33 replies to this topic

[l33tworks]

Easy. Set your mouse sensitivity as high as you can. Find an enemy and walk toward the, at the same time constantly torso twist from left to right as fast as you can. If you're good you'll be able to live for 5 seconds instead of 3.

The sign of a good atlas pilot is torso twisting. You're not actually supposed to hurt anyone. If you are lucky and alpha a light in between torso twisting you may be able to get them down to yellow armour. I've heard of it happening before.

Edited by l33tworks, 08 December 2015 - 12:09 AM.

[Mordric]

I usely play it with a std 350, artmis srm6's, ac20, 2xMPL, and find and emc cover buddy. Then i basicly play Assassin style. Let the team drive them to me and alpha strike. 80+ dmg hurts everyone.

[nitra]

Atlas is hard mech to balance on the field. you cant push it too hard to the front or else you will end being hammered and you cant rely on your team to shut down the incoming fire. because the people who play this game rather sit back and let you take all the damage. then come in and make quick work of the mech/mechs you damaged.

you also can not sit back although a good number of players do this and play hide the atlas game ... you will often see them in some hole or facing a wall doing nothing cept waiting for the numbers to show a firm lead so they come one and kill crippled mechs.

so good place for the atlas to be is near a group of mechs close to front line where a engagement is about to begin . (this takes learning the maps and knowing the hot spots) you dont want to be the primary mech shooting at the enemy . you want the enemy to engage those groups not really knowing your there . then you show up and pound the living crap out one or two of em and disengage. maybe take care of the medium that has tried to flank you.

the key here is to try and maintain your firepower on the enemy with out drawing theirs on you. you want to remain a force to be rekon with the entire battle. and that means continually pounding the enemy when they are engaged with some one else.

it just takes time and knowing the maps and where to be with your atlas. im sure there has been plenty of battles where you have gone in blasted the enemy and you noticed your team that was with you is gone now ,, you turn around and bam theres an atlas about 100 - 200 m outs that some how came out of now where . but i assure you he was there the whole time hammering your team members into oblivion . and now its your turn..

[Leone]

Well, it might not feature any Atlases, but I'll just leave this here...

~Leone.

[PerfectDuck]

Ask not what your assaults can do for your team, but what your team can do for your assaults.

The best use of Atlas is suicidal, the head of a spear push, making a few full-damage blasts of AC20 and SRMs while you spin and twist. Soak up as much damage as you can to make sure that all opponents have no heat to spare when the rest of your guys roll in to fight them. In the best scenario, not only are opponents hot from fighting your Atlas but once you're finally down, they have so many other targets in front of them that they cannot agree on who to focus. As a long-time Atlas pilot for NS, I get to enjoy sitting back and doing nothing for most the matches since I'm always first to die.

The D-DC is great because its shrouding ECM is frustrating for the enemy to try to make consistent target calls during the melee, however the other variants that have Center Torso laser mounts are also fantastic because even if sides are blown off they are still relevant to the brawl and require that much more investment by the enemy to take down completely. Zombie assault mech with a very slim CT hitbox and which comfortably rocks STD350 engine... pretty fun in group play but I can understand there being little to no appeal in taking one in a pug match.

Another edit: UAV is surprisingly good to have on an Atlas, as you will have an opportunity to place it so close to your enemies that they can't look up and get it. If they do decide to do something about it, it's one less set of guns looking at your buddies, and if they don't do anything about it, the carrots both help your team and reel in some posthumous spotting c-bills. It's not a lot, but victory ought to cover it.

Edited by PerfectDuck, 08 December 2015 - 01:30 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

PerfectDuck, on 08 December 2015 - 01:09 AM, said:

Ask not what your assaults can do for your team, but what your team can do for your assaults.

The best use of Atlas is suicidal, the head of a spear push, making a few full-damage blasts of AC20 and SRMs while you spin and twist. Soak up as much damage as you can to make sure that all opponents have no heat to spare when the rest of your guys roll in to fight them. In the best scenario, not only are opponents hot from fighting your Atlas but once you're finally down, they have so many other targets in front of them that they cannot agree on who to focus. As a long-time Atlas pilot for NS, I get to enjoy sitting back and doing nothing for most the matches since I'm always first to die.

All of this.

And that's exactly what happened here. See this guy, OP?



He's a damn hero. I told him to push from tunnel at 11:45 and I told the team to follow him in on the outside, and they did. He died, but not before the rest of us were swarming the place.

A good Atlas turns dead-locked games into stomps because dat armor.

[pattonesque]

Some good, lots of bad advice on the best way to play an Atlas in this thread.

Atlases excel at short range and are wasted at long or medium range -- nearly everything can trade better than you can over 300 meters 'cause your weapons are mounted on your belt. Same thing with LRMs -- you may feel like you're contributing, but all that armor and those beautiful structure quirks are going to waste if you're just sitting in the back hurling LRMs. Dying in an Atlas as the last one alive while you flail uselessly with two large lasers or whatever as half the enemy team swarms you is a shameful Atlas death. You will be more effective and happier (and get better!) wading in, releasing a humongous alpha, and twisting away. Big engines are actually quite important because they let you torso twist more rapidly. I don't go lower than a STD 350 for the most part.

Two suggested builds:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2ef780c5a54a789 (D-DC)

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...a1b13d1a3ebbcdd (S)


Both of these are played identically -- the AS7-D-DC has the ECM advantage and its shield arms last longer, while the -S wins on firepower and tankiness, but otherwise they're the same thing. Deliver a facesmashing alpha of all your weapons at close range, then twist so that your enemy can only hit your arms. Repeat as necessary. You may even want to lead a charge already twisted away from the enemy, so that you're only giving them an arm to hit. The right torso is the most fragile because the AC/20 gets easily critted once it's open, but the left torso does more overall damage with SRMs, so while you should shield with the right side first, you shouldn't rely on it exclusively. Hold off on the medium lasers unless you're either resting heat or you've lost one of your torso weapons.

And you will lose one, usually both of your torso weapons. Your job as an Atlas is to be the first one in a push and die gloriously while utterly ruining the day of one or more 'mechs. The enemy has to concentrate on you because you can one-or two-shot most of their robots, but you can stay alive for so long that your teammates following you can break them. Being fired upon is good, losing components means you're doing your job, and finishing a match with most of your ammunition expended and only your center torso left is the height of Atlasing.

The way is forward.

Edited by pattonesque, 08 December 2015 - 08:40 PM.

[PerfectDuck]

[ColdPsyker1]

So what you need is

X4 LRM 15's; an AC2; and x4 small lasers

Not gonna lie, I legitimately saw that once

[Wrayeth]

Don't forget the AS7-RS. You can actually field some pretty interesting builds on it; the fact that all of the energy hardpoints are in the arms really gives you a larger range of options. I picked up 1200 damage in a match a couple days after the patch using a 4 ERLL, 1 AC/10 build (currently trying it with a gauss rifle instead of the AC).

Edited by Wrayeth, 12 December 2015 - 03:39 AM.

[Kristian Radoulov]

Recorded before the balance changes went live so the Atlas is even stronger now, but the underpinnings of the playstyle are still the same.

Edited by Kristian Radoulov, 12 December 2015 - 04:58 AM.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Use a 360 engine, because if you can't move out of trouble you will be dead in seconds. Unless you are going to boat LRMs and hide in the back, which is probably the most viable build except for the 6 tube limit.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Kristian Radoulov, on 12 December 2015 - 04:57 AM, said:

Recorded before the balance changes went live so the Atlas is even stronger now, but the underpinnings of the playstyle are still the same.

LOL. LBX, you definitely are not Meta....

[Johny Rocket]

Team Chevy86, on 07 December 2015 - 04:09 PM, said:

They moved ghost heat for SRM's from 3 -> 4. It's an even meaner brawler than the DDC now.
If you want a short range, face wreck build, go an AC20, 4 SRM4's(Or SRM6, as space permits), and 4 ml

I personally run 4 LRM5's, an AC10 and 4 ml's in mine because all brawler Atlas' start to feel the exact same after awhile.

Pretty well the build I use on the mauler for a medium range brawler. 4 lrm5 with t5 cooldown produce the lrm5 chainfire rattle while you can mix in the lasers and cannons as heat permits. Best way not to get shot back is to blind your enemy.
My Mal 1R 4x lrm5 2x AC5 2x LPL Xl320. Stomp-a-rrific with dmg going ov 1k regularly.

To the "Lrms on a Brawler=noob" crowd, don't bother I don't give a **** about your opinions.