How I abandoned the Atlas... and then went back

 Here's a funny story of how I was horrified of the Atlas at first, sold it, but then reconsidered.

I wrote this post on Reddit and recieved a lot of help.

I've had enough of the Atlas

or how I stopped worrying and sold the Atlas.

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 ass.

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 ass 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.

Here is the link to that thread.

After going back to the Atlas and playing around with the standard close-range build for the chassis AS7 D-DC (3xSRM6, 1xAC20, ECM, optionally 2xML) I switched to a long-mid range version:

ECM
2xLL
3xSRM4
2xUAC5


This one might not have the powerful alpha of the brawler build, yet it's at least potent at long- and mid-range engagements, which is ok in my book. Your armour and your size actually lets you stare opponents in the face. Which is quite intimidating, unless they're pro and know what they're doing. Or they're a Direwolf.

And this Atlas himself is definitely not a Direwolf, nor it is a KDK-3 Kodiak. Yet I finish most battles with pretty high damage numbers and a few kills under my belt.

Thing is, the brawling Atlas requires a lot of patience.

I know a person who plays exclusively the Atlas. He's played hundreds of games with it and is quite good. He uses the standard brawling build and mostly the S7 chassis. Here's a tactic he often uses: at the start of the match he'll smoke a cigarette and talk to his teammates on Teamspeak. After that he'd lumber towards the battlefield. By the time he arrives the long-range phase of the battle is over and the survivors have closed the distance and are engaging in a brawl. The Atlas then just walks in and kills off the remaining enemies. High damage numbers every game. Lots of kills. I envy this guy: I don't really have the patience to play this build. I wanna rock. Probably that's why I prefer the Warhawk and the Ebon Jaguar. But that's a story for my next article.

'Til next time.