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.

Learn how to shield tank. Period.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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)
Repper has no delay

Shield Positives
Large Regen (outside of combat)
Moves faster (more useful outside of combat) strafing?
High uptime 20-30 seconds to get tank back
Most popular weapons kill armor
low slot modules with a wide variety of options including armor
can counter penalty with a low slot module


Armour negatives
Moves Slower
no passive regeneration
Lower regeneration ceiling
Most popular weapons kill armor
no way to counter penalties

Shield Negatives
No regen in combat
Low HP pool

You can remove high uptime as it's the same thing as regen for shield.

You also don't address fitting costs, HIGHLY favorable toward armor. Nor do you address scaling, again highly favors armor over shields.

You also fail to mention equipment but mention that shields have more support mods, why? The equipment actually defeats negatives of armor and are much better than the support mods of shields.

What do you consider "popular weapons?" Combat Rifle is pretty even, Shotguns are shield based, and I don't know what you consider popular besides those. Popularity also will change as one tanking is better than the other and should never be considered a negative.

Currently armor seems to have the advantage in most engagements. A higher TTK makes the buffer size differences very noticeable.

Instead of lowering plate efficacy I'd vote for extenders to be improved. Not substantial improvements, though. I'd say a progression of 33,50,80 would be fine.

Though I'd also love to see shield energizers reworked a little bit. The energizer should add a certain portion of the shield's regen rate as a constant passive regen. I'd say proto should be 50%. The shield capacity reduction should be increased a good deal as well, I'd say up to 10-15%.

I know some out there might not be OK with that considering how "repping in combat is armor's shtick". I disagree because getting repped in combat, whether it be from a logi or from dropping a couple wyrks, armor's ability to be rapidly refilled under fire is a huge component in balancing the two tanking types.

But really there should be 4 tank types, organized from highest buffer to lowest.

large buffer armor - able to take the most amount of damage but needs outside intervention to rep the suit.

Armor active repair - a steady but reliable regen for a comparatively large buffer Does not need logi support ot heal.

High capacity shields- high shield capacity for being able to withstand high amounts of damage for short amounts of time.

Fast regen shields - The reworked energizers have chewed through a decent amount of buffer, but the steady regen keeps light damage from stacking up and killing you, and once the regular regen kicks in it's going to be smooth sailing

But if something punches through your rather small shields you get 0 regen from the passives and you have to wait for the full time to get any buffer back. The next hit will likely kill you.

Making those last two methods of tanking viable will make this game more interesting by giving us more varied ways to fit our suits.

Please CCP, buff shields. It'll be good for people to have new ways to fit their suit, and also give people a reason to use weapons that are better against shield than armor.

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.

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)