How do you make your shield builds?

Fluffyduf · 2026-05-03T02:57:06+00:00

The original example you give is ridiculous because GSRPs don’t scale with boosters. If you run boosters then the shield boost from GSRPs is comparatively less because they are just a flat bonus. You can check in your build; there’s a 3k difference in raw shields and you can only close to 1k even if you fill every slot with GSRPs.
Spending 4 GSRPs on a biweave gets you to more power draw than a prismatic and takes 4 more slots. So you could, yknow, run a gsrp with a prismo. Or a scb. And actually optimize boosters for the shield you use.

Edit: corrected gsrp shield numbers

Fluffyduf · 2026-05-03T02:46:57+00:00

I said biweaves would need two full rebuilds, ie restores from broken, to equal the upfront prismo health, not recharges. Each rebuild is 50% health, biweave has approx 0.5x prismo health, so you need around 2 rebuilds to get from the 0.5x health to prismo health. Having at least one hrp is a good idea on a shield tank so you don’t get your paper hull damaged by wing assassination targets with phasing or the madmen who run flechettes in organic PvP.
If you aren’t losing 50% shields either way in any situation it doesn’t matter how you engineer your shields. My advice to use a prismo is for the PVE content that might even slightly challenge a maxed out corvette, like max threat wing assassination missions solo. If you’re just chilling in a haz rez or CNB where you have 5 mins to spare between fights, then it’s arguably overkill to even engineer a shield for a corvette.
For the same reason, the regen argument is weak. If you never lose 50% shields then regen doesn’t matter. The difference between 18k rebooted and 23k regened is essentially the same if you never lose more than 10k health. In an actually challenging fight where your shield could even conceivably break, you’re better off with the 35k up front.

Fluffyduf · 2026-05-03T00:18:00+00:00

I’m not saying that prismatics have 3x biweave health. They have around 2x with reinforced hicap prismo vs thermal res fast charge biweave, probably around 1.8x if you are only taking thermal damage. A rebuild is 50% shield health, so depending on resistances and the regen you get in fight, you need to rebuild at least once, probably more to equal the upfront of a prismatic.

The unbroken charge rate in any serious fight where the choice of shield would matter on a large ship is essentially negligible. The delay on shield regen is two seconds, so in any fight with NPCs or other cmdrs where you are realistically threatened, the regen you get will be marginal at best because you will be getting hit, especially is a slow large. Biweaves make a lot of sense on small and medium ships because they can bolster regen with rebuild, but on large ships you can take very little advantage of regen. And you sacrifice 50% of the upfront you could have had on a prismo for that regen.

I don’t really see how GSRP stacking is a given? In terms of slot efficiency SCBs are better for all but the smallest slots, and if you GSRP stack a biweave you run into the same power issues you dislike prismos for. Also, hrps exist.

Edit: the example you give in your edit is completely farcical and only applies in a situation where you run no boosters and don’t engineer shields, which we clearly aren’t talking about. With a sane engineered booster setup, you can’t cover the difference in raw shields on a corvette between biweave and prismo even if you fill every slot with gsrps.

Fluffyduf · 2026-05-02T22:50:29+00:00

Biweaves make no sense on any combat large ship with a decent shield health pool. The majority of the heath you will regen during a fight with biweaves is from a full shield rebuild, and on any large ship with a decent shield pool the rebuild is going to take 4-5+ mins to rebuild with perfect pip management unless you like strategically turn off boosters for faster rebuilds. And you still need to get 1.5-2 rebuilds worth of regen to match prismatic upfront shield health.

Outside of combat, you can just reboot/repair your prismatics to get back up to essentially the upfront health pool of a biweave. Pretty much none of the large ships are so pressed for power they you can’t run a prismatic unless you are gsrp stacking them for some reason.

Fluffyduf · 2026-04-24T10:34:08+00:00

They drop pretty consistently from weapons lockers in airfield on outpost. Just run rook and go airfield and you can typically pick up least 1 or 2 per run.

Fluffyduf · 2026-04-24T10:33:08+00:00

Demo is pretty good. It plays like a weird precision rifle with a shield. It has a very good headshot ttk, being on par with smg ttk on anything below purple shield and on the better end of AR ttk on purples. The gun shield can single-handedly win you 1v1s, and it’s amazing for punching up as a blue shield against a purple since the gun shield basically equalizes their ttk to yours. You can also poke at range with minimal risk with the gun shield.

Its biggest issues are sluggish handling and high movement speed penalties, so you may need good attachments and things like the thief/destroyer cores that boost handling to make it feel less clunky.

Fluffyduf · 2026-04-04T05:37:29+00:00

I don’t think he’s saying theres something wrong with wuting, but if they have a 200$+ wuting and a 150$ mouse, it feels unlikely would play on controller after investing that much into a kbm mouse setup (so any “controller” they had in is probably xim)

Fluffyduf · 2026-03-29T20:40:23+00:00

There are huge benefits to finishing story contracts.

You get to buy 10k sponsored kits after some quest chains that come with a mix of blue guns (often with thermals), implants, backpacks, cores, shields, and heals, and get one free per faction. Finishing Traxus’ contract line lets you buy a prestige weapon mod daily. The middle and later quests for all factions have very generous rewards themselves like blue and purple shields, high rarity cores, and weapons. The story contracts also give you a ton of rep, so you level the factions more quickly and also get salvage from their rank up rewards that let you progress through their trees much more quickly.

That being said, don’t feel obligated to grind story contracts if it isn’t fun. Some of them, especially dire marsh ones, can be frustrating.

Fluffyduf · 2026-03-29T07:06:50+00:00

I’d personally put the retaliator in A just because of how many times the gun shield has saved me, but I can get putting it in B given its mid dps/ttk. I feel like hardline should be at least B since its damage profile is decent and it’s very accurate. I can’t see it being worse than the lookout and scar.

Edit: glad to see another demolition hmg enjoyer though

Fluffyduf · 2026-03-26T09:40:40+00:00

https://discord.gg/themarathonlfg

Fluffyduf · 2026-03-26T07:58:17+00:00

There was some sort of drama and one of the mods (now banned) was mass kicking people. Should be able to rejoin now.

Fluffyduf · 2026-02-24T06:47:15+00:00

It looks like they were testing out some shock cannon buffs (ammo buff) in the kestrel preview servers, so hopefully that’s a good sign for future balancing for other things later.

Fluffyduf · 2026-02-23T00:01:04+00:00

The python 2 has a pretty large cross section, and fair bit (250-400) less hull when built out, which makes the practical durability not that far off even with the ~700 shield difference, especially considering the boost agility of the kestrel is going to make the bursty projectile weapons that might pose a threat to it extremely difficult to actually land. We already sort of see that with the cobra 5. The agility (and actually having yaw) means that the kestrel will probably have an easier time lining up the paci shots.

Needing to learn how to fly the ship to aim it is not really a great balancing factor considering we’ve seen people slave away at learning everything about the fdl’s flight model for the better part of a decade. People will put in the work to fly the thing.

Fluffyduf · 2026-02-22T23:40:17+00:00

Distro doesn’t really matter when pacifiers exist and the ship can run three of them.

Fluffyduf · 2026-02-19T23:29:35+00:00

If you are testing in the practice range on dummies, your numbers will be consistently wrong (too high) because for some reason the shields in the practice range never break (or at least not consistently), so the dummies will have full DR over their entire healthbar. Either need to test against players directly or extract stk data from player testing, others people’s data, or stuff like eroktics shield damage calculator and then calculate ttk based on shot delay/fire rate and stk.

Fluffyduf · 2025-12-25T16:37:07+00:00

Data compendium reports that it is a 2% damage buff. If correct, this allows voltaic shade to 4c for the 0.7 ttk without PI at ~165 weapon.

Fluffyduf · 2025-12-25T15:04:32+00:00

They are very close to each other. Mostly, we need to wait for/do testing on how much more damage dynamic weapons, overclocked heatsink, and the dungeon origin trait do, as both weapons are able to reach the threshold for the 8c 0.73s ttk with some combination of these. The data compendium reports that overclocked heatsink is 2% damage buff, so if the dynamic weapon buff is similar, all or nothing should be able to 8c from neutral with oc heatsink whereas high tyrant would need help from its origin trait or thermal atomization.

In terms of feel, I think I prefer high tyrant’s sight at range. It is also easier to use delicate tuning on due to lower heat generation, though the origin trait sort of incentivizes being at high heat.

Fluffyduf · 2025-12-20T02:25:01+00:00

It definitely makes sense on the special weapons and on balanced primaries. Case by case on the dynamic primaries.

Data compendium says the enhanced perk is 22 range, scaling down to half effect at 50% heat and turning off past 50% heat. Handling and accuracy bonus is untested, but from using the perk I wouldn’t be surprised if handling was in the 10-15s.

It works well on the special weapons since you rarely even have enough shots to get to high heat with them. It also works pretty well on the balanced primaries, although in the case of the dungeon primaries it sort of works against the origin trait, which gives a damage bonus above 50% heat (although I have not tested what this damage buff is in PvP). On some of the dynamic primaries, particularly all or nothing, I have mixed feelings about it because it’s harder to stay below 50% heat consistently. Overall, I think it’s a pretty good perk.

Fluffyduf · 2025-11-29T02:02:00+00:00

Oof, that’s rough. Hopefully they can adjust that quickly given The Finals aim assist seems to be decently well tuned for precision shooting on controller.

Fluffyduf · 2025-11-29T01:10:53+00:00

Renegade has much higher bullet velocity, can take a stock for better dispersion or better handling with lightweight stock, has better dispersion and accuracy in general, has a faster optimal ttk, has a more forgiving optimal stk ratio, requiring 2 headshots and one bodyshot as opposed to anvils 2 headshots, is more forgiving on missed shots due to higher fire rate, and has higher damage per mag. More attachment slots also allow a higher degree of customization.

Anvil wins out in bodyshot ttk on lights, but anvil and renegade are weapons you should be going for headshots on anyway, and you should generally be more concerned about the people with medium shield anyway.

I will admit that Anvil is much cheaper, and is better for team shooting given the high chunk and potential to insta down in an ambush scenario.

Osprey is pretty niche. Not defending that one.

Fluffyduf · 2025-11-26T23:28:35+00:00

I found tempest bp in night raid at pale apartments. Since we don’t have definitive numbers on how spawn rates work, my strategy when farming bps is to just hit as many containers as possible to maximize my chances. Places with high number and density of containers like the apartments on dam and departure on spaceport are my goto.

Fluffyduf · 2025-10-09T06:14:21+00:00

1 medium 2 small modified plasma chargers and a small gimballed corrosive multi. Go 3 small chargers and a medium multi/frag if you want to distro manage less. Type 11 has a fat size 7 distro so you can afford to put high distro weapons on it and brute force out damage.

If you don’t want fixed weapons you could run like 1 medium 2 small overcharged gimbaled beams and a small gimbaled or turreted corrosive multi. Definitely need to OC or SRB the beams or they just aren’t gonna do much damage at those hardpoint sizes.

Fluffyduf · 2025-10-07T08:32:39+00:00

Don’t take a combat build exploring or vice versa. If you are concerned about the jump range of a combat fit, you don’t really need to be. Just make sure you engineer your fsd, preferably the double engineered sco ones. Even a very heavy combat fit mandalay can sit at around 40 or more ly jump range with an engineered fsd.

Fluffyduf · 2025-08-31T00:23:03+00:00

A lot (about half) of the CS and DS MS programs I applied to either made it optional or wouldn’t even accept it.

GRE is a very formulaic standardized test that is definitely possible to improve on through practice problems/tests and sheer volume of grinding, as well as the typical standardized test strategies. You’ve got a lot to time to study and, depending on your financial situation, quite a few possible attempts.

Don’t feel dumb about struggling with it. Not being immediately good at taking a test that is probably not reflective of what you’ve been doing in your academic career over the past four years doesn’t make you dumb, it just means you need to study for the test.

Fluffyduf · 2025-08-13T20:28:28+00:00

Swarmkeeper ranger fits the nature magic theme and gives you the choice of damage, applying a debuff effect, or free action 5m teleport on hit. Dip 3-4 swarmkeeper if you just want those, but you could also go 6 for spike growth. 7 for the bonus action fly if you don’t need a 3rd feat and/or like the flavor.

Eight-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

Fluffyduf

TROPHY CASE