Arkena Wyrnspire
Turalyon 514
Turalyon Alliance
4556
   |
Posted - 2013.11.03 11:17:00 -
[1] - Quote
Stack shield extenders, use fitting mods in low slots, shield tankers reign supreme once more.
Honestly, the moment armour is buffed. 
Those heavy extenders are way over the top. Even if they didn't catapult shield tanking back into a place where it's superior, then they would homogenise armour and shield tanking.
Armour does not have much fitting diversity. Yes, there are ferroscale and reactive plates. Who uses those? Do they really do anything much different from normal plates and reps? The only thing an armour tanker can fit in their midslots are damage mods unless they want to dual tank - shield tankers can fit cardiac regulators, kinetic catalyzers, shield regulators, cpu upgrades and pg upgrades as well as being able to dual tank.
I agree that the scaling of shield extenders should be tweaked so the enhanced isn't terrible - but buffs of this magnitude in the form of the new modules? Who would use normal shield extenders ever again?
I know you understand that shield tanks are based on burst tanking - this gives them huge advantages.
Let's look at these numbers objectively. Before we start:
Yes, I know you could use different fittings.
Yes, I know these numbers could be tweaked.
However, they should serve as a rough outline of what this would do, right?
Caldari assault fit:
GEK-38
Submachine Gun
Core Locus Grenade
Complex Heavy Shield Extender
Complex Heavy Shield Extender
Complex Heavy Shield Extender
Complex Damage Modifier
Complex CPU Upgrade
Complex PG Upgrade
Complex Shield Regulator
X-3 Quantum Nanohive
658 shield HP recharging at 31.25 HP/s. No movement speed penalty.
The recharge delay depends on when the penalties are applied by CCP. If they're added together and then applied, then that does a different thing to it instead of say, having the bonuses and then the penalties applied or vice-versa.
Let's just add all the penalties and bonuses together for the sake of simplicity - the number will be similar to the other methods anyway. You end up with a 47.5% penalty, putting the delay at 7.4/11.6 seconds.
Final stats on tank:
658 shield HP.
31.25 HP/s shield recharge.
7.4/11.6 second recharge delay.
5/7.35 m/s movement speed.
Gallente assault:
GEK-38
Submachine Gun
M1 Locus Grenade
Enhanced Light Damage Modifier
Enhanced Light Damage Modifier
Complex Light Damage Modifier
Complex Armour Repairer
Complex Armour Repairer
Enhanced Armour Plates
Enhanced Armour Plates
X-3 Quantum Nanohive
There is a slight damage advantage on the Gallente fit which is balanced out somewhat by the downgraded grenade.
This gets 532 armour and 12.5 HP/s regen, albeit with no delay. The movement speed is 4.64/6.82.
Comparing the two stats:
658 shield HP vs 532 armour HP = Shield wins. High HP is meant to be armour's specialty, incidentally, but here shields win by a huge margin.
31.25 shield HP/s vs 12.5 armour HP/s = Shield wins significantly. This is somewhat balanced by the next point however:
7.4/11.6 shield recharge delay vs no delay = Armour wins.
5/7.35 m/s shield move speed vs 4.64/6.82 armour move speed = Shields win.
That's a pretty big win for the armour in the delay department though, isn't it? So let's look at that a little bit.
Assuming shields are fully depleted, they will have tanked 658 HP damage over the fight. If armour drags on its death for as long as possible, holding on the full 7 seconds where shields would start to recharge (which they do, as fire does not reset the shield delay unless they're recharging, only depletion. Additionally, fights are unlikely to drag on that long) then it would gain 88 HP, so we can effectively add that on to our HP total if fights drag on that long (which is unlikely). So the armour tanker would have tanked 620 HP damage over the extended fight, at best. That renders the under-fire regen effective useless, as it has failed to provide an advantage over shields.
After the shield regen starts to kick in, it beats all the armour regen on either the third or the fifth tick and regens all the HP significantly faster.
That leaves us with shields tanking more HP, moving faster, and recovering faster between fights. Armour does slightly more damage, at the cost of being inferior in almost every other aspect - it can, however, recover at a reasonable rate between fights provided a team-mate sacrifices an equipment slot, fitting resources, and happens to be around with their repair tool.
Now, as I know you'll object along the lines of people not necessarily fitting like that, using those suits, or the numbers being tweaked, but I challenge you to come up with a set of numbers that are balanced or come up with an armour fit that isn't outperformed.
How does this fit into the battle philosophy?
It doesn't, really. Shields outperform armour at buffer tanking as well as regen tanking. It is only possible for armour to do better with a slight damage output advantage or a teamwork advantage, which requires more sacrifices.
Level 4 Forum Warrior
Lenin of the glorious armoured revolution
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Arkena Wyrnspire
Turalyon 514
Turalyon Alliance
4559
|
Posted - 2013.11.03 14:11:00 -
[2] - Quote
Galvan Nized wrote:God I love shield vs armor debates, seriously these are the best threads. But to business.
To the guy above me (won't quote you as your post is large).
Your forgetting that there are other mods out there that you are just casually casting off. Range amplifiers in lows precision enhancers are also high slots, dampeners in the lows. Hacking mods are low. Dear god some of these need to go in high slots. I realize talking pure tank they are of little note, but as are kinetic catalyzers and less so cardiac regulators (speed tanking died with AA and scanners).
This really only leaves PG/CPU upgrades that shields have over armor, but damage mods kind of moot those. Both can dual tank, just means more to shields because shields suck (ehp per tier wise) so armor doesn't even waste a slot on 22 hp. With the OP changes one might consider it.
I agree, I love these threads. 
I am just 'casually casting them off' because they continue the trend of an overwhelming versatility advantage in shields' favour. Sure, talking pure tank they're not particularly noteworthy, but they do offer their own advantages.
There is the shield regulator, though. That offers advantage in terms of pure tank but still occupies a low slot, so that's another thing shields have over armour - the ability to dedicate all of their main slots to shield tanking should they choose to do so.
I think you're underestimating the value of some of these modules. If you put a single complex dampener on, you can evade ADV scanners with med frames. ADV scanners are the most commonly used - this is quite the tactical advantage.
Hacking modules aren't really that useful in most situations but it does give an advantage to shield tanked hacker fits over armour tanked ones.
What I really think you're understimating, though, are the kinetic catalyzers and cardiac regulators. Speed tanking may not be particularly viable in combat, but these modules grant huge advantages in terms of power projection and tactical maneuvering. A cardiac regulator means you can run almost all the way between objectives, bunny-hop like mad in combat, and they help to out-run opponents. Likewise, kinetic catalyzers can allow you to move very quickly. Aim assist or not, it is more difficult to hit a faster moving target - if you are sprinting across open ground between cover this can be very useful, for example, as well as helping your power projection.
The other thing is that apart from kinetic catalyzers, all of these low slot modules are not very fitting intensive. Damage modifiers are some of the hardest to fit modules in the game, which restricts armour fits. That's the reason why I had to use enhanced plates in that fit I theory-crafted with. Additionally, as you noted, there are CPU/PG upgrades.
Quote:
In your Assault comparison of course it's going to favor shields, the Assault suit bonus is shield oriented (needs fixed to like extra ammo or something). Thus the Caldari gets double bonus. Do the same with Logis, scouts, heavies and you will find a very different answer.
Plus you use complex shields vs enhanced plates (this may be for fitting reasons but take out a damage mod if you must.) You simply cast off the fact that an armor tanker is now dealing much more damage.
Even using complex plates assuming you have the extra fitting resources somehow, which themselves come with tradeoffs, the shield tank will still tank more HP.
The armour tanker is not dealing that much more damage. It's about 7%. That really isn't very significant in the face of the huge HP advantage that the shield tanker has in this scenario. Also, if you dropped the damage mods for complex plates not only would it still be fairly significantly outperformed, you would lose the only small advantage you have.
As for suit choice, I will do a comparison between logistics later if you wish. I'm a little pressed for time right now so I can't at the moment, but I will do later.
Quote:
Also while you lump both shields and armor into ehp you do not consider shield regen for the armor tanker. In seems small but is 150 hp (full shield skill) that will start to regenerate faster than a shield tankers shields. So it's not simply a regen rate of +12. Not even including triage hives or rep tools.
That shield regen is insignificant considering it applies to a fifth of your HP, and the delay is not that much shorter than the shield tanker with the heavy extenders.
Quote:
Your math is incorrect. 8 sec Cal depletion regen so 8*(1.25*1.25)=12.5. Meaning from depletion armor gets more advantage than what you post. In 12 seconds the armor tanker has regened 170 hp. All this before the shield guy has even started. To make that up you're talking an extra 15 secs until the shield assault surpasses armor assault ((27*12) + 150 vs 15*31.25). Way longer for Logis. 27 secs is an infinity for shield tankers to catch up, also shield assaults do not get an inherent armor repper so all hp that is damaged from their armor is lost.
Not hardly worth the slight mobility advantage you would have.
You've overlooked the shield regulator which reduces the regen delay.
The maths involved in shield regulators and these penalties here is a bit confusing - I understand your confusion here.
The numbers depend on how the bonuses and penalties are applied. Is it bonuses first, penalties second? Penalties first, bonuses second? Additive before being applied?
It gives a different result in all of those cases. I used additive before being applied for the sake of simplicity.
Additionally, while the armour tanker may be able to claw back some of the HP gap, fights simply don't last that long. Especially with the low mobility the armour tanker will be killed very quickly.
I would look at comparing the regen rates and catch-up points but I'm out of characters. 
Level 4 Forum Warrior
Lenin of the glorious armoured revolution
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