Atlas Rework Made to Create Synergy and Late Game Scaling

[Somb3rBivalve]

So I've made Atlas Reworks before, but a lot of what I said were overly complicated solutions to atlas' problems that are easier to solve than one might think. This rework seeks to introduce synergy across all of his powers mainly through the use of the combo counter and give him some more variety to his kit that is not comprised of spamming his 1 (this is what most people currently do)

So here are the redone abilities

• Landslide: This is one of the big problems of his kit because I feel like way that it builds up to 4x damage with reduced energy costs and more hit range is what makes players want to spam this ability so they can keep this high damage going. To prevent spam, the behavior where it has its own combo mechanic up to 4x damage, reduced energy costs and more hit range is completely removed. Don't worry, his other abilities will be made better to compensate. Enemies hit will still contribute to the overall melee combo multiplier, but this ability no longer scales off combo multiplier (you will see this doesn't matter in the end)
• Tectonics: The mechanics related to this ability will stay the same mostly. However, in order to make it more fun, whenever you use landslide into a rock wall, the wall will roll out, but you will be controlling it as it rolls around. This form of controlling the rollout is a drain ability (the drain would be fairly heavy), and atlas would be there at the ending location whenever the rollout ends. Enemies will target the rock wall while atlas is controlling it, but they will have to get through the rock wall's remaining health from when atlas initiated the rollout. If they get through its health, the rollout will end immediately and atlas will be stunned at the ending location for 1.5 seconds. The normal rollout can still be done and any hits on enemies with the normal rollout or controllable rollout will also contribute to the combo counter. Any rock walls currently standing or being rolled out will give 25% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength). This armor increase is still the same with the triple wall augment.
• Petrify: This power still works largely the same except, like volt shield, atlas blocks bullets from the front while active, and any petrified enemies killed will drop a health orb. The health orb gives him more sustain and creates interesting possibilities in his build with equilibrium and health conversion. Also, whenever an enemy is petrified, one sec to the combo duration is added until the next enemy contributes to the combo counter (in other words, this extra duration is not permanent). Any petrified enemies give 5% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength).
• Rumblers: Any hits from rumblers will contribute to combo counter...also, just for QoL: any rumblers in nullifier bubbles will do no damage while in there, but they will not insantaneously die. Any rumblers currently alive will give atlas 25% armor. If the titanic rumbler augment is equipped, it is 50% (unaffected by power strength).
• Passive: same as before except...and this is what ties it all together...power strength scales with combo multiplier. Power strength scaling off combo multiplier may seem insane, but when you take away the spammability and clearing ability of his one, he doesn't have a room clearing ability so it's not TOO crazy IMO.

This rework incorporated some of ideas from others I have seen on the forums, but not directly to the best of my knowledge. What do you guys think?

[redeyedtreefrog]

Hmm... This actually isn't a bad rework. I think the only thing I'd change is that rumblers who enter nullifier fields will collapse, but stay in a state of "bleedout" for a period of time. Maybe while the rumblers are "down", atlas can use his 4 again with extra power efficiency, in order to "resurrect" his rumblers, or maybe allow him to use petrify to heal / revive rumblers who have entered a nullifier bubble. (I'd say it would be best to not have killed rumblers get the revive treatment; endless resurrection would likely be too OP and could put atlas back into powerspam territory, which seems to be the opposite of the goal here).

Basically, I think it would seem a bit weird and misleading to let the rumblers move around in nullifier fields unimpeded(even/especially if they're dealing no damage), but at the same time, nullifiers instantly vaporizing your rumblers is incredibly frustrating.

As a side note, it might add to the combo synergy if you could cancel petrify by casting another ability, so that switching between his powers goes more smoothly.

 

Other than that, I like the armor buffs to atlas. "Titan of Stone", and his name in general, give the impression that he SHOULD be an unstoppable tank, but unfortunately, a number of warframes currently fill that role much better than him.

[Evanescent]

I like your tectonics, petrify and rumbler suggestions. I would like to add:

1)Landsliding into tectonics turns you into the boulder, with damage on impact increasing with distance travelled

2)Landsliding into rumblers absorbs them and turns you into a rumbler, like the PvP augment!

Only thing I object to is changing his landslide. It is designed to be spammed, he is a simple frame made to punch stuff. Why fix what is not broken? 

[Raqyia]

So, with his Tectonics ability, when he starts rollin' and they start hatin' how does one do controlled Tectonics versus sending it in a straight line?

[Somb3rBivalve]

15 hours ago, Raqyia said:

So, with his Tectonics ability, when he starts rollin' and they start hatin' how does one do controlled Tectonics versus sending it in a straight line?

You can do both normal rollout and controllable rollout. Normal rollout is handled the way it is now. Pressing 2 while a wall is already up rolls out the wall in a straight line. However, using landslide on a wall does the controllable rollout.

 

16 hours ago, Evanescent said:

I like your tectonics, petrify and rumbler suggestions. I would like to add:

1)Landsliding into tectonics turns you into the boulder, with damage on impact increasing with distance travelled

2)Landsliding into rumblers absorbs them and turns you into a rumbler, like the PvP augment!

Only thing I object to is changing his landslide. It is designed to be spammed, he is a simple frame made to punch stuff. Why fix what is not broken? 

Nice idea with being able to become the rumbler; it would be really fun to do that with the titanic rumbler augment. The reason I changed his one with this rework is because if you still had the landslide-specific combo multiplier, it would be too OP with the way that power strength scales with the overall combo multiplier scales in this rework. If that multiplier were still in place here, you would have an ability that:

• is cheap with decreasing energy costs
• can clear rooms easily with more hit range as you use it
• gives you invincibility while dashing
• does insane damage with the power specific multiplier along with the power strength added from the normal combo multiplier
• adds to the combo multiplier
• scales off melee weapon mods

And all of this for a first ability? By taking away its power specific multiplier, you take away the efficiency and room clearing power of this to discourage its over-use. Good damage is still present with power strength scaling with combo multiplier. In this kit, I see it as a quick way to close the distance with enemies while not taking too much damage in the process. After that, you can continue with landslide's hit progression for that massive knockback or you can save the energy and use normal melee. Normal melee will build the combo counter faster anyway because weapons that a traditional atlas would want to use like fist weapons (thinking of the tekko) will have fast attacks as opposed to landslide's relatively slow attacks.

17 hours ago, redeyedtreefrog said:

Hmm... This actually isn't a bad rework. I think the only thing I'd change is that rumblers who enter nullifier fields will collapse, but stay in a state of "bleedout" for a period of time. Maybe while the rumblers are "down", atlas can use his 4 again with extra power efficiency, in order to "resurrect" his rumblers, or maybe allow him to use petrify to heal / revive rumblers who have entered a nullifier bubble. (I'd say it would be best to not have killed rumblers get the revive treatment; endless resurrection would likely be too OP and could put atlas back into powerspam territory, which seems to be the opposite of the goal here).

Basically, I think it would seem a bit weird and misleading to let the rumblers move around in nullifier fields unimpeded(even/especially if they're dealing no damage), but at the same time, nullifiers instantly vaporizing your rumblers is incredibly frustrating.

As a side note, it might add to the combo synergy if you could cancel petrify by casting another ability, so that switching between his powers goes more smoothly.

 

Other than that, I like the armor buffs to atlas. "Titan of Stone", and his name in general, give the impression that he SHOULD be an unstoppable tank, but unfortunately, a number of warframes currently fill that role much better than him.

Good suggestions for rumblers' interactions with Nully bubbles. I would also be open to a %based damage over time effect on them while inside. I just find it extremely frustrating that right now they just get insta-killed; it makes rumblers almost useless against corpus.

[SafestSephiroth]

Your ideas in general are pretty good, OP, but I just can't condone an Atlas that can't punch for days. He has one of the best 1s in the entire game, it's REALLY GOOD, and nerfing its combo potential hurts. It hurts bad.

I think Rumblers could stand to be entirely removed, but then I think that because I think Atlas should exist to PUNCH because punching things feels cool and looks awesome. 

...but as far as like, actual effectiveness and reasonable designs go, yours is much better than anything I've thought up.

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

Spamming landslide is a problem? I'm all for making his other powers better though. 

[Somb3rBivalve]

22 minutes ago, (Xbox One)Godlike13 said:

Spamming landslide is a problem? I'm all for making his other powers better though. 

Feel free to disagree, but I think it's a problem. It's all people ever seem to do with him, and with the way that the ability works right now, you can just pump out massive damage all day long with nothing to stop you from spamming it

In terms of this rework, what incentive would there be for me to have to utilize all of the other complex relationships between his powers that I have created here if all I have to do is press 1 to win? 

Edited April 25, 2017 by Somb3rBivalve
more reasoning

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

Punching is his thing though. Trying to stop Atlas from punching just seems counterproductive. If I'm playing Atlas it's because I want to box the system. Atlas if anything needs more reasons for players to play him, I think he is one of the least played frame if not the least, anything making punching less appealing seems like the wrong direction. If fact I think his other powers should compliment him punching even more. Like Rumblers adding to the melee counter and ideas around punching tectonics. Those I like. 

Edited April 25, 2017 by (XB1)Godlike13

[(PSN)TwilightGrim]

hmmmmm......use landslide to punch your rumblers to temporarily become one..... ;) muda muda muda

but seriously DE, do this ^ i wanna be a giant with the augment 

run for full duration with the remaining health of the rumbler + a 75% damage reduction

[Somb3rBivalve]

15 minutes ago, (Xbox One)Godlike13 said:

Punching is his thing though. Trying to stop Atlas from punching just seems counterproductive. If I'm playing Atlas it's because I want to box the system. Atlas if anything needs more reasons for players to play him, I think he is one of the least played frame if not the least, anything making punching less appealing seems like the wrong direction. If fact I think his other powers should compliment him punching even more. Like Rumblers adding to the melee counter and ideas around punching tectonics. Those I like. 

Hmmmm...

Ok fine. How about we put landslide's original behavior back in in terms of its hit progression and spammability, but enemies hit by landslide no longer contribute to the combo counter? This way, landslide is his primary form of damage and the damage can be dealt in a wider radius with less energy cost, but you need to get the combo counter up with your other powers before you can punch people.

[Buddhakingpen]

On 3/28/2017 at 8:24 PM, Somb3rBivalve said:

So I've made Atlas Reworks before, but a lot of what I said were overly complicated solutions to atlas' problems that are easier to solve than one might think. This rework seeks to introduce synergy across all of his powers mainly through the use of the combo counter and give him some more variety to his kit that is not comprised of spamming his 1 (this is what most people currently do)

So here are the redone abilities

• Landslide: This is one of the big problems of his kit because I feel like way that it builds up to 4x damage with reduced energy costs and more hit range is what makes players want to spam this ability so they can keep this high damage going. To prevent spam, the behavior where it has its own combo mechanic up to 4x damage, reduced energy costs and more hit range is completely removed. Don't worry, his other abilities will be made better to compensate. Enemies hit will still contribute to the overall melee combo multiplier, but this ability no longer scales off combo multiplier (you will see this doesn't matter in the end)
• Tectonics: The mechanics related to this ability will stay the same mostly. However, in order to make it more fun, whenever you use landslide into a rock wall, the wall will roll out, but you will be controlling it as it rolls around. This form of controlling the rollout is a drain ability (the drain would be fairly heavy), and atlas would be there at the ending location whenever the rollout ends. Enemies will target the rock wall while atlas is controlling it, but they will have to get through the rock wall's remaining health from when atlas initiated the rollout. If they get through its health, the rollout will end immediately and atlas will be stunned at the ending location for 1.5 seconds. The normal rollout can still be done and any hits on enemies with the normal rollout or controllable rollout will also contribute to the combo counter. Any rock walls currently standing or being rolled out will give 25% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength). This armor increase is still the same with the triple wall augment.
• Petrify: This power still works largely the same except, like volt shield, atlas blocks bullets from the front while active, and any petrified enemies killed will drop a health orb. The health orb gives him more sustain and creates interesting possibilities in his build with equilibrium and health conversion. Also, whenever an enemy is petrified, one sec to the combo duration is added until the next enemy contributes to the combo counter (in other words, this extra duration is not permanent). Any petrified enemies give 5% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength).
• Rumblers: Any hits from rumblers will contribute to combo counter...also, just for QoL: any rumblers in nullifier bubbles will do no damage while in there, but they will not insantaneously die. Any rumblers currently alive will give atlas 25% armor. If the titanic rumbler augment is equipped, it is 50% (unaffected by power strength).
• Passive: same as before except...and this is what ties it all together...power strength scales with combo multiplier. Power strength scaling off combo multiplier may seem insane, but when you take away the spammability and clearing ability of his one, he doesn't have a room clearing ability so it's not TOO crazy IMO.

This rework incorporated some of ideas from others I have seen on the forums, but not directly to the best of my knowledge. What do you guys think?

So... what would even be the point of landslide at all? I mean i get that its meant to be used on tectonics, but why would i waste 25 energy ever for a single target punch, that doesnt scale in damage with my combo multiplier? I mean i get that power strength contributes to the multiplier, but i dont understand why you'd give up an entire ability to turn into a boulder and to justify having a stronger passive. I wouldnt want to give up my marquee move for a strong passive and gameplay gimmick. Maybe if it did percentage damage or auto one shots petrified enemies? But if that wasnt the case, I gotta say hell no to the landslide idea

The rest sounds good though, passive might be a bit unnecessary, but the way you kneecapped landslide, maybe not. I think the ideas for 3 are the real winners here.

Honestly i think all atlas needs is full body invincibility for a couple seconds after casting tectonics. That would incentivize using tectonics to cover the gaps in your 1's invincibility frames. Also, buff landslides status chance, and allow petrified enemies to be status procced (or at least do what frost gets and cut their armor in half)

Edited April 25, 2017 by Buddhakingpen

[Somb3rBivalve]

17 hours ago, Buddhakingpen said:

So... what would even be the point of landslide at all? I mean i get that its meant to be used on tectonics, but why would i waste 25 energy ever for a single target punch, that doesnt scale in damage with my combo multiplier? I mean i get that power strength contributes to the multiplier, but i dont understand why you'd give up an entire ability to turn into a boulder and to justify having a stronger passive. I wouldnt want to give up my marquee move for a strong passive and gameplay gimmick. Maybe if it did percentage damage or auto one shots petrified enemies? But if that wasnt the case, I gotta say hell no to the landslide idea

The rest sounds good though, passive might be a bit unnecessary, but the way you kneecapped landslide, maybe not. I think the ideas for 3 are the real winners here.

Honestly i think all atlas needs is full body invincibility for a couple seconds after casting tectonics. That would incentivize using tectonics to cover the gaps in your 1's invincibility frames. Also, buff landslides status chance, and allow petrified enemies to be status procced (or at least do what frost gets and cut their armor in half)

This is similar to what others have said here. As I stated to Godlike13, an alternative idea would be to have landslide's original behavior back in in terms of its hit progression and spammability, but enemies hit by landslide no longer contribute to the combo counter. This way, landslide is his primary form of damage and the damage can be dealt in a wider radius with less energy cost, but you need to get the combo counter up with your other powers before you can punch people.

This makes a lot of sense with rumblers (who still don't contribute much to his kit otherwise) because they can keep your combo counter up by punching periodically while you use landslide without needing to stop much. With this change, the reworked power set might be something like this (and yes, I agree that power strength scaling off combo multiplier could still be a little excessive):

• Landslide: This is one of the big problems of his kit because I feel like way that it builds up to 4x damage with reduced energy costs and more hit range is what makes players want to spam this ability so they can keep this high damage going. To prevent spam, the behavior where it has its own combo mechanic up to 4x damage, reduced energy costs and more hit range is still there, but it no longer contributes to the overall melee combo counter. Don't worry, his other abilities will be made better to compensate. This ability no longer scales off combo multiplier (you will see this doesn't matter in the end)
• Tectonics: The mechanics related to this ability will stay the same mostly. However, in order to make it more fun, whenever you use landslide into a rock wall, the wall will roll out, but you will be controlling it as it rolls around. This form of controlling the rollout is a drain ability (the drain would be fairly heavy), and atlas would be there at the ending location whenever the rollout ends. Enemies will target the rock wall while atlas is controlling it, but they will have to get through the rock wall's remaining health from when atlas initiated the rollout. If they get through its health, the rollout will end immediately and atlas will be knocked down. The normal rollout can still be done and any hits on enemies with the normal rollout or controllable rollout will also contribute to the combo counter. Any rock walls currently standing or being rolled out will give 25% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength). This armor increase is still the same with the triple wall augment.
• Petrify: This power still works largely the same except, like volt shield, atlas blocks bullets from the front while active, and any petrified enemies killed will drop a health orb. The health orb gives him more sustain and creates interesting possibilities in his build with equilibrium and health conversion. Also, for each enemy currently petrified, 1 second is added to the combo duration. Petrified enemies give 5% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength)
• Rumblers: Any hits from rumblers will contribute to combo counter...also, just for QoL: any rumblers in nullifier bubbles will do no damage while in there, but they will not insantaneously die. Any rumblers currently alive will give atlas 25% armor. If the titanic rumbler augment is equipped, it is 50% (unaffected by power strength).
• Passive: same as before except...and this is what ties it all together...power strength scales with combo multiplier. Power strength scaling off combo multiplier may seem insane, but when you take away the spammability and clearing ability of his one, he doesn't have a room clearing ability so it's not TOO crazy IMO.

Keep in mind I went in and changed a few things other than just landslide that I thought were weird/unclear.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Somb3rBivalve

[Somb3rBivalve]

22 hours ago, (PS4)TwilightGrim said:

hmmmmm......use landslide to punch your rumblers to temporarily become one..... ;) muda muda muda

but seriously DE, do this ^ i wanna be a giant with the augment 

run for full duration with the remaining health of the rumbler + a 75% damage reduction

Yeah I agree! That would be really fun! Now I just need to remember to edit that into the original concept...

[Buddhakingpen]

41 minutes ago, Somb3rBivalve said:

This is similar to what others have said here. As I stated to Godlike13, an alternative idea would be to have landslide's original behavior back in in terms of its hit progression and spammability, but enemies hit by landslide no longer contribute to the combo counter. This way, landslide is his primary form of damage and the damage can be dealt in a wider radius with less energy cost, but you need to get the combo counter up with your other powers before you can punch people.

This makes a lot of sense with rumblers (who still don't contribute much to his kit otherwise) because they can keep your combo counter up by punching periodically while you use landslide without needing to stop much. With this change, the reworked power set might be something like this (and yes, I agree that power strength scaling off combo multiplier could still be a little excessive):

• Landslide: This is one of the big problems of his kit because I feel like way that it builds up to 4x damage with reduced energy costs and more hit range is what makes players want to spam this ability so they can keep this high damage going. To prevent spam, the behavior where it has its own combo mechanic up to 4x damage, reduced energy costs and more hit range is still there, but it no longer contributes to the overall melee combo counter. Don't worry, his other abilities will be made better to compensate. This ability no longer scales off combo multiplier (you will see this doesn't matter in the end)
• Tectonics: The mechanics related to this ability will stay the same mostly. However, in order to make it more fun, whenever you use landslide into a rock wall, the wall will roll out, but you will be controlling it as it rolls around. This form of controlling the rollout is a drain ability (the drain would be fairly heavy), and atlas would be there at the ending location whenever the rollout ends. Enemies will target the rock wall while atlas is controlling it, but they will have to get through the rock wall's remaining health from when atlas initiated the rollout. If they get through its health, the rollout will end immediately and atlas will be knocked down. The normal rollout can still be done and any hits on enemies with the normal rollout or controllable rollout will also contribute to the combo counter. Any rock walls currently standing or being rolled out will give 25% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength). This armor increase is still the same with the triple wall augment.
• Petrify: This power still works largely the same except, like volt shield, atlas blocks bullets from the front while active, and any petrified enemies killed will drop a health orb. The health orb gives him more sustain and creates interesting possibilities in his build with equilibrium and health conversion. Also, for each enemy currently petrified, 1 second is added to the combo duration. Petrified enemies give 5% armor to atlas (unaffected by power strength)
• Rumblers: Any hits from rumblers will contribute to combo counter...also, just for QoL: any rumblers in nullifier bubbles will do no damage while in there, but they will not insantaneously die. Any rumblers currently alive will give atlas 25% armor. If the titanic rumbler augment is equipped, it is 50% (unaffected by power strength).
• Passive: same as before except...and this is what ties it all together...power strength scales with combo multiplier. Power strength scaling off combo multiplier may seem insane, but when you take away the spammability and clearing ability of his one, he doesn't have a room clearing ability so it's not TOO crazy IMO.

Keep in mind I went in and changed a few things other than just landslide that I thought were weird/unclear.

Can ask what this rework is meant to accomplish? He doesnt have the cc to warrant not having landslide be as strong as it is, and he doesnt do any relevant damage without  his 1 being as strong as it is.  And functionally, nothing is changing. you're just giving him extra armor and nerfing his landslide to FORCE people to use his 3 and 4 (because if you dont, no combo  for you). And the thing is, once peoples combo gets high enough, they'll just begin spamming landslide anyway. 

If "late game" to you is sortie level content, then he doesnt need this rework at all, because right now,once his combo gets going, he's still 1-2 shotting everything in sorties same as everywhere else.  If late game to you is scaling endurance runs, then he still doesnt need this rework, because a ton of extra armor will only buy him  10 or so extra minutes before he starts getting one shot with the rest of his team. And if his combo counter ever drops,he's essentially forced into doing no damage as he uses his 3 to safely build up his combo again. 

I'm really not trying to be disrespectful. Thats not my intention. I just dont see what these changes would do besides maybe make him use more buttons more often. 

[kapn655321]

One simple change I would make to him.

Ore Gaze augment with a more reliable health orb drop.
(Equip Equilibrium, bam. Solid. Way more survivable and reliable on energy. Both things he lacks badly in.)

[Somb3rBivalve]

17 hours ago, Buddhakingpen said:

Can ask what this rework is meant to accomplish? He doesnt have the cc to warrant not having landslide be as strong as it is, and he doesnt do any relevant damage without  his 1 being as strong as it is.  And functionally, nothing is changing. you're just giving him extra armor and nerfing his landslide to FORCE people to use his 3 and 4 (because if you dont, no combo  for you). And the thing is, once peoples combo gets high enough, they'll just begin spamming landslide anyway. 

If "late game" to you is sortie level content, then he doesnt need this rework at all, because right now,once his combo gets going, he's still 1-2 shotting everything in sorties same as everywhere else.  If late game to you is scaling endurance runs, then he still doesnt need this rework, because a ton of extra armor will only buy him  10 or so extra minutes before he starts getting one shot with the rest of his team. And if his combo counter ever drops,he's essentially forced into doing no damage as he uses his 3 to safely build up his combo again. 

I'm really not trying to be disrespectful. Thats not my intention. I just dont see what these changes would do besides maybe make him use more buttons more often. 

Don't worry, I never took your criticism as disrespectful, but in a sense, yes, much of this rework was to get atlas to press different buttons more often as silly as that sounds (because I hate the idea of a power that is so easily spammable). The other main goal is to make his kit more cohesive and synergistic with building the combo counter, more sustain, and some more interesting gameplay styles like rolling around as a boulder that don't involve pressing 1 over and over (how he currently functions)

As for my definition of late game, I find that late game starts with sortie level content whereas endurance runs are end game where only CC and % based damage matters, so yeah you are kind of right that this rework doesn't really make sense because his damage is already overkill for sorties. But that doesn't mean that atlas doesn't need a rework, or at least that SOME of his skills need one. As much as I would like to see all of his abilities looked at, DE would satisfy me with an atlas rework if they changed his 2 and 3 preferably to something along the lines of what I have written. The usage of both of those powers is very limited right now outside of using ore gaze for loot

As for things like landslide, this discussion shows that much of it is a matter of opinion. I'm of the opinion that his 1 should not be so easily spammable, and others are okay with that.

17 hours ago, kapn655321 said:

One simple change I would make to him.

Ore Gaze augment with a more reliable health orb drop.
(Equip Equilibrium, bam. Solid. Way more survivable and reliable on energy. Both things he lacks badly in.)

I don't think you should have to use ore gaze to get this functionality. Ore gaze would basically become a mandatory mod at that point. Atlas is a frame that is supposed to be close quarters. He should have some form of health regen built into his kit.