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What I've enjoyed most about CoH has been the possibility for versatility. Limiting the number of viable solutions lessens the fun. I suspect this is why a lot of Ice Tankers chafe at the idea that they "need" to either take Tough or team with a Sonics Defender - they want to be viable with a broader range of options.
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Quoted the above for emphasis. I've always enjoyed this about CoH as well. Every type of hero should be useful, and none required. Furthering this idea is a large part of the reason for these change, I thought. Bubble and healing defenders werent feeling needed in the late game because we tanks have largely already been capped and therefore dont benefit from buffs. I do think the swing has been way too far to the other direction where buffs now are the only way to go and our actual powers seem negligible (yes that is exaggerated a bit, I know it, but not by much.).
The lowering of accuracy does not address Ice tank/SR scrapper issues. We will still have large problems. With AV accuracy decreased from 90 to 75% for even levels AVS, but our Defense has been reduced In I5 from 78% to 33% for lethal/smash and much worse for other types. This means we are now being hit and killed from 42% of the AVs hits. With no damage reduction we are getting hit by almost half of the AVs hits. No healer is going to be able to save us, no matter how amazing his heal numbers or how fast his reflexes. We now HAVE to travel with the appropriate def and resist buffing defenders to survive at all.
Possible fixes for Ice Armor? First, bug fixes to the existing powers. Once these are working correctly, then I actually really like most of the set. It does have a lot of weaknesses as has been pointed out. With already having a weakness against anything that can buff its own accuracy or be buffed by allies (DE) or has defense debuffs, we dont need to also have weaknesses to fire and psi. (Toxic is a damage type but not an attack type so still falls under our lethal/smash defense numbers if I understand that correctly).
But now with much lower defense numbers (defense lowered far more than accuracy), how to surivive as an ice tanker?
I like the idea that has already been proposed of EA providing 10% defense from its first target and then perhaps 1% per additional target. This would help survive the tough single person battles as well as the help a little against the crowds while still being deadly if you get too large a crowd about you (some will always be hitting for full).
I also propose an idea for Permafrost. Give it a new type of resistance. Instead of getting damage resistance as a straight percentage of damage mitagated, have it give resistance based on the strength of the blow. For example, if a hit does 10% of your total hits or less (not current hit points remaining bt your total hits), then it provides no resistance at all. But if a hit is going to do say 90%, it gets reduced to only being able to hit for 30% of your total hits. Obviously, tweak the numbers for balancing but its an idea. This would give us still no resistance against most minion blows and still wouldnt be able to herd huge crowds without getting hurt, but also prevents being 1 or 2 shotted by the AV. Dying that fast as a tank is just no fun. I'd also love a graphic on it so that if Permafrost prevented daamge from the attack, chunks of ice fall off you. I dont actually want to then make the armor look thinner or anything, just having chunks falling off with the armor staying whole is fine. This is just graphical effects, not real world physics. This idea makes all types of defenders welcome additions to the a team with an ice tank, but none absolutely required. Without a defender, an ice tank with his 33% defense is getting hit a lot but never 1 or 2 shotted and has time to hit his self heal, health insps, or Hibernate. With a bubble or sonic defender added to the team he then enjoys the additional defense/resists provided by the buffer, and an Empath has the time needed to actually be able to heal him instead of seeing just full health->dead.
