167 replies to this topic

[xXwildcardXx]

I am a light mech pilot (raven 3L) and can speak with certainty that I would much rather face a stalker one on one than the altas. The stalker has a slower torso twist and no arm arc to speak of so it is not difficult to avoid their fire. it doesn't matter what your payload is if you can't use it. The atlas has a greater arm arc and faster torso twist which is a bigger threat to us lights than the stalker.

[GoManGo]

To me all the mechs are to weak as far as hits taken there all like little paper dolls that die in 1-3 shots. It really is stupid and not like what the books are like most mechs in the books could take up to 40 hits before they were destroyed.

[Roughneck45]

Uzi Foo, on 27 January 2013 - 12:54 AM, said:

I have a saying, "There is nothing worse than a bad atlas pilot."

Isn't that the truth.

If anyone really feels that an Atlas is too weak, they need to stop piloting assault mechs and gimping their own team, because an Atlas that is too weak is a pilot problem, not a mech problem.

[Monkey Bone]

Roughneck45, on 27 January 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

Isn't that the truth.

If anyone really feels that an Atlas is too weak, they need to stop piloting assault mechs and gimping their own team, because an Atlas that is too weak is a pilot problem, not a mech problem.

Nothing hurts more than a shitlord who gives a possible free atlas to the enemy.

[Deathwatch]

the Atlas especially, along with most assaults, besides some exceptions are artificially gimped by the game mechanics.

It is the stupid differences in size compared to all the other classes together with the crappy movement choices ( limited reactors and no JJ). This makes em sitting ducks and kills their survivability.

The hillarious hardpoint system forces the atlas to use uneconomically and crappy weapons, as example the worthless ac20 compared to the 4 srm6 with artemis a stalker can carry for that weight. Guess who has the advantage. This is also effecting most assault choices to a certain degree compared to heavys and meds.

The heatsink changes are the next neckbreaker, since you are forced to use heat inefficient weapons you get gimped even more with the current implemention of double heatsinks, which favor mechs that use a 250 +/- 50 engine and have to rely on ~ 10 to 12 dhs, which are mostly meds or heavys.

The XL issue. Nobody in their right mind uses an xl in an assault due to the big and easy to hit torsos ( dont tell me about the stupid awesome variant, thats just one mech and i still think its better without xl).

Endo/Ferro benefits most lights or meds , hvys and assaults dont have that many slots to waste most of the time.


Im not saying Atlas/Assaults are completly useless, but they are just support weapon carriers and not the brawlers that lead the charge. Even if you put all CQB weapons in an Assault hes still better of hugging cover and firing from a distance. And Meds ( since the change iof the hitboxes on lights and the netcode) are the best "Assaults" now. So yes i think they are to weak, or should be renamed Support Class. And of course the Pilot makes a difference, but if you put a good pilot in a med/hvy srm+artemis brawler he kills any assault every time.

[RainbowToh]

King Arthur IV, on 26 January 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

if atlas is weak, where is the awesome then?

Standing right there pewpewing lazors n PPCs

[OneEyed Jack]

Vlad Ward, on 26 January 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

Quad AC5 CTF is also extremely squishy. You can't twist to dissipate incoming fire, so if you're facing anyone with a modicum of hand-eye coordination you're taking 90%+ of their shots straight to your center torso. It may be able to kill an Assault in a few seconds, but it won't last much longer itself.

This. Relatively low alpha means you have to stand for a comparatively long time face-on to your target and out of cover. If you catch my D-DC at range in the open I screwed up and you deserve to kill me. If I'm playing it right, we meet at close range. Even without twisting, I can take at least 6 of your alphas to my CT and still be standing. That's 10.3 seconds plus latency, which will affect you more than me because it's affecting you more times. In that time, I've unloaded around 200 damage into your front. Even though mine is less focused and I'll lose some to spread, you simply can't absorb that kind of damage. Either you'll be dead or you'll have lost weapons from losing a side torso or arm, which just means it's taking longer for you to kill me and I'm shooting some more.

LoganMkv, on 26 January 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

At this range you are likely to miss half shots and disperse others, at least I haven't ever seen a dakkaphract to kill an atlas at medium+ range. Point-blank atlas has very little chances though unless he is melee-brawler and destroys at least one gun quick.

See above.

Khobai, on 26 January 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

That has everything to do with ECM being overpowered and nothing to do with the D-DC specifically. You could put ECM on a Stalker 3H and it would suddenly become one of the best mechs in the game overnight.

With or without ECM, the D-DC has a phenomenal hardpoint layout and, for my preferences, is one of the best mechs in the game. ECM just means it's a bit easier to dodge LRMs on the way in and I can laugh at the people still playing Streak-cats.

Squigles, on 26 January 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

If you look at the post immediately before the dev's post, you see why they needed to clarify that.

Incorrect.

Thomas Dziegielewski, on 24 January 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

It's not 10% extra armor, it's 10% damage resistance for that component.

I took the liberty of editing to enhance the operative word here. Component is referring to the missile launchers, not the entire body section. If your doors are closed and an AC10 crits your launcher, it will reduce the damage to 9 and not destroy it.

xRaeder, on 26 January 2013 - 07:04 PM, said:

You haven't faced the 6xPPC or 4xSRM6/4x ML Stalkers then. They can two shot an Atlas, you can't two shot a Stalker because the torso hitboxes are extremely difficult to pinpoint.
In a two Assault Mech fight torso twist doesn't matter. Stalker wins, all things (pilot skill/situation) being equal, every time.

I have in my D-DC, and I generally win. I've gone nose-to-nose with numerous 5xSRM6/5xML Stalkers and I generally win. It's just typically easier for me to remove some of his weapons than it is for him to remove mine. If I do that. it's all me. I can't two-shot him, but in two shots I've largely weakened him and the third leaves him dead or close enough as to make no difference. Of course, who get's the first shot, and at what range, will often be the deciding factors. Against the 6 PPCs, he wins at long range and I win at short. I do my best not to give him shots at long range.

I'm not bragging. I'm not bad, but don't claim to be the best pilot around. It's just the way it works out.

Edited to fix spacing because it looked funny.

Edited by OneEyed Jack, 27 January 2013 - 09:19 AM.

[Sarda]

While the Atlas is 'ok' at the moment but it suffers from poor hardpoints because of the ballistic/missile torso spread perventing it from specializing like all other mechs can. It has heat problems, it lacks slots for heatsinks, and its torso is enourmous and easily focus fire'd apon.

Even if the PGI makes it so all the clan tech can be placed on any IS mech, the mech that would benefit the least would be the Atlas. So basically the second the Clan Invasion rolls onto live this thing is toast.

Edited by Sarda, 27 January 2013 - 10:31 AM.

[Jacmac]

Livewyr, on 26 January 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

Atlas D-DC
3 SRM6 + Art
1 AC20
2 Medium Lasers

several DHS
Max Armor
Crush everything.

You just described virtually every Atlas fielded in an 8-man (as the game stands currently). When/if maps get bigger, ECM gets nerfed, this may change. Otherwise, this is the standard.

[Titan Osis]

My opinion is you're bad and I wreck $h1T in my atlas.

[Chrithu]

I just started playing again yesterday and I have to say that according to what I observed during the last matches the atlas has become even stronger than I remember it being 6 weeks ago. This most certainly is caused by the fact that the "lagshield problem" improved for a lot of people. Where I could carelessly get in close vs. an Atlas in my Cicadas before I now need to keep my distance and use my speed to do fast hit and run attacks getting back to cover quickly, as it should be(!!!). Hitdetection and Lagshield problems also improved for me. I notice it is a lot easier now to hit particular parts of a mech.

So to answer the OP's question: No the Atlas certainly is not too weak. The Stalker is a lot easier to get down due to it's big sidetorsos that are exposed in a huge arc even form behind it is possible to hit the front sidetorsos if your mech's smaller.

Edited by Jason Parker, 27 January 2013 - 11:19 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

The hillarious hardpoint system forces the atlas to use uneconomically and crappy weapons, as example the worthless ac20 compared to the 4 srm6 with artemis a stalker can carry for that weight. Guess who has the advantage. This is also effecting most assault choices to a certain degree compared to heavys and meds.

I totally get where you're coming from. I just want to say that the issue isn't necessarily the hardpoint system but rather the fact that Ballistic hardpoints are blatantly inferior to Energy and Missile hardpoints. Ballistic weapons consume a tremendous amount of tonnage and crits for both the weapon itself as well as the ammo. Because of the ******** heatscale in this game its much more efficient to pack on as many "small" weapons as possible and then boat as many heatsinks as you can. That is the reason the game has devolved into lasers and srms.

The solution is to buff ballistic weapons in a major way. Ballistic weapons need to be good enough to justify the massive amount of tonnage and crit slots they consume.

Additionally, Assaults should benefit way more from XL engines than they currently do. It's not really fair that an Atlas can't use an XL engine just because it's side torsos can be pinpointed so easily. That's not representative of tabletop at all where most if not all 3050 assault mechs are running XL engines... In Battletech, XL engines were meant to be a tech upgrade that benefits assault mechs the most. Instead, in MWO, light mechs benefit from XL the most and that's completely wrong. XL should not be the huge liability for assault mechs that it currently is.

Those are really the two major problems I have with the Atlas which I feel could be improved upon.

Edited by Khobai, 27 January 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Odins Fist]

StandingCow, on 26 January 2013 - 09:28 PM, said:

It depends on how you are playing your atlas. You can't get caught out alone, and you need to soak up damage for your team. My DDC (even before ECM) will take out any other mech toe to toe due to it's firepower.

.
Until you lose your SRM Missile racks, enitre left torso, and Arm, then it's over....
"VERY" easy to accomplish...

[p00k]

1v1 atlas will only regularly lose to one mech. the 6srm6 a1 has the heavy alpha and the speed and maneuverability to get close enough to use it. probably the king of 1v1 right now

a few other builds are dangerous, but the atlas will win more often than not:
3x uac5 ilya
2x uac5 2x ac5 phract4x
srm6/mlas stalkers

but who cares about 1v1, having marginally better or worse firepower means little compared to how you fit in with your team's strategy

atlases can take xl engines better than any other assault in the game. unlike the stalker, it can use its arms to shield its side torsos. and its forward hitbox isn't quite as prominent as the awesome's.

balllistic hardpoints are fine once you get to heavy/assaults. what they lose in weight/ammo they make up for in heat and damage. the uac5 is 9 tons, with 3 tons ammo is 12 tons, 8 crits. even if you never doubletap, it has the dps of 2 large lasers, which are 10 tons, plus the 10+ tons of heatsinks you'll need to keep them running. the only downside of ballistic hardpoints is that there's no low end ballistic, aside from the garbage machinegun. once you have the tonnage to mount the medium size ballistics they're great

[Typhon27]

Khobai, on 26 January 2013 - 02:19 PM, said:

Well the Atlas is 100 tons with 8 hardpoints so its got 1 hardpoint per 12.5 tons

Compare that to a Raven which is 35 tons with 5 hardpoints which has 1 hardpoint per 7 tons

So basically a Raven is getting almost double the hardpoints per tonnage as an Atlas. I think that illustrates the problem right there.

This

Most armor of all Mechs aside, I always thought the hardpoint allotment and placement were kind of sparse for a 100 ton Mech. Especially when you consider that the RT is the only place for ballistics and everyone on the field knows it.

[Khobai]

Typhon27, on 27 January 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

This

Most armor of all Mechs aside, I always thought the hardpoint allotment and placement were kind of sparse for a 100 ton Mech. Especially when you consider that the RT is the only place for ballistics and everyone on the field knows it.

I believe it was intended for the Atlas to make up for its lack of hardpoints by using "large" weapons. The problem is most of your large weapons, particularly ballistics, are absolutely terrible. Again this all comes back to weapon balance. Ballistic weapons in general, PPCs, Large Pulses, etc... all need massive buffs.

Quote

balllistic hardpoints are fine once you get to heavy/assaults. what they lose in weight/ammo they make up for in heat and damage. the uac5 is 9 tons, with 3 tons ammo is 12 tons, 8 crits. even if you never doubletap, it has the dps of 2 large lasers, which are 10 tons, plus the 10+ tons of heatsinks you'll need to keep them running.

Not sure where youre getting your numbers from. You are aware the UAC/5 has a 25% jam rate and stays jammed for 5 seconds? A UAC/5 does 6.06 DPS. When it jam for 5 seconds you lose 30.3 DPS. It has to fire 4 times for it to jam which is 6.6 seconds. So 30.3/6.6 = 4.59 DPS lost during a jam. 6.06 - 4.59 = 1.47 DPS. A large laser does 2.12 dps. So the UAC/5 is hardly doing twice the DPS of a large laser. In fact UAC/5s arn't even that great anymore for sustained dps since they significantly increased the jam chance. There was a time when UAC/5s were the king of ballistic weapons but that time has passed.

TLDR; a Large Laser is typically better than a UAC/5 since it takes up a fraction of the crit slots and tonnage and requires no ammo.

Edited by Khobai, 28 January 2013 - 07:38 PM.

[MysticLink]

Atlas D

2 ultra ac 5s
4 medium lasers
175 ultra ac ammo
2 srms 6s
300 srm amo
300 sthd engine
18 double heat sinks.
608 armor.

You will wreck stalkers and the cataract with 2 ultra ac 5 and 2 ac 5s as well as the Ilya dude with 3 ultra ac5s and 3 lasers.

Edited by MysticLink, 27 January 2013 - 12:49 PM.

[Raidyr]

I don't even know how bad you have to be to think the Atlas, let alone the D-DC, is anything approaching weak.

[MysticLink]

Never be afraid of anyone in an Atlas. Be fearless.

[Grey Ghost]

I'm surprised how little the AS7-K is mentioned in this thread, since it's the only Atlas that is truly weak compared to the rest.