I wish i had the time to reas every single post and page in this thread, as it stands i have got the first page completed and I must say that I am in complete support to the OP save where he specified galentte instead of galentte and amarr suits (which often armour tank as well in my experience.

When attempting to rebalance armor, everyone should keep the existence of triage hives and rep tools in mind. Otherwise we might end up with a Gallente heavy, stacking armor plates in the lows and having insane amounts of HP, while being repped for 175 HP/s by a logi and his triage hive/rep tool. It's an edge case, of course, but I think good balancing should account for edge cases, too.

Also about racial armor tanking boni: I think they are important when discussing balance. The reality is, caldari suits already have strong shield tank boni, while Gallente suits lack any bonus to armor tanking. For example logi suits: shield recharge 25 on Cal vs 15 on Gal. I'm saying this because in your comparison, you usually use numbers that are taken from suits designed for shield tanking, and so those numbers already have a racial bonus applied to them (when compared to the same numbers on suits.that are designed for armor tanking).

And I feel when you discuss the lower strafe speed of armor, you should mention that the armor tank has a higher damage output due to damage mods in the high slots. I think in a 1 vs 1 situation, higher damage makes up for lower strafe speed. With a 20% damage bonus, you need 20% less time to take down you opponent. Putting it another way, you effectively reduce the total HP of your opponent by 20%, which is very significant.

That's some exhaustive work on the matter OP, thanks for that. I completely agree that armor tanking needs to be brought in line with shield tanking. Still I'd like to add some points I think you missed in your write up and that tilt the balance a bit in favor of armor:

• precision enhancers are actually high slot modules, not low slot

Good catch, I'll edit this in.


• damage modules use less PG and more CPU than shield extenders, so they can be fitted much easier by an armor tank and are much harder to fit on shield tanks when it comes to CPU/PG usage.

The CPU usage is significantly higher and the PG usage marginally lower, so overall they're more difficult to fit.


• CCP acknowledged that shield recharge timers currently don't work as intended. It seems they should be reset to 0 every time a bullet hits you.

Indeed. This is a good thing.


• there are triage nano hives that can regenerate armor. The advanced one (affordable by any one) is healing 20 HP/s, while the prototype one heals 70 HP/s.

I find triage nanohives rather meh.On one hand, they can heal a fair bit, but on the other, they're severely limited by ammo constraints, are stationary, destructible, and require quite significant investment to unlock and fit. They also seem to run out very very quickly.


• repair tools are actually much more effective than shield regeneration: the triage tool heals 41 HP/s (again affordable by everyone fitting and isk wise), and the prototype focused rep tool heals an insane 105 HP/s.

Assuming some investment, as opposed to having powerful regeneration at base. They also require another player, though this encourages teamwork and is a good thing.

When attempting to rebalance armor, everyone should keep the existence of triage hives and rep tools in mind. Otherwise we might end up with a Gallente heavy, stacking armor plates in the lows and having insane amounts of HP, while being repped for 175 HP/s by a logi and his triage hive/rep tool. It's an edge case, of course, but I think good balancing should account for edge cases, too.

That really is an edge case. Remember that if you're using triage nanohives it locks you to a certain location, and they run out very quickly. While those numbers look good on paper, a proper assault would either kill the logistics player or force them off the triage nanohive at the very least. Additionally, weapon dps can exceed those repairs, especially if two people are firing.

Also about racial armor tanking boni: I think they are important when discussing balance. The reality is, caldari suits already have strong shield tank boni, while Gallente suits lack any bonus to armor tanking. For example logi suits: shield recharge 25 on Cal vs 15 on Gal. I'm saying this because in your comparison, you usually use numbers that are taken from suits designed for shield tanking, and so those numbers already have a racial bonus applied to them (when compared to the same numbers on suits.that are designed for armor tanking).

Yes, they are quite important. I haven't touched on them much because they're one of the few things which will apparently get fixed.
As a side note, only one part of my shield regen number set (the assault) accounts for that bonus.

And I feel when you discuss the lower strafe speed of armor, you should mention that the armor tank has a higher damage output due to damage mods in the high slots. I think in a 1 vs 1 situation, higher damage makes up for lower strafe speed. With a 20% damage bonus, you need 20% less time to take down you opponent. Putting it another way, you effectively reduce the total HP of your opponent by 20%, which is very significant.

This assumes that you hit your opponent every time, which is never the case.
Additionally, shoving on a shield extender in place of the damage module is more beneficial - I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but someone calculated that a complex shield extender does more for you than a complex damage module even if both people are hitting 100% of their shots.

I haven't touched much on the state of Amarr suits because I haven't used them much personally.
It's possible to armour tank them, yeah - but I seem to encounter them as shield tankers more frequently. I'll edit to reflect the state of Amarr suits when I finish the next section.

Answers in bold inside the quote.

Speaking as someone who's run the Amarr suits you'll see a lot of shield tanking with them due to their low base speed and somewhat more limited PG both of which make plates harder to fit. Also the Assault role bonus to shields will trend some additional tanking that way for the Assault suit. The Logi has a racial skill to armor reps but even with that skill the Gal Logi can get a better active tank for armor (albeit at a higher ISK cost in mods fit). (Note: I run Logi so my knowledge of the Amarr Assault is primarily theory crafting and prior build context).

Cheers,
Cross

I haven't touched much on the state of Amarr suits because I haven't used them much personally.
It's possible to armour tank them, yeah - but I seem to encounter them as shield tankers more frequently. I'll edit to reflect the state of Amarr suits when I finish the next section.

More limited PG?
Dude, I wish my Gallente suit had the same CPU/PG you had.
You beat us on both CPU and PG, in addition for having one less slot meaning that you don't need as much.

I would add that being slower makes you easier to hit, and since the opponent is faster, those damage mods really don't help if you can't hit the bastard.

Guys, I did not argue that rep tools or triage hives are the saving grace for armor tanking. There is no need to explain again why armor tanking is inferior to shield tanking, we have all come to that conclusion already.

*takes a look at the new modules. takes a seat with some popcorn*

Oh this is gonna be good!

Maybe you should post some stats, then.

As far as I can tell, the new modules work with the armor plating skills but not the armor repair skill. The reactive plates seem unaffected as they give me a straight 1 hp rate, not 1.15.

This thread is basically a solo playing style issue .. why would you need to stick to a nano hive ? Where is your logi repper ? Why are you on your own ? Why do you need to rely on armor rep mods when a repper does the job better ? Can armour be taken out entirely by lasers and flux grenades like shields ? Dont your shields have to be taken out b4 you get through to armour ? You could add shield mods if you sacrificed damage mods but no you go solely for armor plates and complain shields are better .. why not try balancing your defence and sacrifice some damage to increase your shields to make it harder to get through to your armour ? Every suit has shields and armor if you spec solely armour then you have to accept the pitfalls just as shield users do (losing 500 shield with 1 flux or having a laser user totally wipe your shield is alot worse than a movement penalty or not being able to have full plate mods if you want higher rep rate on armour) I have both and love both but i also know that both have pitfalls and bonuses, a good squad can sort those pitfalls out, there are bigger gameplay issues that need dealing with before we get to anything like this (matchmaking has to be a number 1 priority if this game is to attract and keep new and old players)