Balance boils down to Kill / Spawn Efficiency. I've assumed (and I've said as much) that Madrugar Kill / Spawn Efficiency is disproportionately high. If the data isn't on my side, then my balance complaints are baseless and I'll stand corrected. If the data is on my side, however, then your excuses and what ifs -- while colorful and entertaining -- will fall on deaf ears while Rattati swings that hammer.

I think it more probable than not kill/spawn efficiency data is on my side.
I imagine you do as well. If you didn't, why would you be so frothy?

The larger the dataset, the less anomalies like this will have the potential to "skew" it. Madrugars have been OP for a long time now, and there certainly are no shortage of them in game. I imagine Rattati has quite the robust sample to evaluate.

I'm not 100% certain that Madrugars are overpowered, but I do think it more probable than not. If performance data says they are in fact OP, then I say we do something about rather than make excuses for it.

What's been proposed is that we limit hardeners to 1 per loadout.
Is it your opinion that such a change would "castrate Madrugars"?
If so, why? And what alternative adjustment would you propose?

This is wholeheartedly agree with. With Shield regen able to be halted, Shield tanks need that extra resistance, especially considering that their hardeners are also both shorter lasting and longer cooling down.

I don't think we should bring Shield HAV up to a competitive level alongside armor HAV while we have two modules breaking tanks on a fundamental level.

These being Armour Repairers and Hardener Modules.

With the modules so broken what value would there be in bringing Shield HAV up to match?

Yes and its good that you are seeing this. They're the greatest part of the problem however it extends further than and into the Hardeners that as I see it. In this case I'd argue we need tanks less reliant on those modules as they are killing tank fit diversity by being too useful.

Rather than have low raw HP and massive eHP I'd argue we'd need higher raw HP values with less prolific eHP buffers.

The biggest reason Madrugars are considered overpowered (by those that do feel that way) is now they are able to remain highly resistant for long periods of time without needing to retreat for longer periods.

Simply put, they repair too quickly. I, personally, feel that they both move too quickly (able to retreat out of harm's way) and can take too much punishment without flinching. Basically, one repair under one hardener grants too much effective resilience. Look at the following example.

A PRO Forge Gun (1400 damage per shot), Prof 5 (1656) and Profile (1822.)
A Madrugar with one PRO Plate, one PRO Rep, two aHardeners: 1200 Shields/4585 Armour

One PRO Rep repairs 137.5/sec with L5 Skill. This is roughly equivalent to 1/13th of each FG shot. Given a charge/fire rate of, let's give a rough time of five seconds per shot (charge time plus lining it up) that means that the FG is 'winning' by 8/13ths per shot. If you understand what I mean? Essentially it's out damaging the repairs by 8/13ths.

Vs one Hardener each FG shot will deal 1822*.6= 1094
Now, each second of repair is equivalent to 1/8th. Now the FG is 'winning' by only 3/8ths per shot.
We also have to consider that the FG only gets four shots before it reloads (6 seconds with Max RR.) ((1094*4)-(137.5*15)= 2314. The Madrugar is roughly at half armour. Now the FG has to reload (6 seconds) which grants another 825 (2314-825= 1489) meaning that the FG damages the Madrugar at only 1489 damage to armour per clip: it will take four clips of that FG to kill this Madrugar. That's roughly 84+ seconds of continuous, accurate fire. Against a single Hardener and a single Rep (Well the Hardener only lasts for 48 seconds: which is where a second one comes in, I guess...)

(*15 is 15 seconds of repair, as the first shot will have done no repairable damage during the charge, unlike the follow up shots)


If a second Hardener is added, that damage is now 1094*.656= 718
The repairs are now equivalent to 1/5th. Now the FG is actually neutral with the repair rate: no damage is actually 'sticking' to the Madrugar.
Factoring reload time, the FG has no possibility of killing the Madrugar, even if it make no attempt to evade.

Essentially, the high resistance granted by the armour hardeners combined with the incredible and unstoppable repair rate of heat armour repairers makes Madrugars essentially unkillable unless attacked by three or more players.

And most of you AVers don't know the half of being seriously OP.

Most of you don't even know what the Sagaris or Surya was. They were super OP at the time. Mainly because AV amongst the general population of players was almost absent. But, They were total nightmares for infantry for the most part.

If my Sagaris is never coming back, I at least want it's paint. Damn did it look so good on that Caldari hull.