Crenson

I love the concept of a damage debuff attached to something in the Ice armor line. I think this could be very viable, and help Ice tanks match the other tanks. Be kinda fun, too.

I proposed something similar for Ice melee, attaching a resistance debuff to an attack from the set- and I like the concept (though I'd make that tohit instead of auto).

I also think CE would be the place to stick this effect. Of course it'd require an end cost increase, but frankly there's almost no reason to slot that power as of now in any case and this would certainly give us better reason.

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80% is 85% of 93.75%. Including all defensive powers they're at over 50% of an Ice Tankers defense at this point, plus they have Resistance.

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Not to mention not having to trigger a 20 end power every 30 seconds.

As to the PVP balance question- could we have it work less effectively on players or something, if that is the reason for the change? FOcused Accuacy is still going to make us cry in pvp, but I'd rather have that then being at such reduced use in pve.

Also, Circeus- I know we don't always agree on all points, but you've done a very good job of being clear an precise. Glad to have you in the lead on this.

This is slighty off topic, but worth mentioning. Is there any Archvillan that Ice tanks are going to be better at tanking than any other?

I'll go one further.

In the entire game, can anyone come up with one mission where you would do better to have an ice tank on your team?

The thing is, we can all list foes that simply decimate Ice tanks. And the absolute best we can hope for is 'as good as'? Every tank has a weakness, but we seem to share the weaknesses without the strengths.

Chilling Embrace is handy. It's simply not -that- powerful.

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Actually the gap widens as the level gap increases. The amount of damage an Ice Tanker takes grows ot DMG * 95% (DEF down to 5% floor). Where as an Invuln Tankers the amount of damage is DMG * 95% - (DMG * 95% * 90%) (with the 90% damage cap). But that is pure theory. You should probably focus on a 6 (or better, 5) level difference as the outside boundary condition.

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I don't think you're quite right. SImply because an Ice can reliably floor acc without +acc or -def powers, using 6 slotted powers, and invul cannot -always- floor foe's accs on +2 bosses or so.

I haven't found a 'good' source that gives the acc increases per level, so I don't have the math on hand, but I think that it fluxuates -just- enough to make it ~35% between ice and invul at the 'peak', probably.

Not that this is exactly justification for EA being made weaker or anything...

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no real negatives? the ranged defenses in invincibility was GUTTED. There's little left there. Don't get me wrong. I think Ice tanks need work... I know what it's like to have a sub par power set and get ignored when you point it out. And I definitely DO NOT support this nerf. I don't support any nerf.... when does it end?

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Err, I think you misunderstood. Unstoppable has a negative. Granite has a negative. Invince does -not- have a negative, though it is lowered from what it was before.

I belive that the poster you quoted was refering to direct power balance/detractors, rather than unnerfed items.

Sorry, my mistake- I wasn't clear.

I'm agreeing that invul is around 44% better -on even cons-. It just strikes me that that % drops -some- when you step up about 2 levels. Hardly to 0, but still. ANd of course talking about high level differentials, EA is now going to be effectively useless against heaivly outleveled foes, while Resistance is going to be perfectly functional.

It can be argued that a 6 slotted Hibernate will even this gap. As a longtime supporter of Hibernate, who adores this power, this is simply wrong. Hibernate is great, but situational- and it won't close the effective tank gap by very much, even when used perfectly.

My thought was that since I don't think that 44% is constant, but changes a tad, a flat out boost based upon it solely might not be fair. And I have no desire to be 'teh uber' tanker- I'd just like not to be a liability when compared to every other tank (this, I'd like to see someone argue against).

Circ, I dont' completely agree with your reasoning.

The thing is, when you uplevel just slightly (1-2 levels), CE becomes less effective but it does become significantly harder for invul to floor accuracy. Of course they hit harder, but this isn't balanced perfectly, either.

Of course, my math might be off, since it is just approximations, but since no tanker worth thier salt sticks to tanking whites, it's probably a better idea to compare how Ice/Stone/invul work with +2/+3s.

Not saying that Ice doesn't need a buff- boy could it use one in response to the new mod to EA- but I think stepping up to 178% hp boost is just too high, it fails to take into account increased healing and the like. Perhaps hoarfrost being moved up to a 60% buff with a +regeneration tag attached to it?

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You can preach that all you want LeMoiCavalier, it doesn't change the fact that there are numerous Ice tankers our there who skip their Armors, thinking that Wet Ice + EA will get them by, probably still going off of the pre-I3 mentality. I rarely see an ice tanker with glacier armor, even though more and more are starting to get Frozen Armor. This is probably a move in the direction to get them to get ALL their armors.

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I disagree.

I've not seen that many Ice tankers, even since I3. However, I've never actually talked to an ice tanker in game, or even on the forums, who actually runs without even taking the other armors. I cannot imagine doing so. I've heard it mentioned as a 'possible move, but really dangerous'. If you want to be a Scrank, it's probably viable- but not if you want to tank heavily.

And hey, who doens't like being the anti-sapper tank.

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Okay...my question is this:

How was I supposed to know that Energy Absorption did not provide defense to Psionic? Unlike Wet Ice, nowhere in the description does it say that.

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It's not been checked heavily against the I4 listing, but here are some outstanding Ice armor bugs. I think there was a more complete listing somewhere, but I'm too tired to find it.

I think stuff like Glacial Armor still having a broken animation (yes, on Test) but EA being mildly nerfed is really what is annoying the Ice tankers (all 5 of us).

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Where does the slow from CE factor into this balance, Circ?

Is it commonly used by ice armor tankers? Is it taken?

How does the slow work to balance out?

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I know you got a response from Circ, but I'll toss in that it is a staple of the Ice line, and what tanker do you know that does -not- want an autohit taunt?

However, the slow is fairly close range (semi-melee? we really need a term for the 10' range that so many powers have), and drops off very sharply with level.

I'm aware it looks like the Ice tanks are [censored] about nothing. 100%+ def off of one click as the max is a very large number.

1 Quartz, and that drops to 0%.

My issue is that I can -feel- if I only have 5 people buffing me with EA. I know when I've hit that few, and I know there's a chance I'll be hitting hibernate, because quite a few foes have some extremely high +acc abilities, or modifiers. Maybe what I'm used to thinking of as 5 with 2 Defbuff encs is actually only been hitting just one. Maybe I'm completely on crack.

But I honestly don't think so.

That said, EA is crazy amazingly powerful when used properly, and was probably a bit high. I just think the cap is too low. I don't care about tanking +15s, but I would like to not worry so much about tanking +3s (this is leaving aside the AV and oneshoting and the fact that Swarms kill us amazingly quickly, and all the other issues Ice has).

So...yes. I'm going to test a bit more, but I really think I'm giong to shelve my ice tanker. I just don't see the point.

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Gah, I'm really sorry to piss you off, the numbers are all I've seen, I guess it actually works very different than that. I really don't have any experience with them, and if you really do need 500% defense to work than I'm sorry I saw this as reasonable. I still think I'll make an Iceman, I wasn't expecting uberness, but it sounded fun, then I guess I'll see what you mean better.

Again, really sorry to come off as a troll, the numbers just seemed to be fine for me, but obviously I'm missing something I would know easily if I had an Iceman, since all of you disagree with me.

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We've really been working very hard to play, and it's frustrating sometimes to see people come in and say 'your set is fine' when we've worked up aruond the loopholes.

But I'd like to poitn out some reasons why.

First off, around half the lethal attacks reduce your defense. Guns, swords, claw swipes- you name it. Moment of Glory, Vengence, and Quartzes do massive accuracy things. This is irrespective of the fact that many (and I do mean -many-) foes have fairly hefty +acc benifits already in them (the MA using Council, for example).

I think you might be mistaken about the +50/+50 thing, as well, but even if yuo're not, realzie that whenever a hit gets through you're taking 10 -times- the damage of someone with a 90% resist. Invul and Stone -also- are going to have a deff buff going on, which keeps people below the 95% to hit soft cap.

ANd lets' not even mention the fun of being oneshotted by archvillans. It happens..often.

Personally, I like my Ice tank. And since I've discovered that I can tank -very- well in the -very- high ranges, I was enjoying doing my best. However, that required liberal uses of hibernate -and- tough, and now unless I'm the highest on a mission odds are I'm going to run into some issues tanking.

I'd also like to point out some misconceptions you appear to have about Energy Absorption. It's a click power, requiring melee (10ft) range. We get it at 26, incredably late. It recharges in 60 seconds, lasts 45 seconds, and takes around 20 end. So I don't know of a single person who can possibly afford to more than 4 slot this power with def. The end drain requires a full 6 slots to drain even cons, and has no -recovery attached to it, so they'll just be right back up in a second.

Ice...needs buffs. I like the two minor changes to Hibernate, but now that EA is not a 'cap your def instantly' power, but instead a 'get high def quickly'. Ice will still get hit, and this means we'll get hit more- period.

So.....excuse us if we're a little defensive about treating a moderate nerf to the power that makes our powerset function as a nerf instead of an 'adjustment'.

if they kept the max number at 10, I don't think a soul who plays an ice tanker would have an issue, and I cannot imagine it would come up durring PVP. Instead....it does matter. We get hit harder, slightly less often, and our one 'shining star' ability (slow resistance) is now present in a number of powers.

I'm shelving my ice tank. I got to 37, but I really don't have the energy to die in every AV fight from here on out unless I 6 slot tough, and have a chance just barely then. And it's lovely being the def based tanker who has less def to something than Stone. Whee.

As for the ice vs fire comparison (whomever did this, I don't recall? long day at work)- please don't. Fire's Blazing aura, as pointed out, is cheaper and does more damage, and Burn's cost to the set is that they will rely on resists and a very quick usage heal, putting thier surivability at close to Ice's within the set.

Well, I know this is written about past time and all, but I'm glad you got sucked in- like I did.

I never had tried a MMOG of any sort, short of watching someone run (and I do mean run) for about 10 minutes, die instantly, and run back to his corpse in Everquest. I also watched a bit of FFX and was under whelmed. I played CoH for 20 minutes and was irrevokably hooked.

I remember thinking slottting didn't mean much, wondering if I would ever get a travel power and it being the running joke in my group that the emp defender and emp controller wouldn't have -anything- to do if I stopped teaming because of how much they had to work to keep me vertical.

I remember Babbage, I remember a level 20 sorc leftover from an ambush leading me on a chase through Steel before wiping the floor with me (I was level 15 or so at the time).

I try to remember this stuff, because occasionaly I let myself get a little too serious, though my friends help me stay out of it. My SG isn't really about levels gained, and for a number of us this is our first MMOG or at least the first one we've tried with any seriousness. I try to make a point to help out anyone who's got questions, because I know I was there once.

Also, sane people sleep at the hours I play, so a lot of the people I play with didn't have a regular group before now.

Cool post, interesting stuff, glad you stuck with it. I know I'm happy I did. Keep up the posts!

The puppy mission was actually a good deal of fun to mess around with, though I don't really think it was quick xp in any real sense.

My issue with this sort of mentality is....level 39 is hell. It's hell because even with the mission difficulty maxed and a large team you run out of missions. Everyone knows it's hellish, but as far as I know there's no real way aruond it.


Is there any way we could get Kora-type (unlimited spawn) missions that are -not- in a hazard zone that locks out anyone under 40? Since your team cannot get xp from street sweeping misssions and it's trivial to run out of missions -available- at that level...well, you often run into situations where you simply cannot get another mission. Sure, you can take a mission from the 2nd highest and work your way down, but what if it's just you and a sked lowbie?

Yes, I have a level 50, and yes, I did do some puppy herding. I've also completed every single mission possible for him that I can access- short of Shard missions (though I've done all 3 TFs, some more than once), and every once in a while it'd be kind of fun to play missions on my highest. There simply aren't enough door missions- which I adore- at the high end of the game. LEveling is horribly slow even with the 'powerleveling' options at the higher levels, and it'd be a blast to be able to run doors without worrying about running -out- of them.


I just...I do wish that the devs would do some new data mining and see exactly how long it would take a player doing only door/sweep/ect msisions to hit 50, assuming -zero- debt, and a very heavy mission difficulty slider. I do mean a full team, quick moving, ect. I think the way the xp moves and leveling is done is very nicely balanced and gradiated till the upper 30s...when it seems to snag a bit (maybe more than a bit) to 39, the 40-44ish is fun and smooth, then a brick wall beyond that.

I'm not suggesting making it trivial to hit 50- not that it will ever be hard with some builds and creative sidekicking/powerleveling- but what exactly is wrong with making it easier than it is now?

For myself, I'm going to play my charecters untill they stop being fun, and roll up new ones till I get bored. I'd just like to not have to worry if I'm going to run out of things to do without resorting to sweeping- and I simply don't like that.

I love this idea.

Is it possible to allow this as an option for people who are not a fan? Eg, jsut a setting in Options to switch back to the current behavior.

Thanks for listening for this stuff.

As an aside, I think a -lot- of people would like the third tray even -without- binds to use powers. Many players I know use a mouse to choose what they need anyway for a lot of the powers, so....

Any problem with simply adding in the 3rd tray and leave the binds pending? Or give us the bind commands to do it manually if we'd like (powexec_tray_power 3 1 or whatever, team_select 6), and have the offical decision go through whenever.

Some really good suggestions so far, I'd like to throw in a few I have not seen (though I did just sort of skim).

1) The ability to reorder/remove/add sorting/data tabs from the SG window. Eg, if the first thing I want to see is last on, I can move that to the front, if I don't care about AT I can remove that area completely. I'd love a simple 'comment', single line, for each SG member as well- from 'A demon looking for justice' to 'Yet another alt of <blank>'.

2) I would love to see SG city registration options. I would like to stress options before I go into detail- the default position should be simply to remain as they are now.

For those who want to make it more 'offical', though, they should be able to register a description, the SG leaders, or even the entire SG as public information, at Atlas. You could even put up a name as a recruiting officer, or allow someone to read up on the SG, and get a sense of what they'd be interested in joining.

As a possible addition, a 'peak hours' calculated by the game would be...amazingly nice for SG members. I work a 2nd shift job and most of my SG which I pulled together personally works either 2nd or 3rd shift or just doesn't play at the normal hours- so I think prospective members would like to know what they're stepping into, but obviously this is very low priority.


I love a lot of the suggestions above- SG TFs that do things like change history plaques or give sg superpowers or do something that changes the game in some fashion. SG lock-leveling....all these things sound quite cool to me.

Looking forward to what happens next.

Something else wonky.....

Using the exact same charecter as above, I turned on whirlwind, sprint, and superspeed, activated Accellerate Metabolism....and gained endurance. Very very slowly, but I was expecting it to tick down at a glacial speed.

Something is wonky. Don't trust the above numbers, there must be some sort of error somewhere. I'll figure it out tonight or tomorrow.

If I'm still even remotely trusted..

I tested Accellerate Metabolism, controller version (no data on difference between trolllers and defenders), and the EPS came out to about +0.2733, or a touch more.

I used an earth/rad without Stamina, running Sprint, Superspeed, Enervating field, and Radiation infection. The enudrance ran out, on average, between 100 and 101 seconds. I used an end inspire to bump myself back to full end after activating all toggles.

Obviously still needs to be tested with a defender instead of a controller, to see if the primary/secondary effect is still there.

So, seriously, I swear I'm not a brain dead idiot or anything.

My test charecter -has- the atlas medalion, which was throwing my numbers off.

I'm feeling kinda stupid, so, anyone who hasn't made a fairly basic calculation error want to check my math? I'm gonna go sit in the corner. Lightning Field is going to have a slightly higher EPS due to this.

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In any case, the recharge difference between stamina at 0.56 and 0.42 is only 3 seconds (45s and 48s), so it's critical to be precise. On top of that, the END bar ticks up at 3 or 4 second intervals, so multiple tries are needed. Ian of Moore explained early in the thread how measurements can be skewed by starting and stopping at different points in the Endurance regen cycle. Furthermore, each toggle you run goes on varying cycles, so that also fuzzes precise measurement. Hopefully, the errors cancel each other out, but there may be times that they stack.

Another way of determining whether Stamina is +25 End/Min or +33.3 End/Min is to try a combination of toggles with a total cost between 125 EPM and 133 EPM. That way, simply seeing if you gain or lose End would be conclusive.

Hmm, can someone test this? Put an even or green SO Endurance Regen into Stamina. Then run Fly and Sprint at the same time -- this is about -141 EPM. If unenhanced Stamina is 33.3 EPM, you'll regen at least 144 EPM and won't lose Endurance. If unenhanced Stamina is 25.0 EPM, you'll regen at most 138.3 EPM and will start losing Endurance.

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Except....did we get those numbers for Fly with or without Stamina?

This is going to be a basic issue. If somenoe could respec into fly (which can drain you on it's own, I belive?) without stamina, and see if the number we're using for fly is about right, plus combonations of powers...well, it'd be worth trying, wouldn't it?

The reason I inherently trust my results is not because I tested them, but because the difference was -dramatic-, a little over 4 minutes, just by that difference.

So I would suggest getting Stamina and slotting -only- with even-level SOs, and using phase shift (since this power's end-to-zero is reasonably close to 60 seconds, and this is testable for moderately independant values). If stamina is 0.42 base, even level SOs will not quite beat the drain of Phase shift (this difference is minute, it will take a few minutes at least for it to show up). if it is the larger number, the drain will not happen.

In any case, slotting stamina (carefully) would give considerably better test data because the difference is more dramatic (+1.25 vs 1.67), even if it does make it inherently harder to test for.

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When I recalculated those powers with EPM, I got less than 1% difference between observed and calculated times.

edit: noticed that some powers work best in 0.5 EPM increments (e.g., stealth 22.5, lightning field). Changed round function to reflect such.

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Looks like you might have actually found, as an above poster put it, 'the continium where all the numbers are nice and round'. Of course, the numbers need to be tested from Venmon's massive raw data and see if we get corrilations. Still, very interesting.

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I'm not sure about Power Sink since I don't have any chars with it but Consume is definately not an auto-hit power.

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My mistake! I was comparing notes with a burn tanker and I formed the impression that they were both autohit- I've not yet taken Consume on any charecter. Power Sink will hit anything in melee range, unless it is dead -at the time of click- (can die durring activation) or phase shifted. Even end drain immune foes give normal end.

Again, sorry, I was mistaken. I really thought consume worked like this as well.

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Can we also get some numbers on the following Endurance Recovery boosting powers (someone correct me if I am missing something... Stamina and QR, and base regeneration have already been calculated it seems):
General: Rest
Kinetics: Speed Boost
Electricity: Power Sink
Fire Manipulation: Consume (Tanker and Blaster)
Empathy: Recovery Aura
Empathy: Adrenalin Boost
Radiation: Mutation (any volunteers?!)
Invulnerability: Unstoppable
Ice Armor: Hibernate

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Power Sink and Consume are click one-time recovery powers, and, as such, extremely difficult or impossible to fully graph out. Unslotted, Power Sink draws close to 40 end per even-con foe in melee range, while Consume does around 30 from just outside of melee range. Both are autohit powers.

As I posted, I'm more than willing to attempt to test SB and AM. Rest and Hibernate are supposed to be about the same rate of recovery, but other than saying it's greater than 1.05 EPS (raise your hands, everyone who's shocked?), I've got no ability to get hard data on either.

As for the others, Adrenaline Boost and Recovery Aura recover end on such an unholy level that I think you'll need a non-stamina unslotted bubbler running DP, phase shift, fly, and whirlwind to have a shot at beating out thier timers (90 seconds, I belive?). And with that many powers and that short of a time the margin for error goes up quite a lot.

IN any case, I've spent almost an hour testing, time to go play some.

Great thread.

So I just did some testing, having a near optimum build to test out Stamina and Lightning field, and my results seem to strongly indicate, unless there is an erorr in the values for my other powers used (listed below), that Stamina is in fact a 0.56 value. That a full drain recovers back in 45 seconds seems to support this.

I turned on Sprint, Superspeed, Whirlwind, and Stealth and let them sit for close to 9 minutes 25 seconds (margin of error around 1 second, I tested twice) before I got the out of end noise. If stamina was, as posted, a 0.42 value it would have been closer to 5 minutes, 11 seconds. Assuming the numbers are correct for Whirl, Stealth, superspeed and sprint, this seems clear to me.

In addition, I tried the above power combo with Lightning Field on, and drained to dry in 95 seconds, or 1 minute 35. This gives us a 0.87 EPS value, -irrespective- of if Stamina is mislabeled or if the error lies elsewhere (since I tried the same power combo with and without lightning field I could measure teh difference).

So I am fairly certain that the drain for LF is -0.87 EPS, and I am pretty sure that the value for Stamina is, in fact, +0.56 (as stated elsewhere, and this seems backed up by other people's values).

Was stamina used in any calculations for other costs? This might require retesting on some powers.

I ran the LF test with the same powers 4 times, using End inspires to bounce back up to full end just before starting the timer. I'm not 100% sure this is the best way to measure, but with a full 95 second drain time any human error should be minimal.

I plan to test Accellerate Metabolism and Speed Boost as well, but I'm not sure if I can test AM till I level my lowly 21 earth/rad controller, and the numbersmight be modified by the primary/secondary hit. As for SB, I need someone to boost me and see if I can drain myself dry, anyone (pref defender AND controller, for comparision) want to help out? Drop me a line via PMs.

Seirously, tho, keep up the good work.

PS- I, for one, am surpised that LF, generally considered a horrible end hog, is only slightly over half that of hotfeet, but with the lower damage and not autohit, I guess this makes sense.

Please feel free to point out any math errors.

So, I and 4 friends who play together a lot decided to make up a whole new set of charecters and a themed SG and start from scratch, more or less, just because, well, levling in your 40s is painful.

We can't get -over- the new missions. You do a 5th mission and it's got nazi propoganda broadcasting, logos everywhere...the doors give the whole thing different looks and feels, the destructable crates........

We love it. It has honeslty changed the feel of the lower levels, when there really aren't more than 5 or 7 maps that you seem to see (at the upper levels, the larger levels and more tilesets do make them feel different).

Seriously, I'm very glad to see more content go in for the lower levels (though the placement of some of the level 5 contacts is just -mean-), and I will continue to be baffled by those that powerlevel.