37 replies to this topic

[Wrenchfarm]

I have to agree with most of the people in this thread, I think the Atlas (particularly the D-DC) should be pushing the line forward and making use of its tanking potential. Most LRMing Atlai are a drain on their team instead of an asset.

That said, it can be done if the pilot plays intelligently. Carrying other weapons, pushing forward, firing at enemies with LOS and sub 500m, an Atlas with a few LRMs can do alright. Since Alpine (and with desert on the horizon) I've somewhat softened my "BRAWLER ONLY" Atlas stance to the "BRAWLER MOSTLY" camp. Adding a few LRMs so you can soften up targets or force them to take cover while you move up into brawling range isn't the worst idea ever.

It's too bad the vast majority of players who boat LRMs just want to sit way back in the nosebleed corners of the map and dump missiles into cliff faces and hills.

[Devil Fox]

That's how I designed my Atlas back in closed beta... LRM15 or 20 with large lasers and Guass/ac20's for brawling. Even my DDC now is a shotgun brawler (I hate UAC5's and my ping and jam rates), my other Atlas got the mixed range brawlers variants of an LRM rack along the 4 ML and AC20... amazed how many would stay in los for LRM fire as I closed in.

[Darth Mech]

Stingz, on 16 March 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

Trebuchet, Catapult, Stalker, all can sling more missiles, move faster, and be of more use than a 10-tube LRM Atlas.

Don't use 100 tons of brawler for LRM boating, the enemy DDC will steamroll you.

Couldn't agree more. Not a ton wasted on LRMs on my AS7-D..... in most cases.

On the other hand. I do enjoy an LRM10 at times to harrass closing range targets, mixed with volleys of whatever ballistic I might be carrying, or lasers, or SRMs, or SSRMs.....you get my point. In my opinion, I wouldn't totally count out an Atlas with LRMs.

Edited by Darth Mech, 17 March 2013 - 12:07 AM.

[Hex Pallett]

Darth Mech, on 17 March 2013 - 12:01 AM, said:

On the other hand. I do enjoy an LRM10 at times to harrass closing range targets, mixed with volleys of whatever ballistic I might be carrying, or lasers, or SRMs, or SSRMs.....you get my point. In my opinion, I wouldn't totally count out an Atlas with LRMs.

LRM does have some good damage per ton, and there's nothing to be blamed if use it to give your armament a boost.

The thing is, most Atlas LRMboats just stand way behind frontline like a giant fulking pole. That is what they do, and that is what we hate.

[Darth Mech]

Helmstif, on 17 March 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

The thing is, most Atlas LRMboats just stand way behind frontline like a giant fulking pole. That is what they do, and that is what we hate.

I agree on all points. I will endeavour not to be a "giant fulking pole."

[subgenius]

I'm still baffled about how you even consider an atlas an LRM "boat". With only 2/3 slots in one section, there is only so much weight you can dedicate to LRMs before you simply run out of room. There is no reason why you can't have heavy missle output while still maintaining good support weaponry.

My D runs 2xLRM20art, 2xML, gauss + 3 tons ammo, tag with a std 300. The thing is absolutely devastating, particularly in the 300-600m range. Honestly it's putting the hurt on more than my standard 350 ddc brawler.

This talk about badmouthing atlases with missle heavy builds is just plain silly. It's not about the loadout, it's about your playstyle. Any mech that stays at extreme range wasting munitions is a liability to the team, be that a cat or an atlas. Teams aren't matched by class anymore, so get over the mentality that you're giving the opposition any more than a cat that can't aim would provide.

It's about the application, not the loadout. LRM heavy atlas builds can be brutal (come on, what else would you expect with 20ish tons of additional weapons after the missles?!).

Edited by subgenius, 17 March 2013 - 05:57 PM.

[Sergei Segiovich]

I look for slow LRM boats to carve up in a fast mech. At slow speeds if your team separates from you, you will have a face full of jenners and ravens quite quickly.

[Ralgas]

Sergei Segiovich, on 18 March 2013 - 12:59 AM, said:

I look for slow LRM boats to carve up in a fast mech. At slow speeds if your team separates from you, you will have a face full of jenners and ravens quite quickly.

not to mention if your opposition assaults are brawlers chances are your spotters will get blown to scrap long before you can wipe em out. Get matches like this commonly, several assaults that would only fight long range but the enemy team stuck together tight and any spotter feint couldn't survive the attention long enough to keep an effective lock

[TVMA Doc]

I had a match today on Caustic where an Atlas with 2 LRM 20s a tag and an AC5 was the last one standing. It was a close match, with only three of the other team standing when our last mech in the fight fell. Then it was a relatively long wait while the other team closed the map and made quick work of the 'til then absolutely unscratched Atlas.

It's entirely possible that had the Atlas been wading into the fight with the rest of the team, been absorbing some damage and dealing something significant, the battle would have been different. Instead he ended up with about 100 damage-about 1/4th what I managed with a Centurion 9AL...

[Zervziel]

I once tried it. Eh. I don't mind someone with a build like a vanilla AS7-D where the lrm 20 is ther so they can poke at max range, but overall LRM boat Atlases are a bad idea. There only a few builds I'd consider an exception. Something like a build that had a lot of lrms, but where also geared towards smack other mechs around. Like one or two lrm 15s or 20s, but some med lasers and a AC 20 or something equally nasty. I used to run something similar. People would run up and I'd switch to the AC 20 and rip through their already tattered armor.

Edited by Zervziel, 18 March 2013 - 06:19 PM.

[Dirus Nigh]

Yet another thread dictating how other players need to conform to their small view on how a mech is it be used.

[Calem]

I agree, Dirus Nigh.

I’m always slightly puzzled about the pigeonholing that the DDC specifically is seeing. Noone’s trying to pigeonhole STK-3Fs into PPCs, SRM/MLAS brawlers or LRM boats, but people get rabid when they see a DDC with LRMs. It’s just not rational in times of Elo sorting it out anyway. O’wait, Elo isn’t chassis-specific, but there’s always room for improvement

Well point being, I can see some people wanting to combine ECM and a stack of LRMs, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t if they feel they can make it work. I found reasoning provided against LRM DDCs rather weak (“They must tank! We need their armour!”) - true, their backup weaponry may be lacking in LRM builds, but their ECM will usually keep friendly company around. Not to mention the proclaimed non-viability of a LRM DDC starkly contrasts with all the LRM whining going on elsewhere. But yeah, that’s another issue and yet again strongly ties into Elo. It’s gotten virtually impossible to think about anything these days without keeping the different gaming realities Elo creates in mind.

Meh, bottom line: People trying to pigeonhole DDCs into a specific role are fishy to me, too.

[Tahribator]

I just love these guys as a Spider pilot. Most of them are bad pilots who find the consolation in massing LRM's and hanging way back in their armored tub.

I usually bother them for straight 3-4 minutes before they give up and let me carve their back armor while they desperately try to take one last shot.

Missile boat Atlases, please don't do it. Leave it to Stalkers(they are more fun to play with!).

[Royalewithcheese]

Dirus Nigh, on 19 March 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

Yet another thread dictating how other players need to conform to their small view on how a mech is it be used.

hey I don't mind lurm atlai as long as they're on the other team.

[Training Instructor]

Scarface1978, on 16 March 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

to be honest what we talk about now ? if u talking about 8v8 premades ok... LRM atlas might sux but if we talk about PUGs games? what is a diff if i play brawler or lrm ? no 1 will help u anyway... thats why i dont like play atlas on pugs anyway... 1 sec u have whole ur team behind u when u lead attack then 1 sec later all ur team start chase 3l bcoz he have cored CT and all of them want a kill and they leave u in fron of 7 enemy mechs... even if its 1 for 1 its not worth but some ***** is happy bcoz he got a kill even when the game is lost... PUGs games need fast mechs with good dmg. Iam able to do more with my cent than with my DDC and often iam top dmg in team even if we have assaults.

As a professional teacher of English, I've got a lot of Russian teenage students that could state these opinions without absolutely murdering the English language.

[Dirus Nigh]

Training Instructor, on 19 March 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

As a professional teacher of English, I've got a lot of Russian teenage students that could state these opinions without absolutely murdering the English language.

American English teachers have been accessories to the murder of the English language for years.

[One Medic Army]

Dirus Nigh, on 19 March 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

Yet another thread dictating how other players need to conform to their small view on how a mech is it be used.

Calem, on 19 March 2013 - 11:19 AM, said:

I agree, Dirus Nigh.

I’m always slightly puzzled about the pigeonholing that the DDC specifically is seeing. Noone’s trying to pigeonhole STK-3Fs into PPCs, SRM/MLAS brawlers or LRM boats, but people get rabid when they see a DDC with LRMs. It’s just not rational in times of Elo sorting it out anyway. O’wait, Elo isn’t chassis-specific, but there’s always room for improvement

Well point being, I can see some people wanting to combine ECM and a stack of LRMs, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t if they feel they can make it work. I found reasoning provided against LRM DDCs rather weak (“They must tank! We need their armour!”) - true, their backup weaponry may be lacking in LRM builds, but their ECM will usually keep friendly company around. Not to mention the proclaimed non-viability of a LRM DDC starkly contrasts with all the LRM whining going on elsewhere. But yeah, that’s another issue and yet again strongly ties into Elo. It’s gotten virtually impossible to think about anything these days without keeping the different gaming realities Elo creates in mind.

Meh, bottom line: People trying to pigeonhole DDCs into a specific role are fishy to me, too.

I'm not trying to say that the DDC must be a brawler. But in the current game the DDC is an absolutely terrible missile-boat.
You either lose a TAG, or you're down to 1 laser hardpoint to scare off light mechs.
DDC missile boats (the hardcore stupid ones) don't even have ballistics, or if they do it's typically a gauss that gets blown off, sometimes taking an XL engine with it!

If you want to missile-boat an atlas, do it with the D, at least there you can keep the arm-lasers for self defense and shove a TAG into your torso.

Now, it can work, but the ones I see it working with aren't the ones standing in the back of the team as immobile missile batteries, nor are they the ones not packing backup weapons. In short, the ones using LRMs well are the ones that aren't LRM boats, they're assault mechs with LRMs.

[Blackadder]

I still use my atlas RS, which has Artemis from when it was introduced and was a death machine given missile trajectory. Sadly, the Atlas as a LRM platform is pointless imo. You cant put enough weight per salvo to really be effective compared to awesomes and stalkers.