what yall doing
Nah there's no way they make him a smoke duelist, it's not effective at all only having 1 wall, and if his single wall is not even used imagine having 2 and not even using them for 5 rounds in a row. With the changes I proposed in my reply down below (#8, #17) I see him almost as a Raze/Reyna mix kind of role (a Yoru-like secondary duelist with vision/push denial abilities like Reyna and Raze have).
It's impossible for him to be even close to Viper only with a 7 sec wall, and Riot wouldn't make him a controller type duelist (i hope so).
You know they can change the duration of a wall smoke and add new util if needed for a category change right. Thats like the point of this thread. They can increase his wall smoke time (with the healing still active), give him some orb smoke instead of the molly (because thats not useful for a aggro smoker) and keep the peek flash so he can still take 1v1 duels and maybe increase the Ult time
But increasing the duration of his wall will not make him a smoke duelist, and they're not changing a complete ability like the molly for a smoke orb. Riot always tries to keep the abilities of their agents the same, they just change some stats or mechanics, not creating completely new abilities for an agent. Giving Phoenix a new ability means tanking it from a future agent. Keeping the peek flash is not a bad idea but it's also a reason why he's so unusable comparing him to e.g: a Yoru flash.
The objective is not to change his abilities for new ones or just buff them with damage, healing and durations, it's to make them better by adding new mechanics.
Quoting and expanding my reply from another thread:
They could make it so the wall has no equip time, easier to curve, and lasts longer.
His molly and wall could add a burn efect, that keeps the player on fire and deals a low amount of damage for a few seconds (something like 20 damage, to punish people for crossing his wall and molly).
His ult could last longer or make it so he recovers a little bit of ult time per kill (2 sec time recovery per kill seems balanced, idk about healing per kills bc he regenerates back to 100 when the ult ends).
And yeah his flashes are decent, but I gotta be honest, they do not even compare to Yoru and Reyna flashes in terms of utility. Maybe speeding up the use animation (not the flashes' activation time, but Phoenix's hand model), so it's easier to play off your popflashes.
I don't think that the flash and molly need that kind of buff, bc they have different use options/animations (flashes' got left and right throws, molly's got long and short range), but the wall only goes foward, no other option other than curving it. The best they can do about it is reduce the equip animation for the molly. I think that they've got to remove the wall's equip time, and maybe adding a new throwing option for the flashes, like a foward long range Kayo kind of flash, no gravity so it just goes in 1 direction, and maybe bounces and stops when it collides with a wall, like his actual flash does. Also it's a good idea to give him more healing from his molly and wall, since he's got no movement ability it's a good idea to give him a way to recover from a gunfight. It's definitely a more passive approach to a duelist, but it's the only way to make him playable.
If Riot adds everything that I've said they could save Phoenix, as he doesn't need a lot of buffs to be a better agent, he needs BETTER MECHANICS.
And no. Long range flashes would not make him exactly like Kayo, there's different ways to implement new mechanics to basic agents. All of this could save Phoenix from being useless and eventually, unplayable.
make wall do more damage when u run thru it, similar to viper decay effect. also increase length of the wall to make it similar to vipers as well, its too short
make curveballs last longer when flashed and make them quicker cause they are too easy to dodge
molly should have unlimited range
ult should be cancelable at any time to promote smarter usage of ult and maybe make it last longer
Phoenix is just not possible to keep up to duelist standards unless his whole kit gets a serious buff and change, he’s a duelist and rn every duelist has such good entry power while phoenix has basically nothing that can beat Reyna and jett and raze, he doesn’t have a get out of jail free card like Reyna and jett and doesn’t have satchels that create so much space
give a burn effect on both molly and wall. create a passive that when he gets 2 kills, his bullets deal burn damage for a certain duration. and maybe make some changes to his abilities like shorter pullout time and longer durations/size. also you could make it that during his ult, his bullets deal burn damage but it may be kinda op so you may have to tweak ult duration