Ships & Modules

That's not technically true. Active armor tanks work at about the same level of efficiency as active shield tanks do. The issue is that the ships become too slow due to rigs. Removing the rigs penalties will allow you to active tank without the speed penalties. No plates and no rig penalties mean a lot of armor tanks would be as fast as a shield ship. Leaving the plate penalties would prevent armor ships from just stacking obscene hit points and STILL being fast. If you want to catch things and kill them, go active. If you want a slug match, buffer.

It would create a similar situation for shield tanking. Active tanks would not have the sig bloom penalty, reducing damage they take from larger ships, increasing the time taken to lock them, making them harder to probe etc. Buffer tanks would still have this issue (due to sig bloom from extenders).

What CCP have to make sure they avoid is buffing armor repairers too much (at all?) which would create unkillable armor tanked ships (triple rep myrm, dual rep incursus, dual/triple rep Hyperion are already good f.e).

Remove the rig penalties and see how it turns out. I have a hunch that we'll be back to Amarr BS blobs within days of the change.

EDIT: The reactive change I posted was to make the module viable (maybe?) and had ntohing to do with balance. In it's current incarnation it is not worth using except in some very niche situations.

I'd like to see hull tanking become viable to make it really different, however if some logic has something to do with EvE space and ships then shield tanking is the only reasonable thing out there.

imho the progressive dmg resist could be a good thing for armor if this module was actually tweaked, make it Energised instead of hardener and cut reactivity delay for about 50% more, this would bring more fitting options if armor rigs and plates get their drawbacks thrown down the toilets (we can always dream about heh)

Also make resist platings the actual Energised values and tweak Energised ones that need at least +25% they have right now to avoid making those ships even more oil tankers alike, well specially in space

It's worth remembering that, as currently implemented, armour tanks are king when it comes to capital ships, fighting on wormholes, and so on.

I think the two biggest reasons I can think of EHP on the tanked layer and fittings requirements of the RR modules themselves. Consider that the Chimera is complete garbage due to fittings and the Nidhoggur has no tank. There is no effective shield triage carrier.

-Liang

Whilst that is a good post, I intentionally kept my OP as vague as possible.

Some of the points you raise where actually some of my main concerns. However, achieving balance within both tanking styles without just making them kind of the same just within two different layers of tank is undesirable imho. They should definitely retain certain unique characteristics.

But:

the current mechanics and trend as indicated by the introduction of the new modules indicate a development where armor tanks are used solely for EHP+resistance heavy immobile logistics blobs and supercaps whereas shield is better for everything else (I think I posted that somewhere already).

On an Aeon or Avatar, even ARSHs may be viable due to applying stacking mechanics and because their cap use isn't really an issue + the massive EHP give them enough time to adapt whereas the boosting power of ASBs presumably is negligible on a supercap (disclaimer: never did the maths on the latter).

OTOH, active armor tanking currently is a plain joke in PvP compared to what shied tanks can do.

The problem with that is the fact that it limits certain types of tanking to certain fleet sizes and ultimately, to ship sizes and tanking styles.

However, it is extremely hard to find a balanced solution for shield and armor tanking whilst maintaining their unique flavours and I don't exactly envy any dev involved with the issue.

That's where you're flat out wrong.

You see, making fights longer lasting then they are with no recourse except more numbers/DPS at the moment brings no new exciting tactics to the table. What it enables is easier and more reliable blobbing - you can get more support and from further away because fights last longer.

The problem is that people imagine themselves in an ASB super-tank tanking a gang and slowly grinding them down one by one and think it helps to combat being outnumbered. Which sorts of works, on idiots who didn't adapt to using ASB themselves. Before long, however, it becomes a ASB super-tank tanking a gang which is trivially tanking it using their own ASBs... and you have even less chances of successfully engaging a larger gang or fighting in outnumbered situations.

The reason is quite simple, if you can pop ships reasonably fast in outnumbered situations, by splitting them / outsmarting them and engaging ships piecemeal, you can fight without numbers on your side. Remove the ability to pop a ship quickly, and numbers only become more important.

That is why boosting tank has always been a bad idea.

NO. It is worse enough that we have ASB, but an armor variant of ASB would make it competely overpowered. Furthermore I like it that there are completely different types of tanking. ASB is also overpowered if you fit two or more of them therefore I think they should simply forbit installing more than one ASB on a ship.

Please justify your assertion that armor tanking would be OP if it had an Armor Ancil Booster. I contend that ASBs are OP when fitting multiple ASBs and when fitting oversized ASBs. Furthermore, the tanking meta has dramatically shifted towards shields as more people realize that damage and mobility have become key attributes in the game.

The only good thing about the ASB being a shield module is that it's the biggest boost Amarr has ever seen.

-Liang

I agree it should not be instapop land.

In my view, the problems (of buffer/tank becoming too effective) began at BCs; with appropriate implants (or none in case of Drakes) and fits EHP is around 90-100K. This is a big jump compared to cruisers and most HACs except maybe Sacriledge. It's still not BS-territory when it comes to EHP, but it is huge when you consider these ships are quite capable as generic roaming ships and fairly inexpensive to boot.

However, it is not the base :stats: of the Tier 2s which were the problem which was often advertised, it is EHP-related bonuses combined with modules and rigs which you can fit plenty of which give a huge increase. Add slavesets and gang bonuses, and then it becomes quite extreme.

Then T3s were added which gave you recon functionality - but instead of the vulnerable 35-40K EHP, they packed 300+K EHP. Making an error with your Huggin/Rapier/Arazu/Lachersis didn't matter anymore (since you now use your T3 and mistakes don't really matter with 300+K EHP), and you had a quick-locking super-EHP option with medium guns.

In my view, it is not a problem if BS have good buffers or even buffers as high as they are now. The lock times are quite low, many of them have problems without some support, they are slow to roam in and slow to catch people but easy to get caught. Problems arise when normal roaming ships which are actually quite effective at catching people have almost battleship-level buffers (and T3s with faction-BS level buffer and recon capabilities), and these problems would have been better adressed by a "nerf" to specific things rather then "let's boost active tank to compensate".

Where the ASB fits in? A single XLASB fit people claim not to be overpowered in effect gives a Myrmidon, using crystals and pills (but not booster) circa 170K EHP if you do not manage to reload, unless it is receiving over 3+K DPS, while using 3 damage mods. (Incidentally, that ship has an armour bonus. The Cyclone is a far more impressive tank.)

It's driving in the wrong direction, really. There has been a continous stream of small changes which shifted things more towards tank which, over time, have added up.

Just because it is new, doesn't make it OP. It's a paradigm change, thank god. Once people figure out how to adapt, there will be a new equilibrium.

But as I said earlier in the thread, Double oversize fits need a tweak, and armor needs to be re-balanced. But single ASB setups aren't OP - they are just new. Give it time before there is a knee jerk reaction. Let it play out a bit.