Illusion Control Phantasm likes to melee too much

[Maxzero]

 

Playing my Illusion/Storm have been noticing Phantasm charging into melee range even though he has no melee attacks. I remember him having the 'range AI' pre shutdown.

 

I just happened to also notice that on the Paragon wiki under the Phantasm's information it's effect is listed as 'Summon Phantasm: melee.' Could this have something to do with it?

 

Would it be possible to change Phantasm's AI preset from melee back to range?

[Roelandt]

I'm surprised there are no comments on this.

 

The Phantasm is definitely bugged.

 

I'm Starsong. The original from Issue 1 through 7 who soloed all the game's Monsters and AV's with the Ill/Rad build (my one and only claim to fame). I left the game in Issue 7, and returned for a little while to kill a few monsters like Jurassic and Babbage in Issue 9.

 

Coming back to homecoming, I was so excited to get to level 40 again and start with soloing the AVs beginning with Anti-Matter just like last time, an old man eager to relive a wonderful, exciting gaming experience.

 

So, I'm fighting Anti-Matter and get stomped in just over 1 minute. Tried several times. Same result. This tactic should work. What's up?

 

Ah...my Phantasm is running into melee range almost immediately in the fight and dying instantly. NEVER had a Phantasm die before. Ever (except when I die first of course). Apparently there is an issue that came about in much later issues where the Phantasm runs in to Brawl when his ranged attacks are on cooldown. No Phantasm, no Decoy's to fill in for Phantom Army on cooldown.

 

There were no "enhancement builds" in my day. Skill and practice alone to tackle these AVs. I'm sure I can solo using similar tactics once I get my Phantom Army perma-cooldown, but I prefer not to use builds as a crutch. I the person want to beat Anti-Matter with skill and guile, not with a build obtained from dull farming. But with a broken Phantasm none of the tactics work and I'm as effective soloing AVs as a Hellion would be.

 

PLEASE FIX the Phantasm Brawl bug. That bug has killed my youth. Okay...so I exaggerated a bit there but you get my point. Hehe.

[Coyote]

I always thought that they should split up Phantasm's blast into two blasts, both lighter and weaker so that its overall DPS isn't affected... but having two fast blasts will allow it to always have a ranged attack to use so that it doesn't have a reason to advance.

[Maxzero]

32 minutes ago, Coyote said:

I always thought that they should split up Phantasm's blast into two blasts, both lighter and weaker so that its overall DPS isn't affected... but having two fast blasts will allow it to always have a ranged attack to use so that it doesn't have a reason to advance.

 

But it does not affect pets like Mu Summons. They will happily stay ranged even if their ranged attacks are on CD.

[Coyote]

33 minutes ago, Maxzero said:

 

But it does not affect pets like Mu Summons. They will happily stay ranged even if their ranged attacks are on CD.

 

Yeah, I know, but sometimes when dealing with messy AI that is hard to decode... you just have to play around with attacks and see if something works.

They could split up the single-target blast into two... or into 3 each with 3 second cooldowns so it's constantly active once it engages.

Basically, there is probably a right solution based on coding... but there may be an EASY solution using attack cycles, and if the other pets are working fine and Phantasm can be fixed with a change to its attack options, why not go with the easy and safe option? It would be pretty easy to change and test, too, I think.

[Ideon]

Mu Guardians have a 'power' which is 'no melee attacks'... could this prevent them from moving into melee range?

[Razia]

It also happens with Dark Servant. Mind you I am playing an Illusion/Dark, so if Phantasm goes into melee there is Dark Servant already there and he has a tohit debuff, so usually they both live, but it's still annoying.