448 replies to this topic

[Koningswulf]

I have played a Atlas since July last years, I have mastered all variants and tried out all combination of weapons for the Atlas.
Due to the Atlas bad speed, around 50 km/h (I use a 325 and have 58km/h) you cant lead the assault because if you do, 9 out of 10 times you are charging alone and then you die. You cant really support a charge either because when you arrive either your side or the other has run away, and if its your side you die. The only way to always be supportive is to have both long and short weapons equpped. Long to be able to support your charging own side mechs when they charge ahead of you, short for when you are left behind or alone. I use 2xlrm15, Ac20, 1xsrm6, 2xmlsr. Along with booth antimissil and emc. This works fine for me. I wouldnt mind being the "tank" and sometimes in a good pug i end up just that but for that to happened regular, my fellow comrades "MUST" stay close to me and "SUPPORT" ME when I get into battle, Untill that day happends I will play as to the best of my abilities as I find best for me and the team.

A Atlas veteran pilot.

[WardenWolf]

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.

Sorry, I disagree. BattleTech / MechWarrior has never had this concept of 'tanks' that are popular in MMOs - players (or in this case mechs) designed primarily to take damage. That is not what an Atlas, or any other mech of any weight class, is.

Weight classes, mechs, and variants are all about trade-offs. Yes, an Atlas can take more damage - but it also has the ability to *carry more weapons* by virtue of weight than other mechs. In trade, it is fairly slow and cumbersome (though not as limited on mobility as a Stalker).

I have Atlases covering the full range of close-in brawlers through long-range, direct-fire snipers... and yes, an LRM boat too. I have a KDR of 3.2+ and WLR of 1.7+ (from a mix of mostly from pugging, with a decent amount of 2-man teaming with my brother and some limited 4-man groups with DWAR). I would contend that this proves I am not getting kills at the expense of my team losing, nor am I being a drag on the teams I am in.

Now of course you are welcome to your opinions, and to state them, but the last person who complained about me being in an Atlas LRM boat was the only casualty on our team when we won the match and I had top performance on the board. Please don't make the same mistake he did

[Nastyogre]

The OP is spot on. Atlases ARE tanks. Play some tabletop. Their greatest strength is the most armor in their era. They really aren't very good at anything except getting shot at.

When I play my Founders Atlas, I try and direct people to follow me in. Its a sight to behold. I'm not that good, but I'm darn hard to kill and pour out a constant stream of AC, SRM and Laser fire. Nothing lasts very long.

If I get backed up its one big bowling ball squishing enemy after enemy. Should the snipers hang back a bit? Yes, but just a bit. Enough so the Atlas doesn't take ALL the enemy fire. Grease my target and move on to the next. I'll be shooting at other assaults first, then big heavies.. etc.

It works. Almost every time. Unless my teammates "kitten" off. Get shot and back up. (Great guys, be slower and get shot more, turning and moving obliquely is apparently a lost art) Or just watching the Atlas die while they snipe a few more times only to be stomped like a grape in the fall.

I love seeing LRM Atlases when I run a light or quick med. Nothing like back shooting you until you die. Fat lot of good those lrms do.

an LRM build is viable... walk slowly once contact is made and keep increasing the pressure. LRMS require little aiming and can still be accurate when under fire. A Brawler Atlas with an LRM atlas 50 or 100 m behind is a Wall of Death.

Follow your assaults in, even the Awesomes... they should be slowly advancing too.

[Josef Nader]

Bubba Wilkins, on 14 March 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

It really depends on the build. For the Alpha strike types, torso twisting makes a lot of sense. It doesn't generally help me much in that I'm usually cycling through different weapons systems at different rates. Much more efficient to just stay on target and keep firing what ever is available. I do occasionally do it to spread LRM damage when I have no shot available to me.

The correct way to torso twist is to not focus a target. You're usually under attack from several mechs. Don't try to hit a single mech, hit them all. You aren't going for kills. You're knocking as many holes in armor as you can so your teammates can capitalize on it. Shoot anyone and everything as often as you can. It automatically spreads your incoming damage, gives you tons of damage output, and helps your team more than trying to focus down a single mech.

[WardenWolf]

Josef Nader, on 14 March 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

You aren't going for kills. You're knocking as many holes in armor as you can so your teammates can capitalize on it. Shoot anyone and everything as often as you can. It automatically spreads your incoming damage, gives you tons of damage output, and helps your team more than trying to focus down a single mech.

Yes and no - softening up the entire enemy team can help, but if no one starts dropping enemy mechs then when you go down the odds start shifting in the enemy's favor. Definitely don't focus on one enemy to the exclusion of other targets of opportunity, but if given the choice between moderate damage to three mechs or removing one entirely from the battle I will take the later: it means less guns on the enemy team shooting at you / your team, and less ground that the enemy team can hold.

Edited by WardenWolf, 15 March 2013 - 08:19 AM.

[Zordicron]

Lot of misconceptions here-
What MOST of us are trying to say, including OP, is that an Atlas needs to be with it's team. Plain and simple. "Tank" and "get aggro" really arent terms as used in other MMO. Those terms refer to the Atlas' ability to comand its surroundings. If you are piloting, well, anything, and an Atlas walks around thew corner and looks at you, do you ignore it? Do you think, "oh man, an atlas, well, i better get that centurion first." Do you just go about your way circling that hunchback trying to take it down? Hell no, you either shoot the atlas, run away, or both at the same time.

The atlas "draws aggro" just by being there. it doesnt need to just stand there in the open and do nothing until it dies. It doenst need to "lead the charge" as that implys it is blindly going "oer the top" to get plastered by focus fire.

But

It needs to be there with the team. it needs to advance when the team moves, it needs to shoot at the other team with all its got, and stay alive as long as possible. When it does this, it improves a teams chance to win MORE THEN ANY OTHER MECH doing the same. When it is on the field, in the fray, the other team MUST pay attention to it, or get obliterated. And while that team is trying to deal with the Atlas(along with the other brawlers etc) that is when the Atlas team will decide the victory.

When Atlas stands behind a building while a brawl is going on, or stands way in back, the other team will focus fire down the lighter mechs way faster, because at that point, the other team will just pick the biggest weapon threat and blow it away. When an Atlas is up there in that group, now the enemy is trying to deal with BOTH the atlas AND the biggest weapon threats, and focus fire usually is greatly reduced.

thats what OP is saying, what many others are saying. Not "run in front and die" not "play like a durr hurr and get LRM'd to death walking across the middle of a field with a brawl loadout" but instead, play like a normal person, and when your team looks ready, and that first enemy decides to be stupid, time to roll out like Optimus prime and his autobots and stomp some red teams. because, when your up there in your atlas, the enemy has to pay attention to you or they get pwnt. And when they pay attention to you, and your team isnt a bunch of E-tards, they will get pwnt in the end. Thats what a MWO "tank" is. the biggest badass on the field, the "you best not ignore me son", the stompinator. When they see you, they will be afraid, or they will learn to be afraid, or they will perish. When you take a mech capable of that, and hide by home base spamming LRM from on top of a hill, you fail. Take your stompinator and go make some red team-ers run and hide.

[Augustus Martelus]

Well in most of the matchs i ve played....i most say if i act like this....i ll be the only one in the front line and my teamates will let me down. Was playing like this with my atlases before...trying to protect my teamates...but instead of getting help...i was let alone with the enemies and was getting kill like a duck. So now i mostly try to kill from far or to ambush enemies...My stats are now better by doing this.

Sorry for how you feel but i feel MWO is mostly like a Multiplayer COD. I know i mostly play as a pug...but its just that i don t have time to play on a regular basic....I know i would love to have a team and play always with them.

I had drop with some wonderful teams but a lot of times with teams that don t know what ''teamwork'' mean.

[Titus Pullo XIII]

I have returned after a few months away to let the mixture ferment. Before I took my sabbatical, close quarters was my sole purpose in this army. There was get in there, get shot, pray the rest of the group had good aim.

Now I find that taking a more cautious approach pays off LRMs be damned. With a decent PUG I can dish out a lot of damage and draw quite a bit of fire at the same time. Fire that is not directed at my compatriots who are free to act and commit various acts of mech-related mischief. The old style of just charging in hell bent for leather does not work anymore. If I ever manage to arrive in time it's as a glowing pile of slag.

So I stay back, provide overwatch, and just generally aim to take the head off of anything with a red tag over it. When it works (with a decent PUG) it's almost like cheating. When it doesn't I know I'll have someone there to pour wine on my grave.

->Just to add that I only pilot an Atlas.

Edited by Titus Pullo XIII, 14 March 2013 - 07:37 PM.

[mikerso]

I agree that an atlas must be able to brawl, but in a supporting way. My d-dc sports both long and short range weaponry for that exact purpose. It also helps to put the other team in a panic when the long range weaponry announces its arrival on scene. Once it is on scene it still needs the team to back it up, but it boasts enough short range weaponry to leg mechs or core them.

As a stalker pilot I can attest to the lack of the imaginary durability on atlai. My 3h with its punishing 40 tubes can down an atlas in two to three volleys.

[Scryed]

Stiletto, on 14 March 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

The OP is spot on. Atlases ARE tanks. Play some tabletop. Their greatest strength is the most armor in their era. They really aren't very good at anything except getting shot at.

When I play my Founders Atlas, I try and direct people to follow me in. Its a sight to behold. I'm not that good, but I'm darn hard to kill and pour out a constant stream of AC, SRM and Laser fire. Nothing lasts very long.

If I get backed up its one big bowling ball squishing enemy after enemy. Should the snipers hang back a bit? Yes, but just a bit. Enough so the Atlas doesn't take ALL the enemy fire. Grease my target and move on to the next. I'll be shooting at other assaults first, then big heavies.. etc.

It works. Almost every time. Unless my teammates "kitten" off. Get shot and back up. (Great guys, be slower and get shot more, turning and moving obliquely is apparently a lost art) Or just watching the Atlas die while they snipe a few more times only to be stomped like a grape in the fall.

I love seeing LRM Atlases when I run a light or quick med. Nothing like back shooting you until you die. Fat lot of good those lrms do.

an LRM build is viable... walk slowly once contact is made and keep increasing the pressure. LRMS require little aiming and can still be accurate when under fire. A Brawler Atlas with an LRM atlas 50 or 100 m behind is a Wall of Death.

Follow your assaults in, even the Awesomes... they should be slowly advancing too.

Rules change when the game is real time as opposed to turn based, there are no tanks in this game, there are just 2 teams of mechs, and one thing I know that works well regardless of roles

RED IS DEAD!

[Mycrus]

Since the advent of awesomes, stalkers, and ecm a LRM DDC is a waste.

I'm talking of competitive 8man and not PUGs.

An atlas should be at the fulcrum of a strike charge.

[Wolf Clearwater]

Stiletto, on 14 March 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

It works. Almost every time. Unless my teammates "kitten" off. Get shot and back up. (Great guys, be slower and get shot more, turning and moving obliquely is apparently a lost art) Or just watching the Atlas die while they snipe a few more times only to be stomped like a grape in the fall.

As a light (and medium) mech pilot, atlas (and other big guys) I am happy to hang around nearby and run off the enemy harassers. That is my job, just don't cry about me not scouting (I won't lead by more than 400m or so). That is how teamwork should be, close enough to support each other without needing to be in a "pugball". You take a few hits, I will run off other harassers and rip open a few mechs for the team to mangle.

[LegoPirate]

Being an atlas pilot is more about bravery then anything else. atlases are the focus of all enemy fire, and while they are more armored then any other mech, they still get destroyed in less then 10 seconds of sustained enemy fire from 3+ mechs. and on the off chance i do decide to man up, i cant run away from anything other then other atlases, so once i commit thats it. theres no backing down or grabbing cover to reposition. stalkers have this problem as well, but anything smaller (awesomes down) can pretty easily move in and out of a fight as they please. its an incredibly scary proposition to realize, especially in publics, where you have no idea the skill level of teammates, or whether or not they plan to retreat at the first sign of enemy fire.

just because my DDC can take 3 volleys from their 6ppc stalker instead of 2, doesnt automatically mean i should charge straight at them every time i see an enemy like a rabid dog. especially since i move at 60kph with tweak, meaning they will shoot me in the torso every single time, since i wont be dodging anything other then the slowest of long range ac20 shots.

you guys need to think more tactically when you play this game. charging the enemy isnt anyones job, its a choice that you make when you have an advantage you want to press. atlases can be firesupport or snipers as well as any other mech other then maybe stalkers (and jagers when they come out)

also, since my mech does go slower then literally every other mech in the game, i have little to no choice as to whether or not i stay with the team. i can try to keep up best i can, but if i get out of position for even 5 seconds, i wont be able to catch up even if i charge across the field to meet my team.

TL;DR

follow the fracking atlas, because im too damn slow to try and follow you.

[Jay Kerensky]

Thanks! This thread is great if you can't sleep.

One, two pages tops and I'm yawning so hard. Good cure for insomnia.

[Kaziganthi]

WardenWolf, on 14 March 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:

Sorry, I disagree. BattleTech / MechWarrior has never had this concept of 'tanks' that are popular in MMOs - players (or in this case mechs) designed primarily to take damage. That is not what an Atlas, or any other mech of any weight class, is.

but in TT..the damage location is randomised per weapon, unless your piloting a clan mech with a targeting computer, and turns are 10 second..not 2-3 seconds. Thus any assault mech in TT would be classified as a tank, but in MWO, that goes out the window when you can alpha strike with 9 medium lasers or 6 ERPPCs to one location without the use of a targeting computer.

[SchwarzerPeter]

As a Atlas pilot you need to stay with the team. Sure you can take more damage than the others but when you are rushing solo (or left alone -.-) you can die faster than you are ready for your 2nd alpha.

You should have a mix of long range and brawler weapons. On my D-DC i got 2 Large Lasers with an AC20 and 3 SRM6. So i can be useful in long range and CQC. The LL are even more heat efficient in therms of Damage per Heat than ML (1.28 vs 1.25 ). But LRM's are also pretty useful. Saw a couple of Atlases killing 1-2 mechs with LRMs while engaging.

But the OP is right in one thing: you shouldn't stay behind from the team and just focus on long range. I was facing a long range Atlas yesterday in my Jenner and i almost couldn't stop laughing. He just got LRMs and PPC. It was almost to easy.
So please use at least ER PPC so you are not that completely useless in CQC.

[meteorol]

Khobai, on 14 March 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

Likewise, if an enemy Atlas torso twists, and you alphastrike into their arm, you're also a trash pilot. Aiming your shots in the right location is an even more important skill in this game. Torso twisting is situational at best because any good pilot is just going to hold some of their firepower in reserve for when the Atlas torso twists back to face them.

I will never understand why torso twisting is seen as some kind of holy grail in this game.

The first thing you will realize while twisting against a decent pilot is that you are taking next to no damage to the parts you expose, because he simply holds the trigger, uses the time to cool down and alphas your ct as soon as you twist back.
I still torsotwist alot, because it helps against terrible pilots.
But anyone who is not braindead will just wait for the right second to hit the CT again.

Shooting the arm of a twisting atlas is just like... drilling an alpha into a building because someone is hiding behind it.

Edited by meteorol, 15 March 2013 - 04:57 AM.

[Yokaiko]

Josef Nader, on 14 March 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

The correct way to torso twist is to not focus a target. You're usually under attack from several mechs. Don't try to hit a single mech, hit them all. You aren't going for kills. You're knocking as many holes in armor as you can so your teammates can capitalize on it. Shoot anyone and everything as often as you can. It automatically spreads your incoming damage, gives you tons of damage output, and helps your team more than trying to focus down a single mech.

The other place a LOT of people ...Atlas pilots in particular screw up is going for kills.

If you can break them quickly fine, if you have legged a light, de-hunched a hunchback or knocked an enemy atlas down to a medium laser or two or whatnot

.....next target, you need to be moving for the next victim, not chasing around a mech that is effectively disabled.

[Ryllen Kriel]

There are alot of bad assault mech pilots out there which can settle for being mediocre because with all that armor and those weapons, even bad pilots can be somewhat effective. I understand some mechs staying at range and letting loose their ordinance, but sometimes seeing people hiding as an LRM Atlas does make me cry a bit on the inside, especially as the rest of the team is getting torn to shreds by a heavy push with no assaults on the front lines.

I don't expect assaults to always lead the charge and it suprises me if I see one moving with the group anymore, but alot of ones I've seen in P.U.G.s just are there for bait-kills of their teammates.

[Kommisar]

Wow.

So, let me state my perception of the OP here. In many matches, he runs forward in his faster (than an Atlas) mech, pushes to engage the enemy (most likely in less than advantageous terrain), finds (surprise!) that he is out numbered and taking a beating, can't get his way back out, and blames Atlas pilots for not being their for him.

Maybe this isn't want you meant OP; but this is how I and many others read it.

When I run my Atlas, my role is not to bail you out of your bad tactical decisions. Admittedly, if it is possible, I will generally try; because you are a mech on my team and numbers matter. But my role is not to walk forward like an moron and let any noob, troll, and kiddie with a mouse get free shots on my mech. Don't take this as a personal attack, but your tactical role for an assault mech is short sighted and myopic. Your close to something true, but you are missing the full picture.

An Atlas' greatest asset to his team is his very presence on the field. He is a threat. Can be THE threat. But he is nothing if all he is is a smoking wreck that concentrated long range fire blasted down in the open salvos.

A smart Atlas pilot can play mental games with his opponents. Letting them know he is around; yet not knowing exactly where. Or knowing he is behind that cover right there... but not knowing when he will move out to engage. He's a threat that they have to keep an eye on. Hopefully while the faster guys are making sure he doesn't get flanked and run down by a pack of light mechs.

Now, at some point the Atlas will commit. But the timing has to be right; and it is never really the same. From being on the giving and receiving end of it, I will say the most effective time I have seen is after the other mechs have chewed on each other a bit, armors have been chewed up and weakened and the fight has moved into the Atlas' optimum range for whatever massive amount of firepower he loaded up on (Trust me, a LRM boated DDC with Artemis at 200 to 300 meters is brutal) can start dropping mechs left and right. Nothing ends a team fight like a fresh assault mech popping up at the fringes of an engagement and dropping two to three targets before anyone can really react.

This move depends on having some good heavy, medium and/or light pilots that can prepare the field and not get wiped out. Or move off by themselves to get chump-killed all alone.