Why change Energy Absorbtion?


Aerageil

 

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The reasons I thought EA might make sense as the damage debuff were that I didn't think anyone -used- it as an endurance drainer and it might seem to fit the 'feel' of the power.

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I did, but I'm not planning to count on it once I4 goes live if the current change to EA for I4 remains. Right now I can count on it draining the targets I need drained. After I4 I can't.

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On a somewhat related note, how about swapping the endurance drain for a second slow?

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Honestly? Again, its that the targets are not choosable by me that kills just about any secondary effect you could throw on the power. I mean, even if it was a damage debuff, I can't be certain I'd hit the main target. And in the case of higher levels that would be an AV - and the slows either don't or barely affect AVs anyway.


 

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I do like some of the proposed ideas for EA: right now all it is really good for is giving us a good def buff. If you slot it with end drain and recharge, you basically lose out on your +def buff for the sake of taking away their end (most of it). That's not a good, nor wise, trade-off. Our saving grace for them to lose end until it comes back....and to be honest, a lot of them get it back pretty quickly.

Ice Tanks and AV's?
Heh, I've been asked to come help with them, probably because I was the only high range tank on and in the area at the time. Can Ice Tanks do AV's (on a team)? Certainly. Not as well as others, and never solo...but it is theoretically possible with the bare necessity being a friggin good healer. When I have a +regen (health and end, preferrably) I usually only get one shotted by AV's that have -resistance powers and def debuffs...or a really good nuke/hard hitter: so most radiation based attacks. If I team with a good empath healer I know (and a damage dealer to actually hurt the darn thing) that's all we need for most AV's - 3. I was one-shot by Neuron (he resis defuffed me before he put off his nuke)...even with Hoarfrost. Infernal has knocked me down with 2-3 hits, but not one (unless the army of behemoths was attacking me as well).

It is possible for Ice tanks to fight AV's, but I've seen tanks from different sets 3-4 levels lower than me (NOT sked) do a better job.....on the same AV i was fighting.


 

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I also participated in the pcc event, but with a vastly differerent playstyle and build then Crenson. Crenson runs with 6-slotted taunt, so his favorite tactic was to jump in a group of us, taunt and hibernate. Extremely annoying, but extremely effective. Only time it doesn't work well is when I use Tp Foe to pull you right in the middle of us. Whats the point in taunting if we all want to take you down anyway? (I meant to get a pic of that...we had at least 8 people whaling on Crenson while he sat there happily hibernating)

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Hey, I only did that like 3-4 times. *grin* EA in a large group, though, and I was seriously annoying to kill. Taunt all the heavy hitters, and watch my sgmates roll over them. Yes, they'd hit, and yes, they'd hurt ('cept for the Ice blasters- that's just kinda funny), but the damage per second I was taking was just -not- high. Heck, once I had a SGmate empath just pouring on the heals and AB and people just started running away.

In the second match I was a lot more 'fair', only dropping into hibernate as needed, usually doing just fine unless a couple ill trollers came and started slamming me with holds, or when all 4 scrappers attacking me swapped to brawl (which I lived through, but mouse over Wet Ice, that's for sure).

I saw some of Arctic's work, and talked with him about it. He was dishing out good damage, in a setting where he was remarkably tough to take down. I was slotted more defensively and wanted to test 'extreme' battle conditions, hence jumping into massive groupings.

For that matter, -8- people? I counted 15 or so at one point. *grin* I don't think I was well liked.


 

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Honestly? Again, its that the targets are not choosable by me that kills just about any secondary effect you could throw on the power.

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Maybe I'm being stupid or naiive, but I was sort of assuming/hoping that the 'only taunts x people' portion might be fixed. With that still in effect, I'm going to agree. It's just barely worth having a secondary effect, if it only affects 5 people at random. Get more use out of the crey freeze pistol.

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It is possible for Ice tanks to fight AV's, but I've seen tanks from different sets 3-4 levels lower than me (NOT sked) do a better job.....on the same AV i was fighting.

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Except for the debuffing ones, and the oneshots (both of which you mentioned), you're right. It's quite possible, with a good team, or even a medicore team sometimes.

But Ice is the weakest against all the avs. There -might- be an exception in there, but none spring to mind (if clockwork king can oneshot a fire tanker, maybe- but a fire tanker has that great selfheal). It's not a question of 'is it possible' but 'is it preferable', at least in my opinion. At the moment, we've got nothing on any other tanker primary, except being a bit harder to kill in some situations than Fire.


 

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For that matter, -8- people? I counted 15 or so at one point. *grin* I don't think I was well liked.

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Heh I wasn't counting, I was trying to hit you.

On the subject of Ice and AV's ... I'll be coming in to my 40's soon as the semester is over, so if any of y'all have good tips for how to surive as an ice tanker I'm all ears. Also, is there any place with a listing/guide of AV's and monsters? Like damage types, when they fire their nukes, estimated accuracy (wishful thinking here), etc.


 

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All you need to know is that you can handle any AV just fine and dandy (with 6 slot Tough) except Mother Mayhem, Anti-Matter, and Infernal. Besides those 3, tank away my friend, tank away. My level 50 Ice Tanker had a blast in those 10 levels, an utter blast.


 

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All you need to know is that you can handle any AV just fine and dandy (with 6 slot Tough) except Mother Mayhem, Anti-Matter, and Infernal. Besides those 3, tank away my friend, tank away. My level 50 Ice Tanker had a blast in those 10 levels, an utter blast.

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I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that only 3 AVs would provide difficulty at that point.

Psychic Clockwork King, Vanessa DeVore, and Malaise all use hefty amounts of Psionic attacks. I also remember Nosferatu as being an auto-hit nightmare of an Archvillain, with psionic and dark energy damage.

In the event that you do _not_ have Tough (which was the case with my Ice Tanker), the list of troublesome AVs gets even longer. Shadowhunter and Bobcat both provided me with new definitions of pain, I assure you...


 

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Add Jurassik, Hatched Krakens and Envoy of Shadows. I was one-shotted by Jurassik and couldn't even come close to the Envoy. Hatched Krakens made mince meat of me with their toxic attacks even with hoarfrost up.


The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki

 

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Let's not forget about Adamastor, with his Vahzilok-like toxic vomit attacks that happen way too often as well. It may not one-shot us, but it almost always hits.


 

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I've also read that Bobcat hits for massive numbers. (3,000+?)

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Yep. She hit me for 2052 with 5-slotted Tough, which is 3420 (approximately) for the poor schmo without Tough.


 

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((I'm tired of repeating myself, so in my best Phil Hartman Frankenstein voice))

"Ice Bad!"

/runs through wall


The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki

 

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((I'm tired of repeating myself, so in my best Phil Hartman Frankenstein voice))

"Ice Bad!"

/runs through wall

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No Ice tanks are amazing. Its just that other tank sets are amazinger and most people played those sets before trying ice.

My feelings on being an Ice tank.

To be completly honest at this point I would be perfectly happy if they take away the EA nerf on test and did nothing else. I love my Ice tank on live right now just the way it is. While some smash/lethal resists would be nice, I can fully admit right now that I dont need it.


 

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To be completly honest at this point I would be perfectly happy if they take away the EA nerf on test and did nothing else. I love my Ice tank on live right now just the way it is. While some smash/lethal resists would be nice, I can fully admit right now that I dont need it.

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I followed your link, and saw the post where you listed your build.

First, congratz on hitting 50! I'm getting very excited, since Nanoc was my first character from the Beta, and my first on live. A year (and many alts) later, he's almost 50.

However, to your point that Ice is just fine as it is... Since I'm assuming you made the last few levels to 50 post Issue 3, can I ask how you handled AV's and Monsters? And Quartz from DE or Rularuu?

I'll admit that I avoid DE now if at all possible. I've done enough missions to get Kora, but doubt I'd fight Rularuu otherwise... Even against +3 Rularuu I seem to do ok with WI and EA as is, but they nail me more then any other mob type I've seen.

But it's the AV/Monster group that still has me worried. I'm going to start the "Hero's Hero" thread, and there is nothing but AV's in each and every mission. And for some reason, they all seem fixed at level 48. My little 46 rear isn't going to try that foolishness till at least 47, and only 47 with a dedicated empath, and some friends.

I'm burned out from this week, so excuse my small vent here. I'm starting to worry that changes to Ice won't happen till I retire Nanoc. I'm starting to worry that only the change to EA will be coming, and good Ice changes will be too late for me.

And if that's the case? To heck with it... I'll make 50 before I4, and start working on other characters.

Edit: States posted on one of the other Threads, saying that all defensive sets are being looked at. I'll keep my fingers crossed.


 

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To be completly honest at this point I would be perfectly happy if they take away the EA nerf on test and did nothing else. I love my Ice tank on live right now just the way it is. While some smash/lethal resists would be nice, I can fully admit right now that I dont need it.

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I followed your link, and saw the post where you listed your build.

First, congratz on hitting 50! I'm getting very excited, since Nanoc was my first character from the Beta, and my first on live. A year (and many alts) later, he's almost 50.

Thanks, although I'm actually kind of sad I hit 50. The 40+ game is the best there is.

However, to your point that Ice is just fine as it is... Since I'm assuming you made the last few levels to 50 post Issue 3, can I ask how you handled AV's and Monsters? And Quartz from DE or Rularuu?

You mention me hitting 50 post issue three which is true. The more important point I'd like to make now is that I tanked the sewer Krakens many many times without stacking armors. Just Wet Ice and EA and the only time I would die was from multiple acid blasts. All these youngins with their fancy stacking armors have it easy. What you have to accept as an Ice tank is that when fighting AVs and Monsters you will get one shotted eventually. However, as I said in my link, I've tanked every Prateorian AV at least once without dieing. Playing an Ice tank is like golfing. Its sucks when you hit it in the water multiple times (i.e getting one shotted by shadow hunter 3 freaking times in a row) but those times when you get the perfect shot there is no better feeling.

I'll admit that I avoid DE now if at all possible. I've done enough missions to get Kora, but doubt I'd fight Rularuu otherwise... Even against +3 Rularuu I seem to do ok with WI and EA as is, but they nail me more then any other mob type I've seen.

Once again I tanked DE's when Ice had no resistance to sleep. Now that was annoying as my toggels were due for a drop eveytime I saw a shroom. But I sucked it up, poped some inspirations, and dealt with it just fine. Once again youngins don't know how good they got it. Strategy is always > relying on the same tactics for every situation. As for the eyeballs I havent spent anytime in the Shard so I cant say.

But it's the AV/Monster group that still has me worried. I'm going to start the "Hero's Hero" thread, and there is nothing but AV's in each and every mission. And for some reason, they all seem fixed at level 48. My little 46 rear isn't going to try that foolishness till at least 47, and only 47 with a dedicated empath, and some friends.

Cowardly and lazy is no way to go through life son. The sooner you accept debt as a reality (wich will still be far less than your average 40+ blaster) then you will be amazed at some of the things you can do when you go all out.

I'm burned out from this week, so excuse my small vent here. I'm starting to worry that changes to Ice won't happen till I retire Nanoc. I'm starting to worry that only the change to EA will be coming, and good Ice changes will be too late for me.

I know you're burned but quite honestly being an Ice tank through issue 2 was like being a third world nation at the UN. After all the buffs Ice has recieved we are more than powerful enough to sit on the security council even if we arn't the strongest ones sitting there. However I agree the nerf to EA is a slap in the face.

And if that's the case? To heck with it... I'll make 50 before I4, and start working on other characters.

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Whatever you decide I wish you the best of luck in all your future endevors.


 

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No Ice tanks are amazing. Its just that other tank sets are amazinger and most people played those sets before trying ice.

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I started beta with an ice tank and he is still my main character. I don't get a lot of time to play, but he is the only character I have above level 14. It has been very slow to level him, but I finally started to get on a roll around level 33 or so. I'm just upset with the build now that I'm facing AV's all the time and getting killed very easily. I have every primary power except for permafrost. All of my armor is six-slotted.

I took a dirt nap and watched a fire tank and scrapper tank Jurassic with absolutely no problem. Minutes went by while I thought about the absurd damage I took from one hit. My defense was as high as I could get it with my build, but down I went. I think this would be acceptable for a rock, paper, scissors sort of mentality, but every AV I come across now takes me out with no problem.

I'm fine with having Envoy of Shadows having an auto-attack that I can't be anywhere near. It was doing over 100 points a damage per tick. All tanks have melee attacks, so I couldn't get anywhere near him. So what do I do, I sat on the sideline and hopped around while some nice strangers took him down for me. It didn't feel very heroic, but it was the only way the mission was going to get done. The next time I took on Jurassic, we had two other tanks on our team. I turned off Chilling Embrace and was sure to not use Energy Absorption on him because it may taunt him into attacking me. It didn't feel heroic and my only contribution was to use my low damage ice melee attacks on him. Ice Patch doesn't work on someone like jurassic so that wouldn't help.

Someone asked me if I wanted to try the Sewer trial so I said sure. We worked our way through rikti and made it to the bottom level. Uh oh, a hatched kraken AV. I taunted him because it was my job and he dropped me like a bag of hammers. It was embarrassing but we had to call in an invulnerable tank to come do the job I was supposed to do. I was thankful that they didn't kick me off the team.

It doesn't matter if I have heal inspirations or not. One shot is one shot. Defense inspirations don't help. My defense was already through the roof. I guess time to dip into the fighting power pool to do the job that a defense primary cant. All I ask is that empathy defenders pick up the medicine power pool so that they can heal properly. This will only help with Smashing and Lethal but hopefully it will help with one-shots.


The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki

 

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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.


 

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What you've failed to see is that Ice Tankers are fine with their abilities against any Boss-classed and below.

The problem for Ice Tankers is trying to tank AVs, Monsters and Titans. Ice Tankers just can't do them, not without heavily dipping into the power pools; and even then, picking up Tough only helps for a small portion of those fights.

Even with EA as it stands on live now, Ice Tankers are getting one- and two-shotted by AVs and Monsters, but at least on live we can keep our defense up against defense debuffing attacks and the exceptionally high accuracy bonuses these villians have thanks to EA.

This change isn't balancing; Circeus, Havok and myself have all proven that the Invulnerability and Stone have much more survivability that Ice possesses. Myself, I've shown how easy it is to get a Ice Tanker's level of defense through a few buffs (or even one Kora Fruit), thus negated that slim advantage. And since the other three Tanker powersets all have multiple types of useful resistances to go along with the ability to get as much defense as they need, the idea of a maxed defensed Tanker build is broken.

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.

The change to EA is very akin to kicking a dog with a broken leg, when what really needs to happen is some serious attention to fixing the problem.


 

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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.


 

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

Heh. Again, try one of those DE jobs with many quartz emanators active at once. I have, and even after having one of those 'talks' like those that debuff defenders usually have with their teams about what will make all of my powers USELESS AS A TANKER, I wind up eating dirt. And not due to any fault of the members of the team - it's sometimes hard to target those things when all heck breaks loose - especially in a cave job.

I can use my SIX SLOTTED energy absorption against everything in the room and I'm still getting swatted around like a blaster with more health.


 

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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.

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You do realize that that was a bug. And EA has never needed Hasten to be perma. 1 Recharge Enhancement is all it takes. Bringing up something that's a bug to try to support your argument really just kind of makes me stop reading the point you're trying to make.

Beyond that, nothing you could say would ever convince me that a Scrapper Secondary should even come anywhere close to providing the level of protection that a Tanker Primary should. Because a Scapper is not the one who has to take the damage, though they can choose to. Everyone expects the Tanker to be able to take the damage for them.

Also my arguement has never been about anything but being able to fight the primary bad guys of the 35-50 game and those are AVs and Monsters.

I 100% agree that the 5 mob thing is not going to affect how well we fight Minions or Lts or Bosses except against the things that we already have problems against (DE for example will get worse with this change). But that has never been what any of this was about.

I also don't see any reason for Tankers to do more damage then they do now personally, and its never come up on this thread, so you can try to shake us up with that, but it does nothing because its not germaine to the topic at hand.


 

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

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Then care to explain to me how as a L41 SK'ed up to L47, a L48 version of Battle Maiden was able to two-shotted me while running Hoarsfrost, with Frozen Armor (3 def SOs), Wet Ice (1 def SO), and the def gained from hitting 6 enemies (3 def SOs + 18.7% * 6)?

Sorry, but AVs and Monsters have crazy amounts of accuracy, and many have defense debuffs.


 

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All you need to know is that you can handle any AV just fine and dandy (with 6 slot Tough) except Mother Mayhem, Anti-Matter, and Infernal. Besides those 3, tank away my friend, tank away. My level 50 Ice Tanker had a blast in those 10 levels, an utter blast.

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I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that only 3 AVs would provide difficulty at that point.

Psychic Clockwork King, Vanessa DeVore, and Malaise all use hefty amounts of Psionic attacks. I also remember Nosferatu as being an auto-hit nightmare of an Archvillain, with psionic and dark energy damage.

In the event that you do _not_ have Tough (which was the case with my Ice Tanker), the list of troublesome AVs gets even longer. Shadowhunter and Bobcat both provided me with new definitions of pain, I assure you...

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Whoops, sorry. Ya, Malaise and Psy CW King hurt bad. But to all you people who said Jurrasik and Adamstor, those are monsters. Hatched Kraken... ummm.... yawn, talk about easy. Vanessa Devore is one of only 3 AVs I have never fought, so no comment. Envoy was a bit tough, but with a regen aura I was fine. Oh ya, Nosferatu is one of the three easiest AVs I have ever fought. Ever. I think my defender could tank him.


 

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with Statesman's post about how they accidentally weren't using the lvl modifiers on their test environment, perhaps they will refrain from changing ice tanks too when they can retest to see how mob acc scales. I sure hope so.


Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.

Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition

 

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

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Just the other day, my ice tanker met some DE who were buffed by two quartzes and seemed to have little trouble hitting me through a double-stacked EA (three slots in Defense buffs, so about 30% per target hit, five to ten targets per use).


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