Tadius Rhain
Amarr
Kalear Fleet Systems
   |
Posted - 2008.02.04 13:50:00 -
[1]
EM should be a viable damage type. Theory says low EM resists in shields makes this damage type useful, especially with shields starting at 0% combined with stacking penalties.
I think the problem is in the ratio of shield tankers to armour tankers. All Amarr ships armour tank and as I understand it most Gallente and Minmatar ships also armour tank though I admit I don't know other (lesser) races so well. 
I suspect the (proposed?) changes will make EANMs even more favourable. They are enormously powerful modules. And the end result will be proportionally harder for Amarr. I hope I'm proved wrong on this...
I'm not too concerned about T2 Minmatar resists since they are hit pretty hard by stacking penalties when looking at armour tanking. This makes the 90% EM resist irrelevant when they struggle to counter the other damage types. Min-maxing is the opposite to omni tanking and there's a penalty for it!
Comparatively, T2 Amarr armour tanks well because the bonuses boost the weakest types, reducing the affect of stacking penalties and improving the balance for omni tank setups. That and the massive number of low slots, allowing flexibility to chose between resist tank (specific hardeners/membranes) or HP regen tank (omnis, multiple reppers & CPRs). But the issue at hand is the amarr damage type...
In my ideal Eve world Amarr would armour tank, Gallente would shield tank (weakly against EM), Caldari would tank by EW and Minmatar would tank with speed. I think that would mean changing a lot of game rules though. Introduce new forms of EW such as chance based 'break locks on me' which Caldari were skilled with (or something?) and all the MWD and webber rules would have to change for speed tanking to become viable.
One last consideration: Caldari is Amarr's biggest Ally and yet with their shield tanking, they are the most opportune targets for Amarr  . I realise this is not too important today but thinking ahead to if/when faction warfare comes in.. it's clear something needs to change.
____________________________________________
|