The straight up number of advantages means absolutely nothing.
What matters is the overall net power of all of those advantages combined.

I gave you two example fits that are my cookie cutter Assault fits, and both are equally viable, just played differently.

Of course, you would use them differently. But when you're trying to grab objectives or defend them, you may find yourself in an engagement on the objective. Especially in an assault suit where you can't see everyone until they are right up on you.

Ok..so the shield regen tips the net power to shield suits?

My take on this

Shields

Pro's:

First line of Defense. You can lose your main tank and survive.

Excellent Regen. Take damage? Just wait like 10 seconds. Most of your health should be back in 10-15s MAX unless you shitfit.

Explosive Resistance. Mass Drivers, Flaylocks, and Core Locus HURT unless you're in a shield suit.

Most weapons are anti-armor except for Plasma and Laser. Fear these.

High Slot Module. Kincats, Damps, Ferroscales OH MY. They don't even take away from your main tank... (That being said, you will be devoting low slots to regulators, don't go too low slot happy. We call those "Shitfits")

NO SPEED PENALTIES. Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee. Get used to abusing your high mobility to hit a flank, and then run to the other side and hit the other flank with your fully regened health. These suits are a skirmishers wet dream.

Cons:

Shield delay/depleted. Get pinged 1s before regen starts? Too bad, start over. Lose all your shields? Guess what, you get to wait longer. You have to know how to maintain a shield tank to run them well. This means *GASP* USING COVER.

Fluxes will ruin your day. Seriously, these things are depressing. Total buzzkill.

CPU Intensive. Any decent shield fit will be running regulators/rechargers/energizers/extenders. Be prepared to pay for this with your CPU. A single proto Recharger/Energizer runs a good 100 CPU.

Lower HP when compared to Armor tanks. Yeah, best extender gives less health than a basic plate. Get over it. If it wasn't like this, shields would be OP AS HELL. Instead, be smart and learn how to shield tank scrub.

Armor

Pros:

CONSTANT REGEN. You never stop repping. This is fantastic if you know how to strafe in and out of cover. If you only take 1-2 shots each time you pop out, you can practically extend your eHP by about 50%. However, this takes DISCIPLINE.

Low Slot Module. Can someone say "Damage Mods?". Don't like damage mods? More HP is okay I guess...

External Rep. Yup, everyone loves to say how this isn't a pro. Tell that to them when they got a Core Focused on their ass. Shield tanking is great RIGHT? If you are a decent strafer, this can be borderline god mode. Thankfully, we have explosive weapons for people like you. There is no escape from the Boundless Assault Mass Driver (I actually say this as I spam AMD on my commando. Gleefullly, as I rack up the kills)

LOL Fluxes

TONS of health. You can get some INSANE armor values (Like a 700 armor shitfit gal scout). That being said, you also have to split your tank between regen and health, due to all armor modules being low slots. Pick wisely. A blend is preferred. Your overall eHP should still be a good 100-200 over most shield suits.


Cons:

Last line of defense. You can't lose your armor tank and walk away (99.99% of the time). Running armor tank takes some guts, as you HAVE to be able to kill the dude in front of you. Running away is never really an option.

Explosive weapons HURT. LIKE REALLY BAD. They kill your logi as well. Sad day all around.

PG Intensive. Yeah, hard to run lots of shields/damage mods when you have to devote PG to your Reps/Tank/ScR/AR.
Thankfully, the Gal and Amarr suits tend to have lots of PG, so that should help quite a bit. PG optimization is also a thing, and you should invest SP into it.

SPEED PENALTIES. You will not be an agile little butterfly unless you run Ferros and Kincats (WITH NO PLATES). Deal with it. If you strafed like crazy, you would be OP AS HELL. Jump height could use some love though. Watching Armor tankers try to jump over a curb can be hilarious, but they really should be able to clear it.

Tons of weapons are anti-armor. Rail and Projectile cover a LOT of weapons in this game. HMG's will eat you for breakfast, and Combat rifles will OM NOM NOM on your fat slow suit. Rail Rifles will happily chew you to bits with ease. This means that you really have to move cover to cover and take advantage of those constant reps. Best Armor tankers I see actually run a blend of speed/armor/regen and abuse cover.

While you may have tons of health YOU ARE NOT INVINCIBLE. Seriously, armor can make you feel tough at times due to the damage you can take, but aggro is merciless. You need to know how to push aggresively and safely. You are not impossible to take down. Respect your own HP pool and know if you can safely push up (Threatening the dude with Damage mods and pure HP) and when you need to fall back. Low health Armor tanks are easy kills. Remember, armor is your LAST LINE OF DEFENSE.

---

OVERALL

Shields are for fast regening skirmishers that favor a hit and run style of play

Armor is for "Stand and Deliver" players who like to hit hard and push agressively.

They may not be perfectly balanced at the moment, but they are the closest it has been in a VERY LONG TIME.

Only slight adjustments need to be made in my opinion.

To me: Shields are harder to use, but generally more rewarding. Armor is easy to use at times due to raw HP, but to make them truly shine, you need to play just as strategically as a shield tanker. It all comes down to preference in the end.

Oh then, I do wonder why I have this scanner on my Assault

Besides, as I said you need to be creative when you are caught in a bad fight you aren't designed to fight.

Just as a single example of what I like to do, if I get caught within say, 4 meters of someone?
I sprint into them, get past them, then jump backwards.

This tends to confuse them, and give me enough time to deal the first deal of damage.
This really only works if your suit has a high speed.

Just saw that I could fit a stable active scanner. DONE.

Force recon here I come at 8m/s!

My take on this

Shields

Pro's:

First line of Defense. You can lose your main tank and survive.

Excellent Regen. Take damage? Just wait like 10 seconds. Most of your health should be back in 10-15s MAX unless you shitfit.

Explosive Resistance. Mass Drivers, Flaylocks, and Core Locus HURT unless you're in a shield suit.

Most weapons are anti-armor except for Plasma and Laser. Fear these.

High Slot Module. Kincats, Damps, Ferroscales OH MY. They don't even take away from your main tank... (That being said, you will be devoting low slots to regulators, don't go too low slot happy. We call those "Shitfits")

NO SPEED PENALTIES. Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee. Get used to abusing your high mobility to hit a flank, and then run to the other side and hit the other flank with your fully regened health. These suits are a skirmishers wet dream.

Cons:

Shield delay/depleted. Get pinged 1s before regen starts? Too bad, start over. Lose all your shields? Guess what, you get to wait longer. You have to know how to maintain a shield tank to run them well. This means *GASP* USING COVER.

Fluxes will ruin your day. Seriously, these things are depressing. Total buzzkill.

CPU Intensive. Any decent shield fit will be running regulators/rechargers/energizers/extenders. Be prepared to pay for this with your CPU. A single proto Recharger/Energizer runs a good 100 CPU.

Lower HP when compared to Armor tanks. Yeah, best extender gives less health than a basic plate. Get over it. If it wasn't like this, shields would be OP AS HELL. Instead, be smart and learn how to shield tank scrub.

Armor

Pros:

CONSTANT REGEN. You never stop repping. This is fantastic if you know how to strafe in and out of cover. If you only take 1-2 shots each time you pop out, you can practically extend your eHP by about 50%. However, this takes DISCIPLINE.

Low Slot Module. Can someone say "Damage Mods?". Don't like damage mods? More HP is okay I guess...

External Rep. Yup, everyone loves to say how this isn't a pro. Tell that to them when they got a Core Focused on their ass. Shield tanking is great RIGHT? If you are a decent strafer, this can be borderline god mode. Thankfully, we have explosive weapons for people like you. There is no escape from the Boundless Assault Mass Driver (I actually say this as I spam AMD on my commando. Gleefullly, as I rack up the kills)

LOL Fluxes

TONS of health. You can get some INSANE armor values (Like a 700 armor shitfit gal scout). That being said, you also have to split your tank between regen and health, due to all armor modules being low slots. Pick wisely. A blend is preferred. Your overall eHP should still be a good 100-200 over most shield suits.


Cons:

Last line of defense. You can't lose your armor tank and walk away (99.99% of the time). Running armor tank takes some guts, as you HAVE to be able to kill the dude in front of you. Running away is never really an option.

Explosive weapons HURT. LIKE REALLY BAD. They kill your logi as well. Sad day all around.

PG Intensive. Yeah, hard to run lots of shields/damage mods when you have to devote PG to your Reps/Tank/ScR/AR.
Thankfully, the Gal and Amarr suits tend to have lots of PG, so that should help quite a bit. PG optimization is also a thing, and you should invest SP into it.

SPEED PENALTIES. You will not be an agile little butterfly unless you run Ferros and Kincats (WITH NO PLATES). Deal with it. If you strafed like crazy, you would be OP AS HELL. Jump height could use some love though. Watching Armor tankers try to jump over a curb can be hilarious, but they really should be able to clear it.

Tons of weapons are anti-armor. Rail and Projectile cover a LOT of weapons in this game. HMG's will eat you for breakfast, and Combat rifles will OM NOM NOM on your fat slow suit. Rail Rifles will happily chew you to bits with ease. This means that you really have to move cover to cover and take advantage of those constant reps. Best Armor tankers I see actually run a blend of speed/armor/regen and abuse cover.

While you may have tons of health YOU ARE NOT INVINCIBLE. Seriously, armor can make you feel tough at times due to the damage you can take, but aggro is merciless. You need to know how to push aggresively and safely. You are not impossible to take down. Respect your own HP pool and know if you can safely push up (Threatening the dude with Damage mods and pure HP) and when you need to fall back. Low health Armor tanks are easy kills. Remember, armor is your LAST LINE OF DEFENSE.

---

OVERALL

Shields are for fast regening skirmishers that favor a hit and run style of play

Armor is for "Stand and Deliver" players who like to hit hard and push agressively.

They may not be perfectly balanced at the moment, but they are the closest it has been in a VERY LONG TIME.

Only slight adjustments need to be made in my opinion.

To me: Shields are harder to use, but generally more rewarding. Armor is easy to use at times due to raw HP, but to make them truly shine, you need to play just as strategically as a shield tanker. It all comes down to preference in the end.

Heh, the loyalty store Active Scanner is a lovely thing.
Keeps targets scanned for 10 seconds, and has a range of 125m!
Absolutely lovely :3

Hell the Creodron Flux Active Scanner is only 9 PG........ 28db scans for 8 sec and 90 degrees for 200m...... no way I can turn that down.

On the subject of HAV if I had another player with a maxed out Maddy I'd organise to do some testing of straight up Blaster brawls to determine who is kind brawler.

I mean, how is a cal heavy supposed to survive

Min Assault can cap out at 1014.3 EHP...not half bad and has significantly better regen and movement speed.

I mean, how is a cal heavy supposed to survive

By shield tanking properly and attacking in bursts when its health comes back from the great regen proper shield suits have...

most weapons are armor based or most used weapons are armor based?

Because the scr rifle, laser, assault, shotgun...all hurt like hell.

Not to mention, the one grenade that can ruin your life doesn't even have to hit you directly. You just have to be in the blast radius to lose it all.

After reading some of these responses, I think we should just get all of us arguing together in a squad and play some matches while playing our fits. Would be fun.

I mean, how is a cal heavy supposed to compete

After reading some of these responses, I think we should just get all of us arguing together in a squad and play some matches while playing our fits. Would be fun.

The issue with Shields is that I sacrifice a great deal to capitalize on my strength (regen)

I have to sacrifice all my major armor buffer to get a very good Regen.

Armor suits have more versatility in that they already have their buffer built in to how their suit is designed to play. I could slap MORE buffer, in the way of shields, or I can add damage, or add melee, or add the other high mods.

To do the same, I have to rely on my shields, which then regen too slowly to be able to rapidly reengage following a fight. I clear a area out of guys, wait for shields to recharge before rushing the last bit of terrain, and they've already spawned back.


That, and, 1 v 1, a pure armor suit will likely win every time. They have more buffer compared to pure shield, and they have the added damage from the free highs.

Nothing in the lows really provide an incentive to fit shield suits for hit and run, besides just running. And then, I lose a good deal for having longer recharge delays for that speed.


Balancing PURE shields and PURE armor will be VERY hard. Both bricked? And their pretty equal.


Its just PURELY, armor is inherently better.

question....can you fit dual dmg mods on a maddy?

Caps out at much higher, but its pretty much a shitfit past around 900 HP.

ADVANCE NOTE. All suits were fitted with a Proto CR and Proto Flaylock to boot. Gotta be combat effective when designing a suit.

Moving on. Max HP I could get while maintaining some level of intelligence was 1021.4 HP.

4x Shields, 2x Ferro, 1x React, 1x Rep. Dual Tanking sin right here. 14hp/s is not enough for its armor pool, and it has 6/10 second depleted/delay with base regen. Shitfit, I could take it down with a decent fit assault, shield or armor. Abuse some cover and watch his buffer go to bits, as he has no decent regen to back it up. Yes, it may have better speed, but dear god is its regen horrific. Hell, I can easily run 1000+ HP on an Amarr assault and still run 20+ hp/s armor rep.

---

Best Armor fit for a Min Assault (IMO) caps out at around 907 HP. It runs 2x ADV Shields, 2x Damage Mods, 2x Complex Plates, 2x Repair. It has 535 armor with 21 hp/s rep, with a decent shield buffer. Still sprints at around 7m/s. I love this suit for CQC maps, the constant regen really helps.

Best Shield Fit for a Min Assault (IMO) Caps out at around 702 HP. It runs 3x shields, 1x Energizer, 3x Regulators, 1x Kincat. Thing has 1.92/3.13 for its delay/deplete, along with 43 hp/s regen. Speed helps a lot.

My personal Min Assault runs a Hybrid tank, and is the best way to run it IMO. It runs 3x Shields, 1x Recharger, 1x Energizer, 1x Repair, 1x Ferroscale, 1x Kincat.

Runs at 800 HP, with decent shield and armor regen, while maintaining it's high speed. An excellent skirmishing fit.

most weapons are armor based or most used weapons are armor based?

Because the scr rifle, laser, assault, shotgun...all hurt like hell.

Not to mention, the one grenade that can ruin your life doesn't even have to hit you directly. You just have to be in the blast radius to lose it all.

As much as I love you, Kaisar, your fits sicken me.

Min assault-4 complex shields, 2 complex damps, and either a rep per + kin cat, or 2 kin cats.

Boundless CR and Six Kin SMG with a flux grenade for pesky cal scounts.

cal heavies are beast. The hmg does -15% damage to shields.

As much as I love you, Kaisar, your fits sicken me.

Min assault-4 complex shields, 2 complex damps, and either a rep per + kin cat, or 2 kin cats.

Boundless CR and Six Kin SMG with a flux grenade for pesky cal scounts.

If you strafe hard enough and run, the repping doesn't matter cause nothing hits you.

Also, pack remotes for the heavies.

Ermmm...

Why does that matter?

Unless your shooting yourself, that is a useless point. ScR and Flux nades whoop CalSent ass.

As much as I love you, Kaisar, your fits sicken me.

Min assault-4 complex shields, 2 complex damps, and either a rep per + kin cat, or 2 kin cats.

Boundless CR and Six Kin SMG with a flux grenade for pesky cal scounts.

If you strafe hard enough and run, the repping doesn't matter cause nothing hits you.

Also, pack remotes for the heavies.