The Atlas rework suggestion (that no one asked for)

[Raarsi]

As much as I love Atlas, I know that my beloved boulder holder has worn down over the years, so I figured I'd try to come up with something that would give him that nice rock polish again.  So here goes...

Passive

So I think his passive is fine for the most part.  Anti-knockback while grounded is both great and adheres to some of his inspirational lore.  The problem for me is that I think this is where the Rubble portion should go, so something like this added in:

While moving on the ground, Atlas picks up Rubble, slowly increasing his armor.  Rubble generated from his abilities grants additional armor and heals Atlas for a small amount.

1 - Landslide

Bash enemies with an exploding sliding punch, and repeat for a devastating combo.  Petrified enemies take extra damage and drop Rubble.  Each punch reduces the target's armor by 25% for 5 seconds.

Since the portion explaining how Rubble works is in the passive, it doesn't need to be explained in the Landslide tooltip.  I also wanted an armor strip for him somewhere, and Landslide felt like a good place to put it in since it could promote the usual 1 spam that Atlas is known for.

2 - Petrify

So Petrify by itself is a well enough ability as far as what it can do and is supposed to do.  The only issue for it was really the energy cost, as a base energy drain being a third of his base maximum energy seemed a bit rough.  That was why I felt like it needed to be switched with Tectonics and giving more incentive for that ability to be buffed.

3 - Tectonics

Summons a rock wall surrounding Atlas.  Activate again to topple the wall, creating Rubble where the rock wall was and causing a damaging shockwave radiating outward.

Back in the day, Tectonics would have been used like a Grineer blunt, providing a small amount of artificial cover from fire.  In the current age of the game, this is a considerably outdated strategy, so I figured instead to have it as a more universally defensive option that could be used like Frost's Snowglobe or Gara's Mass Vitrify (at least in theory) while still providing all the other benefits and perhaps having its values buffed to offset it being a third ability instead of a second one.

4 - Rumblers

Expend all Rubble to summon two elemental stone brawlers to the melee. Summoning petrifies enemies in close proximity to Atlas. Rumbler damage is increased based on the amount of Rubble consumed.  When using Landslide, Rumblers will immediately charge to and attack the target.  When finished, Rumblers collapse into a pile of Rubble.

The lines in bold were intended to help with two things.  The first is the standard lack of reliability found in AI allies these days, so the ability to have Rumblers be able to zero in on a focused target felt like it would make them at least a little more practical.  The other was the damage bonus from expending Rubble, and that was more to make his fourth ability feel slightly more like a proper fourth ability while rewarding the player for maintaining Rubble upkeep.

 

Um, yeah, that'd be my rework suggestion for Atlas.  If you like it, great, and if not, that's okay too!

[SolStreak]

I've been using Atlas often lately, and this looks like a great ideas, especially the Rumblers change. Atlas & the rumblers punching 1 target at the same time sounds like an anime badassery.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

I'd suggest you add an interaction between Landslide and Tectonics, much like the interaction between Gara's Shattered Lash and Mass Vitrify :

Upon using Landslide on Tectonics, it becomes a bowling ball of rocks and deals damage proportionate to its velocity and knocks down enemies in the way. Ignores a % of the enemy armor based on your Rubble meter/counter.

 

Rockboi needs some love though.

[Raarsi]

11 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

I'd suggest you add an interaction between Landslide and Tectonics, much like the interaction between Gara's Shattered Lash and Mass Vitrify

I thought about that, but I also didn't want every ability requiring Landslide.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Il y a 8 heures, Raarsi a dit :

I thought about that, but I also didn't want every ability requiring Landslide.

You could, better designed frames tend to do so. Though that's with abilities that are already good on their own. Tectonics doesn't exactly fit into that role sadly.

[xBagit]

My biggest pain with Atlas is how long it takes to get going it's either :

- running a lot of efficiency and losing on valuable stats when you reach Rubble Heap range

- running Lycath's hunt and equilibrium and losing on grouping abilities while also losing a bit of valuable stats when reaching Rubble Heap range

- running a grouping ability and equilibrium at base efficiency and having energy problems until you reach Rubble Heap range but at least you're not losing on any valuable stats
 

On 2024-03-27 at 9:33 AM, Raarsi said:

While moving on the ground, Atlas picks up Rubble, slowly increasing his armor.  Rubble generated from his abilities grants additional armor and heals Atlas for a small amount.

It also doesn't help that rubble is either heal or armor so while the invuln from Landslide prevents the health loss from arcane avenger for example, you will most likely get hit at some point in between Petrify uses therefore preventing you from getting rubble unless you kill groups of multiple enemies (need for grouping). It would be very nice if it just could do both, it's not a crazy thing to have in today's roster I think, plus with invuln (and equilibrium if you use it) the heal becomes less and less attractive.

 

On 2024-03-27 at 9:33 AM, Raarsi said:

1 - Landslide

Bash enemies with an exploding sliding punch, and repeat for a devastating combo.  Petrified enemies take extra damage and drop Rubble.  Each punch reduces the target's armor by 25% for 5 seconds.

In my opinion while armor strip is good, I wouldn't see it on this ability nor on atlas as a whole, with the arrival of Melee Exposure, it's easy to get corrosive on your Landslide, although it's to be determined for effectiveness on heavily armored stuff and that would make your suggestion better to use as a crutch against these.

 

On 2024-03-27 at 9:33 AM, Raarsi said:

2 - Petrify

So Petrify by itself is a well enough ability as far as what it can do and is supposed to do.  The only issue for it was really the energy cost, as a base energy drain being a third of his base maximum energy seemed a bit rough.  That was why I felt like it needed to be switched with Tectonics and giving more incentive for that ability to be buffed.

Agreed on the lower energy cost for sure, anything that can make his energy economy better.

It sounds like a bit too much but somehow having rubble drops scale off strength (or efficiency I guess ?) with petrify would help Atlas massively to get started in shorter missions or multiplayer.

 

On 2024-03-27 at 9:33 AM, Raarsi said:

3 - Tectonics

Summons a rock wall surrounding Atlas.  Activate again to topple the wall, creating Rubble where the rock wall was and causing a damaging shockwave radiating outward.

Back in the day, Tectonics would have been used like a Grineer blunt, providing a small amount of artificial cover from fire.  In the current age of the game, this is a considerably outdated strategy, so I figured instead to have it as a more universally defensive option that could be used like Frost's Snowglobe or Gara's Mass Vitrify (at least in theory) while still providing all the other benefits and perhaps having its values buffed to offset it being a third ability instead of a second one.

I wouldn't mind having Tectonics on 3 since it would be more situational imo it makes sense, what I was thinking with Tectonics is make the length scale with range the way Qorvex has but obviously not as long. This way Atlas could "lockdown" certain areas the way static defensive frames like Frost or Gara do but on a much smaller scale and it wouldn't be a closed perimeter, I see it as a way to block off some hallways or open areas for cover, something like that. Enemies would try to destroy it for pathfinding purposes obviously but I think it could at least make this ability more usable ?

 

On 2024-03-27 at 9:33 AM, Raarsi said:

4 - Rumblers

Expend all Rubble to summon two elemental stone brawlers to the melee. Summoning petrifies enemies in close proximity to Atlas. Rumbler damage is increased based on the amount of Rubble consumed.  When using Landslide, Rumblers will immediately charge to and attack the target.  When finished, Rumblers collapse into a pile of Rubble.

The lines in bold were intended to help with two things.  The first is the standard lack of reliability found in AI allies these days, so the ability to have Rumblers be able to zero in on a focused target felt like it would make them at least a little more practical.  The other was the damage bonus from expending Rubble, and that was more to make his fourth ability feel slightly more like a proper fourth ability while rewarding the player for maintaining Rubble upkeep.

I very much disagree with the whole use all rubble part specifically because of Rubble Heap but that would be in the current situation, if a quicker way to get your rubble back existed then why not, expending ressources for additional damage and funny minions, I like it, would love to see the interaction with the augment that creates a single, more powerful Rumbler.

 

Overall the biggest change Atlas absolutely needs atm is a rubble mechanic tweak, the rest of the kit would still be underwhelming but at the very least the important parts would be a lot more usable. There is no point in having to do so much to get the boulder going.

Edited April 6 by xBagit