JJ_Jason

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I really loved the suggestion of dam debuff on CE...As was the idea of hibernate being a res based click with a self hold/intangebility at the end as we freeze.

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Thanks! I just hope the Devs like the ideas too... Our powers could use some work.

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Kora Fruit. 50% defense with a click of a button. No endurance cost, and the defense remains until the time expires, so it can't be lost with toggle drop.

In essense, anyone can have better than Ice Tanker defenses with just 2 of these; and since they're guarenteed to be found in this mission, and with the mission being infinitely repeatable... well, do I really need to go on?

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In essence, yes, anybody could have as good or better defense then we do. I must play devil's advocate, and say there is nothing to stop us from using them as well... Our "advantage", is that we get to use that defense 100% of the time. I'm not sure a Fire Tank, with 25 Big Defense inspos, could finish a full mission burning 2 at a time. Even 1 at a time may not make the whole mission, on longer, multi-floor missions, or "rescue 8 people" type missions...

But your point is no less valid. A fire tank with good resistance, could easily use 2 inspos at a time for an AV or Monster, and never use thru all of them by the time the fight is over. They'd have our level of defense, but the resistance to take anything that does manage to get thru.

I wonder how things would change with resistance inspos? Likely, you'd see squishies playing melee a lot more. Blasters would pop a Defense/Resistance, and rush in to punch mobs in the face. Who knows...

The limiting factors here, are being level 40, and the number of inspos you can hold. Do we need to nerf Insperations? I hope not.

Congrats man... What server are you on?

I'm inching closer to 50 myself. Just hit 45.

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I think the power is fine the way it is. As far as abuse, we can't really do that. Even if I managed to get a ton of enemies together, there is always that cap on our max defense. No matter what, everything has a 1 in 20 chance to hit us.

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Let me say that my post was what I think the "Dev" position on the power is, and why they are looking to change it.

Personally? No, EA doesn't need changed... You want a cap? Try 10 mobs. Let me bottom out the Accuracy of AV's and Monsters, and let me worry about finding 10 more mobs to use for it. It's the least we can have for now.

I have yet to hear the tale of a level 30 Tanker, with 6 slotted EA, pulling groups of 50-75 mobs at level +9. Yeah... 5% chance to hit, so he can tank ANYTHING! Not even close. He'd be hit two or three times, and dead from the massive damage he's not resisting.

Back in the days of Perma-Unstoppable, that would have been workable for an Invulnerability Tank. Now, perhaps even Stone with some help.

I don't think the changes are needed, and I don't think the power works nearly as well now. I want to be sure in a larger group, that I've bottomed their chance to hit.

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Ok, I didn't really read the majority of the pages on this thread, but I have a feeling they are going to be similiar what Im about to say, but I'll post anyway:

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Welcome to the club Darkdrium.

You're right, a set that has issues doesn't need to be further handicapped. The best we can tell, EA as a stand-alone power is too good. Thus the Devs want to bring it back down a few notches, so the power is not abused.

This change has little to do with the problems Ice tankers face, only that a single power we have could be exploited. We're trying to take a place on the Training Room stage, and politely request fixes to the Ice Tank line.

Glad to have you sir. Pull up a chair. Drink on the rocks?

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I don't have it in front of me, but I was looking at the DVD box for the game last night and one of the big things it said I could do was fight Arch-Villains. I had to laugh at that thinking that my main character could watch people fight them but if I dared to use my powers, I would most likely end up dead. I'm at the point now where I think about not using chilling embrace to help the team because it will get too much aggro for me.

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They put that on the DVD? Now that's funny... for Ice at least.

I think we're looking at the same thing from a different side. Another Monster we can't tank by ourselves. If his foot-stomp is Auto-hit, high accuracy, or just plain lucky... same deal.

Things have slowed down on this thread, and I assume you are all waiting for the next batch of changes, as I am. PVP is sure to garner a good number of "patches" so they can get realistic data. I hope that we see a proposed Ice change in the same batch, so we can test it out against AV's and Monsters (like the H. Kraken).

Now we just need to wait...

Great work guys, on that spreadsheet. Took a look at it here at work, and wow. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, but scary anyway.

If people don't care for PVP, that's fine with me. I finally had a chance to try it this weekend, so a few of my perspectives have been further influenced by what I saw there. I'll bore you with some details from PVP, since I had such a good time with it.

First things first. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Next to that, nobody expects a Tanker with a Hold power.

I must be one of three tanks playing PVP who took a single-target Hold from their EPP. For PVE, I use it with my Duo Controller to hold Bosses from the start of a battle. I've won more fights, hands down, from this power then I can count, either Duel's, Team Duel's or a fantastic 10 man Last Man Standing fight (7 of 10 were Scrapper/Tankers).

After a quick respec for PVP (I was doing fine before the respec, but wanted to really twink things), there are few things that my Ice Tank can't take out. Because other heroes don't hit like AV's and Monsters, they require many attacks to bring us down. Massive Defense can keep that from happening. And since Brawl is the Melee killer (detoggle stinks, but I think it brings balance) it's much better to not be hit, then to "resist" the damage, but still lose toggles. I've taken out Regen Scrappers, other Tanks (Fire... HA!), and things tend to go my way. Everybody has trouble with SR scrappers, but I turn in a draw. And look out for Illusion Controllers with Spectral Terror. They gotta add more fear protection to sets.

But I'll tell you this my friends. I took on a Controller last night with Mind over Body. I think he had it 6-Slotted. My 6 Slotted Cleave (hits like a sniper shot for damage), with 5 Damage SO's, hit for around 100 pts of damage. Against an Invulnerability Tank, before I could detoggle him, with Build up... 34 points of damage. I could wail on him all day, and hit him 50 times with my best attack. And never kill him.

If Monsters and AV's fought like our fellow heroes, we'd be square. But they don't. They hit like Shadowhunter. With Tough slotted for resistance, he nearly one-shotted me with Hoarfrost already on, from full. I had less then 200 hp after. Another lucky hit after, and nothing could have saved me.

LeMoiCavalier, I can appreciate that you don't want any Resistance. It's trying to keep Ice as a "Pure" defense set. I agree with a previous poster (sorry I don't remember right now who), that the coding for this is not likely to be easy. I bet the current damage is calculated by base damage times Monster level, times hero-level mod, times buff/debuffs. For everything in the game. Having AV's and Monsters use a different formula, that checks for AT Primary power, sounds like a brute force method to code.

But I have no idea if that's how it really works. Let's say it would be totally simple for the Devs to put in the code just as you say. We already know others will ask for the same kind of treatment. We also are saying that Ice can't work as a set, same as the others, without a different set of rules. We're not fixing the set then... we're changing the rules. That also doesn't sound right.

A damage debuff is sorta like resistance for our tanks, without being the same thing everybody else has. It also helps our team-members, since the debuff would help them vs AoE's, or directly for other Tanker/Scrappers. Wouldn't that be a nice reason for others to seek our help? I think it would not only help our Tanks against their main weakness, but would improve our relations with other AT's. Ice wouldn't be just the "SR of Tanks". We'd be the Anti-Fire Tanks, in a way.

Want lots of damage potential? Take a Fire Tank with Burn.
Want a defensive Tank? Take an Ice Tanker, and watch the Mob damage level drop.

Other Scrappers and Tankers would love to take less damage too. They can focus more on damage, and less on the beating they normally take.

It all comes down to finding a niche. Ice tanks would take on more risk then Inv/Stone tanks, for the bonus of helping protect others in the group, especially those on the front-lines.

Hard coding a "fix" to Monsters and AV's? We'd be better at handling them, but no more desirable then Inv/Stone/Fire tanks currently are. I want people on broadcast to say "Blaster/Scrapper team looking for Ice Tank". And for that, they need a reason to want us there in the first place.

And if you're in PVP, saying "[Censored]?" when an Ice Tanker holds you? That just makes me laugh louder. I actually made a Regen Scrapper say “Oh Crap, I’m [Censored]”.

Without going to check the numbers myself, I'd say that sounds about right. We know that fully slotting for defense, we'd be "near" 95% on a Monster/AV at our level, or perhaps +1. 1 in 20 says they nail us.

The problem is, over the period of a fight, they may use a very large attack 2, possibly 3 times. The odds that just one of those attacks will hit is much more significant. And we already know some of the AV's we fight can either debuff you, or would have enhanced Acc.

One-shotting can happen at any time during a fight. I've often seen an AV held by our controller, then as he wakes up, he's recharged his Nuke, and boom. Wipe out. Could be at any time.

As much as I'd like to think maxed out Defense is all you need, it just don't do everything. Heck, the only way I'd "trust" it, is if we had a max defense cap higher then 95%. But I don't advocate that. I don't think it'd be the solution.

Could our non-EA powers be stronger? That's a nice boost, that would make living with a toned down EA easier to make due.

As many ways as I've looked at it, either a Resistance addition, or a Damage Debuff, can keep us alive for One-shotting. Increasing Hit Points (directly with a power, or by Hoarfrost) looks good on paper, but could be easily exploited, or may not be fair to other tanks.

And of the powers in our set, Chilling Aura is our PBAoE auto hit power, thus a strong contender for Debuffs. Permafrost is an Auto power that gives resistance, thus strong contender for Resistance buffing. Hoarfrost already gives hit points. And Hibernate is highly situational, and could be changed to match almost any of these needs, instead of what it does now.

Somebody previously posted that the Dev's said they are watching this thread, and was told so in a PM. Let's assume that is still true. No reason to think that has changed.

Anyway, I agree that Tanks shouldn't be able to be one-shotted, if built reasonably well, by AV/Monsters up to +2 (which is as high as the difficulty slider goes). At the higher levels, Bosses become a non-issue, so I doubt many of us are getting 2 shotted by them, even at +3.

Also, Ice should work with any Secondary. I believe the benefit of the ice secondary is weighed against it's weakness. Toss Fire on the primary, and you've got the current FOTM. Anything else, and you've got the current Ice primary issues. Besides... does Ice Patch work at all on AV's and Monsters?

Perhaps the Devs do feel that CE is our current "super-power" that keeps us on par. We can slow down recharge rates, and should be taking fewer attacks, most of them will miss, and we should be fine. I remember doing a little "shuffle" dance at lower levels, to keep minions and Lt's who melee in my aura, but so that they would have to "run" to my location to attack again. Doing this, I could negate a good many attacks. Nice little power there...

But now? As I said, nothing short of multiple boss packs at +3 or more phase me. Only AV's and Monsters stand toe-to-toe. Do I think they'll be vulnerable to my little shuffle dance? No... They'll drop their Nuke, or get that big hit off. Back to square one.

I think the Ice set works well other then that. I'd just like to see us Tanking AV's and Monsters with the rest, and having some way to keep that damage from pouring in unexpectedly.

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If cookie cutters are the concern, what about adjusting the % so that the average player, with maybe 1-3 slots in Hoarfrost would still be able to use it situationally to avoid 1 shots?

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True, if you boost the HP given by Hoarfrost, it may help against being one-shotted. But I don't know if that's really the spirit of the power. A 40% boost to HP is significant, but this is the problem I see.

Let's say that they try to fix Ice by giving us a 100% boost to hp, with Hoarfrost. And they make no other changes to the power. Let's also say I have 500 hp. So joe-average tanker takes it, and never slots it past a single recharge or heal. He levels up to fight a nasty AV (say, Dr. V or Clockwork King). Fires off Hoarfrost, and in he goes.

With that many hit points, without heal or other powers like it, and no SO's, he'd likely do ok. The low level AV's hit hard, but don't really seem able to one-shot people at that level.

Spin that around to the Min-Maxer, at level 45. Six-slotted Haste, Health and Hoarfrost. We already see builds for perma-Dull Pain (I've never seen the need for it, but I understand the reasoning). Now his 2000 hp becomes 4000 hp, all the time. A single small heal (1/4 or 1/3? I can't remember off the top of my head, so let's use 1/4) would heal for 1000 hp. Health would be healing some major league hit-points. With that many HP's, he'd be a mini-Regen Tank, who can use a few small heals to tank anything. I doubt he'd mind that his friendly empath can barely make his green-bar move.

And anything short of an AV or Monster could dent it, unless you didn't notice things beating on you for 15 min.

It'd also be damage-type proof, so Psi, Toxic or anything else, would be protected just the same. The higher your level, the more incredible it could be.

And I guess nobody thought my idea for Hibernate had merit... Wouldn't it be cool to be slowly becoming more and more frozen, able to kick serious rear, and then at last at last, freeze totally and be self-Held/Intangibile?

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Agree, but we're nowhere near that. If you max slot, Invuln is capable of receiving 50% of the defense that Ice can have. (realisitcally a max slotting in EA is 4 Defense because its not perma unless you devote 2 slots to recharge). Ice can not achieve 50% of the resistance of Invuln on its own.

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Ice jaw... I should make a macro quote for when Nanoc falls down on the job.

I would say that with Perma-Haste, I can actually overlap EA without slotting it for recharge at all. Of course, you likely ment that, without perma-haste, you need two slots of recharge for overlap.

I know we're nowhere close to what Invincibility has. We can't stay at 95% defense all the time, no matter how we slot. Invincibility can likely stay at or near 95% resistance. And then they get a good chunk of Defesne on top of that.

My example was meant to show that in a "perfect" situation, Resistance vs Defense, we have our weakness via game dynamics. Supporting what you'd said, in fact.

Turning Hibernate into a huge Resistance boost would be much like Unstoppable, which would be more useful. I wonder if we could set up our power such that we get a kickin boost for 1 min or so, then at the end, instead of crashing our endo/HP, we are incased in Ice, and intangible as current. Leave us frozen for 15 seconds, then we break free.

As for Circeus' list...

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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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Related to our problem with lack of resistance. Other tanks who don't rely on high defense share the same danger of being hit more often. They, however, can resist the attacks, and have a measure of protection the mobs can't beat. If we fix that issue with Ice, we'd be ok.

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

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Later in the game, yes, perhaps. Not every group has them, and not every spawn has a mob-type with one. DE being over-annoying, yes that can be nasty. But I can say that makes these targets priority, and not quite set-breakers. Radiologists are usually minions. Anti-matter dropped Enervating Field on me, and THAT's a scary time.

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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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See above. I hate to think that Anti-matter did EXTRA damage (more then 100%) against my non-resisting tank. Btw... Neuron was a wimp compared to Anti-matter, in the same mission, thanks to an Empath. Fear the Radiation.

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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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Without serious help, totally agree. You can do it if the stars align, and your group is dedicated to helping you do it. Otherwise, you can elect to take the debt for the party, as they try to keep you afloat.

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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)

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Yup, the key to our issues here. However, I've never noticed Fire causing me issues. EA gives defense to Fire, yes? Psi? Yeah... 'nuff said. And I assume you mean Glass Jaw in reference to getting one-shotted. It's not hard to do the math, and realize that with two tanks, one with Def/Res 95%/5%, and another with 5%/95% should take equal damage over 100 attacks. The problem is the "random" factor. If our 5 hits come very near, we could be taking a high amount of damage, with nothing to protect us. Over the long-haul, it works out, but each fight is a "short-term" probability experiment. Rolling two 20's in a row could get you killed, if it's the wrong enemy.

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I think what would really help Ice Armor is an effect that hits an enemy when they make a successful strike against you.

The reason I think this would be good is because it gives you more protection in the areas where your armors are weak. Against most enemies, you won't be getting hit, so the effect won't occur.

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But wouldn't that leave us just as vulnerable to being One-shotted as we are now? If the AV hitting me can kill me in a single blow, he'd be debuffed as he kicks my group around, but its too late to help me.

Yes, Hibernate that draws aggro, if left as it currently works, would be "little" risk killing. I think that the danger that remains would be that heroes doing lots of damage may attract attention off of my Hibernating tank, and on to themselves. I hate the idea that Hibernate does "phase shift", so I'd like to see it scrapped to something at least as useful as the current Unstoppable.

Yes, swarms and stacked caltrops (KoA anyone?) and other things with limitless accuracy are a weakness to our set. A counter-hit fix, that debuffs or something, would be strange in it's own way.

Why would a big eye-ball, that blasts me across the room, is debuffed by how cold I am way over here?

I'm glad we have so many ideas for how to fix Ice. I'm not sure if this is the way to do it, though...

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# Keep EA the way it is (or better it).
# Put a dmg and/or resistance debuff on a power of ours. (preferably an autohit)
# Put an acc/def debuff onto a power of ours. (preferably an auto hit)
# Maybe make Icicles autohit?
# Let one of our powers give us some psi, along with s/l, dmg resistance.
# Make Hibernate a wee bit more useful than a giant invulnerable popsicle. IE - Let Icicles or CE get out still...maybe as a punishment for said use let us not be invulernable but just give very high Def and Res (to all).
# Bump either hoarfrost's recharge time, +max hp, or both
# Seeing how we're in a block of ice, def or res to psi isn't very role-playingish. What if EA, instead of just giving def to all but psi, would give defense to whatever it was we EA'd? Ie - you EA mobs with psionic/energy attacks, you now have defense to both. You EA mobs with s/l/toxic attacks, you now have defense to all three.
#Click power that provides a buffer of #damage absorption. Enhanced by heal enhancers at 33% per enhancer. 1 minute recharge? Test various base numbers (100, 250, or more)? Replaces Hibernate or permafrost?
# Every x seconds (10?) the ice tanker's PBT negates a melee strike that his penetrated his defenses (rolls high enough to penetrate armors + EA). Toggle power. Moderate endurance costs (icicles or another amor?). Accepts endurance cost enhancers. Replaces Hibernate or permafrost?

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Just wanted to toss your ideas onto that list with the others.

I'd say I don't mind the idea of higher hitpoints from Hoarfrost, or perhaps giving Permafrost a +HP boost? Combine that with some slotting in heal, and you'd see a bit of boost from it over the long run.

And it would keep you from getting one-shotted, if combined with Hoarfrost too... but I'm concerned with putting too much emphasis on Min/Max slotting. To make it work, you have to slot Hoarfrost for perma, with or without haste. Most players who don't read the boards may take the HP boost from wherever we put it, but not realize it's still not enough to save them without further help. Even if you just use it non-perma, for AV/Monsters, I'm worried about the huge amount of HPs that would need healed if we do find ourselves in trouble.

As for Ablative Armors... An interesting idea, but one that isn't currently supported by the CoH engine. Nobody has a power like that (the D&D equivilant of Temporary HPs). Hoarfrost is as close as we get, I think.

Ditto with negating a Melee strike. I'd also be worried about this fix, because what if a minion/lt/boss manages to hit me as I rush the AV/Monster? Their attack would be countered, and I'm SOL.

Hibernate would be much more useful if you could maintain aggro while inside. I'd hate to think, however, that my battle-plan against a Monster we're fighting, is to rush in, taunt, and Hibernate, then waiting for my party to kill him. It's still not quite the fix I think we need. Hibernate needs it's own fix.

I'll keep my vote on a 50% Damage Debuff in Chilling Aura.

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If you include Inspirations (but not APPs, since no Tanker APP gives any), there's more than three times as many ways to gain defense as there are to gain resistance in this game. 19 buffs/debuffs for Defense versus 6 buffs/debuffs for resistance. Ain't that lovely?

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Yeah, it does stink that our defense buff ability seems so easy to come by, where as our resistances are rarely able to be buffed.

Will they rework sets to include more resistance buffs? Not likely. Thus few buffs from defenders are going to help us tank, more then they would anybody else.

A great example is my Fire tank. Paired in a duo with a Grav/FF controller, I've got 6 slotted resistances to S/L, Eng/Neg, and fire isn't ever an issue. She keeps me bubbled, and I'm nearly unhittable, and can resist anything that does.

Stone seems a perfect fit to Kinetics, that can buff your damage and increase your speed. The very weaknesses you pay for being the best all-around Tank defensively.

Right now, I'm just happy my Ice Tank has Radiation in his duo. That's how I stay alive, by watching AV's and Monsters debuffed before I get there. Knowing that it works in my duo, I think solo Ice Tanks would love it as much as I do, if they could do it themselves. And if I stacked a Damage Debuff with Enervating Field... What a wonderful life it would be.

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I personally don't see why psionics should be something that is mostly unresisted or undefended against. When you have 75 per cent of your armor sets vulnerable to a specific kind of damage, one that is rampant in the higher levels, something seems amiss to me.

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Do I agree with you? You bet I do. I'd like to see more people able to handle Psi, and stronger "weaknesses" per set. But the Dev's don't agree with that. I can't post a quote or a link, but I know Statesman himself said that Psionic protection should be rare. I think this is so that they can always make a "dangerous" mob, by giving it Psi.

With as much as you see in the late game, you can see it's designed around the fact that the only challenge left for "normal" tanks, is a damage type they can't defend.

If that's still the case, I would bet they'd cut the Damage Debuff on Psi, so we can't tank Psi better then others. If you look at our set currently, nothing we have gives defense to Psi. Even EA is Def+ (All but Psi). They really don't want us to go there.

I only want to see a fair power introduced, that doesn't cost 3x the Endo to run, or require extensive slotting if at all possible. The Dev's will have to decide what is fair, of course.

They could be testing this right now for all we know.

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In that vien.....I know it's been suggested before, but I thought I'd throw it out to this crowd. Add in a small amount of resistance (being oneshotted is so not fun it's absurd- there's just not a thing cool with it), and some +regen. I know Stone has this, but I don't think anyone is about to claim that Stone and Ice are too similar. As it is, not only is Health near required, but almost every Ice tank I know slots it out- because without that, Swarms -hurt-.

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More regen would be a nice bonus, but not much help to one-shotting. And as for S/L resistance, I think most of the Ice Tanks (yeah, all 10 of us) are looking for something other then more of the same from other sets. As effective as Resistance is, we seem to reject it as a "solution".

Speaking of Stone Tanks, I would like to revise my previous idea for the Damage Debuff. I didn't mention specifically that it would not debuff Psionics. Many people said if we get resistance, we should still lack Psionics. I think the same should go for a Damage Debuff.

Stone Tankers have a major selling point, as the only tank with Psi protection. I remember how upset I was to learn that all the other Non-Ice tanks got mobile status protection, and all they did was patch our glaring "sleep" weakness. A major bonus of Ice Tanks was given to everybody else. Not that others didn't deserve it, but it was one less reason to be an Ice Tank. (I sure hope the new changes to EA don't take another away... but I don't think it will)

Keep Stone Tankers happy, and don't allow our Damage Debuff to work on Psionics. I don't think anybody would argue that... no?

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I will let you know that my received PMs state explicitly that the chances that this is being looked into and this thread is being read by the devs are 100%.

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Guilty as charged. I didn't mean to call out the devs, nor do I think our screaming "DEVS FIX THIS NOW" will do anything but make them turn a deaf ear. My hope was if the Devs didn't want us to continue the thread on the "cool ideas to help ice tankers", they'd just let us know. I'm all for making their lives easier, if we can.

Like Circeus said... please don't spam the Devs on this thread. They just turn on a spam filter anyway, and your comments go the the junk folder of posts.

And thanks for the info on your PM's. Glad to have confirmation.

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Is it just me or is does anyone else feel crazy trying to defend Ice Armor? I feel like I'm at my wit's end trying to explain that we are in no way overpowered. It just seems so obvious to me that we are in fact quite the opposite.

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Agreed... For some time now, on the Tanker boards, the few Ice Tankers who post on the boards had been asking for changes made to the set. Only after seeing how pitiful Hibernate was, did I jump on and start getting involved.

As for now, I think people figure this thread has a very good chance that the Dev's are watching. We're hoping that if they're looking to make changes to EA, they're also willing to throw us a bone.

The Universal changes (less Tank damage from AV/Monsters), or unresistable damage, would have far reaching effects. A single change to add a Damage Debuff would be one power changed, and one thing to test. Much more in scope, I would hope.

We'll see if Geko ever swings by, and lets us know if we should branch this off to another thread. (Blatent Dev Name-dropping)

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JJ, it's not like Icicles' Damage Debuff would wear off between hits, it's effect would last for atleast 2 more ticks. Then if it misses you have to hope the next one hits, which is good because then the power has its downsides, just like all powers should.

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Yes, the effect may not wear off between ticks. Even if it lasts 5 seconds after "any" hit from Icicles, we still have the same issue.

If the first "attack" made by icicles misses, I don't have my damage debuff. I still get one-shotted. The "downside" to CE is that, like Icicles, you have to close to melee range before it kicks in. Do you take stealth to sneak in? Do you take SS to rush quickly? Or pull, without using a power pull, and use a corner to your advantage?

CE seems to fit the bill perfectly, and would even fit the idea of the power (frostbite on fingers, so mobs are hitting weaker). I'm not at all against changing both Perma-frost (a wasted power) or Hibernate (needs work before it's even close to Unstop. or Granite). But I just feel that Icicles is still a "roll of the dice", much like we face now with the defense cap. Never-mind that powers that debuff our accuracy would cripple Icicles too...

I believe that a 50% damage debuff, that nets a single Ice Tanker a 33% reduction in damage from any target in melee range, is more then fair. (100/(1 + .5)=66.6) The power is not much different then a melee Enervating field. It would stack with other powers of the sort, but between diminishing returns, and no Damage Debuff enhancements, I can't see Ice becoming a FOTM because of it.

But it's a juicy carrot for taking an Ice Tanker. And from what others above are posting, this idea seems popular.

Would Rad defender/controllers be upset? Our Damage Debuff is not also a Resistance Debuff, like Enervating Field. Their power remains better then ours in that light.

Any Rad's out there feel they would be cheated by this, I would be glad to hear the discussion...

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The only thing I don't like about the damage debuff is we will still be susceptible to alpha stikes from AV's which will still one-shot us before the debuff goes into effect. (At least that is how I imagine it would be.)

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I can say, if it's in Chilling Aura, that I can rush an AV, and expect it to frost him over before he pops his Nuke. Sure, it's still a risk, but usually they don't fire it off till you're in range, so if you're fast about it, it'll work. With a 50% debuff, asumming Damage/(1 + %), a lone Ice tank would reduce the damage to two-thirds. Another Ice tank would reduce to half damage... and so on.

Or, you just pull around a corner. He'll be next to you and frosted/debuffed before he can nuke, and you should survive the attack.

Now I'm sure I may get surprised by an attack, or sometimes I may not make it to him in time. But it works a lot better, and would be a tactical consideration, instead of waiting to die.

Reading your post, points out what worries me about putting the Damage Debuff in Icicles. With Icicles, I have a miss chance, per attack tick. So, if I drop 3 SO acc into it, and close to range, and hope like hell I don't get that 5% miss, I'd be fine. Otherwise, I'd be no better off, since he'd not be debuffed. And what about later, if it misses mid-battle, and he slams on me a few times. I think Tanks deserve a "sure thing" when it comes to bread & butter powers that keep them alive.

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Yeah... that's the kind of things I'm looking for when I say "Or something entirely outside of the realm of either DEF or RES." It has to be more creative then just adding RES to balance properly.

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An excellent idea. As Snorii mentioned, we could reduce damage against AV/Monsters by something like 50%. But I have a feeling they are less likely to hard-code something like that for Ice tankers. Imagine all the special requests for hard-coded changes to follow.

I'd like to see the Damage Debuff. It's better then resistance, and team friendly. Place it on one of our AoE toggles, and it only helps us against melee targets (unlike Resistance). 25% or 50% or whatever... Saves us the one-shotting, and scales well with level.

I'm all for this idea. I'd support an Ice Tanker rally in favor of this movement...

Who's with me???

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Under this scenario, from 1 to 4 mobs from +0 to +6 level mobs, Invuln wins through every comparison.

At exactly 5 mobs, Ice is marginally ahead, but Invuln still gains and eventually exceeds Ice at +5/+6 level mobs.

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Agreed. So I'd say they'd need to up the defense on FA/GA to a higher level... and/or WI while they are at it. A balance could be found that would be closer to Invincibility, with us having higher defense, and Chilling Aura to slow things down. I'm not saying they could do a 1:1 swap on EA and make things work. They'd have to run some numbers, and get things set right. I still vote for a damage debuff.

I guess this thread is being derailed. I saw the patch notes, and assuming this is the "quick fix" for the arena before a more substantial patch down the pipe, I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

Does the new version of EA, currently on test, work? or does it break our set?

My feeling is no, it does not break the set. We have just as many strengths and weaknesses as we had before, and this power is now somewhat more capped, to avoid possible abuse. It's a known issue that we don't endo drain more then the 5 mobs we hit, so I will assume the fix for that is forthcoming.

A rebalance of the Ice Tank set seems destined for an Issue to be named later, or perhaps an after Issue mega patch.

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If you change EA from DEF to RES things get even more out of whack then they are now between the two sets. When you say it it sounds like a good idea. When you do the math it just looks worse. And it doesn't solve the problem of Invuln getting better both with more mobs and higher level mobs.

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Are we assuming defensive numbers stay the same for FA/GA? And what kind of Resistance boost? I'm not saying Resistance instead of Defense in EA is the best way, it's just a different way to look at the issue. If you figure our defense with FA/GA doesn't drop a Monsters To-Hit down to 5%, but we added around 30 to 40% resistance, we'd survive an Alpha-strike, and be on better footing.

I really like the Damage Debuff idea, though I suppose since I don't use Icicles I'm not excited to see it added to that. Especially since Icicles isn't autohit, so I can't trust it to work on +2 Monsters and save my life. Chiling Aura is autohit, and would become a set defining power very early, helping get to level 26 EA. This I like.

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It also won't affect luts/bosses/AVs/Monsters, so it won't be over-powered. Give it a mag 2 hold and it can hit luts. That might still be fair. It will also help your controller/defender teammates stack holds on bosses/AVs/Monsters.

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That's just scary... so you want to "hold" minions who hit us, and have a power that won't help a lick against the AV's and Monsters? Wow, I think my own wife would drop me out of our duo.

I like the idea that EA would do Resistance instead of Defense. We already have toggles for defense, why not a click for Resistance? I'd drop Kick/Tough, pick up FA/GA, and call my guy ready to rock.

Man, that next "patch" to the training room is going to be interesting.