DUST Search - A discussion about shields vs. armor

Komodo Jones wrote:

I guess that makes sense, I'd have about the same health if I had a bunch of extenders on, it would be great not to be hunted down 24/7

I know scanners and weapons are getting fixed but I heard nothing about damage mods, no info passed "getting looked at"? I mean that's good enough for me but if they have a plan they let us in on that would be great, haven't seen a dev blog since january.

Komodo Jones wrote:

Arkena Wyrnspire wrote:

That's partially it. Higher grade weaponry takes up more PG, stacking defensive modules will take up a lot of PG. Utility modules take up a lot of CPU.

Utility modules are a lot more important in EVE. Stasis webifiers, propulsion mods, tracking computers, etc give much more variety to armour utility slots. In Dust, it's just damage mods or dual tanking, really. Myofibril stimulants are a stupid proposition and precision enhancers are only useful in some niche fits and sometimes will have very little or no effect.
Damage mods are in the lows in EVE, and many view that as a justification to move them but if you do, there's essentially no viable option for high slots except to shield tank, and honestly if that's the case I'd much rather go pure shield and enjoy the huge variety of useful modules in the low slots.

So let's get some armor mods in the high slots lol. You're right that the main problem is still defense or damage and that I think comes from the fact that there's just no use for other modules, and I mean that literally, there is just nothing else to do in this game but war and when you go to war you bring things that keep you alive and things that make other things go boom. We can't go mine asteroids or direct the troops or team's defenses, this is self evident from the fact that there is no current suit that has the title "non-combat". Therefore there is no such thing as fight or flight, you can temporarily run away from a hairy situation sure but the simple fact is if you want to make any progress you HAVE to fight at some point, you have to get back in the battle, can't just leave the area and the war behind.

If I were going out to scavenge materials I would definitely pack scanner modules and speed mods, I'm not equipped to handle a fight at that point so I gotta bail but there's nothing to do except be a part of that fight


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Arkena Wyrnspire Fatal Absolution 10007	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:07:00 - [1] - Quote If the TTK wasn't so short, I think that shields would be fine. The problem at the moment with stacking armour (and indeed, both armour + shields at once) comes more from the way that it's really the only way to survive under a decent amount of fire for some time. If shields could live long enough to leverage their advantages (better speed + regen) then they'd be in a happier place. I would question what you're doing with shields presently though. They don't stand up to fire particularly well, but consider how effective dampening is right now. I'm having fantastic success with a triple complex shield extender dual damp Amarr assault presently simply because of how excellent the options that low slots offer are. There are definitely a few stupid things though. Low tier shield extenders giving barely any HP is stupid - the lower tier shield extenders should be buffed. One problem is that it's easier to fit armour than it is shields because you can efficiently stack basic plates for little cost - shields do not have that option. The lack of team support options is also silly. I've always liked the idea of a rep tool that jump starts shield regen (not an active thing, but like a spark to start it off). Forum Master I Lenin of the glorious armoured revolution MAG Raven
Arkena Wyrnspire Fatal Absolution 10009	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:18:00 - [2] - Quote Komodo Jones wrote: Does EVE have mid slots? because that would make alot of sense, if you have the choice between a passive shield range amplifier and an armor plate, armor plates get chosen every time; if we changed the amount of high and low slots the suits had and then gave them mid slots to shove scanner mods and biotics in that would make things a bit more interesting. EVE employs more elegant solutions - for a number of reasons, it's often more desirable to go for the utility module after you've gotten some tank on, and you can't stack similar modules (like tank, or indeed utility) fully because they take up differing amounts of PG/CPU. ATM in Dust PG/CPU aren't differentiated that much. Forum Master I Lenin of the glorious armoured revolution MAG Raven
Arkena Wyrnspire Fatal Absolution 10009	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:39:00 - [3] - Quote Komodo Jones wrote: Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: If the TTK wasn't so short, I think that shields would be fine. The problem at the moment with stacking armour (and indeed, both armour + shields at once) comes more from the way that it's really the only way to survive under a decent amount of fire for some time. If shields could live long enough to leverage their advantages (better speed + regen) then they'd be in a happier place. I would question what you're doing with shields presently though. They don't stand up to fire particularly well, but consider how effective dampening is right now. I'm having fantastic success with a triple complex shield extender dual damp Amarr assault presently simply because of how excellent the options that low slots offer are. There are definitely a few stupid things though. Low tier shield extenders giving barely any HP is stupid - the lower tier shield extenders should be buffed. One problem is that it's easier to fit armour than it is shields because you can efficiently stack basic plates for little cost - shields do not have that option. The lack of team support options is also silly. I've always liked the idea of a rep tool that jump starts shield regen (not an active thing, but like a spark to start it off). I feel like TTK being short is a side effect of multiple different problems, aim assist, damage mods, scanners, incredibly high powered weapons, only 2 of which are being fixed and one of those we have no info on. So if you put on a basic shield extender would that give you the same regen penalty as a complex one? Or do complex extenders affect the recharge delay even more? The dampening effect is interesting, I use gallente so there wasn't much of an option for shields for me but I can see how it would be useful to evade scanners that cover the entire map, luckily though scanners will become alot less powerful in 1.8. I think complex extenders affect it more, but I'm not completely certain on that because I rarely notice the different in recharge delays. Because it's only depleted, an unencumbered assault can often get out of the way of incoming fire quickly enough to avoid complete shield depletion. By doing that, and not going charging in, you can eke out a lot more juice from your shields. It's a nice little thing you can do, though I find the idea of a recharge delay penalty dubious. As for your problems, scanners, high powered weapons, and damage mods are all being fixed. Two of which we have no info on, but damage mods are being looked at and we already know about scanners and some weapon nerfs. By the way, even if you're Gallente (this is going to sound mad) but if you want to try dampening there's no reason you can't shield tank it. I used a similar fit on a Gallente suit for some time with dual dampeners. It works much better with the assault thanks to the shield recharge bonus, which is useful for these things even if it is a stupid bonus. Just be a little more careful getting out of fire, that's all. You might find the extra speed liberating - I know I did, coming from heavily plated suits. Forum Master I Lenin of the glorious armoured revolution MAG Raven
Arkena Wyrnspire Fatal Absolution 10009	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:45:00 - [4] - Quote Komodo Jones wrote: Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: Komodo Jones wrote: Does EVE have mid slots? because that would make alot of sense, if you have the choice between a passive shield range amplifier and an armor plate, armor plates get chosen every time; if we changed the amount of high and low slots the suits had and then gave them mid slots to shove scanner mods and biotics in that would make things a bit more interesting. EVE employs more elegant solutions - for a number of reasons, it's often more desirable to go for the utility module after you've gotten some tank on, and you can't stack similar modules (like tank, or indeed utility) fully because they take up differing amounts of PG/CPU. ATM in Dust PG/CPU aren't differentiated that much. So is it something like defensive modules take up a large amount of PG (arbitrarily chosen) where offensive modules take up more CPU? Or just that stacking defense just stops becoming possible at some point because of the amount of PG and CPU we have? I've always liked the idea of giving us more modules slots just so we could have a bit more flexibility but the problem is if you throw in more mod slots people are going to stack on more defense, there's not really a limit to tanking, would make sense for a mid slot of just an exponential or prohibitive cost of stacking defensive or offensive modules. That's partially it. Higher grade weaponry takes up more PG, stacking defensive modules will take up a lot of PG. Utility modules take up a lot of CPU. Utility modules are a lot more important in EVE. Stasis webifiers, propulsion mods, tracking computers, etc give much more variety to armour utility slots. In Dust, it's just damage mods or dual tanking, really. Myofibril stimulants are a stupid proposition and precision enhancers are only useful in some niche fits and sometimes will have very little or no effect. Damage mods are in the lows in EVE, and many view that as a justification to move them but if you do, there's essentially no viable option for high slots except to shield tank, and honestly if that's the case I'd much rather go pure shield and enjoy the huge variety of useful modules in the low slots. Forum Master I Lenin of the glorious armoured revolution MAG Raven
Arkena Wyrnspire Fatal Absolution 10020	Posted - 2014.02.24 20:23:00 - [5] - Quote Komodo Jones wrote: I guess that makes sense, I'd have about the same health if I had a bunch of extenders on, it would be great not to be hunted down 24/7 I know scanners and weapons are getting fixed but I heard nothing about damage mods, no info passed "getting looked at"? I mean that's good enough for me but if they have a plan they let us in on that would be great, haven't seen a dev blog since january. There was a comment on reducing the efficacy of damage mods (or possibly making them only affect the weapon's affinity, possibly like the new proficiency skill). I don't have the link on me ATM, but if I come across it I'll link it here. Komodo Jones wrote: Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: That's partially it. Higher grade weaponry takes up more PG, stacking defensive modules will take up a lot of PG. Utility modules take up a lot of CPU. Utility modules are a lot more important in EVE. Stasis webifiers, propulsion mods, tracking computers, etc give much more variety to armour utility slots. In Dust, it's just damage mods or dual tanking, really. Myofibril stimulants are a stupid proposition and precision enhancers are only useful in some niche fits and sometimes will have very little or no effect. Damage mods are in the lows in EVE, and many view that as a justification to move them but if you do, there's essentially no viable option for high slots except to shield tank, and honestly if that's the case I'd much rather go pure shield and enjoy the huge variety of useful modules in the low slots. So let's get some armor mods in the high slots lol. You're right that the main problem is still defense or damage and that I think comes from the fact that there's just no use for other modules, and I mean that literally, there is just nothing else to do in this game but war and when you go to war you bring things that keep you alive and things that make other things go boom. We can't go mine asteroids or direct the troops or team's defenses, this is self evident from the fact that there is no current suit that has the title "non-combat". Therefore there is no such thing as fight or flight, you can temporarily run away from a hairy situation sure but the simple fact is if you want to make any progress you HAVE to fight at some point, you have to get back in the battle, can't just leave the area and the war behind. If I were going out to scavenge materials I would definitely pack scanner modules and speed mods, I'm not equipped to handle a fight at that point so I gotta bail but there's nothing to do except be a part of that fight I think utility modules are underestimated. The fitting requirements for kincats are absurd but cardiac regs are surprisingly useful. Fitting one, I barely ever run out of stamina. By extension, I think you're underestimating what you can do with these. Think tactically, rather than up-front. You are correct in saying that you have to fight. But do you have to fight head on? To me, this is the crux of the matter and the role definition is important. People say that shields are for 'hit and run', but I'm not sure that quite encompasses it. High mobility, the ability to evade scans, better passive scans, and the ability to get back into the fight quicker unaided are all useful things. These things give you exactly what you need to move positions fluidly, hold range, skirmish, flank, keep at range, etc. Conversely, armour is for high buffer and the damage to crush people in head on fights. To counteract that, though, they're slow and have little utility (with the notable exception of the logistics class, which is a problem in its own right). You might not see these utility modules as useful in straight combat, and some of them need love (I've mentioned the high PG usage for kincats) but the tactical usage is amazing. With shields, you can't take on armour tanking enemies head on in a single engagement. You can take them 1v1 head on if you take a moment to recharge, but straight up charging them doesn't work. That's by design, really. However, as a shield tanker, you can fit to see people on your scanner passively while they can't see you even with an active scanner. That immediately gives you a significant advantage. So I really do find your suggestion that the only way to fight is head on, and the only way to do things is through defense and damage. Sure, in a head on fight, perhaps they are. I have a question for you, though: Why fight head on all the time? There's a massive potential for utility modules without fighting head on. It's a fun playstyle and it can be extremely effective, especially against people who believe that damage and defence are the only way. I don't think that you can simply switch damage mods to low slots, chuck a couple of armour modules in the high slots and call it quits. What armour modules are you suggesting? Do they augment the role's strengths, or cover its weaknesses? If it's the latter, I don't think it's a good solution because it leads to homogenisation of the roles. I love the design of shields exactly because it's focused towards doing what it does best and not covering its weaknesses. There's certainly work to be done on them - basic and enhanced shields scale terribly, and team support is lacking - but I don't think it's quite as bad as most people whining on the forums about it. It's all about role definition. What do you want to do? Neither tank should be able to do everything, nor can they. Forum Master I Lenin of the glorious armoured revolution MAG Raven
Arkena Wyrnspire Fatal Absolution 10042	Posted - 2014.02.25 00:10:00 - [6] - Quote Jackof All-Trades wrote: I'm Gallente, and to be honest I shield tank more than I armour tank Someone else who does things like me! Do you scout or anything? You have long since made your choice. What you make now is a mistake.