Ice_Ember

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Goes against everything I've seen in the game. I've seen /Stone tankers out control me, and most every other tanker secondary can out-damage me. Based on my experiences in the game, I don't get how the above is true at all. The mathematical experiments we've run in versions of Tundara's thread don't back it up either.

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The problem with most mathematical experiments I see here in the forums is that they are measuring the extremities of performance. The datamining I do shows how players are actually performing in the "reality" of the game. The two are related, but there is often a vast gulf between what a set is capable of and what it is typically asked to do in gameplay.

Edit: Also, the quote you referred to is across all AT/Powerset combinations. */Ice outperforms many other AT/Powerset combinations.

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I hope that a /ice tank performs better than a mind/emp controller :P

how well does the /ice tank perform to other tankers?

that is the question.

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What if we're talking about, say, three bosses? Would they be more dangerous than ten minions? I'd think so. And Ice Patch would easily deal with those bosses, whereas Fault would merely offer a temporary respite from conflict.

As for Stone, yes, they have a plethora of KD/KB powers, but none that offer a repetitive KD/KB like Ice Patch. It's one use, then the enemy gets back up.

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you can use Fault and Tremor to keep the spawn flopping. Ice patch hits five, and not always the five that you want.

With full slotting on both powers, you can use them back to back. With IO bonuses, you can use them without pause.

Ice Patch, still only affects the 5 that dont run off of it.

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Then your Freezing Touch is not slotted as well as your Seismic Smash, because Freezing Touch lasts longer (I'd say around 20% longer) and recharges 20% faster.

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try again. I know, I added the slotting after you replied.

FT has a 1 sec cast, Seismic has a 1.5 sec... not a big difference, especially when you look at how much damage the two do.

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I know, I'm not comparing the two themselves, I'm simply saying: add that 1.5 seconds (*3 since it's three uses) to the recharge, and you suddenly aren't able to perma-hold three bosses.

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So I can perma hold two with Seismic instead of just one with Frozen Touch...

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The datamining I do shows how players are actually performing in the "reality" of the game.

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There is a concern that has been brought up about the way you guys use datamining to determine if things are "okay".

If Ice Melee underperforms as a whole, and the majority of Ice Melee players know this and deal with it by dropping/not slotting some of the worst attacks and substituting with Pool attacks, Burn combined with Ice Patch, and/or Epic Pool powers in their attack chain to a greater extent than those using other sets do, is this noticed by your datamining? Or are you just pulling reports on all Ice Melee tankers and getting stats like xp per hour and such?

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In the herostats tanker vrs scrapper damage I did two runs with my fire/ice tank. The Patch/Burn combo was twice as fast as not using it. Blazing Aura was almost half of my damage that was reported because Burn's damage is not listed.

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Is it worth it to slot the damage, or do you believe it'd be easier to focus on control?

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slot for damage until 47, then add in HO's, as per my slotting. That was the best solution that I have found for both powers. The endurance cost of Seismic hurts, but the damage and recharge is worth that.

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Then your Freezing Touch is not slotted as well as your Seismic Smash, because Freezing Touch lasts longer (I'd say around 20% longer) and recharges 20% faster.

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try again. I know, I added the slotting after you replied.

FT has a 1 sec cast, Seismic has a 1.5 sec... not a big difference, especially when you look at how much damage the two do.

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Total Focus, in all its incarnations except Dominators', is mag four. I agree that Freezing Touch would be made an amazingly good power if it were mag 4, as suddenly you could quite easily perma-hold two bosses.

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you mean just like Seismic Smash can now?

My Seismic Smash has a 6.21 recharge and an 18.21 duration... sounds like 3 Bosses to me...

my FT is 8.73 with a hold of 23.2. Longer Duration, but slower recharge, and you have to hit that second time to get a boss.

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both powers are slotted the same btw:

1 acc/mez
1 acc/dam
2 dam/mezz
2 50 IO rech

though the ice/stone has some stupidily high recharge bonuses that remove an addition 3 seconds or so from Seismics recharge time

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Total Focus, in all its incarnations except Dominators', is mag four. I agree that Freezing Touch would be made an amazingly good power if it were mag 4, as suddenly you could quite easily perma-hold two bosses.

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you mean just like Seismic Smash can now?

My Seismic Smash has a 6.21 recharge and an 18.21 duration... sounds like 3 Bosses to me...

my FT is 8.73 with a hold of 23.2. Longer Duration, but slower recharge, and you have to hit that second time to get a boss.

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I shall, again, state that Ice Patch is skewing their analysis of the matter, as it is a permanent control as opposed to the four second knockdown that Fault provides.

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The "control" from Ice melee comes fro Frozen Aura. Ice Patch is a nice bonus power that "may" remove 5 enemies from a fight temporarily. Just because it has 5 enemies on it does not mean that they will stay or that they cannot attack. Enemies do stand up and fire an attack and enemies do run off of the ice patch.

Tremor does knock down ten enemies and Fault does knock down ten enemies. Fault may stun then as well, and with slotting and recharge bonuses, it may stack.

What I would like for the set is more damage, because GIS does not compare, not even remotely close, to other tanker sets high damage attack. Frozen Touch I wish was burst damage. I wish it was a mag 4 like other sets get as well, or at least a percent to become a mag 4, similar to Total Focus. (not the damage, just the %for mag 4)

And Frozen Aura should be made some sort of AoE damage power. I would be happy with making it like Combustion. Or a Cold damage toggle. (Blazing Aura anyone?)

Adjust GIS and(/or) FT. Add AoE damage to FA.

Pyre mastery does more damage than Ice Melee.

I would like to not rely on Ice Patch/Burn for my damage.

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It has a strong slow that will keep the enemy in the patch, though.

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Well, I know I wouldn't consider a 0.45 second slow effect to be 'strong.' In fact, I didn't even know it existed until you mentioned it and I went to check.

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it isnt strong, I watch +2's run off of the patch and have to chase them down to finish them off.

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Castle did not "fix" fire tanks until he started to actually play a fire/fire tank.

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My Fire/Fire tank was made before I started working at Cryptic. I just have a serious case of Alt-itis. Also, when were were doing Arena testing in I3, my character of choice was an Invul/Ice Tanker and my only losses were in SG v SG events and my 1 on 1 against Pohsyb's Ill/Kin Controller.

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Thank you for the reply. It is greatly appreciated. (and thanks for clearing it up. From your Fire armor thread, I thought you created your tank then.)

You are one of +/- 5 Invuln/ice tankers, which is a true rarity. What lvl is yours now?


I am currently running a build with all of the attacks from Ice melee except Frozen Aura. It does not compare to Stone melee, and because of set bonuses and insane recharge speed, I only use Heavy Mallet and Seismic Smash and Tremor (Fault if on a team)

Greater Ice Sword seems to actually make the attack chain worse because of the animation. (I am dropping both Swords from my next build, once I can afford the IO's.)

Any hope that GIS will be made into a cone like Head Splitter?

I am keeping Frost, because three dam/range HO's make it usable against more than just two enemies.

Thanks for posting on the subject.

(please fix ice melee )

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I think the point is the fact that Ice Patch can do that at all times. While granted, it's only five targets, that's five targets that can essentially be permanently removed from the fight.

As for Stone, while yes, Seismic Smash can remove a boss from the fight temporarily, Freezing Touch can remove one permanently, if given a chance to stack (if my mental math is correct). It's also able to be selected some ten levels before Seismic Smash, which all factors into the Developer Datamining, as shown by Castle's words above.

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My Seismic Smash can stack and remove a boss permanently, as can everyone's, just like Freezing Touch. And if you look at HO's it is even worse disparity between the two. FT does quite a bit less damage (and over time) and has almost the same recharge, though end cost is way lower.

Castle did not "fix" fire tanks until he started to actually play a fire/fire tank.

maybe he will start to play a /ice tank and something will get done to them... but I doubt it.

the Force is weak with ice melee. nothing more to see here.

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I don't have a complaint about my Fire/Ice Tank atm - he's lvl 25 now.
On the other hand, I've got Frozen Fists and Ice Patch from /Ice and have no great need for any more, which is obviously a problem. I should want much more of a secondary power set.
I'll probably get the hold to be able to stack with an Epic Hold, but that's it.

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I sort of echo this, ice melee works fine on a fire/ice, but I could imagine it being not much fun with any other primary, the damage just isn't there. The issue I suspect is a bit like the controller one with fire/kin where neither set is broken, but the combination is better than intended, fixing ice melee while not making it too good while combined with the fire primary is a difficult balancing act.

Abu ben Adchem 44 fire/ice Victory and 14 50s

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fire/ice is a one trick pony... and it sucks.

mine lvl'd to 50 in I4 during the heyday, but it is crap now imo. I would much rather it be ice/fire.

even with burn and blaing aua doing 80% or so of the damage (and probably more) it still solo's horribly slow.

herd, ice patch, burn, repeat... chase down runners, repeat... sometimes a boss will actually be defeated

ice melee is total crap.

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QR

I have not followed every thread about Ice Melee but what makes everyone think the Devs are not looking at the set?

Sorry if this question has been asked/answered, it just seems the Devs have their hands full with Dual Blades, Willpower, fixing defiance, Halloween event and all of i11 content just to name a few.

Maybe it's on their list?

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why bother to fix old broken sets when they can gives new broken sets?

granted, i am happy that tanks and scrappers are FINALLY getting new sets... but the 30 minutes to fix ice melee should have been done quite a while ago.

Dont apologize for a dev not addressing the needs of Ice Melee. We have discussed this set for I dont know how long about how it underperforms when compared to the other sets.

Ice melee sucks.

The dev's dont give a rats behind that ice melee sucks.

take energy melee for single target damage

take fire melee for aoe damage

take stone melee for control and single target damage

take mace and axe for concept

take ice for an aoe sleep power at lvl 38 which is out done by another aoe sleep power at 41.

take ice melee if you wnat you highest damaging attack at lvl 35 which does the same damage as other sets lvl 4 attack power

take ice melee if you dont want a true aoe attack power

take ice melee if you dont want a large cone attack power

take ice melee if you want you aoe damage aura to out damage your entire attack set

take ice melee if you want the fire epic power to out damage your entire attack set

take ice melee if you want to, by why after reading this would anyone actually want to?

I still think that one particular dev has a hard on for Frozen crapcicle and that is why we still dont see any changes to the set after three friggin years. (granted, I have only been here since I3 and 30 monthes... but the set still sucks.)

I knew I should have rolled a fire/fire tanker instead (and at this point, ice/fire is quite a bit better imo....)

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But try finding a food not found in California

[/ QUOTE ]Decent Mexican

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Having just got back from Fremont, CA a week or two ago, I can attest to this statement. The Mexican food there was the blandest garbage I've ever tasted.

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Come to Houston and get some Tex-Mex. (real mexican food is bland to me as well.)

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<----- Texan native, born in Conroe.

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It's just another suburb of Houston now

(well, it is a commuter town)

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They are still do-able content and have the additional reward of the rare recipe for anyone running them to choose from.

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it gives a tf recipe, not a trial recipe.

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If i'm not mistaken, Eden/Sewer were moved to TF's instead of Trials. So you will get the TF drops not Trial drops.

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Got a lv40 Trap of the Hunter: Chance for Lethal when I did the Sewer Trial tonight. So whatever drop pool that's in, there ya go.

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tf pool

these are trial pool

* Aegis: End/Rech/Res
* Decimation: Acc/Dam/Rech
* Devastation: Acc/Dam/Rech
* Luck of the Gambler: Def/End/Rech
* Mako's Bite: Acc/End/Rech
* Numina's Convalescence: End/Heal/Rech
* Sovereign Right: Acc/Dam/End
* Sting of the Manticore: Dam/Int/Rech
* Touch of Death: Dam/End/Rech
* Unspeakable Terror: Fear/Range

Decimation and Touch of Death top out at 40, which is why the eden trial is perfect to try and earn them there.

guess you will ahve to use the respec trial over and over, and then only with a toon in at the right level range since those recipes top out at lvl 40...

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Rare Recipe Drops: I know for sure that the Eden Trial does give the choice of a rare recipe. I'm not sure though if it's a Trial Pool... it should be. If it isn't, bug it. Does anyone who's done the Sewer Trial recently know if there's a rare recipe option at the end? And if yes, if it's a Trial Pool?

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I did bug it. I received the generic bug reply that basically said you wasted your time and we are not wasting our time replying back to you.

The recipe I received was from the overly large TF pool set at lvl 50 and not from the trial pool. I chose the eden trial because it would drop you to a lvl range to get a couple of the really hard to get recipe sets that cap at lvl 40.

heck, if i had received a trial pool recipe at lvl 50 i would not be as much upset, because it would be worth much more on the market (or hopefully useable by me) instead of a recipe that is worth more to sell to a store.

the rewards for eden and sewer trial need to be revamped.

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I really don't know what to think of the Pain Pads now...

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QFT

Ice melee challenge.

Find a way to make it decent in PvP.

Find a use for Frozen Aura anywhere in the game.

Find a way to make Ice Melee (tank) good in PvP...

A worthy challenge?

(Or, find a use for Frozen Aura. Any use would be good.)

Yeah, that was me. Good TF (Manticore), even with the lvl 35 Bosses. Thankfully we had two rads.

It was MEGA!