Armor tanking: resists vs buffer
Posted: 2009-12-03 Filed under: eveonline | Tags: killed 5 CommentsIn the WH, sleeper sites aren’t too difficult, as long as you outnumber the sleepers 3:2 and don’t stop to check on dinner or something. Recently, me and a corp mate tried to 2 man a dual BS spawn. Predictably, the sleepers took issue with our attempts to murder them and we were soon floating in wrecks. It was more or less at this point that we got into an argument over buffer tanks vs resist tanks, as he had a buffer tank and I had a resist tank.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time ATM to do any hard math, but let’s have two hypothetical players called Jimmy and Stuart. Stuart resist tanks, so he has 50k EHP but only 7k armor. Jimmy buffer tanks, so he has 100k ehp, with 90k armor. Both have about the same skills. If Stuart remote reps Jimmy, then he will get repped for say, 300, which is .3% of his tank. if Jimmy reps Stuart, then Stuart gets back… three divided by 70 is…4% of his tank. What I’m saying is that while an active tank takes infinitely more cap to sustain, it keeps you alive longer assuming you have a local rep/someone is repping you.
Seeing as this is the second domi I’ve lost to sleepers I’m probably going to wait until I get my cut from the WH and fit a new one with no major differences except more guns, and that I’ll have thermodynamics trained. While I will not pretend to completely understand how thermodynamics works, it seems ta me that 30% more resists would make my active tank even harder for the first minute of the fight while 2 sleepers are beating the hell outta me. Until my tank melts, that is…
Also, it’s worth noting that while Jimmy and Stuart were fighting sleepers, Jimmy died first while Stuart had 5 heavy rep drones and 2 RRs on him.
My current skills being trained are engineering V, some cap management skills, RR skills and nanite repair paste. I’d love to get a navy Domi but I’d probably lose it.
In closing, yes, the new browser is amazing and I’m kicking myself for not buying T2 ships like Blake did. Hulks are up to 150 mil ATM, I’d better be careful w/ mine…
k162space 
Percentage is irrelevant – damage is a flat rate (dps) and not a percent of hp (e.g. Demi in Final Fantasy). Rather consider the 300 repair points. Without hardeners/resists, you have just been rep’d 300 points. With 50% reduction in damage, those 300 are now effectively 600. If the buffer fit allows you to deal more damage, then the elimination of enemy dps may be more effective. Where the buffer fit shines is when faced with high incoming dps. 90k points takes time to burn through, regardless. If you only get a few cycles of repair before you pop, then your ultimate ehp will be far below the buffer. Based on my own experience, I would tend to agree with your position, however this really depends on the situation.
true. ive had to convince a few corpmates that 150k EHP with the base shield resists is shit compared to 75k EHP with 80-90% resists when it comes to repping
resist have a diminishing return, so you need to strike a balance between resists and buffer, you really only need enough buffer to absorb the damage while you wait for the remote reps to kick in
however, in general, when using remote reps, resists are more useful than pure buffer without resists. the reason is pretty simple: if you remote repair 100 units of armor with 0% resist, you repair 1 for 1.
If you repair 100 units with 70% resist .. well … you repped 333 units worth of damage
pretty obvious
also, get a cap transfer chain going, train energy transfer to 5 and have each domi transfer to each other. or even better, get a couple guardians 🙂
Try an Ishtar. If you’re flying a domi, I’m assuming that you’re spec’ing in drones. The signature of your domi is massive and those BS missiles will beat the he’ll out of you. And Ishtar in motion takes about 100 damage from those missiles, you can outrun the BS guns at a close orbit. I can solo most class 3 holes and almost all class 2s. Ogre IIs and Sentry IIs help a lot!! Best of luck!!
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