48 replies to this topic

[ProfessorD]

0. Since no one has done this yet, I'll post my recommended AS7-D-DC build.

Note:
A. The 350 engine.
B. No ammo in the side torsos; you can pretty much count on one or both of your sides getting opened up during a brawl.
C. Front-loaded armor.

M3560 35003663, on 15 October 2016 - 05:46 AM, said:

...

1). You have to stand for a long time behind cover before you can engage. You're an assault, you're supposed to spearhead the offence. Instead, you don't participate until later in the game.
And if your team has lost the long range/mid range phase of the battle, there's nothing you can do, once you get surrounded by enemy mechs.

...

This isn't necessarily true. You can improve on this, and be a little more useful to your team, by learning the maps and picking places to deploy at the beginning of the match were you are covered from most angles, but you can point your guns at a corner or choke-point where the enemy would have to approach at close range if they wanted to go through or around the point you're covering. For most modes and maps, most of the moves each team makes at the beginning are pretty predictable. Everyone once in a while, you'll pick just the right spot to watch at just the right time and get to 1-shot an enemy Jenner that wants to peek in the spot you're watching.

M3560 35003663, on 15 October 2016 - 05:46 AM, said:

...

2).Huge size means huge side torsos and generally body parts. Extremely easy to hit. And this, combined with 3, leads to some horrible survivability:

3).Extremely slow speed Huge hitboxes + slow speed = walking coffin. As I found out, speed is extremely important not only for midrange, but also for short range engagements. Speed is what lets you quickly hide behind cover if things get ugly, reposition and strike at the enemy. Speed is what lets you chase an enemy, kill them and return back to safety.

...

Once you do roll out and wade into the full brawl, the ideal brawl is one that looks like an old-fashioned ninja movie, where you only really face one enemy at a time as you advance. Sometimes, you just can't make this happen on your own, but throwing a UAV and really actively watching the red doritos pop up as your team spots enemies can help you improve the odds of picking the right time and place to push when you won't have 12 enemies all staring at you.

Also, as before, knowing the map is necessary if you want to Atlas well. You really need to know before you go whether you're pushing into a very wide open area or a constrained lane.

[Escef]

ProfessorD, on 15 October 2016 - 07:48 AM, said:

0. Since no one has done this yet, I'll post my recommended AS7-D-DC build.

Note:
A. The 350 engine.
B. No ammo in the side torsos; you can pretty much count on one or both of your sides getting opened up during a brawl.
C. Front-loaded armor.

Actually, I posted a build. And the builds are remarkable similar. Yours has slightly different ammo placement, a smidge more armor, and 2 more heat sinks at the cost of losing Artemis.

I totally agree with you on points A and C, but I think you burn through ammo fast enough that a single ton in a side torso is not a large liability (especially as ammo is pulled from torso locations first).

[M3560 35003663]

Thanks to everyone! I enjoyed reading your posts. I will surely rebuy the Atlas at some point. It's not like you convinced me that it's a good robot - it's just that I like the challenge!

Shouldnt have sold!

[JC Daxion]

M3560 35003663, on 15 October 2016 - 08:03 AM, said:

Thanks to everyone! I enjoyed reading your posts. I will surely rebuy the Atlas at some point. It's not like you convinced me that it's a good robot - it's just that I like the challenge!

Shouldnt have sold!

well, support will typically replace one mech for free.. But if you already upgraded it with doubles, and endo, they won't add that back.. that said.. never sell a mech.. Save pocket change and buy 7 bucks worth of MC and get new bays as needed.. I even have trouble selling duplicate mechs because it is a far better use of my time to just spend the $1.50 and get a bay, even grinding all day, or two to rebuy it isn't worth it.. I'd rather use that money to buy an XL, or a module to cut down on swapping.

[Monkey Lover]

Welcome to IS tech ha-ha. Ddc isn't the best atlas for brawling the atlas -s is. Ac20+4xsrm6 with Artemis. Std engine case on the ac20 max engine e for ammo you're ok with.

It's still not that great that's why few people use them. As for twisting you really don't twist with an atlas you shield. You shield with one side and the other. You should be able to one shot most hurt mechs with this build running around d cleaning up.

Of course in pug land you will die when. They NASCAR so I would only use an atlas in group Q.

[Bandilly]

Had the same issues with my Kingcrab when I first bought it. It took lots of practice and load out testing, now it dominates the map.

[L3mming2]

IMO wile the atlas is technicaly the best brawler, the KDK SB is almost as good and it is usable in PUG que..

with the spirit bear u wont be left behind, and you will be able to ruch out from cover brawl and kill a enemy that has over extended, and get back to your line and cover if u need to before the entire enemy team has had time to react reposision and gank up on you...

a atlas brawler rely's on its team for back up, els it gets focust down.. and in a pug where a load of mechs on your team might have loadouts that cant brawl at all those mechs wont suport your brawl puch with there ERPPC/gauss builds. infact they will try to avoid of ever getting close to brawl range in the first place. making a slow brawl mech that relys on its team compleetly usseles

the SB can go around the corner/over the hill slap/kill the enemy in the face and get back behind the hill/corner when it gets to hot, where he can be backt up by the longer range team mates who then act as overwach and focus anny mech that want to counterattack

Edited by L3mming2, 15 October 2016 - 09:14 AM.

[Wrathful Scythe]

I really love brawlers but sadly, you can't make them work consistently. It's not always possible to dish out tons of dmg/kills with your Atlas-S because getting the enemy on ~300m will either expose you to multiple enemys at once or you take heavy damage in the process. It's harder to play and not always rewards you because you can't really avoid taking damage. Map knowledge is not only recommended but needed and if both teams decide to snipe it out on +500m, your out of luck because doing nothing won't get you anywhere and splitting from your team will get you killed.

I love my Dual AC/20 King Crab, I really do, but it just isn't as consistent as my quad UAC/5 King Crab. Especially because the latter is pretty effective in close range, too. Additionally, if you get dropped on Alpine or Polar, you just know that you picked the wrong mech.

[Yosharian]

M3560 35003663, on 15 October 2016 - 05:46 AM, said:

A few days ago I bought the Atlas AS7-D-DC. I put an AC/20 and 3 SRM6's on it. As well as some lasers. They told me it was a brawling build, so I had to patiently stand behind cover until things get close and personal. Then I was supposed to engage and obliterate enemy mechs left and right while taking outstanding amounts of damage.
In theory, it looked great. But in the actual game it sucked ***.
The only assault I'd played consistently at that time was the Warhawk with the 2 LL's, 3 MLs and a Gauss. It wrecked *** at long range, medium range and short range. It could tank enough damage to get me trough the match with my aggressive style of play.
So, if THAT is tanky, I thought, the Atlas is gonna be absolutely indestructible! How wrong I was.
In reality, the atlas proved to be far more fragile than the lightest of mechs.
As I found out, it was due to its enormous size (and huge hitboxes) and its incredibly slow speed of 48km/h.
Why the Atlas is the absolute worst mech in my opinion:


1). You have to stand for a long time behind cover before you can engage. You're an assault, you're supposed to spearhead the offence. Instead, you don't participate until later in the game.
And if your team has lost the long range/mid range phase of the battle, there's nothing you can do, once you get surrounded by enemy mechs.

2).Huge size means huge side torsos and generally body parts. Extremely easy to hit. And this, combined with 3, leads to some horrible survivability:

3).Extremely slow speed Huge hitboxes + slow speed = walking coffin. As I found out, speed is extremely important not only for midrange, but also for short range engagements. Speed is what lets you quickly hide behind cover if things get ugly, reposition and strike at the enemy. Speed is what lets you chase an enemy, kill them and return back to safety.

4).You can't just put on a couple of large lasers and snipe while you wait for the brawling phase. Your towering body will be spotted and shot at long before you can get you arms above the hill in oder to shoot. Corner peaking is also not an option with a torso as huge as the atlas'. A LRM launcher won't cut it too, since it cripples your alpha damage.
I am not the most experienced player, (I am actually a noob!), yet with the Warhawk Im easily doing 500-900 damage in a lot of my matches, for example. And I usually manage to kill 1 or 2 guys.

P.S.
The same can be said about the Ebon Jaguar vs Marauder. Fitted with the same weapons as the EBJ (2 LL, 2ML, 1 Gauss) the MAD is able to do far less dmg and dies faster.
In the world of heavy mechs and assaults, it seems, speed is king. Not tankiness or firepower.
Your thoughts, gentlemen? I personally am sick of googling about atlas and reading how good it is. It's simply not the case.

Welcome to Quick Play. In organised play the Atlas is brutal because organised teams know how to make use of its limited life span. In QP, however, the poke phase is frequently so long that you'll spend half, or more, of the game sitting behind cover, and if you get impatient, you'll just die needlessly. Often, you'll spend the entire game doing that because the game will be 100% decided by ranged exchanges.

This is the build I've used for the D-DC:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...d2f150c43ca9b4b

I use the autocannons to harass or soften up targets at range, while you move with your team. Do not trade your armour - if you start to lose significant armour at this range, you've probably done something wrong, because you should be with your allies and the enemy should be either running or hiding.

Then, once your main group closes on the enemy, pick a good moment to go all-out guns blazing in brawl range, and hope your team is intelligent enough to make use of the time. You have a LOT of UAC ammo so feel free to peck away at targets for as long as necessary.

That said, I very rarely use this mech as ECM's value dropped significantly after the 90m nerf and the Atlas is basically a brawling machine, which, as I said, is not well-suited to QP.

[Captain Stiffy]

M3560 35003663, on 15 October 2016 - 05:46 AM, said:

Your thoughts, gentlemen?

You are talking about my baby. The Double D.

Try 2xLL 3xSRM4 2xLB10-X. Goes 54 with skill. I could show you scoreboards from this mech that would blow your mind. Put the large lasers on left and right mouse and use them as your money makers. This mech is tall enough that the usual angle issues with relying on arm lasers are far less than a lot of other mechs with that problem.

Use the LB10's at range to tag for assists because it's super easy with all that spread and they register (minimal) damage well past sensor range. Use the SRMS and LB10's together at close range for hits that peel armor and blast mechs apart. Continue holding the alpha button for a continuous barrage of dakka and boom while you work their chinks with the lasers. You are all ranges which actually matter. If you can see the color of their cockpit glass you can and should put damage on them.

Twist away and turn back between alphas to use all that arm coverage to full advantage. Push override to the limit - you are tough. Shut down when you've won.

Stay with your team - lights are not as big of a problem once you become competent with the shotguns (a pretty big bread winner for me is using multiple LB10's to wreck lights that try to lagshield me) but you will want to make sure you don't fall too far behind because you go 54. Which is still faster than a dire. So you are on the slower end of assault mechs for sure but your ECM, hitting power and range allow you to fight from the edge of the next battlefield.

The DDC is one of the best mechs in the game hands down totally not arguable (for pugs anyway). This is a mech which fills many roles on the field from ECM to ranged suppression fire and if you turn the corner on this build you probably aren't getting a second chance. You will also often find yourself leading packs or the team due to the safety of ECM when missiles start flowing and your ability to heavily hit anything near.

Positioning is absolutely key to using this mech correctly. You need to be where the action is because that is the edge of the next battlefield or the starting position of the next nascar but you need to be mindful of not choosing a position the enemy might suddenly notice they can all hit you from. You also need to be ready to anticipate in advance if your team might flee in the other direction instead and have your cover for that situation planned. That shouldn't be a problem because you likely just moved past it.

One more thing of note is that this mech has a 'meta' ability that is shared with few other mechs. Because you have ECM (and you're using targeting dep, right?) and you have so many weapons readily available, if you are very good you can basically hold down 5-6 other mechs if they don't know it's just you. Think about it: when you hit a mech that is poking they cover, right? Well the entire enemy team doesn't poke all at once so you can use this plus the fact that you almost always have a ranged weapon off cooldown to keep entire teams covering for extended durations when you need to.

In the thick but invisible until it is absolutely devastating everything: that is the Atlas D-DC. This is the mech that lights see in their nightmares when they turn a corner and commit too early. You never know where one is lurking and waiting... just for you.

Edited by Captain Stiffy, 17 October 2016 - 03:44 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

M3560 35003663, on 15 October 2016 - 05:55 AM, said:

I don't remember exactly. You could say it was the default build for that chassis. Except that sometimes I would swap the AC/20 for 2 LB-10's.

First of all, you need to have a STD350 at least, and the AS7-S is actually the best one because it can do AC20 and 4 SRM6s. Atlases are typically hit or miss with solo queue, but if you are in a group and you have an Atlas, and the rest of the team plunges into brawl with you, it can be devastating. It goes without saying that you need to constantly twist your torso when brawling. At long range, its harder to hit your Warhawk, so lazily shifting to the left or right spreads alot of damage against players that aren't the cream of the crop. Up close, any Tom, ****, or Harry can hit whatever component they want pretty easily, so its important that you fire, twist your torso like crazy and then alpha, rinse and repeat.

[Alstren]

The important things to remember when playing an Atlas are as follows

1: Your nobody's meat shield you need every last pound of armour you got for brawling since you are the second most focused mech in the game.
2: Never engage in the poke war you don't have the weapons or mounts for it.
3: Flex dem arms they work surprisingly well for shielding.
4: Don't be afraid of alphaing that ac20 and those srm racks it works fine. (provided your also not using lasers)
5: Be patient the Atlas is an ambush predator not a mad man who charges in head on. As afore mentioned you are the second most focus fired mech in the game so if you charge the enemy team you will just get cut down as they will all shoot you.
6: THE ATLAS IS AN AMBUSH PREDATOR, in an Atlas you can indeed solo 1 or 2 mechs in a brawl regardless of what they are (even the OP bear) but no matter how fresh you are if they see you first or have the chance set up a firing line you wont win.

Be sneaky, be patient, be aware of the battle, and most importantly don't fight fair.

Edited by FirestormClone218, 15 October 2016 - 10:25 AM.

[Thunder Child]

I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned it, but when you have the spare cash, try loading a Seismic Sensor into it.
Seismic only works when you're stationary, and you should rarely BE stationary, BUT if you and your team are deliberately laying in wait for the enemy, it can be invaluable to know the exact moment to walk out and yell "HUGS!".

[WrathOfDeadguy]

The only Atlas I drive (and that, rarely) is my AS7-S... I have a DDC, but it's currently stripped and gathering dust because I moved on to other things immediately after I got the basics on it. But... yeah, the AS7-S. What to do with an Atlas? If you can stomach being slow, and accept that you will get left behind... well, here's how you make the enemy regret catching up to you. I present... Pain.

That was originally a joke build, but I can't drive assaults to save my life, so I did a 180 and asked myself "what if I just don't try to save my life?" Success! If a decent piece of cover can be found, this hulking brute of a trollbuild can pretty reliably make chunky salsa out of the first two 'Mechs that run across it! Makes a fantastic doorstop for choke points, because seeing the first person in the push just evaporate in one hit from one enemy tends to give everyone behind them second thoughts. On the other hand, if you roll Alpine or Polar... well, I'd tell you to bend over and kiss your *** goodbye, but the Atlas just can't twist that far.

Seriously, though, don't use that build. Ever. It's a bad idea, and I should feel bad for posting it. Do something sane instead, like this build, which has a very respectable and much more focused alpha that can still core out heavies in a single strike, can actually fire more than twice, and moves somewhat faster than the speed of grass growing.

[badaa]

a few of my favorite builds

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...ea2b10b28f2d364

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...273bf3a4ff43bf0

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...246b50b3a266fe2

[Deathlike]

For the love of Urbie, DO NOT run a STD engine lower than 325 on an Atlas... because a Direwolf would maul you much more efficiently with that terrible level of speed.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

@OP:

AS7-D-DC

This took me maybe 2 minutes in Smurfy's. It's not all that optimized, and the armor needs to be front-loaded to taste, but it moves over 60 kph after Speed Tweak and packs a hefty punch. It'd be super easy to drop the engine rating a bit and throw in more ammo, though you'd have to choose where the stash it.

Something you might not be aware of, but Battlemechs (as opposed to Omnimechs) can switch their engine ratings and upgrade choices, in the case of the above adding 50 engine rating, Endo Steel, Double Heat Sinks, and Artemis IV FCS for the SRMs (always Artemis SRM6s if you can).

When it comes to mechs like the Marauder (a personal favorite of mine), the Atlas (a personal favorite of mine), the Crab (a pers... eh, you know what goes next), the Zeus, and others, they aren't tanky simply because of structure or armor quirks. They're tanky because their particular hitboxes allow them to roll damage extremely well. Even relatively broad mechs like the Atlas and Zeus do well at this because they have very beefy arms and very broad shoulders, making it pretty simply to take hits on the arm or side torso of your choice. The Marauder is similar to the Stalker in its tankiness, having a very narrow front cross-section and a very broad side one, making it trivial to roll hits to one side or the other, plus it has those big arms that you can use to soak a few volleys.

As for your experience with the Atlas, the first thing you're doing wrong is you are hiding. That's absolutely the wrong thing to do with a 100 ton mech, even a brawler. You should be spearheading an advance from cover to cover, taking hits that your smaller brethren cannot afford to absorb (and in the case of the D-DC, covering them with ECM). If you sit and wait until your team has lost the fight, of course you are going to get shot to pieces. You have no backup left for when you finally leave your cover. Tanking only works if you have DPS to go with it, and that means allies.

Back when we had 8v8 instead of 12v12, and before quirks or Clans were a thing, an Atlas actually could survive having his entire team killed and then wipe out the enemy solo. I know, because I've done it. With Clans and 12v12, though, it's essentially impossible now. There is too much damage flying around for even a quirked Atlas to tank it all and power through, unless your dead teammates nearly killed all twelve enemies and they decide to fight you at 200 meters one at a time (which admittedly isn't impossible, but is very improbable).

TLDR - Don't tank by hiding until your team is dead. Tank by taking hits that allow the rest of your team to dish out the hurt while you spread damage over your unmatched armor protection. Don't hide, but don't lumber across an empty field either. Go cover to cover and get your team to back you up.

[Cabusha]

I don't play my Atlas as much as I used to. It's always been a high-skill mech, and even more so now. The D-DC and AS7-S are the two best. Most things have already be covered here, but one I didn't see is this:

Have a PLAN. And I don't mean anything big and grandiose. For me it's normally as simple as, "that's the target I'm going to hit. I'm going to hit him and roll into cover THERE".

Don't Reverse. You reverse you'll kill your team's momentum and will normally screw the match. This ties into the plan, know where you can push into if you get too deep.

Know your cool downs, and your targets. Just being able to torso twist isn't enough. You have to be able to know when you're going to be fired at, and further, read "Why haven't they fired yet.". If I haven't taken a hit on my shoulder when I expect, I'll do a fake twist. A quick snap to make them fire, but still eat it on the shoulder. Then I'll turn in and nail them.

Lastly, Don't Overheat. With a typical brawler build I'll have 14-15 Dubs, that's enough for 3-4 alpha's depending on map. After that just get good at flinging that AC20. Even when hot you have enough cooling capacity to keep tossing out 20s.

Edited by Cabusha, 15 October 2016 - 03:38 PM.

[War Beast]

M3560 35003663, on 15 October 2016 - 05:46 AM, said:

A few days ago I bought the Atlas AS7-D-DC. I put an AC/20 and 3 SRM6's on it. As well as some lasers. They told me it was a brawling build, so I had to patiently stand behind cover until things get close and personal. Then I was supposed to engage and obliterate enemy mechs left and right while taking outstanding amounts of damage.
In theory, it looked great. But in the actual game it sucked ***.
The only assault I'd played consistently at that time was the Warhawk with the 2 LL's, 3 MLs and a Gauss. It wrecked *** at long range, medium range and short range. It could tank enough damage to get me trough the match with my aggressive style of play.
So, if THAT is tanky, I thought, the Atlas is gonna be absolutely indestructible! How wrong I was.
In reality, the atlas proved to be far more fragile than the lightest of mechs.
As I found out, it was due to its enormous size (and huge hitboxes) and its incredibly slow speed of 48km/h.
Why the Atlas is the absolute worst mech in my opinion:


1). You have to stand for a long time behind cover before you can engage. You're an assault, you're supposed to spearhead the offence. Instead, you don't participate until later in the game.
And if your team has lost the long range/mid range phase of the battle, there's nothing you can do, once you get surrounded by enemy mechs.

2).Huge size means huge side torsos and generally body parts. Extremely easy to hit. And this, combined with 3, leads to some horrible survivability:

3).Extremely slow speed Huge hitboxes + slow speed = walking coffin. As I found out, speed is extremely important not only for midrange, but also for short range engagements. Speed is what lets you quickly hide behind cover if things get ugly, reposition and strike at the enemy. Speed is what lets you chase an enemy, kill them and return back to safety.

4).You can't just put on a couple of large lasers and snipe while you wait for the brawling phase. Your towering body will be spotted and shot at long before you can get you arms above the hill in oder to shoot. Corner peaking is also not an option with a torso as huge as the atlas'. A LRM launcher won't cut it too, since it cripples your alpha damage.
I am not the most experienced player, (I am actually a noob!), yet with the Warhawk Im easily doing 500-900 damage in a lot of my matches, for example. And I usually manage to kill 1 or 2 guys.

P.S.
The same can be said about the Ebon Jaguar vs Marauder. Fitted with the same weapons as the EBJ (2 LL, 2ML, 1 Gauss) the MAD is able to do far less dmg and dies faster.
In the world of heavy mechs and assaults, it seems, speed is king. Not tankiness or firepower.
Your thoughts, gentlemen? I personally am sick of googling about atlas and reading how good it is. It's simply not the case.

Speed is almost entirely king. If you want to be versatile, and have the option to choose your engagements vs waiting for them to come up on you, speed makes it.

I'm very solid in all mechs. I can rock a heavy with the best. Battlefield awareness + ability to manuever + high speed, makes you insanely deadly. In my 5-smpulse ACH build, I seem to have 700 to 900 damage games more often than not. Having a lot of firepower is great, but not being able to bring it to bear when you need to is crippling.

Lately, Im finding assaults and heavies are turning me off a little, mainly because you are at the full mercy of your team. With fast mechs you can zip back and forth to the weak spots and help hold the line, stand near the assaults and add firepower, perform constant harassment, chase off those lights that come to back stab the fatties, hunt lights, or when games go south you can do a running fight that stretches the enemy team out, and gives you more chances at 1v1 and 2v1, instead of getting ganged by 8v1, etc. Basically you have options at almost all points.

I dont think I could stomach a dire or atlas at 48 km/h, lol.

Edited by War Beast, 15 October 2016 - 08:32 PM.

[Tarogato]

Playing any brawl mechs is pretty much aids in solo queue. Don't bring an Atlas to solo queue. Solo queue is a midrange jerkfest, so you're just not going to have a good time.

But Atlas is still the king of charging and breaking a formation. If you have a group of 5 or more players in group queue, you can make it work. If you have 6 or more, you could even do two Atlases together. But even when used properly, the role of the Atlas is basically to die on the approach to buy his team time to get in brawl range (and if the enemy fails to focus the Atlas first, it will deal massive damage when it gets in range). It's a thankless job only for the most courageous of warriors.