Originally Posted by Jaron

Let me clarify. I started playing with a stock A-5 in 2005, no E-Grip. I only got the E-Grip in mid 2008. All that time I never felt out gunned either. However, toward the end of 2008 I started feeling the A-5's limited consistency. While I could always hit my target inside 60', once I started shooting at medium - long ranges, I couldn't count on the A-5 to put my shot where I wanted. Even the E-Grip and higher volume of fire wasn't compensating for it because the pattern spread was just too much. Many of my teammates had Minis and Shockers, and though they felt weird to me, ( I liked the A-5's ergonomic feel akin to firearms, ) I couldn't deny that they shot much better and more consistently than my A-5 did. That's when I started looking at higher end guns. My RoF is no faster now than it was with my E-Gripped A-5 ( I don't go above 14 bps except for demonstrations, ) but I can keep a much tighter pattern now with my E-Mag and that's what matters most to me. Higher rates of fire may be nice, but when I say performance, I mean how consistently the gun can shoot and how close it keeps my shots grouped together.

You're right, the standard A-5 and X7 weren't meant to go head to head with a Mini or G3, but they did have to compete a lot with the Ion in that price range. I think this Phenom will be at least $300, if not closer to $400, and that DOES put it in the same price range as the Mini and G3, and thus it will be directly competing against them. Some people decidedly WANT the mil-sim body look of the Phenom and so will go for it over the flashier "space gun" look regardless if the Phenom doesn't perform as well. But what happens to the average player just looking or a good gun in that price range? Say it comes with a MSRP of $400. What makes it $100 better than a Mini or G3? Sure it has the cyclone built in, but I can get a Halo II with a $300 gun. What makes up the other $40?

Coming from an E-Mag user, the dual mech/electro firing modes DO come in handy, but not really that often. I can only think of two times I've had to disable my electro mode during a game and both times were only to finish the game until the next break so I could fix the problem and then I flipped back to electro. So yes, it's a nice feature to have, but not a huge one to me anymore.

So again, my question is: assuming an MSRP of $400 for the Phenom, why would someone want to get one over something like a Mini or G3 that costs less? Why would they want a Phenom when they can pay $100 more to get a truly exceptional MacDev Tactical Drone? It would only make sense if the Phenom's shooting performs was in the same range as these other guns, and so far Tippmann hasn't shown me that they've changed their development mindset to put performance ahead of price. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, though.

One potentially big redeeming grace the Phenom has is the CO2 operation since many rural players don't have access to HPA tank fills.

Originally Posted by cknight98

were you using the stock barrel and having the 60ft issues?