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Testing ASB adjustments on Duality

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Caneb
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#101 - 2012-09-21 19:03:10 UTC
Agreeing with everyone who said that the best fix is a modulelimit of 1 per ship.

Although changing the XLASB from 4 to 5s cycle time seems right, I always suspected that was just a bug, since the regular X-Large boosters have a 5s cycle time.
TheMaster42
Scorpion Unicorn Bird
#102 - 2012-09-21 22:32:07 UTC
Again, the one module limit won't really fix the problem. In small gang warfare, it will give a huge EHP and damage boost (because of freed-up lows) to ships that can mount them effectively. Even the option of one ASB will marginalize and essentially nerf (through not buffing) any ship with few mid slots or certain amounts of CPU/PG (for instance, all Amarr armor ships) in small gang situations.


ASBs aren't really comparable to Large Armor reppers, either, by the way.

Armor reppers are restricted by powergrid - ASBs are balanced against shield boosters which are not. Cruiser-and-up-sized ships are able to mount XL ASBs or dual Larges if they desire. Large armor reppers cannot ever be effectively placed on smaller than Battleship-sized powegrids. Large armor reppers require a constant input of capacitor - ASBs do not. Large reppers can output a constant amount for the duration of the fight. If you cannot deal more damage than the repping amount (or neut), you cannot break the tank - ASBs run out eventually. The rep amount provided by large armor reps is always on a battleship-sized sig radius, therefore the incoming damage will be that much higher. Large and XL ASBs can be mounted on much smaller signatures, providing much higher effective reps in a combat situation.

Simply looking at the active-tank statistic in EFT and going, "these two numbers are similar, therefore they are comparable" is completely ignoring the mechanics of Eve Online as a whole, and thus simply misinformation.
TheMaster42
Scorpion Unicorn Bird
#103 - 2012-09-21 23:40:35 UTC
SoniClover, I also thought it was worth mentioning that the stats of ASBs will still be whack if they're balanced relative to shield boosters.


It seems safe to reason that ASBs were designed as an alternative form of shield booster - their PG requirements are the same, their cycle times will soon be identical, the scaling of their boost amount is similar, etc. However, ASBs have a distinct and different mechanic from shield boosters that needs to be considered.

Shield Boosters' main limiting/balance factor is capacitor need.


Active shield tanking is statistically way "better" than armor tanking. Consider:

X-Large Shield Booster II:

  • Powergrid: 550
  • CPU: 230
  • Shield/Second: 120


Large Armor Repairer II:

  • Powergrid: 2300
  • CPU: 55
  • Armor/Second: 53 1/3



At a glance, you can see that shield booster provides a ridiculously higher amount of tanking power than armor tanking does. You can even fit booster amplifiers to increase the shield booster's rep amount. Yes the CPU is higher on the booster but not so much higher that you can't get around it, unlike the battlleship-size PG requirements of the Large armor reppers.

But then why is active tanking never used?

Well classical shield boosting is restricted by its capacitor usage. Both boosters and reppers require 400 capacitor per activation, but shield boosters consume this 3x more frequently. This is a prohibitive amount of capacitor for all but battleship-sized batteries with multiple mids or rigs dedicated to capacitor gain, or two medium or one heavy capacitor booster (in the case of the XL shield booster). All of these slots also further eat into your mids for shield resist, tackle, etc., making active-tanking virtually unused in PvP.


So what advantage do ASBs have? They are shield boosters that don't require capacitor to use of course!

Suddenly you have all the advantages of shield boost modules, without their only size-limiting drawback: multiple support slots dedicated to making your booster run. Also whereas X-Large regular boosters typically required battleship-sized capacitors to run, now you can fit XL ASBs on many different sizes of ship. The fitting requirements alone simply weren't designed to be the limiting factor for active-shield-tanking ships.

For these reasons I believe any final balance solution for ASBs probably shouldn't have familiar numbers with shield boosters in any way. They are most similar to buffer EHP items, as I've outlined before.
Minmatar Citizen160812
The LGBT Last Supper
#104 - 2012-09-22 01:43:57 UTC
TheMaster42 wrote:
By the way, ASBs working with 400s equally well as 800s is not the fundamental cause of the problem at all. Yes, it's "weird" that 400s and 800s both have the same effect. But making the boost amount different for 400s and 800s by itself won't necessarily fix ASBs being overpowered at all.



Yes, it will necessarily fix the weird way asbs are fundamentally flawed.
SMT008
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#105 - 2012-09-22 10:44:00 UTC
Team Super Friends, now that we're talking about nerf ASBs (which were fitted on everything because they own), could you please take a look at this old thread of mine which just became relevant again ?

Active Tanking

When I heard about ASBs, I thought that "Well, okay, maybe it's not as good as the buff I expected and wrote about in my thread, but maybe it's a cool feature".

Nerfing ASBs is needed, but please, take a look at this suggestion.
Sarah Moonshine
Moratorium Inc.
#106 - 2012-09-22 19:07:33 UTC
So you finally make shield tanking (other than shield buffer drakes) viable again and then proceed to nerf it. Guess it's back to 1600mm plates everywhere!
Zarnak Wulf
Task Force 641
Empyrean Edict
#107 - 2012-09-23 07:53:20 UTC
In order for me to decide to use an ASB over a shield extender, it has to produce enough shield points not only to replace what the extender would have given me, but also the hitpoints that would have come from the higher regeneration rate that comes from having more shields in the first place. Otherwise what is the point?

Let's assume that you're always going to use navy and you're always going to overheat - not exactly a stretch. A LASB will give you 3861 shield points back. (390 * 1.1 * 9) That seems alot more then a LSE's 2625. However the LASB will take 30.6 seconds to work. If your LSE fit provides a regen rate 40 hitpoints /sec higher then the LASB fit you will make up the difference during that 30.6 sec. Your choice then becomes alpha protection vs sig tanking.

Using the same math I would always choose an MSE over a MASB until navy cap 50's came out. They don't make it over the hurdle with only 7 charges. The problem is the X-LASB. It's a beast.
TheMaster42
Scorpion Unicorn Bird
#108 - 2012-09-23 18:46:55 UTC
Great post. Remember though that shield recharge is only the listed amount at peak recharge (33% if I recall). You unfortunately won't get even close to 40 health every second for the entire duration. It's true that Large ASBs are already much closer to LSEs.
Pinky Denmark
The Cursed Navy
#109 - 2012-09-24 08:41:09 UTC
Belive me those ASB fits can be elusive...
I had a few of them alphaed away under me and it's not fun.

Also I hope eventually that cap boosters will get looked into... No reason to have more than 4 variants anyhow?
Obsidiana
Atrament Inc.
#110 - 2012-09-25 23:58:27 UTC
Has any thought been given to increasing the fitting requirements of ASBs?

In the old days, that is how we made it hard to fit things. :P Right now ASBs take the same fittings as a regular shield booster. Since it does twice the rep that hardly seems to make sense. It has its own drawbacks, so twice the CPU/PG does not seem in order, but it is clearly a better module and should require more fittings, I would think.

I really hope you don't make it a one module per ship thing. A ship should be able to choose two lower powered ASBs. Increased fittings would make going on size or lower a more tempting option.


Alternatively, has any thought be put into a drawback like a CPU penalty for active hardeners?

This would reinforce the fitting dilemma and scale it to larger ships. Adding more than one would also discourage using more than a couple. I would even give larger modules larger penalties in this regard.
ITTigerClawIK
Galactic Rangers
#111 - 2012-09-27 08:32:37 UTC
Seranova Farreach wrote:
dont touch ASBs they are fine as they are!Evil its the only viable thing we got for active pvp against active armor supremacy!

sofar with proposed missle changes and this.. good bye caldari state.. you will be missed.


did you really just say that?
Sheynan
Lighting the blight
#112 - 2012-09-27 14:54:12 UTC
What about disallowing to reload an ASB while another is active to balance them against conventional shield boosters ?

ASBs would keep their nifty short time boost and conventional boosters have the advantage as soon as the fight takes longer than the ASB duration (which could also be nerfed, to be fair)
Ager Agemo
Rainbow Ponies Incorporated
#113 - 2012-09-27 22:43:48 UTC
its actually quite a dilema, without ABSs shield tanking is useless in pvp, with them, shield tanking is the only choice for pvp.

i think the 1 second change itself would be already a good balancing factor, it would make them 20% less powerfull, as someone mentioned, they are sort of like an EHP module more than active tanking, so cutting the ammount of charges by a small ammount and adding that 1 second to their cycle time, should be enough to balance them.

7 charges, and 5 seconds keeping the other stats seem to be a good middle point, allows the future T2 version to have 9 charges and some extra boost, and the navy versions to have 10 charges and 1 less seconds.

on the capacitor side i think they can be changed to consume somewhere around 1000 capacitor. ships like my maelstrom right now can hold a ASB for like 7 or more cycles, wich along with resistances means by the time the capacitor is dead, the other XLASB is already reloaded. AND this is the point that really needs to be adressed.
Jerick Ludhowe
Internet Tuff Guys
#114 - 2012-09-28 22:58:33 UTC
Sarah Moonshine wrote:
So you finally make shield tanking (other than shield buffer drakes) viable again and then proceed to nerf it. Guess it's back to 1600mm plates everywhere!


You've got to be trolling... Shield nano and active shield ships have dominated the small scale arena since like forever...

There is a reason xlsb cyclones and sleipnirs were dime a dozen prior to the introduction of the ASB. Now with asb, we have every ship of almost every size fitting as many oversized mods as possibly resulting in active tanks that put even the extremely powerful dead space tanks of the past to shame...
Nikuno
Atomic Heroes
#115 - 2012-10-01 07:36:58 UTC
Ager Agemo wrote:
its actually quite a dilema, without ABSs shield tanking is useless in pvp, with them, shield tanking is the only choice for pvp.

i think the 1 second change itself would be already a good balancing factor, it would make them 20% less powerfull, as someone mentioned, they are sort of like an EHP module more than active tanking, so cutting the ammount of charges by a small ammount and adding that 1 second to their cycle time, should be enough to balance them.

7 charges, and 5 seconds keeping the other stats seem to be a good middle point, allows the future T2 version to have 9 charges and some extra boost, and the navy versions to have 10 charges and 1 less seconds.

on the capacitor side i think they can be changed to consume somewhere around 1000 capacitor. ships like my maelstrom right now can hold a ASB for like 7 or more cycles, wich along with resistances means by the time the capacitor is dead, the other XLASB is already reloaded. AND this is the point that really needs to be adressed.


Personally I love the fact that active tanking suddenly became good with the ASBs. Whilst toning them down a little is not a bad thing I'd hate to see active tanking thrown back into the dark ages. What's needed now is to bring active armour tanking up to the same standard; do this and suddenly we have speed, armour and shields all as truly viable options for tanking in the smaller sized fights. Scaling will never allow active viable local tanking versus blob alpha, but this would make it king of somewhere at least and get us away from the ehp mentality we've all been forced into for fights of any size.
Sard Caid
The Tuskers
The Tuskers Co.
#116 - 2012-10-02 05:37:41 UTC
CCP SoniClover wrote:
Bubanni wrote:

Perhaps my suggestion above? only being able to reload all the ASBs at the same time? (so you can't run 1 asb, and then reload it while using another)


That is a very interesting take on the problem. I'm going to look more closely at it.


That is a very cool suggestion, one which would probably mean you wouldn't have to nerf ASBs much more from their current stats.
Deerin
East Trading Co Ltd
#117 - 2012-10-02 06:29:27 UTC
Right now small ASB's suck meds are meh larges are good XLASB's are OMGWTF!

I'll put stats for med here.

Considering 2x em 1x Therm rigs and Overheating. Non bonused ship.

Medium ASB case
10 cap booster 50's => 25.5 seconds
Considering 2 devoted tank slots => 1 SBA 1 MASB
Obtained EFT tank 157
Obtained extra EHP before reload = 25.5*157= 4003.5

t2 medium shield Booster Case
2 tank slots = 1 MSB 1 capbooster
Obtained EFT tank 73
Time required to reach ASB EHP= 4003.5/73 = 54 sec
So any frig fight that gets longer than 54 sec favors the t2 medium shield booster.

t2 medium shield extender case
2 tank slots = 1 Medium Shield Extender 1 Invul
Obtained Extra EHP (1 em 2 extender rigs invul OH) 4452 (around 10% better than ASB for a single magazine)

After proposed changes small ASB's will suck more, meds will suck, larges will be meh and XLASB's will be good.
I'm not sure if this is a good trade-off. I'd prefer all of them balanced around med level: Fast good burst tank for 25-30 seconds only, but ultimately somehow in-line with other tanking options.
Gypsio III
State War Academy
Caldari State
#118 - 2012-10-02 10:13:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Gypsio III
Nikuno wrote:
Personally I love the fact that active tanking suddenly became good with the ASBs. Whilst toning them down a little is not a bad thing I'd hate to see active tanking thrown back into the dark ages.


I don' t think ASBs are an active tank mod, they're just another buffer tank mod. They are a mechanism of gaining HP that can only be overcome by excessive DPS, just as a LSE is.

True active tanks are able to tank an infinite amount of lowish DPS because of cap regen. This doesn't really apply to ASBs, because they are mainly limited by cap charges, with the cap drain when out of charges being prohibitive. The shield HP that can be acquired from an ASB is therefore limited to a small, predictable range - just like buffer tanking. ASBs' immunity to neuting is another feature shared with buffer tanks, yet absent from true active tanks. If CCP intended ASBs to make active tanking more viable in neut-heavy environments, then they failed, because ASBs are closer to buffer tanks than active tanks.

A better solution for active tanking would be to remove penalties from active-tanking rigs, reduce the fitting requirements and increase the cap drain of Nos, fiddle with booster/repper cycle times to better synchronise them with cap booster cycles and introduce a highslot module that offers, say, a 40% resistance to hostile neuting, subject to normal stacking penalties (although (super)capitals could probably do horrible things with these).
Jerick Ludhowe
Internet Tuff Guys
#119 - 2012-10-02 14:41:34 UTC
There are far to many off the wall suggestions in this thread that seem to be off the wall for the simple sake of being off the wall.

The obvious solution is to just restrict 1 module per ship and up the fitting req. ASB should be a suplimental mod stacked onto an existing shield tank incase of overwhelming focus fire... It should not be this form of active tanking that has been proven to be far superior to all other forums.

My advise would be to not just make the module "different" for the sake of being "different".
Nikuno
Atomic Heroes
#120 - 2012-10-02 17:31:35 UTC
Gypsio III wrote:
Nikuno wrote:
Personally I love the fact that active tanking suddenly became good with the ASBs. Whilst toning them down a little is not a bad thing I'd hate to see active tanking thrown back into the dark ages.


I don' t think ASBs are an active tank mod, they're just another buffer tank mod. They are a mechanism of gaining HP that can only be overcome by excessive DPS, just as a LSE is.

True active tanks are able to tank an infinite amount of lowish DPS because of cap regen. This doesn't really apply to ASBs, because they are mainly limited by cap charges, with the cap drain when out of charges being prohibitive. The shield HP that can be acquired from an ASB is therefore limited to a small, predictable range - just like buffer tanking. ASBs' immunity to neuting is another feature shared with buffer tanks, yet absent from true active tanks. If CCP intended ASBs to make active tanking more viable in neut-heavy environments, then they failed, because ASBs are closer to buffer tanks than active tanks.


While I get the spirit of what you mean about active tanking it doesn't work that way in reality. Every active tank I run outside of pve relies on cap boosters. The idea of an infinte tank for pvp has been laughable for years now and is the least efficient way of operating a tank that is designed to be highly effective for only a few minutes at a time. ASBs on the other hand do exactly this, but also come with an immunity to neutralisers which is a massive advantage and one not often raised in this discussion.

Gypsio III wrote:
A better solution for active tanking would be to remove penalties from active-tanking rigs, reduce the fitting requirements and increase the cap drain of Nos, fiddle with booster/repper cycle times to better synchronise them with cap booster cycles and introduce a highslot module that offers, say, a 40% resistance to hostile neuting, subject to normal stacking penalties (although (super)capitals could probably do horrible things with these).


All of these are nice suggestions, but even if all were enacted it would still leave active armour tanking behind ASBs and shield tanking in general. I do want active tanking to become viable equally for shield and armour, what I really don't want is for this to happen by dragging the ASBs down to the point when we're back to square 1 pre-ASB.