Ships & Modules

I think it would be interesting to change the armor rig penalty to an agility penalty, so youre still quite a bit heavier, and move slower as a fleet, but you would have a much closer top speed to the shield tankers.

Also please remember that any buffs you make to active tanking also affect PvE.

I dont mind that there are differences between the two tank types. In fact, I think its cool. I think CCP is on the right track with ASB (but small nerf mentioned below). They need to tweak the armor ones though.

So keeping with the theme of shield = light/skirmish and armor = heavy/endurance, make changes something like:

1. Decrease cap usage of RAH and increase the amount/speed at which it shifts. I like the idea behind this module, but it's too slow and cap hungry to be of much use now. There is no reason to use it over a second EANM right now, and little to use it over a third. These changes will make armor tanks stronger the longer the fight goes. Endurance.

2. Change the armor rig penalties to something else. Sig radius would be ok. This is just a giant penalty to Gallente ships.

3. Keep it so armor still needs to rely on a separate cap booster module. But significantly reduce the amount of cap they use (like half). This makes armor more cap friendly to allow for longer endurance, easier use of neuts, more resistance to neuts, and helps with the fact that traditional armor races use blasters and lasers. Endurance.

4. Increase the length of time armor mods can over heat or have higher module hit points, or reduce the amount of heat damage they cause. Endurance.

5. Reduce the fitting requirements slightly (allows for fitting of additional reps/cap boosters/larger weapons/plates). Heavy.

6. Increase the rep amounts or speed slightly - not on par with ASBs - but more than now. OR, increase the amount of benefit you get from overheating, and allow them to overheat for longer. I can see the need for double rep setups - having to fit triple reps is kinda silly though. Heavy/Endurance.

So, the above changes would make armor ships be a bit hardier, more resistant to neuting/better able to use neuts, fit heavier weapons and have longer 'staying power' with increased overheating ability. It also makes sense because the traditional armor races use the two most cap hungry weapons.

7. For shield - I like ASB, but the dual oversized setups are kinda crazy. So to reduce (but not eliminate) those options - increase the fitting requirements of ASB slightly so you REALLY have to gimp your fit (smaller weapons, less nos/neut or more fitting mods) to fit 2 of them. I think that would go a long way to balance the dual oversize fits we are seeing. If you want to make something crazy with an obscene tank - you still can - but good luck fitting weapons to keep you in your normal 'DPS class'. Would reduce their abilities to fit full-size nos/nets too - again keeping with the reduced endurance but skirmish mentality.

I dunno - just some ideas. I like the differences between tank styles - but they need to be balanced now.

Shield would continue to be the quick strike race but still have a good active tank option. Armor would be the heavies with longer staying power.

I am just glad CCP has commented on the issue finally. Sounds like they are working on it. Go go CCP.

Edit: autocorrect sucks.

1. you can barely call it a buff. armor reps still wouldn't rep at the beginning of cycle and rep amount would be the same.
2. He didn't say 'remove penalties from armor tanking rigs'. Only decrease penalties, which would bring it inline with shield penalties.. which is something no one really cares about.
3. You can't really compare over sized shield booster (with cap booster) with 1600 plate. Over sized SB with cap injectors = asb
4. Looks like you're the only one thinking asb are balanced. (looks at CCP Fozzie 's quote)

nothing would change about the repping modules except how it applies the HP. instead of giving you 1000 hp at the end of each cycle. it would give you HP throughout the entire cycle of the module totaling 1000HP by the end of the rep.

E.g. a crystal boosted Slepinir with an oversized deadspace booster, blue pill and a fleet booster could active tank insane amounts of damage before the introduction of ASBs and without gimping the rest of the fit - subcap armor tanks could field nothing even remotely comparable to that, so if one form of active tanking was in need of something akin to an ASB, it was armor tanking if CCP intended to balance both tanking styles to yield more similar results.

So it appeared pretty obvious they wanted to separate them further, rather than adjusting them.

So you're saying that a pimpfit bonused Hull with an already admittedly overpowered offgrid booster and drugs could tank olinsane amounts. I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound all that much unlike what I've heard of myrmidons, to be honest. And if you don't splurge on the fit, you would be gimped. I agree ASB's require revision, but in my opinion the example is poor.

The point is that you'd probably have to fit an Astarte with all lowslots used for tank, 3 medium deadspace reps, exile, named implants, t2 rigs and officer resist mods to match a Slepinir with a single deadspace booster available for ~200 mill and nothing else but T2 mods, T1 rigs, crystals and blue pill.

Difference is that money aside, the Sleip will still be viable whereas the Astarte can't maintain the tank due to using more cap (or fire its guns), can't fit a single damage mod and sacrifices maneuverability.

Anyway - maybe not the best example, but the point is that shield tanks always had an easier time to burst-tank sufficient amounts to make them viable in pvp situations as opposed to armor tanks - even on bonused hulls, you need three reps to achieve a similar effect and then run into cap issues, so if CCP had planned to even that out, they would have had to add an ASB-like mod for armor rather than shield.

I don't care either way since I just use Minmatar with ASBs like everyone else, but the decision to add ASBs whilst giving armor tanks a lol-mod you can train a skill for that increases the already high cap use as a side effect appears a bit weird from a game design POV since it rather aggravates existing problems.

Just trying to find out what they were thinking.