Circeus_NA

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You're 100% correct about assuming 14 mobs in EA AND Invincibility - though something else isn't taken into account. Invincibility works only while mobs are in melee. So as the number of mobs decrease, Invincibility decreases. If a Tanker leaves melee range for 1 second, the buff from Invincibility fades...This isn't the case with EA; it's a click that lasts 45 seconds. The calculation of mobs is done at the moment it's used - and that buff carries throughout the 45 seconds. It doesn't decrease like Invincibility.

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Yes, but similarly, you're forgetting that the continuing effects of EA works on both sides of the fence. First off if its not ready when you run into mobs then you can't buff, and if there are no mobs to buff from you can't buff either.

Not to mention that Invincibility is a toggle running at 0.36 EPS, but EA, because its a click with a base recharge of 60s, but only a 45s duration, you need to slot in 1 Recharge enhancer to make it always active (recharge at 45s) - however this makes its effective EPS 0.44. Much higher than Invincibility.

Granted that now EA has a nice return on investment with the End recovery, but the end costs are still highly disparate. And you should address that.

While I'm mentioning End, drop Icicles by half its cost please. Way too expensive for its damage output.

Also, the Scrapper testing is extensive and showing Invincibility for them to be at 2.625% base. So if its 1.5% for Tankers, then what is it for Scrappers? Also 10 minutes after you posted it not being 3.5% I saw two posts demonstrating it closer to 3%. So can you please recheck this value.

Yeah, I'm not convinced he's right either, but we'll see if he responds more.

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With Ice you need a whole host of powers to survive.

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Both are 7 powers in my spreadsheet, and Invuln using only 4 more slots. And the spreadsheet is initially set to a mob grouping of more than 14 mobs, so both EA and Invincibility would be capped.

Just to be clear.

And I'll quote my response to him...

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People have recorded the base of Invincibility at 3.5%, so I was only going by that, please feel free to give the correct number (for range too please!)

3.5% * (1 + (6 * .22)) = 8.12% per mob.

8.12% * 14 mobs is 113.68.

For your 53% to be right, it'd have to be at about 1.75% or half of what people are recording. Is that correct, I'll feel free to update the spreadsheets for certain. Please note that people are recording a base of 2.625% for Scrappers for Invincibility, and that has tremendously more testing to back it up.

The spreadsheet takes the 14 mob cap into account for both EA and for Invincibility. And I hope you're adjusting both when you edit them. I'd be much keener if you just gave me the proper number to plug in.

And it assumes both have 14 mobs in range.

And as you said even if I change that base from 3.5% to 1.75% its still a very bleak output, even con:

Smash/Lethal: 807.54% damage vs Invuln
Energy/Negative: 158.47% damage vs Invuln
Fire: 548.90% damage vs Invuln
Cold: 80.72% damage vs Invuln

These numbers would make us the king of cold, which would be better for when you open a Winter Wonderland, but is otherwise not quite useful in the game mind you.

And what will the new percentages on Permafrost be, I'd like to figure that in too.

Sure dropping it to less than 14 mobs looks better for Ice somewhat, but not by much. Dropping to 10 (1 boss, 2 lts, 7 minions), it ends up looking like this even con:

Smash/Lethal: 432.73% damage vs Invuln
Energy/Negative: 84.92% damage vs Invuln (this looks much better comparitively)
Fire: 217.87% damage vs Invuln
Cold: 32.04% damage vs Invuln

And you're not reading the caveats that I posted, so lets go over them.

Toxic is impossible to tell, so is Psi. Please keep in mind that most Toxic and all Psi attacks are ranged and therefore they will not be in melee range to be affected by Chilling Embrace generally speaking.

I was very clear on this caveat, both on the spreadsheet, and in my posts and PMs. So don't gloss it over because its important. Very important, because its not really besting Invuln at all in either of these cases, it just appears to be.

Taking Chilling Embrace out of the picture, considering that these are ranged attacks, and figuring a smaller base value for Invinc, say 1.25% for ranged attacks, you will find that in fact vs both Psi and Toxic, Ice and Invuln are quite balanced, and its in fact why I generally don't mention either when discussing this.

In fact, for the curious, those numbers put Ice at taking 10% more (or 110%) Toxic damage than Invuln, and Invuln taking 10% more (or 110%) Psi damage than Ice. Which makes them balanced because as I stated earlier I felt 10% was a fair margin of error.

So please feel free to use my spreadsheet, but dont' violate the clauses I put into its use Thanks!!!


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Statesman, can we also please talk about rearraging the set some?

Glacial Armor needs to come much sooner now.

Like maybe moving Icicles later (can we get a major End reduction on Icicles please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Also, the Chiling Embrace debuff is a good idea.

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Oh - one other change coming soon to the Training Room...

This was an idea taken right from this forum. Since Ice Armor has no Resistance, it's a zero sum sort of power set. In other words, you're hit or your not. Well, someone (I've forgotten who) suggested adding a Damage Debuff to one of the powers - and we did! Chilling Embrace gains the ability to debuff mob damage (though it's Recharge debuff is slightly slower now).

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Slower to affect targets? Or more slowing? The bolded part really isn't terribly clear!!!

People have recorded the base of Invincibility at 3.5%, so I was only going by that, please feel free to give the correct number (for range too please!)

3.5% * (1 + (6 * .22)) = 8.12% per mob.

8.12% * 14 mobs is 113.68.

For your 53% to be right, it'd have to be at about 1.75% or half of what people are recording. Is that correct, I'll feel free to update the spreadsheets for certain. Please note that people are recording a base of 2.625% for Scrappers for Invincibility, and that has tremendously more testing to back it up.

The spreadsheet takes the 14 mob cap into account for both EA and for Invincibility. And I hope you're adjusting both when you edit them. I'd be much keener if you just gave me the proper number to plug in.

And it assumes both have 14 mobs in range.

And as you said even if I change that base from 3.5% to 1.75% its still a very bleak output, even con:

Smash/Lethal: 807.54% damage vs Invuln
Energy/Negative: 158.47% damage vs Invuln
Fire: 548.90% damage vs Invuln
Cold: 80.72% damage vs Invuln

These numbers would make us the king of cold, which would be better for when you open a Winter Wonderland, but is otherwise not quite useful in the game mind you.

And what will the new percentages on Permafrost be, I'd like to figure that in too.

Sure dropping it to less than 14 mobs looks better for Ice somewhat, but not by much. Dropping to 10 (1 boss, 2 lts, 7 minions), it ends up looking like this even con:

Smash/Lethal: 432.73% damage vs Invuln
Energy/Negative: 84.92% damage vs Invuln (this looks much better comparitively)
Fire: 217.87% damage vs Invuln
Cold: 32.04% damage vs Invuln

And you're not reading the caveats that I posted, so lets go over them.

Toxic is impossible to tell, so is Psi. Please keep in mind that most Toxic and all Psi attacks are ranged and therefore they will not be in melee range to be affected by Chilling Embrace generally speaking.

I was very clear on this caveat, both on the spreadsheet, and in my posts and PMs. So don't gloss it over because its important. Very important, because its not really besting Invuln at all in either of these cases, it just appears to be.

Taking Chilling Embrace out of the picture, considering that these are ranged attacks, and figuring a smaller base value for Invinc, say 1.25% for ranged attacks, you will find that in fact vs both Psi and Toxic, Ice and Invuln are quite balanced, and its in fact why I generally don't mention either when discussing this.

In fact, for the curious, those numbers put Ice at taking 10% more (or 110%) Toxic damage than Invuln, and Invuln taking 10% more (or 110%) Psi damage than Ice. Which makes them balanced because as I stated earlier I felt 10% was a fair margin of error.

So please feel free to use my spreadsheet, but dont' violate the clauses I put into its use Thanks!!!

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I don't recall any other situation where the ability to slot X enhancements was taken away after numerous people had already done so ... and so I'm curious how the mechanics would work. I don't actually have an Ice Tank, regardless.

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I agree, like I said, them doing this is a HUGE mistake. Have and have not scenarios are a major bane of MMOs, and devs in general need to avoid these situations. It also means they're leaving in the functionality for it to recognize DEF enhancers, which means HOs that are 50% DEF and 50% something else that Wet Ice recognizes will be slottable, and that the DEF component of them will work. Very bad all around.

Edit: clarification, I knwo HOs are 33% per effect, but doing two things they are half one thing and half the other thing hence I said 50% and 50% as in half and half.

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I can't be sure, because there is no defense cap, but I think he means lowering the to-hit floor for tanks, which would theoretically improve damage mitigation for ice tanks (over over ATs like SR scrappers, but necessarily over other tanks) if they could actually get to the floor in the first place.

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Which they can't for I5, so the point is moot. I mean Invuln Tankers can do it for anything presuming they get enough near them, but under the same circumstances, Ice won't even come close for this change to matter.

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Just got out of a meeting with Geko...

I completely concur that the Wet Ice Def buff is so slender that it's pointless to slot Def Enhancements...but people already have done so.

Here's what we'll do: Wet Ice will no longer accept Def Enhancements. We'll increase the base def somewhat. Def Enhancements that are currently slotted will continue to have an effect, but players won't be able to slot new Def Enhancements into it.

We're also adding resistance to Toxic in Permafrost to bring it into line with Invulnerability's Resist Elements.

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Edit: Y'know, making DEF enhancements that are currently in the power still work is a bad idea. You're now creating a have and have not scenario, and that is really bad. In fact its terribly bad, you yourself have said you don't want have and have not scenarios.

And is that all?

I mean you're still leaving us in a state where we're worlds beyond... wait for it... Scrappers.

You still need to explain why both Fire and Psi need to be weaknesses.

I've got a better idea, why don't you roll Permafrost into Wet Ice, along with the Toxic RES and then people can slot Wet Ice for RES, and then do something really clever with Permafrost.

Realisitically people need to know what you envision for not just Ice Tankers, but Tankers in general. I mean people are unclear about Tankers, and people are extremely unclear about Ice Tankers.

Why does it appear Invuln gets to play by a different set of rules than Ice when you sit down for balancing?

Another Edit: And why are you designing Ice to a point where it will most certainly need to go grab Tough and possibly other pool powers to still remain lower than some Scrappers?

Yet Another Edit: I hope the End costs of both Wet Ice and Energy Absorption have both been considerably reduced from their original values considering how much less functional they are now then previously.

Even Another Edit: Why not make Wet Ice into the Auto-Power and have Permafrost be the Toggle power? Make Ice really unique by making its Status resistances un-toggleable.

If the DEFs on the pool/temp powers are going to be as low as they are now, then cutting them in half when visible is somewhat pointless. If they were higher it'd make sense. But there's really little reason to half them further when made visible.

I also think that 10 seconds is too long for PvP. Should be more like 5 seconds.

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Bridger's a smart dude. He also wrote: "...balancing is a process, rather than an event," which I think many posters would do well to remember.

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I agree. I wish we had the level of game related feedback here on a regular basis that Bridger gives on his own on the Euro forums.

The thing is the devs are failing at Bridger's statement that you quoted aren't they? They're taking balance, and attempting to get it all done at once - that's making it an event. Process means gradual, not all at once.

That said, what Statesman really truly needs to sit down and do is not tell us his vision came to him in a moment of clarity while playing his gameboy. He has to actually tell us what he envisions roles to be and how each set is intended to interact. Right now I'd say, that because it got hit hardest of all, Ice Tankers deserve to know where he sees them fitting into the game.

Right now, I can't see what he's seeing. But its clear to me from the numbers that there's something glaringly wrong in how they're doing whatever it is they're trying to do.

And I'd like to know why they don't see that.

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Here's the real numbers (that's what I get for doing stuff from memory).

Wet Ice
0.5% base
1.265% Defence from Wet Ice with ++ SO's.

17.71% Max Defence from Energy Absorbtion (not what I had earlier).

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Great. Now spend some time defending the changes, because I really enjoy knowing my Tanker looks worse than Scrappers defensively. What does an Ice Tank get to compensate?

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Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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No need to, you're correct.

The spreadsheet is an attempt to demonstrate to Statesman that he is so far from achieving balance its not even remotely funny, it is in fact sad. Very sad.

Let me quote something from Bridger the "CuppaJo" of the European forums. He's actually a bit more talkative in general than devs are here I find, but you get an idea of what the devs are shooting to do:

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It's not possible to make Defense as effective as Resistance in all situations, no. The trick is to make Defense more effective than Resistance in enough situations to balance the two out.

If Defense is more effective against large numbers of Minions and Resistance is more effective against Bosses and AVs, I'd say that actually favours Defense when you consider how much time you spend, over the course of a hero's career, fighting Minions as opposed to Bosses and AVs.

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(edit: added bolding above for effect)

That's very important, because that's basically the basis for comparison of the spreadsheet that's presented. And I agree with him its basically impossible to get the numbers to 100% line up, but they should be reasonably close. And they're not.

Keep this in mind, its damage taken for both. You can presume they both get healed, recover health, whatever. Those are an X factor when thrown against damage take, so its damage taken that matters in the end. Because no matter how much healing/recovery sits behind a character, they are going down faster if they are taking more damage.

And when it comes to comparing Tankers to each other, then need to be reasonably equally survivable. Damage taken when figured in relation to each other is a means of determining reasonable equality under normal circumstances - which is exactly the same thing Bridger says.

In other words you figure those numbers should be within a margin of error from each other of 10% (e.g., 90% - 110%) rather than the 900% we're seeing for S/L as an example. And that margin of error should hold for increasing mob difficulties (increased levels) - which only widen's the margin right now.

I think you're talking about "Eff # of hits" and "Total hits" that's probably badly labled, because it should be "Eff # of attacks" and "Total Attacks" - because that's what they really are. But its defintely not damage, that's calculated later on. So I agree, hits is misleading, but I only updated the numbers not the column headers

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Thanks, Circeus, this is great information.

The only thing that's making my jaw hit the floor, though, is that people are actually surprised by these results.

Ice was the worst Tanker set to start with. And it got nerfed hard. So yeah, even though Invulnerability also got nerfed hard it should come as no surprise that Ice is still worse.

It shows both Invuln Scrappers and Invuln Tankers, both of which have Ice Tankers beat hands down. Yes, even vs Cold protection.

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It doesn't surprise me at all. I was just waiting for all the numbers to come in and settle out to be able to do the analysis. What surprises me is that Statesman really doesn't seem to get how off kilter things are. The margin for I5 between Ice and either Invuln is now wider than it was in I4. That's just plain sad.

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How about spending that last power and 5 slots on Combat Jumping. (is that the best defensive pool power?)
Then you can say you committed the same number of powers+slots to each build and compare totals. Ice will still be on the short end of the stick.

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Well technically the spreadsheet figures in Chilling Embrace as the 7th power for Ice Armor already. Its really only a 4 slot difference by then. There's just nowhere else to put slots.

I also forgot to mention that EA has only 5 DEF slots, because 1 slot must be used for recharge to get coverage 100% of the time.

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Unreal. Even cold, that is baffling.

(Thanks again for your work Circeus. I wish they would hire you.)

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They couldn't afford me. Few people in the gaming industry make 6 figures.

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Just, wow.

I have backed up Statesman's decisions in this issue because I agree with what the end result should be but damn.

There comes a point when you have to wonder if they are letting monkeys make the decisions.

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Heh... well I support the theory of the decisions, but not their implementation. Overall all I showed is that they still don't get the #1 rule of game balance: "all things being equal, they should be."

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Please tell you me you sent this to him and Positron in a PM.

He is checking his PMs so I don't know if he will read it here first or if he will read it in a PM first. Regardless, they should know what we are seeing. Maybe they see something different but they should at least know what we are seeing.

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Now I have. PM'd it to both of them (with return receipts).

The worse thing about those numbers, is that the margin in both comparisons is now much wider than it was for I4.

For those looking to see the differences, I posted them here.

It shows both Invuln Scrappers and Invuln Tankers, both of which have Ice Tankers beat hands down. Yes, even vs Cold protection.

Okay Statesman, I've reworked some of the Ice Armor Comparison spreadsheets I worked on with Havok, and I've put them online. The results are pretty grim when you look at them, and I think you have some real explaining to do. Here are the spreadsheets:

IceArmorvsInvulnTanker.xls

IceArmorvsInvulnScrapper.xls

Some caveats (some of which are listed on the spreadsheets):

1) Ice Armor is using 6 powers and 29 slots, and I have both Invuln Scrappers and Tankers using 7 powers and 33 slots. The primary difference between the Invuln Scrapper and Tanker is that for the Scrapper Tough Hide was given 2 slots and RPD 1, for the Invuln Tanker its 1 slot for Tough Hide, and 2 slots for RPD.

2) The calculations assume all mobs are in range for Chilling Embrace to take effect on them, and that all are affected (tough to judge how to do the 10 mob cap really).

3) Toxic can't be judged properly because its hard to judge the source of DEF vs a Toxic attack, since Toxic is only a damage type and not an attack type.

4) Psionics is not really correct, because based on (2) above the attackers would have to be in melee range and affected by Chilling Embrace, but Psionic attacks are all ranged attacks. Really the only true bonus for Psionics would go to Ice for not having the Unyielding penalty. So more realisitic numbers for Psi would be much lower.

5) Assumed the level scaling for Accuracy for mobs was the same in I5 as for I4.

Considering all that... looking at just even con mobs...

Ice Armor vs Invuln Tanker (even level foes):

Smash/Lethal: Ice takes 910.50% damage of an Invuln
Energy/Negative: Ice takes 178.67% damage of an Invuln
Fire: Ice takes 618.89% damage of an Invuln
Cold: Ice takes 91.01% damage of an Invuln

Ice Armor vs Invuln Scrapper (even level foes):

Smash/Lethal: Ice takes 320.60% damage of an Invuln
Energy/Negative: Ice takes 160.02% damage of an Invuln
Fire: Ice takes 554.28% damage of an Invuln
Cold: Ice takes 81.51% damage of an Invuln

And in both cases the margin only widens as the mob level goes up. For example lets jump to +1 level foes...

Ice Armor vs Invuln Tanker (+1 level foes):

Smash/Lethal: Ice takes 1327.11% damage of an Invuln
Energy/Negative: Ice takes 260.42% damage of an Invuln
Fire: Ice takes 723.12% damage of an Invuln
Cold: Ice takes 106.34% damage of an Invuln

Ice Armor vs Invuln Scrapper (+1 level foes):

Smash/Lethal: Ice takes 467.29% damage of an Invuln
Energy/Negative: Ice takes 233.24% damage of an Invuln
Fire: Ice takes 647.63% damage of an Invuln
Cold: Ice takes 95.24% damage of an Invuln

Showing that realistically, Ice is in fact not the tank who is strongest against Cold damage, Invuln, in both cases easily overtakes even Ice's best protection.

So overall, you've simply not done a good job towards balancing Ice Armor. If Invuln is still the baseline you've effectively failed.

I'll update Havok's spreadsheets later on today

Just so the percentage decreases are represented properly (because people aren't throwing around the actual numbers)...

Old EA: 18.75% * 5 = 93.75%
New EA: 0.5% * 14 = 7%
% Remaining: 7 / 93.75 = 7.47%
% Loss: 92.53%
gained Endurance Recovery

Old WI vs E/N: 12.5%
Old WI vs S/L/C/F: 9%
New WI vs all: 0.5%
% Remaining (E/N): 4%
% Remaining (S/L/F/C): 5.55%
% Loss (E/N): 96%
% Loss (S/L/F/C): 94.45%
gained 5 slots for other powers

Avg Loss: (92.53 + 96 + 94.45) / 3 = 94.33%
(note: doesn't take into account 40% loss on FA/GA)

(edit: added what's below)

Now figuring it in per damage type, and FA and GA...

Issue 4:
S/L: 25 + 9 + 93.75 = 127.75%
E/N: 25 + 12.5 + 93.75 = 131.25%
F/C: 9 + 93.75 = 102.75%

Issue 5:
S/L: 15 + 0.5 + 7 = 22.5%
E/N: 15 + 0.5 + 7 = 22.5%
F/C: 0.5 + 7 = 7.5%

% Remaining / % Lost (both as % vs original):
S/L: 17.6% / 82.4%
E/N: 17.1% / 82.9%
F/C: 7.3% / 92.7%

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Isn't it kind of pointless to allow players to slot enhancements that make no measurable difference?

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Its a serious problem. We're told, by Statesman, that decisions in game should be informed decisions. Yet Wet Ice is now the mis-informed power by definition. It takes both RES and DEF enhancements (even in I5). And yet RES will only increase Cold RES which is unnecessary for an Ice Tank, and DEF is so marginalized on Wet Ice, its unfair to allow players to do this.

Yet a player who's not on the forums, is uninformed of all this. So they will try to slot the power in an effort to get it to function, but little do they know its not.