There is a ongoing debate about the armor vs shield vehicles (mostly about tanks) balance in the features and ideas section. The majority of the replies state that shield based vehicles (tanks) are less effective than their armor counter parts.

So my question to you guys is:

Do you think that the shield and armor based dropsuits are equally effective (balanced)?

Please state what you run and give your opinion.

I'll go first.

- All Caldari suits proto

I think that shield and armor are fairly balanced although I see a steady increase in armor rep assault suits that can get almost the same amount of reps as their shield counterparts, with no delay. Also when running my Cal sentinel It's rare to be repped because logi's flock to the armor sentinel to get more wp's of them. I'd like to see a reptool that bypasses shield delay to allow a shield sentinel to benefit from continuous reps.

I'm building a rep assault (Gal) on my alt to get a better comparison and will update this thread with my findings

Like I said feel free to give your opinions

Matari & Caldari Assaults need an HP/s and Delay Buff.

I fail to see why something meant of Intel gathering has lower delays and better regen than a unit designed to be the best at slaying.

Dropsuits have more ability to dodge behind cover mid fight to regenerate shields than vehicles do.

I think vehicles should have continuous recharge to shields even when taking damage, with a short depletion delay when the shields drops completely. I also think that shield recharge on vehicles should follow the shield recharge profile they have in EVE where the regen rate increases as the shields drop, until the shields drop below 30%, at which point the shields are overwhelmed and the regen rate drops off quickly as the remaining shields approach 0%.

I am fine with damage interrupting shield regen on Dropsuits, as the shield generators on a dropsuit would be so small you would expect them to have more restrictive limitations. And as I said, from a playability standpoint, a merc in a Dropsuit can duck behind cover to give its shields a chance to regen.

The Caldari Sentinel suddenly became a lot more formidable against other Sentinels when the projectile damage profile was changed. However, I have not played my Cal Sentinel yet to determine the full implications of this. I do agree that the medium frame Shield suits might need another positive tweak.

armor all day

I believe that the main issue is that ppl doesn't really know how to shield tank a suit properly, it requires a lot of space, an training, but of course it would be good to have a little buff on shields.
If u want a good charge delay n a good shield tank I usually use THIS:
3 shield extenders complex
1recharger complex
3regulators Complex
1armor rep complex
With that fit UR ehp is not that high but if u are good u can get almost everything without too much problems, and it's shields are as fast as cal scout, but with a better ehp using 1 reactive complex.

On my Cal assault I put 4 comp shield extenders and .... To find out more please pay the 5 mill Isk :)

Minmatar need slightly better recharge rate than Caldari, keep their depletion the same.

Caldari suits are generally fine, like someone stated before, there's no reason an intel suit needs to be good at slaying but overall Caldari suits are very good shield suits... if you know, you SHIELD TANK IT.

People need to know how to properly shield tank and how to fight with their suits. The first problem is people thinking every suit and defense plays the same.