Other ideas - just shot gunning.
Idea #1 Ablative armor - Tentatively called Snow Sheath, Frost Sheath, Snow Drift, etc.
Click power that provides a buffer of #damage absorption. Enhanced by heal enhancers at 33% per enhancer. 1 minute recharge? Test various base numbers (100, 250, or more)? Replaces Hibernate or permafrost?
Idea #2 (my fav) Pulsing Blade Turn - Tentatively called Renewing Ice, Ice encasement, etc.
Borrowing from that "other" game I played for 2+ years, self PBT (pulsing blade turn). Every x seconds (10?) the ice tanker's PBT negates a melee strike that his penetrated his defenses (rolls high enough to penetrate armors + EA). Toggle power. Moderate endurance costs (icicles or another amor?). Accepts endurance cost enhancers. Replaces Hibernate or permafrost?
A PBT type power would provide us a measure of protection from one shots by allowing for a buffer when an AV or large mob rolls a 20. It is only good for one attack per x seconds, so it would not be overpowered in regards to herding which the dev team is clearly dead set against. It would not be a S/L resist cop out and would keep ice tankers unique (at least for this game, LOL).
Just ideas. Thoughts?
TTR
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# Keep EA the way it is (or better it).
# Put a dmg and/or resistance debuff on a power of ours. (preferably an autohit)
# Put an acc/def debuff onto a power of ours. (preferably an auto hit)
# Maybe make Icicles autohit?
# Let one of our powers give us some psi, along with s/l, dmg resistance.
# Make Hibernate a wee bit more useful than a giant invulnerable popsicle. IE - Let Icicles or CE get out still...maybe as a punishment for said use let us not be invulernable but just give very high Def and Res (to all).
# Bump either hoarfrost's recharge time, +max hp, or both
# Seeing how we're in a block of ice, def or res to psi isn't very role-playingish. What if EA, instead of just giving def to all but psi, would give defense to whatever it was we EA'd? Ie - you EA mobs with psionic/energy attacks, you now have defense to both. You EA mobs with s/l/toxic attacks, you now have defense to all three.
#Click power that provides a buffer of #damage absorption. Enhanced by heal enhancers at 33% per enhancer. 1 minute recharge? Test various base numbers (100, 250, or more)? Replaces Hibernate or permafrost?
# Every x seconds (10?) the ice tanker's PBT negates a melee strike that his penetrated his defenses (rolls high enough to penetrate armors + EA). Toggle power. Moderate endurance costs (icicles or another amor?). Accepts endurance cost enhancers. Replaces Hibernate or permafrost?
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Just wanted to toss your ideas onto that list with the others.
I'd say I don't mind the idea of higher hitpoints from Hoarfrost, or perhaps giving Permafrost a +HP boost? Combine that with some slotting in heal, and you'd see a bit of boost from it over the long run.
And it would keep you from getting one-shotted, if combined with Hoarfrost too... but I'm concerned with putting too much emphasis on Min/Max slotting. To make it work, you have to slot Hoarfrost for perma, with or without haste. Most players who don't read the boards may take the HP boost from wherever we put it, but not realize it's still not enough to save them without further help. Even if you just use it non-perma, for AV/Monsters, I'm worried about the huge amount of HPs that would need healed if we do find ourselves in trouble.
As for Ablative Armors... An interesting idea, but one that isn't currently supported by the CoH engine. Nobody has a power like that (the D&D equivilant of Temporary HPs). Hoarfrost is as close as we get, I think.
Ditto with negating a Melee strike. I'd also be worried about this fix, because what if a minion/lt/boss manages to hit me as I rush the AV/Monster? Their attack would be countered, and I'm SOL.
Hibernate would be much more useful if you could maintain aggro while inside. I'd hate to think, however, that my battle-plan against a Monster we're fighting, is to rush in, taunt, and Hibernate, then waiting for my party to kill him. It's still not quite the fix I think we need. Hibernate needs it's own fix.
I'll keep my vote on a 50% Damage Debuff in Chilling Aura. 
We can't have hibernate draw agro if you're indestructible while it's on. That would make it zero risk for you to tank ANYTHING while your team kills it.
Make hibernate generate agro, but have it automatically turn off when your HPs are full. Maybe give it another effect that occurs when it wears off, like a PBAoE slow/hold or damage.
I think what would really help Ice Armor is an effect that hits an enemy when they make a successful strike against you.
The reason I think this would be good is because it gives you more protection in the areas where your armors are weak. Against most enemies, you won't be getting hit, so the effect won't occur.
But when you're facing Swarms or quartzes or higher level AVs/Monsters, you'll get hit more often which will trigger the effect.
It would only make us the slightest bit better against enemies we can already handle, but it would be a big help against enemies that are able to overcome our defenses.
I previously suggested giving permafrost a short duration hold that goes off when you're hit, but you could make it any damage mitigating effect. The important part of this idea is having some sort of (armor/damage debuff/slow/hold/whatever) fire when an enemy hits you. That way, we have a different sort of defense against enemies with acc buff/def debuffs.
It helps plug the holes in our defenses without overpowering the strengths of our armor.
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I think what would really help Ice Armor is an effect that hits an enemy when they make a successful strike against you.
The reason I think this would be good is because it gives you more protection in the areas where your armors are weak. Against most enemies, you won't be getting hit, so the effect won't occur.
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But wouldn't that leave us just as vulnerable to being One-shotted as we are now? If the AV hitting me can kill me in a single blow, he'd be debuffed as he kicks my group around, but its too late to help me.
Yes, Hibernate that draws aggro, if left as it currently works, would be "little" risk killing. I think that the danger that remains would be that heroes doing lots of damage may attract attention off of my Hibernating tank, and on to themselves. I hate the idea that Hibernate does "phase shift", so I'd like to see it scrapped to something at least as useful as the current Unstoppable.
Yes, swarms and stacked caltrops (KoA anyone?) and other things with limitless accuracy are a weakness to our set. A counter-hit fix, that debuffs or something, would be strange in it's own way.
Why would a big eye-ball, that blasts me across the room, is debuffed by how cold I am way over here?
I'm glad we have so many ideas for how to fix Ice. I'm not sure if this is the way to do it, though...
You're right, a triggered effect would not prevent one-shotting form an AV or Monster. That would still need to be taken care of somehow.
If you don't like the idea of a triggered effect flying accross the room to hit a ranged attacker, make it versus melee attacks only. I actually meant to specify that.
Or better yet, make it a defensive effect that effects YOU rather than the enemy, then it won't matter if the attack was melee or ranged. For example, each time you're hit, your HP regen rate increases. Get a bunch of swarms poking at you through your armor and suddenly you're gaining HP so fast that you don't mind the little hits. You switch from being an SR tanker to a regen tanker. When the swarms die, the regen buffs start to wear off and you're back to normal, but at this point the enemies aren't super-accurate and your defenses can handle them.
What if, when hibernate wore off, you were left with a huge resistance buff for a short time? Like 50% resist all - psi for 15 seconds? When you're about to hit an AV, you hibernate, run at him, absorb the alpha attack, hit EA to increase you defense, then start tanking him as normal. Rely on your defense until hibernate comes back up and repeat the process.
Just tossing out ideas...
Just wanted to add that I'm truthfully not at all concerned about us when it comes to fighting minions/lts/bosses. My concerns are the following:
* things with superior accuracy (usually through buffs) are too prevalent in the game (Swarms, Quartz beacons, etc.)
* things with defensive debuffs are too prevalent in the game (Radiologists, etc.)
* Resistance debuffs appear that they will become prevalent in game and Ice Tankers are starting at a base of 0% in all but Ice and Fire.
* incapable of reliably Tanking Archvillains and Monsters for a team, to the point where Ice Tankers are not called upon for these tasks.
* More weaknesses than any other Tanker: fire, psionic, a glassjaw, out primary buff is something we manage and not automatic/toggle, streaks in the Random Number Generator (yes we are the only Tanker that's weakness is the game itself)
We need to address these things to solve the fundamental problems with the set. We may require more than a single solution to cover all of these.
Turning Hibernate into a huge Resistance boost would be much like Unstoppable, which would be more useful. I wonder if we could set up our power such that we get a kickin boost for 1 min or so, then at the end, instead of crashing our endo/HP, we are incased in Ice, and intangible as current. Leave us frozen for 15 seconds, then we break free. 
As for Circeus' list...
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things with superior accuracy (usually through buffs) are too prevalent in the game (Swarms, Quartz beacons, etc.)
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Related to our problem with lack of resistance. Other tanks who don't rely on high defense share the same danger of being hit more often. They, however, can resist the attacks, and have a measure of protection the mobs can't beat. If we fix that issue with Ice, we'd be ok.
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things with defensive debuffs are too prevalent in the game (Radiologists, etc.)
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Later in the game, yes, perhaps. Not every group has them, and not every spawn has a mob-type with one. DE being over-annoying, yes that can be nasty. But I can say that makes these targets priority, and not quite set-breakers. Radiologists are usually minions. Anti-matter dropped Enervating Field on me, and THAT's a scary time.
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Resistance debuffs appear that they will become prevalent in game and Ice Tankers are starting at a base of 0% in all but Ice and Fire.
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See above. I hate to think that Anti-matter did EXTRA damage (more then 100%) against my non-resisting tank. Btw... Neuron was a wimp compared to Anti-matter, in the same mission, thanks to an Empath. Fear the Radiation.
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incapable of reliably Tanking Archvillains and Monsters for a team, to the point where Ice Tankers are not called upon for these tasks.
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Without serious help, totally agree. You can do it if the stars align, and your group is dedicated to helping you do it. Otherwise, you can elect to take the debt for the party, as they try to keep you afloat.
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More weaknesses than any other Tanker: fire, psionic, a glassjaw, out primary buff is something we manage and not automatic/toggle, streaks in the Random Number Generator (yes we are the only Tanker that's weakness is the game itself)
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Yup, the key to our issues here. However, I've never noticed Fire causing me issues. EA gives defense to Fire, yes? Psi? Yeah... 'nuff said. And I assume you mean Glass Jaw in reference to getting one-shotted. It's not hard to do the math, and realize that with two tanks, one with Def/Res 95%/5%, and another with 5%/95% should take equal damage over 100 attacks. The problem is the "random" factor. If our 5 hits come very near, we could be taking a high amount of damage, with nothing to protect us. Over the long-haul, it works out, but each fight is a "short-term" probability experiment. Rolling two 20's in a row could get you killed, if it's the wrong enemy.
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Yup, the key to our issues here. However, I've never noticed Fire causing me issues. EA gives defense to Fire, yes?
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Depends on what you're fighting, and how much of it. That said, we have 55% less defense to Fire/Cold then we do Smash/Lethal/Energy/Negative. Now for Cold to compensate we can cap Resistance, can't do that with Fire. And even permafrost doesn't help tons here. Bottom line you take more Fire Damage than Cold/Smash/Lethal/Energy/Negaitve. Its basically Psi, Toxic, Fire, everything else.
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And I assume you mean Glass Jaw in reference to getting one-shotted.
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That would be the definition of a glass jaw. I suppose though its really Ice Jaw
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It's not hard to do the math, and realize that with two tanks, one with Def/Res 95%/5%, and another with 5%/95% should take equal damage over 100 attacks.
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Agree, but we're nowhere near that. If you max slot, Invuln is capable of receiving 50% of the defense that Ice can have. (realisitcally a max slotting in EA is 4 Defense because its not perma unless you devote 2 slots to recharge). Ice can not achieve 50% of the resistance of Invuln on its own.
So over the long haul it doesn't work out so well at all. Because we're nowhere hear the 95/5 to 5/95 scenario you mention. That would be ideal, its just not there at all.
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Yup, the key to our issues here. However, I've never noticed Fire causing me issues. EA gives defense to Fire, yes?
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Yes, EA does provide much-needed defense against fire. However, the net defense against fire will still be less than Defense against the other damage types.
This becomes more of an issue against enemies with really high accuracy (Archvillains), or if Fire Damage is used in conjunction with powers that lower Defense. (Definitely a possibility in PvP.) Plus, there's the struggle that Ice Tankers face _before_ they get EA. Sky Raiders were quite the pain for me, prior to EA.
Fire may not be as great a weakness as Psi. But it's still a weakness.
Incidentally, Circeus, I would list "auto-hit attacks" as another weakness of the Ice Tanker. It's an advantage that Damage Resistance has over Defense.
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Agree, but we're nowhere near that. If you max slot, Invuln is capable of receiving 50% of the defense that Ice can have. (realisitcally a max slotting in EA is 4 Defense because its not perma unless you devote 2 slots to recharge). Ice can not achieve 50% of the resistance of Invuln on its own.
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Ice jaw... I should make a macro quote for when Nanoc falls down on the job.
I would say that with Perma-Haste, I can actually overlap EA without slotting it for recharge at all. Of course, you likely ment that, without perma-haste, you need two slots of recharge for overlap.
I know we're nowhere close to what Invincibility has. We can't stay at 95% defense all the time, no matter how we slot. Invincibility can likely stay at or near 95% resistance. And then they get a good chunk of Defesne on top of that.
My example was meant to show that in a "perfect" situation, Resistance vs Defense, we have our weakness via game dynamics. Supporting what you'd said, in fact.
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My ice tank is only a baby still, but I've got a question/suggestion.
What if they cut the timer on hoarfrost in half? More accurately, to the point where if you choose, you could perma double stack it without using hasten? That or raise the amount of HP it gives by 20 or 30. How much would having 40-80% more HP help?
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Currently, the boost number with Hoarfrost is 28.57% (1863.3 up to 2608.6). If it was upped to 70%, my (current) hp would boost to 3167.61. AV's could still one shot me...just much, much less.
Halfing the recharge time (I have 2 recharge SO's in it already...so maybe more to stack it) and then stacking it, with the 70%, would give 5384.94 hit points for a limited time. That might give us something to set us apart from the other sets a little more.
What other ideas have there been so far? Let's get a list going:[*]Keep EA the way it is (or better it). [*]Put a dmg and/or resistance debuff on a power of ours. (preferably an autohit)[*]Put an acc/def debuff onto a power of ours. (preferably an auto hit)[*]Maybe make Icicles autohit? [*]Let one of our powers give us some psi, along with s/l, dmg resistance.[*]Make Hibernate a wee bit more useful than a giant invulnerable popsicle. IE - Let Icicles or CE get out still...maybe as a punishment for said use let us not be invulernable but just give very high Def and Res (to all).[*]Bump either hoarfrost's recharge time, +max hp, or both[*]Seeing how we're in a block of ice, def or res to psi isn't very role-playingish. What if EA, instead of just giving def to all but psi, would give defense to whatever it was we EA'd? Ie - you EA mobs with psionic/energy attacks, you now have defense to both. You EA mobs with s/l/toxic attacks, you now have defense to all three.[/list]
almost lvl 49 Ice/Ice 
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Ummm, no. Hoarfrost is a straight 40% increase in your base hp.
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I'd say I don't mind the idea of higher hitpoints from Hoarfrost, or perhaps giving Permafrost a +HP boost? Combine that with some slotting in heal, and you'd see a bit of boost from it over the long run.
And it would keep you from getting one-shotted, if combined with Hoarfrost too... but I'm concerned with putting too much emphasis on Min/Max slotting. To make it work, you have to slot Hoarfrost for perma, with or without haste. Most players who don't read the boards may take the HP boost from wherever we put it, but not realize it's still not enough to save them without further help. Even if you just use it non-perma, for AV/Monsters, I'm worried about the huge amount of HPs that would need healed if we do find ourselves in trouble.
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If cookie cutters are the concern, what about adjusting the % so that the average player, with maybe 1-3 slots in Hoarfrost would still be able to use it situationally to avoid 1 shots?
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
I love Hibernate and I want to keep it as close to what it is now as possible but I agree it needs a change or two. The main problem seems to be this:
1) right now the ice tank is safe and healing but when taunt runs out if you are still hibernating the rest of the team is screwed
2) if you give hibernate an aggro ability then there is no risk for the reward.
So my suggestion is that hibernate should extend out as far as EA and all enemies in this radius should be affected the same way the tank is minus the healing.
So say you're fighting a heard of 20 freaks and they all get lucky shots in at once. You hit hibernate but instead of just you becoming invulnerable they are all incased in ice too and also become invulnerable. Your team will be safe but they also wont be able to earn cheap kills.
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If cookie cutters are the concern, what about adjusting the % so that the average player, with maybe 1-3 slots in Hoarfrost would still be able to use it situationally to avoid 1 shots?
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True, if you boost the HP given by Hoarfrost, it may help against being one-shotted. But I don't know if that's really the spirit of the power. A 40% boost to HP is significant, but this is the problem I see.
Let's say that they try to fix Ice by giving us a 100% boost to hp, with Hoarfrost. And they make no other changes to the power. Let's also say I have 500 hp. So joe-average tanker takes it, and never slots it past a single recharge or heal. He levels up to fight a nasty AV (say, Dr. V or Clockwork King). Fires off Hoarfrost, and in he goes.
With that many hit points, without heal or other powers like it, and no SO's, he'd likely do ok. The low level AV's hit hard, but don't really seem able to one-shot people at that level.
Spin that around to the Min-Maxer, at level 45. Six-slotted Haste, Health and Hoarfrost. We already see builds for perma-Dull Pain (I've never seen the need for it, but I understand the reasoning). Now his 2000 hp becomes 4000 hp, all the time. A single small heal (1/4 or 1/3? I can't remember off the top of my head, so let's use 1/4) would heal for 1000 hp. Health would be healing some major league hit-points. With that many HP's, he'd be a mini-Regen Tank, who can use a few small heals to tank anything. I doubt he'd mind that his friendly empath can barely make his green-bar move.
And anything short of an AV or Monster could dent it, unless you didn't notice things beating on you for 15 min.
It'd also be damage-type proof, so Psi, Toxic or anything else, would be protected just the same. The higher your level, the more incredible it could be.
And I guess nobody thought my idea for Hibernate had merit... Wouldn't it be cool to be slowly becoming more and more frozen, able to kick serious rear, and then at last at last, freeze totally and be self-Held/Intangibile?
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I love Hibernate and I want to keep it as close to what it is now as possible but I agree it needs a change or two. The main problem seems to be this:
1) right now the ice tank is safe and healing but when taunt runs out if you are still hibernating the rest of the team is screwed
2) if you give hibernate an aggro ability then there is no risk for the reward.
So my suggestion is that hibernate should extend out as far as EA and all enemies in this radius should be affected the same way the tank is minus the healing.
So say you're fighting a heard of 20 freaks and they all get lucky shots in at once. You hit hibernate but instead of just you becoming invulnerable they are all incased in ice too and also become invulnerable. Your team will be safe but they also wont be able to earn cheap kills.
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That's basically phase-shifting the mobs. Do you know how much people hates when a Force Field, gravity or Dark Miasma user phase-shifts one or more enemies?
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I love Hibernate and I want to keep it as close to what it is now as possible but I agree it needs a change or two. The main problem seems to be this:
1) right now the ice tank is safe and healing but when taunt runs out if you are still hibernating the rest of the team is screwed
2) if you give hibernate an aggro ability then there is no risk for the reward.
So my suggestion is that hibernate should extend out as far as EA and all enemies in this radius should be affected the same way the tank is minus the healing.
So say you're fighting a heard of 20 freaks and they all get lucky shots in at once. You hit hibernate but instead of just you becoming invulnerable they are all incased in ice too and also become invulnerable. Your team will be safe but they also wont be able to earn cheap kills.
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That's basically phase-shifting the mobs. Do you know how much people hates when a Force Field, gravity or Dark Miasma user phase-shifts one or more enemies?
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But it would be a toggle, so you could shut it off at any time.
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One thing I've been considering lately about Circeus' calculations involving Ice vs. Invulnerability; how much do teammates' buffs alter these numbers?
The reason I ask is because of my experience last weekend, when I was by myself out in Crey's Folly and happened to see Jurassik walking around. As it turns out, a good friend of mine that with two accounts was online; her player has a L50 kinetic/electric defender and a L39 peacebringer that they typically duo (if you're on Virtue, you know Kaloseidos and Kalos Eidos). Soon as she knew about Jurassik, I dropped down in front of him, Taunted, then crossed my fingers and hit Hibernate. Luckily he missed, so he was still bashing on me when the Kalos twins showed.
Over the course of the long fight (I think it went a good 10 minutes?), the kin defender twin hit Jurassik repeatedly with both Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift, while keeping Increased Density cast on me. Even with me running Frozen Armor, Wet Ice (no sense in using Glacial Armor, all his attacks seemed to be S/L) and hitting him with a 3 def slotted Wet Ice, he managed to tag me quite a few times (don't have Hero Stats, so I can't give an exact number). But because of the buffs I got, the most damage he did to me was 700.
The reason I mention this is because of this: while there are more defensive buffs then there are resistance buffs, if Ice were given a small amount of S/L resistance, could the teammate resist buffs be enough to help push Ice to being as effective as Invulnerability?
If I have the time this weekend (I have to work, so it'll be a little harder), I want to put together a listing of all defensive and resistance buffs for a comparison. I already know that there are more of the defensive type, but I'd be interested to see how much benefit each skill grants.
By the way, sorry if the posts rambles; writing it at work.
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I was thinking about this the other night. My experiences at higher levels I'm almost always teamed with folks in my SG. Most of whom really know what they're doing and their role.
So while I haven't been one-shotted like many others I think that may have a lot to do with the combination of my build and with who I've been teamed up with and the buffs/etc that have been in play.
However 1-shotting should not happen to a tank IMO. Actually I'd think not for Scrappers too, but hey I like melee folks.
My comment about no red name posts is that I'd at least like to see some feedback. There are some really good ideas in this thread, not to mention Circeus' number crunching that I'd like to see some commentary on (I know they're reading this, so I hope at least they're having an "Ice Armor meeting: The Theory and Practice of Ice Tanking).
Also been thinking about CE. It helps all teammates, although more so those in melee/close to the Ice Tank. So essentially we're giving everyone 25% less attacks (ok I typed that wrong but I can't think right now) coming from the enemies. So do the other sets have a similar power? (mudpost maybe? I haven't played Stone Armor yet) I know it's more of a control aspect, but I wonder how much that weighs in the Dev's mind in terms of the value of the power.
on Virtue:
Darkennedy dark/sonic Def
Lena Slayer NightWidow
Vengeful Woman Energy/Rad Corruptor
Hella Effing Cool cold/sonic def
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I love Hibernate and I want to keep it as close to what it is now as possible but I agree it needs a change or two. The main problem seems to be this:
1) right now the ice tank is safe and healing but when taunt runs out if you are still hibernating the rest of the team is screwed
2) if you give hibernate an aggro ability then there is no risk for the reward.
So my suggestion is that hibernate should extend out as far as EA and all enemies in this radius should be affected the same way the tank is minus the healing.
So say you're fighting a heard of 20 freaks and they all get lucky shots in at once. You hit hibernate but instead of just you becoming invulnerable they are all incased in ice too and also become invulnerable. Your team will be safe but they also wont be able to earn cheap kills.
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That's basically phase-shifting the mobs. Do you know how much people hates when a Force Field, gravity or Dark Miasma user phase-shifts one or more enemies?
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But it would be a toggle, so you could shut it off at any time.
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Bingo, its simply a safty net that allows the tank to recover with no threat to the team, and the team will know exactly when the enemies will be comming out of stasis.
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I love Hibernate and I want to keep it as close to what it is now as possible but I agree it needs a change or two. The main problem seems to be this:
1) right now the ice tank is safe and healing but when taunt runs out if you are still hibernating the rest of the team is screwed
2) if you give hibernate an aggro ability then there is no risk for the reward.
So my suggestion is that hibernate should extend out as far as EA and all enemies in this radius should be affected the same way the tank is minus the healing.
So say you're fighting a heard of 20 freaks and they all get lucky shots in at once. You hit hibernate but instead of just you becoming invulnerable they are all incased in ice too and also become invulnerable. Your team will be safe but they also wont be able to earn cheap kills.
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That's basically phase-shifting the mobs. Do you know how much people hates when a Force Field, gravity or Dark Miasma user phase-shifts one or more enemies?
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But it would be a toggle, so you could shut it off at any time.
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A "phase-shift enemie" that is more useful/powerful than the controllers/defenders version? Sounds too powerful that way.
I feel Hibernate is a lame power the way it is right now, and it needs to be change. If I keep playing my tanker after I4, Hibernate is one of the powers I'm not taking (As it is my tanker is sitting there, with the comming changes to EA I don't feel like playing him)
Personally I like the idea of giving Hibernate a taunt aura, up to recharge time, and make the power shutdown as soon as you have full HP.
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My ice tank is only a baby still, but I've got a question/suggestion.
What if they cut the timer on hoarfrost in half? More accurately, to the point where if you choose, you could perma double stack it without using hasten? That or raise the amount of HP it gives by 20 or 30. How much would having 40-80% more HP help?
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Currently, the boost number with Hoarfrost is 28.57% (1863.3 up to 2608.6). If it was upped to 70%, my (current) hp would boost to 3167.61. AV's could still one shot me...just much, much less.
Halfing the recharge time (I have 2 recharge SO's in it already...so maybe more to stack it) and then stacking it, with the 70%, would give 5384.94 hit points for a limited time. That might give us something to set us apart from the other sets a little more.
What other ideas have there been so far? Let's get a list going:[*]Keep EA the way it is (or better it). [*]Put a dmg and/or resistance debuff on a power of ours. (preferably an autohit)[*]Put an acc/def debuff onto a power of ours. (preferably an auto hit)[*]Maybe make Icicles autohit? [*]Let one of our powers give us some psi, along with s/l, dmg resistance.[*]Make Hibernate a wee bit more useful than a giant invulnerable popsicle. IE - Let Icicles or CE get out still...maybe as a punishment for said use let us not be invulernable but just give very high Def and Res (to all).[*]Bump either hoarfrost's recharge time, +max hp, or both[*]Seeing how we're in a block of ice, def or res to psi isn't very role-playingish. What if EA, instead of just giving def to all but psi, would give defense to whatever it was we EA'd? Ie - you EA mobs with psionic/energy attacks, you now have defense to both. You EA mobs with s/l/toxic attacks, you now have defense to all three.[/list]
almost lvl 49 Ice/Ice
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Ummm, no. Hoarfrost is a straight 40% increase in your base hp.
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My bad, I used fuzzy math. (Took one order of operations out of order).
So it's 40%. I still say up it then 
~49.3 Ice/Ice
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However 1-shotting should not happen to a tank IMO. Actually I'd think not for Scrappers too, but hey I like melee folks.
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No tanker should be once-shotted by anything... Not even 2 shotted by anything +/-2 levels.
Scrappers? I don't have a problem with an AV doing that to one of my scrappers. Monsters/bosses/anything else? No, no reason for that to happen.
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My comment about no red name posts is that I'd at least like to see some feedback. There are some really good ideas in this thread, not to mention Circeus' number crunching that I'd like to see some commentary on (I know they're reading this, so I hope at least they're having an "Ice Armor meeting: The Theory and Practice of Ice Tanking).
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A "yes, we know you guys are there" post would be nice... Not important, but nice.
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Also been thinking about CE. It helps all teammates, although more so those in melee/close to the Ice Tank. So essentially we're giving everyone 25% less attacks (ok I typed that wrong but I can't think right now) coming from the enemies. So do the other sets have a similar power? (mudpost maybe? I haven't played Stone Armor yet) I know it's more of a control aspect, but I wonder how much that weighs in the Dev's mind in terms of the value of the power.
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Stone's Mud Pots is a PBAoE Foe Immobilize, -Speed.
Ice's Chilling Embrace is a PBAoE Foe -Speed, -Recharge.
Now, personally I've found the -Speed/-Recharge to be useful at the lower levels. After lvl 20 or so that is not that important, and after getting Ice Patch (Ice/Ice here) I don't even think about those anymore! The only think I have in mind when I toggle CE is Taunt.
Now, I know that not everybody is a */Ice tanker, but if CE is part of the reason why the devs think EA is too powerfulm then that only gives more credit to what must of us think about EA changes: They're not looking at the big picture!
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* things with superior accuracy (usually through buffs) are too prevalent in the game (Swarms, Quartz beacons, etc.)
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Hmm. So an auto accuracy debuff power? Ie with a certain range (similar to CE's range) Ice tanks can debuff things with/give superior accuracy. Basically our slippery armor makes even super accurate things have trouble actually hitting us (glare off the ice or some such).
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* things with defensive debuffs are too prevalent in the game (Radiologists, etc.)
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I'd like a resistance to def debuffs. Seems like this would be good for Permafrost. But really any power would be good for this.
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* Resistance debuffs appear that they will become prevalent in game and Ice Tankers are starting at a base of 0% in all but Ice and Fire.
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But is that bad? I mean if we can't go negative then we're not really being hurt by that since we have no where to go but up.
Makes things like Tough that much less desirable. I'd imagine the other tanker sets are really not liking this.
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* incapable of reliably Tanking Archvillains and Monsters for a team, to the point where Ice Tankers are not called upon for these tasks.
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I figured out that I've been lucky. In my SG there's been a emp/rad defender who I teamed with from my early to 20's until about 46 (right when my main system died). Anyway I keep reading about other Ice tanks being dropped from teams because they're Ice and that's just wrong.
Tough does help some, but again why should we go outside our primary to get help?
Permafrost seems to be the favorite choice to give Ice some Smash/Lethal resistance. Or (not sure of the coding involved) I'd like stacking armors to give resistance where there's an overlap (so s/l resistance if you get WI and FA running). Besides coding how do you determine the amount? And enhs?
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* More weaknesses than any other Tanker: fire, psionic, a glassjaw, out primary buff is something we manage and not automatic/toggle, streaks in the Random Number Generator (yes we are the only Tanker that's weakness is the game itself)
We need to address these things to solve the fundamental problems with the set. We may require more than a single solution to cover all of these.
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You know every time I see this list of weakness I'm amazed I've gotten to 46. And 1 of them we're probably not going to be able to address that easily.
Personally Ice anything should be basically totally resistant to cold effects. Thus the same for fire. (I mean really if a guy can stand in a blazing bonfire all his life, why exactly is throwing a fireball going to hurt him?) Which in my mind makes these two primaries main weaknesses pretty clear (Ice main weakness fire, and vice versa). It helps now that there are more fire/cold using mobs then say Pre-update 2.
If we don't get resistance to Psi, can we at least get our defense to Psi? Heck I'd even take 1/2 our defense to Psi.
Just some more thoughts that I've probably spouted off before.
on Virtue:
Darkennedy dark/sonic Def
Lena Slayer NightWidow
Vengeful Woman Energy/Rad Corruptor
Hella Effing Cool cold/sonic def
Somebody previously posted that the Dev's said they are watching this thread, and was told so in a PM. Let's assume that is still true. No reason to think that has changed.
Anyway, I agree that Tanks shouldn't be able to be one-shotted, if built reasonably well, by AV/Monsters up to +2 (which is as high as the difficulty slider goes). At the higher levels, Bosses become a non-issue, so I doubt many of us are getting 2 shotted by them, even at +3.
Also, Ice should work with any Secondary. I believe the benefit of the ice secondary is weighed against it's weakness. Toss Fire on the primary, and you've got the current FOTM. Anything else, and you've got the current Ice primary issues. Besides... does Ice Patch work at all on AV's and Monsters?
Perhaps the Devs do feel that CE is our current "super-power" that keeps us on par. We can slow down recharge rates, and should be taking fewer attacks, most of them will miss, and we should be fine. I remember doing a little "shuffle" dance at lower levels, to keep minions and Lt's who melee in my aura, but so that they would have to "run" to my location to attack again. Doing this, I could negate a good many attacks. Nice little power there...
But now? As I said, nothing short of multiple boss packs at +3 or more phase me. Only AV's and Monsters stand toe-to-toe. Do I think they'll be vulnerable to my little shuffle dance? No... They'll drop their Nuke, or get that big hit off. Back to square one.
I think the Ice set works well other then that. I'd just like to see us Tanking AV's and Monsters with the rest, and having some way to keep that damage from pouring in unexpectedly.
If GA gives us a base of 22.5%, 6 slotted for defense it gives us 49.5% defense against energy and neg
WI 6 slotted for defense gives us 27.5% defense v energy and neg
That's a total of 77% def.
Add 18.75% from the EA bonus you get from 1 enemy and you're now at 95.75% defense when fighting a single AV.
I'm going to guess that an even level AV's chance to hit is probably greater than 95.75%. A +2 AV certainly has a better chance to hit than that.
If GA is a base of 25%, we get a total of 101.25%. This still seems like it's not enough to get a +2 AV down to the 5% cap.
Also, this is only versus energy and neg. energy damage. We have less defense versus smashing and lethal, which are more common damage types.
If we could consistently get our defenses high enough to bring a +2 AV to the 5% acc cap regardless of the damage type, I think the occasional 1 shot would be acceptable.
For this we would need fire def added to GA and Psi def added to GA and EA. We would also need either higher bases for our armors or a base defense from EA even when hitting no enemies. Say 30% + 12% per enemy.
If an AV can only hit you 1 out of 20 times, what are the odds that the 1 hit he gets will be a 1-shot killer? It would still be possible, but it would be pretty unlikely.
Adding some resistence would more thoroughly ensure that we're not getting 1-shots from AVs, but if the set is going to be kept as purely defense, there still need to be some major changes. Compare Ice Armor to SR and you'll see that the scrapper set gets more complete coverage in his armor since he has no weakness to fire or psi. He can also reach this level of protection without having to rely on many enemies being present. Check out the videos of SR scrappers soloing AVs and you'll see that our defense needs some work. Admittedly, SR's Elude does come with a hefty price: complete end crash every 2 minutes.
Still, we're talking tanks versus scrappers here. We SHOULD have better armor with less drawbacks. They certainly get better damage.
In conclusion: giving Ice Tanks 95% defense versus ALL damage types, at ALL times, under ALL circumstances would not be overpowering. We should be able to come close to this with just FA, WI and GA. Then we can use EA as a boost against acc buffing/def buffing enemies.
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Not sure if this is a good idea. There are times when you don't WANT to get aggro by passing by enemies enemies away.
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Good call, I came up with the idea as I was typing the post and didn't fully think it through, completely forgot about auravoke since I'm so used to always having aggro anyway