Ships & Modules

Yeah, sure. Just nerf shield buffer more. Completely forget about the consequences in larger ships. It's not like this has been discussed in the thread already.


Lets just turn that into a Rokh that has 100k EHP, and runs its cap dry in 30 seconds because of its shield recharge rate, and an Abaddon that has 500k EHP, and runs its cap dry in 45 seconds because its lasers cap it out.

That sounds cool.

It's like you speak without knowing about anything but your tiny little bubble. "Hurr, the shield tanked frigate beat my frigate, shields are ALL OP".

Armor tanked caps are also considered superior because of slaves giving increased armor, whereas shields don't have anything of the sort.

And don't even bring that damnable ASB into this. It's widely known that it is overpowered, and it is getting nerfed. Probably not hard enough yet, but they're working on bringing it down.

I am suggesting that they make armor doctrine more buffer and shield more regen rate but set the values so they each has its place. Right now, shield tankers can choose buffer or regen and, by the way, if they go buffer they still get regen. Buffer armor gets no regen and active armor repair rates suck compared to shield tanks. It would all need to be balanced appropriately. I'm not saying to nerf one to uselessness. Just define the differences and strengths and make those differences more pronounced.

Perhaps a Rokh with 70k EHP and a solid regen should be balanced by a 250k EHP armor buffer Abaddon with lower regen.

I could, but instead of discussing speed averages to define "fast" - just take a look at the general figures of Gallente plated base base values to Caldari shielded.

It's simple enough to illustrate my point: Minmatar are supposed to be fast, Caldari are shield and have no speed penalty. The balance of Gallente can be said to end inbetween combinations of "fast" and "shield" ie., around the speed of Caldari.

This also allow you to separate the complaints of wether "shield is fast" or wether "Minmatar is fast" compared to Gallente. Minmatar are obviously meant to be faster, which is retained through the combination of "shield" + "fast".

If we assume shield is "fast" in general, you could also argue that Gallente matching the lower end of the shield speed spectrum would be "fast armor".



This also enable you to look at individual balance: for example, 1600m plated Vexors and Thorax match the MWD-speed of Caracals and Moas quite well, whereas a ship like the Brutix is notorious for being malbalanced speed-wise (i think it's even slower than a Myrm, though i must admit i can't quite remember; while the Myrm match the Drake within the tolerable differentiation).

Amarr are obviously meant to be slower than Gallente when plated, and you can easily run those figures as well to spot rules and deviations.

You are likely to find deviations. I'm not saying all ships are perfectly balanced by any stretch, but the general design philosophy is there and looking at it like this will give you a common terminology to work with. It codifies the discussion, as men of science would put it, instead of debating what could be considered "fast".


A couple of disclaimers at the end:

The notion of "fast" inbetween classes generally just become interesting when you begin to look at roles. That's why i tend to prefer using Cruisers in my examples (or better yet, HAC, because they are Cruisers with multiple bonuses - so they have always offered good overview of how racial traits impact the game in stack). They are the middle ground, where speed is as important as other features of the ship. Other classes will have the concept of class, and class-class balance as a stronger modifier when discussing speeds, so the details of the speed matter less. It's a complication that demand more from anyone participating once you factor it in: how speed differences also manifiest themselves differently at different size. There is a tendency to pull the class-class discussion out of context, so average examples are good.

The same goes for module impact, i'd rather not touch that can of worms at all, because in all honesty (and i don't mean this as a slight), i think that is a discussion that is lost on most people participating in the thread. The everyday viewer lack the experience to understand the balance between slot allocation and "necessary mods" and it's going to be an uncessary complication having to point out the abstract value of a "point" to a "nano" in how they both affect tankslots, or "midslot utility" to "lowslot damage mods" as most people lack the perspective of how damage mods become less important as you scale up, same as midslot utility.

Most people are used to fitting damage mods in abscence of less appealing options and disregarding midslot utility because that is outsourced. On the surface, that make shield appealing for singular roles (tank-spank). I'm not sure how to put it, but it generally just get fed into newer players that it's the way it is, they generally don't construct a problem-solving discussion around those things (such as why most large fleet Drakes have 2xBCS while many small gang setups have 3xBCS). Instead they argue damage mods as arbitrarily good based on tank-spank isolation, without questioning their own use of them. In reality a balance exist there too which is commonly overlooked. Those discussions are better held when you have isolated concrete examples to work with, that keep the discussion on track.

In the end, i mainly just put those disclaimers here to get ahead of the discussion: because in a speed-discussion, random those comments are likely to appear, and i'd prefer if they didn't have to be explained and detrack.

And combination of the following I think would help...

increase the rep amount slightly - as you have to wait till end of the cycle to see any repairing, and that could mean life or death.

and I'd slighty decrease the speed penalty if rigs.

Next I'd say only asb to be fitted on a ship

Also make an auxiliary armour repairer (armour equivilant of asb)

Add an armour rep amplifier similar to a shield boost amplifier

And maybe medium slot damage mods so u can have tank and damage

And I was also thinking of a 1 of module that can be fitted to give armour a slow recharge but make it possible to only fit 1 module per ship so u don get a super fast passive recharge

Overall I think these would allow better flexibility for armour tankers

-Wardeneo-

This
Some how, active armor tanking outside of mission running died in the last few years and I can't figure out why (aside from those crazy dual rep faction battleship videos). Personally, I'm sick of the exclusively passive tanking for pvp and reliance on remote reps for anything difficult. Maybe I'm nostalgic, but eve is more fun when you do your own repping.

Yes, go for an active tanked, MWD Federation Navy Comet. Good speed combined with nice dps for its class and some rep for additional survivability in case you get some scratches to your armor.