There are some things that I think should change in 1.8

As a Gallente and an armor tanker I am posting as that. Keep in mind I am not asking to fix anything that is a penalty to armor, or to nerf anything. This post is strictly written to separate what is armor and what is shields and how each should play differently. Don't bring up damage modifiers because they are being changed...

1) Gallente should have more armor HP than Caldari have shield HP, that 220 armor HP an assault has does not = 220 shield HP, around 30 more HP. On top of this the Amarr should have more Armor HP than the Gallente, probably 50+.

2) Kill dual tanking, as long as dual tanking exist balancing shields vs armor will always be extremely difficult. And the state in which both exists buffing one is always a buff to the other, mostly Shield suits since they don't suffer much from armor penalties. For example my brother's dual tanked Caldari Assault has 814 THP, 422 shields, 392 armor, 20sHP/s 4/9 and 5 aHP/s. My dual tanked Gallente Assault has 848 THP, 223 shields, 622 armor, 15sHP/s 7/10 and 5 aHP/s. The Caldari suit has a higher EHP value than the Gallente suit. Now if there was no dual tanking, the Cal Assault would have 422 shields and the Gallente would have 622 armor this set up actually bolsters the REAL profile vs shields and armor. Not only that but Shield and Armor scaling breaks after you get into Proto level. At basic level you can see how Armor and shields work in a balanced scenario, at proto level (including proto modules) it just doesn't make sense anymore.

To add a bit more on dual tanking it looks like CCP is trying to stop it, as far as we can see the only suits with an omni defense are the Minmatar suits and the Amarr heavy. Everything else has a specific tanking profile... but there is no mechanic preventing it (see point 5 for one option EVE related)

3) Damage profiles and anti shield weapons... the damage profiles are so out of whack its like a witch hunt against armor suits. We now have 10 weapons made specifically to kill armor, while only 7 kill shields, 5 of these shield killers are in the UP stats. AR, shotgun, and plasma cannon are in the UP status. Ion pistol status is unknown but its range of 20 meters is very lacking, the Scrambler pistol is a novelty and the Laser rifle is just sad. As for armor killers each is working just freaking dandy excluding the Mass driver and flaylock pistol. On top of that armor killing weapons are long range weapons vs a slow suit. That's like shooting at a turtle with a 50 caliber sniper rifle, but saying its fair because the turtle had a shell.

Ranges and profiles

4)

Quote:

When a ship takes damage the damage is first taken by the shields. When shields reach 25% or less, the damage starts leaking into armor. When all shields have been destroyed, damage is taken by the armor. Once the armor is removed, damage is taken by structure until it reaches zero and the ship is destroyed.

Source Shield suits are the best Passive tankers because their high Passive shield HP coupled with the exact same armor repair as any other armor suit gives them the highest overall passive repair.

Not saying anything is OP but there should be a clear cut definition between shield and armor, each should have an equal number of weaknesses and strengths. For example the Gallente and Caldari are mirror images, steroisomers, of each other. As far as I can tell the Gallente are supposed to be the stealth, get in your face (Slowly), high damage class. And the Caldari are long range fighters that are super easy to spot (In EVE shields incur a Sig radius penalty).

Dust 514, Combat Culture Shift this post highlights a lot of the major differences between races in the EVE universe.

Lol wut ?
You ask gallente to have the HUGE hp regen they're going to have AND a damn big armor pool ?

+1

I say give shield extenders and armor plates roughly the same bonus, while increasing the cpu/pg cost for them both and giving a penalty to shield recharge while plates are equipped and armor repair with extenders are equipped.
getting rid of duel tanking slightly

EX:
Basic
-----60 shield----- 5% penalty
------85 armor------ 5% penalty

Enhanced:
-----85 shield----- 8% penalty
-----110 armor----- 8% penalty

Complex
----110 Shield---- 12% penalty
-----135 armor------ 12% penalty

EX:
Minmatar assaults equipped with 5 complex extenders will get 575 more shield hp but with a cost of 60% armor repair rate.

EX:
Gallente assaults equipped with 5 complex plates will get 742.5 more armor hp but with a cost of 60% shield regeneration

I don't like this at all because you're essentially making armor and shield the same thing. A lot of the problems with people trying to shield tank is they are acting like they are armor tanking. Armor tankers are more HP, out in the open and take a beating while dishing out damage, slow regen, while shield tankers are less HP, weaving in and out of cover, hit and run, quickly regenerating. And sure, CCP hasn't done the best job in fostering that mindset with shields, particularly with regulators which are pretty underwhelming.

If they updated shields a bit so that they regened sooner and perhaps faster, then a good shield tanker could have more EHP over the course of a battle than an armor tanker, because while the armor tanker's HP is slowly chipping away, the shield tanker's HP keeps on coming back quickly.

One of the big problems between shields and armor is the fact that there are no external help for shields

A shield tanker is forced to fit their tank to do everything where as armor can get outside help in the form of rep hives and repair tools

this is a team based game and two people working together is better then 2 people working on their own
armor supports teamwork which lets squads fit their suits to work together
an example of this is a heavy with a logi doesn't need to worry about fitting reps as the logi can provide these for him

lack of support puts shields at disadvantage due to the power of friendship