4 replies to this topic

[Death Mallet]

A few recent games in my Founder's Atlas. A couple common threads here:

1. All my team members also made out like bandits on XP and C-Bills.

2. People supported me. When I advanced, heavies covered my rear, and mediums protected us from lights.

Lesson to be learned is. . . you Atlas can be a fortress of death. But he needs your support to be successful. If you see an Atlas on your team. . . support him! If you let him die, the team will probably go with him. If you protect and support him, the whole team can sail on to an easy victory.

Also to Atlas drivers. . . if you have LRMs or a gauss rifle mounted on your Atlas. . . you're doing it wrong.

[Bishop Steiner]

Agreed, with most of the post.

Disagree about the Gauss. I use it just fine at all ranges. It ain't like the Atlas is ever a snap shot artist against lights anyhow. But used with deliberation it can and will swat pesky Lights @PBR, and swat everything else out to near 2K.

My 7D still has one, and I wouldn't trade it off my RS for anything. Too often I have had to use it to finish killing mechs far too fast for me to catch.

[Carrioncrows]

The Atlas D is the strongest fighter of the bunch, just for the torso mounted energy weapons which allows it to clear most terrain.

The DDC is of course the best team build.

That being said all the Atlas's are pretty weak on anything other than straight flat ground (city), due to their very low slung weapons because on anything with hills or hill humping they just get destroyed because they can't bring their weapons to bear.

I'm glad you had a few good games them them. But honestly I fear no atlas.

[Bishop Steiner]

Carrioncrows, on 02 November 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

The Atlas D is the strongest fighter of the bunch, just for the torso mounted energy weapons which allows it to clear most terrain.

The DDC is of course the best team build.

That being said all the Atlas's are pretty weak on anything other than straight flat ground (city), due to their very low slung weapons because on anything with hills or hill humping they just get destroyed because they can't bring their weapons to bear.

I'm glad you had a few good games them them. But honestly I fear no atlas.

Yup.

I feel the BLR can actually fill the Atlas' role better, aside from the ECM role. It tanks like a boss, can mount similar firepower, tends to be far more mobile overall, thus less limiting to the team, and those high energy mounts (and on the S, arm pivoting Missiles) allow for terrain clearance the AS7-D could only dream of.

It's still a good mech, but when confronted by Assault mechs in good hands, it's pretty far down the list, as I find well piloted Victors, Highlanders and Stalkers far more dangerous (well piloted, NOT poptarts), and again, in good hands, the BLR can also work a lot of things to their advantage over the Atlas. Well supported, the Atlas can indeed be a great anchor, but then IMO so can any Assault BUT the Victor or Awesome. (Victor is just not a Tank, and well.... Awesomes.)

[Zakie Chan]

Gauss is fragile but lends a powerful far reaching shot. Depending on the build its not out of place on an Atlas.

Lrms? Well, again depends on the build and most importantly the meat in the seat. Srms with their large spread and iffy hit detection only start getting effective around ~100m. Current gameplay still has a bunch of long range biased builds so the ability to reach out and land full damage is well worth it. 180m is pretty close anyways...

With any assault the most important weapon is game awareness. Knowing where to be and when is the key. Master that and the loadout is just gravy.

I like to run my D with:

2LL
2ML
2 Uac5
2 Srm6

Ive had all different loadouts, whatever suits your play style is the best loadout.