DUST Search - A discussion about shields vs. armor

Berserker007 wrote:

Disturbingly Bored wrote:

Berserker007 wrote:

Overall, in my personal opinion, to make shield be "closer balanced" to armor, shield extenders across the board need to 40-50% hp increase at the proto level and 100-120% increase at basic/advanced levels.

I don't mean this as an attack, but the way the math works is that if you did that, damage mods would be useless on 100% of fits. Any time a shield extender represents more than 12% of your suits total HP, it's better than a damage mod in any conceivable situation. (ED: I should add, except long-range sniping.)

Extenders really cannot be buffed without screwing more things up right now. Armor must be nerfed.

could very well be, wasn't doing pure math there; was just thinking up what may or may not be reasonable/doable . My ideal numbers were something like 50/75/100 , with skilling 55/83.5/110 . This still leaves proto at about 39 hp difference b/t extenders and plates. This could make running 3/4 complex extenders viable, instead of having to gimp yourself at the moment at 2 so you can run 2 damage mods to almost compete w/ armor tankers, yet still be down 100-200 hp.

Granted this may/will all change pending on how damage mods and proficiency skills change. At the moment even w/ the movement penalty and no innate repair that armor has, it still vastly out performs shields. Though in 1.8 I doubt anything will change in this regard until 1.9/2.0 ; and assuming a respect is given (as it is almost required), I feel the majority of players who stay in a assault suit will be going Galente b/c of the benefit of armor versus shield at this point in the game


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 0 post(s)
Gavr1lo Pr1nc1p TRA1LBLAZERS 924	Posted - 2014.02.24 19:56:00 - [1] - Quote step one to fixing the problem- nerf amarr and gallente shield regen and delay by a lot step two buff caldari and minmitar shield recharge and delay by a lot step three add a remote repair module for high slots that increases total armor repair by a percentage step four change the shield and armor hp and fitting stats Kills- Archduke Ferdinand Balance!
Gavr1lo Pr1nc1p TRA1LBLAZERS 924	Posted - 2014.02.24 20:00:00 - [2] - Quote The only real problems are fitting requirements and hp versus level. Right now, armor plates only have to be at ADV and are the best HP bonuser in the game, all things considered. Plates allow for easily stacked damage mods in the highs, as they should (plates=high pg low cpu, damage mods=high cpu low pg). However, shield extenders are only effective at prototype level, as STD and ADV give only 1/3 and 1/2 of the hp respectively. In addition, the fitting requirements on shield extenders are so very high that they are difficult to run much of anything past basic gear on. Extenders are supposed to allow for greater mobility so that they can leverage the suits superior shield regeneration, and thus should be coupled with Pg intensive biotic modules in the low slots. However, the fitting costs on extenders in the Pg department do not allow for this, unlike how armor's low cpu usage allows for damage mod usage. A great easy number tweaking would fix all of the aforementioned problems. EDITS: change speed penalty to 3/4/5 or 2/3/4 for armor plates as well so that proto plates are more attractive for use STD: (85 armor, 3 PG, 10 CPU) vs (44 shields, 2 PG, 15 CPU) ADV: (110 armor, 6 PG, 22 CPU) vs (58 shields, 4 PG, 32 CPU) PRO: (135 armor, 12 PG, 30 CPU) vs (72 shields, 7 PG, 55 CPU) What buffing shield extenders does: -Gives weapons like the AR and ScR and LR more of a niche, as more people will shield tank, against whom these weapons will shine -Makes weapons like the CR and RR less overpowering when compared to other rifles -Buffs suits like minmitar frames which currently suffer from a lack of viability in comparison to gallente or other frames -Encourages higher levels of biotic module usage in low slots for stealth and speed tanking -Enocurages the use of shield regulators over the use of armor plates, thereby decreasing dual tanking Kills- Archduke Ferdinand Balance!
Gavr1lo Pr1nc1p TRA1LBLAZERS 924	Posted - 2014.02.24 20:01:00 - [3] - Quote also, shield recharge should increase as shield health goes up, but delay penalties should stay so that there is reasons to use regulators rather than dual tanking Kills- Archduke Ferdinand Balance!
Gavr1lo Pr1nc1p TRA1LBLAZERS 927	Posted - 2014.02.24 21:15:00 - [4] - Quote Berserker007 wrote: Disturbingly Bored wrote: Berserker007 wrote: Overall, in my personal opinion, to make shield be "closer balanced" to armor, shield extenders across the board need to 40-50% hp increase at the proto level and 100-120% increase at basic/advanced levels. I don't mean this as an attack, but the way the math works is that if you did that, damage mods would be useless on 100% of fits. Any time a shield extender represents more than 12% of your suits total HP, it's better than a damage mod in any conceivable situation. (ED: I should add, except long-range sniping.) Extenders really cannot be buffed without screwing more things up right now. Armor must be nerfed. could very well be, wasn't doing pure math there; was just thinking up what may or may not be reasonable/doable . My ideal numbers were something like 50/75/100 , with skilling 55/83.5/110 . This still leaves proto at about 39 hp difference b/t extenders and plates. This could make running 3/4 complex extenders viable, instead of having to gimp yourself at the moment at 2 so you can run 2 damage mods to almost compete w/ armor tankers, yet still be down 100-200 hp. Granted this may/will all change pending on how damage mods and proficiency skills change. At the moment even w/ the movement penalty and no innate repair that armor has, it still vastly out performs shields. Though in 1.8 I doubt anything will change in this regard until 1.9/2.0 ; and assuming a respect is given (as it is almost required), I feel the majority of players who stay in a assault suit will be going Galente b/c of the benefit of armor versus shield at this point in the game i disagree solely because this makes extenders like light plates. Personally, they need a buff, but i was thinking about a multiplier to recharge rate based on how much shields you have relative to your base shield HP, as well as buffing cal and min shield recharge/delay values and lowering extenders fitting costs and scaling the extenders better than they are now Kills- Archduke Ferdinand Balance!
Gavr1lo Pr1nc1p TRA1LBLAZERS 930	Posted - 2014.02.24 21:54:00 - [5] - Quote fix the disparity and it will fix several other balancing problems as well Kills- Archduke Ferdinand Balance!
Gavr1lo Pr1nc1p TRA1LBLAZERS 1026	Posted - 2014.03.03 03:20:00 - [6] - Quote One of the main problems with drop suits builds is the disparity between the two different types of suit, armor or shield. Currently, an armor suit has the most HP, better capabilities for teamwork and more equipment support. This is as it should be. Shield modules, however are not performing up to level that armor plates are performing at, for a few reasons. 1. Armor plates allow the stacking of ADV plates for nearly the same effectiveness as PRO plates, and with less penalties 2. This leads to an indirect problem with damage mods, which are now incredibly easy to fit on the suit, and work very well with armor plates. 3. Shield regeneration is currently far too low to outweigh the benefits of increased health and instant, but slow recharge that armor plates offer. 4. At STD and ADV, shield extenders are useless. If you scaled ADV and STD plates to how shields are scaled, they would have 68 and 45 hp respectively. A proposed fix for this would be to change the stats of the modules to the following-- STD: (85 armor, 3 PG, 10 CPU) vs (44 shields, 2 PG, 15 CPU) ADV: (110 armor, 6 PG, 22 CPU) vs (58 shields, 4 PG, 32 CPU) PRO: (135 armor, 12 PG, 30 CPU) vs (72 shields, 7 PG, 55 CPU) Armor plates should have low CPU costs, but high PG costs, which they do, because they are meant to be used in conjunction with damage mods to make a powerful brawler. In addition, Amarr and Gallente suits have high PG, but relatively low CPU, so it fits well with their racial fittings Shield extenders, on the other hand, should have low PG costs, but high CPU costs, because they are meant for being used in conjunction with biotics or other PG intensive low slot items. Currently, at proto level, shield extenders cost only 1 less PG than armor plates, but cost 24 CPU more. In addition, Minmitar and Caldari suits low PG, but relatively high CPU, so it fits well with their racial fittings. In addition to the proposed buffs to shield extenders, Minmitar and Caldari suits, the shield tankers of this game, need a much lower recharge delay and much higher recharge rate to take advantage of superior regenerative capabilities, and Amarr and Gallente suits need a 50% nerf to shield recharge/delay/depleted delay values. 1.8 should bring the Caldari in line, but Minmitar suits should have 10-15% higher regen of shields than caldari to complement their hit and run combat philosophy, so give minmitar suits Caldari suit values for shield recharging*1.1-1.15 This way, armor plates will continue to have superior HP bonuses and allow for damage mod stacking, but shield modules will be able to leverage their superior regeneration. Armor plates also need a change in how they function. The penalties for movement speed for all plates are ill conceived, in my opinion, and is part of the reason no one uses anything past ADV plates due to much larger penalties for a slight amount of HP more. A solution for this would be to make the penalty constant across all tiers, possibly a 3-4% penalty for all non variant plates Variant Plates are currently underperforming and are in need of a buff. ferroscales need a slight buff hp wise (5% ish), but should also have VERY low fitting costs. Reactive plates should have a lower speed penalty than other plates (1-2%), and have 1/2/3 hp/s respectively for each tier. Also, they are in need of a lower fitting cost by a large amount, but still higher than ferroscales. Another interesting idea to implement for gallente armor tankers especially would be an addition of a new module, one that boosts total armor repair by a certain percentage, and could be placed in the high slots These would take into account the total armor repair per second on the suit and boost it by a percentage, probably 15% at proto level, 10% at ADV, and 8% at STD. With the addition of these modules, armor plates themselves should suffer from a static 1 second penalty to armor repair delay per plate, with ferroscales not giving this penalty, and reacitves giving only .5 seconds, in order to balance repair of armor and shields. Kills- Archduke Ferdinand Balance!