I personally think they may help out the Gallente Scouts a bit. Potentially create a scout who's not paper thin, and still almost as fast as a Minnie.

Ok, the speed issue is legit, but that is removed from the equation with the new plates. Now you have shield and armor which are both very similar to eHP with no speed penalty.

So the only issue left is regen. I dont disagree with anything you said, but I think you are overstating the importance. The reason is because you are talking about regen during battle. (Logi not being able to shoot etc.)

First, shield regen does not start right away. 4 seconds. In that time, most fights are already decided. Either you are dead in 4 seconds, they are dead, or someone has retreated. Active regen of shield will almost never come into play. Even after the 4 second pass, you are looking at 2-3 more to survive a single shot based on your regen. That is not much help.

It is out of combat regen that actually matters. How quickly can you get back into the fight. Here, passively shield is better than armor. However, repair tools or nanohives can make armor superior. You arent "taking a gun out of the fight" with repair tools, because you are already out of the fight.

This isnt EVE or another RPG, you cant regen tank, kill times are too quick. If im armor tanking, im either a heavy with a logi, or I have a triage nanohive on me. This gets me back up to full health and back in the fight a lot quicker than shield regen. There are drawbacks sure, but it isnt as cut and dry as "the regen on shields is better" its just different, and lazier.

So speed, the new plates solve. Regen isnt better or worse on either one, its simply different. If you have some numbers that dispute the claim that regen taking is worthless and is viable, then you may have a point. But I dont think thats the case.

Has anyone started a "shields are OP" thread yet? I bet it would end up being 20 pages.

So what you're saying then is... are your 2-3 damage mods worth my being able to shield regen 30hp/s.

I guess we'll find out when 1.2 drops!

LOL you all do realize that the stuff in this video is still a good two-three years out of being released right?

No need to get all worked up about it yet.

LOL

I'm a Gallente scout...these new mods wouldn't help at all...

My gal scout currently runs 70 shield 255 armor with a 12.5 repair rate and 8.5 sprint.
That's all 4 slots between 1 enhanced plate 2 complex repairs and 1 comp kinetic

Honestly... I'm still going to stick with this even after the new plates come out because the regular plates with reps are better than these new ****** ones. Sure no speed penalty is cool but with the amount of health it gives its not worth it.

Don't even get me started on the reactive plates... Wow.. Are they ******** or what? They aren't even worth looking at imo lol.

2 armor repair Lolz

In an armor tank fit you're better of with what we have currently.

Coming in Uprising 1.2.
Are you telling me they will release 4-6 expansions (1 every 6 months), then revert back to Uprising?

LOL you all do realize that the stuff in this video is still a good two-three years out of being released right?

No need to get all worked up about it yet.

LOL

I think he was making a joke :p

I'm making a joke too :P

as you can see I haven't made a post on there or even read a lick of it. I don't care that about the imbalance between shields and armor in infantry. the new modules are balanced within their type(armor infantry modules) and I dare you to prove me wrong and I won't even try to balance them out of their class because that makes no sense.

So assuming these actually turn out to be final values (look at 1:08), there are a few things to be said and a couple to be asked as well.

First current plates, they still need a balance pass to enhance their internal balance (from base to complex within the line) and their contextual balance (as compared with shields, after all even if the new plates bring more parity to the armor line as a whole they do nothing to change the balance issues with the current plates).

Second Ferroscale Plates, text in the video is a bit grainy for me but it looks very much like these will be low slot shield mods with 6 less HP per mod and higher fitting requirements than the current complex plates. They do maintain the higher load on PG as opposed to CPU when compared with shields (a good thing IMO since it keeps the lines diverse) but this puts armor tank in an even tighter bind when it comes to PG. The new plates as shown in the video do seem to be a boon for scouts but I wonder about the comparative fitting numbers both between Complex Plates/Complex Ferroscale and between Complex Ferroscale/Complex Extenders.

The other aspect here is base tank between armor vs shields derived from slot layout, and suit/racial bonuses.
Right now outside of the Amarr Logi there's essentially no bonus to armor tank from racial skills, the only arguable exception being the +1 HP/s from the proto Logi role bonus. This means in essence that for everyone not playing Logi the new plates do nothing to increase the validity of an armor tank, further this omission of armor tank skill buffs on armor related racial suits will push any "slayers" who want to armor tank into a position of looking to the Logi line more favorably than the Assault.
There are already generally unfounded cries to nerf the Logi due to the underwhelming racial/proto skills possessed by the Assault line, we need less of this skill buff bias not more.

There is a counter point, armor tankers can now stack the 60HP plates in low slots and stack damage mods in the highs, but while this is a good balancing element between the mods it once again distorts under the weight of suit skill buffs as due to the underwhelming Assault suit buffs many 'slayers' may now look on the Gal Logi suit as the new Cal Logi 'slayer' fit. Additional counter point would be the Min Assault built in rep of 1 HP/s, this will be a net win for the Minmatar Assault suits.

Reactive Plates These plates sport the new 'higher than Complex Plates' fittings costs of 36 CPU/15 PG.
For that price you get 45 HP (20 HP less than a basic plate with 1% less speed reduction) 2 HP/s (the value of a basic repper mod). Total cost for those two items 30 CPU/2 PG, that's 6 CPU/13PG more spent to in essence save one low slot.
Assuming the rep from these plates is buffed by the Amarr Logi racial bonus this may help that suit out a little bit but the buff is rather minimal.

The more fittings cost for free slots idea is a novel concept and I actual like it for flavor and flex however I'm not sure how this applies to current suits. On balance the Reactive plates with their minimal speed debuff and their 2-for-1 slot count may be a net gain for the Assault suits as it would allow them some on board reps, a bit more HP and not hit their speed that much, while leaving some slots free for other things like Regulators, Kinetic Catalyzes, et al. If combined with a bit more 'gank' from some of the Assault skill buffs, or some armor specific Assault skill buffs on the Amarr/Gallente suits this could help even the field nicely. Also the speed penilty on these plates is low enough for some scout builds to adopt the use of one for on board reps, or for Heavies in some roles/squad configurations to really benefit.
All in all the Reactive Plates seem to be the big winner in the new changes with the single class gaining the least utility from them being the Logi who already have on board reps via skills, will have fewer reps to give out as self rep becomes more common and who (outside the Gal Logi) won't have the slots + PG to really make significant use of them for the most part.

Final thoughts the new plates seem like good additions and they'll help some of the problem aspects present but other changes are most certainly needed to bring armor/shields into balance. Further care must be taken not to have the new mods create another misplaced wave of nerf threads as racial skills distort overall game effects.

That's my current analysis assuming that the stats in the video turn out to be the same stats upon release of the new mods.

0.02 ISK
Cross

Yes. Out of combat regen matters a lot more - and shields are superior here. A shield tanker can have 25-30 HP/s shield regeneration passively with no assistance. An armour tanker gets half that number, if even that. A pair of complex repairers repair at 12.5 HP/s. This is assuming the armour tanker gives up two slots, a chunk of SP, and a lot of fitting resources.
A remote armour repairer, which requires another player and isn't nearly as reliable as shield regen, regens at a very similar rate. It also requires that a player give up an equipment slot and fitting resources.

These plates are more useful to shield tankers than armor tankers, that's why you have all these scrubs without a clue about the problems with armor tanking, and how these don't address them, coming in here saying how awesome these new plates are.

Thanks CCP, great job!

My first thoughts from a related thread on this subject.

These plates are more useful to shield tankers than armor tankers, that's why you have all these scrubs without a clue about the problems with armor tanking, and how these don't address them, coming in here saying how awesome these new plates are.

Thanks CCP, great job!

Again, armor tanking versus shield tanking doesnt matter, at all. You can do one or both. If you have some weird philishophical reason you NEED to armor tank and therefore it NEEDS to be the same as shield in all sense, well I'm sorry.

There is no reason the two tanking need to fulfill similar roles. Armor tanking can be worse in a lot of ways that shield tanking, it doesnt make any balance bad.

Explain to me why you need your build to revolve around armor tanking?

Yes, with speed penalties, armor was inferior. But the new mods seem to help fix that. Plus, now one of the advantages to armor tanking is versatility. You have choices now. eHP similar to shield but without rep, eHp less than shield but with minimal rep, eHP greater than shield but no rep and speed penalty. I can see each of those, or even combinations of those, being used for different playstyles.

Again, armor tanking versus shield tanking doesnt matter, at all. You can do one or both. If you have some weird philishophical reason you NEED to armor tank and therefore it NEEDS to be the same as shield in all sense, well I'm sorry.

There is no reason the two tanking need to fulfill similar roles. Armor tanking can be worse in a lot of ways that shield tanking, it doesnt make any balance bad.

Explain to me why you need your build to revolve around armor tanking?

To clearify, I dont get why its an "us versus them." What makes someone a shield tanker or an armor tanker? Why are they exclusive things? So your fit has more low slots? Why did you pick that fit to begin with? If it was to get good eHP with speed penalty and repair penalty, cool. If not...then why didnt you pick a suit with more high slots than low?

Balance doesnt mean everything does the same thing. There is zero reason to view armor tanking as in competition with shield tanking, they go in different slots. Itd be like me complaining my pistol doesnt have the range as my rifle.

Actually the AR is balanced against the pistol. The fact that the AR should and does have a longer range is evidence of that balance, not against it. All the weapons are balanced relatively to each other, heavy, light and sidearm. It's function that determines what something compares to and since both shield and armor mods function to add HP and alter regen of course they should be balanced.

Please show me with numbers how the current armor plate line is properly balanced internally, note not against the new mods, just the current line of plates internally.

Further when providing comments on overall fittings and balance between new mods and current mods please include slots and CPU/PG costs to attain each. I point this out because, while I admittedly haven't had the chance to go over them in as much detail as I want yet, the fittings costs seem to be the real stumbling block... tho I suppose they might be less of an issue if you're not interested in considering their usefulness or balance implications game wide and are only trying to do a direct comparison of mods internal to the armor line. Even so I'd like to see your break down with those fittings numbers included.

Cheers,
Cross

The AR is anything but balanced when more than 90% of the playerbase is using an AR compared to the 80% in Chrome and everything else is a novelty by comparison.