Quote Originally Posted by Bitter View Post
Okay, so got a bit more time to post and can focus on the Atlas.

So firstly, how to use your strengths. You have great evasion and you have fantastic mobility, both from your high speed and systems which allow additional movement like Jager Kunst I. This should make you very difficult to hit with normal attacks as you should often be able to get soft or hard cover or even block LOS entirely if you want to. Realistically as giant cover grants soft cover when you share a space with an enemy, you should never be ending your turn without at least soft cover. If you use auxiliary weapons for your flex mount then also consider Hunter for the additional mobility.

This ability to move and be in cover is also why I think Infiltrator works very well with Atlas, as well as the whole ninja style shenanigans just working well thematically.

Jager dodge is a great trait that helps give additional endurance to your fairly squishy mech if you do take damage. Have a think when you get hit about whether you’re likely to be hit again this turn and if so if it will be harder than what you’re suffering now. Notably this applies to damage, not any specific form of attack. This means that you can Jäger dodge the heat damage from tech attacks so keep that in mind.

Finishing blow lets you hit people for extra damage when prone. As Atlas has a great weapon (Terashima blade) that is a main, it’s common to go Duellist 3 so you can trigger a free ram with your attack. This can also be combined with synthetic muscle netting and siege ram from the Blackbeard and Tortuga for extra raminess. You don’t have to do that though and like half of the weapons/systems Atlas gets can knock people prone.

Giant killer lets you ignore engagement from other characters, get soft cover from them and still ram and grapple most of them freely.

In terms of mitigating weaknesses, the main thing is that aside from your speed, evasion and mounts your stat line is trash.

You have terrible tech attack and abysmal sensors so just don’t bother to hack, it’s not what you do.

You have terrible heat and weak e-defence so you need to try not to get hit by tech attacks. Partially this can be done tactically (Using infiltrator to hide, then jumping out and assassinating the techiest NPC mech) but you also have options like the Iceout Drone from black witch 2 that provides immunity to tech attacks (but only within a small area).

For a striker mech you also have low HP and no armour. Your evasion won’t always work; sometimes enemies will roll well and some enemies have reliable so they’ll do a few damage even if they miss, which is the kind of thing a Blackbeard with 12 base HP and 1 armour can shrug off but you can’t. You will want to invest a few HASE points in Hull as a priority and if you go down the ISP-N route for LL4-6 for add-ons then consider reinforced frame as a LL6 core bonus. Taking that plus a couple of points in HASE suddenly makes your Atlas twice as durable.

The last Atlas I built but never played was a Jager Kunst 2 focused one, using Spaceborn 3 talent and Kai Bioplating bonus to give me a 2d6 advantage on the contested roll for JK2.

Edit: Oh yeah and another weakness that Iceout drones etc won’t help you with is enemies like Hives with smart attacks. These aren’t tech attacks (so Iceout drone etc won’t work) but they target your e-defence which is terrible rather than your evasion which is great. Another reason why I recommend Infiltrator on Atlas!
What's HASE?