Background: First of all Hello, you can find me on the US Server on my character ''Dps''. I am a veteran player with years worth of experience starting from 2011 and playing regularly until now. I switched to atomic the moment it came out and fell in love with the combo powers and new animations. Once stats revamp and artifacts came, I've noticed just how weak the atomic powerset was compared to other powersets at the highest level of damage output. I have tried many variations but the overall damage is still lackluster. Below i provide some issues I've noticed and some ways to solve these issues. Note: This is intended to address issues on the absolute highest degree of gameplay in end game content. Issues: The main damage side for atomic revolves around the quark-gluon aura and atomic combos. Atomic combos are straight up lackluster and underwhelming compared to other strong might powersets such as Electricity, Nature, Rage, Hard Light, and Munitions. It has an unsually large amount of power consumption for average damage at best. The aura does increase atomic combo damage but not to a noticable degree. Things I Would Like To See: Atomic can be made much better with slight improvements. Allow Beta Surge to hit targets at Max Range Massive damage adjustments to the supercharges Atomic Blast and Radiation Burn Change Atomic Blast to be a 25% supercharge and Radiation Burn to be a 50% supercharge Redesign Unleash Antimatter to do more damage and hit targets at Max Range Remove the current Accelerated Back Mod options to stomic powers that can actually be used in a proper damage loadout (Currently Neutrino Blast and Proton Remedy, Switch to Thermochemical explosion or Beta Surge) Remove the current Restorative Leg Mod options to atomic powers that can actually be used in a proper damage loadout (Currently Electon Flare and Fracture, Switch to Neutron Bomb or Nuclear Blast) Increase damage multiplier for quark-gluon aura to give a bigger incentive for using the aura Allow the first part of an atomic combo to refresh the aura instead of the last part (Due to getting cc'd and dropping the aura especially in late game content) Irradiate and Geiger Beam can be key to allowing Atomic to compete against other strong might powersets on single target (Like Rage, Hard Light, and Celestial) However, the damage numbers are completely lackluster. I would love to see Geiger Beam adjusted to resemble Rage Blast in the Rage powerset. Irradiate can be a perfect single damage dot on bosses to help it compete with the likes of precision. Neither Atom-powered assault, Proton Remedy, or Neutrino Blast provide any dps related buffs other than providing the quark-gluon aura after using an atomic combo. I would love to see each of these powers getting a dps related effect to provide multiplle variation of builds. (Maybe activating the aura witn Proton Remedy gives atomic extra crit chance while activating the aura witn Neutrino Blast gives a single target might tick etc) Atomic is one of the few powers without a reliable damage over time ability (Maybe allow irradiate to activate quark-gluon aura which in turn applies an aoe dot for up to 8 targets) Heavily reduce power cost across the board and increase base damage numbers and scaling entirely Revert the current Geiger Beam to the old Geiger beam (Used to have a small tick followed by a massive mignt tick, this could help with single target damage that Atomic lacks heavily) Conclusion: I do understand Atomic in this current state is viable, however compared to the other might powers there is no argument that Atomic has been left out. With these changes Atomic can once again rise to glory with being an overall strong combo based power that is determined by the skill of the player rather than someone who relies on artifacts. I have been atomic for quite a few years now and I hope one day Atomic can be on top like it used to. Thank you!
If you think atomic is bad, try playing with mental or sorcery. I think one thing you could have added, is make atom splitter a long range attack. Other than that, I'm putting out as much damage as everything but earth and gadgets with atomic, as is.
Thanks for the input, thermochemical explosion actually hits father than Atom Splitter but it is a cone while Atomic Splitter hits in an aoe. I didn't mention much about it because it is mainly a tank ability because the power is slow and has a 3.75 second cooldown which interferes with proper dps clip rotations. Also, getting crowd controlled while casting this ability is very unforgiving so I left it out of the dps section.
While I agree with alot of your points, Atomic is not in as bad of a place as people make it out to be. It's aoe damage is actually pretty good. All it needs is a melee combo and it would be competing with the top end powers. Single target is lack luster but there are several powers with that problem to some extent.
Atomic is my favorite Tank set for managing large amounts of trash or adds. It seems capable of juggling everything indefinitely while regenerating all incoming damage even without a healer. It just seems to suffer against some of the uglier bosses, especially ones with strong combo breakers or cutscenes involved that drop your combo or aura.
Atomic is definitely viable but compared to other might powers it lacks it's true identity. Powers like Rage, Hard Light, and Celestial all have insane single target capabilities while powers like Nature, Electricity, and Earth thrive in an add centric environment. I do understand Atomic isnt the only power on this lower echelon but it has been in this state for quite some time now. At the moment anything Atomic can do, another power can do better.
