How Armor Tanking Got Its Groove Back: The AAR and You
I’ve been partial to armor tanking since I first got into Eve. Part of it, from a very very mild RP perspective, was that shields don’t make any f*cking sense to me. Even in other Sci-Fi arenas (granted, I’ve never really been a big Trekkie), the idea of “putting up the shields” just came across as magic space-mojo nonsense. What exactly is a shield I ask my imaginary space-nerd trekkie friend? “Oh, well, you know, obviously its a, err- (adjusts glasses) projected focused energy source that err–(coughs uncomfortably) acts as an energy buffer for the, uh, spaceship”. Fantastic; again, all I get is space-mumble-jumble nonsense that I couldn’t even try to attach pseudo-science to.
Armor tanking on the other hand, I could always get behind. Its a tangible real thing, and I can wrap my head around it; insanely gigantic metal plates stopping insanely gigantic metal bullets? Yep, makes sense to me.
So with all the love and attention that shield tanking received over the past 6 months or so, I started to get pretty excited when CCP Fozzie started dropping little hints here and there about possible changes/buffs to armor tanking, which finally culminated in glorious nerdgasm here:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2496241&
Hell. Yes.
Lets take a look at what this will mean for active armor tanking fanboys like myself (Note: I should mention that all math below is based on the equation of “tankable DPS = hitpoints-per-second rep amount x (1-average resits)”. Resists are negative so for instance, 75% resists are 1 minus -.75, which is 1.75. Inquiries to the #tweetfleet and elsewhere on the “hp/s-to-tankable-DPS” equation yielded mixed answers, so I’m sure I don’t have to ask for someone to vehemently correct me if I’m wrong here 😉 ).
Exhibit A will be a triple-rep Myrmidon. Currently, a Myrm with a standard DC, 2 EANMs, and three medium armor repairers tank in the lows, complimented by 2 medium nanobot accelerators and one medium auxiliary nano pump for rigs, puts up a pretty impressive burst-style 1,185.62 DPS tank; overheated, that goes up to a ridiculous 1,534.23 DPS tank. Now if you want to get downright silly, top-skilled Legion boosts and +6 implants will get this up to an absurd 2,585.45 DPS tank, or (wait for it) 3,346 DPS over-heated. Sweet tap-dancing Hilmar.
Now, lets gaze into the crystal-ball of awesomeness and take a gander at the future, incorporating the new Ancillary Armor Repairer. These will come out with a built-in “one per ship” fitting restriction, but as Fozzi points out in his post, that doesn’t stop you from fitting one in addition to normal armor reppers. Now lets take a look at those Myrm numbers again, assuming the stats published are what we see in-game, and swapping out one medium repairer for one AAR (also assuming I’m not terrible at :math:).
At a base, the AAR while not loaded with cap boosters will have 3/4ths the rep amount of a T1 repper; loaded, it will have 2.25x that of a standard t1. That now gives our boosted and implanted Myrm a 2,208.41 DPS/ 2,715.41 DPS heated tank while unloaded, and while loaded, an 3,178.09 DPS tank or 3,685.06 DPS overheated. For comparison, that’s more than a standard dual-rep Megathron can boast under the same conditions (although you can be sure that Mega will way out-last your own damage mitigation as well as WAY out-damage you).
The downside of course is a very long reload time, but, like the ASB, what this will encourage and require is a higher situational awareness of the fight you’re in: when do you need that extra burst and when can you maintain with just your two standard reppers while the AAR reloads? This will require a whole different mindset for traditional armor tankers, even if you’re used to active reps, but especially for the “blunt-object hunk-of-metal”-style tankers out there.
I’m definitely excited about what these new fits this will open up, and can’t wait to get a Sisi build of them going to mess around with.
-Aiden
Edit: Again, let me know if that equation is wonky, but regardless…wow.
Finders & Keepers 
Yeah, the numbers are a bit off. You should be using something like this:
raw_rep_amount / ( 1 – average resist )
Average resist is a positive number (on the myrm with all V skills, it’d be 66.35%, or 0.6635). Three OH MARs gives you raw 290.3 HP/s. Plug those numbers in, and you get 861.8 HP/s effective repair on an OH triple-rep myrm.
To do the numbers with the proposed stats of AAR included (swapping it out in place of an existing MAR), what we effectively have while fueled (with nanite repair paste now, not cap booster charges, btw) is a 4.25 MAR equivalent rep instead of the original 3. That gives us an OH tank of 1222.6 effective HP/s.
After the nanite paste charges run out (which is supposed to be after significantly longer than an ASB), the AAR will continue to run, not consuming any additional cap, but only repping at .75x MAR rate. This only drops our reps down to 790 OH effective HP/s. (610.4 EHP/s without heat compared to a 3x MAR unheated 665.9 EHP/s).
Using an AAR instead of a regular rep boils down to these changes in rep amount (with charges / after burst):
triple-rep fits: +42% / -8%
dual-rep fits: +62.5% / -12.5%
single-rep fits: +125% / -25%
Pretty much insanely awesome whatever way you look at it.
Oh, and the nanobot overcharger rig was going to give bonuses to rep when overheating (double the overheat bonus itself), but it’s since been pulled from the planning to be reworked.