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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2643
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Posted - 2014.04.27 14:19:00 -
[1] - Quote
As we are all aware there is currently a disparity between shields and armour. The lack of shield EHP allows a positives to be outclassed by the majority of armour based fits. Below is my solution to the problem.
1) Shield to Armour Ratio
Currently the Shield to Armour ratio is too high and varies dramatically between tiers. A proto Armour plate is worth 2 proto extenders, while a std plate is worth 8 std extenders. This COMPLETLY invalidates the use of a Shield Buffer resulting in most shield tankers being killed befpre they are aware they are being shot.
The ratio needs to be adjusted to 3 Extenders per 2 Plates, at all levels. This equates to about 55 at Std, 77 at Adv, 99 at Pro, with shields just about edging forwards by about 10-15 EHP. This means that for a Shield Tanker to reach Armour tanker levels he must sacrifice a lot of his high slot modules, yet the shield tanker can never reach the same ceiling. However in order to maintain balance the penalty to Shields would also be increased, with a Std Extender giving a 5% penalty to recharge delay and a 10% penalty to depleted recharge delay. While proto gives 10% recharge delay and 20% depleted. This forces the Shield Tanker to decide between a moderate tank, with limited repping due to the large delay, or a lower tank without the reppi ng loss.
2) Armour Hybrid Modulesa d Armour Reppers.
Currently Hybrid modules are widely unused by the community, with ferroscales not being worth enough EHP for the penalty reduction and Reactives not being worth at least a decent percentage of its component parts.
In addition to this the power of plates currently out perform the usefulness of reppers for the majority of players, with many only ever equipping 1 to their suit, as a just incase measure. Firstly Armour Reppers need a buff slightly, with 4/6/8 at their respective levels, as such a gallante sentinel can achieve 50HP/s at full buffer tank, enough to seriously rival a brick tanker. However this still does not compare to a shield tanker unless of course he's EHP tanking.
Next Hybrid modules, once again the magic ratio being 3:2 as such, ferroscales and Reactives should mirror shield extender EHP values at 55/77/99 while Reactives then provide 3/4/6 HP/s at 2/3/5% Movement penalty and 3/5/7% Sprint penalty. This also means the Armour Plate penalty will be changed to 3/5/7% Movement and 5/7/10% Sprint Penalty.
3) Shield Rechargers, Energizers and Regulators.
With Shield Extenders giving such high penalties to Shield Delay it is likely they will come into use more, however this doesn't stop them from needing a buff. But not just a straight stat buff. Instead provide different Regulators that effect Depleted/Non-Depleted delays differently. So the Current Regulator gives 10/20/30% reduction to both delay times equally,(pro buffed by 5%) but you can also get a redundant generation regulator that gives 5/10/15% to normal delay and 15/30/45% to depleted, or an emergency shielding regulator that swaps those values around. However at no point can depleted delay be better or equal to standard delay.
As for energizers and rechargers, buff rechargers slightly, an extra 5% at Pro level again and up energizers to 40/60/80 with 5/7/10% Shield HP reduction (including tank modules) this makes shield buffer tanking viable, but also very high risk.
4) Shield Hybrid Modules
Finally Shield Tankers should also have the option to have hybrid modules that either provide no penalty or provide a slight boon rep rate. Once again the magic ratio is 3:2, with hybrid extenders coming in at 36/51/66 EHP and hybrid Extender/Reppers providing 7/12/15% recharge buffs.
Hopefully done like this, Tanking will become more diverse and not just between Shields and Armour, but within different styles of shields and anrmour as well.
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2645
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Posted - 2014.04.27 20:05:00 -
[2] - Quote
RINON114 wrote:It sounds like a good idea, assuming that there is a problem in the first place.
- Armour has a much higher HP pool than shields.
- Shields regen MUCH faster.
If you want we can give shield extenders and armour plates exactly the same HP but give all suits a ~20hp/s armour regen rate.
Oh wait no, that would make the game boring.
Edit: Although I do agree that shield's do need to scale properly, ie: 22, 44, 66.
35 HP/s on a Gallante Sentinel is hardly laughable.
The HP pool is far too much by comparison 1900 on a gallante sentinel vs Caldari Sentinel at just 900.
There is a shield Armour imbalance that can not be denyed and it more than just bad scaling on extenders.
If you do the maths on my solution
Buffer tanks are viable
Armour tankers have the highest ceiling of EHP
Shield tankers are capable of reaching enough EHP to sustain a decent amount of damage.
Buffer Shielders are capable of outstripping armour buffers, but armour buffers willmstill be a force to reckoned with.
Brick tanking carries too much of a penalty, while dual-tanking is still possible.
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2647
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Posted - 2014.04.27 21:18:00 -
[3] - Quote
Artemis Kaiba wrote:Learn how to shield tank. Period.
Please don't try insulting people, you do not know my preferred tank or my skill with said tank.
Their is an imbalance, this cannot be denied, look at the simple maths, the positives of Shield Tanking are heavily outweighed by the complete lack of EHP, the difference between tank types should not be TWICE at proto level. It should be 3:2.
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2696
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Posted - 2014.04.29 13:29:00 -
[4] - Quote
BL4CKST4R wrote:Massively reduce the amount of HP shields regeneration and massively reduce the speed penalty of armor. If this is what you want...
Shields: 50%lower HP for 2x-4x Higher repair and ~20-30% high mobility
Armor: HIGH HP for low repair and low mobility
You propose this:
Shields: 1/3 lower HP double-4x higher repair and ~20-30% higher mobility
Your change to repairers and plates also mean that a armor suit with two plates and two repairers even 3 plates and 1 repairer will always have lower HP AND lower repair than a shield suit and with the horribly increase movement penalties armor will also be slower, squishier and slower to rep.
Your proposal is highly imbalanced and favor shields to be the dominant tank type. The only problem with armor is bad scaling favoring lower tier armor, while shields favor higher tier shield extenders. Although you try to fix the delay by increasing the penalties this adds up to around 30% higher delay and 50% higher depleted which is miniscule in most scenarios, specially when you get a 30% higher buffer to go along with it the loss in repair is negligible at most.
Leave armor and shield as it is and fix the scaling, do not buff complex shield or complex armor plates the scaling should scale down not up.
Fair Point,
However the shields repair rate only kick in after delay, a rather long one I might add. This favours armour much more than shields ever will, after all a shielded user can only rep between engagments, their are very few opportunities to rep mid-engagement.
Because of this in any 1v1 scenario an armour tanker with small repair rates will outclass a rep based shield tanker, I mean unless your happy with the Caldari RR being able to severly outclass the AR even at shprt range, since the RR compensates (very well) for the caldari weakpoints.
Or would you rather have both tank types popular and balanced? At proto 2x the EHP of an extender per plate is lot, yet by adjuting to 1.5x Armour tankers still come out on top, with a shield tanker severly gimped to reach equivalent levels. Also the 30% higher delay is a VERY long time, consodering most engagements last just a couple of seconds a shield buffer tanking will likely never rep.
Im aware it could probably do with some tweaking, if you would like to propose slight changes, such as moving a regulators to high, or reppers to high, I would be all ears.
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2696
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Posted - 2014.04.29 17:37:00 -
[5] - Quote
Korvin Lomont wrote:Monkey MAC wrote:RINON114 wrote:It sounds like a good idea, assuming that there is a problem in the first place.
- Armour has a much higher HP pool than shields.
- Shields regen MUCH faster.
If you want we can give shield extenders and armour plates exactly the same HP but give all suits a ~20hp/s armour regen rate.
Oh wait no, that would make the game boring.
Edit: Although I do agree that shield's do need to scale properly, ie: 22, 44, 66. 35 HP/s on a Gallante Sentinel is hardly laughable. The HP pool is far too much by comparison 1900 on a gallante sentinel vs Caldari Sentinel at just 900. There is a shield Armour imbalance that can not be denyed and it more than just bad scaling on extenders. If you do the maths on my solution Buffer tanks are viable Armour tankers have the highest ceiling of EHP Shield tankers are capable of reaching enough EHP to sustain a decent amount of damage. Buffer Shielders are capable of outstripping armour buffers, but armour buffers willmstill be a force to reckoned with. Brick tanking carries too much of a penalty, while dual-tanking is still possible. Don't forget the penalties you make it sound like HP is the only thing that matter but it is not. Sure Armor has higher HP but that come sat the cost of NO passive repair and a quite noticeable penalty to: Jump height, movement speed, sprinting speed (most probably doubled) and Strafing speed (most probably doubled) Where as Shields have a barely noticeable penalty to only ONE stat shield depleted delay. To make things a bit worse the better your initial stat the less you suffer from the penalty whereas as armor tanker the better your base stat the more you suffer from the penalty. Shield aren't meant to tank huge amount of damage they are meant as small buffer without speed penalty for hit and run tactics...strike fast retreat and recover. Whereas armor is there to take the punch but rely on vast amounts of time or team support to recover. I do agree to a small buff of basic and adv extenders to maybe 33,44,66 or 22,44,66 but that should be enough to buff shields.
The delay is not 'barely noticeable' even the current shield penalty does more damage to shield user than you probably understand. You say repping is a shields greatest positive yet you then say the penalty to this posotive is neligible, is that not hypocritical?
By comparison Armour provides a miniscule penalty in engagements since if your ability to track your target is not marred nor is your ability to rep.
In short armour penalties do not penalise you from applying damge from, or taking damage from your target.
The only time an Armour tanker is at a disadvantage due to his penalty is when he is fleeing. Armour tankers have the ability to not only sponge significantly more damage, but to deal considerably more damage than a shield counterpart, something many armour tankers seem to forget.
It is with this in mind why a Shield Tanker should be able to absorb a 'decent' amount before retreat.
You also fail to consider that with armour repair is constant, which when paired with armour traits becomes just another feather in its cap.
Armour positives
Large HP pool
Damage Mod buffs DPS
Repper debuffs enemy DPS
Repper has no delay
Shield Positives
Large Regen (outside of combat)
Moves faster (more useful outside of combat)
Armour negatives
Moves Slower
Shield Negatives
No regen in combat
Low HP pool
debuffed by enemy with damage mod
can you not see the unbalance in this?
Don't believe me? Run a pure armour tank gallante (2 plates 2 reppers, 2 dmg mods) against a pure shield tanked caldari (2 extenders, 2 rechargers, 1kincat, 1card reg)
Run the stats beside each other, running the same weapons.
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2698
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Posted - 2014.04.29 22:25:00 -
[6] - Quote
Vespasian Andendare wrote:Monkey MAC wrote:Artemis Kaiba wrote:Learn how to shield tank. Period. Please don't try insulting people, you do not know my preferred tank or my skill with said tank. Their is an imbalance, this cannot be denied, look at the simple maths, the positives of Shield Tanking are heavily outweighed by the complete lack of EHP, the difference between tank types should not be TWICE at proto level. It should be 3:2. Shield tankers aren't brawlers. They're not meant to have high hp and go toe-to-toe with an armor suit. If you'd compare the shield stats that matter--namely downtime and regen rates--you'd see that they're designed to be quickly depleted and regenerate quickly. That style of regen is not conducive to brawling. You have to (optimally) hit from farther away--having the effect of increasing your survivability against +shield damage bonused weapons, that typically have a shorter optimal range--and in quick hit-and-run tactics. You hit some, your shields fall, duck behind cover, regen, and start again. Armor is designed to provide a large buffer but very slow regen. So, if you're smart with your shield suit, you can whittle them down over time. Based on arguments you've made in this thread, though, it seems like you are wanting a shield buffer that'd match an armor buffer, which really doesn't make sense, given the "whole picture" view of shield vs armor tanking.
Now you see that is a problem though isn't it, if caldari aren't designed for 'brawling' how exactly are they meant to assault a complex, or what about minmatar the hit and run specialists? How are they supposed to survive long enough to hack a point. Look at each point individually.
Repping
Slow but Constant vs Fast but Bursted = Balanced
Penalties
Speed penalty vs Rep penalty = Balanced
Support modules
Damage Mod vs Regulator = Balanced
HP
High vs Low = er?
It would make sense if shield reppeing was grossly better than armour, which it isn't.
So instead you've effectively got 2 suits who can't actually get involved in the action because they can only sustain 6 shots before needing to spend 5 seconds out of action to rep.
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2698
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Posted - 2014.04.29 22:38:00 -
[7] - Quote
BL4CKST4R wrote:Monkey MAC wrote:Korvin Lomont wrote:Monkey MAC wrote:RINON114 wrote:It sounds like a good idea, assuming that there is a problem in the first place.
- Armour has a much higher HP pool than shields.
- Shields regen MUCH faster.
If you want we can give shield extenders and armour plates exactly the same HP but give all suits a ~20hp/s armour regen rate.
Oh wait no, that would make the game boring.
Edit: Although I do agree that shield's do need to scale properly, ie: 22, 44, 66. 35 HP/s on a Gallante Sentinel is hardly laughable. The HP pool is far too much by comparison 1900 on a gallante sentinel vs Caldari Sentinel at just 900. There is a shield Armour imbalance that can not be denyed and it more than just bad scaling on extenders. If you do the maths on my solution Buffer tanks are viable Armour tankers have the highest ceiling of EHP Shield tankers are capable of reaching enough EHP to sustain a decent amount of damage. Buffer Shielders are capable of outstripping armour buffers, but armour buffers willmstill be a force to reckoned with. Brick tanking carries too much of a penalty, while dual-tanking is still possible. Don't forget the penalties you make it sound like HP is the only thing that matter but it is not. Sure Armor has higher HP but that come sat the cost of NO passive repair and a quite noticeable penalty to: Jump height, movement speed, sprinting speed (most probably doubled) and Strafing speed (most probably doubled) Where as Shields have a barely noticeable penalty to only ONE stat shield depleted delay. To make things a bit worse the better your initial stat the less you suffer from the penalty whereas as armor tanker the better your base stat the more you suffer from the penalty. Shield aren't meant to tank huge amount of damage they are meant as small buffer without speed penalty for hit and run tactics...strike fast retreat and recover. Whereas armor is there to take the punch but rely on vast amounts of time or team support to recover. I do agree to a small buff of basic and adv extenders to maybe 33,44,66 or 22,44,66 but that should be enough to buff shields. The delay is not 'barely noticeable' even the current shield penalty does more damage to shield user than you probably understand. You say repping is a shields greatest positive yet you then say the penalty to this posotive is neligible, is that not hypocritical? By comparison Armour provides a miniscule penalty in engagements since if your ability to track your target is not marred nor is your ability to rep. In short armour penalties do not penalise you from applying damge from, or taking damage from your target. The only time an Armour tanker is at a disadvantage due to his penalty is when he is fleeing. Armour tankers have the ability to not only sponge significantly more damage, but to deal considerably more damage than a shield counterpart, something many armour tankers seem to forget. It is with this in mind why a Shield Tanker should be able to absorb a 'decent' amount before retreat. You also fail to consider that with armour repair is constant, which when paired with armour traits becomes just another feather in its cap. Armour positives Large HP pool Damage Mod buffs DPS Repper debuffs enemy DPS Repper has no delay Shield Positives Large Regen (outside of combat) Moves faster (more useful outside of combat) Armour negatives Moves Slower Shield Negatives No regen in combat Low HP pool debuffed by enemy with damage mod can you not see the unbalance in this? Don't believe me? Run a pure armour tank gallante (2 plates 2 reppers, 2 dmg mods) against a pure shield tanked caldari (2 extenders, 2 rechargers, 1kincat, 1card reg) Run the stats beside each other, running the same weapons. Armour positives Large HP pool Damage Mod buffs DPS Repper debuffs enemy DPS (not a positive damage reduction is just barely 3% at the cost of a lot of HP - its alot when your both doing similar DPS) Repper has no delay Shield Positives Large Regen (outside of combat) Moves faster (more useful outside of combat) strafing? - what you can't hit a moving a target? High uptime 20-30 seconds to get tank back - 20secs to get full tank is terrilble, a single rephive outclasses this Most popular weapons kill armor - this is down to popularity and changes ofte , this is void low slot modules with a wide variety of options including armor - yet you don't say the same positive about armour, voided can counter penalty with a low slot module Armour negatives Moves Slower no passive regeneration Lower regeneration ceiling - constant reps actually match up RPS wise Most popular weapons kill armor - this is down to popularity amd changes often, this is void no way to counter penalties Shield Negatives No regen in combat Low HP pool
Also I would like to point out Scrambler Rifles are actually rather popular.
Flux grenades only effect shields
And armour has external rep sources, shields do not
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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Monkey MAC
Rough Riders..
2706
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Posted - 2014.04.30 11:26:00 -
[8] - Quote
Korvin Lomont wrote:
Just for the record I run armor tanked suits, shield tanked suits and dual tanked suits. I love shields even to a degree that I shield tank most of my armor suits (while abandoning plates).
And to say there is no delay in armor rep is wrong its just smaller it is basically 1 sec as the repair cycles in that period. And if you use you modules right you can reduce the shield delay quite a bit.
IMHO shield tanked suits aren't meant for direct confrontation they are meant to flank. And this so obvious:
Fast regen no speed penalty plus the inability to recover under fire.
So lets see how bad the current penalty is:
Lets take a cal scout for example:
Shield base stats assuming max skills:
shield HP: 162,5
regen 50 Hp/s
regen delay: 3s
depleted delay 4s
Now with 4 complex extenders:
shield HP: 453
regen 50 Hp/s
regen delay: 3s
depleted delay 5,24
Sooo with 4 extenders your depleted delay is reduced from 4 to 5.24 s, as long as you don't loos all shields this isn't even noticeable.
If you now fit one maxed regulator you can totally nullify the penalty (penalty goes down to 3.8) PLUS you reduce you regen delay to 2.2s. and you still have one low free (in that case) to slap an armor repper or reactive plate. So in order to regen the whole 453 HP the scout has to wait 13s (in cover or out of combat) and he is combat ready again...
So yes the penalty is barely noticeable...and can be completely nullified by a module that don't even require you to reduce your tank.
Now show me a way to nullify the armor penalty completely without loosing tank....(it is not even close to possible)
Fair point, however as I hae said, armour penalties make no difference inside combat.
You can still chop strafe as effeciently as a Shield Suit
Your repping ability isn't effected
Your DPS isn't effected
Your stamina isn't effected
So like I said the only time you actually need to worry about your speed is when you're trying to leave a bad engagment.
Also you say shields are designed for 'flanking', which is not necessarily true, while the minmatar (a shield tanked race) is indeed built for flanking, this is down to the suits design, not his tank type.
However you have to ask yourself what are shield based suits meant to do in the case of a 1v1 fight with an armour, or an assault on a complex?
Your belief that shields should not be suitable for frontline combat, or holding the line or whatever you want to call it effectively marganilises 2 races because they must spend there time outside of the action and let the armour suits duke it out in the middle.
Can you not see that?
Just look at the market data, In the top 10 bought suits, 1,3,5,6,8,9 are armoured tanked suits, with the 'see-everything' caldari scout second and mega repper minmatar 3,7,10 It paints a dyre picture for shield tankers, not a single shield assult or heavy cuts the mustard,
Unless your a Computer Scientist don't tell me how Game Mechanics Work.
Monkey Mac - Forum Warrior of the Trees Lvl 2.
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