Firebomb

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*wonders if they ever play the game*

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I am absolutely convinced that they don't. Not the same game we do anyway.

Oh sure Statesman will come on with a random anecdote about how he played a bubbler in croatoatoatoa or somesuch, but do you think they play on actual servers much? After the 'regen video' debacle and other assorted stupidity I've been coming to the conclusion that they only play in their own private environment - a flawed one at that.

This is a development team that stated 'playing a regen set where instant healing and integration are mutually exclusive is more FUN' - during the same update where they remove mutual exclusivity from many power sets to make them functional.

This is a development team that states that 'defense is more powerful than resistance', and then brazenly releases base resistance inspirations that are only a fraction of the strength of their base defense counterparts.

This is a development team that touts the arena as the sole new content of an issue but makes specific pains to ensure that certain players can't make use of it other than as punching bags to anyone with an accuracy buff.

This is a development team that asks its player base to test changes, but then calls specific players liars when they note a particular change that has been made - and later decide it was just a 'undocumented adjustment' without apologizing.

This is a development team that says that it's watched powers used AS DESIGNED for FIFTEEN MONTHS and state with a snicker that they never intended them to be used in this way.

Lord help us when the next rounds of global game upheaval and the subsequent obfuscations and incoherent babble about a vision of mediocrity come around.

I can appreciate a good lie when it's at least given to me with style, but there's only so much I can really put up with.

I'd continue to watch this action unfold, but I require bacon, and the Burger King just opened. Check back later.

Mmm bacon.

Must... move to Jersey...

mmm bacon

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And no offense intended to the person who won but that costume is utterly terrible, dull in the extreme.

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Heh. That always amuses me.

'No offense, but [insert offensive statement].'

Well, I've always enjoyed your writing and most of the other work you've done for the game, so I hate to see you gone - but I hope you have a blast in your new job(s).

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Previously, Ice Tankers suffered somewhat because the Pool defenses did not stack with their defense powers. This is now rectified.

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Partially.

The one thing you're forgetting is that for ice tankers, this only fixes half the problem. Sure, the pool powers now offer smash/lethal that can stack with frozen armor, and I am glad for this, but you're leaving out the other ice tanker's armor.

You know, glacial armor.

Now, since you don't want to offer all the 'typed' defenses to everyone on top of the melee/ranged, is it possible to add melee/ranged to glacial armor to also allow this stacking for energy/neg. energy? This would let you keep the pool powers as you like them AND allow for full functionality for ice tankers.

Otherwise the problem only remains half fixed, and ice tankers still can't fully benefit from pool +def powers like every other player in the game can (well, except for the stone tankers, but I'm no expert there).

Edited: forgot a word.

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Two words: Ice Armor.

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The ironic thing was that I was hoping that with my ice tank I could avoid all the nerfs regen was getting (and enjoying my suddenly stacky armors). If ice armor proves anything it's that any set, no matter how inadequate already, can be nerfed worse.

But then this is a +def tanker primary that can't stack the +def from ANY pool +def power with their armors. And lost about 70% of it's +def. Yay.

I wonder if this is why I find myself tooling around with Dash lately - at least he's more survivable. This is why I truly expect more nerfs in issue 6. My BS/Regen is sturdier than my ice tanker - withour without the Parry that, with only 2 slots added, outperforms an ice tanker's +def to melee attacks.

That and... he's still a fun character, with the again-needed freespec to make use of the nerfs. I dread i6.

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This change makes Empaths more valuable.

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Heh. I'd almost go for this. Simply because if I have to quit a team because the lazy 'pure healer' empath says "I'm bored" or "I feel so useless" ONE MORE TIME...

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I guess I just can't understand why all of these people are complaining about the historically weakest damage mitigation sets getting something that might help them in certain situations. Sorry we don't want to be gimp. Our bad.

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Well, you know how it goes - it's all about Me Me Me. Most of these folks are happy to champion improvements to weaker sets unless this somehow causes any minor inconvenience to them - then it's suddenly a 'nerf' when it's in fact a buff to some sets that truly need it.

The stark selfishness displayed here ... astounds me, when people who know beyond any shadow of a doubt that super reflexes and ice armor and even the yet-again-ignored force field seriously need work, but would rather see the players of these sets suffer in the PvE game just to bolster their own showing in PvP.

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Second, we’re still scouring the boards for bugs and other issues,

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Or, you could actually read the bug reports those of us who actually filed them on test submitted. I repeatedly bugged the broken ghost ship on test for more than a month, but look - it went live that way.

But eh... why bother?

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or Radiation would be too strong compared to other Defender primaries and Controller secondaries.

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Which is funny, since Empathy is still proven to be immune to the global defense reduction, and can with one power still outperform the entire force field primary on small teams. Why is it that with just five slots an empath can provide +def above and beyond a force fielder using fortitude for 2 or 3 friends, and offer +acc and +dam to boot?

Have the developers ever explained why some powers need to be balanced like EF but some powers like Fortitude are immune to Issue 5? It'd be much easier to buy this silliness if the "Global" changes were truly Global, and not bending over backwards to make the holders of certain sets feel 'wanted'.

You know, I was oddly prescient when I stated about six months ago that when they decide to 'look at' your power set, to be very very fearful. I said this on the controller board and BAM.

God forbid they look at any other power set in trouble. I'm talking to YOU claws.

"It was never intended that claws actually be used by anyone over level 4; the original goal was just to let people get their 'Wolverine-itis' out of their system then grow into a 'real' scrapper set. Henceforth claws are now made out of rubber, and do only 1 point of damage per attack..."

I can see it now.

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Heck, how about limiting Task Force Commander to the Shadow Shard TFs (complete all four to get it), and it gives you something like Requiem's epualets for a Shoulders option? Or maybe some other knick-knack that screams "Shard".

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Ooh yeah, I like this. You could wear a hollowed out observer on your head, just so you look like a mutant freak! Make it blink randomly and look around for good measure, and I'm there.

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I can explain that one. 6 slotted for defence fortitude can only be kept on 3 teamates maximum, and that's with hasten. Slot fortitude with 6 recharges, and now it's less than FF, and I don't think it can be kept on 7 people still (at least, not without extreme micromanagement.) FF can be kept on an entire team. It also provides protection against toxic, something fortitude lacks any protection against. Sometimes, the compairison for powers has to be looked at a little deeper than numbers... Don't get me wrong though, I think FF needs a very large boost, either in numbers, or getting powers that do more than +def (and that're useful.) People need to stop singling powers out like this though, saying X completely whomps Y. My Stormies hurricane drops enemy %tohits to the base 5%, and that's affecting anyone in my team, including the user. Fortitude can't be kept on the casting empath, and FF only gets a small self defence boost from Dispersion bubble. The last thing we need are -more- nerfs.

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I'm not knocking fortitude, don't get me wrong - I just know for a fact that the power by itself outperforms the entire force field set in small teams; I should've qualified that, I suppose. My mind controller is using it already to impressive effect 'out of the box' in a deadly duo I've been running with a claws/inv scrapper friend of mine (attack of the gimps!).

It's not a point to get a specific power itself reduced so much as an attempt to point out just how mistaken certain developers are in changing certain power sets for the worse. When some ice tanks compare their set to others it's impossible to not note such huge issues as the Invincibility/Ice Armor thing,

(Especially when every SINGLE invunlerable tanker I talk to would rather have the resists intead of the defense, because they KNOW that no matter how much statesman sugar coats it, +res is superior to +def, particularly since there aren't FIFTY resistance debuffing powers in the game).

The point there was to use fortitude as an example, not to derail the conversation - it just seems that the same developer logic applies in both situations, however flawed that logic may be. I can't think of any other situations like this offhand, but then I have yet to actually play every power set in the game (working on that).

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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.

The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.

We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.

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Not looking for a target, mind you, but just have a question (It may've already been asked in the raving, not sure).

I can respect that datamining is out, but what if someone has a souvenir for one of these task forces - you know, while the souvenirs were working? Would it be outlandish to allow folks who HAVE a souvenir for one of these task forces to petition for the badge? No datamining involved there, you know.

And speaking of task force souvenirs, why have they been disabled? They seemed to be working just fine in issue what, 3? I could do any task force save for numina and get a souvenir (save for the few characters that got their soul orb souvenir from that calvin scott TF by petition alone).

Then in issue 4, nothing. What gives?

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And I still want to know why Invincibility 6-slotted gives more defense then every power we own, also 6-slotted for defense.

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This is because of the same reason that an empath can render the entire force field set moot with fortitude - because these developers have a highly skewed sense of 'balance'.

It's not okay for one power in your own set to render the others moot (like old-style Unstoppable), but it's okay for someone's singular power in another set to render your entire set obsolete. I just wish Statesman could explain that one.

I for one am not seeing how issue 5 is at all balanced.

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Edit: oh, and welcome to imbalance; PBs and WSs get bys for their Phase Shifting powers

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Yeah, because it's imbalancing to be stuck in the SAME SPOT for more than 30 seconds while phased, but it's okay to fly around at capped speed while phased indefinitely. Riiiiiiiiiight.

Once again, I think Jack needs to buy a new dictionary, the one where the word 'balance' doesn't have all those typos. Much less 'global'. I like how we're being expected to swallow these changes when they don't even apply to every power set.

Like fortitude not being reduced in effectiveness because it's in their precious empathy set (yay, one power that can now out-do the entire force field set for +def), or kheldian phases not being nerfed because they're the developer's bizarre brain child.

And why is it that my scrapper can slot parry to get more melee defense than my ice tanker now? You know that it will stack twice without hasten or recharges. That means I can cram six defense SOs into it to get +88% melee defense, to everything when my ice tanker can only get, with 14 guys around her, 50-something %, to four types of damage. That seems 'balanced'.

If we're going to have these special powers and sets that are going to be immune to 'global' 'balance' changes, I wish we could get these notated in the character creation screen. That way I wouldn't waste a couple hundred hours with what sounds like an off the wall or creative set only to have it hammered in that I should've just gone with something bland and boring and avoid having to rebuild my character every issue.

So much for those 'informed decisions'.

Yeah. I get passed over for teams NOW. On live. Why should this change any when issue 5 goes live, especially when you're going to need two defender/controllers JUST to keep the ice tank alive. And perhaps more for other people on the team.

The only way they're going to do anything for ice tankers is by pushing this abomination live and seeing just how disproportionately worse ice tankers perform compared to others tankers. Or other scrappers.

Since my regen scrapper can out-tank my ice tanker on test now, not to mention live through much hairier situations. Of course, instead of fixing ice tankers, this'll just lead to even more nerfs for regen in issue 6.

Hyperbole? I don't think so. It doesn't matter if you can grab all the aggro if you fold like a house of cards whenever the bad guys actually attack you. My scrapper heals fast and gets more melee defense than my icer with PARRY.

That's so BALANCED I think Jack needs a new dictionary.

Yeah, I figured 1% or 1.1%, negligible real difference from fight to fight, so either way it's sort of blah. I am not keeping those slots in wet ice because that would be foolish. Foolish I tell you! Assuming I even use the set with issue 5 and ... I really don't have it in me. Unless the 'slight' increase in frozen and glacial armor matches the 'slight' decrease Wet Ice got when i5 first went to test.

Either way, have fun on your excursion. I haven't been down that-a-way in years, and I usually enjoy the surrealness when I do. Though since you LIVE there you would know better than I do... heh.

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Wet Ice now has the "have's and have not's". But with the boost at 3%, will anybody really mind?

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It's less than you think.

Statesman said the wet ice +def was .5% previously. Doubling that is only increasing it to 1% (though with six even level +def SOs you could conceivably get it to 1.1% before). Same effective difference, so I'm not quibbling about .1%. So the 'grandfather clause' isn't quite as imbalancing as people would like to think.

With six +def SOs in the new value on test, you're getting what, 2.2%? You're still better off six-slotting combat jump (who ever though a level 6 +def pool power would be more effective than a +def primary power by a factor of 3?)

I'm thinking I'm still going to drop an attack and move those slots to Permafrost, in order to at least get some sort of fire damage mitigation. I think I calculated it out to an effective 46% resistance with six slots in perma.

With the upcoming damage debuff of 10% (?) in chilling embrace, you're reducing incoming damage from affected targets to 90%. So say a fire attack dealing 100 points of damage is Chilled, for a net result of 90 points pre-resists.

Then with your unenhanced 12.5% resist in frozen armor added to your 27.5% six-slotted permafrost, you subtract 40% from the 90 for the low low net incoming damage of 54. Which isn't too bad really; it's almost as though ice armor is trading piddling fire +def for not-sucky fire +res.

Now if we could just do SOMETHING about toxic...

But my real question is, just how big an increase did the frozen and glacial armors get?

I hate to see you go man, but I can't say I blame you. More and more I see that the developers either a) doesn't understand this set, or b) doesn't want it utilized.

Statesman has yet to take the Firebomb challenge*, he has yet to explain his vision for the set, and he has yet to tell me why I should be happy playing a character with lousy damage and lousy damage mitigation when I can play any other tanker set - or heck, any other set - and be at least 3x more survivable.

Big deal, I can grab aggro and have two endurance recovery powers. So what, if I can't live through regular missions on heroic without a min-maxed build? I play ice/ice, and I feel like I did back when I was level 3, as ineffective as I am on test. My damage is poor, and I'm getting the crap kicked out of me by regular spawns, since half of them are now +1.

May whatever supreme being you worship save you should you fight ANYTHING not your level with a +def set now, especially if you're attempting to tank for anyone besides YOURSELF.

That doesn't feel like a tanker to me. I don't know what it feels like. At least with my blaster, I can decimate things before they can whale on me. They get a shot or two in before they drop, but hey, DoT set. The point is they can't KEEP hitting me because my damage is ludicrously high. Mmm assault rifle. Crazy Hate didn't lose out on issue 5, even with his full auto being changed for no explicable reason (STILL not explained).

The same goes for my scrapper. He is an unholy terror on the test server now. With parry - and only parry - I can tank better with Dash Apostrophe than I can with my ice tanker. And survive bigger/more enemies. And he doesn't need to for long. With his cone and AoE things are almost dead before they can get more than one shot in. Dash lost IH, but... so what?

The point here is that these two characters have defense in the form of offense. Their defenses are stripped bare, and they rely (for the most part) on their damage-dealing primary to keep them alive. But with my ice tanker, I can't do that. I have lousy damage, and am attempting to rely on my damage-mitigation primary to protect me.

But I can't. I can't protect me nor my team-mates. All I can do is absorb an alpha strike as I drop dead. And that is not tanking. It does not feel like I'm helping my team, it does not feel like I'm having fun when I can be out-damaged by controllers and out-defended by scrappers.

It feels like after having worked a character up to level 50 using an exceptionally tricky power set, fair and square, I'm being punished for it. And harder than any other tanker set, all of which were more survivable on live to begin with.

So I say wreck energy absorption. Wreck wet ice. And go ahead and finish wrecking hibernate while you're at it, because you know there's still 20 ice tankers out there, and we can't have that. I know I'm done with the set when i5 hits (just finishing loose ends on Crystalline).

Come issue 7 when the developers can't figure out why nobody is playing ice armor yet again, I'm not going to be the one to bother telling him they botched things ... yet again.



* the Firebomb challenge is, of course, to get a level 44 ice/anything tanker on test, get an eight man pick up group that only has one defender and one controller each (preferrably not sonic, since they won't be in range for quite a while sans power leveling), and run through the second shadow shard task force as the SOLE tanker.

Eight man. Start to finish. Sole tanker. Only one or two non-sonic de/buffers. I want to see if he feels a QUARTER as effective as any other tanker in that spot. This is how I did the first shard task force, and hoo boy, on LIVE was it ugly. And half of THAT was Crey/Nemesis!

I always liked the idea of giving equal parts resistance AND defense to the various ice armors. That way an ice tanker could go with a decent amount of defense and a bit of resistance, or vice versa, to whatever. Like with issue 5, the number is what, 17%?

Without energy absorption, with one end reducer in the main armors, that'd give you like what, 17% resist and 34% defense (or vice versa) to negative/energy and smash/lethal with the two armors that aren't actually gutted here.

Or even a middle ground with 3 SOs of each type (and no end reducer thanks to EA) for what, 27.5% resist and defense?

As far as cold resist/defense... meh. Just put that in permafrost. It's not like many villains use it anyway, and you could always make that a high value passive (to make up for it not being in the main armors).

And wet ice... there's always the holy grail of toxic/psi (to leave Fire as ice's one true weakness), or fire/toxic (since the developers seem to think everybody has to have a weakness to psi) or fire/psi (because they're too darn lazy to code toxic defense).

Any one of those could work really.

And if it were also the 17% +res / +def, you'd have a tanker that could attract insane aggro, at least moderately defend/resist against it, and with a good team (this is the IDEA, right?) make them the ubertanker with buffs and such. And still have one glaring damage-type (fire, or toxic, or psi) weakness.

This would also remove the +def 'roll of the dice' weakness, or at least blunt it. Along with the -damage effect from chilling embrace, you could keep your AV damage where it's at on live, allowing those guys to still be the threat they're supposed to be, and at the same time allow an ice tank to actually TANK for a team.

And with energy absorption, you could at least make up for the huge drain from those toggles. All you'd need to do would be to fix the end drain on icicles and, for the love of pete, NOT turn hiberate into a 45 second duration power.

This has been my armchair developer post for ice armor. Enjoy.

Man, I just give up.

I was going to go and point out how senseless this is, but I just can't even get worked up over this any more.

Why is this power set even around still?

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Every powerset has something that they can have as their claim-to-fame. In used to be that Ice was the defense set.

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Also we lost our status as being the Anti-Sapper tanker. A sorely missed attribute

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This really is the root of the question, isn't it? I've asked Statesman this question before, probably more than once, but he never bothered to answer - and I'm starting to really think that's because he CAN'T.

When I decided to make an ice tank, it was because I went into it knowing that yes, high defense is good but the odds WILL catch up to you now and then. Sure they had almost no resists, but that was the game. The 'high defense' tanker.

But now, with ice tankers being unable to even drop a same-level minion's defense to the minimum without a) herding, and b) adding hasten to their build so they can put six defense SOs in energy absorption, what's the point?

Answer this question. What the heck does an ice tanker bring to the table? What is the point of playing an ice tanker? What do they have that ANY OTHER TANKER can't do better? What is their niche? It's not resistance, and it's not defense.

Slow resistance? Try tanking on a knives of artemis job. I really don't think adding slow resist is going to help (especially if there is no -recharge resistance, which I asked for a clarification on - but it is the weekend and all).

Fire tankers have damage to make up for their 'lessened' survivability. They have NO +def, but they have the highest damage in their primary and respectable resistances to everything save toxic attack, psi attack, and the three guys that use cold attacks.

Stone tankers can either play with capped resists and nice overall defense and healing OR medium defense to everything safe for fire and ice, which they can get a resist to, and nice healing. They specialize in tanking for psionic bad guys.

When teams are fighting malaise or mother mayhem, they're the go-to guys.

Invulnerable tankers? Well, they're not the rocks they used to be, that's for sure. They can get amazingly high defense if they engage in the behavior we're not supposed to any more, and they can cap their resistance to smash/lethal, the most common damage in the game.

They seem to be the 'middle ground' to me now. The dependable guy who can take a beating and yet not be stuck with the theme to 'chariots of fire' in their head.

So ice tankers. What do they have?

Mediocre defense to only FOUR damage types, some resistance to fire and a lot of resistance to the three guys that use cold attacks, and soon to be a very very very small damage debuff aura (unenhanceable). Other than helping the other melee types suck up damage, what do they bring?

What can an ice tanker do that makes a team say, 'let's grab an ice tanker', they'd be better for this fight?

It used to be malta missions with me - they were the jobs I never feared to tread in with my ice tanker. Sappers got a random lucky hit now and then, but who didn't? As long as I wasn't tanking purples, I was truly able to TANK in these.

And even sometimes when they were.

But with issue 5, even that role is taken away, given to stone tanks exclusively (with their endurance drain resist, they're the best at sappers now, too).

So again, what's the point? What IS the role of an ice tanker on a team? What can we do that nobody else can do better? All game mechanics and blah blah aside, this is what I need to know. What is your vision for ice tankers in this game?

I'm just not seeing it.

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Gang,

Decided to give Permafrost a protection against Slow instead of Toxic...

And we've tweaked Hibernate so that your toggles won't drop anymore!

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I'm not a fan of this particular permafrost modification, but eh... I do appreciate the extra fire resist. Regardless, since this is your Plan, I have two questions:

1) Does slow resistance also include -recharge resistance? It seems they're repeatedly demonstrated as two different properties (since you can enhance slows, but not -recharge effects), so are we also getting this - assuming we aren't already?

If not (in any of the three powers we have that will offer slow resistance), this would be a HANDY addition to improve the survivability of the ice tanker. Not immediately apparent, but from what has been said about -recharge previously... it'd be a nice, 'under the radar' boost.

2) I'm glad hibernate is being tweaked in this fashion. It also seems to activate MUCH faster on test, but that could be my imagination (i haven't measured it, just going by 'feel'). I was curious though, is there any way you can, while modifying this, adjust things so you can ALSO actviate toggles while hibnernating?

One of the chief problems I have with building a strategy around hibnernate is that if I go under with all my toggles on, I can't deactivate them to keep myself from running out of endurance (or simply winding up very low), and then turn them back on when I'm ready to emerge.

It would be nice if you could at least have the same functionality as the pool-based phase shift power while you're under. I can see several arguments against this being quite sensible (I'm not a complete meanie), I just think that would add to the versatility of the power.

As would being able to teleport like those guys in granite form... heh.