Arkena Wyrnspire
Fatal Absolution
19721
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Posted - 2014.12.01 21:11:00 -
[1] - Quote
Lloyd Orfay wrote:
The wide majority of infantry suits have:
Poor shield regeneration values
Very long shield delay/depleted delay times
The damage profiles on weaponry(and the trend of ridiculous high alpha damage plus this the stealth abuse issue in this game) make it so that nearly all weapons can have a vicious effectiveness on shields. It wouldn't make sense for a 60 point damage gun to have 30% more power against shielding when shields have the disadvantage of less HP and the gun is already so powerful.
You need to have high shield HP to live, to improve your bad shield delay, and your bad shield recharge value.
Three modules you need to get for basic survival when shield tanking, which is a heavy investment.
Alright, let's talk about these one at a time.
'Poor shield regeneration values' - No, they don't. Shield suits tend to have 30+ HP/s base regen, which can get to massive values with only a couple of mods, seeing as they're percentage based.
'Very long shield delay/depleted delay times' - Depleted, if you're stacking shield extenders and are using no regulators, I can understand, but not normal delays. Shield tankers, while unregulated, typically look at 4-6 seconds delay. With a couple of regulators you can bring that down to 2-3 seconds. That's not much at all. With three modules, you can put a Calassault at 52 HP/s with 2s delay. If you put 3 repair modules on a Gal or Amarr assault you end up with ~30 HP/s. Even with the delay, the shield tanker will comfortably outregen the armour tankers. Additionally, this leaves little room for plating, so the armour assaults end up with similar or lesser HP values.
'Damage profiles' - No weapon has a +30% modifier towards shields. None. The closest you get are laser weapons, which are +20%. The strength of individual weapons is a matter for weapon balance threads rather than shield/armour balance threads.
'You need to have high shield HP to live, to improve your bad shield delay, and your bad shield recharge value'
Recharge values are far from bad, and shield delays are not crippling - especially if you mod either of them rather than stack nothing but shield extenders. Declaring that you need a high shield HP to live is hardly a statement based in fact and would apply equally to everyone, so I'm going to go ahead and treat that statement with the contempt it deserves.
'Three shield module skills vs two armour module skills'
A fair point, although one that has no bearing on the battlefield. Merge the shield regulation and shield recharge skills and this is solved simply, if it's such a crippling problem.
Quote:
With armour on infantry, you have:
Ability to round up a very large sum of HP in armour
No weapon has any extreme damage profile advantages against armour besides explosives, which not many people use in the first place.
Some modules don't follow the more HP layout of armour, and this allows shielding modules to give more HP than them (e.g., reactive plates)
Regardless you can get past this.
Some suits can tank enough armour to match that of a heavy suit, be only a little bit slowed, and once you have 10 HP/s in armour and up you can have better survivability than shielding(because of how armour regeneration being quite close to instant on infantry where shielding you have to wait often over 3 seconds, which is enough time for someone to find and kill you)
Besides this, you hardly need to invest in modules or skills for armour.
'Ability to round up a very large sum of HP in armour'
Correct - if you completely disregard regen. It takes an Amarr assault something in the region of 500 seconds (approximately half a match) to rep up a full tank if they stack nothing but plates. They will also move at a similar speed to a heavy.
'No weapon has any extreme profile advantages and explosives don't count'
Untrue, on both counts.
Projectile weapons have +15% to armour, very close to the +20% lasers have against shields - not at all mirroring the +10% shield damage of the next most shield-damaging damage profile - and explosives are in wide use throughout the game.
Your complaint that shield suits will not regen to the point where they can put up a fight in three seconds is equally true in the case of armour suits. 10 HP/s will not heal you enough in 3 seconds to make you a credible threat to anyone. Stacking armour up to the point of near-heavy HP will slow you significantly - full plate stacking will take you up to a 25% speed penalty.
There is hardly any horrendous imbalance here, as much as you'd like to make there out to be.
The Federation is not a defined region of space, of planets, of mountains, rivers, or woods. It is a vision.
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Arkena Wyrnspire
Fatal Absolution
19745
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Posted - 2014.12.02 07:21:00 -
[2] - Quote
Booby Tuesdays wrote:
The shield delay on armor tanking suits is nowhere near high enough, imho. They get the best of both worlds with a few second delay for their shields, as well as a high, always on, armor regen. Plus their native weapons are made for wrecking shields.
Equally, the native weapons on shield dropsuits tend to be made for wrecking armour.
Armour suits have lower shield regen values, much like shield suits have lowered armour regen values. They're never going to catch up to a shield suit's regen unless they fit stupidly, although the reverse is not true. 20 HP/s is not particularly useful when it applies to 150 HP.
Quote:
Shoot, Complex Ferro give more HP, AND cost less CPU and Grid than a Complex Extender.
Why are people so obsessed with this comparison?
A complex extender has massive native regen, a complex ferro does not. That is why the ferro gives more HP. A full extender fit is viable, a full ferro fit is not, because it will take hundreds of seconds to regen.
Quote:
Move armor reps to highs?
Remove shield delay?
Increase depleted shield delay?
Moving armour reps to highs immediately buffs armour tanking absolutely massively and I can't see how that can possibly be a good idea. You would be able to have 1000 armour HP Amarr assaults with 30 HP/s with that - that is insane and far from balanced. That movement is not necessary at all.
Removing shield delay ends up being silly because when comparing fittings with similar numbers of tank modules they're already quite balanced, and that would break that immediately. For example, a Calassault can reach 600 shields with 52 HP/s and 2s shield regen delay - a Galassault at 600 armour will have 30 HP/s without a delay (ignoring the encumbering effect of plates). What will happen to that if there is no regen delay?
Increasing depleted delay... Why?
Quote:I'm definitely in the camp of armor based suits are at an advantage, but shields are really close to being equal. A few small tweaks could level the playing field. 
I am dubious. Especially as these proposed tweaks are far from small.
The Federation is not a defined region of space, of planets, of mountains, rivers, or woods. It is a vision.
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