in circles, going behind the enemy and moving towards the frontline killing anyone in my way. This way I usually manage to kill most people and go behind the enemy just in time for a new spawn wave.
You can also try showing up in the middle of the fight when your enemies are fighting your team. This can have two effects. First, no one notices you and you quickly mop everyone up since they are distracted and are already wounded. Second, everyone focuses their attention on you allowing your team to kill everyone.
As I already said, you might have to complete the objectives since you can get behind the enemy pretty easily. This mostly goes for planting a C4 or stealing objectives. I know, I know, doing objectives sucks, especially if you have incompetent engineers just shooting stuff and dying. Trust me, losing sucks even more.
Phantom performs best in duels. If you are good enough you might be able to take on around three people if they don’t expect it, but 1-2 players is a realistic, reliable maximum. Obviously, this depends mostly on the enemy skill level and how well they can spot and counter Phantom. When taking on enemies, it is important to know three things: how good they are, their base health and their current health (in that order). You would generally assume that their max health is their current health to make sure your damage calculations are correct. However, if you see that the enemy has taken damage or is retreating from a fight you can assume their current health is lower than their max. Alternatively, you can hover your crosshair over them for a moment and you will see their health bar. If you can do that, you need to approximate how much health they have and what the most efficient way to kill them is. For example, when you see a Skyhammer at 1/3 health, that means they are at about 40 HP. You can try to kill them with a pistol; however, it is better to simply go for a Katana slash. This will definitely kill them and you won’t have an angry and cornered, but still alive Skyhammer on your hands. Another example. You see a Rhino at around half-health. Assuming that a stab is enough to kill him can be very, very bad for your health, especially if the Rhino has a spun-up Minigun in his hands. It would be advisory to go for two slashes instead.
Remember that Phantom is one of the few mercs in the game that can choose when to engage, when not to engage, and when (and whether) to disengage from a fight. If you are cloaked behind a corner and suddenly a large group of enemies runs past, you don’t have to fight. Just wait until they inevitably scatter and pick them off one by one. If you attacked a loner and, suddenly, four more people rushed in to help him, run away and cloak. The lesson here is to not get involved in fights you can’t win.
It can also be beneficial for you to try to learn more trivial information such as mouse sensitivity of players as well as their combat and movement preferences. A person with low mouse sensitivity is an easy target even for a mediocre Phantom if they can move quickly and unpredictably. Try to learn things like where a certain player likes to be on the map, at which distance they are good and at which they aren’t, even the direction they turn in when they get stabbed in the back. Of course, none of this information is necessary for you to be successful; knowing all this simply helps you in doing what you are supposed to do, which is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up other people’s ♥♥♥♥.
Of course, the key here is practice. You need lots of it. If you are not very confident in your abilities at first, try playing against low level players. Sounds like a bit of a ♥♥♥♥ move, but it’s difficult to move through a brick wall if you don’t know what you’re doing in the first place. Playing Phantom will teach you how to use your “secondary” and melee most efficiently. You will learn the maps well, not just the most obvious side routes, but every single nook and cranny where you can set up an ambush, for example. Phantom can help you become a better player overall by developing a skillset which isn’t usually used when playing any other merc. You will become more versatile when playing any merc.
When you become a good Phantom, the combat thought process will become almost automatic. Pretty much everything you read here will slowly but steadily become imprinted in your brain. You will not be trying to remember how much health a certain merc has. You will not be considering which weapon to use and which buttons to press. In fact, when I play Phantom I don’t even think all that much at all. To quote the Joker, “I just do things”. You will reach a certain point where you only need to think about where to go and who to focus on, your hands will do everything else almost automatically. You will experience something of a “battle trance” every game. And that is exactly the point where Phantom will hook you and simply won’t let you go with the amount of fun you are having.