112 replies to this topic

[Steel your Life]

the atlas seems vastly underpowered compared to the highlander mainly because of the highlanders JJ, victors and everything seem to have the advantage because of JJ and speed.

There is so many things that offset the atlas large armor.:

1) the hit box is huge so its easy to hit the same piece over and over more so than any other mech

2) The Atlas has "gorilla arms" the weapons fire so low to the ground that any small hill or cover you are behind blocks your arm and! and! shoulder shots.

3) The Atlas is not only slow but changes direction so increadably slow that you can die before you get a chance to react to fire if you poke out at the wrong time.

4) The Atlas pushes the limit of balance between open mech slots and weight limit. What I mean is that it has the highest weight limit but often you cannot equip the weapons and ammo you need to make the mech usefull simply due to the fact that you run out of open mech slots. Think about this in detail if you have a mech wth a 200 ton limit but the same open slots as every other mech in the game you will end up with basically the same weapons as weaker mechs. Simply because the extra weight you gain does you no good when you don't have the slots to put heatsinks, ammo, or weapons in. You cannot effectively utilize the mech weight limit. So often you end up with either atlas's that have same firepower as lighter mechs or you end up with atla's that have next to no cooling beyond their engine making their superior weapon load out just as effective or less effective than lighter loadouts simply because their heat ratio is so bad.

I really think the Atlas needs.... something... in my exp its so easy to kill. Every time I see an atlas it dies fast and every time I use an atlas it dies super fast in a brawl because its so easy to hit. Something needs to be done to make the atlas better or the highlander worse. The bottom line is the highlander just outclasses the atlas making it the go to assault mech if you don't want the stalker for weapon loadout. This just isn't right...

The only way to use an atlas is to have long range weapons and try to stay hidden without drawing too much agro. Unlike the highlander which can tank so much better and do anything it wants due to its JJ ability.

I couldn't post it but there is a good post called "atlas the bullet magnet" check it out.

Edited by Steel your Life, 13 February 2014 - 06:05 PM.

[Dirkdaring]

#2 is why I hardly use my Atlas. I hate that to no extreme.

[Bilbo]

The Highlander doesn't "tank", it evades. The Atlas doesn't tank either unless it has support. If you don't have support, don't stick your neck out.

Go here for some helpful tips: http://mwomercs.com/...des-strategies/

[MungFuSensei]

If you are seeing an Atlas die fast, that's because the pilot probably thinks he's invincible. It can take a hell of a beating, but it can't take it forever.

The downside of the Atlas is not its lack of speed, maneuverability, or large size. It's the fact that it must play as a jack of all trades. It is hard to build and use a specialized Atlas. You can make an LRM boat or a Brawler, but it won't be as good as other specialized mechs. The Atlas does better with a mixed loadout. This makes it highly flexible on the field, but it will face situations where it cannot win.

This just means that the Atlas is not the god of the battlefield that we pretend it is or wish it is. It is designed to be a focal point for the team to rally around. If you gotta fall back, you fall back to the Atlas. If you need to breach a gap, send the Atlas in first. If you need a distraction, have the Atlas make some noise. This is where the Atlas excels. However, if you notice, each of these situations requires teamwork. Not since the early closed beta days could a lone wolf have a good day in an Atlas.

TL;DR, nothing is wrong with the Atlas. It just tends to give new players a false sense of invincibility.

[Khobai]

Quote

nothing is wrong with the Atlas

I disagree. the atlas is outright inferior to the highlander and victor.

-excruciatingly slow and lacks jumpjets, has massive difficulty going uphill
-huge hitboxes that make pinpointing locations easy and fail to spread damage evenly
-low weapon hardpoints and lack of jumpjets means you have to expose the entire top half of your mech to shoot
-atlas has an underwhelming number of hardpoints for its tonnage (7-8 hardpoints? a firestarter has 8 hardpoints lolz)

Personally I think assault mechs like the victor are way too mobile (80kph with jumpjets, really?) and assault mechs like the atlas arnt nearly tanky enough. I think every weight class should have its own unique skill tree. An example of a skill replacement for assaults would be losing speed tweak in favor of a skill like armor tweak which would give them damage reduction instead of a speed increase.

[Deathlike]

TBH, Steiner scout lances still win... when used properly.

The problem though is that the Atlas hitbox "change" (aka nerf) has hurt the Atlas more than it should have. Reverting parts of that change (and technically decreasing the side torso hitboxes) would help.

[Wintersdark]

The Atlas is fine, your expectations are wrong. An Atlas requires more firepower to bring down than a Highlander. It can't poptart, obviously, but physically it's not a substantially larger target - unless your opponents are unspeakably bad, nobody is going to miss either.

The only real problem the atlas has is it's very low slung arms and lack of jump jets. Since the maneuverability changes went in, and hill climbing became so much slower and often impossible, some maps became deathtraps for the Atlas - Canyons being a very good example.

Really, the issue is that people expect the Atlas to be this unstoppable god of the battlefield, but the reality is it tends to draw fire and it's ultimately only 10-15 tons heavier than it's competition. It sports more armor, but generally the difference is only a single weapon-cycle's worth of fire from another assault.

As MungFuSensi covers above, the Atlas (specifically the D-DC, but any Atlas really) is still a very powerful choice, but it's a group mech. With team play, and allies covering the Atlas's disadvantages, it's a monster. For a lone wolf, though, it's disadvantages are too easily exploited.

I'd argue, though: When you need to breach, you send either several Atlases together as the first push, or you send the mediums first followed immediately by the Atlas. This allows the Medium's to close into effective striking range while the Atlases present a substantial threat.

Send a lone atlas in front, and it'll be focussed down instantly even by random PUG's: It's huge, it's slow, it's an easy target.

When the Atlas comes in immediately behind the brawler/striker mediums, though, it does a couple things:

1) The Mediums push past the enemy mechs, and angle for rear attacks. While they take the initial volley of fire, they've got speed and numbers to distribute incoming fire between them.
2) The Atlas's arrival immediately afterwards draws fire off the mediums.
3) The mediums force a choice: the Defenders can fall back, losing their defensive position, or they must choose to turn and face the Atlas or the Mediums. Either way, things are problematic. As a rule, players will not turn their back on an angry stompy Atlas, so they must either fall back or get torn apart by hungry mediums. Once players start falling back, the disorganization is easily exploited.

Too often, people expect the lone Atlas to lead a push. The reality is this is ineffective - The atlas is simply too easy a focus-fire target, and nothing can stand up to heavy focused fire. Further, the Atlas is slow and large, and even if advancing can easily block the path and fire of allies.

You want to Follow The Fracking Atlas, but very often this means following from the front/sides.

Khobai, on 13 February 2014 - 06:50 PM, said:

I disagree. the atlas is outright inferior to the highlander and victor.

-excruciatingly slow and lacks jumpjets, has massive difficulty going uphill
-huge hitboxes that make pinpointing locations easy and fail to spread damage evenly
-low weapon hardpoints and lack of jumpjets means you have to expose the entire top half of your mech to shoot
-atlas has an underwhelming number of hardpoints for its tonnage (7-8 hardpoints? a firestarter has 8 hardpoints lolz)

Personally I think assault mechs like the victor are way too mobile (80kph with jumpjets, really?) and assault mechs like the atlas arnt nearly tanky enough. I think every weight class should have its own unique skill tree. An example of a skill replacement for assaults would be losing speed tweak in favor of a skill like armor tweak which would give them damage reduction instead of a speed increase.

This is a great post, IMHO, and I'm particularly fond of the unique skill tree idea.

[Khobai]

Quote

An Atlas requires more firepower to bring down than a Highlander.

Jumpjets allow the highlander to divert more damage to its legs than the Atlas. Highlanders are actually much tougher to bring down if jumpjets are used to mitigate damage away from the torso sections.

I wouldnt say Atlases are "bad" assaults. I'd say they're fairly middle-of-the-pack, just ahead of the Stalker and Battlemaster. But the Highlander and Victor are by far the best assaults right now, and theres little reason to play an Atlas instead. Certainly the balance between chassis could be much better.

I definitely think assaults need a mobility nerf. They move and turn much too fast. In exchange for the mobility reduction assaults should get innate damage reduction (through their skill tree). The whole point of an assault is to tank damage. Assaults should be able to walk into the line of fire and absorb massive amounts of punishment. Conversely, heavies and mediums should have to rely more on speed to avoid getting hit. Right now speed and jumpjets trump armor in every conceivable way and that's wrong.

Edited by Khobai, 13 February 2014 - 07:22 PM.

[MungFuSensei]

Khobai, on 13 February 2014 - 06:50 PM, said:

I disagree. the atlas is outright inferior to the highlander and victor.

-excruciatingly slow and lacks jumpjets, has massive difficulty going uphill
-huge hitboxes that make pinpointing locations easy and fail to spread damage evenly
-low weapon hardpoints and lack of jumpjets means you have to expose the entire top half of your mech to shoot
-atlas has an underwhelming number of hardpoints for its tonnage (7-8 hardpoints? a firestarter has 8 hardpoints lolz)

Working as intended. It's supposed to have a downside. You have to learn to work within those limitations. I know people hate to hear "L2P" but I have seen Atlas pilots get consistently good scores if they know what they are doing. You have to pick your battleground. Hang out on the flat parts of the battlefield, or pick the high ground. Find a chokepoint and hold it. The Atlas isn't designed to be a hill hugger. It may not have a million hardpoints, but each of those hardpoints will be occupied by a significant threat. Even if you take off a side torso on an Atlas, it will still have more firepower than some mediums.

Stop thinking of the Atlas in a 1vs1 basis. It is not a mech designed for dueling. Instead, imagine a situation where you have 3 teammates, each fighting their own opponent, and your atlas can assist all three of them. It is a force multiplier. An LRM20 shot here, an AC20 shot over there, and some Large Laser fire to help the last guy. That is significant. It is this method of playing the Atlas that makes it king of the battlefield.

[Khobai]

Quote

Working as intended. It's supposed to have a downside.

But it has no upside.

[hellcatq]

Despite not really excelling at anything, I like my atlas.
I would like to see maybe a bit more speed added to them inherently or maybe a bit smaller hit boxes on the cannon area(left an right torso) as they are disarmed super easy.

The armor advantage is really nullified by the 12 man games. They were much tankier when only having the 8 man focused fire. In an 8 man it was feasible to split into two lances even though not usually. In the 12 man it is almost always best to make one large super lance and simply focus fire. This heavily negates any advantage the atlas has in armor. The last couple mechs alive on the battlefield are almost always small hard to hit mechs because armor is not nearly as important as evasion. Speed the atlas up alittle or slow the other heavy mechs down.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Steel your Life, on 13 February 2014 - 05:51 PM, said:

3) The Atlas is not only slow but changes direction so increadably slow that you can die before you get a chance to react to fire if you poke out at the wrong time.

Does not have to be. I do not run atlas's often but I do have 3 of them and not one has a engine lower than a std 340. With the 340-360 engines (and speed tweak ofc) it actually has decent maneuverability for its size/tonnage. Which makes a massive difference in survivability, and at the same time still packs a deadly arsenal of weapons.

Edited by xMEPHISTOx, 13 February 2014 - 08:40 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Atlases take a considerably bigger 'hit' in mobility than Highlanders do. Also, having significantly larger side torsos they can't every reasonably pack an XL. Most Highlanders can reasonably put in an XL. This means you can literally pack the same damage value of weapons (or better!) in your Highlander than you can your Atlas at 10 tons lighter. Then you can put in JJs.

A highlander has 10 points less armor on the CT. That's it. One extra single PPC hit. In return for which it's got a significantly more narrow torso and has both a larger range of pitch and yaw movement than an Atlas as well as faster turning, pitch and yaw speeds. Significantly faster. Plus JJs.

So at 10 tons lighter a Highlander is narrower, has better hitboxes, more flexible hardpoint layout (arm mounted AC not torso), is significantly more maneuverable and can mount as much or more firepower plus JJs. It will also move faster with a smaller engine.

There's a middle generation of mechs - victors, highlanders, jags, that hugely out-perform the older mechs. Then, perhaps seeing this, we get the 'new' mechs which are in fact inferior to most the original mechs. A Battlemaster has less maneuverability (significantly) than a Highlander plus no JJs even though it's 5 tons lighter. It has inferior hardpoints as well, in addition to being literally just shy of twice the width.

Highlanders, victors and jags need nerfed or everything else needs buffed. They need made fatter, less flattering hitboxes and reduced maneuverability. I hate to say it because I do like my Victor and Highlander not to mention my deep love of my Jags but they're out of scope to every other mech. Only other one to come close is the Cataphract.

[Sephlock]

On the other hand it is hilarious to torture an Atlas by firing though gaps in buildings.

[MisterPlanetarian]

The atlas is fine aslong as tonnage limits and King-Crabs are not ingame. Once mastered the atlas is more manouverable than a Stalker by far and has 15 tons on it with better heat efficiency. Low mounted weapons means you need to stick to level terrain and there are quite a few maps that lets you do this. River city and Forest colony being my favourite maps for the Atlas.

Once the Tonnage limits hit the Atlas with its mediocre firepower relative to its weight will fade away.

Edit: Highlanders and Victors are better because of their ability to effectively use XL engines, Ballistic weapons and Jumpjets in combination. If Jump sniping is removed then the atlas is less ineffective.

Edited by MisterPlanetarian, 13 February 2014 - 09:01 PM.

[cSand]

An Atlas by itself doesn't worry me all too much...

an Atlas with 1 or 2 friends nearby though...

[Khobai]

Quote

An Atlas by itself doesn't worry me all too much...

an Atlas with 1 or 2 friends nearby though...

Thats not saying much. Id be worried about any mech in the game if it had 1 or 2 friend nearby. 1v3 usually doesnt make for very good odds.

[Profiteer]

ECM on the DDC is the 1 and only saving grace.

They are bad.

[Navy Sixes]

I don't run Atlases myself, but I've spectated enough to fairly point out that one of the biggest problems I've seen in the way new players run them is indecisive maneuvering. In an Atlas, you are too slow to cruise around a map looking for trouble. It takes you too long to stop and turn around if you take a little fire from the rear, than turn again and start moving on. When I spectate someone doing poorly in an Atlas, they are invariably not certain where they are headed or what they are going to shoot at. While the rest of the company is getting thrashed -often by the enemies Atlases- they are driving around in the wilderness somewhere, trying to chase down a lone light/medium that is shooting-then-fading-away from a distance until the rest of the team can swarm.

Conversely, the good Atlas pilots I've watched are familiar with the maps: they know where they're going, and they head there without much detour. They know their mech is painfully slow, so they don't try to cruise around like it's GTA. When they come in contact with the enemy they aren't foolhardy, but at the same time they commit with confidence. They assess which targets they want to take down and they go after them doggedly. They don't shoot at one target, switch to another, then switch to a third before coming back to the first, then decide to try and back up into cover. A good Atlas pilot with a good build can focus down an enemy on their own before moving on to the next target. If the team is with them and supporting the push, an Atlas is the freight train of doom, just chugging down the tracks and crushing everything in its way. Which brings me to the last point...

Agree with earlier posts that say the Atlas is a team player. If someone is shooting at the Atlas next to you from behind, don't be glad they're not shooting at you. Go after them. If that Atlas has to stop and turn around, If that Atlas has to stop and play hidey-peeky, if it has to stop and back against a wall to fend off a circling light harasser, you guys are already in trouble before the first mech has fallen.

[MischiefSC]

Tycho von Gagern, on 13 February 2014 - 09:43 PM, said:

I don't run Atlases myself, but I've spectated enough to fairly point out that one of the biggest problems I've seen in the way new players run them is indecisive maneuvering. In an Atlas, you are too slow to cruise around a map looking for trouble. It takes you too long to stop and turn around if you take a little fire from the rear, than turn again and start moving on. When I spectate someone doing poorly in an Atlas, they are invariably not certain where they are headed or what they are going to shoot at. While the rest of the company is getting thrashed -often by the enemies Atlases- they are driving around in the wilderness somewhere, trying to chase down a lone light/medium that is shooting-then-fading-away from a distance until the rest of the team can swarm.

Conversely, the good Atlas pilots I've watched are familiar with the maps: they know where they're going, and they head there without much detour. They know their mech is painfully slow, so they don't try to cruise around like it's GTA. When they come in contact with the enemy they aren't foolhardy, but at the same time they commit with confidence. They assess which targets they want to take down and they go after them doggedly. They don't shoot at one target, switch to another, then switch to a third before coming back to the first, then decide to try and back up into cover. A good Atlas pilot with a good build can focus down an enemy on their own before moving on to the next target. If the team is with them and supporting the push, an Atlas is the freight train of doom, just chugging down the tracks and crushing everything in its way. Which brings me to the last point...

Agree with earlier posts that say the Atlas is a team player. If someone is shooting at the Atlas next to you from behind, don't be glad they're not shooting at you. Go after them. If that Atlas has to stop and turn around, If that Atlas has to stop and play hidey-peeky, if it has to stop and back against a wall to fend off a circling light harasser, you guys are already in trouble before the first mech has fallen.

At its best an Atlas is either fire support of some sort (I've seen this done rather well) or a brawler D-DC who sticks in the middle of his peeps, trying to keep the ECM bubble working. When someone gets close he explodes in their face AC20/LL/LPL//missiles and whatever else he has crammed in. An Atlas can win a brawl with just about anything if set up correctly. The key is to stay out of sight until the brawl happens. A brawl is where the Atlas shines; everyones torsos are easy to pick out at 50m so your flaws are mitigated. With AC20/LPLs/SSRMs an Atlas can easily put out 40+alphas on pinpoint locations and chain up those streaks to keep your target shaking.

Otherwise though you've got extended sensor range, ECM and BAP to maximize detection for your crew. Stick with your team, act like an anchor, not the prow of a ram.