Daristar

Howdy, I was having this issue for a couple of days. Killing the process via the task manager didn't help, nor did an uninstall/reinstall of the NCsoft Launcher.

I also saw I was having issues with Steam so a friend suggested I DL and run a tool from Kapersy, TDSS killer, it can be found at:
http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208283363

Ran and it found something. Rebooted and my new installation of the NCSoft launcher (and Steam) connected with no problem.

Worth checking out if you're still having problems.

Ransim: thanks for leading to 2 runs today. Nice to get back into the swing of things again.

I'll still swing by The Hive and see what's shaking or not.

Hoping the Saturday raids start to come back.

Down for maintenance. Was in previous to 10 am and there was an in game announcement.

Just a reminder that I'm closing this auction at 7pm Pacific time today. (just under 5 hours from now).

probably works best to PM me. Although I'll accept bids @daristar in game as well.

Starting at 3 bil

Ending Tuesday Nov 2nd, at 7pm Pacific.

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* Eight configurable new power trays let players customize their User Interface by placing them anywhere on the screen.


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This is very cool, and I'm glad to see it enter the game. I have no idea how much I'll use it, but I'm sure I'll make some use of it.

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* Contact display redesign: Contacts are now listed separately as Active and Inactive, and players can sort contacts by a range of criteria including Name, Zone, and Level Range.


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Woot! Especially being able to sort the contacts. Thank you.
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* Inspiration Conversion: Right click an inspiration to convert three of that kind into any one inspiration of another kind.


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Thank you again, this is something I know a lot of people will make use of. Not to mention making it easier to get/have Tier 3 insps.

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* Level Up Boost: Upon reaching enough XP to level up (at all levels), one of each type of large inspiration is immediately cast upon your character, and health and endurance bars are immediately filled.


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So I'll likey be in the minority here, but this strikes me as too much. I'd be happy with just the health/end bars being immediately filled.

Then again I really want some more challenging aspects to the game again. Or maybe just higher/more difficulty settings added in.

Friday about 16 hours before going to sleep (early Saturday morning).

Saturday about 14 hours.

Sunday was about 12 hours.

Usually grouped with occassional solo time. Often with full teams.

Controller #1 went from 39-35. Controller #2 29-33. Defender from 7 to 9. Ice/warmace tank 13-25. Corrupter 36 to 38.

Did 2 TF's on Sunday although during the 2nd one I think double xp stopped. We did Sister Psyche's and Manticore's.

Only once could I not get onto Virtue, and had a quick DC on Protector and was then able to get back on Virtue.

Had several client crashes/verifying files each day. I felt bad for the poor Global server too.

I still don't see any changes mentioned from the devs to keep me playing. If I can't play an Ice tank (yes I wanted to play more then just my level 50 main) I don't see the point in playing.

In effect this is my good bye post. My account will be deactivated on 9/5/05, barring a change that I think will make Ice tanks worth playing.

I don't want to be uber, that's not the point, never has been. But if a tank is suppossed to take the damage for the team, and maintain aggro Ice is not hte power set you choose. An 8 person team facing many AV's is better off with any defender then it is with an Ice Tank.

Anyway I wanted to wish all of you Ice tanks good luck. As well as give another public thank you to Circeus who I hope the devs continue to listen too.

It just seemed like it was time to vote with my wallet, and that vote is no.

I'm still holding out some hope that a change will come in that will change my mind at which point I'll gladly re-up. I'm just not seeing it at this point.

Good luck all, this ice tank is melting into the sunset.

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Wet Ice - six slotted with Defense SO's - provides about 3% defense.

Energy Absorption similarly slotted provides 3% per target (so a maximum of 42%).

*caveat - I'm doing this stuff from memory, so I'll doublecheck it and repost later if I'm wrong.*

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Statesman: Why would anyone slot WI for Defense? Seriously I rarely put def buff into Combat Jumping on LIve (5%).
Between this and the EA working as intended, why would I bother playing an Ice tank? Sure I got my main to 50, and up until I5 was put on test I was actually thinking of making more. But now? No way. This saddens me as Tankers are my favorite AT.

I hate to say this, but as I5 stands I change my stance on why would I play an Ice Tank, to why would I play this game?

I agree that tanks needed adjusting as did controllers (the folks I team with prove this fairly often). It just seems so drastic.

I hope other changes are made so I will keep playing, but I'm having some serious doubts, the first time I've ever seriously contemplated quitting because of what was going on in the game (verus real life stuff).

Maybe you should explore something along the lines of the What If? comics. Namely, What If Statesman was an Ice Tank? You'll likely find that you're not nearly as effective compared to Invul, especially against AV's.

It frightens me that you (all the devs possibly) think that Defense is so much better then Resistance (taken from your post about FF vs Sonic shields). Possibly in a pure sense you're correct, but as stated by Ice Tanks before it's EASY to get def buffed in this game (Lucks etc) so that a Res set is better off (since Def+Res is always better then either alone).
Sure sonic helps now there's a set that can give us Res, but still that's not really enough.

Ice is a Def set fine, but then NO OTHER build from any other AT should be able to match our Def vs any attack. Just like Ice will never match anyone's Resistance. And no the Ice Primary does not offer enough 'control' to really be considered that controllerish to compensate (as it is Stone's more effective since they have 1 power that does what 2 Ice powers do).

The cynical side of me wants to say that the Devs want to get rid of the Ice Primary, and to do so they want to drive everyone away from it, get to a certain low enough point and then just announce "We're getting rid of this power set because no one plays it."

Yeah so I'm being negative. But there's precious little to be positive about, at least from what I'm seeing. I hope I'm wrong. At least look/analyze Circeus/Havok's spreadsheets.

I just want some hope that Ice Tanks will be made on par with other tanks. I'm tired of not seeing an Ice tank when I log on, I'm tired of my level 50 Ice/stone tank being praised for getting to 50, or greated with shock when other people see him.

A ratio of like 30/30/20/20 Invul/fire/stone/ice. Somehow I think it's more like 45/45/5/5 or some such.

Eh I need to stop. Please make us comparable to Invul, stop making us the laughingstock of the tank world. Give EVERYONE a reason to want to play an Ice Tank in I5 and beyond. Heck give everyone a reason to play ANY tank in I5 and beyond.

First thanks for posting this.

Secondly what Circeus said.

Really the acc numbers are nice. And while this does help Ice tanks and SR scrappers, it helps everyone, not just the Def based sets.

I admit I've not played my ice tank extensively on test, but my brief time there convinced me my Ice tank is toast. Yes I went into the RCS (so I should have had a team with), looking for a roughly even level group. Found a couple over the course of the session, and I was killed quickly with 2 EA's up, WI, GA. Hits from Ritki swords were in the area of 75% or higher (50 or 51 Lt's, no more then 2 at a time). DE Sentries I think we also hitting me at that rate. I'm going to do some more testing in a non-hazard zone but still, this was an eye opener. I admit that it shouldn't be as do-able to solo in the RCS as it is on live now.

Why is our level 32 power designed to take us out of the fight. Our job is take/maintain the aggro, which to mean means to be able to stay in the fight in some fashion, not running off ot hide in our little bock of ice. How comforting is that for our teammates? Really your team is in a big fight with a large group of mobs (say a pet went off and aggrod 2 other spawns) and your tank goes into a block of ice...does that make you feel better?

Here's an idea of how I'd like to see the Ice Armor line:

Frozen Armor S/L Def at 15% (I can live with that) Fire/Cold/S/L resist 5%
Chilling Embrace as on live
Hoarfrost as is
Permafrost: Increased heal rate. Passive (like Fast healing really).
Wet Ice: Status protect vs all. Def 5% vs all.
(note the vs all. Piddly versus everything, but at least you get some. If you really want to make them cry, make 10-12% so it's tempting to slot it).
Icicles: Reduce end cost/up damage. If not, then should slow the mobs (don't recall that it does). But really reduce the end cost.
Glacial Armor: As Frozen Above, just change the S/L to En/Neg. 5% res to en/neg.
Energy Absorbtion: Up the end drain. 10% deff per mob at least. you get end depending on how much end you drain. If you have to cap the def given fine, but make it a reasonable cap. Or maybe different values for PvE and PvP. Ie PvP would be a higher def bonus per enemy since there are going to be less of them and they won't gather nicely for EA. (not a big leap to say that people will play smarter then the AI of the spawns)

Hibernate: change the name, change the power.

Winter's Wrath. Click power, long recharge, Ranged AoE with a small radius. The Ice tank channels air/snow/ice directly from the north pole to a spot chosen by the Ice tank. All mobs in the effected area are rolled to hit, if they're hit: -recharge, slow, -dam (20%), DoT minor 5-10 seconds. End cost 35.

Or...
Winter is Coming (cookie for naming the reference): Click power, long recharge, Ranged AoE with a small radius. The Ice tank channels air/snow/ice directly from the north pole to a spot chosen by the Ice tank. Affected enemies (roll to hit) have all they're damage changed to DoT for 20-30 seconds.


Basically I'm asking the devs to not make me change my advice to people asking about Ice tanks. If I have to change my advice it'd be to, don't play an Ice tank. That's just wrong.

There are many ideas out there, plenty better then mine.

And if you haven't gotten Ice Tank concerns by now, I'll try to recap again for you:

1) No one-shot defeats. It's not fun, and often leads to team wipes. Lowering accs doesn't change this.

2) We're ok with having a weakness. But do we need to have more then any other tank set? Most tanks that I've talked to would be fine with 1 weakness and it's ok if it's different per primary. This Psi is the weakness is BS though. Especially when you add another weakness on top of it.

3)In general characters should not have to go into a Pool Power set to effectively do their job. As it stands Fire/Ice and to some degree Stone have to go into the Fighting Pool (ie Touch, Weave) and Fire typically goes into the Leaping pool as well for Acrobatics.

4) Really if we're (Ice Tanks) that overpowered wouldn't there be more Ice tanks than the other 3 combined? Look at the numbers, shouldn't the dearth of Ice tanks point to a problem.
As far as I know I'm one of 2 level 50 Ice tanks on Virtue. Compared to countless Invul and Fire tanks. In my mid 40's I'd get comments like, "wow an Ice Tank." or "OMG a 46 Ice TANK!" etc. In fact the most ice tanks I've seen on Virtue in 1 day is 3, including myself. I see that many Fire tanks in an hour.

5) I personally wonder if any dev has played an ice tank in the 35+ game on a pick up team going againt AVs. Try it, assuming the team doesn't kick you for not being a 'real' tank.

edit: 6) I forgot the high acc/auto hit things in the game, swarms and Caltrops come to mind.

I apologize if my tone comes across as well not friendly. But for some of us it's been a year of putting up with Ice's shortcomings. The only reason I got my main to 50 was because I'm stubborn, and I had stone melee to keep me amused.

Daristar (so yeah I'm trying to prevent Ice tanks from dying from Alpha Strikes, so sue me)

PebbleFrost on Virtue
http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/9301/pebble33th.jpg

A rough Stone Melee guide:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#3007376

Daristar

This is so Cool. I can't wait for CoV!

And I want the slo-mo stone fist into someone's face power!

And yeah the music was cool (couldn't listen too loudly at work though).

Posi where's the AM before going in the building? Recovery Aura?

War Witch thanks for the info, I was wondering who he was.

New Ice guide.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#2876129

Another thing for Ice tanks to watch out for...

If your helping a Kheldian in the 40+ range they have the defeat Shadow Cysts (something like that). It's an object that spits out Nictus, that's bad enough. However once its defeated it explodes. I took over 2300 in damage, the only reasons I survived: Tough, Hoarfrost active, and the HP accolades. The first time I didn't have Hoarfrost on and I bit it. Combination lethal and fire (or maybe it was energy). Anyway just a heads up to you other icers that may still be playing.

Daristar

Sigh so I played my Ice tank again last night. Mostly to join in on a Hamidon run. Not that I end up doing all that much.

Anyway some SG mates and I decide to fight some of the nearby monsters after Hami's been taken care of. First one goes ok.
2nd and 3rd ones not so good. Thorn and the big mushroom, these were level 48-49 range. I hit Hoarfrost with WI, CE, Icicles, Tough and GA on. Rush in to hit EA, and I die before it goes off (Thorn hit me for 500+, Shroom for 1300+ and 500+ plus some additional damage running up).
Died a second time before we could take both of them out. Granted we should not have gone after 2 at once, but a team of 6 with 4 people at 50 (2 controllers, defender and blaster) I thought we'd have done better (at least 1 controller died twice as well).

Anyway so I wasn't 1-shotted but 3 hits in a row sucks. Highlights EA's weakness as well.

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* things with superior accuracy (usually through buffs) are too prevalent in the game (Swarms, Quartz beacons, etc.)


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Hmm. So an auto accuracy debuff power? Ie with a certain range (similar to CE's range) Ice tanks can debuff things with/give superior accuracy. Basically our slippery armor makes even super accurate things have trouble actually hitting us (glare off the ice or some such).

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* things with defensive debuffs are too prevalent in the game (Radiologists, etc.)


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I'd like a resistance to def debuffs. Seems like this would be good for Permafrost. But really any power would be good for this.

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* Resistance debuffs appear that they will become prevalent in game and Ice Tankers are starting at a base of 0% in all but Ice and Fire.


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But is that bad? I mean if we can't go negative then we're not really being hurt by that since we have no where to go but up.
Makes things like Tough that much less desirable. I'd imagine the other tanker sets are really not liking this.
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* incapable of reliably Tanking Archvillains and Monsters for a team, to the point where Ice Tankers are not called upon for these tasks.


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I figured out that I've been lucky. In my SG there's been a emp/rad defender who I teamed with from my early to 20's until about 46 (right when my main system died). Anyway I keep reading about other Ice tanks being dropped from teams because they're Ice and that's just wrong.
Tough does help some, but again why should we go outside our primary to get help?
Permafrost seems to be the favorite choice to give Ice some Smash/Lethal resistance. Or (not sure of the coding involved) I'd like stacking armors to give resistance where there's an overlap (so s/l resistance if you get WI and FA running). Besides coding how do you determine the amount? And enhs?
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* More weaknesses than any other Tanker: fire, psionic, a glassjaw, out primary buff is something we manage and not automatic/toggle, streaks in the Random Number Generator (yes we are the only Tanker that's weakness is the game itself)

We need to address these things to solve the fundamental problems with the set. We may require more than a single solution to cover all of these.

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You know every time I see this list of weakness I'm amazed I've gotten to 46. And 1 of them we're probably not going to be able to address that easily.

Personally Ice anything should be basically totally resistant to cold effects. Thus the same for fire. (I mean really if a guy can stand in a blazing bonfire all his life, why exactly is throwing a fireball going to hurt him?) Which in my mind makes these two primaries main weaknesses pretty clear (Ice main weakness fire, and vice versa). It helps now that there are more fire/cold using mobs then say Pre-update 2.

If we don't get resistance to Psi, can we at least get our defense to Psi? Heck I'd even take 1/2 our defense to Psi.

Just some more thoughts that I've probably spouted off before.

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One thing I've been considering lately about Circeus' calculations involving Ice vs. Invulnerability; how much do teammates' buffs alter these numbers?

The reason I ask is because of my experience last weekend, when I was by myself out in Crey's Folly and happened to see Jurassik walking around. As it turns out, a good friend of mine that with two accounts was online; her player has a L50 kinetic/electric defender and a L39 peacebringer that they typically duo (if you're on Virtue, you know Kaloseidos and Kalos Eidos). Soon as she knew about Jurassik, I dropped down in front of him, Taunted, then crossed my fingers and hit Hibernate. Luckily he missed, so he was still bashing on me when the Kalos twins showed.

Over the course of the long fight (I think it went a good 10 minutes?), the kin defender twin hit Jurassik repeatedly with both Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift, while keeping Increased Density cast on me. Even with me running Frozen Armor, Wet Ice (no sense in using Glacial Armor, all his attacks seemed to be S/L) and hitting him with a 3 def slotted Wet Ice, he managed to tag me quite a few times (don't have Hero Stats, so I can't give an exact number). But because of the buffs I got, the most damage he did to me was 700.

The reason I mention this is because of this: while there are more defensive buffs then there are resistance buffs, if Ice were given a small amount of S/L resistance, could the teammate resist buffs be enough to help push Ice to being as effective as Invulnerability?

If I have the time this weekend (I have to work, so it'll be a little harder), I want to put together a listing of all defensive and resistance buffs for a comparison. I already know that there are more of the defensive type, but I'd be interested to see how much benefit each skill grants.

By the way, sorry if the posts rambles; writing it at work.

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I was thinking about this the other night. My experiences at higher levels I'm almost always teamed with folks in my SG. Most of whom really know what they're doing and their role.

So while I haven't been one-shotted like many others I think that may have a lot to do with the combination of my build and with who I've been teamed up with and the buffs/etc that have been in play.

However 1-shotting should not happen to a tank IMO. Actually I'd think not for Scrappers too, but hey I like melee folks.

My comment about no red name posts is that I'd at least like to see some feedback. There are some really good ideas in this thread, not to mention Circeus' number crunching that I'd like to see some commentary on (I know they're reading this, so I hope at least they're having an "Ice Armor meeting: The Theory and Practice of Ice Tanking).

Also been thinking about CE. It helps all teammates, although more so those in melee/close to the Ice Tank. So essentially we're giving everyone 25% less attacks (ok I typed that wrong but I can't think right now) coming from the enemies. So do the other sets have a similar power? (mudpost maybe? I haven't played Stone Armor yet) I know it's more of a control aspect, but I wonder how much that weighs in the Dev's mind in terms of the value of the power.

Hmm still no posts from a red name? That's disappointing.

I like the damage debuff idea. And if it's at 50% does it really need enhancements anyway? Sounds pretty good to me and should help in avoiding the 1-shot death syndrome.

You know you'd think with all the posts about Perma-frost sucks, Perma-frost needs to be fixed and don't ever take Perma-frost that the Devs might actually I don't know look at improving it?

Circeus, thank you for all the work and info.

Daristar

Hmm. Granted I didn't know how good EA really is/was. And it does explain how I survived somethings that I thought I had no chance of.

That said some thoughts on things brought up.

You can go with WI and EA. However you'll be spending a lot more time in debt. I tried to go without Frozen Armor, but I was getting spanked, took it 6 slotted it (and WI) and things were better. I eventually respec'd out of FA since I was no longer using it (pre I3).

Anyone else think it's wrong that any power set has a powe that virtually no one takes? I can understand some powers being more useful then others, but essentially useless powers?

So far I have an ice/stone at 46, invul/axe at 12 and an fire/stone at 9(need to train and he'll be 11). Up to that point the Invul has been by far the easiest to play/the least amount of deaths. We'll see how it goes as I get the other 2 up into the 40's.

I'd be ok with the change in EA if they added some fixes to the Ice set as awhole (like more resistances to Permafrost).

I don't recall being 1-shotted by an AV, but then I've had Tough for quite sometime now. Since Tough is always on and I hit Hoarfrost before rushing in, I'm guessing that's why. However I agree that having to go to a POOL power isn't cool (pun intended).

In practice that 5% does come into play quite a bit. With no way to mitigate this without resorting to Pools, it makes playing Ice somewhat a PITA. A defeated tank, does his team no good.

Daristar