Ships & Modules

I happen to agree with the points above,concerning armour tanks,but personnally ive always struggled with the ideaTRIMARKS add mass to your ship,Surly they would be better if they added to your base resistance across the board of 15% for T1s and 20% for T2s similar to a EANM now,for extra sig radius .While nano/accel rigs arnt adding mass either ,they are repairing missing mass so again a sig penalty makes more sense.Plates of course are adding mass ,so a speed /agilty penalty is justified imo.
So scale up the repair amounts for medium reppers ,and cut the fitting requirments for the large ,while rigs add exta resistances ,and repper speed/amounts at the expense of sig radius ,those fixes i feel will make armour tanks competative,andviable for players doing PVP

I'd say that the balance between shield and armor buffer tanks is pretty much spot on. Shield ships forgo tackle, resistances, and overall ehp for an advantage in dps, range, and mobility. Armor buffer ships obviously favor the inverse most specifically focused on higher resistance values and better "fleet level tanks" due to higher resistances. The disadvantages of the corresponding rigs I think is spot on at the moment as well. Trimarks and armor resistance rigs should retain their speed pen, just as Field extenders and shield resistance rigs should retain their sig pen.

The major issue between the two types of tanking comes down to the active niche, which unfortunately will always be a niche do to the scaling nature of buffer/resistance tanks in larger fleet that include logistic ships. In their current form there is no question that active shield tanking has a very significant advantage in comparison to active armor tanking which has also (despite what some may say) been present long before the introduction of the much loathed asb module. Thankfully the ASB (specifically xl-asb) will be receiving significant nerfs in the retribution xpack at the very least making them more balanced in comparison to other active shield tanking options. While I feel this is most certainly an overall improvement it does not address one of the major issues which is the imbalance in overall effectiveness between resistance and active tanking bonuses present on ships. For further discussion on this specific topic I'd like to forward this thread https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=169936 rather than just rehash what has been said.

The other major issues come from the lack of balance in the armor vs shield repper/booster modules independent of the ships they are attached to. I strongly believe that these modules should effective w/o requiring a ship with an active or even resistance bonuses which outside of very specific ships (some afs, faction BS, some hacs) is simply not the case. First and foremost I think a detailed analysis of the imbalance between faction/DS armor and shield reppers/boosters need to be done. A quick look through of these modules simply shows that the increase in tank between armor and shield as meta level increases is simply not proportional, significantly improving the relative strength of shield boosters compared to armor reppers in this comparison. The solution is to either give the armor reppers a distinct separate advantage or to simply level the playing field by buffing high meta level armor reppers to allow their hp/s to scale at an equal level that shield boosters do.

Second, a highly detailed look into fitting requirements of specifically medium and large armor reppers needs to be done to allow for these modules to be more easily fit onto ships intent on using them. At the moment the pg requirement, as well as slot requirement (2-3 for bcs, 2 for bs) commonly outweighs the benefits especially when compared to shield boosters and passive/buffer tanking modules. The total slot amount I do not see being reduced, however the overall effectiveness that utilizing these slots for said tanking modules I strongly believe is out of wack. There are just too many compromises that must be made to field even a modest active armor tank. These compromises are lower dps, lower speed, and massive cap issues only solved by the use of even more slots. The shared pen between ehp and active rigs is also and issue very commonly touched upon by the community. I think at this point it is more or less undeniable that the speed pen on active armor rigs needs to be swapped for something that makes the small scale niche of these type of ships less effected.

In the end what's needed is a balancing of the progressing of high meta level shield and armor reppers/boosters along with most probably a reduction in cap usage/fitting of armor reppers (medium, and large) as well as a change to active tanking rig penalties. I believe that with the the proposed change from 7.5% to 10% (or more) per level to rep amount on active bonused ships we may finally see a more balanced eve, something that has been needed for many many years and seems to be a heavy focus point of the modern ccp.

I don't think increasing the bonus armor repairing a ship gives is quite the right solution. Ideally, you'd also want to give active armor tanking to non-repair bonus ships as a viable option once again. I think a better solution would be to increase the base repair amount for armor repairers by maybe an extra 25%, 33%, or even 50% and increase the PG requirements some. Instead of three armor repairers for a decent tank you'd need only two and would free up a low slot for a damage or resistance module.

Concerning the speed penalty of rigs and plates, I think it should no longer should have such a drastic penalty. It would probably be better to reduce agility. It should take a little longer to accelerate, but your top speed won't be affected.

Frankly, I always thought the signature penalty of shield rigs and shield extenders were a joke since a MWD causes your signature radius to become obese whether you have shield rigs and extenders or not. Perhaps shield rigs and extenders need an actual drawback.

As for active tanks, active armour is simply too slot intensive - to make a "passable" active armour tank 5 lowslots + 1 midslot + 3 rigslots are required, which leads to very anemic damage output on ships which have less then 7 lowslots by virtue of having only one damage mod.

A slightly inferior (or not, in case of oversized booster) active shield tank can be made with 3 midslots / 1 lowslot / 3 rigslots.

Add on top of that huge fitting requirements, and it's quite clear why people, even in solo / very small gangs (where an active tank makes sense hypothetically) rarely if ever opt for active armour tank. It's not an issue of low tanked amount; tanked amount, especially with various boosters/etc is sufficient to justify fitting an armour tank over a buffer tank in low DPS situations. However due to slot and fitting (and rig penalties, as well) requirements, the actual combat utility (by which I mean largely DPS) of such ships is simply too low for them to be viable on TQ.

Boosting tank amounts is more of a direct nerf to viability of solo / very small gang in the first place, which is counterproductive since active tanks are meant to be used in such situations. A carefully designed solution which is not conductive to overtanking but frees up a slot and fitting (eg; two in one repairer which prevents simultaneous activation of another repairer, and active repair rigs having a less harsh penalty) would go a long way towards making active armour actually viable in small scale situations.

Bad troll attempt. Pretty much all your latest posts are very short and don't contribute at all.

Yes, that it true. You're talking about amarr and caldari ships. Generally, they have more mass, are built towards being defensive, and aren't as maneuverable as gallente and minmatar. It's generally more difficult for them to pick their fights because of it. It's just my opinion that they need the extra defense to justify it.

The reason you don't see many people using that 7.5% repairer bonus anymore is because the repairers have become bad over time. Minmatar is certainly putting their 7.5% shield boost bonus to good use.

Confirming that ASB/LSE myrmidons with insane damage and tank are not a thing. Also never see ASB hyperions doing crazy damage and tanking just as much as an armor hyperion. Say nothing of the LSE brutix doing 1200 DPS with 50k EHP.

Enough with the sarcasm.

Nope. I fly both armor and shield ships with about equal skills. You're only seeing the part of the picture you want to see.

Armour and shield tanking are both good for different things. I think they should tone down the penalties on rigs, but otherwise things are fine.

Tripple rep myrmidons are good at tanking maybe 2 BCs max and do wet noodle dmg in comparison. Dual rep Hyperions, while effective against another BS 1v1 DIAF super fast when dps fielded is 1700+ or more as well as doing far less dps than a mega while having an even smaller fighting envelope. Add nuets into the mix and yeah, both may as well not even be present.