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EVE Evolved: New Ancillary Armor Repairers aren't up to the task
EVE Online's Retribution 1.1 patch went live this week, overhauling armour tanking and rebalancing some ships that traditionally fit armour tanks. Last week I looked at why people usually choose passive buffer tanks for PvP over active tanks and how the Ancillary Shield Boosters changed all that by giving shield users a huge free burst tank that can often outperform a front-loaded buffer tank. The new Ancillary Armor Repairers look similarly amazing on paper with their ability to consume nanite repair paste to triple repair output, but how do they stack up against their shield-based counterparts? Now that the patch is out and I've finally got my hands on the Ancillary Armor Repairers, I'm not sure they're any good. They're limited to one per ship even though most active armour tanking ships use dual or triple repairer setups, and they can run for only eight repair cycles before running out of paste. They're also only 68.75% more effective than tech 2 repairers and still require the same amount of capacitor. Ancillary Shield Boosters may provide a slightly smaller 63.33% repair boost over tech 2 boosters, but they can cycle at double the rate of Ancillary Armor Repairers and don't require any capacitor. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what makes Ancillary Shield Boosters a strong contender in PvP and show that the new Ancillary Armor Repairers just aren't up to the task.
EVE Evolved: Retribution 1.1 and armour tanking
While MMO characters typically fall into specialised tank, healer, and damage-dealing roles, most ships in EVE Online are a combination of all three. Fitting a ship for PvP is a careful balancing act between survivability and damage, as it doesn't matter how much damage you can deal if you don't stay alive long enough to apply it. Active tanking setups that focus on repairing damage have unfortunately seen very limited use in PvP, being effective only in solo fights and very small-scale gang warfare. In most fights, a passive buffer tank that just maximises effective hitpoints will last longer than any active setup. The Inferno expansion helped to solve this problem with its new Ancillary Shield Boosters that consume cap booster charges for a huge burst of shield hitpoints. Tuesday's Retribution 1.1 patch now aims to level the playing field for armour users with the introduction of new Ancillary Armor Repairers and a series of balance changes to armour plates, rigs, and standard repairers. The patch should hopefully give gank battlecruisers and tech 2 cruisers the speed they need to compete in PvP and may even make some interesting active armour tanking setups viable. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the role of tanking in PvP today and the tanking changes coming in Tuesday's Retribution 1.1 patch.
Exploring the diverse armor of Aion
As if we needed another reason to be excited for NCsoft's Aion, a recent dev article gives us some info on the diversity of armor in the fantasy MMO. This article explains how NCsoft realizes the importance of distinctive armor and the distinctions of setting your character apart from everyone else. As an example, they show the same character (a female Ranger) sporting several sets of armor in various poses.While this is simply a brief sample of the armor sets that will be available in the game when it launches later this year, it's inspiring to know just how freaking gorgeous it will be. Even compared to the way the game looked in its first public showings at PAX and the Leipzig Games Convention last year, it seems to be improving every time we see it. Be sure to read the entire dev article for several more screenshots and more on the diversity of armor in Aion.
EVE Evolved: The art of tanking - Unusual tanks
Although in EVE Online we tend to think of a tank as our ship's ability to absorb damage and self-repair, it makes sense to describe any strategy used to keep yourself alive as a form of tank. In the previous parts of this guide on the art of tanking in EVE , I gave some tips on choosing what type of tank to use on your ship and gave an overview of both armour and shield tanking. In this final part of the guide, I take a look at alternative strategies for keeping your ship alive. Strategies such as the spider tank, defensive use of electronic warfare and the much lauded speed-tank are put under the microscope as I look at some of EVE's more unusual tanks. Spider tank: When I first coined the term "spider tank" back in early 2006 (before that calling it a "squadron tank"), I was convinced we would see them on the battlefield increasingly frequently. Sure enough, spider tanks have become a staple of gang and small fleet warfare. A spider tank is a strategy in which each member of a fleet fits a remote armour repairer or shield transfer in one of their high slots and they repair anyone in the fleet who starts to take damage. When the enemy concentrate their fire on one member of the gang, the gang concentrates their remote repairers on that member to keep him alive. Read on to find out how a logistics ship can generate capacitor out of thin air and how ECM, long range weaponry and speed can be effectively used as tanks.
EVE Evolved: The art of tanking - Armour tanking
Back in 2005, I became obsessed with the art of tanking in EVE Online. Before writing the definitive tanking guide for EON issue 2 (for which the EVE community dubbed me "the tanking guy"), I spent a lot of time working out the mathematics behind the art. At a time when people preferred a trial and error approach to combat, I went as far as to create a spreadsheet to automate calculations on the strength of your tank. Over the years, more advanced tools like EFT (EVE Fitting Tool) have been released which have this functionality and more. In this short series of articles, I aim to cover tanking from start to finish in a concise and informative manner. In this first part, I begin with an introduction to tanking and follow up with a brief guide on how to select which type of tank to use and a complete overview of armour tanking. What is tanking?: Any MMO player will know the role of the "Tank" but the word's usage in EVE Online is a little different. Broadly speaking, a tank is whatever you use to keep yourself alive and it's something every ship can do. The MMO holy trinity of tank, healer and damage-dealer are combined into every ship in EVE. Because of this ability to self-heal, the word "tank" in EVE generally refers to the combination of both resisting damage and healing it. Fitting your ship then becomes a matter of balancing between tank and damage. Read on to find out how to select what type of tank to use and learn all about armour tanking.
Breakfast Topic: Skimpy armour
This debate is a perennial topic amongst MMOs, thanks to their often-stylised representations of reality. It goes like this: why does some armour barely large enough to cover one's modesty offer the same (or better) protection as head-to-toe chainmail? More importantly, why does some armour appear as a bikini top for female characters and yet a hefty breastplate for males?It's a toss-up between realism and artistic licence, and Blizzard seem to have gone for the latter every time. While I don't personally mind the chainmail-bikini wardrobe, I know of players (especially those who RP) who aren't keen on it at all, and others who purposefully dress their Night Elves in Black Mageweave Leggings for fun. What's your stance? Do you seek out or avoid skimpy armour? Any particular favourites?
