Torrynt

It's not quite how I would go about things...

You loose a lot of global recharge with your slotting which you could get in with some minor changes. I want flashfires up as much as possible as well as my AOE epics and AOE holds.

There is no accuracy slotting in Transfusion, and even with your defense you'll get hit. Missing on a heal would really stink. I'd find some way to get Hasten another slot. You want to be fast if you are going to be a farmer. Speed is what defines a good farmer from an average to poor one.

You seem to be slotting for +rec which is good, but leave Hot Feet, your main +END hog with not enough -END. I'd slot for better effects in your powers and try to lesen your main end drag and you'll actually come out better for it.

In heal I'd take the +regen/+recovery over just the +regen. You have a brilliant heal, regen should not be much of a factor for you.

If you are a farming build, you have no reason to take ID or SB. However, you do farm with another toon there is some use for it. Still I'd never take ID on any farming toon ever. I'm much rather have the AOE hold.

Your flashfire is only up every 33 seconds, that should be your opener on every mob. I think you are going to be rather slow if you have to wait for that every time. It goes back to you global recharge being rather low. When hasten is down (abou 20% of the time, and if you haven't hit on Siphon Speed you have a long wait for your main alpha mitigation.

At level 50 I don't know that I'd bother with Siphon Power. It's kind of redundant for a farmer and over slotted for a character with Fulcrum Shift. You can use those slots to gain much more effect for your character.

<<double post>>

Some of this depends if you have enough inf to kit out a toon with IOs. Earth/Kin can do just fine. You have good control, access to damage boosts, can get perma hasten and with the controller epics, access to damage attacks.

Are you concerned that you will stink? I can tell you that you will not.

Can you solo an Earth/Kin, sure. I solo an Earth/Storm and do just fine. With the Epic attacks and some IOs in your powers you'll do fine, just not spectacular when you solo. On a team, you are really valuable as you can contribute controll for every fight.

Certainly there is some benefit in the power in being a slow patch. However, if you have IOed out your character, the Def Debuff is rarely needed. I don't bother to slot nearly anything more than about 40-60% acc bonus... so I'm already not slotting for acc and still capping at 95% hit chance.

Considering that I get +6% from kismet and then another +30-70% from acc bonuses from sets add that to the def debuffs that you are already laying down in powers that have far more control, and I don't see a lot of need for it.

Of course, everyone plays their own style, but I've gone hundreds/thousands of missions and never once thought "I wish I had Quicksand." That to me is the mark of a skippable power. Secondary might play some into it. My Earth is a Stormie, so I have two flop patches as well as multiple stuns. I want everyone locked down with cages and stunned, so quicksand gets the boot.

P.S. I'm not trying to troll on Local, I think he's terrific in terms of helping people and presenting information. You will not go wrong taking his advice. This is nothing more than another POV and how I went about things and my perspectives on this power.

Baslisks isn't that bad. I can routinely get four of them for about 40 million total after buying the rares and crafting costs.

The purple set will set you back about 120mil or so for the confuse set.

Would it be nice to allow some more options for procs or other slotting... to be honest I rarely have quicksand as a power past lvl 20 or so.

After you have a character slotted, how much -Def is really needed? There are so few times that I have anything less than a 95% chance to hit, it just doesn't seem worth it for a slow patch. I miss Ice's -Slow when I play an Earth troller.

Personally, I rarely slot pets with more than 4 or 5 slots. PA would be the exception. I love slotting ST holds with Baslisk's and two +mag hold procs. You get a ~43% chance to one shot a boss on a hold and can do some amazing things to stack mag. Drop the damage in blind, it's really not helping. Plus if you went with Baslisk's here you could drop slots in Stamina and still keep your +rech. 4 slots there with the perf shifter proc is nice which frees up two more slots.

If you need slots elsewhere, RI could go with Dark Watchers despair on four slots and get the same recharge bonus. I wouldn't bother with 6 personally as you are going to have PA out a whole lot. So there's another one-two if you need them.

I like contagious confusion in Decieve. It doesn't come up a ton, but it is nice when it does.

Adding some of those freed up slots to EMPulse would allow you to drop Baslisks in there as well, bumping the AOE hold as well as adding to the +rech of the build.

Otherwise, expensive, but nice.

I love the Ice set. I have Ice/Storm, Ice/Rad, Ice/Emp to 50 as well as other Ice/x leveled to differing points. I'll give my suggestions and some slotting changes that I made.

Overall:
You have quite a lot of global recharge, just enough to get perma hasten with 2 siphon's up. The proc in seismic will help, but while fighting you should be able to keep it going all the time.

What is the goal of the build? Farming, soloing, teaming, ?. That will determine what advice I would give.

You are light on acc bonuses, and your slotting doesn't really help too much in that regard. I don't think it will be a huge issue, but you are going to want those siphons to land and missing them will kind of stink.

Adding some more passive recovery would be a good thing. Even with transference, you will miss and when you do it's going to hurt to loose all those toggles.

Specific:
Ice Slick: I will disagree to some degree with the above poster. Ice Slick is a really over rated power. If you are teaming, odds are someone will drop something on your slick to negate it. High level enemies can resist it. Many AV's ignore it for the most part. So it's value is for large groups of minions and LT's while not teaming. It is a nice opener, hopefully your defense should mitigate enough damage for you to miss it if you are farming. On my characters, I have it on about half of the builds I use, I don't miss it on the others.

Arctic Air: The real gem of the Ice set, it really needs the contagious confusion proc. I can see that you are not looking at purping up. However, that would be one exception that I would make. It's that good in a power that combined with your def should really shine.

Shiver: You don't need it. AA will be fine. Yes, a second slow is nice, but I can see in this build you should be fine without it.

Frostbite: If you can afford to loose the defense, putting three damage procs here can add a ton of much needed damage. Especially pre-epics. I love having it and can farm just about anything using that power.

Kick: I'd drop the slots even if you take a small hit to your def. You can use the slots a lot better elsewhere for a minor reduction in def.

Fissure: I would slot the Posi's set here, you keep the 6.25% recharge and get some much needed damage in the build. I'd go with 2 damage procs, but the recharge proc here will do fine as well.

Block of Ice: Adding in both +2 Mag Hold procs here is wonderful. You get about 45% chance to 1 shot hold a boss. Not a bad deal and more useful here than in the AOE hold which even with your recharge will only be up every 60 seconds or so. It's also nice to have massive mag stacking for AVs.

Earth's Embrace: Stole some slots here to get some passive +regen/recov

So with all that, here's what I would do:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Natural Controller
Primary Power Set: Ice Control
Secondary Power Set: Kinetics
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Stone Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Block of Ice -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), Dev'n-Hold%(37), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(39), Lock-%Hold(39), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(40), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40)
Level 1: Transfusion -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal(5), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Acc-I(7)
Level 2: Frostbite -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(23), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(23), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(29), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(29), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(31)
Level 4: Chilblain -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(17), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(19), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(19), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(21), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(21)
Level 6: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(7), RechRdx-I(9)
Level 8: Arctic Air -- Mlais-Acc/Rchg(A), Mlais-EndRdx/Conf(9), Mlais-Acc/EndRdx(15), Mlais-Dam%(15), Mlais-Acc/Conf/Rchg(17), CoPers-Conf%(46)
Level 10: Siphon Speed -- CtlSpd-Acc/Slow(A), CtlSpd-Dmg/Slow(11), CtlSpd-Acc/EndRdx(11), CtlSpd-Rng/Slow(13), Acc-I(13)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Run-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(34)
Level 18: Kick -- S'ngH'mkr-Acc/Dmg(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), EndMod-I(33), P'Shift-End%(43), EndMod-I(50)
Level 22: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 24: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(25), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(25), RedFtn-Def(27), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(27), LkGmblr-Rchg+(50)
Level 26: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Ksmt-ToHit+(40)
Level 28: Glacier -- BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(A), BasGaze-Acc/Hold(31), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(31), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(34)
Level 30: Speed Boost -- Run-I(A)
Level 32: Jack Frost -- C'Arms-Acc/Rchg(A), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg(33), C'Arms-Dmg/EndRdx(33), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34)
Level 35: Transference -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(36), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(37), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(37)
Level 38: Fulcrum Shift -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 41: Fissure -- Posi-Dam%(A), Posi-Acc/Dmg(42), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(42), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(42), ExStrk-Dam%(43), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43)
Level 44: Rock Armor -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(45), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def(46), LkGmblr-Rchg+(46)
Level 47: Seismic Smash -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(48), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(48), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 49: Earth's Embrace -- RgnTis-Regen+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment

I am playing an Earth/Storm who has just hit 32. It's been a pretty quick and easy ride however, I am eying my lvl50 final build. Currently, I have Stalagtites and Thunderclap. I realized that Thunderclap isn't quite as good. However, I rarely notice anything when it goes off, while stalagtites almost always produces.

Any real love/hate on this power? So far I am underwhemed, but perhaps 3 slots is not enough for it.

On a separate note, has anyone 4 procced freezing rain and did you like it?

I bought CoV so that my son and I could build a base together. I knew that he would love it (being a 6 year old who loves things like that). I realized that with just 2 people we would never have anything flashy. However, I hoped that we would be able to build a small base that might give us some kind of perk.

Then I played with the builder and realized that was never going to happen.

If it were me, I would make the prices for things scaling. You want your first room, it costs X, then the next costs 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, etc. Put those kind of controls in for all of the items and then a small group could build a moderately functional base while a larger one can pull down the resources needed for a truely impressive one.

Another thing to keep in mind is that by making bases so expensive, you are going to disuade people from raiding if they find that they can't keep their bases intact.

I stopped playing somewhere around I4 and reupped to try I5. So far, I have liked the changes. I play controllers mainly and I like the flow of the battles much more. I team where I can and solo when I can't find anyone.

All of my controllers feel much more involved in fights and I don't have to spend half a day trying to kill a boss. My Fire Tank seems to have some issues, but nothing that using the respec won't fix.

So overall, I like the changes, and will be back to stay for some time. Great job and keep up the good work.

Another thank you in what seems to be a long list of thank yous. I am also all for upping what a boss can do especially when it comes to his troops. However, what you are heading towards seems to be a great solution. Thanks again and I love this game!

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That lost mission has been that way, I think Torrynt was just observing an example of the problem of multiple bosses in many missions.

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I was. It was tough enough at 11 and frankly impossible without help. I can't imagine it at 25+ with the boss improvements. However, I was posting more to show that bosses tend to crop up in many missions. That was just the latest one that I ran into.

As long as we are talking specifics to look into. I just ran into Smart Carl. I was playing a lvl 11 blaster. First 2 mobs I ran into were lvl 9 Lost Bosses which could mezz. Thinking this was not a good sign, I made it slowly past them with the liberal use of inspirations.

Then, as I went around, every third group had a boss of gradually increasing level. The worst was a +1 boss which I had to call in a friend since I couldn't get past the mezzing. In the end, smart carl was a lt. which was a joke to say the least.

It's something to look at for sure.

While I only have a 22 as my highest level character, I can point out a few things on the boss changes. This comes from the perspective of a squishy (read: Controller)

(1) Getting one shotted has only happened to me once at 21 in a mission with a group of 24s. A 25 boss saw me, and poof I was dead. I expect this to happen more often.

One of the problems with making bosses tougher than they are now is that if you team, rarely do you go in with everyone at the same level. So if you happen to be the person 1-3 levels lower, the extra boss dificulty basically means more debt. This actually discourages teaming.

(2) AC2 went down this road and it drove away a lot of the population. Be very careful with this type of change. If you make bosses really tough, they will crush the weaker ATs. Then you polarize the community into those that can solo bosses and those that can not. Already there is an envy of the soloability of Scrappers, this type of change will just amplify that.

(3) People don't like forced grouping. I love to group and leave my LFT on all of the time. However, I stayed with this game because if I have 20-30 minutes I can sit down and run a mission whether or not I can find a team. If that changes, I will be quite sad. Finding a team can be a long process some nights.

(4) Finally, I would think that it would be better to make bosses do boss like things. Give them leadership powers and make their minnions tougher. They can be tough themselves, but if they boost the power of the people they are with, they would be just as hard, but not instantly lethal to squishies like myself.

I've played most MMO's, new and old and this one is one of the most fun ones I have found. Thank you very much for being open on what you are doing, and giving us this wonderful sandbox to play in.

I will also go so far as to thank you for still being on the boards given the extreme whines, rants, and complaints that you have to endure.

This is a great game that is only getting better. Thank you kindly.

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1) HP difference still means the higher level hero will almost always win. Others have stated this as well but I think playtesting will be needed to see just how overpowering this is.

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Which is fine. A higher level should win most of the time. However, most is a key word. Also, a higher level hero should not be able to walk through a group of players with the same ease as they do Green minions. A few lvl 20-30's should give a lvl 50 a run for her money.

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2) It's been stated that their chance to hit will be the same as if attacking an opponent of their same level. This seems to make Defense buffs/enhancements overpowered and Resistance buffs/enhancements of little value if you're the lower level hero. I don't see that you can get away from some kind of damage scaling in this approach.

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Why? A 30% debuff is just the same as fighting an even con which is something the game is designed for. Besides, the debuffers need to have a vital role as well.

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I have played many mmorpg with PvP and the players who prefer PvE always out number the PvP by at least 8 to 1.

If you want the majority of the user base to participate in PvP then your going to have to remove the enhernt advantage level makes, as distasteful as that might be to some.

Other wise the PvP groups are going to be really lonely really fast!



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To the first part I disagree. Look at the WoW server pops. The PvP servers are high capacity and the PVE ones are Low. Current pop numbers are about 65% PVP 35% PVE. You have to remeber that there are games that are shedding players that lived on PVP, DAOC, Shadowbane.

Now, to the second point you are dead on. There should be no artificial advantage for level. However, your base power should be sufficient. If your power hits 75% of the time, it should hit 75% of the time against higher or lower level toons. If your power does 150 points of damage, that's what it should do across the board.

Shadowbane had a system like this and it worked very very well. While the game had many other issues, it did have the best balanced PVP of any game on the market. In fact my favorite moment was a group of 8 lvl 20 characters hunting getting jumped by a lvl 50 Channeler. In seconds 1/3 of us were dead, but no one ran and in the end, myself and one other were standing over the dead body of the lvl 50. It was an awesome moment and something that needs to be in this game as well.

The advantages for levels are:
Base damage increase (not based on who you target, but just your base dmg vs an even con)
More powers to choose from for better attack chains
More slots to get your base damage and effects up

1 v 1, a 50 is going to cream a 30 even without the acc and dmg bonus. However, a 50 might have to think twice before jumping into a group of 4 or 5 lvl 30 heroes.