Long Time Lurker here, many of you know me in game, but I thought I'd present a question about components, especially as builds have not been discussed in ages mostly because these topics were largely exhausted for content. The search function in this forum for this topic seems mostly ineffective, but I'd like to hear perspective

I've been mulling on this back and forth but I'd like to hear what you guys say about the matter.

Tier 5 Upgrade damage to HULL or Damage to SHIELD?

I almost exclusively take HULL damage as I figure there's enough damage out there that shields (esp Ion Gunships) will either very possibly be stripped or partially damaged by the time I get there. It would also do more effective damage against turrets and drones, no? I'm not sure about this last part, it's just an assumption, someone clear that up for me?

I've seen some vet pilots who stream take Shield Damage on their weapons

If I'm right, tell me so, if I'm wrong, tell me why. :-D

It's always a toss up in my opinion. I think it depends on the playstyle of ship your building.

For example when I playing Quads and Pods I take shields because that ship wants to pop cooldowns and kill the person in one pass. More damage makes that more likely.

If I'm playing a whittle them slowly style like Burst and Cluster missiles I like Hull damage. My reasoning here is Once I get them to that Hull range I want a kind of execute damage, if I hit them once their low I want that to have the highest chance of killing them.

That's for my Scouts anyways.

If I'm playing say a Rycer/Starguard with Quads/Heavy's I would take Hull on the Quads because most likely the Heavy's have done a good amount of the shield damage by the time I I get in range and want to swap to Quads.

As a general rule I prefer Hull Damage because I always want more damage once the target is low. People tend to shrug off that initial volley until they have low or no shields anyways, or just plain don't realize their being attacked. That's why I like that extra Burst damage once their low.

Looking forward to hearing others opinions though.

It's always a toss up in my opinion. I think it depends on the playstyle of ship your building.

 

For example when I playing Quads and Pods I take shields because that ship wants to pop cooldowns and kill the person in one pass. More damage makes that more likely.

 

If I'm playing a whittle them slowly style like Burst and Cluster missiles I like Hull damage. My reasoning here is Once I get them to that Hull range I want a kind of execute damage, if I hit them once their low I want that to have the highest chance of killing them.

 

That's for my Scouts anyways.

Thanks for this. I was about to test out Shield damage on my Quad Pod tonight and see how I felt about it. I do play with a lot of players who do Ion Splashing though, so I'm concerned it won't be as effective as I want it to be.

Do you know about whether or not armored non-shielded targets (Drones, turrets, etc) take extra damage from the selection of Hull Damage?

If I'm playing say a Rycer/Starguard with Quads/Heavy's I would take Hull on the Quads because most likely the Heavy's have done a good amount of the shield damage by the time I I get in range and want to swap to Quads.

 

 

As a general rule I prefer Hull Damage because I always want more damage once the target is low. People tend to shrug off that initial volley until they have low or no shields anyways, or just plain don't realize their being attacked. That's why I like that extra Burst damage once their low.

 

Looking forward to hearing others opinions though.

Great insight thanks!

I favor extra hull damage only in cases where I think it will be used more often than not.

So in the form of shield piercing, I usually take that in preference to raw damage (but not in preference to AP on BLCs).

In cases of raw shield damage vs raw hull damage I almost always take the shield damage bonus. In most cases targets are going to have shields, and in most cases the overall shield damage done is going to be greater than the hull damage done. This is partly influenced by flying strikes so much. With low burst and difficulty sticking to a target, you want to get shields down as fast a possible so you can start doing hull damage. Once the shields are down a roughly 10% difference in hull damage doesn't usually make that much of a difference in getting a kill, but 15% or so extra shield damage can make a big difference in terms of slipping in some hull damage before a target gets out of range.

If you're in scout build that lets you stick on a target, then hull damage might be worth it. In a close range T1 strike build Ion-Quads-Clusters-Retros where the Quads have almost no responsibility for shield damage then the bonus hull damage makes sense for them.

You can sort of think of it like shield damage being a regular salary and hull damage being like a bonus on a lottery payout. The bonus is fine, but best used if you're pretty sure you can rig the lottery's odds in your favor.

I favor extra hull damage only in cases where I think it will be used more often than not.

 

So in the form of shield piercing, I usually take that in preference to raw damage (but not in preference to AP on BLCs).

 

In cases of raw shield damage vs raw hull damage I almost always take the shield damage bonus. In most cases targets are going to have shields, and in most cases the overall shield damage done is going to be greater than the hull damage done. This is partly influenced by flying strikes so much. With low burst and difficulty sticking to a target, you want to get shields down as fast a possible so you can start doing hull damage. Once the shields are down a roughly 10% difference in hull damage doesn't usually make that much of a difference in getting a kill, but 15% or so extra shield damage can make a big difference in terms of slipping in some hull damage before a target gets out of range.

 

If you're in scout build that lets you stick on a target, then hull damage might be worth it. In a close range T1 strike build Ion-Quads-Clusters-Retros where the Quads have almost no responsibility for shield damage then the bonus hull damage makes sense for them.

 

You can sort of think of it like shield damage being a regular salary and hull damage being like a bonus on a lottery payout. The bonus is fine, but best used if you're pretty sure you can rig the lottery's odds in your favor.

You need to practice flyings strikes more TBH.

Thanks for the input Ramalina!

I absolutely agree with you overall.

I got an excellent argument from another pilot today re: Shield damage specifically in my Quad Pod build that I frequent the most. by removing shields faster it makes the pods more effective. That's good enough for me to keep my quads on shields permanently.

There are only three cases where I pick hull damage.

The first is on the T2 scout BLC/pod build. The reason for this is because it allows you to "one shot" turrets from a reasonable range. You have to be in F1 and use range capacitors though.

The second is on the T1 GS. Since I mostly use that ship in domination and mostly just use it to spam ion on a node, it helps to finish off any angry scouts that charge at me after losing their shields to ion splash.

The third is on the T1 Strike for the same reasons Drak mentioned. I use RFL instead of quads though.

In all other cases I think shield damage is better because ships generally have more shields than hull.

Do you know about whether or not armored non-shielded targets (Drones, turrets, etc) take extra damage from the selection of Hull Damage?

Yes it is very noticeable on turrets and definitely something to consider. Turrets have no shields at all.

Drones have both shields and hull. I'm not sure of the specific numbers but I'm assuming it's close to equal. I know the railgun drone has an upgrade for 20% more shields and the hyperspace beacon has upgrades for more hull. Interdiction drone, missile drone, and repair drone all have an upgrade for more hull.

On my Clarion I use shield damage for the same reason Ramalina mentioned - trying to get shields down so I can get hull damage in.

~ Eudoxia

There are only three cases where I pick hull damage.

 

The first is on the T2 scout BLC/pod build. The reason for this is because it allows you to "one shot" turrets from a reasonable range. You have to be in F1 and use range capacitors though.

 

The second is on the T1 GS. Since I mostly use that ship in domination and mostly just use it to spam ion on a node, it helps to finish off any angry scouts that charge at me after losing their shields to ion splash.

 

The third is on the T1 Strike for the same reasons Drak mentioned. I use RFL instead of quads though.

 

In all other cases I think shield damage is better because ships generally have more shields than hull.

 

Yes it is very noticeable on turrets and definitely something to consider. Turrets have no shields at all.

 

Drones have both shields and hull. I'm not sure of the specific numbers but I'm assuming it's close to equal. I know the railgun drone has an upgrade for 20% more shields and the hyperspace beacon has upgrades for more hull. Interdiction drone, missile drone, and repair drone all have an upgrade for more hull.

Thanks for the input Siraka! Yes, I definitely think that the turret kills were noticeably slower with shield damage than with hull damage.

Sometimes I go with Hull if the weapon has Shield Piercing (ie BLC), so that with every hit, some hull damage is being done.

BLCs should have the armor pen upgrade always. I think there's even an expert on these forums as to what happens if you fail to take it. In any case, they are the only blasters that can have both increased hull damage and shield piercing.

I personally take hull damage on BLCs and shield damage on anything else. Reason - for any weapon that's not BLC, I rely on both primaries and secondaries for a kill, so getting shields down faster will mean getting in more hull damage. With BLCs, the burst damage comes from the blasters, so I'd rather keep that for the hull.

It's also incredible how many gunships won't move if you don't use your secondaries with BLCs... And that usually means you don't need more shield damage.

BLCs should have the armor pen upgrade always. I think there's even an expert on these forums as to what happens if you fail to take it. In any case, they are the only blasters that can have both increased hull damage and shield piercing.

.

Yep I think there is one rare case where it's not absolutely insane to take shield piercing on a T2 scout. If you buy a Skybolt/Ocula and want to dedicate it to domination, then you can free up your Flashfire/Sting to be a TDM specific ship. In theory it could be more useful in games where all enemy gunships move as soon as they are hit and you are unable to take out their shields. The 8% shield piercing from one up-close BLC shot (roughly 900 damage) equals about the same as the 28% shield piercing from 1 rocket pod (270 damage). This amount of shield piercing can be important because it pairs nicely with friendly slug railgun users. HOWEVER, without armor piercing, it will take a bit longer to kill railgun drones and Legions/Warcarriers since they have a decent amount of built-in deflection armor. And yea, you'll basically want to ignore any CP Pikes or CP Clarions.

The aforementioned build is also pretty neat with bypass. But is it worth giving up running interference or wingman? Probably not.

TL;DR - The small bonus gained by shield piercing can possibly marginally sometimes be worthwhile in 2 of the 5 maps.

Yep I think there is one rare case where it's not absolutely insane to take shield piercing on a T2 scout. If you buy a Skybolt/Ocula and want to dedicate it to domination, then you can free up your Flashfire/Sting to be a TDM specific ship. In theory it could be more useful in games where all enemy gunships move as soon as they are hit and you are unable to take out their shields. The 8% shield piercing from one up-close BLC shot (roughly 900 damage) equals about the same as the 28% shield piercing from 1 rocket pod (270 damage). This amount of shield piercing can be important because it pairs nicely with friendly slug railgun users. HOWEVER, without armor piercing, it will take a bit longer to kill railgun drones and Legions/Warcarriers since they have a decent amount of built-in deflection armor. And yea, you'll basically want to ignore any CP Pikes or CP Clarions.

 

The aforementioned build is also pretty neat with bypass. But is it worth giving up running interference or wingman? Probably not.

 

 

TL;DR - The small bonus gained by shield piercing can possibly marginally sometimes be worthwhile in 2 of the 5 maps.

I'd never take shield piercing on a scout, because my scouts are split between clusters and pods. Sometimes I want to have pods in TDM or clusters in DOM, and taking shield piercing would limit me. Armor pen doesn't. I guess if you only fly a single build, you could make two scouts with that being the only difference between them.

I did take shield piercing on my T1 gunship for quite a bit. The reasoning was that I have slugs for any bomber and turret, and shield piercing is better against scouts. I swapped because you will need to engage around nodes sometimes and missing the armor pen will hurt, but also because scouts will generally have low shields by the time they reach you.

Interesting take on needing clusters or pods in both modes CS. I'd be interested to know your rationale on that. I'm admittedly not exactly an ace with clusters as I've always been a pods guy. I basically only use clusters on condor or T1 strike.

TRE/prog certainly have more strong scout pilots than any other servers. I am guessing that's a big reason

TRE/prog certainly have more strong scout pilots than any other servers. I am guessing that's a big reason

Pretty much. Pods are great for both modes, but scouts aren't going to die to them a lot. Clusters are a great tool for peeling, but also for shaking an enemy off a contested node.

If the opposing team is scout heavy and we need a scout, I'll usually go for clusters. If I'm the only scout, I'll probably take pods for versatility. The same goes for TDM - if the opposing team is scout heavy, I'll take clusters. If they're gunship heavy, I'll take pods. If I want to make them move, constant cluster locks, but if I want the burst kills pods are better...

I kinda wish I could have more than two scouts on bar.