Joseph Ridgeson
warravens
3712
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Posted - 2015.04.10 06:53:00 -
[1] - Quote
Himiko Kuronaga wrote:Let's be serious here.
Caldari suits are ass. Shields themselves are not. The theory behind shields is still solid, its just that they are only good on a suit that can make proper use of them.
You trade a smaller HP value for currently nothing. It used to be that you traded it for some extra speed, making those suits ideal for hit and run with their faster movement, ability to disengage, and faster regen once behind cover.
Ever since Ferroscales became a thing and have been continually buffed, the speed advantage was lost. Shield or hybrid tanking as a theory still works quite well on Min assaults, but for all the Caldari suits it is pointless.
A cal assault will have a lower HP value than a gal assault, with equal speed. And the gal can rock damage mods on top of that without hurting his primary tank.
When you view it like that, the problem is obvious. It's not an issue of profiles being bad, it's just the primary suits designed for shield warfare can't make legitimate case for themselves.
If the Cal suits were faster, or if they made use of extremely fast regeneration akin to how the Cal Sent works (but needing to recharge faster outside of shield depletion), it might be another story.
Caldari Suits are generally ass. Logistics has a crap bonus, Assault has a crap bonus, Sentinel doesn't work considering Sentinels are supposed to be all about the close quarter fighting with a bunch of HP however the Scout is awesome. I believe some of this has to do with the fact that Scouts are better designed than Assaults but I think it is actually the fact that the Scouts have AWESOME Shield stats. 50 HP/S, 3 Recharge, 4 Depleted for the Scouts compared to the 30 HP/S, 5 Recharge, 6 Depleted for the Assaults. I would like to see all Caldari Suits closer to this; just damn good at getting Shields back.
However, I do think a lot has to do with Shields being inferior to Armor. I am not going to talk about HP because if Shields had the same HP as Armor and still repaired faster, they would clearly be superior in ways that shouldn't happen.
1. Shield modules take a lot more resources. Prototype Armor Plate is 37/12 CPU/PG, Ferroscale is 23/8, and Reactive is 25/8. Complex Shield extenders require 54/11. If you divide every Prototype Assault's CPU by PG, you get about 5.5:1 (Minmatar has a high of 6.03 while Amarr has a low of 4.99). For costing 17 more CPU than basic Plates, Extenders 'should' cost about 3 less PG
2. Shield modules require more slots. The response to the posts about Shield being inferior to Armor generally go with "you need to fit it right; use Regulators." This is supposedly able to bring Armor and Shields on the same level. Armor has no such requirement to use their High slots in order for their defenses to be considered effective.
3. Shields require 3 skills while Armor only has 2. Regulators and Recharges are considered two separate skills, meaning that Shields have a higher SP requirement. Minor, minor point but it is still worth making.
4. "Shields are supposed to hide, use cover while Armor is meant for CQC." The problem with this is that Armor has no negative when fighting at range. It isn't "Shields are better at long range and Armor is better at close range", it is "Shields and Armor are the same at range and Armor is better at close range." Also, "use range and cover" has more to do with the weapon you are using than your defensive doctrine. Doesn't matter how much EHP you have, you probably don't want to use that Sniper Rifle at 2 meters.
5. Repair Hives and Repair Tools.
6. Armor can build themselves in more viable ways. They can go with a slower fit with higher EHP, they can use Reactives to move faster, they can even potentially be better at Shield's game of recharge by throwing in Complex Armor Repairers to hit 9.38 HP a second. Shield are generally either max EHP or use Regulators and Rechargers, both of which I would argue still end up being less effective than Armor.
In theory, the idea of "Less HP but Recharge faster" should work. However, it really isn't working as well as it is at the moment. I think some of the issue has to deal with EVE lore. Caldari build ships that are slow, have a lot of shields, and shoot at long range. That doesn't really work in a FPS as a whole. If the Sniper in a class based shooter like TF2 is a slow, lumbering behemoth of flesh (just using words that my high school year book used to describe me), it works because the Sniper is never going to have an Assault Rifle and be expected to toss it in with people that are faster or have more HP. While I do agree that some of the issue is that Caldari suits (Scouts aside) are ass, I do think that Shield modules have a fair amount of play to it. Like between 40:60 - 60:40.
To the OP: Aye, Damage Profiles are kind of pointless currently. Grenades tear apart by Shields and Scramblers tear apart my Armor. This is probably more to do with the fact that the duration of fights is fairly short. If it takes 2 seconds to kill a suit with the positive profile weapon and 2.5 seconds to kill a suit with a negative profile weapon, it will matter a lot less than "who started kicking first and who is wearing the bigger boots."
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