Atlas rework is very underwhelming.

[VencirGan]

Sadly, the only thing good about Atlas rework is that petrified enemies take more damage from landslide, besides that whats the point? Well, I guess I'll explain why its bad coming from an Atlas main who was absolutely excited for these changes if they were done RIGHT.

So, anyone whos played a good amount of time knows how much damage enemies can cause among other things, why is the armor buff that decays not great even though its 3 times the armor? This is because of how armor scales, and armors weakness as well as ways to bypass armor. We're not nearly as tanky as Grineer or any enemy with armor due to how they scale and how we cap off. This makes their armor great, and needing to be bypassed whether its through stripping mechanics or Slash procs.

Petrify being changed to a rail gun ability is NICE. Yes, but it comes with its own downsides. Energy consumption, rubble decaying extremely fast and the fact the animation takes time. Atlas can be invulnerable, I'm not saying take that away from him because its the only thing that keeps him up. I want to say I want the armor buff to be great, I want the stacks to be a worth while addition to his kit.

Rubble:

  Caps at a minimum of 5,000 armor. Timer being 30 seconds at base before degrading(would be nice), make it mass degrade(by 75). Preferably it would cap out at 7,500 armor. This makes Petrify worth using, it also makes rubble a more solid mechanic so Atlas can stay alive longer.

Tectonics: 

 Uh... Why? Just make it landslide-able.. It'd deal more damage, the change was really underwhelming. Sure, its cool that it goes fast.. But whats the point if its not going to protect anything really besides a tiny corridor. With the game going towards a more free-roam idea, this either needs to be a weapon for atlas(preferrred at least for me) or a proper defense for atlas and his team mates.

Making Tectonics landslide-able (3 times like his punch combo) would make him have a ranged weapon thats a bit weaker than landslide, but also allow atlas to stay in cover. You could also decide if you want to teardown your wall with the last punch OR if you wanted to keep it up. 

Petrify:

 Energy consumption is high, but with a change to rubble it'd make me want to use it for survivability. Sometimes stuff happens, and if I had enough armor to tank a hit at higher levels this could save me. What saves me right now? Quick thinking. Why do I use it? Atlas has I-frames, can be casted out of a stagger before another one starts and a lot more. If rubble was better I could go without this mod, but as it stands right now my energy consumption is low, and will stay low with the current rubble mechanic.

Rumblers: 

The buff to all summons not dying instantly in a nullifier is kind of nice? But my rumblers died in around 3 seconds or something, so.. I'm just going to go back to not using it. I tried using builds with it but they don't do much at later levels. (note, if rubble caps at 1,500.. Why not just let us wear the rumblers? Its simpler, less energy expensive and possibly more effective. Yes I know this is an augment in conclave but I feel the rubble mechanic is just so underwhelming in comparison to a simple change. Heck, you could make two of them wearable for double the armor. You could have the choice and there'd be the chance for people to wear them and punch dudes as a brawler should, or you could build Atlas as a weird summoner dude)

This change is super underwhelming coming from someone whos put(I think around 200 hours into Atlas), Sure it might get a few more people to try him out for a while, but I'd be surprised if they would play him long term. Atlas deals tons of damage if built right, but its not really AoE based its all single target compared to other warframes. This is fine, but I expected the revisit/rework to be amplifying is brawler in him, not really the petrify.. I'd be okay with this overall IF the rubble was changed drastically, drastically being a much bigger armor buff. Tectonics has a niche use in Index or just interception but I would love to have it be useful elsewhere. Rumblers isn't my style, but I know someone out there has to love them. I just want Atlas to be a wonderful brawler, and I know everyone wants something different for him, but Atlas is a BRAWLER. Hes meant to get in fights, stick around and come out on top. Some more tools at his disposal(like petrify rework, it being a railgun CC is perfect) But Tectonics and Rumblers are a bit lacking.

I just thought I'd give out my thoughts, I play at above hour long survivals with friends, I play 80-130 content a lot, and I know how little the armor buff is compared to other frames, I feel like its just not rewarding enough when any other tanky frame can get much more armor or other frames can get a flat 90%-95% dmg reduction without decaying, or weird ways to get that armor. I'd love atlas to be more maintainable, where I have to keep refreshing stuff(I love the rubble idea on paper personally) but I feel like its not enough. I decided to give my feelings about this because I love Atlas, I'll still play him and I want him to be much better and I know he can be much better with some number changes.

-Also, I'm not here to argue, or anyone else to disagree or even agree with me. I'm here to give my thoughts to DE, my thoughts on the Atlas revisit as an Atlas main who consistently plays high level content(I know a lot of people don't oddly) Anyway, I hope someone at DE reads this because I think it really only needs number tweaks from here.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2018 by VencirGan
Didn't notice the tiny pieces of rubble from rumblers.

[(PSN)supersocc11]

Can you enlighten me on how much health and armor is given per rubble pickup? And what is the decay rate on the armor currently?

[VencirGan]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)supersocc11 said:

Can you enlighten me on how much health and armor is given per rubble pickup? And what is the decay rate on the armor currently?

It heals for 75 health.It grants 75 armor.The amount decayed is.. pretty quick. I can't tell you, its probably close to around 10-15 a second with 100 duration, Also just tested, doesn't scale off it. Although I wouldn't build duration for slowing it if it did.

Edited February 10, 2018 by VencirGan
bad engrish

[(PSN)supersocc11]

9 minutes ago, VencirGan said:

It heals for 75 health.It grants 75 armor.The amount decayed is.. pretty quick. I can't tell you, its probably close to around 10-15 a second with 100 duration, Also just tested, doesn't scale off it. Although I wouldn't build duration for slowing it if it did.

Interesting. 10 to 15 seconds seems quick. Does all the armor go away instantly or just some?

[VencirGan]

Just now, (PS4)supersocc11 said:

Interesting. 10 to 15 seconds seems quick. Does all the armor go away instantly or just some?

It decays 10 to 15 a second, a couple seconds after picking up the rubble. Picking up more rubble delays the decay, however its more of the limit to rubble thats the issue. The decay makes it a lot harder to want to use.

[bloodjinn903]

I agree the decay is way to fast and atlas is energy starved now. I think they need to go back a tweak some numbers. Also, it would be really cool if I was at 1500 stacks if I was fully covered in rock not just his arm. there should be stages of rockyness. And I wonder why DE decided to make the rumble a drop seeing how my team cant pick it up, I spend to much time looking at the ground looking for pebbles.

Edited February 11, 2018 by bloodjinn903

[Buddhakingpen]

I know i'll be in the super, super minority, but i dont even like the railgun petrify. My main playstyle was to use range mods, and use petrify as a gauge to see when i was close enough to roll in and landslide. Now i have to either straight up get in landslides 15 meter range, or hope i'm  the first to draw with petrify (High level content)

I'm sure i'll develop a new playstyle over time, but figuring it out is a bit frustrating for now.

[Azamagon]

2 hours ago, Buddhakingpen said:

I know i'll be in the super, super minority, but i dont even like the railgun petrify. My main playstyle was to use range mods, and use petrify as a gauge to see when i was close enough to roll in and landslide. Now i have to either straight up get in landslides 15 meter range, or hope i'm  the first to draw with petrify (High level content)

I'm sure i'll develop a new playstyle over time, but figuring it out is a bit frustrating for now.

Actually, I kind of agreed. If he had the old Petrify, but with full movement possible + with faster petrification rate, he'd be better of for my playstyle too. Hek, the augment could be what causes the "camera Petrify" he currently has, but with way less energycost ofc (imo, loot augments are as boring as can be). Then people can mod for the playstyle they prefer instead.

[LordEcks]

I have another post where I detailed the Atlas changes, but I'll throw in a few notes here.

Rubble: Decays too fast as OP said.  It caps out at 1500 and begins to drain down roughly 2 or 3 seconds after you pick up a piece of Rubble.

If you lose any health during this time frame the next rubble will heal you (even if your missing 1 health) and the rubble counter will not stop at all.

Going into operator mode will stop the decay, but it will start immediately when you return to Atlas.

 

Tectonics:  Was useless, is still useless.  Using petrify on Tectonics will make the boulder roll faster, and also petrify anyone its hits on the explosion.

The setup for doing this takes too much time and costs too much energy to be useful.  (Tectonics is base 25 energy, and Petrify is 75 energy.  So you'd have to push 2,3 then 2 to roll the boulder.  In any high level mission you would be long dead before getting this off.

 

Petrify:  Costs a lot of energy, and has a base 15 meter range.  The casting speed is acceptable with natural talent, and slightly sluggish without it.

Wish it had 20m base range and less base cost.

 

Rumblers:  As OP mentioned casting animation causes an area around Atlas (5-10 meters?) to be inflicted with Petrify.  This will stop melee enemies from one shotting  you while you summon basically.  It's a nice addition, but it hardly changes whether or not Rumblers is useful for casting.

A worthy side  note is that Rumblers drop Rubble 100% on death.. so you can chain summon and destroy your rumblers over and over to cheez your way to 1500 armor.  Hardly worth the time and energy requirement however since it will decay completely within under a minute.

[Uberipoo]

I was so exited for the atlas change, but I'am sooo disapointed... I thought the armor value from rubble would act as a health shield (like Rhino Iron Skin) that would actualy be good, but even for that the decay timer is way to fast! and the amount of energy you need to spen to keep it up is out of this world!

and the fact that you have to go look for those small pebbles are realy anoying and drasticly decrease my survivalbility as I can't  react to threats in time when I have to crawl around on the floor searching for them...

[LordEcks]

1 hour ago, Uberipoo said:

I was so exited for the atlas change, but I'am sooo disapointed... I thought the armor value from rubble would act as a health shield (like Rhino Iron Skin) that would actualy be good, but even for that the decay timer is way to fast! and the amount of energy you need to spen to keep it up is out of this world!

and the fact that you have to go look for those small pebbles are realy anoying and drasticly decrease my survivalbility as I can't  react to threats in time when I have to crawl around on the floor searching for them...

Yah thats another problem with the rubble.

The rubble itself are glowing green rocks, that are frozen in place wherever they spawn.

So if  you destroy a statue 10 ft in the air the rubble will be there in the air.  Unaffected by gravity.

Rubble also has an insanely small pick up radius similar to how Void traces/shards used to be.   They are unaffected by vacuum.

The pickup radius is so small that sometimes you will landslide into a petrified enemy, killing it.. but you will fail to pickup the rubble that pops out 1m away from you.

[Windy_Wind]

the rubble mechanic is seriously clunky. He's a tank so he will take hit all the time, and when rubble drop, it heals him first then give him armor, which is just make it even harder to build up. Why can't it just have 2 effects occur at the same time. And that decay rate...OMG, It's borderline unusable. May as well delete this rubble thing.

PS:  not to mention picking up rubble feels like a chore than anything else. It should just  add to his armor directly instead of wasting your time.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Windy_Wind

[Papa.Pov]

This may or may not be the correct place for this, but here we go anyway.

Not only do I think the way rubble performs is disappointing, the way it works in conjunction with petrify means it is very costly to maintain.
The decay rate is very fast, especially when you consider your allies are going to be killing the enemies as well. By the time I have cast petrify, my squadmates will
just have nuked the area, a lot of the time even before I get the cast off.

Add to that another big disappointment for me: Path of Statues does not work with the new rubble mechanic. Enemies petrified by Path of Statues do not drop rubble.
This complicates the gaining of rubble even more, as I imagine it would work quite nice. Punch enemies, turn around, punch petrified enemies, gain rubble.
Sounds almost like that synergy DE keep raving on about, but somehow fail to grasp.

The radial petrify when casting Rumblers is nice, it gives you a bit of breathing room. But only a bit. Maybe half a second. Which, on a sidenote, is just enough time for your
new rockbuddies to die off again. You get a few meters of petrify, while the heavy gunner down the corridor drills you and your pals to death.
 

All in all, I feel Atlas' rework works for low level areas, but the second you take our Rocklord anywhere interesting, he doesn't hold up as a tank or a front-line fighter.

[NightmareVII]

I actually like the changes to petrify, I never used atlas before the "buff" so I can't add my two cents there but I do agree that tectonics and rumblers are kind of useless. I built my atlas for rng/eff/dur and just use his petrify to cc everything. I'm enjoying the play style but it is very clunky and still kind of energy heavy end game. The rubble mechanic imo just needs to be flat out reworked. It decays way too fast, unless you're cheesing you hardly get armor out of it, and as mentioned multiple times the fact that vacuum doesn't work on it is very frustrating. 

 

Side note: I do think after atlas has full rubble stacks he should look like a monster rumbler because that would be amazing.

[Xana_Skullsunder]

I wish the rubble was a little easier to maintain, and that any healing past what it takes to get Atlas to full would be converted to more armor rather than being wasted.

Otherwise I'm liking this rework so far.

[VencirGan]

As I said before.. The decay would be nice to be without, however the little amount of armor you get via stacking isn't worth the stacking itself. I wouldn't bother stacking if there was a decay even, sure. Its 20 enemies to kill if you petrify + landslide combo. However, 1,500 armor is just not enough.

NOTE: I AM A HUGE FAN OF MECHANICS LIKE THIS; HOWEVER... Its done so poorly it hurts. I know this could be great, I really do. I will agree with some people however, landslide is a bit hard to gauge where you're going to go if you're going to go and so on. I love the idea of the rubble mechanic, however I think it shouldn't just be limited to petrify.

Tectonics isn't remotely useful unless if you have the Augment for Index/Interception. Rumblers are just.. not good enough and are super risky to go into casting at high levels and petrify is even a risk with a fraction of the cast time due to how hard enemies hit later on. 

Stacking should be rewarding enough to make you want to do it so it is fun to pick up rubble. The reward for the work put in(can be very little or a lot of work for no pay off) is really low. Honestly I'd rather just have it stack damage reduction and rubble decays every 10-20 seconds. Armor just doesn't scale well, and I would love to constantly stack. I love upkeep in games, and I also love being rewarded for keeping something up(such as a buff, or anything really). 

Honestly as a rework if this was considered one.. I would like Atlas to be reworked more into a brawler, with abilities to accompany landslide, not abilities to accompany Petrify, Tectonics and Rumblers. You might as well take away landslide, because its the only thing not exactly connected to his kit anymore. I'm not saying do that, because its the only thing remotely fun about Atlas, I am just saying it should've been the other way around. Now it feels like Landslide is supposed to be the black sheep since it doesn't connect with the rest of his kit.

I will note, I wouldn't be playing Atlas if he wasn't a brawler. I am not a fan at all of any of his other abilities. Petrify being a rail gun was a dream to me until I tried putting it into practice.

I would personally love to replace his 2 with a leap(for more mobility) with it being able to chain into landslide. I would also like to replace rumblers with a damage reduction buff, but if they were really wanting to keep rubble as a mechanic, how about this.

 - Rubble never decays. You are rewarded with a piece of rubble every landslide kill, and you get 4 pieces of rubble for a Petrify + landslide kill.

 - Rubble can be converted into a buff with an ability.(A choice system like Ivara's arrows, (Damage(for weapons), Damage reduction, regeneration for atlas)

 - After rubble is converted into a buff for Atlas; Give him one of the following for each(Casting/animation speed, more range for all abilities as well as dashing range for landslide, and able to heal allies by being near them).

 - Each piece of rubble invested ups the buff of each by a certain rate, or increases the duration of these buffs for atlas, not being affected by ability duration.

Sadly, I don't see this happening but I would like a more useful idea for rubble, trying to cover up Atlas' short comings with more range, speed or even if hes in a tight spot regenerating his health. I just know sadly Atlas has needed a full blown rework and not just a new mechanic. Atlas suffers from being in long animations that can benefit him, he also suffers from being slow if you're not trying your best to move as much as possible, and actually not very tanky.

Of course, you could take out the regeneration aspect, but the whole point is so you can buff yourself with each of the buffs as long as you can keep feeding the buffs. This would make him want to beat on people, want to just to keep fighting.. or brawling if you would, because right now when I play the changes how I think they were intended I end up playing like.. I don't want to have direct confrontation.

I know Atlas is an underused frame, and I personally think thats due to his look and the fact he has one good ability that is only useful to him. However, if he had 2 more at least cool/fun abilities I think he'd be played a lot more. 

 

 

[StopherSylvia]

I agree with the other commentators the about the single cast Petrify being worse then a channeled ability, even if they reduce the energy cost. Even just for novelty purposes Atlas was one of very few frames that doesn't rely on tap this button. now tap this button, now tap this one (ie Chroma) its really boring and very cookie cutter.

From a balance stand point it was a GIGANTIC nerf, yes NERF not rework, NERF. Sure enemies in front of you are now stunned, but lets say you actual use Atlas and are where Atlas (aka a BRAWLER) is supposed to be/should be in the center of the fight. Now its time to petrify enemies so you can revive/generate rubble/other thing You have to cast Petrify 6 times to cover the full 360 degrees around you, say the casting animation is 1 second long, it takes you 6 seconds on a real level mission RIP Atlas.

If it was still a channeled ability you could activate it and in the span of 1 second spin Atlas 360 Degrees and sure they enemies are not Petrified, but all of them have the initial stun animation which gives Atlas time to due then make a second slower pass to actually Petrify everyone. I know because this is what I used to use Petrify for before, on end game level missions.

Plus if an enemies say a Corpus Tech Eximus shows up and you want to shot him with gun you're leveling. You can cast Petrify and after a small use of energy you can now shoot him safely, now it would be a huge waste of energy.

The old Petrify was:

More Flexible

Quicker

Safer

Less Energy Consuming

Less Time Consuming

More Unique

Synergies better with Landslide/Rubble

[PapaDoug1996]

On another note i wanted to see if anyone knew if the new rock armor numbers would be calculated when buffed by things like Chroma's Vex Armor. I've beeen wondering what kinda tanky synergy you could run if Atlas was with an Oberon, Chroma, and either Harrow or Trinity. 

 I lean more torwards harrow in this case just because of personal preference. But if rock armor worked with other abilities like Iron Renewal and stacked with Vex armor buffs it could push some insane Damage reduction.

 FYI i just kinda came up with this over the course of last night and hsve yet to really test anything. Would like to get some information from you guys on all this. 

[Buzkyl]

On 2/11/2018 at 6:30 PM, StopherSylvia said:

 

From a balance stand point it was a GIGANTIC nerf, yes NERF not rework, NERF. Sure enemies in front of you are now stunned, but lets say you actual use Atlas and are where Atlas (aka a BRAWLER) is supposed to be/should be in the center of the fight. Now its time to petrify enemies so you can revive/generate rubble/other thing You have to cast Petrify 6 times to cover the full 360 degrees around you, say the casting animation is 1 second long, it takes you 6 seconds on a real level mission RIP Atlas.

 

If you're that close to enemies being surrounded and want to petrify. 

You cast rumblers which have an AOE petrify effect. Everything around you is now turned to stone.

Your scenario only comes off as a nerf because you're using using Petrify LoS to replicate Rumblers AoE.

 

 

[StopherSylvia]

2 hours ago, Buzkyl said:

If you're that close to enemies being surrounded and want to petrify. 

You cast rumblers which have an AOE petrify effect. Everything around you is now turned to stone.

Your scenario only comes off as a nerf because you're using using Petrify LoS to replicate Rumblers AoE.

 

 

I think you forgot the Rumbler's AoE s only about 5 meters around you... Old Petrify was 15 meters in any direction.

Seeing how there has been a lot of confusion, I shall clarify, I am refering to the older Dev Workshop version of Petrify not the original in game one. Seeing how 50% of the player base are APPERENTLY Atlas mains, and know how he should work now, they feel the need to just insult me because they know more about Atlas than me without them ever having know about the Dev Workshop in the first place. Some really zealous Atlas "mains" out there lol

[StopherSylvia]

7 hours ago, Asasin31b said:

On another note i wanted to see if anyone knew if the new rock armor numbers would be calculated when buffed by things like Chroma's Vex Armor. I've beeen wondering what kinda tanky synergy you could run if Atlas was with an Oberon, Chroma, and either Harrow or Trinity. 

 I lean more torwards harrow in this case just because of personal preference. But if rock armor worked with other abilities like Iron Renewal and stacked with Vex armor buffs it could push some insane Damage reduction.

 FYI i just kinda came up with this over the course of last night and hsve yet to really test anything. Would like to get some information from you guys on all this. 

Due to the change to Vex Armor that made it Addative, (and Arcane Guardian, I actually can't think of a multiplicative armor buff anymore) really none of the Armor buff abilities "synergize" anymore. They all just add the ammount based off of base armor, still some what effective but it pales in compasion to a multiplicative buff. Basically, with an Armor buff ability up,  every high armor Warframe is weaker than the would be, and squishy Warframes are stronger. So good news for anyone trying to armor tank as Loki, bad news for Chroma and Valkyr, thanks again DE, everyone knows Chroma is a team buffing caster frame not a tank...

[Gasp]

I liked how petrify was in the devstreams, where it could be channeled and you could still do other things. if they changed it back to this and made it cheaper and/or if they kept it as the single cast it is now, maybe with a larger, aoe, range would be nice.

 

also, landslide with the augment that makes it so you have rocks in your path makes it very hard to tell if thats just the rocks from landslide or if its actually rubble

[Buzkyl]

15 minutes ago, StopherSylvia said:

I think you forgot the Rumbler's AoE s only about 5 meters around you... Old Petrify was 15 meters in any direction.

Seeing how there has been a lot of confusion, I shall clarify, I am refering to the older Dev Workshop version of Petrify not the original in game one. Seeing how 50% of the player base are APPERENTLY Atlas mains, and know how he should work now, they feel the need to just insult me because they know more about Atlas than me without them ever having know about the Dev Workshop in the first place. Some really zealous Atlas "mains" out there lol

Your situation was that there lacked a method to petrify everything around you. Using the current petrify needing to cast 6 times to cover 360 degrees. 

To which I brought up the fact that Rumblers do exactly what you're asking for which is a 360 petrify. If you want it greater than 6M, build for range, you have that option open to you.

I am not concerned with the rest of your statement. I replied directly to that part to address soley that part.

[PapaDoug1996]

4 hours ago, StopherSylvia said:

Due to the change to Vex Armor that made it Addative, (and Arcane Guardian, I actually can't think of a multiplicative armor buff anymore) really none of the Armor buff abilities "synergize" anymore. They all just add the ammount based off of base armor, still some what effective but it pales in compasion to a multiplicative buff. Basically, with an Armor buff ability up,  every high armor Warframe is weaker than the would be, and squishy Warframes are stronger. So good news for anyone trying to armor tank as Loki, bad news for Chroma and Valkyr, thanks again DE, everyone knows Chroma is a team buffing caster frame not a tank...

Ah thanks for replying man i appreciate it. So for the most part everything is just additive. That's unfortunate. Still at the very least there's something you could do there just not as amazing as something else. In either case appreciate the info. 

[StopherSylvia]

On 2/16/2018 at 12:07 PM, Buzkyl said:

Your situation was that there lacked a method to petrify everything around you. Using the current petrify needing to cast 6 times to cover 360 degrees. 

To which I brought up the fact that Rumblers do exactly what you're asking for which is a 360 petrify. If you want it greater than 6M, build for range, you have that option open to you.

I am not concerned with the rest of your statement. I replied directly to that part to address soley that part.

See the thing I am complaining about is, Pre-Update+ my build = Working, Post-Update + my build = change everything. Building Atlas for range was never mandatory for 360 degree AoE stuns, now it is which means if I want the same play style that Atlas already had I just lost 2-3 Mods slots and a lot of my power strength (pre-buff I used Power Strength the Buff Bulwark health, now RIP). I get some people didn't like the old Petrify and now like the new one. However lets say Chroma now long buffs armor and instead heals his team, is that better? To some people, yes, to the ones already using him, no. When reworking a Warframe DE should leave there abilities as is in terms of "handling" (I guess that's the best word for this). I played Atlas, I liked his kit, they deleted his 3 and gave him a different function/build requirement. Not to say he didn't need some buffs to his 3 but I liked the Channeled form.

 

Don't get me, wrong I can still manage this Atlas, but it will always bother me that this isn't what my Atlas was, or could have been. All this just to attract more players to Atlas who are busy meme-ing striking around with Nova or Valkyr anyway.

Edited February 17, 2018 by StopherSylvia