81 replies to this topic

[Zordicron]

It's a mixed bag in actual play(I solo pug 100%) because lately, there are a whole lot of bads running lrm atlas. Not particularily scarey at that point, but you DO have to take them into consideration. I still worry over them more then some other assaults, because until you engage, you just never know if it is a bad, or some player capable of blowing you in half.

That said, there just are fewer and fewer masters of "Surprise Atlas" anymore. Surprise Atlas= best Atlas, and you know it when it happens, and you will say curse words. You know what I am talking about- because when it happens, you already know this ain't no Bad coming around the corner on you either.

Laser vomit meta has been especially hard on slower, bigger targets, the ability to disarm or destroy has never been easier, or taken less time. As the "difficulty slider" moves closer and closer to CoD and farther from Battletech, big and slow will be worse and worse, and less important, and more obsolete. they will have their moments, but majority rules, and right now fast heavy and some mediums are the majority. One only needs look at the game provided percentages to verify this. For now, surprise Atlas is still a force of utter destruction. but I see them less and less as the player base moves to the laser vomit increasingly.

[Escef]

Eldagore, on 24 February 2015 - 04:33 PM, said:

As the "difficulty slider" moves closer and closer to CoD and farther from Battletech, big and slow will be worse and worse, and less important, and more obsolete.

To be fair, post Helm memory Core/Clan Invasion Battletech saw the combination of speed and guns in heavies and high-end mediums become the norm. That and high speed pulse boats acting as C3 spotters. The idea of the slow brawler mostly died off, it isn't practical. Big mechs tended to be long range support (usually LRM boats like the Viking, Salamander, and Naginata; or dual Gauss monsters like the Gunslinger, Cerberus, Nightstar, or Devastator), because the innate inaccuracies of long range combat was their best compensation for low ground speed. (The occasional short range assault mech still showed up, these tended to be much faster than typical assaults, the Berzerker stands out as an example.)

The larger amounts of firepower made possible by more tonnage efficient construction materials, combined with the rate of fire afforded by double heat sinks and the fragility of XL engines, tends to make games shorter and more brutal than the 3rd SW era was.

Edited by Escef, 24 February 2015 - 05:15 PM.