May 19, 2015

Armor Plate Rebalancing on SiSi

Looks like there is a Tanking Dev Blog in the midst of being finalized, because changes to armor plates and shield extenders have been spotted on SiSi and broadcast on Reddit (of course).  I've been stuck on a bigger post, so it's nice that something popped up today that is very interesting and good for a quick analysis.  As an armor-tanker you can guess what caught my eye.

The best way to sum this up is with a quick table of the new stats as they are currently on SiSi.  These of course are not necessarily final values, so any speculation you indulge in are your own responsibility.

Name1600mm Restrained1600mm Compact1600mm T21600mm Federation1600mm Imperial1600mm Syndicate
Armor4000 (+100)4000 (-200)4500 (-300)5000 (+800)5250 (+1050)5000 (+800)
Mass3,000,0003,500,0003,750,0002,250,0003,000,0002,500,000
CPU30 (+1)27 (-1)35 (+2)30 (-3)27 (-3)35 (+2)
Power500480 (-20)550 (-25)550 (-25)575 (+0)525 (-50)

The first part is pretty straightfoward based on CCP's recent rebalancing.  Restrained and Compact offer the same amount of tank, but the Compact is easier to fit.  However, you also pay an additional mass cost for the Compact version.  The T2 plate is even heavier and harder to fit both in CPU and Grid, but gives a nice chunk of armor.

The second part is the entry of the Faction plates to actual usability.  I don't know about you, Gentle Reader, but I've never seen someone fit a faction plate.  Why would you when they were less tanky?  Now they are going to be the tank of choice for faction ships and other pricey hulls.  As a bonus, they're even lighter.  Double-plated battleships will now be running double 1600mm Imperials, you can guess.  It doesn't hurt that with a dominant Amarr FW zone the LP should be plenty available to get those into the market en mass.

The third part is already being noted as the overall small nerf to armor tanking.  Expensive faction plates aside, your average armor tanked ship just lost ehp.  Really roughly a Vexor that used to run a 1600mm Meta4 plate will 400 ehp of 18k (2%) of its armor (assuming one ENAM and a DCU II).

Now there are some changes to shield tanks in that posted diff from SiSi, but much smaller.  This may simply be because those changes haven't been completed and ready to roll out, so we'll see.

Armor tanking groups beware - you will need to reassess all your corp doctrine fits.  Theory-crafters to your fitting tools!

2 comments:

  1. I been meaning to post some theory discussion, because the grid of a Oneiros is tight. Meaning a balance between meta4 plate and meta4 large reps. (which reps also will be a contention for choice in the fit when eventually meta-cided).

    1600 Rolled Tung: 500pg, 28cpu, arm 4200, mass 2.75m - you want want to add to the table for "before and after" comparison.

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  2. Hi Jakob, here is the forum post regarding this changes:
    https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=425475&find=unread

    And this are the tables the dev set on google docs:
    Armor https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12It7etFUEZanSUGdricd9cv9CMnZB5d7G7lRu9rejnc/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true
    Shield: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eRLwCe6hYxIJqKSh3GK94bEM4IvFJuNBaag2GLungtg/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true

    I really need to check how much the mass reduction for GalFed plates effects the mobility of smaller ships using 1600mm plates.

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