Jump to content

Charged plating vs Armor Piercing


tunewalker

Recommended Posts

Disclaimer: this is going to be highly mathy and is mostly about a question I saw earlier about using Charged plating Clarion. As some may know I made a post a while back about the benefits of Charged plating on Bomber over Overcharge shield even when your target is using armor piercing weapons as the shield strength on the charged plating is not something to forget. So I decided to try something similar here with the clarion. I will try to post a TL; DR at the end for the conveinence of others.

 

 

 

 

Now for those that dont know The numbers on a Clarion with Charged plating and all Shield increasing power ups is

 

 

3,060 Shields

1,450 Hull

And you have a 20% bleed through, also for those that do not know Bleed through and Pierce are multiplicative not additive (go back to the math worked out for Thermite ticks for this one, that was done around 6 months ago I think was the last time I worked on it with verain.. dont remember where it was posted).

 

Total health is 4,510.

 

Now another reminder is that most people do not spend time in neutral power, or even shield power (especially with charged plating) but instead spend time in power to engines or power to weapons, as such your shields will be reduced by 10%. Not sure if that's 10% base (base being 1,800 for strikes) or 10% of current but for the sake of this debate I am going to assume current as I feel that has been the most consistent with my experience for "in game" shields though I could be wrong on this. This is -306 from shield strength and total health leaving us with

 

4,204 Total Health

 

 

 

vs Burst laser canon.

 

 

Burst laser canons can't have both shield pierce and armor pierce because of this you will only ever take the 20% bleed through. This means for every 100 damage you take you will only take 20 to your hull. With a Hull of 1450 that would be (1450/ 20) x 100 points of damage or 7,250 points of damage to kill "through shields" as your total health is only 4,204 this means some one using burst lasers needs to completely drop your shields to burst you down from full to dead. If they only ever hit your shields they will have to do enough damage to drop your shields completely TWICE before you die to hull bleed through damage showing that Charged plating extra shield strength provides a very real and very strong defense against these weapons even though they have Armor piercing. To top it off the ability to heal this bleed through with repair probes makes this a very good defense against such an opponent.

 

 

vs Heavy lasers

 

This one becomes a bit more difficult for the Charged Plating Clarion as this one has Shield piercing. 15% shield piercing to be precise but again recall that this is not adative with piercing but instead multiplicative with it meaning that we have to find what 15% of 80% is (the 80% being the amount of shields that is being pierced since 20% is being bleed through... again this makes sense if you know the thermite conversation for bleed through vs Piercing math that happened a while back) or 12% add that to the 20% bleed through for a total Pierce/bleedthrough of 32% or 32 damage per 100 done. For how much total damage to kill through shields its again (1450/32) x100 or around 4,530ish again with a total health around JUST 4,204 the heavy lasers to kill you full to dead STILL have to drop your shields fully just like any ship would have to do against any other shield type.

 

 

 

 

vs rocket pods, conc missiles and Slug Railgun.

 

 

These have been grouped because they all have the same shield piercing numbers. Now if you read the Heavy laser one you can probably already tell where this one is going to go, but going to do it anyway. They shield pierce at 28%, again reminding that its not addative so the number isnt 48% but 43% which isnt a huge difference, but it is still a difference. Which again means for every 100 damage dealt you take 43 straight to hull. So kill through shield numbers are (1450/43) x100 or around 3,370 ish. Now This creates the AH HA moment as these weapons kill you before your shield drops by nearly 1,000 points of damage. This is what usually shy's people away from these components, but of these weapons the only one that you should likely get hit by "regularly" is going to be Slug Railgun, a weapon already known to wreck havoc on Strike fighters in general (simply because Gunships wreck havoc on them in general) Further this is why I do advocate in some small part to try something like Turbo reactor instead. It can provide a similar level of defense against the other Armor piercing or Non armor Piercing weapons, but if you were getting hit by non armor piercing weapons during your 19 second buff and needed to get out of dodge for those 11 seconds you will be more likely to have shields during the time in which all weapons behave closer to Burst lasers performances, but that is player specific.

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Charged platings shield strength can still provide a very strong defense against most weapon types in the game. The player just needs to be aware of whether his shields are up or down. While most players ignore their shield strength while using charged plating as they can afford to do so against non-piercing weapons if the weapon you hear is piercing your defenses are not non-existant, but you must still treat your shields as just that shields. This is even better on a ship like the clarion thanks to its ability to heal the hull damage it takes at quite an astounding rate. Thus the "bleed through" which would normally be just a ticking time bomb with each pass dropping the amount "damage needed for bleed through to kill" drastically instead that number remains around the same, as the hull becomes nearly as easily replenished as the shields. Longer CD maybe, but regenerative none the less. Beware of Slug rail guns and missile dodge appropriately and you should do all right in a charged plating Clarion on build especially if you have difficulties keeping the shields facing the right way with directionals.

 

 

 

 

TL;DR Charged plating is solid against all but the most shield piercing intensive Armor piercing weapons.

Edited by tunewalker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you sure that the numbers don't add? Because that's what they do in the ground game. Though BW might surprise me here...

 

I don't experience CP Strikes as hard to kill as long as I have some armor piercing. But that may be partly to pilots thinking they could ignore me attacking them while CP is up (:mon_trap:). And I do tend to focus you just for using CP on a strike... If I have to strip shields anyway, the difference really is not there. And repair probes heal a lot but they take their time to do so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My personal gripe in these cases is this: The extra shielding is often on an arc that doesn't help you, and you have a devil of a time getting any shields back. Getting hit with anything that hurts your shield (so, many things) plus anything that ignores armor (everything players actually equip) generally sends you running super hard or dying. It really feels like an attrition war that you lose, versus directionals.

 

Directionals can put ludicrous amount of 0% bleedthrough shields in a direction, and that seems to really help.

 

As always, the answer is this- what is damaging you, that you want charged plating for? The only solid answer is mines, and the Clarion is pretty decent at eating seismics without noticing them.

 

One more thing: because the stack of defenses involved in plating normally commits you to a crew passive (+armor) and an armor secondary (+armor), you are definitely losing out on either evasion or health for the secondary, and either evasion or shield health for the crew passive. This isn't the end of the world, but it definitely is not free.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My personal gripe in these cases is this: The extra shielding is often on an arc that doesn't help you, and you have a devil of a time getting any shields back. Getting hit with anything that hurts your shield (so, many things) plus anything that ignores armor (everything players actually equip) generally sends you running super hard or dying. It really feels like an attrition war that you lose, versus directionals.

 

Directionals can put ludicrous amount of 0% bleedthrough shields in a direction, and that seems to really help.

 

As always, the answer is this- what is damaging you, that you want charged plating for? The only solid answer is mines, and the Clarion is pretty decent at eating seismics without noticing them.

 

One more thing: because the stack of defenses involved in plating normally commits you to a crew passive (+armor) and an armor secondary (+armor), you are definitely losing out on either evasion or health for the secondary, and either evasion or shield health for the crew passive. This isn't the end of the world, but it definitely is not free.

 

Most of this is correct. As I noted it is a solid defense for those that are Bad with Directionals as having the shields strong ALWAYS and always where you need them makes them good even against weapons they are "bad" against. A player bad with Directionals will still eat those weapons that strip shields and, I should have covered this, but those weapons that strip shields and nothing else to a charged plating build strip shields FASTER on a directional build because of the 20% bleed through combined with the DR basically means you have around 20% reduced damage on shields and 19% reduced damage overall. The damage needed to kill you from full to dead is still the same, but one of the sources you are taking reduced damage FROM. You still have to run with Directionals the same as you would with Charged plating. Plating upgrade just gives you 4 engine power to do it with every time you get shot. If you ARE good with swapping shield arcs then Ya directionals is the way to go, for 2 reasons (other then the bleed through) 1. Your shield "double facing" is stronger then Charged plating shield is, and 2 when you reset their position you can regen much faster and have much less regen delay. But this suggests good Directional shield play and has nothing to do with the bleedthrough. The bleedthrough is not what kills most Charged plating Clarions, unless its a slug railgun, because of the clarions ability to heal what kills most pilots using charged plating is they ignore almost all incoming damage until they get hit with armor piercing with no shields to eat this it ends up bad for them, it ends up very bad for them. This is also why I suggest turbo instead of Large on this shield alone, because the extra strength isnt as important as being able to get it back and get back into the fray after the fact, but that's personal preference.

 

No this is not be all end all, this is not every one should use Charged plating. But this IS me saying that if you are bad with Directionals, charged plating is a decent option for defense against most things and can keep you alive for a long time, just dont pretend like you are invincible. Your shield strength still matters.

 

 

Trying to look for the thermite dot tick conversation, it was in a random thread so its not like I can just type in "thermite" and find it though I wish I could.

 

 

Edit: FOUND IT http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=738876&highlight=thermite+tick&page=3

It was the coversation started here with your math which did not explain the 142 ticks that we saw... I solved it here.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=7408662&postcount=35

your response being verain http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=7408739&postcount=36

 

 

 

Edit 2: I will make another post in this thread later about some of the benefits directionals afford over charged plating. So that the message is 100% clear. While Charged is good for learning some things, at one point it IS highly useful to learn directionals instead and there is a reason they are more commonly used on strikes then this, but I did want to say that Charged plating isnt as "bad" as some people make it out to be.

Edited by tunewalker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also: apparently, it took until Tune-o-clock yesterday for anyone to actually realize that there were any implications of that Math Fact- notably that it makes plating a little better than it looks at a casual glance.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also: apparently, it took until Tune-o-clock yesterday for anyone to actually realize that there were any implications of that Math Fact- notably that it makes plating a little better than it looks at a casual glance.

 

The fact that I remembered it from so long ago, shows how much its been in my head :p. But hey Charged plating was my first shield and one that I really like even if it has some weaknesses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting. I didn't realize that the shield piercing wasn't additive. I think in most situations the directional shields are still far superior due to lack of cool downs, 3 second delay on shield regen, ability to double shields, and instant shield regen on the unaffected side.

 

CP with K-turn is good when paired with a Rampart teammate. However, you are probably better off just using 2 ramparts and sharing beacons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting. I didn't realize that the shield piercing wasn't additive. I think in most situations the directional shields are still far superior due to lack of cool downs, 3 second delay on shield regen, ability to double shields, and instant shield regen on the unaffected side.

 

CP with K-turn is good when paired with a Rampart teammate. However, you are probably better off just using 2 ramparts and sharing beacons.

 

Thank you,I dont think I need to say why Directionals are good. You basically just covered all the points as to why most still take Directionals instead and why Directionals are still the "better" option for good pilots.

 

 

I consider this a good option as "training" equipment for those that have difficulty managing shield facings and power management still. As you lack the risk of miss facing your shields at a critical moment, and can reduce the ouch of when you accidentally power dive into a wall. Basically good against mines, alright against other things, but good for learning before swapping to a shield better suited for high skill high reward play like directionals.

 

 

Edit: also this is a clarion... there is ALWAYS something better to take for every situation... its a strike fighter after all lol

Edited by tunewalker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...