[P1] Preface

[P2] Roles of shield and armour
Before I launch into the thread proper, the role of both armour and shield tanks needs to be considered. They shouldnGÇÖt be very similar, for most intents and purposes just being identical with different names. No, this would not be a good situation GÇô so armour canGÇÖt simply be brought up to the level of shields.

Instead, both types of tank should have their own tactical situations where they shine, where they can outperform the other in some situations but fall behind in others. I have assumed the following roles for them, based on CCP comments and what I know of both EvE and DUST:


Shield tanks should be skirmishers. They move quickly, unimpeded, and have the ability to use modules like profile dampeners and speed modules, making them faster.

Armour tanks should be brawlers. They move slowly, impeded by the weight of their plates. For this, they have significantly more HP than their shield counterparts, allowing them to stay in a sustained fight for a longer amount of time. They should also be able to dish out more damage directly through the use of damage mods.

These first examples leave out skills for the sake of simplicity, but if they were applied they would widen the gap.
Gallente Assault:
2x Complex armour plate
210 +115 + 115 = 450
Caldari Assault:
4x Complex shield extender
210 + 66 + 66 + 66 + 66 = 474
ThatGÇÖs interesting, the shield tanker appears to have more HP.
The reality is that the Gallente Assault would actually be using enhanced plates, further widening the gap. More on this later.

[quote=Daedric Lothar]

I explained this in this post. To regenerate at a reasonable rate, the armour tanker needs to fit two complex armour repairers. Thus, all four low slots are used. A straight HP comparison like the one you suggested is similarly rigged towards shields as they have inbuilt regeneration. In your suggested situation, the armour tanker has no regeneration at all and thus the shield tanker would be able to make up the HP difference with only a few seconds of not being hit.
Remote armour repair tools help with this, but it prevents the logistics player from killing the person actually doing the damage, which is far more useful.

In future, if you are going to accuse someone of rigging results, please read their post. If you read mine, then you're rigging yours because you would understand the need for repairers. The text directly above what you quoted explains this - did you intentionally omit this?

Assault suit gk.0 EHP- 888

3x damage modifiers
3x complex plates
1x enhanced plate
1x duvolle AR

Damage-54
Armor repair- 0
Shield repair- 25
Speed-3.97 <-- Almost as slow as a heavy

Assault suit ck.0 EHP- 773

no damage modifers
2x basic plates
1x repairer
1x duvolle AR

Damage-47
Armor repair-5
Shield repair-31.25
speed-4.72 <--5.6% penalty

Time for the GK.0 to kill CK.0 = 14.3 seconds

Time for the CK.0 to kill GK.0= 18.89 seconds

Now account for the CK.0 being able to outrun the tracking speed of the GK.0, and the ability to repair the damage it is taking against the GK.0 extremely fast, while the GK.0 only does 10 more damage to you, can barely hit you, cannot chase you if you run to take cover and also takes longer for him to take cover, while he cannot also repair his armor. Oh and if the GK.0 removed any of his modules for a repairer his HP will go under that of the CK.0 and his CPU/PG will get capped, so he needs to remove 1 module and downgrade another and thus lead him to lower EHP, lower speed, and overall lower repair.

Oh boy, its a dog pile. Well hell, I wrote this so I'll be a damned if I'm gonna throw it away.

1. We have to have a baseline. I hesitate to make this assumption but I will say three types of tank exist, speed, armor and shield. Speed tanking is a user skill based tank so it would be impossible to quantify for the purposes of the comparison, if we could I assure you it would be included. Also in many discussions the argument that armor has a higher buffer is made when in fact that is not the truth, take a look at my next number for why.

2. Your are thinking of proto assualt, Proto Gallente is a 3/5 split of high/low and caldari is 5/4. Only 2 slots are used due to those suits requiring a local rep to be effective. You'll find the discussion about outside reps further down the page but most calculations are done within a bubble of a single suit.

3. This argument is based on a suit without local reps. Yes you could have a huge buffer of armor HP but you would be very slow, around 2.5m/s and be unable to repair yourself at any reasonable rate making repeated encounters difficult. It would be a suit with a death clock hanging over its head as every successful battle only brings you closer to death.

4. Of all your statements I find this one to be most insulting, so good job if that was your intention. It is a conclusion based on many half truths. Yes a suit four plates and three damage modifiers would do a lot of damage, however if the enemy strafed you would be unable to apply that damage as the uber-suits turn speed is effected by the movement penalty. As stated before in point 3, an all plated suit is has other penalties associated with it. Namely rep speed. So this suit wouldn't be overpowered. You can add in the fact that a slow target is a easier to hit target and you find the suit to be quiet under powered.

I didn't account for ROF this is if the gun has a ROF of 1, it makes it easier to see the difference in time to kill between both suits.

If I used the actual rate of fire values the time for the GK.0 to kill the CK.0 is 1.14 seconds, and for the CK.0 to kill the GK.0 it is 1.5 seconds. But regardless it doesn't account for the above

Oh no, I could update my post but by then we'll be on page 27.

To your point about team play I think we need to be careful here. Team work should always be a force multiplier but never a requirement. I have said before if we put armor tankers in a only-competitive-if-paired-with-logi category we truly haven't balanced the tanks, we have relegated them to a niche.

I'm not trying to be a **** here, but your 2 plates being equal being an equal buffer to a shield tank is potential balance fantasy correct? As it is shield buffers are often time, although sometimes marginally, higher.

So, a having competitive buffer and higher damage versus buffer and regen would be the balance suggested? If you remove the speed penalties then I think that could begin to work.

Seriously though the idea that the triple stacked damage mods trump any other option is a bit silly.

Should shields gain their eHP through on board regen while armor is focused on buffer? Sure. That however does not equate to a legitimate reason for dismissing the reps disparity and directly comparing only raw HP totals. The support of a teammate is not a given nor is it a viable way to compare the balance of mods within each tanking line.

While those two armor tankers are repping each other after battle the shield tankers, with their higher base move rate, are already en route to the next tactical objective.

So the whole point of a shield tank is to tank, while the whole point of an armor tank is to fit damage mods?
In essence the drawback to shields is that you can't fit damage mods and the drawback to damage mods is you can't fit shields so armor is useful because it's on a low slot... that doesn't sound like it's balanced that sounds like it's describing the utility of armor mods to a shield tanker. It ignores movement, it ignores profile, it ignores fittings upgrade mods.
It's also assuming that stacked damage mods are the best value for all fittings and roles, but lets get back to fittings.

So the whole point of a shield tank is to tank, while the whole point of an armor tank is to fit damage mods?
In essence the drawback to shields is that you can't fit damage mods and the drawback to damage mods is you can't fit shields so armor is useful because it's on a low slot... that doesn't sound like it's balanced that sounds like it's describing the utility of armor mods to a shield tanker. It ignores movement, it ignores profile, it ignores fittings upgrade mods.
It's also assuming that stacked damage mods are the best value for all fittings and roles, but lets get back to fittings.

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[ And that's where the problem is.
We aren't powerful enough to be feared in toe to toe combat.
Shields trump us, and those damage mods don't do a lot if they can just evade it all thanks to their superior strafe speed.

It's important not to confuse raw/buffer HP with eHP (effective hit points).
HP is a static total, your actual listed HP. eHP is the dynamic accounting which looks at things like regen, reps, and resists/damage efficiency.
As such armor and shields should have equal eHP. Shields gain that through regen armor through raw/buffer HP.

Those are all play style choices and play style should dictate tank choice not vice versa. What I mean here is that if armor are just more or less "immobile" with purportedly high dps then what value do they have? Anyone with a little sense will use long range weapons to take them out in perfect safty. Are they all inside a building safe from snipers surrounding an objective? So what? Let them camp there while the rest of the map is taken and they lose anyway.

As a redirect, I posted fittings in the post you were responding to, I'd very much like a reaction to them. If you can make better ones that more heavily favor the armor tank then by all means do so but at present the shield tanked suit comes out ahead as long as it's user doesn't simply stand in the open and shoot, a behavior which even an armor tanked heavy shouldn't reasonably expect to survive in the current version of the game.

There are a lot of variables to this issue. Speed, damage resistance, regeneration, fitting requirements, slots and types (like how there are more low slot modules then high slot modules). That's why the OP is so exhaustive. There is no magic bullet to fix it. But, damnit, we should still try.

Where is the 6.25 repair coming from your stacking 4 plates and I see no repairer.

Lest it be forgotten I would like to once again remind everyone that not every role in the game is a "slayer" role focused on DPS. Hacking, scouting, support (and if we were talking about vehicles transport as well) are all valid non-slayer battlefield roles which may have little to no use for damage mods whatsoever. Balancing tanking as if it's all about slayers is bad balance.


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