The Unknown Pilot, on 01 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:
I was pondering an Atlas with more armor for tamking, good in a brawl, even heat responsible when dispatching pesky lights, but more range than the "AC/20, SRM6, M Las" ballbuster and came up with this.
I wanted it to be faster than my un-elited Stalker builds, but no need for 350+ engines.
Does it look potent? Hoping Jiggly chimes in on this one!
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b6379c7180b7638
*** added benefit, only 3 weapon groups!
This could work.
Armor distribution and tacitics:
The rear armor looks a little thin. I've seen some people do this but they max out their frontal armor. This makes sense for an AC5 build because AC5 is a dakka weapon and you cannot do much torso twisting. So you use paper thin armor in the back and put everything up front. But now you have to be very careful to not get shot from the back, particularly when you are facing lights.
Vs. lights:
The tactic that Atlas pilots with this type of armor distribution use when faced with lights, is to back up into the nearest wall. Then they have infinite armor in the back and massive armor in front, and the lights have to come into its firing arc to shoot at it. I've personally never tried this but it works for some good pilots.
What I run and some battlefield experiences:
I actually used to run an even more minimalist version of this without the streaks because I'm comfortable using just my ER LLs and UAC/5s for hitting lights. I use ER LL on this mech because it's already so cool running the extra heat doesn't matter that much in real use.
AS7-D-DC
Success with this type of build has been very situational for me. I think you have to be extra conscientious of what the team is doing when piloting an AC/5 Atlas. There are a couple of reasons:
- You are doing a lot of damage from mid to long range but not much killing because the AC/5 or UAC/5 shots end up landing all over the enemy mech.
- You cannot basically not torso twist during a fight. This makes you take more damage to the front in 1 v 1 fights and much more vulnerable when facing multiple enemies.
Now, firing UAC/5s or AC/5s with your LLs from medium range, you are absolutely devestating to individual mechs from mediums on up, particularly if you aim for their cockpits, which then allows your shots to interfere with their aim. A lot of people will not hold up psychologically against the combination of withering constant fire and an enormous amount of frontal armor that they can't drill through. They'll turn to run. However, you may find that even if they do, they can take a long time to kill. I've once chased a scared medium mech a 500 meters in my Atlas, shooting him the entire time with my weapons, striping off both arms, before he finally died.
With these particularly in mind you have to adopt certain tactics on the battlefield.
- I've had the most success using my mech as a part of concerted pushes with other large mechs, using its guns to suppress particularly dangerous longer range threats (eg, LRM boats, gauss snipers) while others did most of the killing.
- This mech can also be very useful in holding down choke points where enemy mechs have to walk through one by one.
- This mech is useful on hot maps such as terra therma because it runs cool enough to maintain its dakka even when most other dakka mechs have heat trouble.
Thus, I've had some really successful games holding narrow passes on terra therma, where I used my atlas to hold back half the enemy team using a combination of massive frontal armor, UAC5 dakka, LLs, air strikes and arty strikes.
Suggestions:
Consider getting rid of the streaks:
- More heat sinks and armor may be a better tradeoff.
- Waiting on the streaks to lock could interfere with your "battle rythm"
Consider UAC/5s instead of AC/5s:
- More psychologically devestating than AC/5s due to higher rate of sustained fire
- You can carry two and put them on staggered fire to lessen problems with jamming.
- If both guns jam you can fire your lasers and torso twist!
LLs vs ER LLs:
- The ER lls give you more long range punch, but you have to be careful. They may tempt you into engaging earlier than wise. At long range, your shots and your laser will be all over the enemy mech, not hitting a single component. This makes them much less effective at killing even though they are doing the same damage.
Consider Adv. Zoom module:
- This allows you to use your lasers and UAC5s to do long range suppression fire out past 500 m.
- You have to be careful with this: you can use this ability to deny certain areas of movement to the enemy, but you are not hurting them that much. So you need to think of this as a kind of traffic controller functionality in support of the team.
Arty and airstrikes:
- The DDC has 3 module slots. You should definitely take advantage of this by carrying some strikes. On mine I carry both an air strike and an improved arty strike. As a new pilot, probably not a great idea to use the strikes every match (40K cbills), but once in a while you see the perfect opportunity to lay down a strike on a large cluster of enemy mechs. I would carry at least an arty strike.
Hope this helps and happy New Year!
Edited by JigglyMoobs, 01 January 2014 - 03:35 PM.
1
(oh , a 330 engine)
