LeMoiCavalier

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OK, Circeus, and anyone else.
I went and re-read Circ's calcs, and finally my mind realized it needed to work and I realized what we were comparing.
Between my skewed thinking on what we were comparing, and those calcs, I think I may have realized what the missing component is here.
Gonna burp it out then see if it makes any sense raw.

When we are comparing Ice, we are flat comparing to another set. Usually, Inv/*. BUT, the set has something Inv doesn't, Damage, Icicles. The game is 2 way. Damage in, Damage out.

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Honestly? If Geko was to tell me that he will give us 10-15% Res to all -psionics, but that to do that he is going to replace icicles with a "boombox" power... I'd take that. The damage is ok to take even level mobs, but only if you 6 slotted (1 Acc, 1 End, 4 damage). As you go higher the accuracy and damage go down faster than Paris Hilton.
The only reason I keep that power around is to help agro a little bit (Since I'm always surrounded by lots of mobs), and because is the only way I can solo once in a while when I don't feel like teaming.

When I 1st learn about I4's EA I was thinking about droping Icicles to be able to slot EA (Since it's the only power I can't live without), but after all the testing I've been doing on Live and Test Servers I've decided that if they actually keep the chances to EA (Because they're going live for sure, unless that's one of the thing they're planning to fix this thuesday) then I'm just going to roll an Inv/EM and become yet another FotM.

Anyways... I guess that my point (If any... It's really late and don't feel like thinking) is that if I was to be told that Icicles/CE is what makes them think that EA is too overpowered, or that Ice Tanker are as good as any other tanker; then for me to belived that I'd have to see Icicles doing at least 9 times more damage that what it does currently.

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OK, haven't quite made it through the last page of this long post, but before I loose my train of thought, I figured I'd post an idea.
Before that tho, props to Circeus, you have the ice tank community in mind and don't present us as a whiney bunch of 'wanna be 133ts'

After about a dozen or so people giving examples of how outclassed they are by Inv/* tankers, and a couple off posts about how its because they are autos, I realized, thats not quite it exactly. Its Endurance.

I don't have the time for super number right now, but maybe someone could run this. From what I can calculate on the fly, the abilities that Ice needs to pickup, we'll say FA, CE, WI, icicles, which you get by lvl 12 (8 lvls before stamina) you are spending end at almost twice the rate you regen it. So that means that you are only getting by, and hurting yourself attacking, IF you put 1 end reducer in each of those powers.

Now, I don't think I've heard of an Ice tank not 6slotting stamina, and running about those same toggles. So atleast now you are gaining end like a non-stamina person (and remember its assumed EVERYONE will take stamina). So you have enough to attack like a 20- character.

I play Ice/Fire, and lean more towards AoE, so I know I chew through guys a little quicker than most. But when those are recharging, I know its alot of little whiffs on guys, watch my end, see how close stuff is to recharging, and maybe swing again.

We spend alot of time in the middle of a group of guys, trying to keep our defense up while doing end management trying to see if we can fight back. With the damage output of Fire, and the lesser end worries of Inv, they put up a good offense too.
Remember, sometimes a good offense can be the best defense.

So maybe its adding to powers that we need, but go back and give us some end loving and reduce the costs a bit.

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Those are very good points, we need to do a lot of micromanagement even if we take stamina. Running my SR scrapper is much easier than my Ice tanker! With SR all you have to do is get all the mobs in melee, then you can turn off one or two toggles (Range and/or Cone/AoE). With Ice tankers you need to be aware of what type of damage each mob does so you can turn off armors as necesary. Things get even more complicated if you are fighting more then one faction.

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

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Winter Lord :P... So basically once a year (If that fiasco ever comes back) we get to be the uber-tank.

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I'll go one further.

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

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It all depends. Here I'm going to assume that we are looking for a Tanker, not a Scranker or whatever they like to call themself.

- When doing Crey with lots of "Cryo Tanks" an Ice tanker is better than a Fire tanker, but not as good as an Inv/* Tanker.

- Doing the general tanking against the Ninjas at Chimaera's Mission (Because of all the caltrops, and if you have tough)... Not so sure againt Chimaera himself. Overall probably Stone is better since the slow doesn't really matter to them Inv/ and Fire/ next, then us. In general we can tank better agains mobs that use "slow" atacks, unless those slows have a -def atached to them (Think Ruin Mages and Ruin Chamans)

- Sappers, but that's nothing any other AT can't do just by using a few Lucks. Inv/* Tankers can even use Unstoppable, and Lucks when Unstoppable is recharging. SR Scrappers and Regen Scrappers (And post-I4 Dark Armor Scrappers) have better chances against Sappers as well (I'm talking about Perma-Elude and Perma-MoG scrappers here)

So no! There isn't a "real life" situation in which we shine or anything like that.

It's a little more complicated than that. If it was just a matter of getting mobs down to a 5% chance to hit then we won't be having this conversation in the 1st place! I4's Ice Tankers have more than enough def to tank +3 bosses... In fact you saw me the other day tanking 5 +6's Nemesis minions... No way in hell I was going to be able to kill them, but they didn't kill me either. Also I was able to tank those guys because there where no Lieuthenants providing Leadership/Vengeance.
Usually while tanking Nemesis during normal missions (What I usually tank are +2's and +3's... +4 once in a while, and only if careful) I've seen vengeance glow 4 or more times in a row... That is a 100%+ Accuracy bonus to ALL the mobs (Vengeance provides 25% Acc bonus)

I've had people say to me: "Well! If the Lieuthenants are death, the the minions are death, too!"... Well, the reality is totally different.

The problem is all the ways to lower your defense that are in place in this game... Again, you saw what 15 even level DE minions did to me when they were getting a 200% Acc Bonus from the Quartz beacons. 200% Acc Bonus gives even level minions a 250% chance to hit you... WAY more than what I4's EA+armors can provide... Now imagine 3 or more beacons, and +2's DE! (Think Eden Trial)

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I was doing some testing tonight on the Live Servers. I went and found 10-15 Devouring Earth that where even level and -1 to me. I got them all to atack me and hit EA. That was between 150-250% def with EA plus my armors.

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Just a note that geko provided us with a number of 18.75% per mob. So 10-15 mobs, on the live server, puts you at 250%-350% DEF (presuming you're also running the various Ice Armors in addition to EA) -- presuming that you hit all 10-15. I'm guessing from your 150% number that you feel you hit between 5-10 of the DE with EA which would put you at 150%-250%.

Beyond that, can you be more clear on the chain of events here? Because for me every time I'm in the middle of a group of DE and a Quartz beacon is dropped so is my Ice Tanker unless a healer is around. Now since you had Tough, vs DE which mostly do S/L damage then sure, you're probably fine. All they do is S/L with the exception of the mushrooms and spit which do Toxic.

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Ok. This was the scenario:

10-15 DE (Half even level, half -1 to me). Don't have an exact number since the number of swarn changes. I was "lucky" enough to have 2 Quartz next to me the whole time (The pet beacons, meaning a 200% Acc Buff to all the DE's).

I did hit most of them, if not all of them, with EA.
The reason I'm saying 150-250% is because I don't know if Geko's 18.75% applies to the Live Servers or only to the Test Server. So, that number could be from 15-ish mobs x 10%, or 15-ish mobs x 18.75%. To that 150-250% add the defense and resistance I get from my toggles (FA, WI, tough and hoarfrost. Wasn't running GA since they don't have energy atacks)

Chilling Embrace was on the whole time as well, plus Ice Patch.

Like I said before: I was just fine in the middle of those guys. Tough was taking care of some of the constant Swarns' damage and some of the other's accasional S/L's damage; hoarfrost of some of the accasional toxic damage.
Other than that hoarfrost and QXFace's Dark defender healing me once in a while where enough to stand there all day long.

With those same exact mobs (No more, no less), I waited until EA was about to drop to pop the 4 lucks. We all know what happen after that.

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Now, as you said, 4 lucks is a better defensive buff than EA vs 5 mobs. Its 100% to all as opposed to 93.75% to all except PSI. That means any character on the test server can beat the bonus of EA by popping just 4 lucks. Just think, a Blaster can pop 4 lucks and get more defense that the key power in our primary powerset will provide, and then on top of that have RES to Smash and Lethal from their ancilary pool.

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Well... We all know that is a little more complicated than that (Lucks expire, EA can be up as long as you have mobs and end... But then again a Blaster... Or a Fire tanker! could have 1 or 2 Force Field users following them around; but whatever), the important thing here is that we all need to realize that you can't rely on Defense only (Or cap defense for that matter) when there are so many ways for mobs (And other heroes if you're into PvP) to lower your defense to 0%.

Just 2 things I'd like to point out here:

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No tanker set should have to rely solely on defense. A totally +def tanker will never EVER be as good as a resistance tanker.
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A totally +def tanker will never EVER be as good as a resistance tanker.


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That's not totally true. If we were able to lower mobs' chances to hit us to a 5% we could stand right next to any other tanker. Sure we could get one-shotted by an AV or get hit by too many mobs at the same time, but then again that happens to any tanker. The problem is that many mobs (Specially after lvl 35-ish) have auto-hits, very high accuracy, ways to increase their accuracy, ways to lower your defense, or we just don't have defense agianst their atacks.
All that makes relying only on accuracy anything but imposible.

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Resistance tankers can max defense with Pools. Ice gets what, +33% smashing and lethal from Tough? EVER?

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Agree that anyone can increase their defense by a lot by using pool powers, inspirations and other heroes powers; and that we can only get Res from a single power from a power pool, and a few power from other AT's...
The part I don't agree is the whole "max defense". There is no such thing as "max defense" since there is not cap to how much accuracy a mob (or heroe) can have (And I'm not even talking about auto-hit powers); and I think that's what Geko (Or whoever came up with this "EA is too powerful" idea) don't understand.

I was doing some testing tonight on the Live Servers. I went and found 10-15 Devouring Earth that where even level and -1 to me. I got them all to atack me and hit EA. That was between 150-250% def with EA plus my armors.

They droped a couple of "quartz" and although I was getting some damage (From the swarms and the ocational hits), I could have stand there all day (Remember the part about them being evel level to me, any tanker should be able to do that).

After a while I waited until EA was about to drop and poped 4 lucks. Each luck is 25% to all, that means 100% def increase to all plus my armors (A little more than what EA is going to provide once I4 hits live) Once again there were 2 quartz next to me... Those same mobs droped me death in less then 1 minute (Even after poping hoarfrost to recover some hit points)

I should also mention that I was running tough 5 slotted with +Res the whole time.

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Ive read this thread and despite some of the arguments i still look at all this a bit differently. I dont actually care how i compare to an INV tank. I care only about the reason for, and effect of this possible change.

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Personally I don't care about Inv/* either... Nor do I think anyone here cares about them, or Fire/*, or Stone/* tankers.

I'm sure that the reason why we mention Inv/* so much, and compare Ice against that set (At least my reason) is because Inv/* are the best tankers right now; so if EA wasn't making us superior to Inv/* tankers, or giving us any advantage over Inv/*... Why do they feel the need to cap how much defense we can get out of it?

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While I certainly wouldn't argue that Invulnerability Tanks have better defense I don't want Ice to be an overpowered set like Invulnerability. But if the Energy Absorbtion change means that only 5 mobs are getting endurance drained then that does need to be changed. If only 5 mobs are getting aggro then that should be fixed as well.

I do like caps though because it allows situations such as fighting DE where you have to pay attention sometimes and change tactics to be effective. Being able to jump into a group of mobs in every situation without thinking just gets old after a while.

There also hasn't been much mention of what Ice does better than Invulnerability. We have great Energy defense so sappers are much less of an issue. Energy Absorption being a click power also gives us some protection in cases where toggles do get dropped and without the negatives of powers like Unstopable. And on days when things just don't go right Hibernate can let you sit there and meditate for a moment on just how cool life can be. I also love not having to chase runners for five blocks because with Chilling Embrace they aren't going anyplace fast.

When it comes to Arch Villians I love defenders. Kinetics, Dark, and Radiation Defenders can all put Archvillian damage output to something manageable no matter what the type and frequently a Storm Defender can also help in many cases. To me the game isn't about always being the best. It is about being damn good and my Ice Tanker is definately that. This change doesn't really affect that and except for the bugs of secondary effects no longer hitting all mobs in range I don't mind it at all.

Nogala

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Just to add to Circeus' comment:

Sappers are a problem only to solo players... That or AT's w/o holds (My Ice/Ice blaster can solo Sappers all day long). If the Inv/* is part of a team, Sappers are nothing.

EA changes are fine if you're a scrapper-wannabe or a solo player. If you are a Tanker Tank then those changes are going to get you and your team kill.

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Are you serious? I did a lot of testing last night (On test), but that's the one thing I didn't pay attention to (I was too busy surviving half of the things that I can usually survive).

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Just tested it a few more times to be certain. Yes only things you get DEF from get End Drained. Nothing else does. In fact its unclear the unaffected mobs are even Taunted by EA anymore either.

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You're right. Just got home for lunch and did some testing myself. I'm sure it's a bug, and if is not then Inv/EM here I come!

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For the record guys... here's the thing we weren't told about the Energy Absorbtion change in the patch notes. Not only is it now limited to getting defense buffs from only 5 foes, but it now only drains endurance from those same 5 foes. Everything else in the radius of Energy Absorbtion no longer looses endurance.

And to boot you don't get to pick which 5 get hit/loose the end. So you can no longer use the End Drain to try to lock down bosses.

So its not just 1 nerf its 2.

I'm sorry, but even if you're going to limit the defense buff to 5 the End Drain should still affect everything -- its a major part of the power, and one I know I heavily rely on (well vs foes that don't regenerate Endurance fast).

This is frakin' silly.

C'mon, cut us some slack and give us something. The change is over the top. Who the heck spends the time to nerf a single power in a set that already significantly underperforms not once, but twice.

Sheesh.

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Are you serious? I did a lot of testing last night (On test), but that's the one thing I didn't pay attention to (I was too busy surviving half of the things that I can usually survive).

I'll find a few Skulls at Perez tonight to check your findings... If this is not a bug, then is yet another reason to roll a Stone Tanker... Or should I just roll an Inv/* tanker? Is the one they want us to play it seems.

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

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And THAT is the reason why everytime I'm invited into a team with another Ice Tanker (Or any tanker who is a scrapper-wannabe for that matter) I get: "Wow!" and "Damn! You're awesome!"

So yes! I'm going to keep preaching. If you want to be a good Tanker you need all of your armors with lots of slots.

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This is probably a move in the direction to get them to get ALL their armors.

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If that's the reason that's a very poor reason. And if in fact they keep this change my Ice Tanker is going to become Stone.

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Also, I didn't think of AV fights because, personally, I don't know if I would want to rely on an ice tanker, even with maxed out defenses, to go against one, especially since I usually end up in teams fighting 2-3+ AVs .

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You can't rely on an Ice tanker for AV fight is they're only using WI and EA, that's for sure. But you're right, we can't tank a lot of AV out there, when it comes to AV even Fire tankers can do better, since they can pop lucks or use any other kind of external power to gain defense.

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Lot's of knee jerk reaction posts here. I'm not sure I'll ever come across a situation where having Energy Absorbtion suck power from more than 5 mobs will make any difference. And if I do it's not that hard to add more defense SO's to the power.

Nogala

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Please go back and read again the post that talk about enemies bringing a 200% defense to 0%

Just so you know what to look for: DE's pet beacons, mobs with radiation powers, heroes with radiation powers (Now that PvP is here that is important), mobs that use Leadership/Vengeance, mobs with a very high accuracy.

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Also, if you don't slot your other armors

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Maybe that was the intention of this change to EA, so Ice tanker will pick up their other armors and slot them. As it currently stood, it seemed that Ice tankers could easily get by with just Wet Ice and EA.

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You have never played an Ice tanker before, have you? No good tanker is going to be able to TANK by only using those two armors (Here I'm assuming that the tanker took all his armors up to lvl 26, then respec-ed out of them)

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My Ice tank, which I leveled past 26 before the toggle armors were made stackable, used nothing but Wet Ice and EA. At 22 he picked up Tough. That's it. That's all he needed. He wasn't as effective as an Invuln tank, but he was still durable enough to tank for a team.

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Yes, pre I3 were hard times for the Ice tankers. That's why there were only a handful of those. Personally I did tried to make an Ice tanker post I2 but I just couldn't do it. Having to carry lucks with you all the time with a power set that it's suppoused to be all about defense was just lame. And that's what this change to EA is going to cause. That or take Wave... Yet another toggle :\

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Please also notice how must energy/neg-energy either lower your defense, or drains your end. In fact, most mobs are going to lower your defense (That's why putting a cap to our defense is a very stupid thing to do... Defense is all we have!)

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Negative energy lowers accuracy. Slashing/lethal attacks (like assault weapon fire, some claw attacks, etc.) lower your defense. What's more dangerous are the enemies that buff each other's offense -- aren't DE Quartz eminators a +100% accuracy boost to all DE nearby? No defensive powerset is going to be able to stand up to that.

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Yep. And that's why I don't understand why Geko thinks that EA is too powerful! There are so many way to to lower def or increace acc they're just going to kill us. Read one of my first post: We don't only have the same psionic problems that other tankers have, but we are also weak agains auto-hits, def-debuffs and atacks with high accuracy.

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If you want to be a good Ice Tanker you can't just go running around with only 2 armors! You need them all, and you need them with at least 4 Def Enh each.

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Actually you can get by with only WI and EA as armors. 'Get by', mind, not 'do well'.

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"Get by" is not enough for a tanker. A good tanker is the foundation for a good team. If the tankers goes down, the rest of the team is to follow. I'll say it again: As it is nowadays, a GOOD ice tanker needs all of his armor at least 5 slotted plus Fitness and Fighting to be able to be close, but not as good, as an Inv/* tanker (They don't need to 6 slot all of their armors or Fighting for that matter).

If this change stays for good (Because it is going live, we all know that) my Ice Tanker is to become a Stone tanker. If they're to change something there, too (I see Geko paying a visit to Granite one of this days) then I'll just go play Saga of Ryzom full time.

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Also, if you don't slot your other armors

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Maybe that was the intention of this change to EA, so Ice tanker will pick up their other armors and slot them. As it currently stood, it seemed that Ice tankers could easily get by with just Wet Ice and EA.

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You have never played an Ice tanker before, have you? No good tanker is going to be able to TANK by only using those two armors (Here I'm assuming that the tanker took all his armors up to lvl 26, then respec-ed out of them)

If there is an armor that I can see people not taking (or at least not 6-slotting) is Glacial Armor, and even so I feel that's a really stupid move! There are way too many mobs that do Energy/Negative energy only atacks (Outcasts, Vampiry, Clockworks, Sappers, Kheldians :if you're into PvP, and you get one or two "evil" Kheldians during missions, too:, Voids, Quantum mobs, Freakshow, Neuron's Grey Robots, Antimatter's Blue Robots, Rikti, many AV's... Those are the ones I can remember right now)

Please also notice how must energy/neg-energy either lower your defense, or drains your end. In fact, most mobs are going to lower your defense (That's why putting a cap to our defense is a very stupid thing to do... Defense is all we have!)

If you want to be a good Ice Tanker you can't just go running around with only 2 armors! You need them all, and you need them with at least 4 Def Enh each.

Also, you CAN NOT rely on EA to fight AV's... Unless they're -2 or lower to you.

Please, go back to the beggining of this threat and read all the posts. You're going ot find even more insigh.

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I really don't think this is a big change. I don't remember the last time I hit more than 5 enemies with an EA, and usually if I hit only 3 then I'm invincible until it wears off. Capping it at 5 seems fine to me, if they needed a cap on it (and I'm assuming they needed a cap for technical reasons.)

However, Ice needs *help*. Nerfs, even insignificant nerfs, are not a good idea. Ice needs something to bring it up to the effectiveness of other tank primaries, and/or something to set it further apart from the other primaries.

Permafrost is sitting there, ready for the devs to do something with it. I think either S/L resistance or a massive +HP perma buff would be good things to put in Permafrost. The S/L resistance would be better, but a +HP buff would make Ice armor just as effective, giving it some regeneration-like qualities, and would make it more unique.

Just do *something* for Ice. Something *helpful*, please.

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And I'm sure that's how much Ice tankers feel. Like I said before: Give us a cap! That's fine. But what are we getting back? More +Res to slow? Who cares! Our Res to that is good as it is. A "better" hibernate? Can't care less about that, I'm taking that power at 49, if at all. Give us damage! Give us +Res to all -psionics. Give us a pie making power.

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I just started my Ice Tank and many of the posters in this thread gave me a lot of great advice. The Human Cold is still only level 12, so I can't really comment on EA. Already, though, I've been put to shame multiple times by Inv tanks. If I join a pickup team, I have to tell them that they're going to need another tank since I will be dying frequently. That's sad. I was planning on EA really making a big difference in my tankability. Fortunately, I haven't spent too much time on this toon. The problem is that I really like this guy. He has a lot of great, fun powers that should make me super great at protecting my teammates. In theory should be a pretty decent tank. It just doesn't seem to work out that way.


LeMoiCavalier, you mentioned you were on Liberty. That's my home. If you have some spare time, would you mind SKing me so I can get a look at the Ice Tanker's powers?

I've never met one. <- Maybe that's the easiest way to see that Ice Tankers need help before nerfs.

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Sure thing. Just add me to your global handle @LeMoiCavalier

I'm usually on and off after 6-ish pm Central.

Like I said before: Give us the damage Fire tanker do and I'll stop complaining about the need of resistance, and now about this new EA fiasco.

Now, about Icicles vs BA:

- We get Icicles at lvl 12, you get BA at lvl 1 (Why would you get it at lvl 2?)
- Icicles uses between 1 and 2 end per sec (Depending to whom you ask), BA uses less than 1.
- According to the BI, Icicles does 0.55 Letal per tick. BA does 0.611 of Fire damage per tick. Both powers tick at the same rate, and as we all know S/L are the most resisted damage type in the game.

Now... This has nothing to do with this threat. Nor do I care what Fire tankers can or can't do. Just answering your questions.

Oh! And one more thing: Yes! Only Res is not a good thing either (That's why Fire tankers are the weaker "tankers" of them all)... But at least there are many pools, inspirations and other heroes powers that can increase your defenses.

There is only one pool we can take to get some kind of +Res, and that's only agains S/L, and just 2 or 3 powers from other AT's that can give us some kind of +Res... There is no such thing as a +Res Inspiration.

I'm getting tired of this.

Anyways...

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If all your other powers only give +def also, why couldn't you just use EA for defense? That is just one power 6 slotted?

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Simple... Because to be able to use EA you need to get close to the enemie, w/o defense or resistance you're going to get killed by the Alpha Strike.
Also, if you don't slot your other armors fighting AV's or Monsters is going to be anything but imposible. Only one mob fueling EA is going to be no more than 40% def (With a 6 slotted EA that is) As it is now most AV can one-shot us easilly.

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Then you could have stealth and SS to get up close, useing 2 pool, but you still are using WAY less slots for a mighty defense.

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Even with stealth/SS on, there is one second between EA's activation and the Def Buff activation. That's all the time mobs need to kill you. That and the fact that there are many mobs that can see thru invisibility (Snipers, Drones, Carnies, KoA, some monsters)
Plus, not everybody takes stealth and/or SS. I'm one of those. I loathe SS, to me Fly is the only real travel power.

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I guess you might want to 6 slot Tough and Health, and then 4 in Hoarfrost, but that isn't that many slots, considering. Is there something I'm missing? I'm guessing most of you Icers aren't slotted like that

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Just so you know that's the way most Ice tankers are slotted as it is nowadays. You didn't discover any magic formula there, we need Hoarfroast, health and tough (all 6 slotted) to be able to come close to Inv/* tanker. The only thing you're missing is any idea of how this set works.

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but with that and Chilling Embrace(which is the same as +25% resists to all enemies in range which applies to your team as well) I see that as being a very powerful defense, for relatively few slots, leaving a lot to focus on attacks (that damage one of you asked for).

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You lost me with that last one there. Like I said before, that 25% applies only to melee mobs. half of the mobs ARE NOT affected by CE. To me the only real application for CE is for agro management.

Anyways. I'm getting of answering your posts regarding Ice Tankers. Go build yourself an Ice tanker and take it to the 35-ish and then come back here and tell us what you think. As it is now you're starting to sound like a troll.

This is your last post I answer. Go back and read the reasons we've been giving here to why we think this change to EA sucks mayor time. If you're still not happy with that, please fell free to keep posting about it! My ignore list is getting shorter.

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Invince has a cap also doesn't it? Plus doing almost nothing against range and absolutly nothing against AoE. I don't know, my fire tanker self is drooling over the though of 188% defense. Would that floor what +7s chance to hit?

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On paper, and only if fighting the easy stuff, "farmable" stuff (Freak, Nemesis, some crey's, wolfs) You have to understand, we, as Ice Tankers, don't usually like to farm 2 or 3 kinds of mobs every 5 levels. We like the challange. We like being able to tank everything, with this change to EA we're not going to be able to tank half of the things out there.

Hell! I may not even be able to fight Nemesis again! Thing of 8-10 Leadership/Vengeance going off at once!!

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And to the Resist is better because it scales better, sure this isn't a myth?

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No is not. Your 90% S/L is going to apply if you're hit by a -5 or a +5 alike. The only difference is that the +5 is going to be doing more damage then the -5.

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I don't know, even this Nerfed EA is making me want to make an Ice/Tank, question is who to delete. Then again I like +def powers.

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Please! Go ahead and do so (And you don't have to delete anyone, unless you have 8 chars per server that is) Come to Liberty and I'll even give you 2000K so you can fully slot all of your enh. all the way to 32.

Once you get to lvl 36 or so and have gone thru pretty much all the mobs we can talk.

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Well, assuming you slotted for 6 defs buffs, the cap would be 188%. The hell do you need with 500% defense? As has been said the excess is wasted.

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Why do I need 500% def? Simple: There are a LOT of mobs that debuff your defense, by either reducing your defense (Think Crey's Medic and Antimatter's Clockworks, CoT's, Council's vampiry) or by increasing accuracy (Some of the Devouring Earth pet beacons, Nemesis using Leadership/Vengeance everytime you arrest one of them, Rikti's Radiation users)

And like I said before: From where am I suppoused to get those slots? As it is now I'm putting everything on my armors so I can tank half as good as an Inv/* tanker.

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Edited Because I thought of something- Despite the fact that Invuln can get Max resists to pretty much everything, isn't the uber power in that set considered to be Invincible? And isn't EA basically Invicible on steroids? And ice isn't sololy +def, you have -recharge also, about 25% if I recall, and +hp(which stone and Invuln have, but fire doesn't).

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Thanks for helping the cause! Inv/* tankers cap pretty much everything, AND get a very nice defense... Where is our resistance? Agains Ice and Fire? They can take that and do as they please.

About the -25% rech, that's only for melee mobs. Half of the mobs are always at range... The same mobs that are affected by my Ice Patch. The only real use of CE is to keep the melee agro so I only have to worry about the range ones.

Fire tankers? Give me their damage capabilities and I'm going to stop complaining.

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It’s not really a defense cap. It’s a cap on how many foes can give you a defense bonus (much like Invincibility). Since the power Always hits, that would give you access to unlimited defense.

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And what's the problem with that? Inv gets cap resistance to pretty much everything. We only get defence.

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As it stands now, the power gives you a Defense buff of 18.75% per affected target. The max affected targets is 5, giving you a base defense bonus (if you hit 5 foes) of +93.75%. That means it reduces your enemies chance to hit you by 93.75%. If those foes are your level, that is 18.75% beyond the max possible defense to a Boss (Bosses Accuracy is 75%. Minus 93.75% gives them a -18.75% chance to hit you. That is hard set to 5% because a foe always has a 5% chance to hit you). So essentially, this is Max defense for foes your level. Enhancements will, of course, increase that to Max defense to foes higher level than you.

Unlike Invincibility, the defense is to all Attack types (except psionics). Also, with the short recharge time, you can actually STACK this power. So although you are limited to 5 foes buffing you in one click, of you can reduce the recharge enough, you can get double the defense bonus from a second Click.

The power is still quite massive, and probably still too powerful.

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Too powerful? I guess that's right next to "Blizzard is the mother of all nukes". If that's the measuring stick, then I'm buying that.

When I 1st read that we were getting a defense cap I was thinking 500% or so. But 94%? I guess I can't fight DE, Crey, Antimatter's and his bots, or any other mobs that debuffs defenses anymore (PvP I don't care, I wasn't going to play that anyways) ?

As it is now I need at least 10 DE's so I can get my def. high enough no bypass their carnies or whatever they're call. And from where am I suppoused to get enh slots to slot EA? As it is now my only 5 slotted attack is Icicles, the other 2 are using just the one enh that comes with the power. I need all my armors 5 slotted to be able to do half of what an Inv can do.

So basically what I'm getting from all this is:
- Inv/* only weakness is Psionic
- Stone/*'s weakness is how slow they are (They can get TP to fix that)
- Fire/*'s weakness is Ice atacks (2 mobs that do that damage?) and no def. But they have awesome damage.
- Ice/* gets: Fire, Psionics, mobs with high accuracy, Auto-hit powers, and no damage.

I guess you want us all to play Inv/*?

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And no matter how many times you stack EA, you could stack it 1000 times over and over again, there will always be a 5 percent chance to be hit, meaning we're no better than a well slotted SR scrapper with some gimmicky auras.

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I don't play an Ice nor SR scrapper, but doesn the fact that you have multiple slows make you much more survivable than an SR scrapper?

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Of course it does. We're tankers... We're suppoused to survive what others can't! What's your point?

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Now if the first contact would ASK YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE IF YOU EVEN WANT TO GO TO THE HOLLOWS OR NOT instead of automatically telling you to talk to Wincott.

And now with the Hero Corp difficulty people, MAKE THE CONTACT ASK ME IF I WANT TO SEE THEM FIRST!! Having a contact in Skyway tell me to go see the guy in KINGS ROW instead of the one in Skyway annoys me to no end.

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Again, if you take your time and go talk to Wincott before you talk to your second contact, he is not even going to mention the Hollows. The other one I don't know, haven't tried to be preemptive with that mission. I may try with the scrapper I'm test driving now.

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1) Although a contact might send you to meet a contact in a new zone, after visiting that person, you can go back and continue the mission set you were doing.

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You're probably talking about The Hollows. In fact all you have to do is go there to talk with that guy at soon as you reach lvl 5, that way your lvl 5 is not even going to mention The Hollows.

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Any time you say "I'll" that's "shall"

Profession: English Teacher

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Since we hijacked this thread already, let me ask this: Ins't "shall" more like "will/should"? Instead of "I will"?

I ask because as far as I now one goes by saying: "I shall have to go" or "What shall I do?", instead of "Shall have to go".

Or is exactly that what you mean back there?

Anyways, I usually use "shall" meaning "should", since the knowledge of when to use is as "will" still eludes me.

I'm really asking here, not being a smart aleck (English is my second lenguage)...