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Active v Passive shield tank
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Odithia
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#1 - 2014-12-01 09:12:04 UTC
In PVE seems to me that Active shield tank, the cap hungry kind, is very rarely used as opposed to passive shield tank that's used even or ships designed for armor tanking.

In PVP Ancillary shield Booster are used way more often than classic Shield Booster that are praticaly never used except on the bigger hulls.

Indeed is quite hard to make an active shield tank ship able to sustain it for a while.
The only ships I see using classic shield boosters are Tengu, somme Command Ships and Battleships.

Isn't it proof that some rebalance is needed ?
James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#2 - 2014-12-01 09:21:40 UTC
It is used extensively in missions and for lower skill pilots. Its just that ASBs are so much better in a PVP environment that it isn't used in PVP any more. the stock shield reps are pretty good for ratting too. but its a pve thing mostly.

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afkalt
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2014-12-01 09:46:49 UTC
Why on earth you'd passive tank in PvE save vs neuts is beyond me.

I'll give you the ancils in PvP though, there's little reason not to unless you have an odd little fit. But that is because to run the booster hard you also need a cap booster...so 2 slots gone. And they boost less so not very attractive.
Syrias Bizniz
some random local shitlords
#4 - 2014-12-01 09:51:02 UTC
Shield Boosters are a fast, high cost 'Health Injection'. They have really short cycle times, and thus allow for high peak tanks. This comes at the cost of excessive capacitor usage.

A consequence of this is, for tanking missions, you'd need to sacrifice a lot of slots on Capacitor Life for the Large and X-Large Shield Boosters.
However, the smaller Shield Boosters allready allow for good tank-values. A Tech 2 Medium SHield booster struggles tanking an Angel Extravaganza of course, but let's say a Pithum A-Type Medium shield Booster is used, then you're looking at an insane tank / cap ratio. Same goes for Large and X-Large Gist Shield boosters.

As such, there's a high demand for this item, which is limited through exploration loot-chances. High demand and low availability create a high price on the market, making the purchase of such an item a real investment.
An investment not everyone is happy with.

As such, people are looking into cheaper possibilities to achieve their goal, which is 'tanking a mission': MJD, Cruise Missiles and limited range on NPCs allow for a cheap but effective way to run missions without the need to pour hundreds of millions of ISK into modules.
Then there are Ships that come with shield resistance bonuses and / or small signature radii, as well as enough medium slots and fitting space to field some Impressive, really impressive buffer tanks that are able to hold through an entire mission if you don't shoot the triggers too early.
Since all you have to do to get your buffer up again is dock, finish mission and accept a new one, this is a very handy tanking-design.


TL;DR:

Active Shield tanking for missions is a decision often based on ISK.
Joe Risalo
State War Academy
Caldari State
#5 - 2014-12-01 14:56:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Joe Risalo
Used to be that you could passive fit a drake and a rattlesnake with massive buffers.
Hell, a passive fit drake could tank many lvl 4 missions assuming you monitor aggro and spawns.

That said though, the introduction of the ASB did kinda kill off passive tanking, especially in PVE.
It's been a while since i've flown either ship though, so i'm not sure if passive is even possible on these ships anymore.

The problem with passive tanking is that if you don't have a fast enough natural regen on your ship, it's much less effective EHP than you can get with a boost fit, or even a cap stable fit, which is why you've never really seen it on Ravens, Scorpions, and other ships.
there used to be such a thing as a buffer fit, but again, with the introduction of ASB, that has pretty much gone away as well.


A lot of the reason why this happened is due to the nature of the beast.
I can get a lot more dps and EHP by using an ASB, but it limits the length of engagement I can sustain.
That said, in most cases, especially PVP, no one wants the engagement to last long enough for sustainability to become a factor.

Hence the want for higher DPS.


It's not a matter of not being effective, passive tanking in certain ships is very effective.
Problem is, passive tanking gimps your output so much that it's not worth the use in short term combat.

Edit...
Oh, and as far as your comment that Passive is overpowering active when it comes to PVE....
Maybe in wormholes, or maybe even null, depending on supply availability.
In high sec, it's almost always active tanking.

Hell, the Golem is now the king of PVE, as far as shields are concerned, and it's a beast at active tanking.


TBH... I think you got it the wrong way.
What i see is that passive tanking is almost dead, while active tanking reigns supreme due to the ASB.
Arya Regnar
Darwins Right Hand
#6 - 2014-12-01 15:03:01 UTC
The issue with non ancilliary shield boosters on say frig sized ships is that at that scale it massively underperforms because of sig bloom and lack of buffer due to lack of resists. You also just don't have the burst to keep up with DPS of most things. Armor on the other hand lets you use more low slots towards resists which are also passive. Invulns on frigs will eat half your cap on their own.

There are a lot of reasons and it's not that shield ancils are OP.

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