41 replies to this topic

[Nephero]

I was thinking...I'm an Atlas. I'm the heaviest Mech on the Field. So you would think heaviest mech, would have the most armor right? Nope, the Stalker does. Ok, then definitely I have the most amount of weapons to mount. WRONG! Oh, look, the stalker does. Wait. If I'm the heaviest, why am I not either the most armored OR at least the heaviest armed? Why is the lighter mech under me taking all the thunder that I should logically have? Can I at least get some speed to compensate what I don't have (that I should have)? Am I missing something???

sincerely,

A die hard Atlas Pilot.

[zztophat]

I hunt stalkers like it's open season in my atlas, they are frankly the worst assault mech out right now for fighting other assaults.

Stalkers are hardpoint boats and they are so bad at close combat they should come with a short bus skin. I don't dislike the mech but they have a completely different role than an atlas, what is more, they are like 90% CT, all the armor in the world doesn't help much if you are always taking hits to your explodey bits. just try torso turning in a stalker to put incomming damage on less vital areas and you will see what I mean.

[Khobai]

Assaults in general are too easy to kill at the moment. They cant tank damage at all like light mechs can.

[zztophat]

I'll agree with that, I die far more often in my Atlas than my Jenner, the ablitiy to dodge incomming fire and take cover being the ultimate armor.

[Voyager I]

Armor and structure are direct functions of the mech weight. The Atlas has more of each than the Stalker. A 350 STD Atlas and a 300 STD Stalker move at approximately the same speed and have roughly the same amount of tonnage available for weaponry after engines and max armor. The Atlas gets a ton more than the Stalker from switching to Endo Steel while also being a better candidate for using it because the larger engine gives it more space to stuff in DHS without taking up precious critical slots.

The Stalker has a better hardpoint layout for boating out on small, weight efficient weaponry like lasers and SRMs, but has no options to use Ballistic weapons with better Damage:Heat ratios. Gauss Rifles in particular are a big thing to miss out on. They likely spread torso damage better than an Atlas (never put an XL in either of them), but also have terrible traversal.


Assault mechs die more often than their lighter counterparts because they have very little ability to get out of bad situations and are very prone to becoming the first targets in fights. That does not mean they do not contribute; they bring more raw firepower and durability than any other weight category, and lighter mechs rely on assaults to hold the focus of the enemy team in order for them to survive long enough to do their work. Smart players will also ignore the hell out of an Atlas and nuke the brawling Catapult next to him because they do similar amounts of damage while one of them is about twice as easy to kill.

Edited by Voyager I, 10 March 2013 - 12:03 AM.

[IrrelevantFish]

LRM buffs are to blame for the fragility of assaults. I hope PGI nerfs them a bit.

[Henry Pride]

Stalker is a fav target for my light Mechs. Cutting off the Sides is much easier then crippling an Atlas. Most Stalkers die without arms...

[FerretWithASpork]

IrrelevantFish, on 10 March 2013 - 12:50 AM, said:

LRM buffs are to blame for the fragility of assaults. I hope PGI nerfs them a bit.

if by a bit you mean an insane amount, then yes.

[Staplebeater]

Nephero, on 09 March 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

I was thinking...I'm an Atlas. I'm the heaviest Mech on the Field. So you would think heaviest mech, would have the most armor right? Nope, the Stalker does.

completely incorrect. Stalker max is 526 and Atlas max is 614 stock the atlas is just below its max armor and the stalkers stock are well below their max armor (432 for 3F) that is nearly a 200 armor difference.

Edited by Staplebeater, 10 March 2013 - 12:50 PM.

[Renthrak]

One of the balance issues with the Atlas vs Stalker is the result of the source material.

The Stalker is designed as a gunboat, while the Atlas is more of a brawler. In TT, one disadvantage of the Stalker vs the Atlas is that a Stalker's arms have no melee capability. So once an Atlas closes with a Stalker, it can punch it to death. Without melee in MWO, this balancing factor does not exist.

[Cyke]

Meh, don't mean to be brusque, but the OP's apparent certainty that the Stalker has more armor than the Atlas sort of diminishes the validity of his complaints.

As Staplebeater has already pointed out, this is true for neither the standard variants, nor the maximum addable armor values. All these values follow the TT (with the standard MWO doubling) for BattleMechs of their respective weights.

Edited by Cyke, 10 March 2013 - 03:05 PM.

[blinkin]

Nephero, on 09 March 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

Can I at least get some speed to compensate what I don't have (that I should have)? Am I missing something???

sincerely,

A die hard Atlas Pilot.

you have torso twist and arms. you also have tonnage to spend on heat sinks and ammo so you can fire more than once before shutting down.

[Royalewithcheese]

As ppl mentioned, you have more max armor and more open tonnage on the Atlas. You also get ballistics, which have amazing damage to heat ratio. Stalkers hit ridiculously hard, but also overheat very quickly. An AC/20 or a pair of UAC/5s gives you staying power in a brawl.

[Guido]

In a one on one fight with an atlas vs a stalker, that stalker will walk away with the "V". It has the highest damage output of any mech in the game, has comparable armor to the atlas, and can match an atlas for speed (not that an atlas really has speed, but you can make one boogey around at 64 kph).

BWC has tested their best pilots in these situations numerous times, internal tournaments, dueling, field testing, and the results come out the same. Stalker performs better in each role than the atlas does. The only real benefits an atlas has over a stalker is that one variant can equip ECM, and an atlas generally runs cooler in a fight.

Ballistics make little difference if a single focused alpha in the highest damage yielding atlas strips most of the armor away from a side or center of a stalker, while what the highest alpha a stalker does with one shot will take out a side torso of an atlas or remove nearly all of it's center torso armor.

Edited by Guido, 10 March 2013 - 05:49 PM.

[Karosma]

My D-DC is my favorite and most capable 'Mech. My alpha isn't that great but it doesn't matter. Taking out the human factor and yes the stalker out performs, but a lot of times I have Stalkers running or whatever so I capitalize on it. ECM also helps fighting damn Stalker LRM Boats. I'm not great, but my kill to death ratio sky-rocketed once I found the right build for my Atlas. Plus, as others put it, the ability to swing arms around and greater torso twist make an Atlas more versatile. D models make great LRM Boats, RS's make great PPC Snipers, and K's are great all around. What it boils down to, is whatever floats your boat.

I will give this to the Stalker, it is almost impossible to head shot it!

[Khobai]

Quote

As ppl mentioned, you have more max armor and more open tonnage on the Atlas. You also get ballistics, which have amazing damage to heat ratio. Stalkers hit ridiculously hard, but also overheat very quickly. An AC/20 or a pair of UAC/5s gives you staying power in a brawl.

The Stalker has way more crit slots though. And crit slots are more important to an Assault mech. They run out of crit slots way sooner than tonnage. There's absolutely no advantage to having hand actuators. And the lower arm actuators don't really help any of the Atlases other than the RS anyway since they only have 1 weapon in each arm.

Additionally SRM6s give the best damage to heat ratio of any weapon other than LRMs which have severe drawbacks (i.e. ECM). Missile hardpoints are way better than Ballistic hardpoints currently.

Stalkers also have a much smaller profile, move faster, and do way more alpha strike damage. And given the choice between slightly more armor or a much smaller profile and slightly faster speed I know which one I'd choose every time.

Really the only advantage the Atlas has is ECM on the D-DC. Which is a strong advantage but how long is it gonna be before ECM gets nerfed hard? We all know its coming...

So yeah, either the Stalker needs a nerf or the Atlas needs a buff.

Quote

Assault mechs die more often than their lighter counterparts because they have very little ability to get out of bad situations and are very prone to becoming the first targets in fights. That does not mean they do not contribute; they bring more raw firepower and durability than any other weight category

Except you often see Ravens or Commandos topping the damage charts. The reality is lights can do just as much or more damage than assaults. Assaults are worse at tanking and not even guaranteed to do more damage than Lights. Although that's mostly due to Streaks being so overpowered.

Edited by Khobai, 10 March 2013 - 09:03 PM.

[Royalewithcheese]

Khobai, on 10 March 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

Additionally SRM6s give the best damage to heat ratio of any weapon other than LRMs which have severe drawbacks (i.e. ECM). Missile hardpoints are way better than Ballistic hardpoints currently.

While I agree that SRMs are awesome, if you're comparing a Stalker and a DDC the Stalker has 6-12 more missiles, (depending on whether you want to be able to torso twist or not) whereas the DDC has 1-2 weapons it can reasonably run alongside the missiles without overheating and, as you mentioned, ECM. Missile-wise, now that Artemis got buffed, DDC+Artemis has a similar gimmick to 3L+Streaks. Personally I think there's a role for both - IMHO they do very different things anyway. AFAIK you see both in comp.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 10 March 2013 - 09:13 PM.

[Voyager I]

Khobai, on 10 March 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

Except you often see Ravens or Commandos topping the damage charts. The reality is lights can do just as much or more damage than assaults. Assaults are worse at tanking and not even guaranteed to do more damage than Lights. Although that's mostly due to Streaks being so overpowered.

When a light mech tops the damage charts, it's because their heavier teammates held the attention of their enemies well enough for them to stay in the fight. With the current state of the netcode, lights have a very limited ability to handle aggression from larger mechs with weapons suitable to hitting them. The days of a Jenner circle-strafing an Atlas to death over five minutes without taking more than a scratch are behind us. Nowadays cocky lights eat AC/20 rounds and Large Lasers send you running for cover.

[Khobai]

Quote

When a light mech tops the damage charts, it's because their heavier teammates held the attention of their enemies well enough for them to stay in the fight.

Not really. When my commando tops the damage charts its almost always because I wolfpacked with other light mechs and we just tore apart the enemy team because they couldnt kill us faster than we could kill them.

Go ahead and try it... make a 4-man with four Raven-3Ls/Commando-2Ds. Drop into some PUG games. You will win 99% of your games because half the time matchmaking doesnt even put a single light mech on the other team. And the other half of the time itll be like a fail Raven 2X or 4X and maybe like a spider or a jenner.

Light mechs are blatantly better than any other weight class of mech right now. They tank damage the best, they work together in groups the best, they're capable of doing just as much damage as assaults, and theyre the best suited for capture gamemodes.

Edited by Khobai, 11 March 2013 - 05:09 AM.

[MuadXDib]

itt; op rambles, makes no sense