Shield ET, Blade

Going to resolve the uncertainty (that I have) about the shield elite tech on Blade.

Base cooldown for harden shield, all ships: 5s

Cooldown for Blade: -25%

Standard harden shield cooldown for Blade: 5s x (1-0.25) = 3.75s

Now, if that's the base, then Rapid Recharge ET should take it's -20% away from that.

Rapid Recharge cooldown: -20%

Base harden shield duration: 2s

Blade harden shield cooldown with Rapid Recharge ET: 3.75s x (1-0.20) = 3s

Unshielded time under this scenario: 3s - 2s = 1s

OR, the two cooldowns could be added together.

Total cooldown for Blade with Rapid Recharge ET: -25% + (-20%) = -45% (Can you exceed 40% ever?)

Harden shield cooldown: 5s x (1 - 0.45) = 2.75s

Unshielded time under this scenario: 2.75s - 2s = 0.75s

Using Lasting Harden Shield ET gives a different result.

Blade harden shield cooldown: 3.75s

Lasting harden shield duration: 2s x 1.25 = 2.5s

Unshielded time under this scenario: 3.75s - 2.5s = 1.25s

Either way, it LOOKS like cooldown, i.e., Rapid Recharge, is the best ET.

I was not the first to figure this out. Ronald said this was so before I went to all this trouble. Ronald is correct. Yes I am insane.

1s / 3s = unshielded 1/3 of the time

1.25 / 3.75 = unshielded 1/3 of the time

I picked increased duration because of the time between when the cooldown ends and when I press q again. It's more like 1.1 / 3.1 vs 1.35 / 3.85 .

Weird. That extra 0.1 sec is probably just the IP lag. Q suffers from that a lot, as we all know.

Since posting here, I found that, even though it seems like you can shield a little more often with Rapid Recharge, Lasting Harden seems to work better in PvE, and particularly with Blade since you have 0.5s longer to focus the phase blade. Rapid Recharged made Vorsran a bit harder, since many of the elite enemies can one-shot you if your shield lowers too soon. But for PvP, Rapid might be better, since other players have a slightly smaller window in between harden shields.

I'll keep experimenting. Other opinions welcome. I know lots of us are using Blade now.