Atlas - His problems and some suggested improvements

[SteveCutler]

Atlas is a fun frame, but compared to many other frames he is relatively weak, not as capable of dealing with high level missions, and has some unnecessarily frustrating issues to fight with. I would like to discuss this with the aim of bringing quality of life adjustments to Atlas, as well as a buff to make him competitive with other frames.

 

Atlas's role:

"This is Atlas, the brawler, the strong. Master of earth and stone, he alters the environment with an incredible force."

From the profile description above, the intention seems to be for him to be a damage frame ("the strong"), focused on melee ("the brawler"), and with some environmental control abilities.

As we all know, the abilities he has in-game are mostly useless. The vast majority of Atlas players focus their builds entirely on Landslide, often disregarding the other abilities entirely. If you haven't been around to see this, you can easily do an online search for Atlas discussions, and you'll see they're almost entirely about Landslide. You can also look up builds on Warframe Builder, where you'll see that the most popular builds by far are pure Landslide builds.

The way that Atlas is played currently, his role is entirely as a focused damage dealer. We're not talking map-wide nuking like Mesa, etc., but focused damage with a small bit of CC on the side, very similar to Excalibur.

 

The problems with Atlas's abilities:

0. Passive:

Atlas's passive abilities are Rubble and Immovable. Rubble I don't really have a problem with. Having some kind of way to heal up and gain armor is nice. The armor decay is slightly annoying, but whatever, I guess it would be too strong if it was permanent.

What I do take issue with is that Immovable only works while Atlas is on the ground. This does not really mesh with the way that Atlas is played. Atlas has the slowest sprint speed in the game, which means that he's going to be bullet jumping around instead. Bullet jumping means that Atlas is in the air while travelling, and is therefore susceptible to knockdowns despite his passive. When Atlas is on the ground, it's because he's using Landslide, and then he's invincible anyway so his passive isn't helping.

1. Landslide:

This is Atlas's best ability. The one everyone loves and builds for. The thing that makes Atlas viable at all. It's mostly fine, but it does have some issues still, and those issues are frustrating considering this is Atlas's core ability.

Landslide often actually hinders the player by ragdolling enemies all over the place. When you use Landslide to punch your way into a group of enemies, an AoE effect takes place, knocking all of those enemies away in different directions. This often knocks them out of range of follow-up punches, meaning you no longer do AoE damage and instead have to chase after each enemy to kill them individually. Even if you're just fighting one enemy, if it's tanky enough to survive multiple punches, it'll keep getting knocked around and you have to keep chasing it around the map.

Worse still, Landslide cannot be used on enemies that are knocked down or ragdolled! This means that after ragdolling an enemy with Landslide and chasing after them, you can't attack anymore. You either have to wait for them to slowly stand back up, so that you can punch them a few more times and then ragdoll them again (repeating the issue), or you have to use one of your regular weapons instead.

The Path of Statues augment is a band-aid solution that isn't actually reliable or consistent. This augment creates a petrifying trail along the path that Atlas dashes across when using Landslide. But in reality, nobody uses it for that trail behind Atlas. What are the odds that some enemy behind you is going to walk over it and turn to stone? No, what people really use this for is the fact that the trail slightly extends in front of Atlas, allowing him to petrify the enemy in front of him that he's targeting with Landslide. The reason people use this is to try to avoid the above two problems - turning the enemy to stone so that it won't get annoyingly ragdolled all over the place! The problem is that it just doesn't work reliably. It seems about 50/50. Furthermore, it only works on the single enemy that you target - any other nearby enemies won't turn to stone, and they'll just ragdoll further away like always.

Landslide does not scale well up to very high enemy levels. There are several reasons for this. It does pure Impact damage, which is widely considered to be the absolute worst damage type in the game. It has a very low critical chance (5%!). It also has a very low status chance (5% again!). As you get up to very high levels, enemy armor becomes the biggest problem, and Corrosive status procs help significantly to strip away that armor and increase damage. Landslide has no realistic way of stripping armor due to the low status chance. You can't even use the Shattering Impact mod, as for some reason it does nothing, despite the attack doing Impact damage!

Landslide requires using the melee slot as a "stat stick", instead of a real melee weapon. Landslide benefits from mods on your melee weapon. To optimize Landslide, you need a very specific build on your melee weapon: Primed Pressure Point, Spoiled Strike, Primed Heavy Trauma, Collision Force, Primed Fever Strike, Shocking Touch, Drifting Contact, and a +Damage/+Impact riven mod. This is not a normal melee build that you would use on regular melee weapons, and it reduces the weapon's effectiveness as a result. The Spoiled Strike alone makes the regular weapon feel horrible to use. This also limits your choice of weapon entirely. You must use a weapon that has a maximum riven disposition, and if you don't want it to be completely useless, you must use a weapon that's focused on Impact damage. Basically, using Landslide requires giving up and sacrificing your normal melee weapon slot.

Landslide loses its melee mods in "weapon only" sorties. In sorties with conditions such as "bow only", "rifle only", "shotgun only", etc. Landslide completely loses its melee mods, significantly weakening it.

Compare the above points with Excalibur. Excalibur has Slash Dash and Exalted Blade as the equivalent of Landslide. Excalibur doesn't ragdoll enemies anywhere, unless you choose to mod for Blast status. Excalibur has absolutely no problem hitting enemies that are knocked down - he just slices his way through them just like with anything else. Exalted Blade scales extraordinarily well and has no problem slicing through enemies of any level. With Chromatic Blade, it becomes a pure elemental attack with an incredible 100% status chance. Exalted Blade has a decent crit rate and can take advantage of crit mods. Since Exalted Blade is modded separately, Excalibur doesn't have to sacrifice his normal melee weapon, and doesn't lose any effectiveness in "weapon only" sorties.

On top of all this, Exalted Blade just has way better DPS, can use Primed Fury, Berserker, and Arcane Strike, gives a 60% damage reduction (automatic blocking), is able to use Life Strike, has ranged attacks with infinite punch-through, can make good use of Hunter Adrenaline, and it drains energy more slowly than Landslide.

2. Tectonics:

This is supposed to be a defensive ability. Atlas creates a single rock wall, which can absorb a certain amount of damage before being destroyed. The rock wall can be turned into a rolling boulder. With the Tectonic Fracture augment, three walls can be placed, but they can no longer be turned into boulders.

The biggest problem is that you only get to place one rock wall by default. Considering that the wall is just a straight flat wall, there isn't really much you can do with a single one. You really need the augment to make it viable, which isn't how an augment should be.

The second problem here is the small size of the wall. It's honestly just very tiny, and it can't even be increased with ability range. Its small size makes it quite useless in most situations.

Finally, the rolling boulder mechanic is just useless. Nobody seriously uses that. There's just no reason to.

Compare this to something like Frost's Snow Globe. As a sphere, it allows Frost to defend a point from all directions. Frost is capable of casting Snow Globe several times in a row to stack it up with an enormous amount of HP. Frost can also adjust the size of the globe with ability range. Tectonics is just pathetic compared to something like that. Now, I'm not at all suggesting that Tectonics should be as good as Snow Globe - it shouldn't be, as it's just a side ability for Atlas rather than his core focus. My point is just how bad it is in its current state as a defensive ability.

3. Petrify:

This is supposed to be a crowd control ability. Atlas turns enemies in front of him into stone.

The biggest problem here is the frontal cone mechanic. Atlas is a melee frame, so he's often going to be right in the middle of the action. An Atlas won't be hanging back on the outskirts and sniping away. He'll be right there amongst the enemies, punching his way through. Only being able to petrify the enemies that are directly ahead makes this ability a huge pain to use. It's not unusable, but it is a pain.

Secondly, the 75 energy cost is too high. For one of the weakest CC abilities in the game, why does it have such a high energy cost?

Finally, the casting time is too slow. For one of the weakest CC abilities in the game, why does it have to be so slow to cast as well?

Compare this ability with Excalibur's. Radial Blind is basically just a straight-up better version of Petrify. Radial Blind works in all directions around the player, costs only 50 energy, and casts much more quickly. On top of that, Radial Blind also has a significantly larger range, and opens enemies up to the 8x stealth damage multiplier!

4. Rumblers:

This ability lets Atlas summon two rock golems to help him. This is another useless ability that nobody seriously uses.

First of all, it's an AI-based ability, which automatically makes it bad. We all know how AI is in this game (see specters, pets, Umbra, etc.). The bad AI makes Rumblers weak and unreliable.

Secondly, the augment just makes the ability even worse. It replaces the two rock golems with just one rock golem, which has lower stats than the original two have when combined. Statistically it's just a disadvantage, and I have seen that other players seem to avoid it like the plague.

Final thoughts:

Ask yourself this: other than "for fun", why would you ever pick Atlas instead of Excalibur? Excalibur covers the same tasks but does the job a lot better. And if Excalibur isn't appropriate for the mission, then neither is Atlas - you'd just play some other frame. I'm not saying that we should just make Atlas into a clone of Excalibur. I'm not even necessarily saying Atlas needs to be exactly as strong as Excalibur. I'm just saying that this isn't balanced. There should be something useful that Atlas brings to the table, to make him worth choosing. Atlas should be competitive with other frames that are picked for the same general role.

 

Proposed solutions:

1. Change Atlas's Immovable passive to simply prevent knockdowns at all times, even while in the air. It's a small quality of life change, not at all overpowered, but it would be very much appreciated. Remember that Rhino not only gets this all the time with his Iron Skin, but also status immunity as well, which I'm not even asking for. So I don't think this change is unfair to request.

2. Replace the "Path of Statues" augment with "Petrifying Smash", which makes all enemies caught in Landslide's shockwave briefly turn to stone. This would not be too different from Path of Statues. Both augments would enable turning enemies into stone for a short time when using Landslide. The difference is the area of effect: Path of Statues works on a trail behind Atlas (which is mostly pointless), whereas my proposed augment would work on the enemies actually being targeted by Landslide. This is what people use the augment for, and changing it would let it actually work reliably.

3. Allow Landslide to target and hit enemies that are knocked down or ragdolled. There's really no reason at all why this shouldn't be the case. If your concern is with the animation not matching up, it's already like that anyway if you use Landslide on a tiny Roller or Latcher enemy.

4. Adjust Landslide specifically for more end-game viability (i.e. dealing with enemy armor). There are a few different ways this could be accomplished. A) Increase Landslide's critical and/or status chance numbers (from 5% to 15?%). B) Allow Shattering Impact to work. C) Allow Condition Overload to work. Remember that Exalted Blade has a 100% status chance and can use Condition Overload. D) Make petrified enemies lose some percentage of their armor value.

5. Change Landslide to be moddable separately from the normal melee weapon. We can already do this now with Exalted weapons like Exalted Blade, Hysteria, Dex Pixia, etc. It's only fair that Atlas gets the same benefits. This would allow players to use a real melee weapon instead of a gimped stat stick, and would also let him function in "weapon only" sorties just like other frames are able to. However, and this is important: Landslide's base damage would also need to be increased by 1.5x to 2x to compensate for the loss of riven mods, which are a huge source of Landslide's damage. In theory, Landslide's final damage output would be unchanged here, so this wouldn't affect balance.

6. Change Tectonics so that three walls can be placed by default, but remove the boulder ability. Change the augment so that it lets the player turn any of the walls into a boulder.

7. Increase the size of the Tectonics rock wall. I'd say by 1.5x to 2x. Alternatively, make it scale with ability range.

8. Change Petrify to a circular AoE around Atlas. I can understand if this might not seem fitting to some, as Petrify is like a Medusa's stare. But the frontal cone just feels so bad to use from a gameplay perspective. If this would make it more fitting, Petrify's animation could be changed to an earthquake attack where Atlas smashes the ground, explaining how it works in all directions.

9. Reduce Petrify's energy cost from 75 to 50.

10. Reduce Petrify's casting time to roughly 1 second.

11. Make petrified enemies vulnerable to the 8x stealth damage multiplier, just like Radial Blind. For balance reasons, we can make this not to apply to the "Petrifying Smash" augment, in exactly the same way as how Excalibur's Judged Severance (slide attack) move is a crippled Radial Blind that lacks the multiplier.

12. Take the "Rumbled" augment from Conclave, and either make that the default for the Rumblers ability, or replace the current Titanic Rumbler augment with it. The Rumbled augment already exists in Conclave, and it lets Atlas turn into a Rumbler, gaining additional armor and the ability to throw rocks or slam the ground. This would be more useful than the current AI golems, and it would just be more fun to play.

13. Make the melee combo counter visible at all times, even when a gun is equipped. This is more of a general quality of life change that could help all frames, not just Atlas. Quick melee is a thing: people can and do use it, and it does build up the combo counter. However, you can't actually see what your combo counter is unless you have your melee weapon fully equipped. Landslide shares the melee combo counter, but again you can't see what it is unless your melee weapon is equipped. It's just a pain. Please show the number on-screen if there is a combo going, and hide it if there isn't a combo. Make it a UI option if you must.

With these changes, I believe Atlas would be in a much better place. Would he suddenly be overpowered? I don't think so. Landslide would still be weaker and more energy-expensive than Exalted Blade. Petrify would still have a lower range than Radial Blind. Tectonics would still be one of the weakest defense powers.

 

Conclusion:

Please let me know what you think. I've been playing Atlas for a while, and this is my honest feedback. I feel like I'm making reasonable requests, that would not change him significantly or make him overpowered. My aim is to make him less frustrating to play, make his other abilities more viable, and bring him in line with other similar frames.

Please look at my list of problems and list of solutions separately. Do you agree or disagree with the problems I listed? Do you agree or disagree with my suggested changes? I hope that we can create some noise so that DE notices.

Edited July 4, 2018 by SteveCutler

[(PSN)Kairu_Aname]

I like all these

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

Atlas is more then capable in dealing with high level missions. Honestly I think Atlas is in a good place. I take Atlas over Excalibur because I don’t like being locked into an exalted weapon, and wave spamming bores me. Atlas does not play like Excalibur. IMO he’s more comparable to Nidus honestly, or Kohra even. 

 

I like the last suggestion though. They can do it like when dual wielding. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by (XB1)Godlike13

[someone1230123]

I like all of these as well. However, I think that it'd be better to leave petrify to be a cone and not an aoe around Atlas, if only to make him different from the Excalibur. The cost should be decreased though and have something to justify the cone shape requirement like having petrified enemies lose armor, take more damage, or even steal a small percentage of their armor. For Rumblers, the normal ability should have the current augment's increased threat to enemies or have some small impact proc when they hit enemies. The augment could then be replaced by the "Rumbled" augment.

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

Petrified enemies do take more damage. 

[ShortCat]

7 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Atlas is a fun frame, but compared to many other frames he is relatively weak, not as capable of dealing with high level missions,

I don't even have to read past this to see you are wrong. Atlas is an amazing DPS Frame and scales excellently due to his #1.

7 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

and has some unnecessarily frustrating issues to fight with

His frustrating issue is: Atlas' performance with 4 skills - 100%; Atlas' performance with only his #1 available - 95%. If you describe something else in this wall of text, you are wrong.

 

[SteveCutler]

5 hours ago, (PS4)Kairu_Aname said:

I like all these

Thanks. 🙂

3 hours ago, (XB1)Godlike13 said:

Atlas is more then capable in dealing with high level missions. Honestly I think Atlas is in a good place. I take Atlas over Excalibur because I don’t like being locked into an exalted weapon, and wave spamming bores me.

Thanks for your feedback. I might not have been very clear when I talked about scaling (going by this and what ShortCat said). I don't mean that Atlas can't deal with high level missions. I just mean that relative to other frames, Atlas has a harder job of it (i..e kills more slowly). Your reasoning for choosing Atlas over Excalibur is basically just that Atlas is more fun for you, right? That's fine, and Atlas is fun for me too, but I feel like there should be reasons to choose him aside from that. For example, "Oh, I'll bring Atlas for this mission instead, because petrifying enemies lets me [insert reason] which Excalibur can't do" or something else along those lines.

3 hours ago, someone1230123 said:

I like all of these as well. However, I think that it'd be better to leave petrify to be a cone and not an aoe around Atlas, if only to make him different from the Excalibur. The cost should be decreased though and have something to justify the cone shape requirement like having petrified enemies lose armor, take more damage, or even steal a small percentage of their armor. For Rumblers, the normal ability should have the current augment's increased threat to enemies or have some small impact proc when they hit enemies. The augment could then be replaced by the "Rumbled" augment.

Yes, I can understand wanting to keep the cone shape due to it being different or just fitting for Atlas. But I do really feel that it hurts its usability in gameplay. I would accept it gaining some other advantage to make up for the limited area of effect.

2 hours ago, (XB1)Godlike13 said:

Petrified enemies do take more damage. 

I assume you were saying this in response to someone1230123, but yes, petrified enemies take 1.5x damage. However, compare this to Excalibur's Radial Blind, which gives a whopping 8x stealth multiplier. That difference is just enormous. It's true that Petrify boosts damage from all sources, whereas Radial Blind's stealth multiplier only works with melee, but these are both melee frames that use melee attacks. I don't really feel like this is fair or balanced. And that's on top of Radial Blind being better in almost every other way as well: lower energy cost, circular AoE, more range, and a faster cast time.

27 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

I don't even have to read past this to see you are wrong. Atlas is an amazing DPS Frame and scales excellently due to his #1.

His frustrating issue is: Atlas' performance with 4 skills - 100%; Atlas' performance with only his #1 available - 95%. If you describe something else in this wall of text, you are wrong.

Well, if you didn't even read the post then I'm not sure there's much I can say. The only thing is that I might not have been entirely clear with the scaling thing. I don't mean that Atlas cannot handle high level missions. He can. But in comparison to other similar frames (i.e. Excalibur) he's just strictly inferior, which is not balanced. You can check this yourself in the Simulacrum. Spawn the tankiest enemy you have and set it to the highest level. If you have decent Excalibur and Atlas builds, you can kill it both. However, the Atlas build will probably take around 10 punches, with the enemy getting ragdolled around multiple times, and then you'll have to wait around for it to stand up before you can continue. This is significantly longer in kill time than Excalibur. Excalibur will just vaporize the enemy almost instantly with Exalted Blade.

There's a reason for this difference if you look at the facts I laid out, the numbers and the mechanics. Exalted Blade has so many things going for it that Atlas doesn't have, which make it stronger in general, more usable, and much more capable against high level armored targets. I'll reiterate that I'm not suggesting Atlas be a clone of Excalibur, or even necessarily as strong as Excalibur, but I'd like him to be closer and more in line for better balance. I enjoy playing Atlas, but I don't want to feel like I'm just playing a weaker version of a different frame.

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

38 minutes ago, SteveCutler said:

Thanks for your feedback. I might not have been very clear when I talked about scaling (going by this and what ShortCat said). I don't mean that Atlas can't deal with high level missions. I just mean that relative to other frames, Atlas has a harder job of it (i..e kills more slowly). Your reasoning for choosing Atlas over Excalibur is basically just that Atlas is more fun for you, right? That's fine, and Atlas is fun for me too, but I feel like there should be reasons to choose him aside from that. For example, "Oh, I'll bring Atlas for this mission instead, because petrifying enemies lets me [insert reason] which Excalibur can't do" or something else along those lines.

Even relative to other frames, Atlas is capable in dealing with high level missions. Atlas does not have a hard time killing enemies in high level missions. My reasoning for choosing Atlas over Excalibur is as i said, im not locked into an locked into an exalted weapon. He's an effective dps frame, that doesn't lock me out of my guns, with a good CC. Im not really sure why your so stuck on this Excalibur comparison. Again, they don't play as similarly as your trying to make it seem. 

Quote

I assume you were saying this in response to someone1230123, but yes, petrified enemies take 1.5x damage. However, compare this to Excalibur's Radial Blind, which gives a whopping 8x stealth multiplier. That difference is just enormous. It's true that Petrify boosts damage from all sources, whereas Radial Blind's stealth multiplier only works with melee, but these are both melee frames that use melee attacks. I don't really feel like this is fair or balanced. And that's on top of Radial Blind being better in almost every other way as well: lower energy cost, circular AoE, more range, and a faster cast time.lmost instantly with Exalted Blade.

Atlas is not locked into just melee attacks though. Petrify boost damage from all sources, locks enemies in place (preventing rag doll), and heals/increases Atlas' armor. I get you like Radial Blind, and that 8x stealth multiplier is cool, but in practice taking advantage of that multiplier can be tricky. Nevertheless Petrify is still a good CC that compliments Atlas' abilities, and increases damage to enemies. Want a AOE petrify maybe then try actually using Rumblers, that ability isn't as bad as your trying to make it seem either. Though the range on that is rather small. 

BTW the game isn't balance vs simulacrum enemies at levels that don't really exist in missions. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by (XB1)Godlike13

[ShortCat]

2 minutes ago, SteveCutler said:

Well, if you didn't even read the post then I'm not sure there's much I can say

I got a shivers after the first sentance, but kept reading untill you complained about the strongest passive in the game - immunity to knock down. I usually use Handspring in my Exilus, but as I dont need it with Atlas, I put Rush into the slot. There is your fix.

8 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Worse still, Landslide cannot be used on enemies that are knocked down or ragdolled!

Wrong! Landslide performes like usual on on CCed enemies.

8 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

The Path of Statues augment is a band-aid solution that isn't actually reliable or consistent.

It is bad becasue you don't need CC if the enemy is dead.

8 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Landslide does not scale well up to very high enemy levels.

Just wrong. Show me your weapon's and Atlas' build.

8 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

Landslide requires using the melee slot as a "stat stick", instead of a real melee weapon.

Well, this one is worth a discussion, but it is not exclusive to Atlas and was a general design solution for exalted & exalted-like abilities for a long time.

Analysis of three other abilites is irrelevant, since you actually named Atlas' real problme:

8 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

This is Atlas's best ability. The one everyone loves and builds for. The thing that makes Atlas viable at all.

 

[SteveCutler]

6 minutes ago, (XB1)Godlike13 said:

Even relative to other frames, Atlas is capable in dealing with high level missions. Atlas does not have a hard time killing enemies in high level missions. My reasoning for choosing Atlas over Excalibur is as i said, im not locked into an locked into an exalted weapon. He's an effective dps frame, that doesn't lock me out of my guns, with a good CC. Im not really sure why your so stuck on this Excalibur comparison. Again, they don't play as similarly as your trying to make it seem. 

Atlas is not locked into just melee attacks though. Petrify boost damage from all sources, locks enemies in place (preventing rag doll), and heals/increases Atlas' armor. I get you like Radial Blind, and that 8x stealth multiplier is cool, but in practice taking advantage of that multiplier can be tricky. Nevertheless Petrify is still a good CC that compliments Atlas' abilities, and increases damage to enemies. 

BTW the game isn't balance vs simulacrum enemies at levels that don't really exist in missions. 

I don't agree that they play very differently to each other. They both focus on melee attacks and both have a small, similar CC ability on the side. At least, I believe most players play Atlas this way (again, see how popular Landslide-focused builds are). Maybe you play Atlas differently, with more of a focus on Petrify and Rumblers and such, using guns rather than Landslide. That's fine, but I don't think that's the popular approach.

Taking advantage of Radial Blind's stealth multiplier is tricky? How? What's tricky about pressing 2 to cast Radial Blind, and then proceeding to kill enemies in exactly the same way as before but with 8x damage suddenly? You might be misunderstanding something here. You don't need to walk up to enemies and perform a slow finisher animation on them. Simply casting Radial Blind immediately gives 8x damage to any melee attack that you perform while the blind is in effect. This is because blinding them makes the game consider them as "unalert". It applies to the normal Exalted Blade strikes, and even the energy waves.

You bring up Petrify healing Atlas, which sounds good on paper, but in practice I don't really feel like it's a worthy trade-off. Atlas almost has to micromanage his Rubble, keeping track of it and going to the trouble of petrifying enemies (at a large energy cost) just to pick up some scraps of it. Landslide grants invincibility, but between uses he suddenly becomes a lot more vulnerable. I play both Atlas and Excalibur a lot, and I feel massively more survivable with Excalibur, and without having to do any micromanaging. The 60% damage reduction that Exalted Blade offers is significant, and at any time the player can just tap a button (the channeling button) to instantly get a full heal with Life Strike. Rubble is cool and all, but I feel like it's just yet another example of Atlas doing a similar thing to Excalibur but worse.

[SteveCutler]

11 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

I got a shivers after the first sentance, but kept reading untill you complained about the strongest passive in the game - immunity to knock down. I usually use Handspring in my Exilus, but as I dont need it with Atlas, I put Rush into the slot. There is your fix.

Wrong! Landslide performes like usual on on CCed enemies.

It is bad becasue you don't need CC if the enemy is dead.

Just wrong. Show me your weapon's and Atlas' build.

Well, this one is worth a discussion, but it is not exclusive to Atlas and was a general design solution for exalted & exalted-like abilities for a long time.

Analysis of three other abilites is irrelevant, since you actually named Atlas' real problme:

"The strongest passive in the game" - That's your opinion. There are other good passive abilities. I also already explained how Rhino has a better version of it already, in addition to his normal passive. Do you seriously think that Atlas's passive must work on the ground only, or else it would be overpowered? Do you have nothing to say in response to my comment about how it doesn't mesh with Atlas's gameplay (bullet jumping between Landslides)?

Landslide has never been able to function on knocked-down enemies for me. The game simply keeps showing "Invalid target" when attempting to use the ability, until the enemy stands back up again. You are either completely wrong, or there is some strange bug at work. Would you mind showing me a video of you performing Landslide on a knocked-down enemy?

Okay, you don't need CC if the enemy is dead. Then why does Excalibur get both greater killing power and a greater CC ability? Is that fair?

"Just wrong" - That's not very helpful or meaningful discussion. I already gave the weapon build earlier in the OP. Please go back and read my responses again, because I don't want to keep repeating myself. I am talking about Atlas's ability to deal with high level armor, and stated that while it's not bad, it is strictly inferior to what other frames like Excalibur can do. That is a fact. When the armor gets high enough, even regular guns can start killing faster than Landslide due to Corrosive procs.

Edited July 4, 2018 by SteveCutler

[ShortCat]

1 minute ago, SteveCutler said:

Do you have nothing to say in response to my comment about how it doesn't mesh with Atlas's gameplay (bullet jumping between Landslides)?

11 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

I usually use Handspring in my Exilus, but as I dont need it with Atlas, I put Rush into the slot. There is your fix.

This is my last response, you show lack of knowledge on multiple occasions and you are not ready do deal with any criticism you encounter.

Stay educated.

 

[SteveCutler]

I find it incredible that some people like you exist on this forum. We had people like you in the Excalibur Umbra threads as well. I've given many arguments, explained my reasoning in-depth, and stated many facts. You've posted very little of substance to counter what I said. The one lacking knowledge is you.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I use him in ESO all the time. 

How high end do you need him to go? Not every frame needs to be able to solo sorties. 

[SteveCutler]

8 minutes ago, (PS4)Riko_113 said:

I use him in ESO all the time. 

How high end do you need him to go? Not every frame needs to be able to solo sorties. 

Well, my complaints can probably be grouped into two categories. Firstly, general frustrations and things that could use quality of life changes (e.g. separately moddable Landslide, being able to use it on knocked-down enemies, etc.), and then secondly the way it seems that Atlas is just a worse version of Excalibur. Sure, each frame is different and you don't necessarily have to be fight level 150-200 enemies in normal content. But why is there such an enormous difference between Excalibur and Atlas, when you look at the numbers or when you do try to fight those super high level enemies? Excalibur just does most of the same things but significantly better, and I don't feel like that is fair or balanced. Maybe it's more that Excalibur is overpowered.

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

2 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

I don't agree that they play very differently to each other. They both focus on melee attacks and both have a small, similar CC ability on the side. At least, I believe most players play Atlas this way (again, see how popular Landslide-focused builds are). Maybe you play Atlas differently, with more of a focus on Petrify and Rumblers and such, using guns rather than Landslide. That's fine, but I don't think that's the popular approach.

Taking advantage of Radial Blind's stealth multiplier is tricky? How? What's tricky about pressing 2 to cast Radial Blind, and then proceeding to kill enemies in exactly the same way as before but with 8x damage suddenly? You might be misunderstanding something here. You don't need to walk up to enemies and perform a slow finisher animation on them. Simply casting Radial Blind immediately gives 8x damage to any melee attack that you perform while the blind is in effect. This is because blinding them makes the game consider them as "unalert". It applies to the normal Exalted Blade strikes, and even the energy waves.

You bring up Petrify healing Atlas, which sounds good on paper, but in practice I don't really feel like it's a worthy trade-off. Atlas almost has to micromanage his Rubble, keeping track of it and going to the trouble of petrifying enemies (at a large energy cost) just to pick up some scraps of it. Landslide grants invincibility, but between uses he suddenly becomes a lot more vulnerable. I play both Atlas and Excalibur a lot, and I feel massively more survivable with Excalibur, and without having to do any micromanaging. The 60% damage reduction that Exalted Blade offers is significant, and at any time the player can just tap a button (the channeling button) to instantly get a full heal with Life Strike. Rubble is cool and all, but I feel like it's just yet another example of Atlas doing a similar thing to Excalibur but worse.

Atlas' melee attack is a power masquerading as a melee attack. Everyone who plays Atlas is able to use Landslide and their guns seamlessly. And Atlas and Excalibur's "melee" attacks do not play the same. Exalted blade hardly even a functions like a melee attack, and is rarely used as such, and Landslide isn't an exalted weapon

Stealth multiplier is easily broken, especially when playing with others. 

Excalibur has to manage his energy, especially when using life strike. Managing things is part of the game. Rubble isn't particularly hard to manage, and Atlas should be petrifying enemies. Its a nice mechanic that increases Atlas' survivability. Why you continue bring everything back to Excalibur i do not know. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by (XB1)Godlike13

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

1 minute ago, SteveCutler said:

Well, my complaints can probably be grouped into two categories. Firstly, general frustrations and things that could use quality of life changes (e.g. separately moddable Landslide, being able to use it on knocked-down enemies, etc.), and then secondly the way it seems that Atlas is just a worse version of Excalibur. Sure, each frame is different and you don't necessarily have to be fight level 150-200 enemies in normal content. But why is there such an enormous difference between Excalibur and Atlas, when you look at the numbers or when you do try to fight those super high level enemies? Excalibur just does most of the same things but significantly better, and I don't feel like that is fair or balanced. Maybe it's more that Excalibur is overpowered.

QoL is always good, but Atlas and Excalibur are very different. And landslide doesn't replace his weaponry, it is used in conjunction with his weaponry so it doesn't need to be moddable separately as an exalted weapon. I use mine with War (crit and status build) to build up damage counter and attack speed and use landslide to gain ground and do damage multiplier against petrified enemies. And i use Corinth for ranged damage in between melee kills. 

He also works surprisingly well with a little higher range build, not max range).

[(PSN)Kairu_Aname]

I really don't know what it is about people not acknowledging the points you made. They say a variant of "wrong" without reading what you have to back it up with. 

I'm really confused as to why they do this on the forums

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

I’m sorry but the second you suggested knockdown immunity didn’t fit Atlas and wasn’t a good passive you immediately lost me.

[SteveCutler]

Who suggested that?

[mactrent]

On 2018-07-03 at 9:32 PM, SteveCutler said:

What I do take issue with is that Immovable only works while Atlas is on the ground.

 

2 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

I’m sorry but the second you suggested knockdown immunity didn’t fit Atlas and wasn’t a good passive you immediately lost me.

Just a mis-reading, methinks.  Matrix, I think what OP was saying is that Atlas' passive is indeed very cool and fitting enough, but... largely redundant when it comes to his playstyle.  Atlas is invincible during Landslide, and when he can't Landslide, he's usually bullet-jumping to close the distance to his next target.  If you're using your guns with Atlas, it's usually best to make it quick, so you can keep your combos going.  You don't end up standing still to be knocked over all that much.

[SteveCutler]

Yes, that's what I meant. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I think it's very fitting thematically and is generally a great ability to have - I know I absolutely hate getting knocked down in this game. It's just that it isn't very synergistic with his actual kit and playstyle.

[Xemgoa]

Having read the entire post, I can agree with a lot of the opinions you hold and the proposals for changes. You even went into detail and explained why you thought Atlas needed these changes.

But to be honest, you kinda leaned too much on the argument of no one using any other abilities other than Landslide when playing as Atlas, since I've grown accustomed with how Atlas plays. For example:

I didn't really feel bothered that enemies flew away when Landslide'd into the horizon, I just closed the distance and repeated the same steps; or targeted a different group while the previous target climbed to their feet to rejoin the fray, they're walking back into the fight so I don't have any issue of finishing them off while I'm trying deck everyone else in the gabber.

I do agree that Tectonic Wall does need to be able to increase in size, if not in height but in length for better cover. It's high enough to stand/duck safely behind for cover and to block off exits and entrances, but to be fair, I actually did find the boulder aspect of it useful when proc'ing the Tectonic wall into a boulder to roll down narrow paths. It would be nice that if Proc'ing Tectonic Wall on a wall on mouse point would turn it into a boulder, but also Atlas can interact with it by packing it up into a boulder and can expend the boulder by chucking it at enemies.

I have kinda grown fond with the way that his Petrify only affects enemies infront of Atlas within a cone, since I'm not too sure about him pounding the ground and unleashing an earthquake to petrify enemies from under their feet. I think it's fine, but I do agree I think I am not fond of the quick burst of his gaze, it would be nice if players could continuously unleash Petrify but could also punch at the same time.

 

I don't know, I find the Golems to be exceptionally useful. While their intelligence is comprised of the same materials they come from, they're very "gneiss" to have around and they do an excellent job, in my opinion. While they don't fight smartly, they still do strong damage with their punches and from throwing boulders around, though my qualm is that they barely do damage in late game missions (though they can still take some serious punishment), they still act like having two additional players roaming around to draw enemy aggro and quickly/slowly pick off enemies while everyone else is doing their doing while doing relatively the same thing to cull the herd.

But there is one thing I can agree with is that it would be nice if NPC's, mostly allies, could fight smarter. It'd be nice... say, if it were possible, have their behavior be alterable, so as to give them a set of instructions that they can do while they are fighting for us...

Like... a list of the aforementioned instructions, that allows players to create a list of things the NPC should do when certain criteria is met. Say...

I can set a criteria where a clone/companion is to heal another NPC or player should their health fall to a certain percentage.

Like, I set it to think of an "Ally", and when their health falls below... say, "50%", it deploys a Team Health Restore or uses any of it's abilities to get to work on healing their target.

(... I think I can expand on this post further with that idea.)

[RenChao]

One-punch-Atlas fan here. Became my favourite since his release only for his first skill. Was always wondering why not so many people play as him. Was hoping to get the same teammate and have a kill race since 85% of the time end up with the most kills and damage dealt.

Now I see...all those "holes" in his build that NOONE guessed how to fix on their own and instead they complain about it in the forum. After I found a use for "support" type Primariy and Secondary I didn't care about his other skills. Even that buff with stones didn't get my attention because his first skill remained overpowered as before. I mean, Rivens and Combo counters work for his first skill? If DE dares to make his gauntlets a separate weapon so those 2 bonuses won't work anymore I won't even look at him  because in terms of other aspects other frames can do that better. 

Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Those "Holes" and "support" weapons.

Changing his passive to make it work in midair aswell? Wouldn't that be just way too fat for him? How they even can grab you in midair if you kill everything you meet? Atlas was made to delete every room he enters. You must be a complete fool to let the enemy constantly knock you down.

Ragdolling? Yes, a minor problem that can be easily ignored since the enemy that is not ragdolled is dead. And it's not like you are being late for family dinner just because you have to waste ~10-20 more seconds on ragdolled enemies.

Not much of damage from the Landslide? I'm sorry, what? Are you talking about 2h long survivals? Then sorry, this a thing for any other frame, not just Atlas. 

Wall? Don't care, like I don't care about Ash's shurikens, Nezha's Chakram throw or Trinity's first skill.

Petrify? Except for Ore Gaze to get rare resources I have no more use for it. And for the endgame using this is even worse than keep 1 spamming because even 0.5 seconds is enough to almost/kill you.

Rock soldiers? Don't care.

About "support" weapons. Since One-Punch-Atlas doesn't need anything but equipped mods on your melee, both primaries and secondaries are not needed...except for Miter that can quickly dispose of Nullie's bubbles and give you a free ticket for a murder spree on him and his allies he covered before, and Pox(es) charged with corrosive and cold procs to get rid of highly armored enemies and not letting them make any unnecessary actions.

As for the rest of those "holes". You might be wondering where do I get healing if I'm not using "stone" mechanic. Well, maybe because I am one of those "extinct" Vazarin users that can not just only heal himself, but everything allied. I have less need for energy than for healing.

And finally. Sorties. So what if there are "no melee" conditions? Again, this problem is for any frame. It's not like Nidus won't struggle during "Fire", or Loki won't have a heart attack because a random bullet killed him during"enchancements", or Mesa won't have huge energy problems with "energy reduction" (and you don't have EV around most of the time).

Atlas is already too good on his own. Every day I fear he might be nerfed and pray his first skill won't be touched. Instead of complaining you should look at other options lying around you, not just use an overused "Plasmor, Euphona, Atterax and Zenurik" meta and have those "holes" become a bigger nuissance. And it's not like he is the only frame in this game. He doesn't need any more changes just because you don't know how to use him right. No frame is a "Jack-of-all-Trades". Excal can't instantly kill every enemy and Ash doesnt have an aoe CC with a decent radius and efficency.

Open your eyes and see the many routes this game has. Don't stick to a single thing like a glue. 

I'm done here.

Edited July 19, 2018 by RenChao

[SteveCutler]

I'm not really sure what to say to you. I don't feel like you provided much of substance worth responding to.

2 hours ago, RenChao said:

Changing his passive to make it work in midair aswell? Wouldn't that be just way too fat for him? How they even can grab you in midair if you kill everything you meet? Atlas was made to delete every room he enters. You must be a complete fool to let the enemy constantly knock you down.

You just jumped into insulting me for some reason (what did I do to you?) and mostly just dismissed my points. I suggest you re-read the community guidelines if you're going to continue participating on these forums.

When did I ever say the enemy is constantly knocking me down? I simply said his passive doesn't mesh well with his gameplay. You yourself are basically agreeing with me. You stated that Atlas kills everything he meets and deletes every room he enters. So where does his passive come into play then? You don't seem to think it's very beneficial either, which is the problem. I'm not getting knocked down non-stop, but it can and does happen every so often while bullet jumping around if an enemy decides to use a knockdown or grab attack right then. His passive is supposed to protect against this, but it doesn't really work in practice.

Quote

Not much of damage from the Landslide? I'm sorry, what? Are you talking about 2h long survivals? Then sorry, this a thing for any other frame, not just Atlas.

Yes, when I talk about Landslide not doing sufficient damage, I'm talking about high level enemies with armor. That's literally what I said already in my original post: "Landslide does not scale well up to very high enemy levels", "Landslide has no realistic way of stripping armor". These are facts. It doesn't just have to be in two hour survivals, but even sortie missions with Bombards (if you're using Corrosive) or Heavy Gunners (if you're using Radiation), or any sortie with augmented enemy armor.

You've stated that other frames have the same problem, but in my experience that isn't the case at all. If I'm playing Excalibur, I can deal with these enemies very easily and take them out almost instantly. Excalibur has multiple options to do so: the 100% status chance means that Corrosive procs will be happening extremely fast (especially with Berserker, Primed Fury, and Arcane Strike), stripping away the armor in seconds; aside from that, Excalibur can also just use Radial Blind and then perform a finisher attack, dealing True Damage and entirely bypassing armor. So no, this isn't a thing for any other frame.

Quote

Wall? Don't care, like I don't care about Ash's shurikens, Nezha's Chakram throw or Trinity's first skill.

Petrify? Except for Ore Gaze to get rare resources I have no more use for it. And for the endgame using this is even worse than keep 1 spamming because even 0.5 seconds is enough to almost/kill you.

Rock soldiers? Don't care.

You seem to just be waving your hands and dismissing his abilities entirely, along with my arguments. I'd say you're actually supporting my points here. You don't care at all about these abilities. You don't like them or use them. You don't have any use for them. That's exactly the problem.

Quote

And finally. Sorties. So what if there are "no melee" conditions? Again, this problem is for any frame. It's not like Nidus won't struggle during "Fire", or Loki won't have a heart attack because a random bullet killed him during"enchancements", or Mesa won't have huge energy problems with "energy reduction" (and you don't have EV around most of the time).

The problem is that Atlas is unfairly affected by these conditions. Energy reduction affects every frame that makes heavy use of energy. But a sortie that prevents using melee weapons? Atlas is completely crippled, whereas Excalibur and Wukong can play just fine. A sortie that prevents using secondary weapons? Mesa and Titania can play just fine. That's the problem. You can realistically bring most frames to any sortie mission, and some might be harder than others (e.g. energy reduction), but you can still play the frames and use their abilities as intended. But if you're using Atlas, then you can't realistically bring him to a "no melee" sortie and still play him with his abilities, as your damage will be crippled.

Quote

Atlas is already too good on his own. Every day I fear he might be nerfed and pray his first skill won't be touched. Instead of complaining you should look at other options lying around you, not just use an overused "Plasmor, Euphona, Atterax and Zenurik" meta and have those "holes" become a bigger nuissance. And it's not like he is the only frame in this game. He doesn't need any more changes just because you don't know how to use him right. No frame is a "Jack-of-all-Trades". Excal can't instantly kill every enemy and Ash doesnt have an aoe CC with a decent radius and efficency.

Atlas is fun and his Landslide is strong, yes. But Landslide is not as strong as other similar abilities in the game. His other abilities are lacking, as you yourself have admitted by the fact that you don't care about them. I never said anything about Plasmor, Euphona, Atterax, or Zenurik. Your "solution" seems to be just ignoring his other abilities and using Vazarin for healing. I don't believe I ever even said anything about Atlas struggling with healing in this thread, so I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. I really feel like you're not contributing to the discussion, and aren't actually looking at my individual points and commenting on them. If I look through my OP at the numbered list of points, most of them are things you never commented on at all. You're welcome to try though. The point of this thread is to discuss Atlas's issues, after all. And yes, Excalibur can pretty much instantly kill every enemy, or at least certainly much faster than Atlas could ever hope to.

Quote

Open your eyes and see the many routes this game has. Don't stick to a single thing like a glue. 

I'm done here.

Didn't you yourself say you only use Landslide and don't bother with his other abilities? As in, you're sticking to a single thing like glue?

Edited July 19, 2018 by SteveCutler