13 replies to this topic

[Hit the Deck]

Does it mean that if you have piloted one, then you've practically piloted them all? I only know the Highlander.

BTW after checking SARNA, apparently the biggest is the youngest!

[El Bandito]

Nope. Victors are nimble, and can actually jump. Highlanders are low speed and can only hover. Atlases cannot jump at all and are usually the slowest of the bunch.

Even though pretty much all of them got ballistics in the right side and missiles in the left, Victors and Highlanders have the ballistics in their arms, making them more fluid in their big shots.

Also, Highlanders and Dragon-Slayer can do asymmetrical builds more effectively than an Atlas thanks to their right side energy hardpoints.

Edited by El Bandito, 10 February 2015 - 11:30 AM.

[Hit the Deck]

And Atlas have its ballistic so low mounted on the side torso. But that's what defined the chassis I guess.

[Odins Fist]

All three have had their day in the Sun.

That day is over, I used to love running the Victor and I always ripped the JJs out of it.
I never pop-tarted any mech.
The Atlas was fun while it lasted.
The Highlander I never cared about.

[Hydrocarbon]

I still can do well in the Atlas but don't find it that fun, but I still find the 733C Highlander fun. I run a mix of LRM's, ac2/5, and ERLL/tag and people don't suspect it til I'm raining hell on them. I even run an XL because people rarely aim at it first.

I only hate the Victors, but then again I wasn't given a fair chance with them. The 50 matches I've played in the 3 variants I've owned, matchmaker saw to it I lost almost 2/3 of those matches (combined W:L of 0.60:1, less than HALF my overall average).

[Onmyoudo]

Atlai are still solid mechs. The D-DC and -S are, at any rate: the -D and -RS are worse and rarely used. The K is worthless.

I see more Atlai than Victors and Highlanders put together, but haven't piloted the latter two so can't speak for them.

[Gamuray]

FYI, the highlander has more vulnerable side torso's than the atlas, assuming that's possible. The jump jets are not worthwhile, at 2 tons each and barely getting you off the ground enough to help. The missiles and energy/ballistics being split to either side can be detrimental, since you generally get a st blown off, you either lose your high damage, short range srm's, or you lose your long range/precision weapons. In both cases you are essentially dead, unlike a halved atlas, which can still do some work.

[zagibu]

I have all three mastered. You can put them all in a similar role (AC/20 + SRM brawler), but even then they still play differently, because of speed and size.

At the moment, the Victor is probably the best of the bunch, because with a large engine and decent JJs, it is pretty flexible while still packing a punch. The Highlander's JJs are useless, so it's pretty much a smaller Atlas with slightly different/better hardpoint layout. And the Atlas is still the workhorse it used to be, especially the ECM variant, although it can die surprisingly fast against some of the meta mechs. But a surprise Atlas turning a corner is still a scary thing to behold in most of the mechs.

[Alistair Winter]

The Victor never went anywhere. You can pack ridiculously big engines on the Victor (XL375 anyone?) which gives you tremendous speed. The fragile nature of XL engines is easily countered by your ability to move in and out of cover. The Victor is still a great mech and its 1 ton jump jets are still good enough to take in numbers.

I recently sold all my Atlai and replaced them with Highlanders. The Atlas is just too slow and will lose against a King Crab or Dire Wolf 100% of the time, assuming both pilots are equally skilled. With the Atlas, you basically have to expose your whole mech to unleash your full firepower. With the Highlander, you can peak around corners to fire either missiles or ballistic/energy weapons. The Highlander is also slightly more nimble than most Atlai, which I find makes a huge difference. And while the Atlas has energy weapons is low arms, the Highlander has energy weapons in a rather high torso mount. The Atlas has ballistic weapons mounted ridiculously low, the Highlander can swing dual UAC5s or an AC20 in the right arm.

Victor > Highlander > Atlas.

YMMV.

[Zordicron]

I have been around long enough to see the release of the HGN and Victor, and both were good at day zero-

What I mean is, both are still in time out for things that are impossible to do anymore. HGN was a poptart machine, then the Victor took over. now that practice is almost extinct.

Still, we have bad JJ. It's ok, you can run them to help get around on maps like canyon, so it is a player choice now. It will have to stay that way too, lest poptart shows it's ugly head again.

In reality, The Victor doesn't have much else going for it. It is not durable compared to pretty much any other assault mech, a STD engine can help, but then you are slower, or have a weapon loadout like a medium. it does not have fancy hitbox magic to fall back on either, so going slow makes you a fairly easy to hit tall target. Mostly, I bought them all, and have yet to master them because they are unreliable in play, at best. I get a good match or two, and then a horrid match. I have most of the mechs released, and the list of chassis that perform in this way for me is very short. While a respectable performance is certainly possible, a mediocre one is more likely, and a poor one happens more often then is acceptable to me. I liken it to the Gargoyle, matches with top dmg are possible, but matches where the trollmando out dmg's you are also possible.

the Victor needs some quirks, it got put in the penalty box while the quirks were handed out and now it got left behind IMO.


HGN, well, people used to run XL a lot, but that was 8 vs 8. Basically, it held on to a roster spot with poptarting when 12 vs 12 came around, and nowdays you see them in pug matches here and there but usually not. Lots of LRM loadouts I see, a random brawler in a blue moon. I have the HM, and it performs reliably decent for me, despite a non-meta, non-awe inspiring loadout. it takes more dmg then you would think if you allocate armor right, and play it smart. I havent written this chassis off yet, but it certainly can be outperformed.


Atlas, well, you either get this mech or not. If you get it, you will own the field. if you dont, you will march out into a blaze of glory and get 160 dmg rounds. Surprise Atlas is best Atlas, play it like the MW3 intro or MW5 trailer and profit. Stand in front and trade blows with an enemy and get a ST blown off in 9 seconds flat. Atlas, is an Atlas. Iconic, and should probably be better rounded off because of that, but it isnt, so it requires some tact and XP before you will run it correctly. People that say it is dead, well, they are wrong, however the last few months of laser vomit meta have made it challenging to play any big slow assault mech, Atlas included.

[Greenjulius]

The Victor needs help. It is outclassed in all categories by the Timberwolf. The tiny quirks it was given are kind of a joke.

Heck, all three chassis are currently a joke. The Highlander isn't great for much, and the Atlas loses side torsos too easily.

At least the Atlas is still a good close range brawler with its big arms.

Edited by Greenjulius, 10 February 2015 - 07:11 PM.

[Hit the Deck]

Greenjulius, on 10 February 2015 - 07:10 PM, said:

Heck, all three chassis are currently a joke.

My experience only lies with the Highlander and I'm still not sure why some people think that it's a joke/bad/not viable. I guess one of the answer is because it (and probably the same case with Victors and Atlasses) *can't boat* lasers and/or ballistics. A HGN build usually incorporates all of the weapon types, which means that they don't synchronized with each other so an experienced pilot is needed to utilize all of the weapons properly (hitting the same spot, not wasting cooldown, etc.). And even then, it doesn't always work. Eldagore is right that they aren't reliable (my HGN-732 and 733C have a KDR and win/lose score a lil more than 1.00).

Moreover, it's compounded with the fact that the biggest punch usually comes from the SRMs so if you can't get close to the enemies it means that you're wasting your/teams firepower. A HGN shouldn't trade fire in the open unlike a Whale or a Crab, except when it gets close and personal! Maybe that's the reason some people think that they are currently ranked lower?

[Roadbuster]

@OP
Not really.

Atlas is a big walking target. Either slow with more punch, or faster but with less firepower.
It can take some beating but it's not the king of the battlefield anymore.

Highlander is a bit more flexible and maneuverable than the Atlas, even if the JJ just let you hover around instead of jumping.
Especially the arm mounted ballistics and the higher position of weapon hardpoints make a big difference compared to the Atlas.

Victor is the most agile assault of the three. Imho, it makes the best brawler because of the arm mounted energy and ballistic hardpoints. Combined with the JJ it can outmaneuver slower assaults and strike from save positions.

But all three are a bit underwhelming at the moment.
I'd pilot them more often if they would get a bit more love.

Highlander JJ are a joke for the tonnage you waste on them.
I still like the chasis though, even if it requires more work to perform well.

Victor, while not bad, could use a few quirks too. It's the only IS mech with a negative weapon quirk.

Atlas...compared to the Crab and Dire, it's now one of the weakest assaults imho.
With its low sitting hardpoints and small missile tubes, it's not well suited for long range combat.
And if you run a brawler it's hard to close the gap to the enemy fast enough to bring that firepower to the table without getting shredded to tiny metal pieces in the process.
It's just not tanky enough against the big alpha strikes many mechs offer.

Edited by Roadbuster, 11 February 2015 - 02:54 AM.

[Appogee]

They are very different Mechs with very different characteristics.

Just about all they have in common is that they belong to the same weight class.