Why change Energy Absorbtion?

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No tanker should be once-shotted by anything... Not even 2 shotted by anything +/-2 levels.

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I agree. Defense is our primary power. If we can't stand toe-to-toe, what good are we? Personally, I know it isn't my offense.

Without going to check the numbers myself, I'd say that sounds about right. We know that fully slotting for defense, we'd be "near" 95% on a Monster/AV at our level, or perhaps +1. 1 in 20 says they nail us.

The problem is, over the period of a fight, they may use a very large attack 2, possibly 3 times. The odds that just one of those attacks will hit is much more significant. And we already know some of the AV's we fight can either debuff you, or would have enhanced Acc.

One-shotting can happen at any time during a fight. I've often seen an AV held by our controller, then as he wakes up, he's recharged his Nuke, and boom. Wipe out. Could be at any time.

As much as I'd like to think maxed out Defense is all you need, it just don't do everything. Heck, the only way I'd "trust" it, is if we had a max defense cap higher then 95%. But I don't advocate that. I don't think it'd be the solution.

Could our non-EA powers be stronger? That's a nice boost, that would make living with a toned down EA easier to make due.

As many ways as I've looked at it, either a Resistance addition, or a Damage Debuff, can keep us alive for One-shotting. Increasing Hit Points (directly with a power, or by Hoarfrost) looks good on paper, but could be easily exploited, or may not be fair to other tanks.

And of the powers in our set, Chilling Aura is our PBAoE auto hit power, thus a strong contender for Debuffs. Permafrost is an Auto power that gives resistance, thus strong contender for Resistance buffing. Hoarfrost already gives hit points. And Hibernate is highly situational, and could be changed to match almost any of these needs, instead of what it does now.

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Besides... does Ice Patch work at all on AV's and Monsters?

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No, it doesn't. Or at least you need a hell lot of patches to do so. CE is not important (slow wise) against AV/Monster class mobs, their resistance to slow powers is really high (Again, you probably need a lot of CE around an AV to notice a difference)

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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...

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Again, if the Devs actually think that the CE's -Recharge/-Slow is what "keep us on par", then they're not really looking at the big picture here. I really don't think that's the case, but I have to admit that seeing what they're planning to do to EA I'm starting to have my doubts.

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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.

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I say this before, and I'm going to say it again:

As it is right now Ice tanker can do just as good as any other tanker can... That is when tanking anything from minions to Elite Bosses! We can handle the situation as good as any Inv/* or Stone/* tanker.
True! Swarns can do horrible things to us, but we don't have to worry about slow efects (Inv and Stone do... Specially poor Stone tankers)
We're horrible agains psionic damage, but then again so is everybody else (Except Stone tankers). Mobs with very high acc or def debuffs can be a danger, but we can work around that by fueling EA with more and more mobs.
The problems begin when we need to fight anything higher than a Monster, even with a lot of minions fueling EA.

But now this new EA is just going to cause us even more problems.

Now, we DO NOT need resistance.I used to think that we did, but after really thinking about the set I realize that we don't need that. Hell! Take the Cold/Fire/Toxic res away for what I care! What we need is for geko to leave alone EA, and do something about the damage we get from +Monster only. I still think that coding Monster Class mobs to do only 50% of the damage that they currently do against Ice Tankers is the way to go... But only for Monsters and up, and not talking about psionic damage either.

Resistance for any damage from any mob is too overpowered.

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I still think that coding Monster Class mobs to do only 50% of the damage that they currently do against Ice Tankers is the way to go...

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Sorry, but the CS major in me shudders at hard coding something like this. For one, if you do this for ice tankers, will you have to hard code this for SR scrappers because they are a defense based AT as well? And hey, melee guys get special treatment, let's hard code blasters speed to be 50% faster, so that they can stay out of melee range easier. Also, this solution just isn't elegant and neglects the problems inherent in our set. Instead of refining and balancing our set you want a quick shortcut that circumvents the mechanics of the game.

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Resistance for any damage from any mob is too overpowered.

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What makes you say this? We aren't asking for 90% res. We just need something to prevent one-shots and mitigate the problems we have when defense isn't enough (mobs higher lvl then us, swarms, large packs where that 5% chance to hit occurs all too often, etc)

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I still think that coding Monster Class mobs to do only 50% of the damage that they currently do against Ice Tankers is the way to go...

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Sorry, but the CS major in me shudders at hard coding something like this. For one, if you do this for ice tankers, will you have to hard code this for SR scrappers because they are a defense based AT as well? And hey, melee guys get special treatment, let's hard code blasters speed to be 50% faster, so that they can stay out of melee range easier. Also, this solution just isn't elegant and neglects the problems inherent in our set. Instead of refining and balancing our set you want a quick shortcut that circumvents the mechanics of the game.

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As I stated on a previous post this is not that hard to code. We have a basic code right now that tells a spawned AV (Let's say Adamastor at Dark Astoria just to give it a name) to hit a lvl 30 hero for X points of damage, and a lvl 50 heroe for Y*X points of damage.

Now... Should they give this my SR scrappers as well? Of course not! Why should they? My SR scrappers is not suppoused to be tanking monsters or AV's!

Is that solution elegant? No. Is that solution good for role playing? No. Is that the easiest way? I really think so. Sometimes you need to sacrifice common sence for game balance.

Why does Brawl drops toggles in PvP and not PvE?
Why do powers "end drain" powers drain less endurance during PvP then during PvE?
Why can you do "A" during PvP and not during PvE? Not because it makes sence, but because of balance.
Shoud they let my blaster blast away without having to stop everytime? From a RP/Common sence point of view: Yes. Because of balancing? Then no... It's the same in this case.


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Resistance for any damage from any mob is too overpowered.

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What makes you say this? We aren't asking for 90% res. We just need something to prevent one-shots and mitigate the problems we have when defense isn't enough (mobs higher lvl then us, swarms, large packs where that 5% chance to hit occurs all too often, etc)

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What makes me say that? Read my post again. We can tank as good as any Inv/ or Stone/ tankers if we're only fighting anything equal or lower to a +3 level Elite Bosses. Let me say it again: Sure! Inv/ and Stone/ tankers can handle mobs with very high acc or auto-hits better than us, but we can handle slows and end drains better than Inv/ or Stone/. We can tank better than a Fire tanker, but they can do more damage then us. Mobs with high accuracy are a problem, but currently all we need to do is get more mobs to fuel EA and we're set to go.

And that's the reason why having even a 5% Unslotted +Res to anything -psionics is too much. We can handle normal situations just fine as it is, the only real problem is anything bigger than a Monster.

And then again all this is if you are only talking about current Ice Tankers. Once I4 with the new EA hits the Live Servers then you can just ignore what I'm saying... And after all, this is the whole reason for this threat... And that is the reason why we're back to the beggining:

Currently we don't need resistance to everything... Sinc EA is not overpowered, currently there is no reason to change EA the way is being changed. Currently all we need is some way to reduce the amount of damage a Monster/AV/Titan does to us since we can't always have a Dark/Kinetic/Radiation user with us.

I'd also like to see some kind of toxic defense as well. I know that toxic defense doesn't exist in the game, but I would love to see some defense for this. I had a kill 50 rikti mission in the abandoned sewers and those hydras kept killing me. I know hoarfrost offers some toxic damage resistance, but with the slow recharge time, I didn't stand a chance. As an emergency tactic, I hit Hibernate and that didn't help. As soon as I emerged with full health, I was brought down immediately. It appeared as if every single attack they made hit me. I know it may be a while before toxic defense makes it in the game, but I would much rather see toxic resistance on one of my three armors or Energy Absorption. Hoarfrost just takes too long for me to reliably use it and I honestly didn't see that it did much to protect me. Until that is fixed, I guess I will swallow my pride and ask an invulnerable tanker to tank for me.

So I've had some interseting experiences over the past few days that I'd like to share with my fellow ice tankers (yes, all 5 of us- we got a new member!).

First off, we're minor gods in PVP. Seriously. Hit 2-3 people with EA, then go grab a coke. Once taunt works properly (currentlyt if you die while taunted, you are permanantly taunted- nothing fun about that), -yikes-. We'll be heavily desired. From a balance standpoint, allowing us to buff off of 10 people would make us completely unfair in pvp- but I don't think this is a reasonable reason for the hit we're taking in PVE. Simply put, an Ice/EM right now can take out almost anything. I watched one decimate a team, one after another.

I also last night tried my hand at 'kraken farming', because I was curious. I got taken apart, even with Tough. It was pretty humbling. No oneshots, but plenty of twoshots.

I have to sorta agree on the PvP part. Got into a 2v3 fight (two ice tankers versus an invuln tank, and fire controller and some other kind of controller, our earth controller split on us).

Closest I came to dropping was when the invuln tanker finally managed to get a brawl off on me, though from the looks of things he'd been trying to hit me with that most of the match. But I had a break free, once I was out of stun I just popped EA (sucking end off of the little fire imps that weren't doing squat for damage against me, even when they did hit). That gave me plenty of time to bring my toggles back up. Match ended in a stalemate with no defeats on either side. It was boring, actually.

Don't try 1v1 against a scrapper though.

As an aside, I've just about gotten that spreadsheet done, with a lot of help from Circeus (thanks man! ). I don't have anyplace to host it, so I'm just trying to figure out the best way to post it here without the information being too difficult to read.

I will say this, though; as better as invulnerability is compared to ice, it only gets worse with buff/debuffs.

I tried to pull a hatched kraken a couple of days ago and it two-shotted me as well. The controller we had was a much better tank and they finally invited a friend (invulnerable tank) to come do my job.

This sounds like something that should just be addressed in the arena instead of PvE. I tried out the arena as well and was very happy with my tank. I almost died a few times, but I got lucky. I kept cowering from fear attacks and then someone with auto-brawl would come by and drop my toggles. If it wasn't for my team looking out for me, I would have definitely died more than once.

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As an aside, I've just about gotten that spreadsheet done, with a lot of help from Circeus (thanks man! ). I don't have anyplace to host it, so I'm just trying to figure out the best way to post it here without the information being too difficult to read.

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PM me. I can host it for you.

Ok...I spend 5ish hours doing missions (including AV's) to hit 50. Yeah, friggin finally. Now I know of 3 lvl 50 Ice/Ice tanks on Guardian

I was on a team with a fire tank for dreck, who was 49 at the time (just like me). We gathered mobs together for fast and easy kills (we both gather, find a good spot, then I CE, Ice Patch, and EA to slow and dry up End... while he used burn). Suprisingly....I got hit more than he did. It still boggles my mind. I EA'd easily 100 guys, and almost got one-shotted a few times. It was +3 freaks....so I can understand getting hit - but more than a Fire tank (without tough/weave...etc)??

One of our main weaknesses also comes with AV's. The only way I can effectively tank one is with a RAD/EMP/BUB def/troller on my team. With the bubbler it's a little more dangerous, but with RAD/EMP my hp and end stay decently 80% full. (Aside from the occasional nuke and one-shot)

Again, changing EA to have a max hit is downright insane. We still get hit after hitting 100 mobs with it, changing it to 5 will be nearly suicidal - that is unless the recharge is shortened and the active time extended so we can effectively stack it.

CE is nowhere near a power that brings us up to par. Fighting minions and lt's (that aren't resistant to slow affects) can be handy - except when used in tandem with Ice Patch they just fall down in slow-motion. And after lvl 30ish the slow affect isn't enough to use (along with the end usage) unless you have an end recovery buff on you. I've got 4 End reducers and one Slow affect in it. I tried 2, but I didn't notice a difference...other than my end wore out faster.

CE is worthless against every AV and monster I've tried to use it on. (As a lvl 50....you lose track of how many that is). If it is slowing them down it's so miniscule it's unnoticeable.

I don't plan on doing any 1 vs 1's in PvP, why should the "meat shields" try to take on one guy alone? Yeah....'cause there's a good possibility that Ice/Ice's won't last very long - once you nullify the defense it's basically over. I do look forward to team matches though - that is where Ice/* may come in quite handy... assuming they don't change too many of our powers.

And Psi defense or resistance...would be a God-send. As a lvl 50 tank the only enemies I fear, are: Monsters, AV's, and Rikti Monkies. Underlings, come on man!! They're everywhere on monkey island (and parts of the crash site)....it's hard to NOT draw the aggro of 4-5 groups of 8-10 each. Now imagine getting hit by 50 monkies Psi range attacks....even with hoarfrost on (to put HP to nearly 2800) I watch my health steadily drop...to enemies that con blue and green.

Our weaknesses need to be looked over again, I agree. Cold attacks don't hurt nearly as bad as they used to, nor fire...but you think fire'd be our main weakness. Why do all tankers but Stone generally have the same Achille's heel?

I've Kraken farmed a good dozen times and have only died once from a Kraken. Weird. Maybe I'm just uncannily lucky, but I breezed through those overgrown sewage pests.

Anyways, Archimedes, I'd like to take a look at that spreadsheet too. Us 3 and several others need to bolster and unite the Ice Tanker coalition.

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So I've had some interseting experiences over the past few days that I'd like to share with my fellow ice tankers (yes, all 5 of us- we got a new member!).

First off, we're minor gods in PVP. Seriously. Hit 2-3 people with EA, then go grab a coke. Once taunt works properly (currentlyt if you die while taunted, you are permanantly taunted- nothing fun about that), -yikes-. We'll be heavily desired. From a balance standpoint, allowing us to buff off of 10 people would make us completely unfair in pvp- but I don't think this is a reasonable reason for the hit we're taking in PVE. Simply put, an Ice/EM right now can take out almost anything. I watched one decimate a team, one after another.

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Can't care less about how good can we do PvP. PvP is not the reason why I play this game. I'm happy to know that we can handle PvP, I just hope that's not the reason for EA's changes... I'm sure is not.

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I also last night tried my hand at 'kraken farming', because I was curious. I got taken apart, even with Tough. It was pretty humbling. No oneshots, but plenty of twoshots.

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Yep, it's very sad what a Monster with auto-hits can do to us :\ I don't care about farming, but not being able to do what the AT is suppoused to be able to do is very sad.

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As an aside, I've just about gotten that spreadsheet done, with a lot of help from Circeus (thanks man! ). I don't have anyplace to host it, so I'm just trying to figure out the best way to post it here without the information being too difficult to read.

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Just let me know. I can host that for you no problem.

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I will say this, though; as better as invulnerability is compared to ice, it only gets worse with buff/debuffs.

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Not surprised :\... Not sure why are you even doing that

I'm posting from work right now, and the spreadsheet's on my home comp; when I get home (around 6:45am est) I'll arrange with Snorii to get it up.

I'm not done yet, though. Next project: working out how Ice fares against Fire and Stone. Firey Aura will be really hard, since (for the most part) their best defense is a good offense. Not saying this is good or bad, just a statement of my opinion.

Once I get the percentages for Stone and Fire versus Cold worked up, I think we'll finally have the proof needed, once and for all, to show that not only does EA not need a toning down, but that the set needs some real attention.

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Can't care less about how good can we do PvP. PvP is not the reason why I play this game. I'm happy to know that we can handle PvP, I just hope that's not the reason for EA's changes... I'm sure is not.

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I did not mean, by any means, to make the implication that this makes up for anything. I do think EA's change might have been influenced by PVP, but perhaps that's just me. I don't play for pvp, nor do I plan to- and it's not comfort that we're unstoppable in it.

I more included this info as an FYI.

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Yep, it's very sad what a Monster with auto-hits can do to us :\ I don't care about farming, but not being able to do what the AT is suppoused to be able to do is very sad.

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I don't know if the stuff was autohit. They sure didn't have issues hitting me, and I don't think I ever defended properly fromthat horrible spit thing.

I did forget to mention that the +1 to me tanker could handle two of them, without much effort.

Not a huge farming fan either, but I just hate the discrepency.

Here is the spreadsheet for Ice versus Invuln (version 0.1).

This fine work is from Archimedes and Circeus.

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The kinetic
defender buffs 'Siphon Power' and 'Fulcrum Shift' are treated as
unenhanceable resistance buffs to the tanker, since the damage removed
from the enemy's attack equates to a damage resistance power. Also,
accuracy debuffs are treated as defense buffs, though this might be an
incorrect assumption (since accuracy debuffs affect the base to-hit,
not the final to-hit). Finally, for the purposes of resistances, cold
resistance was ignored (since both sets can hit the cap, and there's
so few sources of ice damage in PvE.)

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Here is the spreadsheet for Ice versus Invuln (version 0.1).

This fine work is from Archimedes and Circeus.

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Okay since I'll be away and without a computer until Wed I figured I'd give some up front info about these:

1) "ToHit Lvl Mod" column comes from a spreadsheet over at FoP. The numbers seemed fairly accuracte to what people have reported on the forums here.

2) "Damage Modifier" column is not being used. I found out somewhere along the line in doing this that you can set the "Damage per Attack" to any values you like and the % results always work out the same.

3) "CE Modifier" and "CE Actual" are best guesses by me. We know the effects for Chilling Embrace drop off as the difference in level increases. I arbirtrarily picked 15% per level less effect as it fit well with a +0 to +6 range. And I know it has almost no effect when I've fought +5s.

4) "Gross Damage" is pre-resistance damage, "Net Damage" is post resistance. Remember primary concern here was not cold damage for which Ice has plenty of Resistance.

5) A negative % means Ice is better off than Invuln.

6) Energy Absorption is calculated to cap at 5 mobs. Invincilbity at 6 (see prior discussion on this).

7) Energy Absorption is set to 3 DEF slots and Invicibility to 0 DEF slots because these are the most realisitc common slottings for DEF for these two powers. However watch what happens when you start adding more DEF slots in, for example set both to 6.

8) The buffs area is based on the +0 (highlighted) line at the top.

Okay... now read... absorb... learn and discuss (healthily).

I look forward to some real feedback as to why Invuln has such a favorable slant overall in the game mechanics. And I look forward to knowing what will be done to fix that gap.

Great work guys, on that spreadsheet. Took a look at it here at work, and wow. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, but scary anyway.

If people don't care for PVP, that's fine with me. I finally had a chance to try it this weekend, so a few of my perspectives have been further influenced by what I saw there. I'll bore you with some details from PVP, since I had such a good time with it.

First things first. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Next to that, nobody expects a Tanker with a Hold power.

I must be one of three tanks playing PVP who took a single-target Hold from their EPP. For PVE, I use it with my Duo Controller to hold Bosses from the start of a battle. I've won more fights, hands down, from this power then I can count, either Duel's, Team Duel's or a fantastic 10 man Last Man Standing fight (7 of 10 were Scrapper/Tankers).

After a quick respec for PVP (I was doing fine before the respec, but wanted to really twink things), there are few things that my Ice Tank can't take out. Because other heroes don't hit like AV's and Monsters, they require many attacks to bring us down. Massive Defense can keep that from happening. And since Brawl is the Melee killer (detoggle stinks, but I think it brings balance) it's much better to not be hit, then to "resist" the damage, but still lose toggles. I've taken out Regen Scrappers, other Tanks (Fire... HA!), and things tend to go my way. Everybody has trouble with SR scrappers, but I turn in a draw. And look out for Illusion Controllers with Spectral Terror. They gotta add more fear protection to sets.

But I'll tell you this my friends. I took on a Controller last night with Mind over Body. I think he had it 6-Slotted. My 6 Slotted Cleave (hits like a sniper shot for damage), with 5 Damage SO's, hit for around 100 pts of damage. Against an Invulnerability Tank, before I could detoggle him, with Build up... 34 points of damage. I could wail on him all day, and hit him 50 times with my best attack. And never kill him.

If Monsters and AV's fought like our fellow heroes, we'd be square. But they don't. They hit like Shadowhunter. With Tough slotted for resistance, he nearly one-shotted me with Hoarfrost already on, from full. I had less then 200 hp after. Another lucky hit after, and nothing could have saved me.

LeMoiCavalier, I can appreciate that you don't want any Resistance. It's trying to keep Ice as a "Pure" defense set. I agree with a previous poster (sorry I don't remember right now who), that the coding for this is not likely to be easy. I bet the current damage is calculated by base damage times Monster level, times hero-level mod, times buff/debuffs. For everything in the game. Having AV's and Monsters use a different formula, that checks for AT Primary power, sounds like a brute force method to code.

But I have no idea if that's how it really works. Let's say it would be totally simple for the Devs to put in the code just as you say. We already know others will ask for the same kind of treatment. We also are saying that Ice can't work as a set, same as the others, without a different set of rules. We're not fixing the set then... we're changing the rules. That also doesn't sound right.

A damage debuff is sorta like resistance for our tanks, without being the same thing everybody else has. It also helps our team-members, since the debuff would help them vs AoE's, or directly for other Tanker/Scrappers. Wouldn't that be a nice reason for others to seek our help? I think it would not only help our Tanks against their main weakness, but would improve our relations with other AT's. Ice wouldn't be just the "SR of Tanks". We'd be the Anti-Fire Tanks, in a way.

Want lots of damage potential? Take a Fire Tank with Burn.
Want a defensive Tank? Take an Ice Tanker, and watch the Mob damage level drop.

Other Scrappers and Tankers would love to take less damage too. They can focus more on damage, and less on the beating they normally take.

It all comes down to finding a niche. Ice tanks would take on more risk then Inv/Stone tanks, for the bonus of helping protect others in the group, especially those on the front-lines.

Hard coding a "fix" to Monsters and AV's? We'd be better at handling them, but no more desirable then Inv/Stone/Fire tanks currently are. I want people on broadcast to say "Blaster/Scrapper team looking for Ice Tank". And for that, they need a reason to want us there in the first place.

And if you're in PVP, saying "[Censored]?" when an Ice Tanker holds you? That just makes me laugh louder. I actually made a Regen Scrapper say “Oh Crap, I’m [Censored]”.

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Yep, it's very sad what a Monster with auto-hits can do to us :\ I don't care about farming, but not being able to do what the AT is suppoused to be able to do is very sad.

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I don't know if the stuff was autohit. They sure didn't have issues hitting me, and I don't think I ever defended properly fromthat horrible spit thing.

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The Kraken's Foot Stomp is an auto-hit PBAoE (Or at least one with huge accuracy) The range atack is toxic damage for what I remember (It has been a while since I did that mission), we don't have defenses for that kind of damage (thus an auto-hit)

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I did forget to mention that the +1 to me tanker could handle two of them, without much effort.

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Sounds about right. I remember doing that mission with an Inv/ Tanker friend of mine and he was able to tank a +2 Kraken just fine... I should mention that his wasn't/isn't a group friendly Tanker, he soloed a lot. I imagine a "good tank" tanker being able to handle 2 or those things.

Just be glad there wasn't an */Inv scrapper with you guys! Those guys at that level can handle the Kraken and other monsters/AV's just as fine as a tanker :\

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Not a huge farming fan either, but I just hate the discrepency.

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Understandable... At least for us, the people who actually play the game/AT.

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The Kraken's Foot Stomp is an auto-hit PBAoE (Or at least one with huge accuracy)

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It's not an auto-hit PBAoE. It has missed me on more than one occasion, especially if I have a FF bubbler with me on that mission. The spit is toxic, but once you get him into melee it ain't so bad. I've never had a problem tanking Krakens before, but then again I have a self heal and they swing slow, so that could be the reason for my success.

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3) "CE Modifier" and "CE Actual" are best guesses by me. We know the effects for Chilling Embrace drop off as the difference in level increases. I arbirtrarily picked 15% per level less effect as it fit well with a +0 to +6 range. And I know it has almost no effect when I've fought +5s.

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I plugged in the values for 'Power Level Mod' from the scrapper spreadsheet for CE modifier as well, since it seems to work here (meaning a +10 boss only gets a 0.75% recharge penalty, still max of 25% for a -10). With that, the values were a bit different, but I felt it was a more accurate representation of what effect CE has on higher level bosses (or even AVs). I also plugged it into the damage modifier column as well, but that didn't change the final percentages (as you stated).

It really did surprise me to see what it looked like when an Invuln tanker 6-slotted Invincibility with DEF. It was basically an 85%+ advantage over Ice all the way until you reached +7 bosses, where it went down to 67%.

Even worse is when you reduce the mob count to 1 and leave Invinc 6-slotted. This is where it gets crazily out of proportion in the higher levels. Add in the fact that ANY of the buffs on the lower part increase Invuln's potential enormously, and the discrepancies are easy to see.

The Foot Stomp is nowhere near an auto-hit power. I can handle (or I did back at lvl 37-41) +2-5 Krakens, and his foot stomp hit me maybe once a fight. His toxic attack hit me twice: once when I aggroed him, 2nd time when he came just outside of melee range after I pulled him. Then he could stomp, smash, and hit as many times as he wanted, I only died once from a Kraken.

I figured out what I was doing wrong with the hydra in the abandoned sewers. I had chilling embrace on and that caused them to chase after me with it's taunt effect when all I wanted to do was get away from them. I did manage to survive a normal group of them. (1 boss, 2 lts, and 3 minions I think). They were all level 39 while I'm level 38. That toxic damage is just brutal though. It has been a long time since I fought the Vahz. Is that on our list of weaknesses along with psi, glass jaw, one-shot death, etc?

I don't have it in front of me, but I was looking at the DVD box for the game last night and one of the big things it said I could do was fight Arch-Villains. I had to laugh at that thinking that my main character could watch people fight them but if I dared to use my powers, I would most likely end up dead. I'm at the point now where I think about not using chilling embrace to help the team because it will get too much aggro for me.

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I don't have it in front of me, but I was looking at the DVD box for the game last night and one of the big things it said I could do was fight Arch-Villains. I had to laugh at that thinking that my main character could watch people fight them but if I dared to use my powers, I would most likely end up dead. I'm at the point now where I think about not using chilling embrace to help the team because it will get too much aggro for me.

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They put that on the DVD? Now that's funny... for Ice at least.

I think we're looking at the same thing from a different side. Another Monster we can't tank by ourselves. If his foot-stomp is Auto-hit, high accuracy, or just plain lucky... same deal.

Things have slowed down on this thread, and I assume you are all waiting for the next batch of changes, as I am. PVP is sure to garner a good number of "patches" so they can get realistic data. I hope that we see a proposed Ice change in the same batch, so we can test it out against AV's and Monsters (like the H. Kraken).

Now we just need to wait...