jackdrek

Interesting. I defend the devs from what appears to me to be trolling and I get called a troll. Skimming through the past 50 pages, no where does anyone even bring up an anecodote of actual pve play experience on Test, yet it appears many people are attacking other Tanker primaries and referring to hypothetical gimpiness of Ice on Test without actual gameplay.

As I said, the changes with EA can not possibly hae an effect on gameplay against anything lower than +5s, unless you're talking about fighting +3 or higher AV/Monsters or unless you're talking about fighting while standing over a bunch of eminators and not about the herding process. And that's not even taking into account that in regular gameplay, EA won't always hit its cap (when the AV is the only thing left, you simply can not reach the new EA cap, on Test or Live).

So, bash all the other Tanker primaries you want. Ice needs to be comparable to them, and I agree with that. But keep in mind calling me a troll for not actually testing the changes on an Ice Armor build is hypocritical, since no one else appears to have actually tested the changes on Test.

You want it to not be about supposition? Get hard numbers. High random samples that show that you're getting hit more than 5% of the time, using EA only, by +4 bosses or lower. Yes, that's an awful lot of work, but players do that sort of testing. I've at least tried to do that sort of testing when checking the acc debuff on dark meelee attacks, but then the mobs kept dying after about 20 hits, even after i waited between attacks. My personal suggestion, test with a group of 5 +0 mobs surrounding you, while you use nothing but EA over and over again... watch only one mob's hits/misses and see if it goes above 5% after a sufficiently large number of attacks. Slowly move up +1 until you get something that goes above a 5% chance to hit.

After doing that, come back and then feel free to call me a troll. But right now, I'm using hard numbers from other people's tests/info. A 95% cap, 75% chance for a boss to hit, and 6.5% chance per level difference of being hit. That means a boss at +4 has a 6% chance to hit, rather than 5%, which to me seems sufficiently close to the 5% mininum anyway. But certainly anything lower than a +4 boss will be capped on EA alone, which means in actual game play, whatever you guys were doing before, you're still likely doing it the same on Test, with the exeception of just standing in multiple eminators....

I'm gonna ignore that last section, because it's really about a ton of other issues that for some reason you don't think can be paralleled to the player base complaining that the early regen game sucks to play and the high end regen game is way too easy, which was the purpose fo the internal testing to begin with. If you want to play a unilateral bash the devs game, that's fine with me, it's just not gonna sway my opnion.

Other things that are more relevant to Ice Armor, though.

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That's why Statesman's DM/Regen was able to kill +8's, and that's why 20 +8's mobs weren't killing Statesman's DM/Regen... And the reason why Statesman's scrapper was able to hit those mobs so easily is because he was fueling "Soul Drain" with 20 mobs. You can see at the end of the demos that he fails more often, that's because they were less mobs around.

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Now... What does all this means? That an Ice Tanker is very good when tanking even level mobs, just as good as any other tanker (Or even Scrappers).[/.quote]

Now this is actually relevant. Against even level mobs, an Ice Tanker can theoretically gather a bunch of them up and drain a lot at once, because the damage they individually do is negligible (well, not very high, anyway). Whereas, against higher levels, the Ice Tanker has more problems handling large groups because they'll dish out more damage when 20 mobs are surrounding you with one hitting every volley, i.e., you'll have problems Energy Absorbing them because you won't be left alive to absorb them....

Well, the only thing that tells me is that if the bug that affected internal testing shows anything, it'll show that when Ice Tankers take on aynthing past +4, that they'll be killed no matter how much EA absorbs, so the changes to it really won't matter to help against +4s, and against under +4s, it's still capped with the changes....

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But that doesn't address mobs with high accuracy or higher level.

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Actually, it does address mobs with higher accuracy because of higher level, because that's exactly what Positron meant when he said that accuracy modifiers based on level were not bugged....

As for acc buff/defense debuff mobs, that's addressed in my prior post. There's absolutely nothing you can do to protect against these sort of things defense wise, unless you give yourself the ability to fight things 10 levels higher than what you'd otherwise fight. I'm sorry, but just because you're having problems with level 38 DE at level 35 doesn't give you the right to be able to tank level 48 CoT....

But again, I doubt you can really tank level 48 CoT at 35, even on live, simply because they do a lot more damage. Likewise, anything that would buff or debuff that much (including DE eminators) would very likely be doing enough damage, buffed wise or level wise, that EA wouldn't help you past the test server's 95% cap, because rounding up that many mobs would kill you, anyway.

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Oh! But we're not suppused to fight high levels (The whole 3 mobs = 1 hero)?!...

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I disagree with the concept that tanks shouldn't be able to tank higher levels. But high levels at +3/+4 is one thing, and high levels at +9/+10 is entirely different. According to your own numbers, though (50% plus EA, which is now capped 95%, at 145% defense) you can tank easily still tank +3/+4s no different than before. In fact, that might even let you tank +7s/+8s, if you could survive rounding them up for the EA.... So, I still don't see how a 95% cap is that big of a deal, unless you're still worried about the +3 DE who are striking as if they're +13 CoT.... At some point we might ask for a lowering of defense debuffs and acc buffs on certain abilities, but then every Invuln Tanker and Scrapper will cry "nerf" when they suddenly have to slot an SO or train another buffing attack besides Invincibility to be able to hit an opponenent 95% of the time.

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Very well, same reason why I deleted my SR scrapper and rolled a DM/DA one... That and the fact that I foresee a nerf for you guys in the near future.

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As an aside, I highly doubt this. SR can handle mobs without Elude, true enough, but msot nerf-SR complaints are against perma-Elude, which unenhanced is probably at 2/3 the 95% cap on EA, Elude is very annoying to use during every fight if you so choose to do (imagine if EA were perma without the cap, but dropped toggles and end to nothing every 100 seconds... it would still annoy Ice Tankers, even if it was fairly powerful). I prefer not to use it except on AVs, and even then I tend to give up on it, and just pray the AV hits an unlucky streak and that someone else has agro. I don't care how many people swear by perma-Elude for regular up to +3 minion/lt battles, it simply is not a good idea, until you start to get hurt. Now EA's obviously designed the opposite way. It works and caps you for minions/lts but it obviously doesn't cap you for the lone big guys.

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Just to point here: EA is not the mayority of our defense. We can tank up to +2's w/o EA. W/O EA we can get ~50% Def to all -{fire, toxic, psionic}. 20% Res to Toxic and 20-ish% def to fire, 90% Res to cold and 20-ish% Res to Fire... Those are good number if you plan to solo. What EA gives is the ability to be useful for teams, it gives us the extra edge... I'm talking about high accuracy mobs and mobs with nothing but fire. It's what let us tank those +3's and +4's that are so common during big team missions or during Trials/Respecs... Now, is not that we want "everything" in one place!

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With a 95% cap, it does not affect your ability to tank groups of +4s, though. Well, against everything but Psionics. That's not even taking into account the +50% defense to all but tox/fire/psi. This is simply not a nerf to groups like that, with the exception of the above acc buffers/defense debuffers, which I've been through. Well, actually, I'm not being entirely truthful here, +4 bosses will have a 6% chance to hit you now, rather than 5%... 1/100 more times you'll be hit.

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The the reason why we don't really want Res is because we don't want to be Inv/ tankers. Fire is all Res, Inv and Stone are a mix... One with more Def, the other one with more Res, we're all Def... That's good. What I want to see is monsters doing less damage to us, and I also want them to leave EA the way it is... Anything lower then elite bosses are fine the way they are.

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Fair enough. But Monsters will never do "less" damage to you simply because your defense is kept the same. Nothing will likely change with fighting Monsters because they tend to be solo, or only have a few mobs around them. What I was suggesting when I said +res wasn't the same +res that Invuln gets, eww.... I'd hardly want every primary to be the same. I was suggesting a smaller +res that would give some survivability from near full health to nil or in other words a chance to hit hibernate or whatever. Something along the upper limits of the 20% resist that you could get for fire and toxic, nothing like you'd get for cold. Maybe give EA a 5% +res against all per enemy with the same 5 enemy cap.

Just a quick response to the last post. The only bugs in the "buggy environment" related to damage modifications based on level. So, an Ice Tanker gets hit no more and no less often than normal because of the tests. The accuracy modifiers are still in place.

As for rolling an Ice Tanker, I'd love to roll one, but I've already ran the +defense route with SR and have no intention of redoing that.

What I don't get is why the Ice Tankers here actually want the majority of their defense in one single ability that requires multiple foes nearby (if the foes go down, so does your defense!) rather than spread out and/or mixed with more +res, based on the abilities (eg, +res vs all but psi with EA would be nice, wouldn't it??)?

I understand the devs make mistakes, but given the context of this thread, it's about Ice Armor and not really about whether Regen should be unnerfed because the devs made a mistake during internal testing.... But I'm not gonna accept the argument that just because the devs admitted to making a mistake they never have any clue what they're doing. Otherwise, let's get rid of Singularities and put Fold Space back in, put Elude back to a Phase Shift where you can't attack but you still have a small chance of being hit, and actually, get rid of the whole AT system so you can do like was done in beta, and take any two primaries and secondaries you choose. Yes, the devs encountered a bug, which is entirely irrelevant to how often Ice Armor characters get hit, so if you really want to bring it up here, then I'd suggest you have issues with the development of the game in general, and not issues with Energy Absorption.

First,t he quartz thing. Yeah, DE hit you when buffed by quartzes. The DE also get a damage bonus from quartzes. When I first got Elude, I ran it with my toggles and 4 slotted passives in several tries against even and lower conning DE, who easily two shotted me, never missing (actually I think one missed once), unless I popeed defense inspirations on top of it. So, whatever the buff of eminators, it's at least equal to an unslotted Elude, probably much greater. In other words, what people are asking is to be able to fight something with a base 65+% accuracy than unbuffed mobs, or in other words, whatever they can fight now plus ten levels. Defense isn't what's needed to protect from the eminators, which is exactly what I said before when I said some level of damage resistance should also be factored into Ice. You simply can't protect yourself from 20 mobs all doing buffed damage compared to your level for prolonged periods of time.

Second, I agree completely that Ice Armor should be more defensive than Super Reflexes. I never claimed anything other than Ice Armor should not have the same defensive output through one single ability that SR has in its entire set. If for some reason you want Ice to be absolutely nothing but +def (and technically it's not), I'd suggest spreading out the defense a little more than just putting almost all of it in one ability, and I do mean almost all of it.

Third, as for being two shotted by an AV, it happens, and always will, no matter how high the defense. The fact is, if you had 6 mobs absorbed and were fighting a +1 AV, so long as Battle Maiden wasn't using Psionics (I forget what she uses), you already had your defense capped and there was a 5% chance that you'd be hit, and a one in 400 chance you'd be hit twice in a row. In fact, you would've been capped with only absorbing 5 mobs and not 6.

Last, as for defense debuffs, it's pretty much the same idea as quartz eminators. You're never gonna be immune to defense debuffs or acc buffs used against you. When herding bosses or lower with defense debuffs, chances are you'll run across more than one debuffer, so especially things like the Praetorians who have autohit defense debuffs will get you no matter what you do, because the more of them you have to absorb, the more that will be debuffing you. If you're only fighting one thing with a defense debuff, chances are it's an AV or Monster, which will have a very high defense debuff, and again, what you're asking would be aking to asking to be able to fight AVs without defense debuffs that were 10 levels higher....

The real issue is defense verse resistance, and I see this as people complaining that their defense which really doesn't do a whole lot for them currently is being nerfed to a defense that would do roughly the same, except not allow for insane situations. Instead of asking for +def back, which you were't happy with to begin with, I'd be asking for +res....

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And now the devs want to put a cap on the one ability that only begins to close the difference between Ice and the other sets, one that Ice Tankers have to wait an additional 8 levels beyond which the other primaries get their set-defining ability.

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You just explained that EA doesn't help against AVs and monsters, as is, because of one (or even two) shottedness. And I agree that this is a serious problem for any defense based set. But, I don't see how capping defense is really nerfing anything other than against higher level AVs, which you say you can't do anyway.....

There's no gap being closed in the live version that's not being closed in the test version. You sitll get 95% defense capability, and when tanking an even level AV, you're only gonna be getting 17.5% defense or whatever, anyway, because there's only one thing you're fighting. This hasn't changed.

No, Ice will not compare to other Tanker primaries. But I never compared it to other Tanker primaries. If I were to do that, I would suggest other elements of Ice Armor be fixed, and NOT put it all into uber +defense, anyway. Give a small +res along with the +def in most Ice abilities and Ice would become much more competitive.

No one needs 500% defense. Nothing has accuracy that high.

I think I can guess at what the devs are thinking. Seems to me people are reacting as if there was no thought put into this whatsoever.

Right now on live there really isn't a cap on Energy Absorption, save that after rounding up 100 level 1s or something along with a 54 AV, you may as well have rounded up 50 level 1s, because all mobs will have at least a 5% chance to hit.... When do you have 1s to round up when fighting high level AVs? You don't, really.

But what do you have? An unenhanced SR Scrapper, with 7 different abilities can get a defense of 95-115% (depending on whether the 65% statistic is right for Elude or whether it's closer to the 85% statistic). That's the EA buff from only 5-6 mobs. Now, since Ice are Tankers, I've heard they're supposed to be better at tanking, which is true. But as Tankers, I should hope you can tank 10-12 mobs at once, which on live gives you the same defense as all 7 abilities from super reflexes. And you'll sitll only be hit every other volley....

Even if you took on 20 and got hit once per volley, because your defense would be higher, you could take more damage than a typical SR, and would always have Hibernate in a worst case scenario (though I'd admit, it's not very effective to have a tank on the team sitting in hibernation).

Some of you may not have noticed that Energy Absorption no longer resists Hasten's recharge, i.e., that EA recharges faster if you took Hasten. I have no idea if this means you can run EA defense perma or not. But if you can even come close to it, you're talking about a single Tanker primary ability outdoing seven Scrapper secondaries, against all but Psionics. If that doesn't sound like a problem, then perhaps you'd also like to see a Tanker psionic daamge set which combined allowed you to dish out 400 damage or so after using seven of them (that's about what MG does to an even level at 50)? One ability should not outdo seven, imo.

Granted the lack of Psionic protection is a problem that should be fixed, but not every villain the 40-50 range does psionic damage. Malta don't do psionic damage and frankly, as an SR, I never cared about the Sappers if they couldn't hit me.

All I'm saying is the changes appear to have some reasoning behind them. Maybe the 95% cap is a bit too low, but that will still cap +4 minions and lt's (both purple), not to mention +4 bosses will only have under a 10% chance of hitting you, too. Now, I dunno, you might have problems with a +4 AV, lol. The only thing is you won't be tanking a group of ten +10s with an empath healer healing you at range every other volley.