448 replies to this topic

[p00k]

attention non-atlas pilots

an atlas doesn't have all that armor to be your shield. it has all that armor because it's big, and it's slow, and it can't run away like you can, and it's easy as hell to hit from across the map unlike you are

it's every mech's job to try to trade armor with hurt teammates. that means atlases taking shots for hunchbacks as well as vice versa, if the hunchback is the fresh one and the atlas is the injured one.

want something to soak damage for you? it's called "cover". not "teammate".

[MischiefSC]

The problem with tanking in an Atlas is that often your teammates just abandon you. 'Rush position X', everyone follows you - right up until the shooting starts. Then suddenly you're all alone behind enemy lines.

Wanting to get my D-DC up to Master to get that 4th slot for consumables I started running an RS with 4x LL and 2x LRM20s. It's 10x easier to rock with than my D-DC brawler because I don't have to count on my team mates as much.

That's the problem. Yes, a D-DC probably needs to go AC20,LLs and 3xSRM6s or it's going to end up face to face with someone who did and can't keep up the damage output. They are conversely at the mercy of their often untrustworthy teammates.

I don't point that at pugs either. Statistically at least in the Elo point I'm in the premades will abandon me far faster than my fellow pugs. Suddenly your rush turns into 4 people rushing and 4 people moving in a line with matching wacky paintjobs to the side to avoid the heavy fighting but hopefully pick up some kills.

It can be tough to play an Atlas when pugging. With a team it's far, far easier. I tank happily for people I drop with because I know they're not going to just leave me to it. When I can trust others not to do the same I'll do it every game.

[Sephlock]

2x ALRM founders atlas 4 life!

[El Bandito]

El Bandito, on 13 March 2013 - 09:55 PM, said:

What I really want to ask is...

How the hell OP's logic got at least 40 likes? All competent players know that a light mech (preferably with ECM--most likely be a RVN-3L) can effectively draw fire AND survive far better than an Atlas.

2-3 mechs focusing an Atlas will core it in under 5 seconds.

Also like to add, the next time you want to distract the enemy, tell your scout to do that role. Not us Atlai.

My Fatlas shooting with my Dual UAC's and LLasers and LRMs can dish out far more damage than any of you medium or heavy jockies so let me shoot the enemies at my own pace. Me surviving longer means more enemies will die faster.

Edited by El Bandito, 13 March 2013 - 10:07 PM.

[Sephlock]

Typically when I try to damage soak while pugging, everyone else pulls back and I end up like this:

[Scrawny Cowboy]

@ OP

While I agree with you that an Atlas should use his armor and presence for enemy focus. What you need to realize is PuG's (as intelligent as they are) most often DO NOT coordinate with the effective function of a tank (or much else to be honest).

If the situation suites it, I'll stick my Atlas out there for the enemy poke holes through instead of my team. But I will not toss myself blindly into the fray to become cannon fodder. That is a waste as a team member, especially as an assault pilot. Too often I have seen teams leave their assaults/slow movers behind, not follow their charge, not help with a monkey on their backside.

But this is the norm with the limbo of PuG games. If you don't like it, I'll echo others' suggestions to looking for a group to drop with.

[KingCobra]

When i play my atlas-ddc i have 2 long range weapons rest is 400 meters max weapons i tell everyone to stay close i work the battle 1-2 mechs at a time not rushing in but being agressive in a stratigic way to help my team which are almost always pugs.I could probibly be the last man standing almost every battle except for my weak head and back armor which the atlas is to slow to defend.You have to back up to a building or something to not get back shot to death by lights the right-left movement is very slow so is the forward to reverse.The torso twist is not to bad.Its a bruiser that can change the outcome of a battle as long as your team kills all the raven 3Ls and commandos if not its a short battle for everyone.

Edited by KingCobra, 13 March 2013 - 10:13 PM.

[Johnny Reb]

I hate when ppl tell other ppl how they should play in pugs! Unless your are part of a team, then its standard.

edit: Unless your part of a coordinated team!

Edited by Johnny Reb, 13 March 2013 - 10:38 PM.

[ZnSeventeen]

Oh people and their silly logic.
By the way, all your statements about people not moving up and taking damage can apply to every bloody mech. If you haven't taken any damage, you are either playing wrong or so good a gunner you didn't need to.
In any case, my primary weapons on my Atlas are ranged, (2LRM15+Artemis and Gauss), but I am more than willing to soak up a bit of damage to save a teammate who wasn't just a suicidal maniac. I also am a decent brawler, anti-light and anti-sniper.

[MischiefSC]

You're on a team in every single game. Every game.

You're in a team. If you're not using chat to communicate with your team then you're dead weight. You may be a great shot, you may do a lot of damage, but in the context of the success of the team you drop on....

you may as well be some random dice-roll of damage to random enemies. You can't be counted on, you can't be trusted, you can't be figured into your teams tactical equation. A less skilled pilot who communicates with his team even if it's to say 'roger' or 'nope, I'm an LRM boat I don't rush' is far more valuable and more important to his teams success than a killing dervish who never speaks.

if you're a premade team on voip and you don't use chat to communicate with your pugs....

We're in Elo now guys. That means that all your pugs are not newbies or rambos. If they come across that way it's because they're being forced to be by teams that don't communicate with them. They wouldn't have gotten ranked high enough to drop with premades though if they were not capable of working towards the teams success.

Not all atlases should tank but more would if teams communicated better.

Chat. One or two words 2 or 3 times in an entire match. The difference between scattered suicide pigeons and a well oiled machine.

[Johnny Reb]

My bad! Unless your part of a coordinated team! Silly me.

[Jay Kerensky]

Onmyoudo, on 13 March 2013 - 12:46 AM, said:

An Atlas is a damage soak. It has the most armour, it has the most durability and in a lot of cases it has ECM. If you are not soaking damage, you are not doing your job. Did you get 600 damage? Great. Did you get 2 kills? Well done. Did the rest of your team die because they got alpha struck to death while you were playing coy buggers in the buildings? Then you're next, bucko, and the game has been lost. If you're winning, then it's likely because someone else has been soaking up the damage that you should have been sharing.

Due to the nature of how MWO works, an Atlas is always needed on the front lines. Massive burst damage and concentrated fire can and will annihilate members of your team that, if able to actually fire their weapons (perhaps due to the enemy team instead firing at the large 100 ton behemoth striding towards them) will allow your team to do more damage overall than you alone can manage. 400 + 400 is better than the 600 you will do by yourself.

Your Atlas is not an LRM boat. Get a Catapult. Your Atlas is not a sniper. Get a Stalker. If you want to use those weapons, by all means do so - on your way towards the battle lines. Your mech is one of the most important in any game you play and you must use its strengths to help your team succeed. Because it is your team that is important - if you yourself get blown up with only 200 damage done, but succeed in drawing enough fire to let your team win the match, then your role has been fulfilled and you can congratulate yourself on a job well done. That is your purpose. Start doing it.



Disclaimer: a Stalker could also arguably fill this role, but for several obvious reasons is not as effective.

[Dreamslave]

Every single time I see an LRM/Fire Support Atlas, I literally cringe and then proceed to feel so very bad for the team we are about to slaughter because somehow, for whatever reason, they thought it was a good idea to waste a 100 ton mech on staying in the rear of the fight, outside of engagements. It is an always fail method, at least every time my team and I have come against a group that uses one or more.

MischiefSC, on 13 March 2013 - 10:28 PM, said:

We're in Elo now guys. That means that all your pugs are not newbies or rambos. If they come across that way it's because they're being forced to be by teams that don't communicate with them. They wouldn't have gotten ranked high enough to drop with premades though if they were not capable of working towards the teams success.
.

As to this, I disagree entirely. myself and other members of my MercGroup, who have impressive win/loss ratios still get horrendously inefficient and terrible pilots whenever we do four mans to get a break from the seriousness of 8v8. Either ELO is still insanely broken, whatever formula PGI is using is out of wack, or maybe this whole ELO is completely non-existent and it was just some hilarious prank pulled on all of us, either way, it isn't working at all.

Edited by Dreamslave, 14 March 2013 - 12:47 AM.

[MuKen]

Onmyoudo, on 13 March 2013 - 12:46 AM, said:

Due to the nature of how MWO works, an Atlas is always needed on the front lines. Massive burst damage and concentrated fire can and will annihilate members of your team that, if able to actually fire their weapons (perhaps due to the enemy team instead firing at the large 100 ton behemoth striding towards them) will allow your team to do more damage overall than you alone can manage. 400 + 400 is better than the 600 you will do by yourself.

Yes, if the Atlas is there using his "Taunt" ability the enemy team will be forced to fire at him, thus leaving the rest of your team protected.

Or not, because the enemy team are not morons. Go back to playing WoW.

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

I think those long range atlai who stay back the whole game with lrms are simply in it for the kills. It's not their fault. The system rewards them for it. I drop with my clan mates and I always prefer the ones who are prepared to engage and dish out damage. That's better for the team overall.

Edited by Brown Hornet, 14 March 2013 - 12:52 AM.

[Komtur]

Johnny Reb, on 13 March 2013 - 10:12 PM, said:

I hate when ppl tell other ppl how they should play in pugs! Unless your are part of a team, then its standard.

So you mean, no one has to talk, no one has to think about a plan and everyone is running and doing by himself and alone?

[ElCadaver]

IF we had healing and mana potions, or a regenration spell, THEN you could say that a mech could tank. Wrong game dude. Focused fire will kill an Atlas in seconds too, and then you team is down 100 tonnes of firepower. In all the battletech books I have read so far, nowhere does an assault pilot just plan his feet at the front and say 'come at me bro!' They all use terrain and tricks to keep alive. With the exception of Yorinaga Kurita and Morgan Kell, but I think they were in heavies, not assaults.

[Dreamslave]

ElCadaver, on 14 March 2013 - 01:06 AM, said:

IF we had healing and mana potions, or a regenration spell, THEN you could say that a mech could tank. Wrong game dude. Focused fire will kill an Atlas in seconds too, and then you team is down 100 tonnes of firepower. In all the battletech books I have read so far, nowhere does an assault pilot just plan his feet at the front and say 'come at me bro!' They all use terrain and tricks to keep alive. With the exception of Yorinaga Kurita and Morgan Kell, but I think they were in heavies, not assaults.

This isn't a book, this isn't TT or whatever, this is first person, in your face gameplay. An Atlas dishes out punishment and just as importantly, takes a lot of punishment when piloted correctly. Atlases lead the charge, they are in the front ranks of the push, they take the enemies fire so the squishier mechs don't have to.

To reiterate, an LRM/Fire Support Atlas in the very epitome of a wasted mech slot, let alone a wasted Assault class.

[Wrayeth]

First let me address the role of the Atlas: it's an assault mech. That's assault mech.

as·sault
[uh-sawlt]
noun
1. a sudden, violent attack; onslaught

In BattleTech/Mechwarrior, soaking damage isn't the primary purpose of an assault mech (though it is one of an assault mech's roles). Instead, an assault mech's primary purpose is to inflict damage. An assault mech can carry more tonnage of weapons than anything else in the game, and its armor is there primarily to keep it alive long enough to use that mass of firepower.

In regards to brawler vs. sniper, I've tried both with my various Atlases, and I find the sniper configs to be a lot more survivable and effective in most matches.

First, as others have mentioned, in PUGs your teammates tend to leave you alone to die at the first sign of stiff resistance, preventing any chance of a withdrawal under fire for your Atlas. Sure, the brawler config may have a larger damage output than the sniper config, but a.) it needs to get close to use it, and b.) your damage output drops to zero if you're dead.

Second, as a sniper I will begin inflicting damage long before my brawler config would even get a shot off. Moreover, I can fire at targets too far away for my extremely slow brawler to even consider taking down; said targets would just outrun it. These two factors combined mean that my overall damage numbers and combat effectiveness are going to be greater as a sniper because I will get more damage on target over the course of your average match. The enemy may be able to outrun my mech, but they can't outrun its gauss and ER PPCs.

Edited by Wrayeth, 14 March 2013 - 01:29 AM.

[Khobai]

Anyone who thinks an Atlas can can tank any sort of serious damage is delusional. An Atlas cant tank for crap. All it takes is ~160 damage to kill an Atlas. Thats only 2-4 volleys from most mechs. It would be great if Atlases could actually "assault" but the sad truth is they can't. They have to hide behind cover like every other non-light mech.

If you want a mech that can evade damage, soak hits by spreading damage, outrun lrms, and stay alive longer than anything else... then what you want is a Raven-3L, not an Atlas. Because role warfare is so completely backwards in MWO that lights are far better at tanking than assaults.

The culprit is the high rate of fire and pinpoint accuracy on weapons. It makes tanking impossible for the Atlas because its torso sections get drilled out in mere seconds. Speed+small profile is currently way better for staying alive than armor+large profile. And that's the exact reason why you see atlases cowering in the back with sniping weapons and LRMs.

Edited by Khobai, 14 March 2013 - 01:43 AM.