dave_p
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I posted a new guide to Tanker Ice Melee.
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I posted a new guide to Tanker Ice Melee.
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An Offensive Guide to Tanker Ice Melee (written as of I19). V.1.03
Edits
9/22/2010: Added I18 information about Bruising.
3/22/2011: Added stats to the GIS section. Other misc fixes.
1. Introduction
After dispensing much unwanted advice on the forums for more than 6 years now, this will be my first attempt ever at a guide of any sort. Why now and why Ice Melee? And why Offensive? Well, for a while now, it’s been a pet peeve of mine to constantly see the “Ice Melee has bad damage” mantra among the tanker faithful. I’ve posted many rebuttals on these topics, but still, the myth persists, so to set the record straight about just how much offense Ice Melee can output, I thought I’d just write a guide.
First, a bit of history: There was a time, not too long ago, when Ice Melee did in fact deal absolutely sucktastic damage. It was widely regarded to have excellent, if not the best, damage mitigation among all tanker secondaries, but you’d spend about a month trying to whittle down a red boss. Then, due to some impassioned work by many noble Ice Melee tankers (of which I wasn’t really much of a part), the devs granted us much needed buffage, mainly in giving Frozen Aura (FA) a great amount of damage, as well as other minor (and not so minor) buffs, such as extending the range on Frost.
Unfortunately, this change seems to have gone largely unnoticed by many people starting up new tanks who only remember the bad old days when Ice Melee was only known as the “mitigating set.” I will admit that Single Target (ST) damage is still woefully low, and that red boss will still take a long time to put down, but Ice Melee’s Area of Effect (AoE) damage is now among the best that tanks can offer. There have been various analysis by many of the number-crunchers on these boards and one of them by Starsman have found Ice Melee lagging only behind Fiery Melee and Super Strength for AoE effectiveness. Since then, Elec Melee and Kinetic Melee were also introduced, and ELM likely has better AoE capabilities as well, but not mitigation. KM is largely a ST set.
Ice Melee also deals cold damage and has a slow component in most of its attacks, which is one of the less resisted damage types in the game. It also has many pure cold attacks (see each individual power description), which means when facing enemies with high Smashing/Lethal (S/L) defense, your attacks will land as if they had no defense at all. Combined with Ice Melee's excellent mitigation abilities, I think Ice Melee is one of the more effective tanker secondaries we have.
A special note on IO slotting and “Frankenslotting” in particular. You’ll find that term used in this guide and in other places often. If you’re not familiar with it, it simply means to take IOs (and Hami-Os) from different sets not paying attention to set bonuses, but just to maximize your +attribute values. Ice Melee is especially good for this, because for its attacks, you can not only pick and choose from melee or (PB)AoE sets, but also from Taunt (for being a tank) and maybe even Slow sets with the added bonus that those sets are usually dirt cheap on the markets. I have some examples of such Frankenslotting below, but always try to mix and match different things yourself to get the most out of your slots (and influence). For a more detailed explanation, check out Fulmens' mini-guide here.
Some disclaimers and thanks: First, thanks to everyone who gave me some great feedback on the guide. Special thanks to Ice_Ember for his fantastic slotting suggestion of the Taunt IOs in certain attacks. I should point out that this guide is also written with the late game and IOs in mind, though I try to throw in some SO slotting advice here and there. Also, Ice Melee is a bit rough going at first, especially if you’re not using Frost very well, which is why my section on Frost under [3. The Powers] is especially long. A lot of people will point to the fact that Ice Melee is a late blooming set, but frankly, many tanker sets are late blooming. Super Strength doesn’t get its signature power until 38, but it’s well worth the effort, and so too is Ice Melee, except there are ways to make the earlier levels more bearable.
2. Gauging the powers.
First, a table:
Code:These are each attack powers, base damage at lvl 50, their activation times, recharge, end usage, and then two calculations. Damage Per Endurance (DPE) is simply an indication of how “end efficient” a given power is and is the damage divided by the end cost. The higher the number, the less endurance you need to expend for each point of damage dealt. Simple. This number will go up as you both increase the base damage, and decrease the base end usage through slotting, and in fact, if your recovery is high enough, the DPE is largely meaningless, though it might take a long time (and influence) to get to this happy point.Ice Melee Dam Act Rech End DPE DPA Frozen Fists 37.37 1.33 3 4.368 8.56 23.59 Ice Sword 58.72 1.33 6 6.864 8.55 37.07 Frost 72.06 2.27 11 11.024 6.54 28.73 Freezing Touch 74.76 1 16 10.192 7.34 62.93 Gr. Ice Sword 87.2 2.33 10 10.192 8.56 34.77 Frozen Aura 63.2 2.1 20 18.512 3.41 28.16
Damage Per Activation (DPA, the last A is also sometimes used as Animation) is how much damage your attack does during the time it takes to activate… and a little more. You’ll notice that it’s not a straight up division of damage/act time because of something called Arcana-time. That is a topic for another guide (not surprisingly written by Arcanaville)—if you’re curious, please by all means research the topic, but rest assured all the numbers in that table are accurate insofar as City of Data is accurate. DPA is the best measure of how effective an attack is at doing damage. A lot of people also calculate Damage Per Second (DPS) on an individual attack, but I feel this is largely meaningless, since if you have no gaps in your attack chain, all short recharge times do for you is allow you to bring your highest DPA attacks up more frequently. It is with this measure that I will make various recommendations below for what attacks to favor and how to slot them.
The three secondary powers not included above are Taunt, Build Up and Ice Patch, because they deal no damage and have no meaningful DPE/DPA data, but I will take about them in the individual power section.
3. The powers.
Frozen Fists
Melee, Minor DMG(Cold/Smash), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
You get this at level 1. In fact, you’re forced to take it at level 1. I used to wish it weren’t so, because it’s a weak power. How weak? Both Boxing and Air Superiority have higher DPA values, and believe me, they’re not that high. It recharges fast so it’s always up as a filler, and it has a slow component like all of Ice Melee’s attacks.
As of I18, like all other tanker Tier-1 attacks, FF also has a Bruising component which debuffs the attacked critter's damage resistance by 20% for 10 sec, but this debuff does not stack with other Bruising effects other than that 10 sec duration will keep extending. So it's not at all a bad idea to lead with FF then move on to a heavy hitter like Freezing Touch (see below), though I haven't done any hard math into what constitutes an ideal mix. I'm thinking just once every 10 sec, or at least before you pop Freezing Touch is fine.
Slotting: Early on, you’ll likely need this attack as a filler. It’s unfortunate, but also unavoidable. As you gain more attacks, you should try to use this power as little as possible, i.e. every 10 sec or so. You don't need any recharge, because it's already coming up every 3 sec before any slotting or buffs. Accuracy is at a premium since you want to make sure it hits for the debuff. Optionally, slot for IO bonuses if you so desire; I have it 4-slotted with Kinetic Combat for the defense bonuses. 2 or 3 Acc/Dam IOs via Frankenslotting seems to be your best bet. SOs, do 2 Acc, 2 or 3 Dam and call it a day.
I18 Tactics: If you're the only tank, lead and use every 10 sec. If there are other tanks using their Tier-1 powers, you may just skip it altogether, though it's hard to coordinate such tactics.
Ice Sword
Melee, Moderate DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
Available at level 2, it’s no great shakes for DPA either, but you need something in your ST attack chain and this is your bread and butter attack. Take it, slot it, deal with it. Sorry, that’s about as much good as I can say for this power. It’s just not that good, but you don’t have any choice.
Slotting: Standard melee attack slotting: 5 or 6 slot with an IO set of your choice, or 2 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 End redux or Recharge for SO slotting. I have it w/4 Kin Combats and 1 Crushing Impact A/D/R.
Tactics: This should be your filler attack while your heavier hitters are recharging.
Frost
Close (Cone), Moderate DoT(Cold), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
Available at level 4, this is maybe the least understood and most widely skipped power of the set. It’s also your best attack. Read that again. It’s Your Best Attack. Ever. Better than Frozen Aura (FA). Maybe. See the table above—it has a higher DPA per enemy hit and far higher DPE. So if you’re catching the same amount of critters in Frost than FA, Frost wins. You’ll likely catch more in your radius with FA though, so in practice, Frost is not quite as good, but then if you look at their recharge numbers, you’ll also see that Frost is up about twice as much as FA, so for overall contribution to your damage output, Frost is number 1. Don’t believe me? Run Herostats and track each powers’ damage output over the course of several missions. While playstyles will vary output somewhat, you’ll find that Frost has if not the absolute top, very close to the highest output.
So why is Frost so misunderstood? Two reasons come to mind. First, it’s a Damage over Time (DoT). People hate DoTs. They want immediate impact. They also don’t’ want damage “wasted”, as in hitting an enemy with a DoT and seeing someone else (say a blaster or scrapper) finish your opponent while your own DoT is ticking away. Second, it’s a melee cone, and people generally like their AoEs big. Frost is a short cone. It used to be really short, but nowadays, it has a 10’ range, which is extendable to around 15’. It also has a 90 deg arc, which isn’t horribly wide, but not too narrow either. What this means is that with proper slotting and a little practice, it’s trivial to hit 5 or more enemies in 2 to 3 rows in front of you. It take far less skill and practice to hit twice the number of enemies with Frost than say with Shadow Maul or the ubiquitous Sands of Mu. Do by all means increase that range, since it will allow you to hit more critters with your cone. This is very easy without sacrificing damage or accuracy and the like (too much) with IOs.
Take it at 4 when it becomes available. Slot it as a priority. Use it as often as you have 2 or more foes around you, which really should be all the time. Hell, even against a single foe, it’s not a bad option since it’ll outdamage Frozen Fists at least. Even the DPE isn’t all that bad for 1 critter, and of course it leaps in bounds for end efficiency as you add more foes in the area of effect. See Tactics for how to accomplish this.
SO Slotting: SO slotting really should be avoided, but if you must, 2 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 Rech.
Recommended Slotting: Frankenslotting is very good option for Frost as it allows you to increase your Range with many cheap Damage/Range IOs from various sets while getting adequate Acc, Rech and End redux values. At 47, one of the best possible slotting would be 2 Acc/Rech IOs from the Taunt sets (Mocking Beratement and Perfect Zinger) and 1 Rech from the Mocking Beratement set for additional end bonus. Finish off with 3 Dam/Range Centriole Hami-Os (HO) and you’ll find yourself with 53% Acc and (nearly) ED capped Damage, Range and Recharge. Prior to lvl 47, the Dam/Range IO recipes are also very cheap, though less effective than HOs.
My IO Slotting: 5 Posi’s (all but the Dam/End) and 1 Range IO, mostly for the set bonus.
Tactics: If there are just two enemies in range, use Frost in favor of any other attack save Freezing Touch or FA. If there are three, it’s just FA. Learn to group two or more critters in range with your tanking skills, and kill them en masse. Attacking and “arresting” one enemy at a time is maybe the most painful way to play Ice Melee Also, if you have a nice thick group around you, it’s easy to hit 5-10 foes with frost (try just jumping straight up while aiming down, hitting Frost at the apex of your leap), but if you aren’t quite that crowded, you’ll need to maneuver a bit to maximize your cone. It’s well worth the effort to get some practice at this, and as mentioned above it’s really not hard at all. This is especially important early on when endurance is at a premium and your attack chain won’t be complete and you’ll have gaps in which to maneuver around, circle your enemies and lead them to tight chokepoints. Learn to maximize the use of Frost for its damage and end efficiency and the relatively painful early levels of Ice Melee will go a lot more smoothly.
Taunt
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Taunt
Taunt is like every other tanker taunt. Entirely up to you if you want to take/slot it or not. I’m not going to devote any time in this guide to it, other than to say that an an AoE-oriented tank, you may find Taunt less necessary than with a more ST-oriented set like Energy Melee, at least while leveling. Once you get into end game content, you may find Taunt more valuable for the more tricky AV fights and the like.
Build Up
Self +DMG, +To-hit
As in with Taunt, Build Up (BU) is the same as with other tanker BU powers. Take it or not at your leisure. I will say BU + Frost + Frozen Aura is a beautiful thing.
Ice Patch
Location (PBAoE), Foe Knockdown
Ah, glorious Ice Patch. The reason people played Ice Melee for years and years despite having really low damage. This power, available at level 20, is so damn good, I took it before taking Stamina (fortunately, you no longer face this dilemma starting with I19 since you'll already have Stamina as an inherent). Ice Patch (IP) by itself is better than most of your early shields. In fact, when I’d run low on endurance on my Ice Melee tank, I’d just turn my shields off, cast IP and swing away in relative safety.
What’s it do? It Knocks Down (KD) up to 5 foes in its relatively small, 10’ radius. It’s more than enough though if you’ve properly gathered your foes around you. And even though it only technically knocks down 5 critters at a time, with its fast pulsing and the fact that while one critter is getting to its feet, it may well knock down another, you can actually “control” more than 5 at one time. Best of all, it needs almost no slotting since with just one recharge, it’ll come back in time to keep it more or less perma.
Slotting: 1 Recharge SO or generic IO.
Tactics: Use and use often. Use on choke points, around corners, near objects to protect, etc. Good for team surivival away from you too; if your foes are scattered to the four winds, you can gather to one spot some enemies, “hold” them there with an IP and move to another group to aggro. Beware, the KD will turn into Knock Back (KB) on certain enemies and those who Con low to you. Similarly, stacking IP may also KB even cons and above.
Freezing Touch
Melee, High DoT(Cold), Foe Hold
Another somewhat misunderstood power. This is not a hold that does damage. This is your Best Single Target (ST) Attack… that happens to hold. See the table again. It’s not only IM’s best ST attack, it’s one of the best ST attacks among all tanker attacks. Only Energy Transfer, Seismic Smash and KO Blow have higher DPA values. Freezing Touch (FT) has higher DPA than Incinerate or Greater Fire Sword!
So what’s the problem? Well, FT is another DoT power so it doesn’t seem all that damaging on first glance. Also, let’s face it, its animation (along with that of Frost) aren’t all that impressive, especially compared to something like KO Blow. And I should point out, there are benefits to “Burst” damage where a given power (or short chain of powers) do a whole lot of damage at once regardless of the activation time. If Ice Melee had a 2nd high DPA attack to chain with FT, I’d say its burst potential would be fantastic, but alas, we don’t, and FT by itself won’t quite pack the same punch as some of the aforementioned big hitters, even though it animates quicker and you can be well on your way into another attack in the same timeframe.
Also, it’s a hold. People get distracted by that or are tempted to slot to maximize its mitigation potential. To that I say… Frankenslot! The same 2 Acc/Rech Taunt IOs from Frost, a Mako’s Acc/End/Rech and 3 Peroxes gives FT 74% Acc and Rech, 21% End redux and (near) ED capped Damage and Hold values. Even at lower levels, there's no reason to eschew damage in favor of holds since you can do both if you're willing to delve into IOs and frankenslotting.
I should also mention that because it also holds, its DPE is a bit lower than normal, so you should also keep that in mind when slotting. Depending on your recovery, you might want to consider extra End redux in the mix than what’s above.
SO Slotting: If you absolutely must, I'd go 2 Acc, 3 Dam and 1 End redux, with a Hold SO in favor of one of the 6 slots at your preference. Remeber, this is one of your best attacks.
My Slotting: 4 Kin Combat, 1 Perox HO, 1 Unbreakable Constraint (Purple) Acc/Hold/Rech, again for the IO bonus more than anything.
Tactics: This is your heavy hitter. Use it as you would any other big attack, which is to say early and often. If you have an epic hold (Char, Block of Ice), stack to hold bosses. Use on Sappers and other potentially dangerous foes. Remember that it’s a DoT so if you tag an opponent with only a little life left after the 1st tick, just let it go and the following ticks will finish it. Some practice and you’ll be able to gauge when this applies.
Greater Ice Sword
Melee, High DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
The “heavy hitter” of the set that’s really not. Again, see the table above. Its DPA is laughably low, especially for a late, heavy power. It’s lower than Ice Sword, for goodness sakes. By way of comparison, Greater Fire Sword does almost twice the damage in the same activation period and Seismic Smash does even more damage and faster to boot! To emphasize how much GIS sucks, let's compare it to other tanker heavy hitters (including FT):
That is absolutely hideous. GIS is a totally skippable power, and in fact, I heartily encourage you to do so. Both Ice Blast and Fire Blast in the epic pools have higher DPA values and recharge faster (Fire Blast has a higher DPE too). There is zero reason to use GIS over either of those two powers since you only need to wait a few extra levels to pick up your Epic blast.Code:Attack Name Dam Act DPA Greater Ice Sword 87.2 2.33 34.77 vs. Greater Fire Sword 144.15 2.33 57.48 Incinerate 111.2 1.67 60.17 Freezing Touch 74.76 1 62.93 KO Blow 158.38 2.23 66.66 Energy Transfer 202.87 2.67 69.86 Clobber 129.91 1.23 89.47 Seismic Smash 158.38 1.5 92.30
Frozen Aura
PBAoE, Moderate DMG(Cold), Foe Sleep
Ah, finally, our very own Foot Stomp (FS). Yes folks, FA now does Foot Stomp damage, albeit without Rage to back it up, but hey, we get Build Up. Oh, it’s a sleep. I don’t care about sleeps. I know there are those of you that like the sleep aspect of this power, and can leverage it to good ends. You don’t need me to tell you how to do that. Just make sure that if you do want to use the sleep aspect of this power, not to pick a primary with a damage aura (Fire, Ice (optional, I guess), Dark, Stone), because they’ll just get woken up a 1/2 second after being slept. Also, don’t use on top of Ice Patch which will also wake stuff up.
Anyway, it’s a great PBAoE (Player Based AoE) that does impressive cold damage in a 10’ radius around you (if you’re used to FS, it’s a smaller radius than FS’s 15’). Use in conjunction with Frost and maybe Build Up, it’ll quickly kill most minions around you and put a serious hurt on Lts. 5/6 slot it fast and use it and love it. Straightforward, really.
My Slotting: Old: 6 Obliterations. New: 3 Eradications, 3 Cleaving Blows for the E/N defense. You can also Frankenslot to your liking. I highly advise against slotting for sleep, even if you’re tempted to slot the (relatively) cheap purple Sleep set. FA does far too much damage to waste its potential as an attack.
Tactics: Er, use, and use a lot.
4. Tactics, builds and other thoughts.
So as I’ve repeatedly stated, Ice Melee is terrible at ST damage, but great at AoE. So how do you leverage this? Well, for one thing, don’t fight single foes. Choose something like -1/x8, No Bosses, for your mission settings to increase spawn size. The x8 may be too much early in your career, so build towards that. If the -1 is too easy, well, crank it up to what you're comfortable, but the key is the x8 modifier.
When you do fight bosses and other hard targets, your ST attacks should be saved for the bosses so that as you whittle down the minions and Lts with your AoEs, your ST attacks also take down the boss at around the same rate. This is fairly basic fighting tactics for any ST & AoE mixed damage dealing, but IM really needs to pay attention and not waste a FT attack on a mere minion, unless it’s to hold something dangerous.
As for attack chains and builds and such, they really depend so much on your primary and epic selections, global recharge and other factors so I hesitate to say too much in this guide other than to generalize. So… some generalizations:
Attack chains should lead with FT (for FF for Bruising), incorporate an Epic Blast and Ice Sword as your ST fillers, but more to the point, try always to hit 2 or more foes with Frost (see the Frost section again). Really, avoid using Frozen Fists other than for Bruising and you shouldn’t even have GIS to rely on.
Good primary combos are Ice (slow and more slows), Fire (BU + FE + Burn + FA + Ice Patch = So Much Win) and Stone (biased, since that’s what I run, but this really is the ultimate in toughness). Really though, any primary combo can work well. Invul, WP & Shields all have playstyles that cater to gathering many foes around you, which is where Ice Melee is most effective. Dark can also mix Cloak of Fear and Ice Patch for some serious PBAoE mitigation.
As for epic pools, I really like Pyre & Arctic Mastery, not only for their very effective AoEs, but for their ST holds that you can select at 41 that you can stack with FT. Earth gives you a hold, but not til later, and it and Energy offer very little in the way of added damage, esp the ST variety which IM needs. Ice Blast, Fire Blast and Ring of Fire all offer better ST DPA values than all but Freezing Touch in IM’s arsenal, sad as that sounds (Char and Chilblain don’t fall too far behind either). I’m particularly fond of Arctic since it matches the theme nicely, and combined with Frost & Ice Patch, you can make sure most things stay within the radius of Ice Storm for its duration, which does more damage than Fireball, though it recharges slower. Having said that, sometimes it’s very good to have mixed damage types; for example if you’re faced with foes with heavy cold resistance or damage. As rare as they might be, they exist and you might want a nice Fireball to throw in their direction.
Since I haven't played villains much, I can't comment on the Patron Power Pools.
5. Conclusion.
I hope that this guide both encourages new tankers to try out Ice Melee, and with a more offensive mindset than before. I also hope that maybe some old school Ice Melee tanks who’ve shelved their tanks as low damage failures will give them a new chance. And if you’re going to play Ice Melee, please for Positron’s sake, give Frost a try. Happy (offensive) gaming. -
I was wondering why I never tried hopping w/Frost and went to practice it on my Stone/Ice. Then I realized why.... I'm Stone/Ice. Can't jump in Rooted or Granite. ><
I'll put that in the guide for the final draft and stick the whole thing it in the Guides section and link it in back over here. I've never liked cones from above to be honest w/you--the z-axis always seems very flat when I do it on my blasters & defenders and I like keeping it on a 2-D plane to better control what mobs I'm hitting, but for Frost (was taking on grey cons that weren't gonna mez me, cuz you know, that'd be embarrassing), hopping seemed to work nicely. Prolly work even better if I had CJ +Hurdle to jump higher. Stone's, just screwed tho, cuz most Stonies take Swift, don't bother w/CJ, and even if they did, you can't fight out of something that roots you & detoggles CJ to boot. I still think with practice, you can catch more w/a flat plane, but then you lose time during maneuvering too, and sometimes, like when you're surrounded, you can't move. -
Your def numbers look good enough that they'll make a significant difference in your incoming damage. I like S/L def over Melee on Fire/Fire scrappers myself (S/L w/layered Ranged if possible on Fire, WP, Dark; positionals on SD, SR). Most damage in the game have some S/L component in it and I find unless you can cap all 3 positions, S/L gives you more bang for the buck. Both my Fire scrapper & tank have capped S/L def and they're very hard to kill other than from Psi (for whom I have Ranged def, but that doesn't always work).
I used to rely heavily on Consume on my Fire tank for years, but it was never up often enough, even w/max IO'ed slotting, for it to be reliable. I slotted so that I wouldn't need Consume in the first place and was much happier for it. Never even took it on my scrapper. -
Good luck, Silverado!
You should measure your pylon time. Looks like you have Fire epic so I'm assuming you'll be faster than my Fire/Rad (5:38 w/ Psi epic). My record on test, after switching over the Ice epic, is like 4:10, though I could prolly go faster if I also took Bonfire. Of course Bonfire is useless on GMs and any AVs that run around (who you usually can't immob). -
Quote:Why would you use GIS instead of IS as a gap filler? In fact, FF & Kick should be endlessly be spammable (whether you want to or not is a different story altogether). If you have Ice Blast, FT > IS > IB > FF > IS > FF > IB should be a very attainable ST chain.Originally Posted by TheEmbroiler
While Greater Ice Sword is, indeed, a pretty worthless attack by the DPA-focused criteria you've set up, I get a great deal of use out of it on my Shields/Ice tanker owing to its acceptable DPE and naturally high accuracy. My attack chain looks kind of out of place on a tanker to begin with and would look better on a brute, consisting as it does mostly of Frozen Fists, Kick (which I've got for set purposes), and Ice Blast. Now and then there's a recharge hole I can fill with GIS, particularly after Freezing Touch, and that's all I really need it to do. -
Quote:No offense, and I'm not a big fan of chat-speak either, but there was nothing in Titan's post that was particularly difficult to read, or not very standard shorthand for this board. I suppose if you're new to the CoH forums, you might find it confusing, but that's really more on you to figure out, or ask, instead of criticizing another's posting style.Originally Posted by Myramani
TitanMan, this isn't twitter. Take your time and use real words, so the reader doesn't need a dictionary to figure out what you said.Quote:
Originally Posted by TitanMan View Post
MA is my favorite power in the game. I PvP on an MA/Regen, and it is amazing! Especially during a 1v1 against a WP Brute. It is hard for him to build fury when TK and EC are dropping hit RttC so fast he only has time to keep clicking it back on. lol I love it! -
WP has excellent recovery. Stone has very good (for tanks) ST damage. Tanks are survivable enough to stand in front of most AVs indefinitely, so really the question is, can you output enough DPS and for long enough? In that regard, WP/Stone is a very good combination for AV soloing. It'll still take a long time, esp compared to scrappers or controllers (or well built blasters/defenders).
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Quote:Just a side note: Defense is "better" than Resistance in CoX, cuz if an attack misses entirely, any side effects are also avoided. Also, the def cap is higher than the res cap (this is especially true for scrappers). Statistically, 40% def is the same as 90% res in the long run. Having said all that, variability is also higher with defense in the short run, i.e. a lucky hit or 3 can bring you down faster than you can recover, so from a consistancy point of view, res is better than def. Also, higher cons and higher ranked mobs have higher to hit multipliers (e.g. an even con AV has a 1.5 to hit multiplier, so even at def cap, it'll have a 7.5% chance of hitting you). Still, all in all, def tends to be more effective in CoX. Of course, having both are better than either alone.Originally Posted by Rylas_Prime
Agreed. Some people prefer resist, some prefer defense. In my experience, defense is superior. It's just an opinion, but it's the one I go for. If there's anything better, it would be layered mitigation. This build isn't for soloing AVs, so with a decent team, there should be enough support to survive anything that makes it through the defense and resist. And of course, there's always Unstoppable.
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Quote:Why would green man carry puny manhole cover? Green man get hurt, but Green man get better fast. You no hurt Green man for long. Maybe you confused with puny man with wings on head? Puny man sleeping now for long time. Green man sad.Originally Posted by Shannon_EU
Handclap is pretty low on many peoples lists but perhaps not to those Shield/SS tankers who are only wearing torn purple pants, are green all over and carrying a manhole cover.
Onto toe-pick. Green man want to clap hands strong. Green man wants pow to lots of bad men, but friends get mad when Green man goes pow with hands. Green man not have many friends. Green man stop clapping hands. Green man stomp instead. Stomping fun. -
First off, thanks for all the feedback. Some very good points in there, and even the ones I didn't agree with, I carefully considered to try to give the best, balanced view of the topic. Unfortunately, the guide was starting to grow out of hand and after adding a lot more than what's above, I trimmed back quite a bit too. Some individual responses:
Aett:
Quote:Good point and noted in the guide. I did already point out it's a DoT, but added another blurb about not wasting the ticks.1) DPA on Frozen Touch.
You compare this power to other set's heavy hitters, and mention that its DPA is better than things like Greater Fire Sword and Incinerate. This is technically true. However, we also need to keep in mind that FT's activation is 1 second, which is why the DPA is so high...
Actually, you should use procs in fast animating attacks. Since FF animates at the same speed as IS, they're both equally valid for procs, which is to say not very, IMO. As for the % given by each proc, that a proc benefits FF more than other powers just says FF's base damage is crap.Quote:2) Frozen Fists
I used this attack to hold some damage Procs, since it can take three...
Agreed, and I added a blurb about why I use Posi's, which is to say for the set bonus. For just the power, Ice_Ember's suggestion was the best, and I used it.Quote:3) Frost
I've found that Frankenslotting this to get more range, in addition to good damage, EndRed, and Recharge has helped me a lot. While the Posi set is good, Frankenslotting, IMO, is the best way to get the most bang for the buck on this power.
Done.Quote:4) Ice Patch
May just want to add in your note at the bottom of this power that if you stack the power (put two Ice Patches on top of each other), it can turn into KB as well, since the two KD effects could hit at the same time.
Good point. I talked about the Cold damage, but forgot what that meant for mob S/L defenses. Added.Quote:5) Damage types
Cold is one of the least-resisted damage types in the game.
Add to this the fact that Frost, Frozen Touch, and Frozen Aura are pure cold attacks. This means, that if you come across things that have Defense against Smashing or Lethal damage, these attacks will still hit as often as ever against them while your other attacks wiff. That can help a lot in certain fights and against certain critters.
Thanks for the kind words too!
Ice_Ember:
That's just a fantastic idea! I keep forgetting to look at the Taunt sets for tanker attacks (not to mention Slow sets). In fact, I prolly should revisit all my tanks to see if I can improve on them any.Quote:The slotting I use for Frost are two Acc/Rech (taunt sets) one rech (taunt set for additional endurance bonus) and three dam/range HO's.
Overall, this is a very nice write up on Ice Melee. Nicely done.
And again, thanks so much for the kind words!
Sorciere:
You and I will never completely see eye to eye on the importance of end and DPE vs straight up DPA. However, I did include a paragraph about the early game, and other bits here and there about DPE importance (and when it's not). Same for Frozen Fists' use in the early game--totally valid criticism there and I should've included that in the first place.
On this, I couldn't disagree more. A control heavy team shouldn't need the tank to provide more hold mags. And the point is moot since you can easily max out, or nearly, both damage and hold values, even before HOs, and I advocate just that. Not slotting FT for damage is the 2nd biggest (and prolly most common) mistake you can make in IM, the first being not taking Frost.Quote:As a different suggestion, control-heavy team builds can benefit from slotting Frozen Touch as a perma-hold (to be stacked at level 41+ with an epic hold). Single target damage on a team is likely to be less beneficial than the control aspect of the power. -
Thanks for everyone who's given me some great feedback. Here's a revised (1.01) version:
Dave’s Guide to Ice Melee (effective as of I15). V.1.01
1. Introduction
After dispensing much unwanted advice on the forums for more than 5 years now, this will be my first attempt ever at a guide of any sort. Why now and why Ice Melee? Well, for a while now, it’s been a pet peeve of mine to constantly see the “Ice Melee has bad damage” mantra among the tanker faithful. I’ve posted many rebuttals on these topics, but still, the myth persists, so to set the record straight, I thought I’d just write a guide.
First, a bit of history: There was a time, not too long ago, when Ice Melee did in fact deal absolutely sucktastic damage. It was widely regarded to have excellent, if not the best, damage mitigation among all tanker secondaries, but you’d spend about a month trying to whittle down a red boss. Then, due to some impassioned work by many noble Ice Melee tankers (of which I wasn’t really much of a part), the devs granted us much needed buffage, mainly in giving Frozen Aura (FA) a great amount of damage, as well as other minor (and not so minor) buffs, such as extending the range on Frost.
Unfortunately, this change seems to have gone largely unnoticed by many people starting up new tanks who only remember the bad old days when Ice Melee was only known as the “mitigating set.” I will admit that Single Target (ST) damage is still woefully low, and that red boss will still take a long time to put down, but Ice Melee’s Area of Effect (AoE) damage is now among the best that tanks can offer. There have been various analysis by many of the number-crunchers on these boards and one of them by Starsman have found Ice Melee lagging only behind Fiery Melee and Super Strength for AoE effectiveness. Ice Melee also deals cold damage and has a slow component in most of its attacks. It also has many pure cold attacks (see each individual power description), which means when facing enemies with high Smashing/Lethal (S/L) defense, your attacks will land as if they had no defense at all. Combined with Ice Melee's excellent mitigation abilities, I think Ice Melee is one of the more effective tanker secondaries we have.
A special note on IO slotting and “Frankenslotting” in particular. You’ll find that term used in this guide and in other places often. If you’re not familiar, it simply means to take IOs (and Hami-Os) from different sets, not paying attention to set bonuses, but just to maximize your +attribute values. Ice Melee is especially good for this, because for its attacks, you can not only pick and choose from melee or (PB)AoE sets, but also from Taunt (for being a tank) and maybe even Slow sets with the added bonus that those sets are usually dirt cheap on the markets. I have some examples of such Frankenslotting below, but always try to mix and match different things yourself to get the most out of your slots (and influence).
Some disclaimers and thanks: First, thanks to everyone who gave me some great feedback on the guide. Special thanks to Ice_Ember for his fantastic slotting suggestion of the Taunt IOs in certain attacks. I should point out that this guide is also written with the late game and IOs in mind, though I try to throw in some SO slotting advice here and there. Also, Ice Melee is a bit rough going at first, especially if you’re not using Frost very well, which is why my section on Frost under [3. The Powers] is especially long. A lot of people will point to the fact that Ice Melee is a late blooming set, but frankly, many tanker sets are late blooming. Super Strength doesn’t get its signature power until 38, but it’s well worth the effort, and so too is Ice Melee, except there are ways to make the earlier levels more bearable.
2. Gauging the powers.
First, a table:
Code:These are each attack powers, base damage at lvl 50, their activation times, recharge, end usage, and then two calculations. Damage Per Endurance (DPE) is simply an indication of how “end efficient” a given power is and is the damage divided by the end cost. The higher the number, the less endurance you need to expend for each point of damage dealt. Simple. This number will go up as you both increase the base damage, and decrease the base end usage through slotting, and in fact, if your recovery is high enough, the DPE is largely meaningless, though it might take a long time (and influence) to get to this happy point.Ice Melee Dam Act Rech End DPE DPA Frozen Fists 37.37 1.33 3 4.368 8.56 23.59 Ice Sword 58.72 1.33 6 6.864 8.55 37.07 Frost 72.06 2.27 11 11.024 6.54 28.73 Freezing Touch 74.76 1 16 10.192 7.34 62.93 Gr. Ice Sword 87.2 2.33 10 10.192 8.56 34.77 Frozen Aura 63.2 2.1 20 18.512 3.41 28.16
Damage Per Activation (DPA, the last A is also sometimes used as Animation) is how much damage your attack does during the time it takes to activate… and a little more. You’ll notice that it’s not a straight up division of damage/act time because of something called Arcana-time. That is a topic for another guide (not surprisingly written by Arcanaville)—if you’re curious, please by all means research the topic, but rest assured, all the numbers in that table are accurate insofar as City of Data is accurate. DPA is the best measure of how effective an attack is at doing damage. A lot of people also calculate Damage Per Second (DPS) on an individual attack, but I feel this is largely meaningless, since if you have no gaps in your attack chain, all short recharge times do for you is allow you to bring your highest DPA attacks up more frequently. It is with this measure that I will make various recommendations below for what attacks to favor and how to slot them.
The three secondary powers not included above are Taunt, Build Up and Ice Patch, because they deal no damage and have no meaningful DPE/DPA data, but I will take about them in the individual power section.
3. The powers.
Frozen Fists
Melee, Minor DMG(Cold/Smash), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
You get this at level 1. In fact, you’re forced to take it at level 1. I wished it wasn’t so, because it’s a weak power. How weak? Both Boxing and Air Superiority have higher DPA values, and believe me, they’re not that high. It recharges fast so it’s always up as a filler, and it has a slow component like all of Ice Melee’s attacks. Also, like all other Ice Melee attacks, it does partial cold damage which is very rarely resisted in the game.
Slotting: Early on, you’ll likely need this attack as a filler. It’s unfortunately, but also unavoidable. As you gain more attacks, you should try to use this power as little as possible, and eventually respec out of the slots entirely, or just slot for IO bonuses. I have it 4-slotted with Kinetic Combat for the defense bonuses.
Tactics: Try to use it as little as possible.
Ice Sword
Melee, Moderate DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
Available at level 2, it’s no great shakes for DPA either, but you need something in your ST attack chain and this is your bread and butter attack. Take it, slot it, deal with it. Sorry, that’s about as much good as I can say for this power. It’s just not that good, but you don’t have any choice.
Slotting: Standard melee attack slotting: 5 or 6 slot with an IO set of your choice, or 2 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 End redux or Recharge for SO slotting. I have it w/4 Kin Combats and 1 Crushing Impact A/D/R.
Tactics: This should be your filler attack while your heavier hitters are recharging.
Frost
Close (Cone), Moderate DoT(Cold), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
Available at level 4, this is maybe the least understood and most widely skipped power of the set. It’s also your best attack. Read that again. It’s Your Best Attack. Ever. Better than Frozen Aura (FA). Maybe. See the table above—it has a higher DPA per enemy hit and far higher DPE. So if you’re catching the same amount of critters in Frost than FA, Frost wins. You’ll likely catch more in your radius with FA though, so in practice, Frost is not quite as good, but then if you look at their recharge numbers, you’ll also see that Frost is up about twice as much as FA, so for overall contribution to your damage output, Frost is number 1. Don’t believe me? Run Herostats and track each powers’ damage output over the course of several missions. While playstyles will vary output somewhat, you’ll find that Frost has if not the absolute top, very close to the highest output.
So why is Frost so misunderstood? Two reasons come to mind. First, it’s a Damage over Time (DoT). People hate DoTs. They want immediate impact. They also don’t’ want damage “wasted”, as in hitting an enemy with a DoT and seeing someone else (say a blaster or scrapper) finish your opponent while your own DoT is ticking away. Second, it’s a melee cone, and people generally like their AoEs big. Frost is a short cone. It used to be really short, but nowadays, it has a 10’ range, which is extendable to around 15’. It also has a 90 deg arc, which isn’t horribly wide, but not too narrow either. What this means is that with proper slotting and a little practice, it’s trivial to hit 5 or more enemies in 2 to 3 rows in front of you. It take far less skill and practice to hit twice the number of enemies with Frost than say with Shadow Maul or the ubiquitous Sands of Mu. Do by all means increase that range, since it will allow you to hit more critters with your cone. This is very easy without sacrificing damage or accuracy and the like (too much) with IOs.
Take it at 4 when it becomes available. Slot it as a priority. Use it as often as you have 2 or more foes around you, which really should be all the time. Hell, even against a single foe, it’s not a bad option since it’ll outdamage Frozen Fists at least. Even the DPE isn’t all that bad for 1 critter, and of course it leaps in bounds for end efficiency as you add more foes in the area of effect. See Tactics for how to accomplish this.
SO Slotting: SO slotting really should be avoided, but if you must, 2 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 Rech.
Recommended Slotting: Frankenslotting is very good option for Frost as it allows you to increase your Range with many cheap Damage/Range IOs from various sets while getting adequate Acc, Rech and End redux values. At 47, one of the best possible slotting would be 2 Acc/Rech IOs from the Taunt sets (Mocking Beratement and Perfect Zinger) 1 Rech from the Mocking Beratement set for additional end bonus. Finish off with 3 Dam/Range Centriole Hami-Os and you’ll find yourself with 53% Acc and (nearly) ED capped Damage, Range and Recharge.
My IO Slotting: 5 Posi’s (all but the Dam/End) and 1 Range IO, mostly for the set bonus.
Tactics: If there are just two enemies in range, use Frost in favor of any other attack save Freezing Touch or FA. If there are three, it’s just FA. Learn to group two or more critters in range with your tanking skills, and kill them en masse. Attacking and “arresting” one enemy at a time is maybe the most painful way to play Ice Melee Also, if you have a nice thick group around you, it’s easy to hit 5-10 foes with frost, but if you aren’t quite that crowded, you’ll need to maneuver a bit to maximize your cone. It’s well worth the effort to get some practice at this, and as mentioned above it’s really not hard at all. This is especially important early on when endurance is at a premium and your attack chain won’t be complete and you’ll have gaps in which to maneuver around, circle your enemies and lead them to tight chokepoints. Learn to maximize the use of Frost for its damage and end efficiency and the relatively painful early levels of Ice Melee will go a lot more smoothly.
Taunt
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Taunt
Taunt like every other tanker taunt. Entirely up to you if you want to take/slot it or not. I’m not going to devote any time in this guide to it.
Build Up
Self +DMG, +To-hit
As in with Taunt, Build Up (BU) is the same as with other tanker BU powers. Take it or not at your leisure.
Ice Patch
Location (PBAoE), Foe Knockdown
Ah, glorious Ice Patch. The reason people played Ice Melee for years and years despite having really low damage. This power, available at level 20, is so damn good, I took it before taking Stamina. Ice Patch (IP) by itself is better than most of your early shields. In fact, when I’d run low on endurance on my Ice Melee tank, I’d just turn my shields off, cast IP and swing away in relative safety.
What’s it do? It Knocks Down (KD) up to 5 foes in its relatively small, 10’ radius. It’s more than enough though if you’ve properly gathered your foes around you. And even though it only technically knocks down 5 critters at a time, with its fast pulsing and the fact that while one critter is getting to its feet, it may well knock down another, you can actually “control” more than 5 at one time. Another good usage is if your foes are scattered to the four winds, you can gather to one spot some enemies, “hold” them there with an IP and move to another group to aggro. Best of all, it needs almost no slotting since with just one recharge, it’ll come back in time to keep it more or less perma.
Slotting: 1 Recharge SO or generic IO.
Tactics: Use and use often. Beware, the KD will turn into Knock Back (KB) on certain enemies and those who Con low to you. Similarly, stacking IP may also KB even cons and above.
Freezing Touch
Melee, High DoT(Cold), Foe Hold
Another somewhat misunderstood power. This is not a hold that does damage. This is your Best Single Target (ST) Attack… that happens to hold. See the table again. It’s not only IM’s best ST attack, it’s one of the best ST attacks among all tanker attacks. Only Energy Transfer, Seismic Smash and KO Blow have higher DPA values. Freezing Touch (FT) has higher DPA than Incinerate or Greater Fire Sword!
So what’s the problem? Well, FT is another DoT power so it doesn’t seem all that damaging on first glance. Also, let’s face it, its animation (along with that of Frost) aren’t all that impressive, especially compared to something like KO Blow. And I should point out, there are benefits to “Burst” damage where a give power (or short chain of powers) do a whole lot of damage at once regardless of the activation time. If Ice Melee had a 2nd high DPA attack to chain with FT, I’d say its burst potential would be fantastic, but alas, we don’t, and FT by itself won’t quite pack the same punch as some of the aforementioned big hitters, even though it animates quicker and you can be well on your way into another attack in the same timeframe.
Also, it’s a hold. People get distracted by that or are tempted to slot to maximize its mitigation potential. To that I say… Frankenslot! The same 2 Acc/Rech Taunt IOs from Frost, a Mako’s Acc/End/Rech and 3 Peroxes gives FT 74% Acc and Rech, 21% End redux and (near) ED capped Damage and Hold values.
I should also mention that because it also holds, its DPE is a bit lower than normal, so you should also keep that in mind when slotting. Depending on your recovery, you might want to consider extra End redux in the mix than what’s above.
My Slotting: 4 Kin Combat, 1 Perox HO, 1 Unbreakable Constraint (Purple) Acc/Hold/Rech, again for the IO bonus more than anything.
Tactics: This is your heavy hitter. Use it as you would any other big attack, which is to say early and often. If you have an epic hold (Char, Block of Ice), stack to hold bosses. Use on Sappers and other potentially dangerous foes. Remember that it’s a DoT so if you tag an opponent with only a little life left after the 1st tick, just let it go and the following ticks will finish it. Some practice and you’ll be able to gauge when this applies.
Greater Ice Sword
Melee, High DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe -Recharge, -SPD
The “heavy hitter” of the set that’s really not. Again, see the table above. Its DPA is laughably low, especially for a late, heavy power. It’s lower than Ice Sword, for goodness sakes. By way of comparison, Greater Fire Sword does almost twice the damage in the same activation period and Seismic Smash does even more damage and faster to boot! This is a totally skippable power, and in fact, I heartily encourage you to do so. Both Ice Blast and Fire Blast in the epic pools have higher DPS values and are recharge faster (Fire Blast has a higher DPE too). There is zero reason to use GIS over either of those two powers since you only need to wait a few extra levels to pick up your Epic blast.
Frozen Aura
PBAoE, Moderate DMG(Cold), Foe Sleep
Ah, finally, our very own Foot Stomp. Yes folks, FA now does Foot Stomp damage, albeit without Rage to back it up, but hey, we get Build Up. Oh, it’s a sleep. I don’t care about sleeps. I know there are those of you that like the sleep aspect of this power, and can leverage it to good ends. You don’t need me to tell you how to do that. Just make sure that if you do want to use the sleep aspect of this power, not to pick a primary with a damage aura (Fire, Ice (optional, I guess), Dark, Stone), because they’ll just get woken up a 1/2 second after being slept. Also, don’t use on top of Ice Patch which will also wake stuff up.
Anyway, it’s a great PBAoE (Player Based AoE) that does impressive cold damage in a 10’ radius around you (if you’re used to FS, it’s a smaller radius than FS’s 15’). Use in conjunction with Frost and maybe Build Up, it’ll quickly kill most minions around you and put a serious hurt on Lts. 5/6 slot it fast and use it and love it. Straightforward, really.
My Slotting: 6 Obliterations. You can also Frankenslot to your liking. I highly advise against slotting for sleep, even if you’re tempted to slot the (relatively) cheap purple Sleep set. FA does far too much damage to waste its potential as an attack.
Tactics: Er, use, and use a lot.
4. Tactics, builds and other thoughts.
So as I’ve repeatedly stated, Ice Melee is terrible at ST damage, but great at AoE. So how do you leverage this? Well, for one thing, don’t fight single foes. Choose your missions and select the even numbered difficulties to increase spawn size rather than just making them difficult. If you only see 2 or 3 in a spawn, lead them to the next spawn and fight them together. Herd! Yes, that’s a dirty word these days, and not always efficient (in fact, usually not), but it can still work in many instance.
Better yet, just team a lot, and bigger the better. On big teams, you’ll get large spawn sizes that you’ll be able to mow down with Frost and FA. During these fights, your ST attacks should be saved for the bosses so that as you whittle down the minions and Lts with your AoEs, your ST attacks also take down the boss at around the same rate. This is fairly basic fighting tactics for any ST & AoE mixed damage dealing, but IM really needs to pay attention and not waste a FT attack on a mere minion, unless it’s to hold something dangerous.
As for attack chains and builds and such, they really depend so much on your primary and epic selections, I hesitate to add them to the guide other than to generalize. So… some generalizations:
Attack chains should lead with FT, incorporate an Epic Blast and Ice Sword as your ST fillers, but more to the point, try always to hit 2 or more foes with Frost (see the Frost section again). Really, avoid using Frozen Fists and you shouldn’t even have GIS to rely on.
Good primary combos are Ice (slow and more slows), Fire (Burn + Ice Patch = Win) and Stone (biased, since that’s what I run, but this really is the ultimate in toughness). Really though, any primary combo can work well. Invul, WP & Shields all have playstyles that cater to gathering many foes around you, which is where Ice Melee is most effective. Dark can also mix Cloak of Fear and Ice Patch for some serious PBAoE mitigation.
As for epic pools, I really like Pyre & Arctic Mastery, not only for their very effective AoEs, but for their ST holds that you can select at 41 that you can stack with FT. Earth gives you a hold, but not til later, and it and Energy offer very little in the way of added damage, esp the ST variety, which IM needs. Ice Blast, Fire Blast and Ring of Fire all offer better ST DPA values than all but Freezing Touch in IM’s arsenal, sad as that sounds (Char and Chilblain don’t fall too far behind either). I’m particularly fond of Arctic since it matches the theme nicely, and combined with Frost & Ice Patch, you can make sure most things stay within the radius of Ice Storm for its duration, which does more damage than Fireball, though it recharges slower. Having said that, sometimes it’s very good to have mixed damage types; for example if you’re faced with foes with heavy cold resistance or damage. As rare as they might be, they exist and you might want a nice Fireball to throw in their direction.
5. Conclusion.
I hope that this guide both encourages new tankers to try out Ice Melee, and with a more offensive mindset than before. I also hope that maybe some old school Ice Melee tanks who’ve shelved their tanks as low damage failures will give them a new chance. And if you’re going to play Ice Melee, please for Positron’s sake, give Frost a try. Happy gaming. -
Quote:Disagree with this somewhat. My blasters can stay safe by increasing their DPS, but this only works so far. My Fire/Ice stays a lot safer by using Ice Patch & Freezing Touch than throwing more Fireballs, though of course a combination of both works best.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Tying into what I said before, I think it's worth noting that faster soloing is safer soloing. Solo speed is determined almost entirely by DPS, and high DPS also means being able to get rid of threatening enemies faster - that is, before they manage to degrade or circumvent your defenses.
My Son/Son defender has near capped resists for S/L/E, like 40% ranged def and mez protection. He has zero fear of most enemies in the game, no matter how long they stay alive. Even w/one of the better damaging secondaries, it takes him forever to kill stuff, esp bosses. Likewise for my Cold (capped ranged def) & Dark (debuffs & controls aplenty) defenders who can bring enemies to their knees while I slowly tick away at their health.
Yes, that perception of "forever" and "slowly" is biased by the fact that my high level blasters/controllers/scrappers mow through solo missions (bosses & all) like butter, and my tanks not much slower. Still, perception is what drives the lower populations for defenders, so it must be addressed all the same. -
Quote:All my FCs make money. My last 2 (#19 & #20) made around 200M each. You only lose money if you try to get FC in like one weekend.Originally Posted by UberGuy
...Field Crafter... So here I am doing this thing that, once upon a time, made my teeth itch just looking at the raw crafting costs, and I'm making money off of doing it.
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I also know the feeling. After I "retired", I was buying up a lot of Miracle uniques to use & store for the SG and I once peeked at the last 5 price after crafting one. It was going for like 75M (I'd bought for around 25M). I couldn't help myself--I flipped it, it insta-sold for 75M, and I bought another one (for like 25M) not soon after for actual use (no, I didn't peek again!).
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Quote:As Failsight points out, you're assuming all Fire tanks get FSC & Combustion. Not sure why you think we all play Fire/Fire. Comparing Shield Charge to FSC & Comb. is meaningless; instead compare Fire/Fire to SD/Fire. Compare BA & FE (and Burn) to AAO and SC and see who comes out ahead in the long run. If you still see an offensive advantage for Fire (doubtful, even w/FE working fully for Fiery Melee), then tell us that it's enough to offset the defensive advantage for SD.Originally Posted by Grey_Pilgrim
Eh, I think we're cutting Fire a little short. I still think Consume and Burn need a lookover and tweak, but it's still pretty good. Shield Charge is nice, but it does have a fairly long recharge. I can use FSC and Combustion on every mob to drop all the minions in a couple powers (and a few ticks of Blazing Aura), whereas I really can only do that whenever Shield Charge is up, to couple it with Foot Stomp.
Fire/* is absolutely painful to play w/just SOs. I would never do it again. Hell, even with moderate IO slotting, it's only acceptable at best and still kinda squishy/gasping for end, with only a bit more damage output unless you can fully leverage Burn. It's only with full IOs (some combo of high def, high regen, silly recharge, high end recovery, etc) that Fire finally feels "on par" with the other sets, but those other sets equally IOed can still go further, and it's only the fact that you really don't need *that* much mitigation in 95% of this game that Fire feels equal (what w/the slightly higher damage and all).
Elec is going to absolutely blow Fire out of the water. -
Quote:I was going to reply to your OP that a big reason for the popularity disparity is that ppl don't like to solo defenders. Your low population findings back this up. I think on teams, defenders are fine, but they need help soloing. I suspect the numbers would even out if defenders were better able to solo. To that end, defenders need some combination of better damage, able to self-buff w/buff-other powers and a tweaking of Vigilance.Originally Posted by PhiloticKnight
Also interesting to note that at a low population time, Defenders and Blasters seem to be in the lowest population, while those that can solo the best without the need of outside support (Controllers, Tankers and Scrappers) are at the highest population. No surprise here. In this low pop solo friendly environment, Scrappers are king.
Note, "better able to solo" doesn't mean safety. Most defenders can solo stuff in perfect safety and yes, you can even solo AVs and pylons with an IOed out defender. Most ppl don't want to solo safely. They want to solo quickly. Defenders need a way to increase their kill speeds while solo (as a force multiplier, they increase team kill speeds plenty). -
I'm hoping this is for feedback, because right now, this isn't so much as a guide, but a diary of 'how I played my WP/SS tanker.' There's a lot of potentially... questionable advice in there as it is.
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Quote:Is that 46% after the def from Stealth suppresses? I can't remember what the pool power suppresses to, but I know SI from Illusion suppresses to half (others like Steamy Mist don't suppress at all, which is great for my Stormies and ColdsOriginally Posted by scraps_ifound
my fire Tank has 46% melee defense
I use Steath instead of maneuvers
).
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I know a lot of us have touched upon this in other various threads, but you're really not giving up *that* much offense on these def-capped builds. The only thing I'm *really* missing on my S/L capped build is Hasten, which is big considering Fire's reliance on HF, but w/a high def, you usually don't need it so much either. All the big attacks are there, capped for ED and recharging a bit slower than w/Hasten, but not a ton. Personally, I'm much, much happier w/my Fire tank at cap than before when he was more of a scranker.
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I would stronly urge you not to drop Incinerate. It's the best attack Fire gets. GFS is damn good too, but you can prolly skip it for other options. For DPA & DPE, there's really only one attack tankers get that's better than Incinerate, Energy Transfer, and that one causes you damage back. The only other attacks that do more DPA (Seismic Smash, Freezing Touch, KO Blow & Clobber) have about 1/2 the end efficiency.
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Quote:I think you severely underestimate how much more damage Fire does than its competition. And that's not including pets.Originally Posted by SinergyX_EU
In that line, i would pick any other primairy of troller (or even a defender/corr) and they would possibly do the same. The 'succes' is pure due kin, grab a /rad or even /storm (dunno if that even is viable), and suddenly u can scratch quite a few options. (perm.hasten, speed, cap dmg).
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Elec Melee? Yes.
Elec Armor for tanks? Yes.
Elec Armor for scrappers? Eh, not so much.
Then again, I'm really liking my Fire/Fire scrapper after I got his S/L def up (a lot), so maybe I'll do the same for an Elec/Elec scrapper. -
Some random comments.
Defenders don't need more HPs or survivability. All my defenders, high & low, are very, very survivable right now.
Vigilance is not only useless, but can reward poor play. Do w/Vigilance what was done w/Defiance--add extra recovery per teammate added, much like w/Khelds. It only stands to reason w/more teammates, the more the defender has to use their powers to "protect" them.
Defenders could use a bit more damage. I hate soloing my defenders, not because I can't, but because I can't go as fast as my... well, everything else. Maybe they shouldn't--no, they definitely shouldn't, but they could use a damage buff.
Oh, and the buff-other-only powers should be able to benefit a solo defender. When I play my Son/ or Cold/ defenders, it's like 1/2 my primary just went away. An epic pet which someone suggested a while back would be a very good start.
I also think there are bigger imbalances in the game that needs more attention that defenders, but I wouldn't cry over a buff either.