Shield extenders, boosters etc

New Citizens Q&A
#1

Has anyone done a comparison to see what gives the most benefit: :

shield extenders (flat bonus to shield strength) ,
Shield hardeners (add to resistance), I also use damage control
The thing (B51?) that recharges shield faster
The think that gives a boost to shields (HP per sec)

I cant decide if its better to start with more shields, protect my shields or be able to recharge my shields. I guess there are fitting space for two of these but not three. And then why use all three if one ifs better than the others?

My thrasher uses a shield extender and damage control. I also juggle between the B51(?) and the Shield booster. Though I just discovered the shield hardener (against all weapon types).

#2

The shield modules can be divided into 3 categories

  • Extenders increase the number of hitpoints. These are passive and increase your signature.
  • Resistance modules/rigs. These increase your resistance to a specific type of damage. Hitpoints and resistance work together to determine how much damage is actually applied to your ship. These can be active or passive (active need to be turned on and consume capacitor). Hardeners are active and include a Multispectrum hardener that provides resistance bonus to all damage types. Amplifiers are passive. Damage controls also provide a passive bonus to all damage types.
  • Recharge modules/rigs. These regenerate hitpoints. They can be active (boosters) or passive like rechargers, power diagnostic units and shield power relays.

For your Thrasher your best defense is speed - if you can keep moving with your afterburner running, you will be very difficult to hit.

Something along the lines of:
[Thrasher, Thrasher fit]

Counterbalanced Compact Gyrostabilizer
Counterbalanced Compact Gyrostabilizer

Compact Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner

200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
[Empty High slot]

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Core Defense Field Purger I
Small Core Defense Field Purger I

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#3

depends on the situation and your ship. There are 3 ways to shield tank:

  • shield booster + resists (and possibly a boost amp)
  • shield extenders + resists + extender rigs to get a crap ton of shield HP
  • shield regen fits (extenders + resists + purger rigs and shield power relays in low) to augment the shield’s innate regen to a point where it’s actually viable

In short fights a shield booster doesn’t have the time to do its job so there, generally, it’s just better to aim for lots of hitpoints. This is done in many pvp fits as pvp tends to be a short flurry

repair fits, so both shield boosted as regen fits, tends to work really well in prolonged exposures like doing most forms of PVE.

As said it really depends on the situation, use and ship and of course on personal preference. For your Thrasher, generally, a medium shield extender and omni resist hardener is generally the best choice, paired with either extender or purger rigs depending on use. Whether or not that needs a DC depends on how much tank you actually need.

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#4

as always in eve “it depends”
pve or pvp?
solo? small gang? big fleet?
logi friends or not?

without more detailed infos on the setting, we cannot help you

for example, if you are in a fleet with logis, you fit resist modules but you don’t use shield boosters, the active reps come from logis
or if you face npcs which will neut you (for example sleepers in wormholes), you don’t want your tank to depend on cap and you can max your shield hp and regen (passive shield tank)
etc

everything is situational

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#5

Just to expand on the other excellent replies:

There are 3 types of shield tanking strategies:

  • Active
    • An active repper is used to repair shield damage
    • Uses the Most Cap
    • Highest EHP/s potential
    • Lowest Buffer
    • Characterized by the use of: Shield Boosters and Shield Boost Amplifiers
  • Passive
    • Maximize passive shield regen
    • Medium cap stability. (Note that the Shield Power Relay increases shield recharge at the expense of cap recharge, so using them will reduce cap stability)
    • Medium EHP/s
    • Medium Buffer
    • Great for when under heavy neut pressure, as your passive recharge will still work even if you run out of cap.
    • Characterized by the use of: Shield Power Relays, Core Defense Field Purger Rigs, and Shield Extenders (which indirectly increase recharge rate by increasing shield HP)
  • Buffer
    • Maximize shield EHP
    • Uses Least Cap
    • Highest Buffer
    • Lowest EHP/s
    • Synergizes well with logi support, as the increase EHP gives logi time to lock and land reps. Moreover, the repping power of a logi squad will usually far exceed that which can be provided by a local tank.
    • Offers excellent protection against alpha strikes and against ganks (which are so quick that other tank types don’t have enough time to rep a lot of damage)
    • Tends to be more newbro friendly (newbros typically have crap capacitor skills and there’s no active rep that needs to be managed).
    • Characterized by the use of: Shield Extenders and Core Defense Field Extender Rigs.

Note that mods and rigs that improve shield resists tend to be used by all three tanking strategies.

Each strategy has it’s uses, and you’ll likely use all three over the course of your career.

Certain modules synergize well with each other. For example, Core Defense Field Extender Rigs multiply the flat shield HP bonus provided by Shield Extenders, and Shield Boost Amplifiers improve the repping power of shield boosters.

I like to use pyfa to play around with tanking mods in order to find the best EHP buffer and/or EHP/s repair rate against the expected damage profile and/or an omni damage profile.

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