I've only been playing for a month or two, and am definitely not all that great a player regardless of what I'm lumbering onto the battlefield with, but I do have three King Crabs, and I've had my first 1000+ damage games in them. I have not played the Atlas, but I have regularly come up against them.
Honestly, I'm not impressed. With the Atlas, that is.
Yes, it's big, bad, and ugly, but I never feel like I have a reason to fear it. Maybe it's the overconfidence that comes with being a noob in a 100-tonner, but if I see an Atlas, my go-to tactic is just to shoot its head until it dies, which usually doesn't take that long when everyone else next to me is shouting "OMG AN ATLAS!" and blasting every bit of it to smithereens. It grabs attention like no other. Except the Dire Wolf, for obvious reasons. Standing head and shoulders above almost everything else and with a skull for a face, the Atlas just screams "Shoot me first!", believing that it can take it. Unfortunately, most of the time it seems like it just can't.
Maybe it's incompetent players. I haven't tried any kind of organized play yet, and it'll probably be a while before I consider my garage and myself ready to take on anything more than a disorganized pubbie mob, but if/when I do I might actually get to see an Atlas played properly, shielding and everything, with a whole team's worth of firepower advancing behind it. In that situation, it could really be amazing. Solo, however, it just seems to fall flat on its ghoulish face. Either it gets blown up first, because while a pubbie team doesn't know how to rally around an Atlas, the other team sure as hell knows how to focus it down, or it just never gets to where it needs to be because it can't keep up with the Timberwolf brigade. On any map that isn't River City or Crimson Bay the Atlas also has the disadvantage of needing to show it's massive head, shoulders, and torso almost down to the waist in order to shoot anything. And boy oh boy, if I'm in my Locust, and I see an Atlas caught out on his own, you betcha I'm going to try and get behind him, and once I am, there'll be nothing he can do about it. It's not like his teammates are going to help or anything, 'cause they'll be a mile further on, wondering why they're a 'mech down.
Now compare that to the King Crab. Like the Atlas, the King Crab is slow, but unlike the Atlas, the torso twists like crazy, so anything that isn't a fully-specced Locust is bound to get caught in front of those big ballistics at some point as long as there's even a modicum of cover to work with. If getting close isn't an option, the King Crab can hill-poke it from afar with lasers, PPCs, or whackin' great LRM racks on its roof. Also, no one likes to get caught in front of two AC/20s, never mind quad AC/UAC/5 dakka builds. Did I mention dual Gauss? With two ERLLs or ERPPCs and a massive XL engine, it'll snipe Alpine Peaks all day, while the Atlas has to tiptoe from hill to hill to see if it can get close enough for it's shotgun SRMs, AC/20, or little backup lasers to do anything meaningful.
The only downside of the King Crab, compared to the Atlas, is durability. No ECM makes LRMs a pain, and unlike the Atlas, the King Crab cannot use it's arms to shield anything. A pity, since as many people have pointed out, the KGC's arms are ridiculously tough. An Atlas can shield with its arms, and zombie after that with it's torso mount weaponry still operational. A King Crab has to start managing with its side torsos straight away due to 1) how massive they are and 2) its tiny arms. Make no mistake, it'll still tank quite a bit, but it simply doesn't have the hitboxes that the Atlas has, and that's not something that is easily quantified in the regular stats.
One could argue the width of the King Crab as a problem, but I'll take it over the "tall-with-low-weapon-mounts" approach any day, and if we're talking optimized 'mechs, there are plenty of asymmetrical builds that can mitigate the exposure issue. But that's it. In weaponry, and in particular the ability to bring that weaponry to bear regardless of circumstances, the King Crab seems to have the Atlas well and truly beat. Any poorly played Atlas is going to fall to that every time.
I will stress that since I haven't played the Atlas, I really don't know how difficult it is to really get into a position where the 'mech's talents are best put to use, or how effective they really are. Judging from the last 8 pages of thread, I'm guessing it's very difficult, or requires a mindset that just doesn't fly with anyone who doesn't have vast experience with the 'mech. If the 'mech is that difficult to utilize effectively, that I'd argue that a buff to the CT armor wouldn't be out of place, at the very least as a quirk to bring the worse variants up to par, wherever par is compared to the meta. Given the Atlas' reputation and current abilities, toughness should be its primary focus, just like the Dire Wolf sacrifices everything for brutal firepower. The King Crab should then fall somewhere in between; squishier but harder hitting than an Atlas, and vice versa on the Dire Wolf. At least that way all the 100 tonners could have a niche, rather than competing directly for the same role.
As far as "should I take an Atlas?" goes, I'd say go for it. If there's a trial one, play the crap out of it and see if you can make it work. Personally I'm very much biased towards the King Crab because 1) I think it's the coolest looking 'mech out there and 2) I came to this game from World of Tanks, so ballistics-heavy 'mechs are right up my alley (unless there's a Pz. IV with lasers out there that I don't know about). I'd play the 'mech even if it was terrible. I think anyone here who's argued in favor of the Atlas can identify with that; it clicks for them, so it works. But if an expert-level pilot is absolutely required for the 'mech to accomplish anything good on the field, then it might be time to take a close look at it compared to its less demanding peers.
TLDR Version: I'm new here, I don't claim to be an expert, but it seems like the Atlas could use a CT armor buff, if only to make its distinct strength compared to the King Crab and Dire Wolf, toughness, a little easier to work with.
Edited by The Mighty Gible, 26 August 2015 - 09:48 PM.
6
Titannium, on 11 August 2015 - 02:04 AM, said:
