Hey guys, first time posting here.
I was wondering if anyone could give advice on how to fit armor. What are some of the common and best fittings?
I’ve been playing with shields all this time, and they were pretty simple to fit. There were mostly two common fitting scenarios, which mainly used adaptive invulnerability fields to evenly raise all resistances. Or perhaps a combination of EM ward plus adaptives.
I was wondering on how to raise resistances for armor,
what is the common and best way to do this with T2 tech?
Thanks.
General buffer fits use
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1x Damage Control Unit II
1x Plate
For active rep, you’ll want
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1x Damage Control Unit II
1x Ancillary Armor Rep
1x Armor Rep II
As good rules of thumb.
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Does the EANM benefit from the 4 individual “Armor Compensation” skills?
And also, what about the reactive armor hardener? seems like it should be fitted, but I am unsure of how the module actually works, how long the max bonus builds up and how the resistance bonus scales while penalized with other resistance modules. Please explain.
Yes EANM benefits from those skills. If your doing most PvE reactive hardener is a good choice, you can use a damage control but i prefer having a damage increasing module instead. What ships specificly are you looking at?
PVE often consists in several waves of several rats . That means, you have constant DPS applied on you. Therefore, using armor buffer fit is stupid, because they need repair and thus money, and they can’t last enough for a long mission - while passive shield tank are a thing.
So active fit is the way to go.
Also, two important things are to be considered : first, your capacity to handle incoming damage, on the peak (beginning of a fight) ; second, on the long term (after you have removed the more hard hitting elements)
That’s why you want to metrics for your tanking : peak rep , so maximum EHP/s offered by the fitting, and sustainable rep, that is the EHP/s of your fit with your capacitor remaining stable.
I use EHP/s and not HP/s because you need to take into account the damage profile of the enemy and your resist profile.eg if I take 100 damage from guristas, assuming their profile is 70% kinetic and 30% thermal, if I have 80% resist kinetic and 40% thermal that means I wil actually take 70 * (100-80)/100 + 30 * (100-40)/100 = 32 damage. therefore my resists makes my rep 100/32 ±= 3 times as effective, so in that case my EHP/s are equal to three times my HP/s.
RAH is good when you don’t want to fit specific hardener : it will automatically fill the weakest resists after a time. If you use hardeners to make your resists match the enemy profile, then it’s less impacting. Also it’s stacking with DCU, so when using a RAH remove your DCU.
On several fits you want double armor rep. That’s because you don’t have the “shield boost amplifier” module for armors. going double rep doubles your peak rep, but does not modifiy your stable rep. EANM, RAH, auxiliary rigs do enhance your stable rep though.If you lack CPU use platings instead of EANM.
Yes, all of the Compensation skills (both Armor and Shield) benefit PASSIVE modules only. TThey do not provide any benefits to any ACTIVE modules. As a general rule, you should have Explosive and Kinetic Compensation skills to 5 and EM and Thermal to 4 (since Armor ships generally already have good EM and Thermal resists). Ideally, you’ll have them all to 5, but that takes some time.
The Reactive Armor Hardner basically gives you 15% Resistances in all 4 damage types when you first turn it on. Each time it cycles, it checks what kind of damage you took, and then shifts resistances over to that type. So if you take only EM damage, each time the RAH cycles, it’ll reduce the resistances in Thermal, Kinetic, and Explosive and start putting them towards EM. Eventually, you’ll end up with an RAH that provides 60% Resistances to EM and 0% Resistances to everything else.
I forget exactly how much of the resistance is shifted each cycle, but in my experience, it takes like 3-4 full cycles to completely shift it over.
Reactives are okay, but not really good for general usage. Like Daoden mentioned, the RAH is mostly used against PvE because NPC rats will all do (mostly) a certain type of damage and the RAH can adjust to give you the most resistances to it.
In PvP, you won’t know what type of damage will be coming at you, and often times, people will use a mix, making your RAH not as effective.
Armour tanking isn’t too different from shield tanking.
Key thing to remember is armour repair modules don’t repair till end of their cycle.
Also you have the option of being able to use Reactive Armour module, this gives 15% to all resistances, but each cycle it adjusts its resistance %, it will move resistance from none damage types to damage type.
Thus if you get hit by lasers doing only EM damage the RA will move resistance bonuses from TH EX & KN in to EM, given enough cycles it’ll increase resistance bonus to 60%, while the others drop to 0%.
Like DC, AR doesn’t gain stacking penalty, but in saying that, if a DC is mounted the two get stacking penalty, but this still dones’t effect other modules stacking penalty.
Also armour plating will increase you armour HP by a set amount, but reduces max speed, adaptive laying and energized version increases armour HP by an % with no decrease to speed.
Another key (which some will disagree with) is install low resistance holes in armour before installing multi-resistance modules, this is similar to using EM wards to fill shield weakness with EM, before adding Inv modules.
Like shield the more similar resistance modules the worse the stacking penalties. So having resistance modules to fill large resistance holes with a single module and then multi-resistance modules on top helps maintain a good bonus with minimal stacking penalties.
By doing this you can get near 90% across all resistances.
As an extra note all armour RIG’s have a negative to speed, so worthwhile getting armour rigging up high to reduce this.
There is much more, but this should get you started.
This game seems to just change combat mechanics at will, which is a bit inconvenient. But anyway, I plan on fitting a Nestor for relic/data sites. Preferably at Sansha nullsec, but also maybe WH.
I noticed that lasers don’t do much DPS at all, especially compared to missles/torps, so that leaves me wondering if the hacking bonus from Nestor is even worth it.
Someone mentioned passive shield tank, not sure what kind of advice that is. I have never bothered fitting passive, but I certainly have my doubts on it being more effective than traditional cap boosting with shields. Not sure why it’s so hard to get direct answers without someone trying to throw you off, lol.
But anyway, maybe I’m going at armor fitting incorrectly? Are repair modules more important than resistances or “rep” (what does rep mean? “Resistance Profile”?)
I guess my question should be, what would you take to relic and data sites, and where would you take them. But I really would like to understand how to properly fit armor regardless, if that’s even possible here, haha.
But thanks for the info provided.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here. People here seem to have given you direct answers to the question you’ve been asking.
Resistances make each point of health more valuable.
If you have 10 hp with zero resistances, it’ll take 10 points of damage to kill you.
If you have 10 hp with 50% resistances, it now takes 20 points of damage to kill you.
That’s what resists do for you.
Choosing between Buffer tanking and Active repair (rep) tanking is another choice. If you know you’ll be taking lower amounts of DPS and lower burst damage, you may want to pick active repairing tank because you can recover that HP. On the other hand, if you’re anticipating high amounts of burst damage, buffer tanking will be better (because high burst may kill you before you can even cycle your reps).
A T1 or T2 Explo frig or an Astero.
The Nestor is a trash ship and only used for niche remote armor repair or capital ship refitting. The Hack/Scanning bonus on there is a noob trap.
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What’s wrong with using any battleship, like maybe a rattlesnake? I can chicken out pretty quickly in null. Especially in areas not frequently traveled. Easy to see when someone drops into local.
I’m really not worried about losing anything I take into null or WH anyway.
Alright, so the question seems to be between buffer and rep. Lets just assume I’m doing L4 npc missions, with npc’s who use kinetic and explosive weapons. How would you tank this L4 with armor?
buff or rep, or both? Can you give a fitting example?
Give it a shot and let us know how it goes.
If you’re killing NPCs, just use an Active fit. You can keep yourself topped off at all times with the reps. A buffer fit would require you to dock up and repair using the Station’s repair services since it Armor plates do not repair passively.
Well, the point would be to get advice here, without wasting time trying out fits.
Maybe I can not chicken out in null without being chased down? I honestly don’t know.
I know this is going a bit off topic here, but can a lone battleship who is cautious survive in null?
Is it possible to escape to a custom marker or location and log off, regardless of how many people are dedicated in chasing you?
Nope.
You can try, but battleships warp incredibly slowly, are easy to probe down, and assuming you have a timer, you’d need to stay safe for 10 minutes before you can safe log.
I’m going to add some general comments, since I armour tank more often than shield tank.
Armour does not self-regenerate like shields do. In a shield tanked ship, when your shields take damage, once you stop taking damage the shields will start to self-regenerate without you doing anything, just go somewhere where you are not taking damage and wait, your shields will eventually return to 100%. The self-regeneration is slow, but it’s there.
Armour does NOT self-regenerate. Once your armour takes damage, that damage can only be repaired by some sort of active intervention. Fit an armour repair module to your ship, or team up with another player who can fit an armour repair module capable of repairing other ships, or dock in an NPC station and pay ISK for your ship to be repaired, or find a player owned citadel that allows public tethering, tether to the citadel and the citadel will automatically start repairing your ship, FOR FREE.
Most armour modules are low slot modules, so ships with a lot of low slots are generally better for armour tanking. One down side of this is that most modules that increase weapon DPS are also low slot modules, so armour tanking does involve a balancing act between improving your tank with low slot armour modules and improving your DPS with low slot weapon DPS modules.
Buffer vs resistance armour tank. This is a choice between adding more raw points to your armour, the shield version is adding more shield extenders, or making the tank points you have more resistant to incoming damage. Buffer armour tanking is more common in PVP compared to PVE, especially in group PVP where one or more players in the group is equipped with modules that can repair the armour on other ships (Logistics!). The general trend for armour tanking in PVP is resistance tanking, making the incoming damage from NPC ships do less damage per shot.
A note on Reactive Armour Hardeners, I’ve used them quite a lot over the years. In a situation where you can reasonably expect to only have one or two types of incoming damage, RAH’s are ok, one module that can give improved resistance to multiple types of damage at the same time (you use fewer low slots for armour modules and less module swapping). Once the incoming damage is three or four types of damage, RAH’s will be spreading their resistance too thinly, you’d be better off with dedicated resistance modules for the most common damage types you’re likely to face.
No actually, if you haven’t noticed, these forums are filled with poor advice. Not sure what everyone is thinking here, how it’s is not entirely obvious. But literally, thousands of posts of misleading or vague advice. It’s quite astonishing. Over 90% of results leading to the EVE forums contain bad or vague advice. Personally, I do have an opinion of this, and I think it’s rather silly, and that is putting it in the most civil fashion that I can. I wouldn’t want to sound too offensive by calling it out as pathetic. Getting direct answers is next to impossible, which is an actual fact and not an opinion, and is very well documented here on the internet. There is not even a clear resolution on how to fit armor in this thread, or have you not noticed this? Despite all the so called options there are to fit armor, there is only one or two real effective ways of doing it. Really shouldn’t be too difficult on giving solid advice here. This thread is now leading the way to over a dozen posts? Though even knowing what to expect from everyone here, I still assume it doesn’t hurt to try and ask anyway.
Though please note that my intention is not to offend anyone, please understand this. I am simply pointing out obvious facts and giving some personal opinion of them, without the intention of directing any negativity towards anyone. Please excuse me if I may have offended anyone here.
I wouldn’t say Lasers don’t do as much DPS, they can be very deadly.
Missiles listed Damage is it, you can’t better unless you modify it with modules, scripts, skills and/or T2 missiles. They’ll only ever do 100% of that damage listed or less. Oh and they never miss, though can do nice to no damage if you’re attacking the wrong target with the wrong missile system.
Lasers and other turrets can exceed the listed damage or DPS if you get good hits, I think the maximum is 300% (i’m sure someone can confirm this maximum damage)
There are three types of Armour Tanking;
Passive = using a mix of RIGs, Armour plates, Adaptive nano resistance plates (there are two types) and Armour Laying plates. This all can increase armour HP and Resistances, uses no CAP, but if using Energized modules can require an high CPU or Powergrid fitting requirements.
Active = using the passive with Active Armour Hardeners to increase resistances even higher at the cost of CAP
Active Reping = this uses ether of the above to a lesser degree, as it uses Armour Repair modules to heal armour HP, this can be single or dual rep setups. But this can cost more CAP than and standard active armour fit.
There is a fourth version call Spider Armour Tanking, but this is more a fleet setup, using a mix of passive or active with each ship mounting in highslots Remote ARmour Rep’ers, this is very high CAP usage, but can offer massive Armour tanking if done correctly, more than the other options.
As you were asking about Rep vs Resist.
Resistance: If you have an default 25% EM resistance for armour, any damage you take is -25% (100 damage - 25% = 75 damage) the higher your resist the less damage you take for that damage type.
Rep’ing; Repair only comes into effect once it finishes it’s cycle. so if you’re taking 100DPS, and you Rep’er heals 450HP per cycle, you’d think you’re set! Wrong the normal cycle can be anywhere from 5seconds to 12seconds depending on module size and type.
So if you have a 5sec cycle you’d take 500 damage (1005sec), when the rep cycle finishes you heal 450 of that damage, by the time the next cycle is finished you’ve taken a total of 100 damage (50 from the first cycle and another 50 from the following and so on) you can’t heal unless you escape or kill the enemy.
Now knowing this if you increase you resistances you can reduce the damage taken and thus have an nice level of heal that can make a positive heal, for increasing resistance to 50% would for example reduce that 100 damage to 50, meaning for every cycle or rep you’d take 250 damage, but heal 450, meaning you could handle almost two attacks doing 100DPS each.
something to think on.
To be even more specific, I have literally not read a single piece of useful in depth advice here, outside of general or common information. I mean, literally out of hundreds of posts I’ve read over the years. This is something very real and not a figment of my imagination.
I mean, what is the real mentality behind this? It isn’t too difficult to figure out, you know.
All of the useful advice comes from either reddit or youtube. Literally have never read anything useful from the Eve forums. Again, how this is not entirely obvious is beyond me.
Please feel free to directly comment on this.
added to my last post to cover you earlier comments about reping vs resist
OK, first, give us an idea of which ships you would consider using with an armour tank, and any “must have” low slot modules you want to have before fitting the tank (eg: DPS boosting modules, turret tracking modules, etc). Having some idea of your preferred play style also helps (long range sniping, kiting, mid to short range brawling, etc). Also knowing what types of PVE content you want to run helps. PVE Incursions are a type of content where the different organised incursion groups have fairly specific fitting requirements, so turning up in some random ship with a random fit isn’t going to get much sympathy from the incursion groups.
I could post a fit for an armour tanked Amarr Armageddon with Rapid Heavy Missile Launchers and drones as a medium to short range brawler, or with cruise missile launchers and sentry drones as a long range sniper, but if that isn’t how you want to play, or you don’t want to fly Amarr ships, the fit wouldn’t be much use to you, would it?
You’re disappointed that we haven’t given you specific information, but a lot of fits and even ship choices can be situation specific. Giving us some more precise context of what you want to do (type of content) and how you want to do it (play style) certainly helps us give more specific answers.
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That’s just covering Battleships, not even touching cruisers, destroyers or frigates.
You can go Trig’s as well for Armour Tanking.