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Buff Atlas


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#1 Invictus XVII

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 01:24 AM

Hello folks.
I'd wish to see a substantial buff for the atlas.
Its current configuration makes it nearly (if not the) worst performing assault type in the game which is rarely seen these days due to its meny, meny, meny, meny ... many, many flaws. People only take it out once in a while for novelty sake.


Now the Atlas is supposed to be THE brawler, iconic to the game (its on the cover ffs) which is armored enough to breach enemy lines head on, and is supposed to be the paragon of brute force. Which it cannot be due to the following reasons:

Atlas is absolutely colossal:
Being big in tabletop is a none issue, but in the real world of 3d shooting its a very big deal. The target is massive which means you are hard to miss, which also means you get to be a priority target, which also leads to taking more damage rapidly.

It also means, due to its hardpoints, it has to show its entire body in order to fire at an enemy.

Atlas is sluggish:
exceptionally slow torso twist, anchor turn and acceleration rate means that atlas have NO chance of avoiding incoming threats/damage, all you can do is stand there and tank. You can think of an atlas as a semistationary defense tower.

Atlas bad hardpoints and no agility to compensate:
Since the atlas has its gun mostly on the lower chest, but cannot aim up or down makes it more or less useless.

All you have to do vs an atlas is to force it to fight in a upp/down hill battle and you win by default (and since the maps are 70% - 30* to 40* slopes this poses a massive problem. This would be a none-issue if the atlas got the ability to punch and kick anyone too close to it, like its supposed to do (but we cant have nice things) So i wish this to be addressed by giving it more up / down freedom.

Atlas has bad hitboxes:
Being huge and have very defined hitboxes makes it very easy for people to strip you off.

Atlas has a very small heatpool:
The atlas cant compete - due to its heat. As it stands due to the reasons mentioned above, the atlas needs to get close and end their targets fast in order not to be downed instantly, but due to its exceptionally small heatpool this cant happen.

This means it cant brawl, this means it cant move out of the way to cool down, this means it has to facetank the enemies after giving out 140 dmg for ~20 seconds on tourmaline before it can be ready to fire again. By this time. It is dead.

It overheats with 2 alpha strikes, one if you use a pair of large lasers to back you up.
The average alphastrike is also LOWER THAN ANY OTHER ASSAULT MECH due to its weak hardpoints.

The atlas has insufficient armor.
Having a 100 structure means nothing when you dont have any guns.
Some mechs in the heavy category currently outarmor the atlas and can carry the same weaponry. (the atlas needs to carry a massive engine to have even a remote chance of moving, due to ****** hardpoints and armor, it has to take a really big standard engine)

the way i run an atlas is currently 90 in side torso front, - it needs to be somewhere in the 150 range to make up for all the excement it has to deal with.

Solution:
Give the atlas more agility and heatpool to deal with these issues - or - give it tons and tons of armor quirks to compensate. - or - a mix of the forementioned two.

Discuss.

Edited by Invictus XVII, 18 December 2017 - 01:31 AM.


#2 UnofficialOperator

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 01:54 AM

Planned obsolescence

Might improve with 8v8 and smaller maps

#3 El Bandito

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 02:00 AM

MRM60 + UAC20 is basically 100 damage in a span of a second. You can have this config on the armor quirked Atlas-D.

More hardpoints is sweet, but I'm plenty ok with more agility buffs on my Atlas.

Edited by El Bandito, 18 December 2017 - 08:23 AM.


#4 Juodas Varnas

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 04:12 AM

It also needs glowing eyes!

But yeah, giving it some actual ability to pitch up/down, give it some proper agility, so it can at least twist fast enough to keep track of 75 tonners running circles around him and change the structure quirks into proper armor ones.

#5 Daggett

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM

I'm not saying that the Atlas has not suffered and i agree that it could use some tweaks like better pitch angle. But i think it's still a valuable asset, it just has a very distinctive role which is differently from what you might expect from it:

View PostInvictus XVII, on 18 December 2017 - 01:24 AM, said:

Atlas is absolutely colossal:
Being big in tabletop is a none issue, but in the real world of 3d shooting its a very big deal. The target is massive which means you are hard to miss, which also means you get to be a priority target, which also leads to taking more damage rapidly.

It also means, due to its hardpoints, it has to show its entire body in order to fire at an enemy.

Surprise, that's what the Atlas is supposed to do in my eyes. You WANT to be the priority target and the enemy to shoot at you, so your damage dealers following you in a push have less pressure.

It's whole purpose is to lead one decisive push, not dealing damage or trading well with high-mounted guns like other assaults can do.

View PostInvictus XVII, on 18 December 2017 - 01:24 AM, said:

Atlas is sluggish:
exceptionally slow torso twist, anchor turn and acceleration rate means that atlas have NO chance of avoiding incoming threats/damage, all you can do is stand there and tank. You can think of an atlas as a semistationary defense tower.

Have you tried the mobility tree? Not just speed tweak, but almost all of it? It does make a difference.

View PostInvictus XVII, on 18 December 2017 - 01:24 AM, said:

Atlas bad hardpoints and no agility to compensate:
Since the atlas has its gun mostly on the lower chest, but cannot aim up or down makes it more or less useless.

All you have to do vs an atlas is to force it to fight in a upp/down hill battle and you win by default (and since the maps are 70% - 30* to 40* slopes this poses a massive problem.

If an Atlas is being forced somewhere you either played it like other assaults or your team failed to follow up and support you properly. It's the Atlas and his pushing team who forces others to fight at his conditions.

Also since your Job is to soak up damage and not to deal the most, it's okay to not being able to shoot every target anytime. Usually there are other panicking targets to get some shots in than the best one. You have your team behind you to kill the priority targets.

View PostInvictus XVII, on 18 December 2017 - 01:24 AM, said:

Atlas has bad hitboxes:
Being huge and have very defined hitboxes makes it very easy for people to strip you off.

That's true, but again try the full mobility tree. I'm sure you will then be able to twist away a lot of the incoming damage. The mighty MAD-IIC for comparison is much easier to strip due to it's long side torsos. If you attack a MAD-IIC from the side there is no way to miss it's ST. The Atlas however has a much better side-profile and it's arms can actually shield.

View PostInvictus XVII, on 18 December 2017 - 01:24 AM, said:

Atlas has a very small heatpool:
The atlas cant compete - due to its heat. As it stands due to the reasons mentioned above, the atlas needs to get close and end their targets fast in order not to be downed instantly, but due to its exceptionally small heatpool this cant happen.

It overheats with 2 alpha strikes

What do you mean with heatpool? All mechs from light to assault come with the same 50 heat capacity from the 10 internal engine DHS and additional DHS work the same on all mechs. So it's only the equipped weapons and DHS which define a mech's hotness. Sure heat-quirks help some other mechs but they won't do wonders. If you put the same weapons from your Atlas on any other mech without adding additional DHS, you will be about equally hot.

So it's up to you, how hot you want your Atlas to become. Given it's intended role as a damage receiver rather than damage dealer there is no need for the biggest alpha possible. A decent but cool alpha is probably more suitable. Large lasers or PPCs are for other mechs.

View PostInvictus XVII, on 18 December 2017 - 01:24 AM, said:

The atlas has insufficient armor.
Having a 100 structure means nothing when you dont have any guns.

You do have guns. A big ballistic and some SRM6 or MRMs are nothing to sneeze at and the reason most enemies still focus the Atlas even in T1 so it can fulfill it's role as a damage sponge as long as it leads the charge.

Edited by Daggett, 18 December 2017 - 04:33 AM.


#6 Garran Tana

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 04:55 AM

This is the iconic mechwarrior mech. Skilling it up was a nightmare. It should be buffed, but a lot of assaults should be also. There are some great ones, but the lower performing once should get an upgrade.

#7 Verilligo

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 06:50 AM

I would be totally fine with giving the Atlas further buffs to assist it with being the top-rate IS tanking and pushing mech. If you do so, however, I would reflect some of those same changes to the Executioner and, to a lesser extent, the Gargoyle. Even with Clan tech, those two mechs suffer a lot from having very similar problems to the Atlas due to having so much less available tonnage, thus being unable to really take advantage of Clan damage-to-weight benefits. You can still leave the Atlas as the tankiest thing on the battlefield, but giving the Clans some mechs (that are otherwise rarely chosen) to perform a similar role would be welcomed.

#8 ScrapIron Prime

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 06:54 AM

View PostEl Bandito, on 18 December 2017 - 02:00 AM, said:

MRM60 + UAC20 is basically 100 damage in a span of a second. You can have this config on the armor quirked Atlas-D.

Seriously. Try this config, then come back and lodge any remaining complaints... you won't have many.

#9 Matthew Ace

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 06:56 AM

1) Atlas needs better agility, torso yaw and pitch. Maxed skill tree is still not enough.
2) More durability quirks - Standardise across the board to +25% Internals and +25% armor. (Crazy I know, but it needs to be a PITA to kill)
3) The AS7-K could use a minor hardpoint inflation. I personally like the sound of 1 more energy hardpoint in one of the arms, but an additional missile or ballistic would do too I guess.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 18 December 2017 - 06:58 AM.


#10 Bombast

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 07:10 AM

Honestly, I think the Atlas could be fixed in two steps.

1. Switch ALL structure quirks to armor
2. Improve the agility and torso values dramatically. Make it THE agile 100 tonner that can actually use those meaty arms for shielding.

It wouldn't be a meta breaker, but I think those two things would make them fun in QP again.

#11 Invictus XVII

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 07:46 AM

View PostDaggett, on 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM, said:

I'm not saying that the Atlas has not suffered and i agree that it could use some tweaks like better pitch angle. But i think it's still a valuable asset, it just has a very distinctive role which is differently from what you might expect from it:

Surprise, that's what the Atlas is supposed to do in my eyes. You WANT to be the priority target and the enemy to shoot at you, so your damage dealers following you in a push have less pressure.

It's whole purpose is to lead one decisive push, not dealing damage or trading well with high-mounted guns like other assaults can do.



Exactly, my point is, it cannot perform its intended fuction at present, it dies instantly. It needs "more" to be able to perform its intended role.

View PostDaggett, on 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM, said:

Have you tried the mobility tree? Not just speed tweak, but almost all of it? It does make a difference.


The mobility tree is based on % - this means that if you have a very small number to begin with, the skilltree does nothing. I saw someone who was a excell warrior and made a document on the actual numbers post skilltree for the atlas. It made it very clear that mobility quirks does litterally nothing, since we are talking about 0.012 more of something.

View PostDaggett, on 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM, said:

If an Atlas is being forced somewhere you either played it like other assaults or your team failed to follow up and support you properly. It's the Atlas and his pushing team who forces others to fight at his conditions.


The game and gamemodes force you in to unfavorable situations, youre never supposed to be in all the time - but post new tech update - people can dish out more burst damage than before - leading to atlas getting shot by 3 -5 people at a time - its not built to take that kind of attention. Its litteraly a suicidal wall - which is not an efficient use of your teams tonnage use or rewarding you for your sacrefice - hence no one wants to do it. It needs more armor to make that role viable.

View PostDaggett, on 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM, said:

Also since your Job is to soak up damage and not to deal the most, it's okay to not being able to shoot every target anytime. Usually there are other panicking targets to get some shots in than the best one. You have your team behind you to kill the priority targets.


That's true, but again try the full mobility tree. I'm sure you will then be able to twist away a lot of the incoming damage. The mighty MAD-IIC for comparison is much easier to strip due to it's long side torsos. If you attack a MAD-IIC from the side there is no way to miss it's ST. The Atlas however has a much better side-profile and it's arms can actually shield.


I mentioned the problem, its too slow to react to any threat, twisting - shielding. Its armor is too weak to do any of those things. You get stripped in a manner of seconds vs a firingline. A kgc does it MUCH better, which is not what its supposed to do. Most KGC's have more armor and better hardpoints too.

View PostDaggett, on 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM, said:

What do you mean with heatpool? All mechs from light to assault come with the same 50 heat capacity from the 10 internal engine DHS and additional DHS work the same on all mechs. So it's only the equipped weapons and DHS which define a mech's hotness. Sure heat-quirks help some other mechs but they won't do wonders. If you put the same weapons from your Atlas on any other mech without adding additional DHS, you will be about equally hot.


This doesnt seem to be the case, some mechs, with the same loadout, get different heat% after alpha striking while having no heat quirks, this means that some mechs have a bigger pool for max heat capacity.
Likely due to whatever theyre supposed to do. Like a thunderbolt (without heat quirks and skills) can shoot more lasers before overheating over other mechs with the same loadout.

I noticed this since i play KGC alot, and comparing the heat on my kgc vs my atlas with the exact same loadout, they get different heat results - atlas is arguably alot hotter than kgc which means it can fire its guns alot less.

View PostDaggett, on 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM, said:

So it's up to you, how hot you want your Atlas to become. Given it's intended role as a damage receiver rather than damage dealer there is no need for the biggest alpha possible. A decent but cool alpha is probably more suitable. Large lasers or PPCs are for other mechs.


The atlas is in limbo, it cant do well in anything. This is the reason i made this post.


View PostDaggett, on 18 December 2017 - 04:31 AM, said:

You do have guns. A big ballistic and some SRM6 or MRMs are nothing to sneeze at and the reason most enemies still focus the Atlas even in T1 so it can fulfill it's role as a damage sponge as long as it leads the charge.


Especially in T1 you are dead in an atlas before you even get near the required range of 280m. It has no method to manouver out of a bad situation.

It either needs agility and more speed, more heat to be able to shoot more often, or a lot more armor - or a mix of the three to make it relevant again.

Exactly, my point is, it cannot perform its intended fuction at present, it dies instantly. It needs "more" to be able to perform its intended role.

#12 Seranov

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 08:15 AM

View PostVerilligo, on 18 December 2017 - 06:50 AM, said:

I would be totally fine with giving the Atlas further buffs to assist it with being the top-rate IS tanking and pushing mech. If you do so, however, I would reflect some of those same changes to the Executioner and, to a lesser extent, the Gargoyle. Even with Clan tech, those two mechs suffer a lot from having very similar problems to the Atlas due to having so much less available tonnage, thus being unable to really take advantage of Clan damage-to-weight benefits. You can still leave the Atlas as the tankiest thing on the battlefield, but giving the Clans some mechs (that are otherwise rarely chosen) to perform a similar role would be welcomed.


Oh my god, yes. Despite how big it is, and even with the quirks available, the Executioner is a Medium mech that has eaten far too many cheeseburgers. I love the tip of the spear playstyle, and the Executioner I bought just couldn't even pretend to play in that way, as even when sacrificing firepower to get the most durability possible (with skills, even!) it just melted the second anybody looked at it. Literally anyone. And if you decided to attempt to stuff more firepower and run it as a fire support mech? Well, you get screwed by limited pod space, knuckle-dragging arm hardpoints, or just a super limited amount of tonnage for a 95 ton mech. As-is, there are a lot of heavier assaults that have bad-to-mediocre mobility, poor firepower, easy-to-hit/focus hitboxes and only average survivability. None of these mechs see consistent play because they're just not good at anything.

If the Atlas, Executioner, and other big slow(ish) mechs with mediocre firepower could become truly tanky mechs, with the ability to lead pushes without melting instantly, it'd be awesome. Having big sturdy mechs that friendlies would actually be able to use as cover might even convince the cowardly folk who spend whole games behind hills and buildings to learn that aggression is how to win matches, too! It's win-win.

#13 Composite Armour

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 09:30 AM

Structure quirks are useless, all of them should be replaced by armour quirks.

#14 JediPanther

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 09:48 AM

Mobility and pitch are the worst on the atlas. Surprising yesterday on grim during conquest that I went solo to kappa in the s and managed to solo an urbie and leg a meta ach. Heavy guass got the urb while srm and ll fire broke the ach's leg but the sob was able to run run up and down the hills to core our the rear side torsos before the dam crit system took out all my dam weapons so I just walked off a red ct to find an enemy with a bigger alpha to get the job done.

50 to 100 armor quirks to all of the atlas wouldn't help it. It needs a lot of mobility and more heat generation so it can fire more with its limited weapons.

#15 Humpday

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 09:58 AM

Its pretty miserable to have an atlas on your team, especially a solo atlas's. Two atlas's thats a different story, Three, oh you've won the game...as long as they don't have LRMs.

Solo atlas', 99% of the time ,he's good for 150 damage before he's dead. Just legit meat shield.

Its meant as a brawler, but lacks the mobility to brawl. Basically you just have to hit W and hope your team follows you...but you'll probably not come out alive. Atlas's have like a 99.9% mortality rate from what I've seen.

The Anni on the other hand is just insane sustained DPS, which, by itself and maybe one other mech, they can hold an entire corner of the map down. So it can get away with being a slug.

Its yaw rate would help that thing tremendously, so you can at least spread the damage.

#16 Khobai

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 09:58 AM

atlas' pitch needs to be 25 degrees not 16 degrees

16 degree pitch is crap on a mech that uses predominantly torso weapons.

other mechs like the banshee have the same problem and should also be fixed.



the atlas also sucks at distributing damage across its torso sections. its torso is like twice as wide as the annihilator's torso.

giving the atlas more agility wont fix that. the only real fix is to rescale it.

atlas needs to be way smaller. since all mechs are made of the same materials and should have close to the same density, an atlas should logically only be four times the size of a commando by volume.

a lot of assaults are just volumetrically scaled wrong and thats the whole problem. the king crab is probably the best example of a mech that's just way too big for its tonnage.

making the atlas/king crab four times the size of a commando by volume probably isnt going to happen, but they should at least give it a 10%-15% reduction in size; thats a reasonable size reduction. the smaller the torsos are across, the better theyll be at distributing damage between the three torso sections.

Quote

Improve the agility and torso values dramatically. Make it THE agile 100 tonner that can actually use those meaty arms for shielding.


no 100 tonner should be agile. that was the whole point of taking its agility away. Besides, more agility doesnt fix the problem anyway since you can still aim for the atlas' torsos even from the side. Torso twisting with an atlas really only helps you against spread weapons that cant aim.

the annihilator is proof that a 100 tonner doesnt need agility to be tanky. it just needs a properly scaled torso that distributes damage fairly evenly, like the annihilator's does.

the best fix for the atlas would be to make it smaller. PGI needs to do another rescaling pass on their mechs. This time focusing on the oversized assaults.

Edited by Khobai, 18 December 2017 - 10:21 AM.


#17 Kh0rn

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 10:14 AM

View PostKhobai, on 18 December 2017 - 09:58 AM, said:

atlas' pitch needs to be 25 degrees not 16 degrees

16 degree pitch is crap on a mech that uses predominantly torso weapons.

other mechs like the banshee have the same problem and should also be fixed.



the atlas also sucks at distributing damage across its torso sections. its torso is like twice as wide as the annihilator's torso.

giving the atlas more agility wont fix that. the only real fix is to rescale it.

atlas needs to be way smaller. since all mechs are made of the same materials and should have close to the same density, an atlas should logically only be four times the size of a commando by volume.

a lot of assaults are just volumetrically scaled wrong and thats the whole problem. the king crab is probably the best example of a mech that's just way too big for its tonnage.

making the atlas/king crab four times the size of a commando by volume probably isnt going to happen, but they should get at least a 10%-15% reduction in size. the smaller the torsos are across, the better theyll be at distributing damage between the three torso sections.

https://4.bp.blogspo...00/100_8975.JPG

Pretty good side by side, The classic Atlas had far slimmer torso's and much thicker arms, this take would make it tank like a Banshee. Which has the similar set up or slimmer torsos and bigger arms, but I agree the Atlas needs too be buffed, You also spot on with the size, as you can see MWO's scale is much bigger then it should be.

Edited by Kh0rn, 18 December 2017 - 10:15 AM.


#18 Troa Barton

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 10:28 AM

+1

#19 lazorbeamz

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 10:29 AM

Best thing the atlas has is mrm 60 + uac20. take or leave.

#20 Humpday

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Posted 18 December 2017 - 10:32 AM

View PostKhobai, on 18 December 2017 - 09:58 AM, said:


the annihilator is proof that a 100 tonner doesnt need agility to be tanky. it just needs a properly scaled torso that distributes damage fairly evenly, like the annihilator's does.



Thats not a good comparison. part of an Annis ability to "tank" is because when you mount 5UAC 5s, 4lbx/ac10s and someone peels around the corner...well they won't peek out again and if they do you punish them. Not getting shot at is a pretty good way to "tank", you win the trade every time. No one smart is going to stand infront of UAC5//AC10 fire for long, they're going to run away and re-position somewhere not in front of it.

In otherwords its not primarily because of the Annis hitboxes/geo, its because of its ability to continuously laydown fire without letting up and with less return fire.

Now lets say you put the same ac20 srm build of an atlas on the anni(if you could, that is)...you think it'll do well? No, it'll eat crap just like the Atlas does. Its the sustained DPS that makes the ANNI survivable. Not its hitboxes...because, you have to be blind not to know where the torsos and CT are on an anni.

The Atlas cannot mount weapons that scare people off. Where as an Anni can hold an entire choke point down just by itself, an Atlas cannot punish fast enough or long enough to scare the enemy off.





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