[SHIELD EXTENDERS]
Problem:

Basic shield extenders are not worth using for only 22 more shields.

Likewise, enhanced shields give too little HP. 33 more HP basically only protects from 1 AR shot.

Complex shield extenders are good and require no changes in my opinion, but it is troubling that they give 100% more HP than enhanced shield extenders; progression is clearly not right.

I personally don't bother with shield extenders unless they're complex, and I know others who feel the same way.

Solution:

Buff basic extenders to 33

Buff enhanced extenders to 44

[SHIELD REGULATORS]
Problem:
As a low slot module, shield regulators are in direct competition with the much more attractive armor modules. Ideally shield regulators should be more attractive to shield tankers than an armor plate.

Basic: 10%
Enhanced: 20%
Complex: 25%

Values are too low for significant effect

Difference between enhanced and complex is too low

Solution:
Basic: 20%
Enhanced: 30%
Complex: 40%

Additional concern:
The Caldari scout has unnecessarily and obscenely high shield recharge rate, combined with extremely short shield recharge delays. These have to be reduced, or else my proposed changes will lead to further imbalanced with the Caldari scout.

Loving it. Looks exactly like a lot of the changes that were discussed over Skype not too long ago and I'm very excited that someone else agrees, especially on the regulators. One thing I'd like to take a look at in the future, if necessary, is a re-evaluation of the PG/CPU costs of some of the modules as it's very hard to fit some of them.

I think that buffing the Shield Regulators is a great way to encourage dedicated shield tanking over hybrid tanking, so I'm totally down for this either way.

+1

Anything over 30% for shield regulators will put the shield delay under two seconds when stacked. Is that intended? Caldari assault with ~400 shield hp and ~60hp/s recharge and delay under 2 seconds? Combined with mobility, you wouldn't kill one of these unless you grabbed him by the neck and shot him in the face lol

Anything over 30% for shield regulators will put the shield delay under two seconds when stacked. Is that intended? Caldari assault with ~400 shield hp and ~60hp/s recharge and delay under 2 seconds? Combined with mobility, you wouldn't kill one of these unless you grabbed him by the neck and shot him in the face lol

Or if you just kill him without giving him time to hide and regen, I think it would be balanced since there is stacking penalties, and the low slots could otherwise have been used to stack 160+ armor (2 plates); I think its a fair HP vs regen speed tradeoff.
Also, a Caldari assault can't have 60hp/s regen rate without using 2 energizers; a significant slot sacrifice, even with a prototype Caldari assault you cannot have enough high slots left over after using 2 energizers to get 400 shields.

The thing about a percentage based module (this was discussed in depth in Skype) is that once you start stacking it naturally incurs it's own stacking penalty. The entire thing we're wanting to encourage is a for players to utilize regulators over armor plates as there really is no reason to do so. You also have to consider that shield extenders penalize the depleted shield recharge delay, so currently you have to fit regulators to compensate for the penalty of having extenders on your fit in the first place.

All in all there's a lot in the way of shield tanks being viable and the overall goal is to focus Shields in their area of expertise: Rapid recovery. I'm honestly not too worried about a guy with ~400 shield HP and ~60HP/s recharge because in a fire-fight, that's less than a second of direct fire from my Assault Rifle, which is already getting a very hefty bonus against shields. Laser weaponry will perform even better and once the meta begins to shift to shield modules a bit more, you'll see a lot more Amarr Commandos and Assaults to compensate.

It looks startling at first but you have to consider that there are suits available in game that have -MUCH- lighter delays than that, for instance the Caldari Sentinel which has a 1 second depleted delay. It's regarded as a true shield tank, bolstering rapid recovery at the expense of being easier to kill, it just so happens to also be one of the easiest sentinels to kill (at least for me).

Assuming you're right, and it gets really hard to deal with, there is absolutely nothing stopping us from reversing some of the changes and dialing it back until it settles in a nice spot. This is just the starting point and I think a lot of shield users will be happy to see these changes

1 complex energizer and 1 complex recharger is what? about 54 hp/s? and 2 complex exteneders gives you 392 shields... which is surprizingly, about 400 shields (this symbol " ~ " means approximately)

[SHIELD EXTENDERS]
Problem:

Basic shield extenders are not worth using for only 22 more shields.

Likewise, enhanced shields give too little HP. 33 more HP basically only protects from 1 AR shot.

Complex shield extenders are good and require no changes in my opinion, but it is troubling that they give 100% more HP than enhanced shield extenders; progression is clearly not right.

I personally don't bother with shield extenders unless they're complex, and I know others who feel the same way.

Solution:

Buff basic extenders to 33

Buff enhanced extenders to 44

[SHIELD REGULATORS]
Problem:
As a low slot module, shield regulators are in direct competition with the much more attractive armor modules. Ideally shield regulators should be more attractive to shield tankers than an armor plate.

Basic: 10%
Enhanced: 20%
Complex: 25%

Values are too low for significant effect

Difference between enhanced and complex is too low

Solution:
Basic: 20%
Enhanced: 30%
Complex: 40%

Additional concern:
The Caldari scout has unnecessarily and obscenely high shield recharge rate, combined with extremely short shield recharge delays. These have to be reduced, or else my proposed changes will lead to further imbalanced with the Caldari scout.

You'd be waay too squishy with 400 shields on an assault suit. 2 seconds also is way too long to regen in a 1v1 fight even against slow rof weapons... even if the enemy has to reload you'd still have only regend for 1 second by the time they finish reloading, making any shield regen pointless just as it always has been at point blank 1v1s. In ranged engagements sure you'd be hard to take down but that's literally the entire point of caldari and shields....
To have regen and small hp tank work 2 things are required, cloaks, and strafe fast enough to avoid fire very consistently at close range. Scouts have these things and can thus abuse them which is why scouts are op except when caught a the wrong distance, but a caldari assault can't fit a cloak and cannot strafe fast enough to avoid most players fire at close range, making it useless to regen tank...

You'd be waay too squishy with 400 shields on an assault suit. 2 seconds also is way too long to regen in a 1v1 fight even against slow rof weapons... even if the enemy has to reload you'd still have only regend for 1 second by the time they finish reloading, making any shield regen pointless just as it always has been at point blank 1v1s. In ranged engagements sure you'd be hard to take down but that's literally the entire point of caldari and shields....
To have regen and small hp tank work 2 things are required, cloaks, and strafe fast enough to avoid fire very consistently at close range. Scouts have these things and can thus abuse them which is why scouts are op except when caught a the wrong distance, but a caldari assault can't fit a cloak and cannot strafe fast enough to avoid most players fire at close range, making it useless to regen tank...

[SHIELD EXTENDERS]
Problem:

Basic shield extenders are not worth using for only 22 more shields.

Likewise, enhanced shields give too little HP. 33 more HP basically only protects from 1 AR shot.

Complex shield extenders are good and require no changes in my opinion, but it is troubling that they give 100% more HP than enhanced shield extenders; progression is clearly not right.

I personally don't bother with shield extenders unless they're complex, and I know others who feel the same way.

Solution:

Buff basic extenders to 33

Buff enhanced extenders to 44

[SHIELD REGULATORS]
Problem:
As a low slot module, shield regulators are in direct competition with the much more attractive armor modules. Ideally shield regulators should be more attractive to shield tankers than an armor plate.

Basic: 10%
Enhanced: 20%
Complex: 25%

Values are too low for significant effect

Difference between enhanced and complex is too low

Solution:
Basic: 20%
Enhanced: 30%
Complex: 40%

Additional concern:
The Caldari scout has unnecessarily and obscenely high shield recharge rate, combined with extremely short shield recharge delays. These have to be reduced, or else my proposed changes will lead to further imbalanced with the Caldari scout.

Additional concern:
The Caldari scout has unnecessarily and obscenely high shield recharge rate, combined with extremely short shield recharge delays. These have to be reduced, or else my proposed changes will lead to further imbalanced with the Caldari scout.

[SHIELD EXTENDERS]
Problem:

Basic shield extenders are not worth using for only 22 more shields.

Likewise, enhanced shields give too little HP. 33 more HP basically only protects from 1 AR shot.

Complex shield extenders are good and require no changes in my opinion, but it is troubling that they give 100% more HP than enhanced shield extenders; progression is clearly not right.

I personally don't bother with shield extenders unless they're complex, and I know others who feel the same way.

Solution:

Buff basic extenders to 33

Buff enhanced extenders to 44

[SHIELD REGULATORS]
Problem:
As a low slot module, shield regulators are in direct competition with the much more attractive armor modules. Ideally shield regulators should be more attractive to shield tankers than an armor plate.

Basic: 10%
Enhanced: 20%
Complex: 25%

Values are too low for significant effect

Difference between enhanced and complex is too low

Solution:
Basic: 20%
Enhanced: 30%
Complex: 40%

Additional concern:
The Caldari scout has unnecessarily and obscenely high shield recharge rate, combined with extremely short shield recharge delays. These have to be reduced, or else my proposed changes will lead to further imbalanced with the Caldari scout.

What is 200, 300, or 400 Shields to an AR, ScR, LR, Shotgun or Sniper Rifle?

An effective CalScout has no room for Rechargers, Regulators or stacked Extenders.
Similarly, he has no room for Biotics, Armor or Damps.
His Highs are committed to Precision and his Lows are committed to Range.

But you want to bone him just in case?

If your nerf is aimed at "Slayers" HP-tanking CalScouts, simply offer them better Assault Frames.
Even so, what is 400 Shields to an AR, ScR, LR, Shotgun or Sniper Rifle?

I would increase the depleted delay penalty on extenders even further to make regulators even more attractive.

However, even without that I like the changes.
I believe we discussed something like that a few weeks ago.

A. Running a suit set up like a mobile radar unit is less of an asset than you think.
B. With the advent of Cloaks, why are you trying to go toe-to-toe with people?

I don't want to sound like I'm condoning ScoutShotgun (which pisses me off to no end), but the idea of a Scout suit is to use your stealthiness as an asset to move around the battlefield and get kills.

I use 2 Shield Extenders, 2 Precision Enhancers, 1 Range Amplifier, and 1 Profile Dampener along with a PRO Cloak Field.

Works just fine for me.

A. Squad Recon is the best use of CalScout; do your job and leave slaying to suits optimized for it.

You mean the Cal Scout isn't optimized for combat?

It won't be once Rattati fixes Assault frames :-)

Edit: That's really all I'm asking; can we press pause on Scout Nerfs until we're done re-balancing frames?

One specific sidebar on the above, if the Cal is to be heavily pushed into an eWar primary role so much so that it's combat potential is actively reduced then those passive scans will need to have earnings (i.e. WP) attached to them somehow.
It's bad practice to attach a suits primary role to something which they can't break even doing (let alone something which they do not get earnings for at all).

Or if you just kill him without giving him time to hide and regen, I think it would be balanced since there is stacking penalties, and the low slots could otherwise have been used to stack 160+ armor (2 plates); I think its a fair HP vs regen speed tradeoff.
Also, a Caldari assault can't have 60hp/s regen rate without using 2 energizers; a significant slot sacrifice, even with a prototype Caldari assault you cannot have enough high slots left over after using 2 energizers to get 400 shields.

[SHIELD EXTENDERS]
Problem:

Basic shield extenders are not worth using for only 22 more shields.

Likewise, enhanced shields give too little HP. 33 more HP basically only protects from 1 AR shot.

Complex shield extenders are good and require no changes in my opinion, but it is troubling that they give 100% more HP than enhanced shield extenders; progression is clearly not right.

I personally don't bother with shield extenders unless they're complex, and I know others who feel the same way.

Solution:

Buff basic extenders to 33

Buff enhanced extenders to 44

[SHIELD REGULATORS]
Problem:
As a low slot module, shield regulators are in direct competition with the much more attractive armor modules. Ideally shield regulators should be more attractive to shield tankers than an armor plate.

Basic: 10%
Enhanced: 20%
Complex: 25%

Values are too low for significant effect

Difference between enhanced and complex is too low

Solution:
Basic: 20%
Enhanced: 30%
Complex: 40%

Additional concern:
The Caldari scout has unnecessarily and obscenely high shield recharge rate, combined with extremely short shield recharge delays. These have to be reduced, or else my proposed changes will lead to further imbalanced with the Caldari scout.

[SHIELD EXTENDERS]
Problem:

Basic shield extenders are not worth using for only 22 more shields.

Likewise, enhanced shields give too little HP. 33 more HP basically only protects from 1 AR shot.

Complex shield extenders are good and require no changes in my opinion, but it is troubling that they give 100% more HP than enhanced shield extenders; progression is clearly not right.

I personally don't bother with shield extenders unless they're complex, and I know others who feel the same way.

Solution:

Buff basic extenders to 33

Buff enhanced extenders to 44

[SHIELD REGULATORS]
Problem:
As a low slot module, shield regulators are in direct competition with the much more attractive armor modules. Ideally shield regulators should be more attractive to shield tankers than an armor plate.

Basic: 10%
Enhanced: 20%
Complex: 25%

Values are too low for significant effect

Difference between enhanced and complex is too low

Solution:
Basic: 20%
Enhanced: 30%
Complex: 40%

Additional concern:
The Caldari scout has unnecessarily and obscenely high shield recharge rate, combined with extremely short shield recharge delays. These have to be reduced, or else my proposed changes will lead to further imbalanced with the Caldari scout.

I really don't like how you guys aren't changing the complex HP mods.

Not giving a speed penalty and PG/CPU increase to complex armor plates means people who don't care about ISK and are just going for the kills/proto stomp will continue to brick tank their scouts and heavies too much without having to skill into fitting optimization to do so.

In my opinion, complex shields could use a buff up to at least 80 HP.

That would give the proto Caldari a little more of an HP edge when compared to Gallente HP. Basically when a Caldari fits everything right, as things are now he has less HP than a Gallente.

I don't think a complex extender buff will negatively affect Cal Scouts. As a matter of fact it will make using those high slots on extenders more attractive than precision, which is exactly what we all need them to be doing so they aren't OP anymore.

If you also keep in mind that shield's resistances to weapons in this game are poor, and that shield based weapons melt through them quicker than armor based ones do to armored suits, the idea of increasing shield HP is a positive change all around.

Also worth a mention is this will make classes that aren't Logi think of extenders as more attractive options than say, a Heavy damage mod. It would also encourage Caldari heavies to use them instead of Energizers.