112 replies to this topic

[GLIZZY GULPER]

Here we go.

I used to think LRM Atlases were heresy. Ones who boat excessive amounts of LRMs and sit around the back of the map still are committing a crime, in my mind.

However, I found success using LRM launchers in tandem with normal weapons (AC20, LL, ML, Gauss, etc) as a means of attacking enemies while I march my fat ass up to the front lines. An entirely brawler-based loadout is effective, but outside of 270 meters none of your guns mean jack to a Timber or Stormcrow sitting at 400m blasting you with gauss or laser vomit. If you charge into a spread out firing line at a distance, you can only stare menacingly at your enemy until they asplode.

[Johny Rocket]

pattonesque, on 09 April 2015 - 10:12 AM, said:

as for armor, Liesmith has it correct. Each robot can take a certain amount of damage before being destroyed. Assaults can take more damage than other robots. Certain assaults can mitigate their damage taken by twisting (like the Atlas) while others are not so good at twisting but can punish anything that tries to trade with them (like the Dire Wolf). Lurm assaults that stay in the back do not make good use of this armor and therefore allow the enemy to concentrate their fire on fewer, squishier targets.

put it this way -- how many times have you seen a lurm assault, its armor untouched, set upon by three wounded enemies at the end of a match and quickly dispatched? It's a pretty common occurrence tbh and it happens because that assault was contributing only its damage, and dispersed damage at that.

Poor position playing is bad regardless of weapons/class. How many times has the last guy out been a healthy light because he did nothing but go fast and take some pock shots from cover? Probably more often than a noob boater learning the hard way.
Some boards like the Bog, high ground to the back can be the best position for a long range build, though I personally prefer the flank not the back. You can harass the enemy and prevent them from gaining the high ground above your team. This is a life saver often. It also does not preclude you from taking fire as you have to expose yourself and forcing the opponent to flee his position or focus on you.
This is ok for an Atlas regardless of which long range weapon, but is better suited to mechs with faster acceleration and torso twist.

Some maps the team that wants to brawl in the center gets murdered because the other team won't join them and has good position when the brawlers then have to reposition.

Unfortunately as long as the game is run what you brought with no idea what map you are dropping on people will have wrong mech fails. Happens to everyone.

[pattonesque]

Tal Ravis, on 09 April 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

Here we go.

I used to think LRM Atlases were heresy. Ones who boat excessive amounts of LRMs and sit around the back of the map still are committing a crime, in my mind.

However, I found success using LRM launchers in tandem with normal weapons (AC20, LL, ML, Gauss, etc) as a means of attacking enemies while I march my fat ass up to the front lines. An entirely brawler-based loadout is effective, but outside of 270 meters none of your guns mean jack to a Timber or Stormcrow sitting at 400m blasting you with gauss or laser vomit. If you charge into a spread out firing line at a distance, you can only stare menacingly at your enemy until they asplode.

the problem is that those lurms you're firing are either doing zero damage when you lose lock or the enemy goes into cover, or they're doing (best-case scenario) spread damage. meanwhile when you do get close, you're less effective because you've spent like 10% of your tonnage on lurms.

[GLIZZY GULPER]

pattonesque, on 09 April 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

the problem is that those lurms you're firing are either doing zero damage when you lose lock or the enemy goes into cover, or they're doing (best-case scenario) spread damage. meanwhile when you do get close, you're less effective because you've spent like 10% of your tonnage on lurms.

Not exactly. I've had mechs in the distance be in the open and get peppered/screen shook by my LRMs while I blast them with the rest of my weaponry. I also find it ill-advised to hug the enemy in general, as you'll block your entire team from firing on your target.

[SethAbercromby]

pattonesque, on 09 April 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

the problem is that those lurms you're firing are either doing zero damage when you lose lock or the enemy goes into cover, or they're doing (best-case scenario) spread damage. meanwhile when you do get close, you're less effective because you've spent like 10% of your tonnage on lurms.

When an atlas carries more than 30% of its weight in guns, I think having devoting 6 tons and 3 crits to carrying an lrm10 and a ton of ammo won't make the atlas any less punchy up close. As a joke for the Urbie Derby round two that'll happen some time later today, I've made an Urban Atlas which carries 47% of it's weight in weapons alone plus 6.5 tons of ammo. 6% total weight "lost" to an lrm really isn't that much in comparison.

[Johny Rocket]

pattonesque, on 09 April 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

the problem is that those lurms you're firing are either doing zero damage when you lose lock or the enemy goes into cover, or they're doing (best-case scenario) spread damage. meanwhile when you do get close, you're less effective because you've spent like 10% of your tonnage on lurms.

The only answer to that is laser only builds, the same argument can be made for how few shots you get from a ton of AC10/20/guass ammo considering the weight of the weapon itself. Then shots miss moving targets or only catch the first slug, smart pilot baits you into killing the rock in front of him. Or from my first post they approach you in a way you can't get a proper lead.
This is why I loathe ballistics even though the bang and shake are a lot of fun.

[pattonesque]

Tal Ravis, on 09 April 2015 - 10:49 AM, said:

Not exactly. I've had mechs in the distance be in the open and get peppered/screen shook by my LRMs while I blast them with the rest of my weaponry. I also find it ill-advised to hug the enemy in general, as you'll block your entire team from firing on your target.

if they're in the open, they're going to have a bad time regardless of the presence of lurms

SethAbercromby, on 09 April 2015 - 10:54 AM, said:

When an atlas carries more than 30% of its weight in guns, I think having devoting 6 tons and 3 crits to carrying an lrm10 and a ton of ammo won't make the atlas any less punchy up close. As a joke for the Urbie Derby round two that'll happen some time later today, I've made an Urban Atlas which carries 47% of it's weight in weapons alone plus 6.5 tons of ammo. 6% total weight "lost" to an lrm really isn't that much in comparison.

That one (1) ton of ammo is going to do negligible damage. All it'll do is make you feel like you're contributing. Meanwhile you could use those six tons to put in a bigger engine or more heat sinks, which would make your Atlas better.

Tractor Joe, on 09 April 2015 - 10:54 AM, said:

The only answer to that is laser only builds, the same argument can be made for how few shots you get from a ton of AC10/20/guass ammo considering the weight of the weapon itself. Then shots miss moving targets or only catch the first slug, smart pilot baits you into killing the rock in front of him. Or from my first post they approach you in a way you can't get a proper lead.
This is why I loathe ballistics even though the bang and shake are a lot of fun.

I mean if you have this many problems with aiming, then by all means use lurms. I'm just recommending that you use them on a more appropriate robot.

[pbiggz]

Kotev, on 09 April 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

Try the build you like it
On more serius note, the brawler build 1 AC20-2 LBX10, 3 SRM6 is somewhat broken becouse of nerfed srms

never use LBX autocannons. For the same reason you shouldn't use LRMs, why use a weapon that artificially spreads damage when you can use ones that dont. Also SRMs arent out of meta because they're bad, they're out of the meta because CW favours medium range play, as it kind of should.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Because if you're engaging at short range anyways, the LB-X is lighter and cooler than a standard autocannon, if you really insist on using it as an equivalent to an AC/10 rather than an entirely different weapons system.

[pattonesque]

pbiggz, on 09 April 2015 - 11:04 AM, said:

never use LBX autocannons. For the same reason you shouldn't use LRMs, why use a weapon that artificially spreads damage when you can use ones that dont. Also SRMs arent out of meta because they're bad, they're out of the meta because CW favours medium range play, as it kind of should.

yeah SRMs aren't "nerfed" exactly. they work now and will tear stuff up if you get close.

[SethAbercromby]

pattonesque, on 09 April 2015 - 11:00 AM, said:

That one (1) ton of ammo is going to do negligible damage. All it'll do is make you feel like you're contributing. Meanwhile you could use those six tons to put in a bigger engine or more heat sinks, which would make your Atlas better.

The engine is part of the joke and 18 volleys of LRM are more than enough to soften up my victims until I get to the actual fighting, which You might have missed is still backed with 41 tons of weapons. That's two Locusts in weight in case you missed that. And playing devil's Advocate here, I'd gain 2 measly tons and one crit for swapping the LRM for another SRM with complimentary ammo.

Not using LRMs when you can do so withot any real consequences on a 'Mech that goes as slow as the Atlas is just silly.

[Tim East]

I'm not going to say "don't LRM Atlas" but I will say that if you do it, do it at 200-300 meters. That way you can make use of the AC20 that is just so good and all that armor that wouldn't really serve a purpose otherwise.

This is sort of a touchy topic for me, because I used to get really angry when our last guy was a DDC with nothing but LRMs shoved down his pants. But then I played an Atlas for a while, and I realized, they are REALLY FRICKIN' SLOW. Which is why I wound up putting 25 tubes worth of LRM on my S. If you charge toward the enemy and engage them at optimal range for your AC20, the LRMs are going to put out only a little less damage than SRM 18 would without really any risk of missing given the minimal range envelope for AMS to counter them and just about the same spread. Sure, you can get close and use the SRMs at point-blank range, but there are a lot of places where you just aren't going to use them, and the Atlas is SO FRICKIN' SLOW that you can get flanked by almost anything if you try to do that.

Well, I was going to go on a numbers rant, but on paper the SRMs look a lot better. It just kills me how SLOW you are is all. If there was a better way to ensure that the enemy engaged you at your optimal range, SRMs would probably definitely be king. I may have to try an SRM Atlas S again, just to see if I can make it work.

[Palor]

I was running my atlas with Dual erll's, gauss, and 3 streaks. People did not like this build either and i got a lot of flak for it. I found it to be useful since the atlas was so slow, most targets escaped brawling range quickly. Now I run dual MPL's an AC/20 and 3 streaks and people tell me how awesome my meta is, yet i seem to be able to contribute very little with this build. Engine is a 315 standard, and most mechs just move outside my effective firing range once i engage them.

I feel the atlas just exist to be meat shields.

[Richter Kerensky]

Palor, on 09 April 2015 - 11:14 AM, said:

I was running my atlas with Dual erll's, gauss, and 3 streaks. People did not like this build either and i got a lot of flak for it. I found it to be useful since the atlas was so slow, most targets escaped brawling range quickly. Now I run dual MPL's an AC/20 and 3 streaks and people tell me how awesome my meta is, yet i seem to be able to contribute very little with this build. Engine is a 315 standard, and most mechs just move outside my effective firing range once i engage them.

I feel the atlas just exist to be meat shields.

Please do not use the Streak SRM2.

[Tim East]

Gauss just blows up whenever I mount it. Pretty much on anything, not just Atlases.

[YCSLiesmith]

the dual mpl ac/20 3 streak build isn't exactly an awesome metabuild (there are no awesome metabuilds for the Atlas) but its fun with ECM. as long as you brawl hard with a crowd it works ok. but your previous build wasn't terrible, there's nothing wrong with 2 erlls and a gauss rifle on any mech.

Edited by YCSLiesmith, 09 April 2015 - 11:17 AM.

[Richter Kerensky]

i mean i'd argue against using the streak srm 2 because it's atrocious but you have a good idea with the gauss/erlls at least

[Tim East]

For straight-up silliness, I almost back-cored a Hellbringer the other day in my Atlas BH. Got a late start out of the gate due to someone calling me irl and wound up rolling through the underground bunker zone on HPG. Flanked his entire inattentive team and hit him in the back with two PPCs and an AC20. Thought for sure he was going to explode, but he didn't. Wound up drawing the ire of his entire team for 45 seconds of hard fighting, and died. My team messed his up though, so hey. Atlas tanking. Yay...

Seriously though, there is pretty much no reward for turning the course of a match like that. I can't recommend it.

/edit: I have no missiles on this beastie, by the by. I feel like the PPCs give me enough long range punch that I don't hate it too much for being SLOW.

Edited by Tim East, 09 April 2015 - 11:26 AM.

[SethAbercromby]

Streaks do have their place. Yeah, two missiles aren't really that great in damage, especially after being nerfed into not doing as much damage per missile as SRMs and the atrocious cycle times, but they have a certain appeal in synergizing well with lasers. There is no need to lead you shots against any target, you point your laser where they need go, fire your streaks and everything hits. I do prefer to use streaks on certain 'mechs when I don't have quite enough tonnage to mount SRM4s and have a heavy laser reliance.

[Palor]

I can remove the streak, I have the SRM6+ artemis to switch over easy. I had it like this for a bit, but it seemed clunky to hit those pesky lights with them.

So what is the ideal load out for an Atlas D-DC? I sort of gave up on it a year ago.