Shield. I like speed that its suppose to have.

From my experience, I always have trouble taking out shield tankers with my AV gear. Will spec into Flux grenades and let you know if that changes things.

Funny how you're gonna get advice from someone who enjoys destroying tanks :D

With the opt-in respec coming in the near future, I'm going to be taking the handful of SP I spent outside of HAV's and move them back into HAV and become mega pro ultra super-duper HAV man.

That said, I currently roll shield tanks. Before the May 14th respec I was an armor pilot. I'm trying to decide which I like more, and I'm looking for, surprisingly enough, your opinion? Which do you like better and why?

For me, I'm leaning towards shields (pending plebian word garbage) for their sustainability. What I mean by this is that I like to stay near the other teammates (not redline railsniping, actually out there), and I like to put myself between us and them, effectively tanking their small arms fire while providing our guys cover. The faster shield regeneration lets me take small arms fire with near impunity, and locus / AV grenades, along with swarm launchers, don't seem to be that effective against shields, while the explosion damage would normally plow through armor.

On the flipside, when I rolled armor tanks, 1v1'ing other tanks was much easier. Activate a couple of hardeners and go to town on the other guy. Alternating hardeners let me keep a high resistance when helping infantry move while taking fire, but the armor damage I took would not rep back unless I used a rep cycle, putting it on cooldown.

The proletariat may now litter the thread with their wordvomit.

TL;DR - What HAV do you like and why?

Inb4LLAV. Fun as hell to drive and makes plenty of road pizza.

No worries meng. If I die to someone specced into AV, I tip my hat and move on.

mega pro ultra super-duper HAV man.

With the opt-in respec coming in the near future, I'm going to be taking the handful of SP I spent outside of HAV's and move them back into HAV and become mega pro ultra super-duper HAV man.

That said, I currently roll shield tanks. Before the May 14th respec I was an armor pilot. I'm trying to decide which I like more, and I'm looking for, surprisingly enough, your opinion. Which do you like better and why?

For me, I'm leaning towards shields (pending plebian word garbage) for their sustainability. What I mean by this is that I like to stay near the other teammates (not redline railsniping, actually out there), and I like to put myself between us and them, effectively tanking their small arms fire while providing our guys cover. The faster shield regeneration lets me take small arms fire with near impunity, and locus / AV grenades, along with swarm launchers, don't seem to be that effective against shields, while the explosion damage would normally plow through armor.

On the flipside, when I rolled armor tanks, 1v1'ing other tanks was much easier. Activate a couple of hardeners and go to town on the other guy. Alternating hardeners let me keep a high resistance when helping infantry move while taking fire, but the armor damage I took would not rep back unless I used a rep cycle, putting it on cooldown.

The proletariat may now litter the thread with their wordvomit.

TL;DR - What HAV do you like and why?

Inb4LLAV. Fun as hell to drive and makes plenty of road pizza.

Have to agree with the armor for pc shield for pub, for obvious above stated reasons.

But another thing that makes armor better you get a bonus to hybrid..... hybrid is blasters and rail where as missiles are just missiles.

You need about 13 mill sp to fully spec shield tank, missiles, and hybrid all to proto.

So really its up to you but honestly armor is better.

Shield. I like speed that its suppose to have.

You mean the tank that has 20 km/hr less speed?

Is that true when the Armor tank is fitted with Armor Plates?

If so, I can get rid of this shield tank alt I have. Maybe it was just a trick of the mind, but it certainly SEEMED to rotate and start up faster.

The Gallente Enforcer gives a bonus to Blaster damage and range, making them much better at assaulting another Tank in CQC compared to any other tank currently implemented in DUST, their power and range allows them to decimate shield tanks.

This honestly does not make sense to me. The Enforcer has less armor, less PG, slower, but is the designated CQC? I honestly don see the logic for this? I see the +2% damage but that seems like a steep cost.

Also, bonus strictly for blaster? Or rail too?

It has the PG and CPU of a Soma, and I've seen some very beast fits, it also isn't any slower. It can be fitted very decently, and don't underestimate the 10% damage, with Blasters having an additional 10% damage on Shields to begin with, the Vayu is great for stomping Caldari Tanks.

Also, the bonus is only for the blaster, neither race has bonuses to the Rail (Thankfully.)

*shrug* I am new to HAV's so it will be a while before I get there. I am still figuring out what fit works for me. I jump back and forth between rail and blaster, honestly liking the rail though. The reason I said slower is because its in the description. I have no experience with it.

Good luck in your endeavours, Tank Newbie o7

Max out your core vehicle skills first, that's your priority, once you have all this for one type, shields or armor, fittings are easy enough. For example, I've almost completed the shield core skills, and find it easy to fit many different types of Shield based vehicle. A tip though, Logi LAVs are better tanks than the HAVs.

K, So I have run Armor in both chromosome and Uprising.
1st off Both tanks have their benefits, while I am biased toward Armor, now since the way CCP has done things.

Armor tanks: They are the Better fit for PC. No doubt.
Armor tanks have the better Hardener of the two, back in the previous build, an good armor tanker could run two 25 Percent hardeners, and the hardeners last 60 seconds. So you could have a 25% constantly. But that is long gone. Armor tanks have the advantage of Hardeners.
Unlike the shield tanks, the Armor tanks need to have a repair unit fitter to it, so you should use a heavy repper.
Next, we have speed. Since Armor tanks use Low slots as their primary, I usually have one or two high slots open. One I use a nitro booster, which i cannot give stats for, but it definitely gives armor tanks that speed buff you need since the plates do give a speed penalty. The best plates give a 25% penalty, so the Nitro booster is a must.
Now what an Armor tank SHOULD NOT DO is run near enemies who are in throwing range. AV grenades have an increased effectiveness against Armor tanks, so it is hard to engage many skilled players with AV. Swarms also pose a problem, since most people do bring out the militia swarms. Those can be a pain.
One thing tho, that Armor tankers need is the PG upgrades, since CCP dropped the PG for tanks.
Armor tanks are the best for Rail sniping, since railguns have less effectiveness against armor than shield.
The only issue with armor tanks is that if they get flanked, they are done for. I have lost tanks due to good flanking.
I personally love armor tanks, but they do have their weaknesses.

Shield Tanks: Good for pub matches, and great against infantry.
Shield tanks have the benefit of constant regen of health, but suffer from the fact that environment damage damages shield.
Shields use Highs, so they do like to have lots of extenders, and some passive hardeners.
Shield tankers greatest weakness is the fact that they can be rail snipped or forged. Due to this fact, it is hard ot a shield tanker to run in the open. Their benefit is the fact that they can go toe to toe with adv AV and swarms since they have natural resistance to explosions. They are best with blasters, but they can be surprisingly effective against Armors if they flank with missile turrets. Missiles are an Armor tank's worst nightmare. Unfortunately, This rarely happens. Shields do have the advantage of surviving longer than Armor tanks, cause Armor tanks have to run away when their repper is getting cooled down.

Overall, Armor tanks have the benefit of better stats, and the fact that they can take lots of damage. BUT Shield tanks have the benefit of having the upper hand on infantry, but can easily be snipped from afar.
Hope this answered some questions decently.
CC

When it comes to fighting tanks you all are doing it wrong. Shield fit missile tank will destroy any armor tank if you aren't terrible.
Missiles do 129% damage to armor. They are the only turret that does bonus damage to armor. Also shield tanks are more nimble than armor tanks and missiles have a base range of about 250m.
Take a missile tank out and stay at distance from a blaster tank and use your decent tracking and higher acceleration to stay at range and pound on his armor.
The biggest risk to a shield missile tank is a blaster shield tank though. Although blaster shields tends to be a fairly squishy tank due to PG issues so get any teammate to plasma cannon or toss a couple AV nades to assist your missiles and you can fare alright.

Tanks are rock paper scissor.
Rails can outrange anything can be killed at short range by anything but effective against shield tanks.
Missiles at medium range can slay armor tanks of any variety.
Blasters, short range will destroy any tank, on fast tanks they hurt tank, on slow tanks they run the risk of being kited.