Atlas - His problems and some suggested improvements

[EvEr_Yg_OdS]

He is an erotic warframe.

 

hardening and two servants

or make you can't be move

[RenChao]

6 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

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.

There are many other passives that anyone barely notices. Frost's is not used at all because no sane being just stands in place and does nothing for the entire game. Nova's passive barely provides any use since her knockdown doesn't cover much area, Hydroid's passive is also not used because I yet have to find one with a hammer or slam spammer and Loki's passive is only used to complete Riven challenge related to wall latch at best. Atlas's passive saves many times when you have to run a bit in closed places, and with your agility and mobility chances that scorpion/ancient will grab you in midair are rediclously low. The only problem are Arson eximuses, yes, but not as often to prove a major nuissance. Not enough reasons to make it work in midair aswell...and let's not forget that passive's origin is related to Antaeus from the Greek mythology. Atlas is the walking Greek mythology to begin with, so changing his passive like that will be a bit awkward.

 

6 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

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.

You waste too much time on Excal's attacks, either with Chromatic Blade or constant finishers. While you try to get rid of the bombard, staying in close-quarters to him and hitting nothing else around you but the only enemy in front, it won't take much effort for other's to hit you in the back.

Atlas's strikes provide a lot more damage with a more convenient aoe, especially if you strip the enemy's armor by other means while wasting less time.

6 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

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.

So what if I don't use them and just stick to the first skill? My points about it being one of the greatest weapons in the game still stands like the frame itself. It's not like other frames do not have the same problem: Frost with globes, Trinity with either EV OR Bless builds, Speed/Slow Nova, Chroma with his Vex armor, Banshee with her ult and Octavia with her Metronome. It's a common thing for a player to stick only to ONE skill. If we are already content with it then why change? If some skills are already too good for others to be used at all then why buff them if it's still won't work? The only solution for that is to actually NERF overused skills, and I already mentioned that I don't want that, I had enough after Trinity's and Nova's nerfs.

 

6 hours ago, SteveCutler said:

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.

And yes, Excalibur can pretty much instantly kill every enemy, or at least certainly much faster than Atlas could ever hope to.

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?

Again, so what if "no melee"? Like I said to not stick to something like a glue -maybe I should have mentioned about frames and not their skills- since there are many other options. He can't go on 1/10 sortie missions, big deal. Like I said, no frame is a "Jack-of-all-Trades", in the end-game Excal will have to run to every single enemy for a finisher with a knife in order to instantly kill them. Doesn't look like that of supreme killer there with hordes of enemies running around. Maybe without means to strip armor off the enemy, Atlas at least won't die while attacking them.

 

And my final point about Atlas as the whole still stands. From 0 to 100 enemy levels he is one of the best frames there is. So what if he is not a killing machine later on? It is enough to have him as an unstoppable force in most missions. He doesn't need any more buffs. Making him endgame viable will eventually force DE to nerf him in other aspects, and beside being a walking tank he won't be able to do anything else.

 

 

[Littlemike137]

On ‎2018‎-‎07‎-‎05 at 5:25 PM, SteveCutler said:

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.

Atlas favorite/main here.  I agree that it would be nice if Atlas had a total cc immunity on his passive, but a case can be made for it being fine as it is.  Currently, it fits my playstyle just fine, as when I am bullet jumping around nothing can/will hit me with anything cc related, but when I fight a boss/bombard/any tough enemy, I stop jumping around, engage in the fight on the ground, and his passive is in use 🙂

Also, his melee weapon doesn't just have to be a stat stick.  I use tekko (his signature weapon after all) with blood rush, berserker, gaia's tragedy, and, yes, a good riven, and lvl 100 corrupted bombards don't stand up to even one of the combos unless there is a ancient healer nearby.  I like the ideas you proposed as a QoL change, like a radial petrify and atlas the rumbler, but I feel that he is right now in an ok place, and unless you want to go 1-2+ hours into an endless you will be fine, and if you are doing that you are taking along the meta teams with meta weapons from recruiting chat, instead of having fun with a random group of guys that you met.

[Sasuda]

On 2018-07-03 at 8:32 PM, SteveCutler said:

Spoiler

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.

 

1. I'm indifferent to this. Prior to rubble armor, yes. Now that his Passive is Rubble armor his immovable passive doesn't matter much. But just for the fun of it, if I were to modify his passive it would be to add more of the heavyweight feel - enemies that melee strike Atlas are staggered with an Impact proc. Just 'cause it'd feel good to see. ^{If you want to point out that's too similar to Frost, Frost actually could use a passive upgrade. I'd like a 2 meter 1 second cold proc aura.}
Atlas's real problem with immovable isn't that it only applies to the ground it's his lack of ability to travel on ground. I don't really want to make him have fast base movement, so I'd say it would have to be ability based. Which most easily falls into Landslide. Being unable to Landslide without a target is kinda dumb, not a big deal to me, but if he were to be able to landslide without a target he'd have to lose his invincibility for untargeted landslides. I'd personally like to hold and prepare a Landslide that I can release as I see a target, I just think it'd feel better for when I don't quite have a target lined up. Could be some stuff there.  But like I said, now that he has Rubble it doesn't matter much really.

2. Yeah this one's OP, Atlas can actually get a huge (really huge 6m base) shock-wave from Landslide. maybe just added to the impacted enemy, or to just 1/2 of the shockwave radius. would make your suggested Radial Petrify a total waste of energy.

3. Yes. Actually as a quick kick up animation to enemies below Alas's waist, and then it's a sick finisher. which also would help with #4.

4. B) Yes. This would be fine C) I feel like could just be on actual 'weapons' weapons, so that includes actual 'exalted' weapons, which I feel Landslide is not a weapon. I'd be fine with it as an option too though Although...

5. Separately moddable yes. I think it's fine that Warframes can inherit power from melee mods for scaling and when they do the mods should always be applied and attached to the Warframe and not to external weapons. The Riven mod stuff is.... eh.... well...

On 2018-06-22 at 10:31 PM, Sasuda said:

As far as gaining power from Riven mods from all of the "fixes" DE has sprung on us without warning, I'd say it's pretty safe to assume they didn't intend for Riven mods to apply to abilities and it's very likely they will have that feature removed sooner or later. - from this thread

Maybe more base damage maybe not. Mih from me for now. 

6. No. Wait, yes. Wait, maybe. If I can still remote cast easily, yes. Like hold to boulder.

7. Sure. Although Tectonics still would have some problems. Enemies can just climb over it, so it gets kinda sloppy at providing a useful barrier. Maybe enemies that climb get petrified?
Also scaling these.

• I'd be fine if they were duration based rather than health based myself, given that duration is a base of like 30s.
• Or they get a 8s invulnerability period when first formed. meh.

Personal dream: hold to basically paint Tectonics where aimed. The drain would have to be gross to compensate being able to build walls wherever, and the boulder part could get a little iffy (maybe requires a certain size/sections come off differently). I still really like the idea being able to landslide it into shrapnel though.

8. No, add a 2m radius around Atlas or move the cone to begin 2m behind Atlas. Boost Range from 10/11/12/14m within a 60° not affected by mods field of view. To a 10/12/15/20m within a 60° field of view affected by mods up to 90° even up to 120 would be fine.

9. Yeah, that'd be better.

10. Is it longer than a second? I mean sure, I've haven't noticed enough for it to bug me I guess.

11. ah nah I think it's fine without it. You can get big duration and a completely still enemy is fine. I feel like it'd have to apply to Frost's Freezes too.

12. Yes. Again I like the idea of Landslide it to equip it, whether default or Augment. Golem AI and priority boost would be good. Would like to be able to get then to defend better with some level of command over all AI as a bunch have said.

13. Yeah, why was this ever not an option

I haven't looked at the problems yet btw.

Edited September 24, 2018 by Sasuda
wasn't done, just saving halfway though

[(PSN)ALTBOULI]

Tumblers are not useless. I used them a lot to take away aggro and I find them very useful in mobile defence, defence and interception missions. Yes they can be improved more I.e. staying closer to Atlas and potentially having different roles, for example being able to force them to hold a position or changing from support to attack to defence etc. I would also be cool if they could use up some of their own health to heal you when there active and on request. 

Personally I like where Atlas is right now but I would be ok with some minor improvements

[SenorClipClop]

On 2018-07-04 at 10:32 AM, SteveCutler said:

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

Landslide can one-shot bosses at the highest levels you can fight those bosses at (Sortie 3). Saying it does not scale well tells me that either you don't know how to mod for powerful Landslides, or your idea of high level is well over 150, which the game should not be balanced around.

On 2018-07-04 at 10:32 AM, SteveCutler said:

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

Making a weapon a stat stick doesn't make a weapon unusable. It still stacks huge base damage. Also I think you're confusing a requirement with a benefit. I run Atlas with a Cassowar modded with Relentless Combination, Slash and Body Count, none of which really help Landslide, but his 1 still kicks butt.

On 2018-07-04 at 10:32 AM, SteveCutler said:

The vast majority of Atlas players focus their builds entirely on Landslide, often disregarding the other abilities entirely.

Not to be that Tenno, but you talk about the skill far more than the rest of his kit.

Honestly, yes, he's a bit of a one-trick pony. But this isn't because his other abilities are bad, it's more because Landsliding is really all you need to rock a mission. The reason everyone talks about Landslide and not much else is because you don't really need any other part of him to be effective. In order for his other skills to matter more, Landslife would need to be less effective than it is. His current iteration at least gives some serious incentive to use his 3, at least.

Edited July 20, 2018 by SenorClipClop

[SteveCutler]

14 hours ago, Sasuda said:

Spoiler

1. I'm indifferent to this. Prior to rubble armor, yes. Now that his Passive is Rubble armor his immovable passive doesn't matter much. But just for the fun of it, if I were to modify his passive it would be to add more of the heavyweight feel - enemies that melee strike Atlas are staggered with an Impact proc. Just 'cause it'd feel good to see. ^{If you want to point out that's too similar to Frost, Frost actually could use a passive upgrade. I'd like a 2 meter 1 second cold proc aura.}
Atlas's real problem with immovable isn't that it only applies to the ground it's his lack of ability to travel on ground. I don't really want to make him have fast base movement, so I'd say it would have to be ability based. Which most easily falls into Landslide. Being unable to Landslide without a target is kinda dumb, not a big deal to me, but if he were to be able to landslide without a target he'd have to lose his invincibility for untargeted landslides. I'd personally like to hold and prepare a Landslide that I can release as I see a target, I just think it'd feel better for when I don't quite have a target lined up. Could be some stuff there.  But like I said, now that he has Rubble it doesn't matter much really.

2. Yeah this one's OP, Atlas can actually get a huge (really huge 6m base) shock-wave from Landslide. maybe just added to the impacted enemy, or to just 1/2 of the shockwave radius. would make your suggested Radial Petrify a total waste of energy.

3. Yes. Actually ass a quick kick up animation to enemies below Alas's waist, and then it's a sick finisher. which also would help with #4.

4. B) Yes. This would be fine C) I feel like could just be on actual 'weapons' weapons, so that includes actual 'exalted' weapons, which I feel Landslide is not a weapon. I'd be fine with it as an option too though Although...

5. Separately moddable yes. I think it's fine that Warframes can inherit power from melee mods for scaling and when they do the mods should always be applied and attached to the Warframe and not to external weapons. The Riven mod stuff is.... eh.... well...

Maybe more base damage maybe not. Mih from me for now. 

6. No. Wait, yes. Wait, maybe. If I can still remote cast easily, yes. Like hold to boulder.

7. Sure. Although Tectonics still would have some problems. Enemies can just climb over it, so it gets kinda sloppy at providing a useful barrier. Maybe enemies that climb get petrified?
Also scaling these.

• I'd be fine if they were duration based rather than health based myself, given that duration is a base of like 30s.
• Or they get a 8s invulnerability period when first formed. meh.

Personal dream: hold to basically paint Tectonics where aimed. The drain would have to be gross to compensate being able to build walls wherever, and the boulder part could get a little iffy (maybe requires a certain size/sections come off differently). I still really like the idea being able to landslide it into shrapnel though.

8. No, add a 2m radius around Atlas or move the cone to begin 2m behind Atlas. Bosst Range from 10/11/12/14m within a 60° not affected by mods field of view. To a 10/12/15/20m within a 60° field of view affected by mods up to 90° even up to 120 would be fine.

9. Yeah, that'd be better.

10. Is it longer than a second? I mean sure, I've haven't noticed enough for it to bug me I guess.

11. ah nah I think it's fine without it. You can get big duration and a completely still enemy is fine. I feel like it'd have to apply to Frost's Freezes too.

12. Yes. Again I like the idea of Landslide it to equip it, whether default or Augment. Golem AI and priority boost would be good. Would like to be able to get then to defend better with some level of command over all AI as a bunch have said.

13. Yeah, why was this ever not an option

I haven't looked at the problems yet btw.

 

Thanks a lot for your thorough reply! You make a lot of very good points.

The dream idea you have for Tectonics sounds very interesting. It would be a major change so I find it doubtful that they'd implement something like that, but it would be really cool and would be fitting with the theme of Atlas being a master of earth and stone, shaping his environment.

Your suggestions for improving the range of Petrify are also interesting. I didn't consider the idea of having both a radius around Atlas as well as the normal cone, or moving the cone to start from behind Atlas. Those are good ideas that could improve Petrify's usage without changing it entirely.

The idea of staggering enemies when they melee attack Atlas is cool too. I don't think it would really make much practical difference gameplay-wise, but it would look cool visually.

6 hours ago, SenorClipClop said:

Landslide can one-shot bosses at the highest levels you can fight those bosses at (Sortie 3). Saying it does not scale well tells me that either you don't know how to mod for powerful Landslides, or your idea of high level is well over 150, which the game should not be balanced around.

Making a weapon a stat stick doesn't make a weapon unusable. It still stacks huge base damage. Also I think you're confusing a requirement with a benefit. I run Atlas with a Cassowar modded with Relentless Combination, Slash and Body Count, none of which really help Landslide, but his 1 still kicks butt.

I'm not sure why people feel the need to say things like this. I know perfectly well how to play Atlas. I already listed the melee mods you would use in the OP, and it's a standard build that most people would use. Primed Pressure Point, Spoiled Strike, Primed Heavy Trauma, Collision Force, Primed Fever Strike, Shocking Touch, Drifting Contact (or Body Count), and a riven mod with increased Damage and Impact Damage.

By the way, in your second paragraph, you state that Body Count doesn't really help Landslide, which is false. Landslide benefits from the melee combo counter, so it's actually very important to include a combo counter mod.

Like I keep saying, the problem is with enemy armor. There's a big difference between enemies that have armor and that don't have armor. Landslide is strong, but when enemies start to get high levels of armor, Landslide becomes unable to deal with it effectively. It gets to the point where you'd be better off just fighting enemies with your regular weapons, because those weapons are capable of stripping armor with Corrosive procs, or can bypass armor with Slash procs or finisher attacks. Other high damaging abilities in the game like Peacemaker and Exalted Blade are able to deal with armor, so I feel like it isn't fair that Landslide can't. I think it would be an excellent place for some synergy with Petrify (making petrified enemies lose armor), or for the Shattering Impact mod to shine.

[Azamagon]

On 2018-07-04 at 4:32 AM, SteveCutler said:

-snip-

@SteveCutler

I generally agreed with most of your thoughts in the OP. Lemme explain thoroughly:

(The problem with his abilities -> I have nothing specific to say here though , as I can't find anything I truly disagreed with what you are saying. Good analysis!)

As for proposed solutions

1. Permanent knockdown resistance - I guess this would be ok. Dunno if it would be considered generally too useful, but I don't see the real harm.

2. Path of Statues revamp - I think this would actually be a bit much, to the point of making his Petrify ability basicly redundant. Making the path extend a bit in front of him, so it always catches at least your main target, that's fine. But more than that feels too much, imo (especially considering how much it is used, and how cheap the ability is to use).

3. Landslide targetting kd/ragdoll enemies - This is entirely fine. See no problem with this.

4. Landslide scalability - I think a more "unique" approach would be that any damage his abiliites does (be it Landslide or Rumblers dealing damage, anything), or whenever an enemy is petrifed by any of his abilities, could work as an innate Shattering Impact. What value? I dunno. But I at least find this approach different enough to consider it at least.

5. Landslide seperate modding - Entirely agreed. When they changed it for Exalted weapons, it meant that they are now useable, as abilities, anywhere. These pseudo-exalted ones are still not though, which feels rather biased, if I may say so. So a BIG yes for seperate modding for pseudo-exalted abiltiies too!
EDIT: Forgot to mention; I don't think he needs a damage-boost to it though. Giving some kind of scalalbility (as per point #4), would be good enough, imo.

6+7. Tectonics default 3 walls + augment makes boulders + Tectonics wall size increase - While I could agreed with Tectonics allowing multiple walls by default, and possibly also making them bigger, making boulders via an augment feels very halfhearted. Tectonics need a more thorough revamp. I'm gonna propose these ideas for Tectonics:

• Default can place 3 walls.
• Holdcast makes your (latest/closest?) wall into a boulder
• Boulders now have a mild "gravity"-effect (think Vauban's Vortex), causing it to collect enemies as it travels around.
• Damage of the Boulder's explosion is boosted by its health-value.
• When a Wall or Boulder is detroyed, it spawns Rubble at its destroyed location.
• Casting Landslide on a Wall causes it to shatter into a "rock shotgun". Damage of the rock pellets is based on Landslide + Wall health. (Note: He would have to target the wall and be next to it, as to prevent accidental wall-shatterings)
• Walls could be summonable at some range (think how you place Decoy). Add to it that when you create a Wall, it knocks down nearby enemies, and you have some semi-ranged snap CC too. Combined with the ability to still roll the Wall into Boulders + the Boulders' Vortex-like effect, you could then bring distant enemies over to Atlas!
• A further (probably too silly?) way it could be useable - If Atlas presses the contextual key (Default key: X) when near a wall, he could wrap the Wall around him as a protective casing and roll around as the Boulder, steering it yourself! That could work as a decent gapcloser.
• Petrify ought to heal Walls too.
• Augment replacements (Placeholder ideas):
  • Version 1 -> Stalagmite Reaction - Whenever a Tectonics wall is attacked, the wall retaliates by shooting stalagmite spikes from beneath the ground to impale the target. Damage equals to 3/6/9/12% of the wall's current health, as Puncture-damage. It cannot retaliate to the same enemy more than once every 2 seconds.
  • Version 2 -> Mending Earth - Allies within X meters of a Tectonics wall or boulder is healed for Y health every second.
  • Version 3 -> Guarding Earth - Tectonic walls and boulders launches rocks towards enemies within X radius of it, every Y seconds, dealing Z Impact damage in a Q meter radius and with 100% status-chance.
  • EDIT Version 4 -> Quaking Earth - Whenever Atlas casts Landslide, his Tectonic walls emits quaking shockwaves around them, dealing X damage (based on Landslide and/or Tectonic's health?) within Y meter radius of the walls, with Z% chance to inflict Impact-status on enemies.

With all those ideas for Tectonics, especially when all are combined, you'd have one of the most versatile field skills in the game, fitting for a Warframe capable of reshaping the earth itself!
Also, I honestly don't mind the wall's smaller size, at least not if all those things were added to it, hehe.

8+9. Petrify becoming an AoE + cost 50 energy - If it remains as a cone, I'd tone it down all the way down to just 35 energy, even. If it was done as  @Sasuda suggested though (moving it back a bit and/or adding some close range AoE + better range and angle modding), then 50 would be ok, but I'd still suggest 35 energy even for that one.
As for your own suggestion, making it a "Petrifying Earthquake Smash" as an AoE effect would also be very fitting (emphasizing the Brawler vibe, especially). It could even come with some damage (via also adding stalagmite spikes sticking up from the ground to impale enemies?), or more potent armor-reduction / other interesting debuffing. Then 50 energy would be ok. Whatever happens, 75 energy is still just way too much.

10. Petrify 1 second cast - I thought it took about 1 second already? If nothing else, if it remains a meager cone cast, I'd make it a onehanded cast (which ought to speed it up a lot as well).

11. Petrify 8x melee stealth vulnerability - I feel this is overkill, imo. I can see this being skipped entirely *shrugs*

12. Rumbled augment the new default or new augment - While I don't entirely disagreed with making it the PvE augment too, I disagreed entirely about it as the default skill. The rockbuddies have some serious potential after all. The problem with the Rumblers (besides AI issues), is that there is very little reason to keep them alive, besides to keep them running around as decoys. There's just very little synergy for that. Yet we can heal them with Petrify, even though they might just have 8 second duration left or something, making it a rather pointless heal. Nah, they just need some smart buffs. Here's a bunch of ideas that I think would make them really useful:

• Remove their duration, and let them last for as long as they have health!
• Whenever Rumblers lose health, they drop Rubble. This has a cooldown, affected by Ability Duration (more duration = lesser cooldown. Could work as a formula like this: "True Cooldown = Base Cooldown / (1 + Ability Duration)". That way, no cap is needed, as there is natural diminishing returns in place).
• Every time a Rumbler hits an enemy, Atlas gets +1 to the melee combo counter. This works with their rockthrows as well. Rumblers themselves could benefit from Atlas melee combo counter as well, making them very synergistic brawler-buddies overall.
• Titanic Rumbler augment - Could be fixed in various ways. Apply some or all of these ideas (I'd vote for all of them):
  • Values are now 200/250/300/350% health+damage of a single default Rumbler, making it stronger overall (instead of being a detriment)
  • No speed penalty (this penalty is completely unneeded)
  • All its attacks gain moderate AoE (via simple physical shockwaves), making up for its lack of multi-positioning presence that the default ability has, and would count each enemy hit for the melee combo counter(!)
  • When it dies or is detonated manually, it crumbles into the 2 default Rumblers (which can be detonated as well)

WIth that, who needs the Rumbled augment? Hehe ^_^

13. Visible combo counter - This would be lovely, for sure!

Edited July 25, 2018 by Azamagon

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

I don't like any of these with the exception of the wall.

[.AFK]

On 2018-07-04 at 11:42 AM, ShortCat said:

On 2018-07-04 at 4:32 AM, 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.

ikr, but the passive and the petrify is where it's at

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

His 1 is one of the most op ability in the game.

His 3 can completely shut down any enemy save for a few bosses and his passive insures his survival at any lvl.

His rumblers are rock body guards, like awsome... And his rock wall is great for choke points.

Id rather his rubble decay a bit slower is the only change i would make.

[tripletriple]

Awesome suggestion for a bad warframe. My only thing I'd add is perhaps make the rumblers have more cc and make rubble decay slower.

[lookindown]

All solid changes , im particularly interested in the armor handling/stripping capabilities that you mentioned, his landslide REALLY does struggle late game against bombards and heavy gunners, and eventually normal corrupted units.

[Xemgoa]

@Azamagon Hey! I agree with these changes! I could get behind those!

Also, would Rubble be a better ability if the additional armor didn't deteriorate with time, rather a % of the damage received takes an amount of "rubble" away from Atlas' current rock armor?

[Azamagon]

12 hours ago, Xemgoa said:

@Azamagon Hey! I agree with these changes! I could get behind those!

Also, would Rubble be a better ability if the additional armor didn't deteriorate with time, rather a % of the damage received takes an amount of "rubble" away from Atlas' current rock armor?

Glad you liked the ideas 🙂

As for Rubble, I personally see it mainly more as a very nice self-sustaining healing mechanic, more than anything else. The armor is just icing on the cake for me personally, not something I care too much about having up and running all the time, so I don't mind it too much drainiing over time. If we could run around with 1500 ablative armor basicly all the time, I have a feeling he'd possibly become a tad too ez-mode in regards to tankiness *shrugs*. But what do I know? xD

[(PSN)Sgt_Buttscratch]

The issue I have with Atlas is that his skills all seem very disconnected.

Stonefist - Atlas now has an exalted weapon, his paws. With this comes moddable damage, and a Stance that would allow his attacks to be more fluid, and allow you to personalize how you atack via combo.

Landslide - With stonefist the skill is fixed (just make landslide a toggle ability to activate the combo timer/bonus)

Tectonics- Atlas places a wall and can drain his use his rock armor to strengthen and increase wall size- Atlas must be with 5m of wall to retrigger it. When retrigger Atlas will merge into the rolling boulder, giving full control of it to the player.

Petrify - works as it does right now-but....

Fast cast to petrify enemies within the cone

Long cast for a spin to win 360 no scope petrify

Rumbler- When atlas has over 1500 rock armor he can trigger the Rumbler, A rock mech, Atlas climbs inside and operates this behemoth (3x Atlas' size) with huge mega hulk smash fists, the ability to gain up to 4500 rock armor. and the ability to hurl rocks at the cost of 10 rock armor per throw. Tectonics and long cast petrify are disabled during rumbler  

 

Edited July 25, 2018 by (PS4)covan2306