Bandage or Shield?

So this is my setup without bandage/shield:

This is the bandage (soon to get to lvl 40 and might get +5% from talents once I have 1m gold):

And this is my shield (actually gives +1178 because of general health percentage increase talents):


I know the bandage I have is better than the shield I have, but personally I think shield is more important than the bandage. So idk which one to use. Which one should I use? I'm leaning towards bandage.

 

As for a long term effect, bandage is better because if you are injured you can go into cover and heal some.

That's for speeders though, not quite sure on defenders.

Sorry.

 

shield

 

Shield. Over n over again. Grow them in rare to max. And in Epic to max.

Eventually you will have enough shields to compete in Nitemare consistently.

The longest items to grow are shields because of rarity. Small shield after small shield. You will only need to grow 1 epic big shield to max.

Once this is accomplished you will consistently see your boat at 4k.

Good luck and Godspeed.

Jaws

 

I have both L50 Rare Small shield and L40 Rare Bandage. One would think the small shield would be key, but in practice I'm not so sure...

HP regeneration seems to be a mental crutch. Not only will you be more careful of your lesser HP to start with, but regeneration feels like it gets you out of trouble when you are on the verge of death.

I also feel like I get targeted more when I have 2k more HP than everyone else. Back to point 1, having the extra HP makes me a little more brave. Also the reality is the entirety of the HP the Small Shield gives me is frequently removed in a single shot from the enemy, so it, again, feels pointless.

For your own purpose, you should do the calculations on which gives you more HP based on how long are your matches are, and how you play. Do you sit back and Snipe everyone with little risk, or do you need beefier shielding as a brawler to avoid getting instantaneously killed when you get into close range trouble. The Shield is also useful if you are Fleeting with a Fixer, it's a lot easier to give the Fixer a buffer and it's also easier for them to top you off and keep you strong. As a Fixer you should probably go Shield. You need to be able to withstand brief assassin hits.

 

it depends on your play style..
if u play hide and seek, then use bandage...
if you go aggressive then use shield.
i am a defender and i always use shields...

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll try to build up my standard shields and shield perks, but it might take a while. For some reason, I'm not getting any shileds for a long time.

 

Off topic question, small shield or big shield? I play mk4 speeder close to getting mk5.

 

You can put a big shield on a speeder at MK5... so 100% big shield

 

as shown in the posts above the type of shield depends on the amount of blue slots available for example if its 444 blue slots then a big shield and 2 small shields is the best mix rather than 2 big shields as it is the perks which make the shield even better so this would give more perk spaces and so the overall HP would be better!

 

Btw I am a bandage player as that what RNG has given me, however this thread has got me thinking much more about this for the future so thank you very much for creating it!

 

I was thinking about this more and let's be honest here, the stats lean toward bandage rather than small shield as a general rule. I have the following in my inventory:

Rare T5 Small shield with all epic perks - 1255 HP. (I'm only missing 50 HP from training)
Rare T5 Bandage with all epic perks - 96 HP. (I'm missing +10% from training.)

For the Bandage to heal 1255 HP it needs to tick 13 times (every 5 seconds), or 1 minute 5 seconds. If your battle lasts 2 minutes the Bandage will add more HP than the Small Shield. If your match lasts 3+ minutes the gap widens. For example, let's say you don't get hit until :45 into the match for 950 HP, you heal all the way up (50 seconds), don't get hit for another 20 seconds, then spend the rest of the 3:30 minute game healing, your Bandage would have regenerated 2774 HP for you. That's more than a 200% increase.

There are outside cases where a small shield may be more beneficial:

• You only have a 1-point blue slot for all shields. A small shield protects you from a big hit initially
• You stay with a Fixer. A good Fixer should be able to top you off and the small shield increases your overall reserve.

Otherwise, particularly for Defender, I think you guys are fooling yourselves about the value of the Small Shield over a Bandage

 

To the above you are missing a couple of key points:

1. Players target those with least HP often so having shields means you are targeted less sometimes
2. You may not survive long enough for your bandage to heal you enough as you do not have enough HP to survive any mistake, also some defenders are close encounter players and so they are just trying to do as much damage as possible before dying so bandage would never heal quick enough.

As I stated above I have done the calculations and based on my playing style I use bandage for all my ships except fixer as I feel the HP is better as my pulse heals me enough. This will never be a 1 answer fits all scenario.

 

I may not have explained my thoughts well considering you seemed to re-confirm everything I tried to say... so yes, we are in agreement that Bandage is usually the way to go.

You are probably right that shield may help avoid targeting if you have very low HP, but when it gives you very high HP it actually draws targeting (players think you are stronger and should be focused on). Those are both important points to take into consideration.

 

Rudder!
But bandages are overrated

 

The problem is how fast you take the damage. I don't feel like it take that much time between the first and the last shot I take as a defender on most battles.

 

You also need to take into account that Shield HP also supported by % of Bonus Shield HP and % Total Ship HP. So whenever you gain more HP for a shield, the actual HP that you will get is much higher.

As your number is wrong so this calculation is also not accurate. Besides, it depends on the leauge that you are currenty in. The higher the leauge, the quicker you will die unless you have a Fixer in your team or your bandage is T5E or Legendary. Otherwise, you won't survive that long for a bandage to regenerate the equal HP that you get from a Shield

 

You are correct... the net result of adding my 1246 Rare Small Shield is a +1621 HP... but that still pales in comparison to the 2774 HP in my example with the Bandage. If you usually engage in battle for less 1.5 minutes, then shield is probably the way to go, but if you are in there for 2+ minutes there is still no contest with the Bandage. See below.

There is a very strong defender I frequently see in battles... All shields 15k HP... is a bit of a bull in a china shop, but when all is said and done neither positively or negatively affects battles. I constantly have Defenders with 2x my HP charge me, and I will frequently take them down by myself in less than a minute 1v1... so in that you are right. However I'm of the opinion that lasting longer in a battle so that you can deal damage and produce kills is more important than bull-rushing in and praying that the planets align and your teammates take advantage of the situation. More often than not the Defender just gets killed.

 

It's actually a matter of playstyle: if you're a close range player, go with shield, if you're a long range one, bandage can be helpful