You realize that Gallente are given armor tanking as part of lore right? They didn't put it like this just for Dust 514. And last I checked armor has a higher eHP and armor plates give more bonus to armor than extenders give to shields.

I know, I'm an EVE player.
Also, the difference between an extender and a plate is one bullet, while a plate slows you down and shields do nothing but increase your shields.
And this doesn't really matter considering shields have inherent 25hp/s regeneration, while armor has to give up a plate to even have 5.

Personally I don't see the huge fault in armor tanking. My Minmatar logi is 50% shields and 50% armor, not particularly vulnerable to any one weapon. It might help that I have a high base speed.
Plus, as a bonus to armor tanking, you have the ability to actively tank, as compared to shields which may regenerate faster, but never regenerate when taking damage.

I know, I'm an EVE player.
Also, the difference between an extender and a plate is one bullet, while a plate slows you down and shields do nothing but increase your shields.
And this doesn't really matter considering shields have inherent 25hp/s regeneration, while armor has to give up a plate to even have 5.
So the max HP difference between a tanked Caldari and Gallente suit is 4 bullets.
AR does 12.5 bullets a second.

Regeneration for Gallente suits is slow as ****, and has to give up a slot, while Caldari suits regenerate 25hp/s without any slots.

If you put on plates, you get slowed down to crawling speed.
If you put on extenders, you don't get any disadvantage.

Plate are effectively going to be more flexible in the future, since they mentioned they were planning plates with no speed penalty (ferroscale) and plate with built-in reppers (active plates?). Shields don't actually have inherent 25/s regeneration (different suits have lower and higher rates, and the rate is misleading since it doesn't start till a delay is over).

I do kinda like the idea I heard about shields causing a larger profile signature, perhaps a percentage increase to your profile on a shield not unlike the movement penalty. Then a separate stealth shield without the signature modification, but with lower hp could be introduced.

If you put on plates, you get slowed down to crawling speed.
If you put on extenders, you don't get any disadvantage.

Can you flux 500+hp of armor instantaneously?
Shields do have a distinct disadvantage.

Shield only regen if you aren't being shot at .... You know this right?

Armor regens 24/7 and has more hp

It's simple don you want buffer hp or the halo shield, it's up to you.

Op is a whiny halo player

CCP Guy1: "Hey, we have this useless thing we really hate, its called 'Armor tanking'! (shudders)"
CCP Guy2: "Heh, lets give it to the Gallente, just to troll people. You need to be close range to use the Gallente AR? Nope, you're too slow to close the distance because of Armor."
CCP Guy1: "GENIUS!!!"
CCP Guy2: "Oh, and lets make it so that no matter how many reps you put on your suit, the base shield regeneration is still higher!"
CCP Guy1: "AWESOME! I will update the stats spreadsheet right now"
CCP Guy2: "And lets make it so that if you put on 4 complex plates, you will move like a heavy, won't regenerate, and you will only gain 3 bullets worth of HP compared to 4 complex shield extenders!"
CCP Guy1: "Really, you are the best!"
CCP Guy1: "But what about balanced armor and regeneration?"
CCP Guy2: "Don't worry about it, regeneration is slow and the HP difference is 1 bullet at best. Oh and they move like crap"

CCP Guy2: "So umm, we have this thing we REALLY love, its called shield tanking."
CCP Guy1: "Oh, we should totally give that to the characters we love the most, the Caldari!"
CCP Guy2: "Oh yeah, and lets make the Logi more tanky than a Gallente assault with 4 complex armor plates!"
CCP Guy1: "But don't shields regenerate?"
CCP Guy2: "Excatly >: D"
CCP Guy 1: ">: D"

I swear, while trying to fit a Caldari character and Gallente character, this is what I imagine CCP were thinking.

Did the math, shields still regenerate faster.
And while you need 4x complex armor reps to match the speed, one module on the shields puts them WAAAAAAAAAAAY ahead of armor.
And one or two shield regulators and whatever "advantage" armor has is nothing.
You really have no say in this if you didn't try to fit both a Caldari and Gallente suit.
I did, Caldari win every time in all cases.

Armor has constant rep while shields have a delay.

New armor plates coming soon
1. Self repping plates less armor and still has movement speed penalty.
2. Light plates lesser armor no movement speed penalty.

Combine self repping plates with armor reps and it should stack up to shield regen.

You only need two comp plates to equal to the level of four comp shields which leaves you more slots.

Try investing into biotics which is useful when trying to armor tank and again you have the slots to do so at the cost of an armor rep or two.

Stack you highs with all damage mods so you can munch away at enemies hp faster than he does yours.

I wasn't saying that armor regenerated faster with complex rep mods, I was saying if you do equip complex rep mods, they never stop repping, when you are taking damage or not taking damage, whereas shields have a timer on regeneration and that timer resets every time you take damage.

So the max HP difference between a tanked Caldari and Gallente suit is 4 bullets.

Given equal skill the Gallente Suit walks away alive, while you wake up in a new clone...(i use Amarr btw)

Yes you can, its called explosives.
My 120 shields ate a grenade to the face.
My 500 armor died in one explosion.

Also, once shields are down you have armor.
Once armor is down, you're dead.

About the constant rep, refer to the above.

We don't know how much active plates give in regeneration, but we know the armor bonus is TIIIIIIIIIIINY.
A dev on IRC told me its less than standard shields.
Also, I doubt it would be as fast as a rep, so unless they are buffing reps, its going to be max 2hp/s regeneration.

Two complex plates slow you down to hell, and putting two reps, shields still beat you even with the depleted delay.
Not to mention shields can use low slots for shield regs.

Biotics only increase sprint speed, walking speed is more important for 1v1's.
Also, it negates like half the penalty of a complex plate.

You can't fit damage mods on high, since armor takes up the same slots as CPU/PG upgrades, and you NEVER have enough.
I would know, I have CPU/PG skills maxed, along with armor skills.

Can't fit damage mods is a lie, you mean to say you can't fit three complex damage mods. What type of suit are you using? If its not a proto well then yea you don't have enough cpu and pg. Trust me I've Armor tanked before in the last build with my neo vk.0 and it worked fine the cpu and pg decrease in this build is not that drastic.

Do shields increase your sig radius in Dust, making you easier to spot?

If not they should.

I've heard time & time again that CCP favors shields but I went Gallente none the less and I'm liking it for the most part. The only thing I don't like is the look of the specialized protos. Dafuq is up with the torso waders CPP? Do you hate the Gallente that much as to give us the dumbest looking specialized protos in New Eden?

Personally I don't see the huge fault in armor tanking. My Minmatar logi is 50% shields and 50% armor, not particularly vulnerable to any one weapon. It might help that I have a high base speed.
Plus, as a bonus to armor tanking, you have the ability to actively tank, as compared to shields which may regenerate faster, but never regenerate when taking damage.

Neither does armor reps, ive seen it. IT does however have a shorter time to rep activation compared to shields but with the proper mods you can close that gap to next to nothing.

In the end what it really comes down to is the movement penalties. Mobility is the key in any FPS, in the end the net DPS differences isnt large enough b/w any two ppl in the game. It comes down to survivability. Since shields are a primary defense once fully tanked up they can used to take dmg, duck into cover and regen just a touch get back into action and kill while still having a reserve health supply in armor.

Armor tankers have low shields so their regenerative health supply is already limited. If they were to use duck and cover tactics they would constantly be in cover since they would get shredded. As far as armor tanking to get any level of tank you have to sacrifice considerable amounts of movement making it even more difficult to duck into cover or strafe, it make you a near sitting duck.


Hopefully the plate variants that dont affect movement speed will help. I would however like to see a 10-20HP armor rep module personally the ones we have are very limited. On the flipside a hive can rep armor 40-70HP/s and rep tools can range from 35-100HP/s something shield tankers cant benefit from.

To everyone who thinks Armor Tanking is useless.

1. You probably think the plates make you ridiculously slow. Why don't you do the math and see exactly where a 10% reduction actually takes you. You don't become as slow as a heavy, I can guarantee you. You still get around just fine. I've ran down several people with my armor tanking suit. When you are traveling distances within a single base, you are going to get there at pretty much the same time as a guy without armor plates, so it's ideal for defending the entirety of a base. The only point where you'll notice the speed difference is if you're trying to run long distances between bases.

2. You probably think armor sucks because it doesn't recharge automatically and even when it does it is slower than shield recharging. However, Gallente gets a ton of low-slots so you have room for a couple complex armor repairers. With these two plus the skill bonus, you are repairing 12.5 per second. And this is continuous, no delay. A shield tanker may have to wait 6 seconds for the recharge to kick in, in that time I have already repaired 75 of my armor. And if a shield guy gets hit just a little during that delay it starts over. Armor repairers are much better in my opinion for long shootouts whereas shield tanking is better for when you plan for quick engagements.

3. Armor plating gives you a lot more health than shield extenders. They also don't get wiped out when standing somewhat near a flux grenade. They can be repaired by an equipment that can go over 100 hp per second. There is no shield repairer tool. When you get revived by a nano injector, it revives a percentage of your armor but none of your shields, so armor tankers come back stronger.

Not even to mention we are getting a new weapon in a couple days that will tear through shields. I'm not saying shields are useless, but armor tanking does have plenty of upsides.