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Some shield skill questions
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Memory Fades
State War Academy
Caldari State
#1 - 2014-11-09 11:10:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Memory Fades
Hello!

I've been planning my skill plan very carefully, to reach a maximum PvP point for shield fits.
There is something that confuses me in the skill descriptions.

Let's say that a specific fit I intend to fly, has only two Large ASBs, Damage Control II, a Shield Boost Amplifier II, and a Shield Extender II, with some Shield Rigs. No invulnerability Field, and no specific Shield Hardeners.

I look at the description of a whole bunch of Shield skills, and I simply can't understand if I need to skill them for this kind of fits.

To start with, the 4 specific amplifiers compensation skills. The description reads "per level for shield amplifiers"
Does this mean only the specific shield hardeners, or does it also include anything else what so ever? Like does it help with DC2, or Shield Boost Amplifiers (which is kind of confusing as the skill description specifically says the word amplifier), and does it even include invulnerability field?

Next, the Shield Emission Systems, 5% reduced capacitor. Does this apply to anything except logistics?

Tactical Shield Manipulation, that I got skilled to level4 based on this 2012 thread, but I want to make sure that this is still the case, that skilling it to level5 is not needed and even bad. Considering that I will be flying ASB shields fits.

Lastly: what are the skills that make the mod: Invulnerability Field II more effective?

Those are the question I have, and I thank anyone who can help.

I would like to add some thoughts that may sound stupid, as I am not a very pro player (yet), but the whole shield skills in the game feel built in an odd way, and messed up. I think a restructure is in order, as this is one of the main things players skills for.

In the armor skills you have Armor Layering which is an awesome skills, why don't we have something that reduces the Sig Radius handicap from the Shield Extenders? And you have Armor Resistance Phasing which is great, why don't we have something specific for Invuls? And more than anything else, armor has not one, but two! nano rigs that made the armor reppers boost more, and shield has nothing like that as far as I can tell. We have the Shield Boost Amp but that takes an extra mid-slot that you almost always have to chose between an Invul or Amp, not to mention that it usually costs you a web or something (a rig is MUCH easier to spare than a slot for this matter, as CA-1&2 implants make up for any and all drawback that the rigs brings, and then some).

As I was coming up with fit ideas I realized how weak the shield structure is. I was thinking of a general fit idea for a Blaster boat that could work for both armor and shield. So the armor fit was a simple dual-rep (medium armor rep II), reactive armor hardener, plate, and 2 nano rigs to support the reppers. I easily fit a medium cap booster in the mid slots, and still had plenty for point, web, MWD, etc... A cap stable active rep fit.

Now I went to shields, wanting a dual-rep ASB fit. So I fit two large ASBs. Considering that I had only so many mid slots and I need a MWD, Invul field was out of the question, as I need a point. So I added the warp disruptor and had to chose between a shield amp (or iunvul) and a web. Which sucks in itself already, but then add to that, the fact that I have no rig to make my ASBs boost better. And even worse, that not in my wildest dreams can I fit a capacitor booster in the mid slots, so in case I'm neuted, even though ASBs keep going, all my blasters go offline and I'm dead in the water.

Differences between the fits: armor has cap stability as "sacrificing" a mid-lots for a low-slot based fit is easy, extra repping power from rigs, reduced drawbacks of the plates from the Layering skill, extra juice to the reactive mod from the Phasing skill, and the blasters won't stop even if you're neuted, because you can damn well overheat your cap booster or something. At least you're not dead in the water. While the shield fit can't sacrifice a low-slot for cap stability (PDS or some other lowslot mods for extra cap won't help against a neut), no boosting help from rigs... You get the point. Its a grim comparison.

To sum it up, armor skills just feels a lot more structurally sound than the Shield skills overall.

Thanks!
Korvus Falek
Depraved Corruption
Lux Inter Astra
#2 - 2014-11-09 17:25:27 UTC
Just a note, I logged in just to answer your questions. Feel special.

The amp skills affect only the amps, the passive modules. Not Invuls or DCUs.

The shield emissions is a reduction in the use of cap for remote reps on any ship. There is another skill specific to lowering cap use of local reps.

TSM 5 is still a bad idea; unless its been fixed stealthily.

There isnt one for the Invul field, its a flat rate. Add more of them for more effect, but reduced amount for any added past one. The shield resist skills used to affect the active hardeners specific to their type, but that was changed at some point (dont remember when) to only affect the passive modules.

Other stuff:
The armor vs shield things are varied, as you mention. There are good and bad to that mass reduction skill. In a wormhole, you dont want to have too much variance in the mass of your fleet when jumping through. Makes the math difficult if everyone has level 5 or zero or in between levels.

Shields have an active general shield resist module, the Resist phasing module was added as somewhat of an equal to that module. Not really, but thats what I like to think =P

As for rigs, we only have the one that increases the amount of reps produced. The other one you speak of reduces the cycle time, which increases cap costs. Pick your poison =P Shields have rigs that reduce recharge rate, making for a stronger passive shield tank. Not to mention, shields regen comparatively to their totals, so the raw shield hp rigs help in that passive tanking as well as regular tank ability.

Going to your fittings, there are benefits and drawbacks to both tanking styles. Armor is usually slower, reps take affect at the end of the cycle, and usually have more utility in the mids. Shields have to balance between utility and tank, but are usually quicker and more agile against armor ships; which for the majority of them is good as there is a minority of missile armor ships; thus boosting the viability of out maneuvering the tracking of their guns. Damn long run on sentence. Anyways...

Hyrbrids use cap and you can most definitely be neuted to the point of not being able to fire them even with a cap booster. The layering skill has minimal impact overall for armor ships, to the point of really not being a determining factor in whether to use a plate or not. The phasing module does not take full effect until a few cycles have passed, so youre losing out on that initial tanking opportunity.

Shields actually have several modules to help in their tanking ability while under neuts. There are a few low slot mods that increase cap regen but reduce shield hp amount. Not good for a passive tank, but an active one its ok. And for rigs, there is one that reduces to the cap usage of all modules that require shield upgrades skill. There is even a skill that reduces the PG requirement of modules that need the shield upgrades skill.

To sum up my reply, you need more experience in EvE overall to fully grasp an understanding of its inner workings. Ill drop fits below that meet your needs in what you said above. Blasters, active tank, (web, point, prop mod) and medium sized ship (Im guessing since you said medium armor rep). Cap stability in pvp is overrated as well, unless youre using a Vengeance, then its likely you will be cap stable even with 1 small neut on you.

[Moa, Active PVP]
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 50
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Hybrid Burst Aerator II

Hobgoblin II x3
Void M x4000
Null M x2500
Cap Booster 50 x100


Tbh, I really dont like the ASB. The ships shield is rather thin, and at 180-ish dps tank, its not viable against several other cruisers, even some frigates. However, the dps output of 700+ unheated is pretty sexy and will melt face....If you can get in range lol..7 minutes of cap is plenty of time for a fight, with the mwd off that is. You have about 1 minute to get into range and turn it off before youre out though.

[Thorax, Active PVP]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Armor Repairer II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Void M

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Valkyrie II x5

And in this fitting you need a +5% implant (if you have perfect skills). You do less dps (600-ish), have a weaker tank, but you have an extra web (not enough grid for a cap booster).

TBH, and IMO, both fits are pretty ******* ****** and will die. When using an MWD, I dont feel you should active tank (unless your ship has a strong capacitor like the vengeance assault frig).

There are a lot of little things that go with both shield and armor tanking and almost none of those philosophies have little to no overlapping views points on how the ships do things. Pick one you enjoy (I prefer armor tanking really) and go with that instead of min/maxing.
Memory Fades
State War Academy
Caldari State
#3 - 2014-11-09 20:52:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Memory Fades
Thanks Korvus Falek!
I love the detailed response. helps.
Jessica Duranin
Doomheim
#4 - 2014-11-09 22:10:22 UTC
Memory Fades wrote:
And more than anything else, armor has not one, but two! nano rigs that made the armor reppers boost more, and shield has nothing like that as far as I can tell.


Just to point out: you can e.g. fit Large shield boosters on a cruiser, but not Large armor repairers.
Also there are no X-Large armor repairers.
So instead of fitting rep boosting rigs you can use oversized shield boosters.

You'll typically get more burst tank out of shield fittings, where as armor tanking is more cap efficient.
Lugh Crow-Slave
#5 - 2014-11-19 10:45:50 UTC
Another thing to remember and what may help you realize when you see that there is not always a shield equivelent of an armor mod and vice versa is that shields are set up to tank a large amount of DPS over a short time rather than high alpha or sustained fights. As such they have modules to up the booster amount as well as can fit in some cases boosters two sizes up. however boosting is much more cap heavy so in long fights it fails.


an armor tank can sustain high alpha and rep slowly over time but using much less cap and as such it has skills/mods that make it easier to fit for high EHP.

as for the rigs the main reason that shields don't have a rig to boost the amount is because you can instead use larger sized boosters(adding a rig to this would cause problems) this is also why armor has better starting resists and more resist based mods to balance shield boosters from boosting to much EHP.


I'm sure i have some of this wrong but it should help you over all and with luck my errors will be corrected by someone else and help you further.

BLOPS Hauler
The 16.8km Bubble