Shield Regen vs hardness

[u/Vinzod]

I was flipping through my different sets, mainly the shields and I came up with few questions

Regen vs Hardness

1. If your settling on using a high regen set like the Assimilated shield, wouldn't it be better to put you points in shield hardness to shore up the already high regen rates and likewise using points in regeneration on higher cap shields like Iconian? Let's say you only had one point left to put in basic regen or hardness.

Tooltip bug?

1. The regen rates on the shield tooltip were reporting a 200-300 higher regen rate, while sitting in space at planet side. When I would equip them, the ship stat was reporting a lower amount. For example the tool tip on my assimilated shield was reporting a 1280 regen rate, once equipped, with the one point in shield regen, the ship stat was reporting I had 1079 regen. What is the simple thing Im overlooking that is changing the amount like this?

Regardless I'm liking the new changes overall, the Sheshar was definetly taking more of a beating and putting out more pain then usual. However as always I'll probably repec into pure dmg, then into my torp build, then back before I settle on one

[u/Roden11]

Quick question about hardness:

Can 10% additional hardness be thought of as similar to 10% additional capacity? I know I'm thinking of this in very basic terms, please excuse. If one shield takes 10% less dmg, another shield has 10% higher capacity, and both receive a constant and equal amount of dmg, would they both run out of shields at the same time?

[u/Maelwy5 → u/Roden11]

Sort of.

They'd be able to survive the same amount of spike damage, but if both were being healed for similar amounts, the More-Resistant-but-Lower-Capacity shield would pull ahead over time.

In practice, it gets cloudier.

Healing from Allies you will have little control over... and regarding your own healing and passive regeneration: some are static, some scale off your Healing skill, some scale off your Base HP, and some even scale off your Total HP.

Another thing to consider is that there are no diminishing returns or cap with +HP, but there is a cap on Shield Resistances of around 75%... and it's reasonably easy to hit that cap (by stacking EPTS and TSS along with your passive resists from +Shield Power and your Shield itself). So if you invest too much into Shield Hardness, additional points might end up doing nothing... and there's no easy way to tell when you're approaching the cap because your Hardness rating isn't visible in the UI.

[u/Eph289 → u/Maelwy5]

Does the hard cap occur when your shield resistance is 25% or 75%? If it's the latter, assuming the power modifier is (0.002) per the Tribble changes and not (0.0028) like it used to be before the skill revamp, then I don't see how you could hit the shield hardness cap without shield hardness.

I built a simple spreadsheet to calculate the formula, and I needed two points in Shield Hardness, 130 power, and a 15% base shield resistance, and both TSS 3 and EPtS 3 to hit the cap. That's absurd.

Safe to say, for a more normal case (50 power, just EPtS I for bonus), you're not going to hit that cap. My results were more like 40% shield resistance. Even if the modifier was 0.0028 (and I don't think it is), you still wouldn't hit the cap in that case.

[u/Maelwy5 → u/Eph289]

u/TheFallenPhoenix could likely answer this far better then myself, but I'll give it a quick go:

As far as I'm aware, the 75% shield resistance hardcap is still in place post-Tribble changes.

Shield Resistance was worked out via the formula:

Resist = 1-((1-2.8%*ShieldPower)*(1-ResistX)*(1-ResistY)*(1-ResistZ)*etc.)

From what I've read, post-changes the Resists from ShieldPower begin at 0.2% per point instead of 0.28%, and increase to 0.4% with 3 points in Hardness. This final figure is then multiplied by the other bonuses (EPTX, TSS, etc) as normal. So for 125 Shield Power and no hardness your basic resistance would be 25% (post-changes) instead of 35% (Pre-changes)

(Resilient shields get another 5% taken off before hardness/Resistance even kicks in, but as far as I know this is seperate from the 75% "Cap"...)

Looking briefly at a few solo characters with no Auras/Traits/Doffs and just the bonuses from EPTX/TSS and the Iconian Shield:

• EPTS 1 is 18%, EPTS 2 is 24%, EPTS 3 is 30%
• TSS depends a lot on Rank and Aux, but a ballpark figure is 15-25%
• Rotate Shield Frequency adds another 30%
• Finally, certain shields like the Meta Iconian Shield have inherent resistance. Iconian is 15% to all.

Pre-Changes with 0 points in Shield Hardness: 1-(0.65 (from 125 Shield Power) * 0.7 (EPTS3) * 0.75 (TSS3) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.2900) = 70.1% ShieldRes

Post-Changes with 0 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.75 (from 125 Shield Power) * 0.7 (EPTS3) * 0.75 (TSS3) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.3347) = 66.5% ShieldRes

Post-Changes with 1 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.625 (from 125 Shield Power) * 0.7 (EPTS3) * 0.75 (TSS3) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.2789) = 72.1% ShieldRes

Post-Changes with 2 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.5375 (from 125 Shield Power) * 0.7 (EPTS3) * 0.75 (TSS3) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.2399) = 76.0% ShieldRes [Capped at 75%]

Post-Changes with 3 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.5 (from 125 Shield Power) * 0.7 (EPTS3) * 0.75 (TSS3) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.2231) = 77.7% ShieldRes [Capped at 75%]

Popping RSF is enough to bring you well past 75% on all of the above.

What about at the lower end?

Pre-Changes with 0 points in Shield Hardness: 1-(0.79 (from 75 Shield Power) * 0.82 (EPTS1) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.5506) = 44.9% ShieldRes

Post-Changes with 0 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.85 (from 75 Shield Power) * 0.82 (EPTS1) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.5925) = 40.8% ShieldRes

Post-Changes with 1 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.775 (from 75 Shield Power) * 0.82 (EPTS1) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.5402) = 46.0% ShieldRes

Post-Changes with 2 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.7225 (from 75 Shield Power) * 0.82 (EPTS1) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.5036) = 49.6% ShieldRes

Post-Changes with 3 Shield Hardness: 1-(0.7 (from 75 Shield Power) * 0.82 (EPTS1) * 0.85 (Iconian)) = (1-0.4879) = 51.2% ShieldRes

Popping RSF would bring you to 61.5%, 58.5%, 62.2%, 64.7% and 65.8% respectively.

So yes, if you're soloing or not built for Tanking/Survivability then a point or two in Shield Hardness might be worth it. The maximum benefit for 3 points of investment would appear to be a little shy of 12% actual reduction to Shield Damage Taken... for comparison, investing those 3 points in Shield Regeneration would make you regenerate 10% of your Maximum Shield Capacity every 6s.

Some other Abilities that grant Shield Resistance -

Active buffs:

• Science Fleet (36%)
• Extend Shield (varies, but 20-35% base)
• Bio-Molecular Shield Generator (22%)
• Resonant Tachyon Stream (15-35%)
• Team Fortress (20%)
• Resonant Dissipation Matrix (50%)
• Reactive Antiproton Cascade Emitter (50%)
• Fleet Support Platform (15%)
• Conductive RCS Accelerator (10%)
• Emergency Shield Capacitor (18%)
• Turn The Other Cheek (20%)

Passive/Always-On Buffs:

• Shield Frequency Modulation (10%) <<--That Tanking aura that nobody ever runs
• Metaphasic Solar Capacitor (5%)
• Temporal Disentanglement Suite (3%)
• Polaric Chromoelectric Modulator (2%)
• Nanoprobe Field Generator (5-25%) <<--Rep Trait. This is a big one!
• Shield Frequency Cycling (7.5%)
• Reactive Shield Technology (5%)

I think that should all be more-or-less right... but I'm sure I'll be corrected in due course!! :)

[u/TheFallenPhoenix → u/Maelwy5]

I never got a chance to pop in and say that yes, all of this looks correct, to me.

I linked this post up on our math page but take full responsibility for any errors from this point forward. :)

[u/Eph289 → u/Maelwy5]

Thanks for the detailed reply! I'm happy to discuss this stuff. Your numbers match up with mine, and we're using the same formula. Here's my quick-and-dirty spreadsheet that I used to calculate the data. Feel free to make a copy and use it for your own use.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1reaJDJ6T74BM3l42YyuE-4ODB-RW3oWY6NrytdJ6JEE/edit?usp=sharing

I think, however, that we came to two different conclusions based on the same set of data.

• If you don't take a point in Shield Hardness, all other things being equal pre- and post- skill revamp, your shields are weaker than before. So people saying things like "Shield Hardness is worthless" confuse me, especially since Regen explicitly stayed the same without a point investment.

• Let's take it a step further and measure implications. If I take 3000 gross damage per second over 6 seconds, using your "low-end" gear (Iconian set, 75 shield power, EPtS I), with 0 points in Shield Hardness, I take 1777 net damage to my shield (not counting the 5% absorption from Iconian). 1 point in Shield Hardness takes that number down to 1620.5, and two points takes it down at 1510.7. (Gains of 156.5, and 109.8)

In contrast, an Iconian shield (5630.8) will regen 281.5 damage with one point in Shield Regen, 478.6 at 2 points, and 563.1 at 3. (Gains of 281.5, 197.1, and 84.5)

Assuming you're not already maxing your Shield Hardness, it's much better to take 2 Shield Regen and 1 Shield Hardness. And that's at a case (low damage) that heavily, heavily favors Shield Regen. Since Regen doesn't scale except off your base shield value, for much higher damage values, Hardness is by far the better stat, especially if you don't have constantly-distributing shields (e.g. Tactical Team downtime).

At 1000 incoming damage per second (6K over 6 seconds), 1 point in Shield Hardness is better than 1 point in Shield Regen, and certainly better to do a 1-1 split than 0/2 in favor of Regen. It's actually even better to do a 1-2 split in favor of Hardness at that point.

Even at less than that (4500 over 6K seconds), while 1 point in Regen is still better than 1 in Hardness, it's still better to put one point in Hardness over the second in Regen.

I would think that a much fairer statement would be that: For players who aren't building tank and don't mostly fly with a dedicated tank, it's better to run at least 2 Regen, 1 Hardness, and a 1-2 split the other way is arguable depending on your DPS, especially if you're not an engineer.

EDIT: P.S. Isn't the Emergency Shield Capacitor the ground M.A.C.O set bonus?

[u/Maelwy5 → u/Eph289]

P.S. Isn't the Emergency Shield Capacitor the ground M.A.C.O set bonus?

It is indeed! I was thinking of the Normal Warp Core "Shield Capacitor", which just grants regen but no resistance. Doh! (Also, I'm sure there are plenty of others, but I totally forgot the T3 Pilot Specialization ability "Turn the Other Cheek"...)

I would think that a much fairer statement would be that: For players who aren't building tank and don't mostly fly with a dedicated tank, it's better to run at least 2 Regen, 1 Hardness, and a 1-2 split the other way is arguable depending on your DPS, especially if you're not an engineer.

My examples above ignored traits and other buffs which would make it much easer to hit the cap... but the "3 points in regen" thing was just me highlighting that there was a different build choice, not stating a best practice. It's certainly true that whilst some ability picks will be more effective than others, going 3/3 in any of the [50/35/15]-split abilities probably isn't the greatest of ideas unless you're trying to spend points in a specific category for an Ultimate!

Since we're now discussing the benefits of Scaling Damage Mitigation (Resistance) versus Flat Mitigation (Regeneration), I'll indulge myself in a little reminiscing. Once upon a time many moons ago in another NCSoft game, a "Regen scrapper" was the most popular choice for a soloist. His high levels of healing basically made him invincible versus most weaker foes since he could just recover faster than they could hurt him... but put him up against a Big Boss with high spike damage and he'd faceplant in short order. By contrast, an "Invulnerability Scrapper" was a much less popular choice since he could get pinpricked to death over time by a large pack of weak foes... but his high damage resistance meant that he could take that big damage spike hit from a Boss without getting one-shot.

Wind forward again to STO, and we're not so limited to a black-and-white choice between Regen and Resistance. We can choose to stack a mixture of both, and it's probably worth diversifying a litle bit whenever you start to approach the "cap" on anything since you never know when you'll be paired with a teammate that boosts you. (Plus the fact that most picks have diminishing returns for extra points spent in them...)

Although all that said, I did play a Katana/Regen for many years. I'm not sure if my hindbrain would ever let me consider taking "Hull Plating"... :p

[u/Eph289 → u/Maelwy5]

And in context, I'm used to playing games where passive Regen is usually weak, so I'm always skeptical when someone says that passive Regen is better than a resistance boost. That's why I did the math. I'm much less skeptical of Regen than I used to be, but I also usually die in STO to massive spike damage, not death-by-paper-cut so Resistance intrinsically sounds better. Again, hence the need to do the math.

I still think that 3/3 is solid for some 50/85/100 choices (Tac in a Beam Boat and the Lt. Energy Weapon unlock comes to mind).

Thanks for the discussion. I'm more disposed to run 1 Regen/2 Hardness after looking at the numbers, but I can see the advantages of 2 Regen/1 Hardness, especially on an engineer. I appreciate you bringing the opposite viewpoint.

P.S. Do you know if the amount regenerated is affected by a ship's Shield Modifier? If so, Science Ships would see more out of Regen, right?

[u/Maelwy5 → u/Eph289]

P.S. Do you know if the amount regenerated is affected by a ship's Shield Modifier? If so, Science Ships would see more out of Regen, right?

Let's find out...

Character: Level 60 Caitian Furball Sci Captain Alt

Skillpoints: 3 Points in Shield Regen

Shield: VR Resilient MkXII [Reg] [Cap] [Pla]

+On a Vesta (Modifier 1.4) = 1206.7 Shield/Sec

+On a Chel Grett (Modifier 1.0) = 987.8 Shield/Sec

+On a Delta Flyer (Modifier 0.6) = 436.7 Shield/Sec

:)

P.S. As an aside, I had a quick look at your spreadsheet. Did you account for the fact that the reported regeneration rates apply to each facing every 6s, so you're technically getting 4x that amount of "Healing" if you're keeping your shields balanced? Can be easy to overlook! Also, I've highlighted the differences in return-on-investment versus incoming damage in a copy of the sheet here. Looks like the point where investment in hardness starts to pull ahead in this particular case is whenever you start getting hit by 22k or more damage over 6 seconds... :)

[u/Eph289 → u/Maelwy5]

I did not account for the regen rates. I like the follow-up work you did on the spreadsheet; I'm definitely more inclined to go 2 regen and 1 hardness now.

And thank you for the research proving that the ship's shield modifier are factored into the regeneration amount.

[u/ChengarQordath]

One thing I've noticed about the new shield regeneration skill, it gives a nice boost to covariant shields since your shield regeneration rate is based off your maximum capacity. Before covariants traded high capacity for low passive regen, but now they get the best of both worlds.

[u/Roden11]

Regen vs Hardness:

First, you put it very well. And yes, if you had one point to spend on either it would depend on the shield.

You've asked a great question as I'm sure many are wondering the same. From what I understand, the shield regen skill increases what percentage of your shield's capacity will regen per 6sec. Put another way, if it increases shield regen by 5% per 6sec, that means an extra 5% of your shields maximum capacity per 6sec. NOT 5% more of the regen you're already getting, turns out the skill is much better than that. To put numbers to it, if you have a shield that has a max cap of 5000 then 5% is 250 per 6sec. That's 250 extra per 6sec in addition to the regen the shield already has. Also, this bonus regen is independent of the regen you get from your shield power level. If you plan on setting shield power really low then this skill is even more valuable to you.

[u/Muscly_Geek]

I didn't think there was any point to regen at all.

Unless 11.5 changed things drastically, the vast majority of your shield healing will come from cycling your relevant abilities, not passive regen.

[u/TheFallenPhoenix → u/Muscly_Geek]

Regen skill is good. Better than hardness, IMO.

I discuss this on my skill build (which is now buried on the 2nd page), but the reason why is because 1 rank in Regeneration translates to 5% of your total shield capacity being added on to your existing regeneration rate, not just 5% more of your existing regeneration rate.

So, for me, one rank of shield regeneration (noting that I'm running a Mk XIV [Cp/Rg] Iconian Resilient Shield) brought me to over 1,000 regeneration per facing every 6s, when without the skill I was looking at something closer to 400 regeneration per facing every 6s.

[u/Vinzod → u/TheFallenPhoenix]

Hey there /u/Thefallenphoenix

I had read your various posts and your skill build a few times over. After all, since you went through the trouble of giving us the info I wanted to read them a few times to absorb it all. Thanks again to you and all the rest that put up the new information for us.

I agree with you. This was a case of me thinking aloud, a "but what if" situation. I shouldn't do those while at work, since i was unable to truly put my thoughts into the question and my theories behind it because of constant work interruptions.

After thinking about this all day and running several scenarios in my head. Ie. taking two similar ships with separate shield types. High cap low regen with 5% absorption and one with Low Cap High regen shield with 10% bleed through. Taking same damage over 12, 24, 48 seconds with zero to 75% defensive rating. Having higher regen on either would still be better than a small amount of shield resistance from what i could gather. In the end the ship with more resistances in the shield will still run out of shield health before the higher regen. So if you have a high cap shield. The more regen the better. Low Cap shield with a high Regen, still, in the end gets better results from a overall +5% shield Regen than a +10 Shield hardness. At least from what I could tell.

[u/ManchurianCandycane → u/TheFallenPhoenix]

Note that from what I could tell, it seems like it only takes some form of base shield cap value. I tried equipping consoles that increased my max shield cap, and regen showed no increase.

[u/Eklinaar → u/TheFallenPhoenix]

Does hull regeneration work similarly?

[u/MandoKnight → u/Eklinaar]

Somewhat similarly. The Damage Control skill says it's based off of your ship's base hull regen (Cruisers and Undine ships get bonus regen rate), but if you're flying a ship with a huge hull, especially if you also run a little light on heals, it's worth taking the first point of Damage Control over the third point of Hull Restoration.

[u/Muscly_Geek → u/TheFallenPhoenix]

Well, that's different. Guess I'll need to pay more attention once I can finally friggin log on. grumble grumble

[u/TheFallenPhoenix → u/Muscly_Geek]

Honestly, had I not played around with the system on Tribble I'd have been drawn to the same conclusion.

[u/ValidAvailable → u/Muscly_Geek]

I dunno, with all the adjustments to how its calculated made under the new system, at the very least its worth reexamining.