that would be interesting, lower the Def % on EA, take away the cap on how many mobs are affected and then add in a 2% res buff for each foe.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
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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.
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Yes... Because the devs don't make mistakes. Hopefully that means that they're going to double check all the changes they're making... Including the ones to Ice Tankers and not only the ones to the scrappers.
BTW, if you (Or anyone reading this) don't know what that's all about, check here and read Statesman 's post about it in the "Re: Official Regen Nerf Thread"... I'm surprise this hasn't been mention here already.
As a side not read this one as well. Here is a little quote that makes me smile and feel sad everytime (I have a low level DM/DA Scrapper):
"We tested Dark Armor alongside Regen over the past week and found that Dark Armor Scrappers fared about as well as Regen Scrappers. We'll post the results soon."... No comments, just check the date and time of both posts... I'm sure we're not going to see those "test results" :P
What does that means? All the testing and "fixes" that the devs have been doing were done in a buggy enviroment.
About the rest of your posts: You have no idea what the heck you're talking about, do you? Roll an Ice Tanker a few levels, then we can talk about it... Or just read this whole thread. All 50 pages and take our word for it! We do know what are we talking about.
Just a quick response to the last post. The only bugs in the "buggy environment" related to damage modifications based on level. So, an Ice Tanker gets hit no more and no less often than normal because of the tests. The accuracy modifiers are still in place.
As for rolling an Ice Tanker, I'd love to roll one, but I've already ran the +defense route with SR and have no intention of redoing that.
What I don't get is why the Ice Tankers here actually want the majority of their defense in one single ability that requires multiple foes nearby (if the foes go down, so does your defense!) rather than spread out and/or mixed with more +res, based on the abilities (eg, +res vs all but psi with EA would be nice, wouldn't it??)?
I understand the devs make mistakes, but given the context of this thread, it's about Ice Armor and not really about whether Regen should be unnerfed because the devs made a mistake during internal testing.... But I'm not gonna accept the argument that just because the devs admitted to making a mistake they never have any clue what they're doing. Otherwise, let's get rid of Singularities and put Fold Space back in, put Elude back to a Phase Shift where you can't attack but you still have a small chance of being hit, and actually, get rid of the whole AT system so you can do like was done in beta, and take any two primaries and secondaries you choose. Yes, the devs encountered a bug, which is entirely irrelevant to how often Ice Armor characters get hit, so if you really want to bring it up here, then I'd suggest you have issues with the development of the game in general, and not issues with Energy Absorption.
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Second, I agree completely that Ice Armor should be more defensive than Super Reflexes. I never claimed anything other than Ice Armor should not have the same defensive output through one single ability that SR has in its entire set. If for some reason you want Ice to be absolutely nothing but +def (and technically it's not), I'd suggest spreading out the defense a little more than just putting almost all of it in one ability, and I do mean almost all of it.
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Offering more defense than SR to that scale really doesn't matter unless you're tanking well above your level - that much defense is barely relevant unless you're fighting DE who have dropped two or three quartzes (and yes, I have tanked such groups before without dying).
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Just a quick response to the last post. The only bugs in the "buggy environment" related to damage modifications based on level. So, an Ice Tanker gets hit no more and no less often than normal because of the tests. The accuracy modifiers are still in place.
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Uh... How different is that post from Statesman's post? That's what both say: Damage modifier (Nobody is talking about accuracy or duration). What both Statesman and Poz are saying (Or at least is what I understand and see from the demo posted by Statesman) is that everybody, hero or mob alike, are doing even level damage. That's why Statesman's DM/Regen was able to kill +8's, and that's why 20 +8's mobs weren't killing Statesman's DM/Regen... And the reason why Statesman's scrapper was able to hit those mobs so easily is because he was fueling "Soul Drain" with 20 mobs. You can see at the end of the demos that he fails more often, that's because they were less mobs around.
Now... What does all this means? That an Ice Tanker is very good when tanking even level mobs, just as good as any other tanker (Or even Scrappers). But that doesn't address mobs with high accuracy or higher level. Hell! Even my blaster can survive 10-15 even level monkeys... Even more if I pop a couple of lucks.
Oh! But we're not suppused to fight high levels (The whole 3 mobs = 1 hero)?!... Then I give you this.
Anyways, point is: Yes, that bug affects only damage... Yes, that is a "buggy enviroment"... Yes! They're holding I4 until they can re-test -hopefully- the whole system.
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As for rolling an Ice Tanker, I'd love to roll one, but I've already ran the +defense route with SR and have no intention of redoing that.
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Very well, same reason why I deleted my SR scrapper and rolled a DM/DA one... That and the fact that I foresee a nerf for you guys in the near future.
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What I don't get is why the Ice Tankers here actually want the majority of their defense in one single ability that requires multiple foes nearby (if the foes go down, so does your defense!) rather than spread out and/or mixed with more +res, based on the abilities (eg, +res vs all but psi with EA would be nice, wouldn't it??)?
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Just to point here: EA is not the mayority of our defense. We can tank up to +2's w/o EA. W/O EA we can get ~50% Def to all -{fire, toxic, psionic}. 20% Res to Toxic and 20-ish% def to fire, 90% Res to cold and 20-ish% Res to Fire... Those are good number if you plan to solo. What EA gives is the ability to be useful for teams, it gives us the extra edge... I'm talking about high accuracy mobs and mobs with nothing but fire. It's what let us tank those +3's and +4's that are so common during big team missions or during Trials/Respecs... Now, is not that we want "everything" in one place! The problem is that we don't understand the need to reduce the efectivity of a power that allows us to do 75-80% of what other tankers can do. The the reason why we don't really want Res is because we don't want to be Inv/ tankers. Fire is all Res, Inv and Stone are a mix... One with more Def, the other one with more Res, we're all Def... That's good. What I want to see is monsters doing less damage to us, and I also want them to leave EA the way it is... Anything lower then elite bosses are fine the way they are.
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I understand the devs make mistakes, but given the context of this thread, it's about Ice Armor and not really about whether Regen should be unnerfed because the devs made a mistake during internal testing....
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Again, that wasn't a bug that affected only Regen scrappers, that bug affects everybody since everybody was doing and receiving the same damage...
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But I'm not gonna accept the argument that just because the devs admitted to making a mistake they never have any clue what they're doing. Otherwise, let's get rid of Singularities and put Fold Space back in, put Elude back to a Phase Shift where you can't attack but you still have a small chance of being hit, and actually, get rid of the whole AT system so you can do like was done in beta, and take any two primaries and secondaries you choose.
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All those examples are things that people has been complaining about since beta because they were wrong. Finally the devs are starting to realize that all those things sound like a good idea, but they're not.
More examples of things that we've been asking to be change since beta and/or before going live from Test Server (Some of them we have, some of them we're getting with I4, some we don't know yet):
Stackable armors, fear not causing mobs to run, a better taunt, a better fly, a less end-draining Teleport, Res or Def to Sappers, Ice Tanker being able to tank AV's (At least more than 50% of them), rain powers to not break taunt or cause the mobs to run away, better Keldians, a higher damage cap for blasters, a different MoG, knockback res to */DA scrappers and Fire/* tankers... I can keep going if you want me to.
Anyways... I feel like I'm just repeating myself or others over and over again. I didn't say anything new here, so if you all excuse me I'm going to move to a different subject now unless something new is said, or until I feel like repeating myself or others again.
I'm gonna ignore that last section, because it's really about a ton of other issues that for some reason you don't think can be paralleled to the player base complaining that the early regen game sucks to play and the high end regen game is way too easy, which was the purpose fo the internal testing to begin with. If you want to play a unilateral bash the devs game, that's fine with me, it's just not gonna sway my opnion.
Other things that are more relevant to Ice Armor, though.
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That's why Statesman's DM/Regen was able to kill +8's, and that's why 20 +8's mobs weren't killing Statesman's DM/Regen... And the reason why Statesman's scrapper was able to hit those mobs so easily is because he was fueling "Soul Drain" with 20 mobs. You can see at the end of the demos that he fails more often, that's because they were less mobs around.
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Now... What does all this means? That an Ice Tanker is very good when tanking even level mobs, just as good as any other tanker (Or even Scrappers).[/.quote]
Now this is actually relevant. Against even level mobs, an Ice Tanker can theoretically gather a bunch of them up and drain a lot at once, because the damage they individually do is negligible (well, not very high, anyway). Whereas, against higher levels, the Ice Tanker has more problems handling large groups because they'll dish out more damage when 20 mobs are surrounding you with one hitting every volley, i.e., you'll have problems Energy Absorbing them because you won't be left alive to absorb them....
Well, the only thing that tells me is that if the bug that affected internal testing shows anything, it'll show that when Ice Tankers take on aynthing past +4, that they'll be killed no matter how much EA absorbs, so the changes to it really won't matter to help against +4s, and against under +4s, it's still capped with the changes....
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But that doesn't address mobs with high accuracy or higher level.
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Actually, it does address mobs with higher accuracy because of higher level, because that's exactly what Positron meant when he said that accuracy modifiers based on level were not bugged....
As for acc buff/defense debuff mobs, that's addressed in my prior post. There's absolutely nothing you can do to protect against these sort of things defense wise, unless you give yourself the ability to fight things 10 levels higher than what you'd otherwise fight. I'm sorry, but just because you're having problems with level 38 DE at level 35 doesn't give you the right to be able to tank level 48 CoT....
But again, I doubt you can really tank level 48 CoT at 35, even on live, simply because they do a lot more damage. Likewise, anything that would buff or debuff that much (including DE eminators) would very likely be doing enough damage, buffed wise or level wise, that EA wouldn't help you past the test server's 95% cap, because rounding up that many mobs would kill you, anyway.
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Oh! But we're not suppused to fight high levels (The whole 3 mobs = 1 hero)?!...
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I disagree with the concept that tanks shouldn't be able to tank higher levels. But high levels at +3/+4 is one thing, and high levels at +9/+10 is entirely different. According to your own numbers, though (50% plus EA, which is now capped 95%, at 145% defense) you can tank easily still tank +3/+4s no different than before. In fact, that might even let you tank +7s/+8s, if you could survive rounding them up for the EA.... So, I still don't see how a 95% cap is that big of a deal, unless you're still worried about the +3 DE who are striking as if they're +13 CoT.... At some point we might ask for a lowering of defense debuffs and acc buffs on certain abilities, but then every Invuln Tanker and Scrapper will cry "nerf" when they suddenly have to slot an SO or train another buffing attack besides Invincibility to be able to hit an opponenent 95% of the time.
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Very well, same reason why I deleted my SR scrapper and rolled a DM/DA one... That and the fact that I foresee a nerf for you guys in the near future.
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As an aside, I highly doubt this. SR can handle mobs without Elude, true enough, but msot nerf-SR complaints are against perma-Elude, which unenhanced is probably at 2/3 the 95% cap on EA, Elude is very annoying to use during every fight if you so choose to do (imagine if EA were perma without the cap, but dropped toggles and end to nothing every 100 seconds... it would still annoy Ice Tankers, even if it was fairly powerful). I prefer not to use it except on AVs, and even then I tend to give up on it, and just pray the AV hits an unlucky streak and that someone else has agro. I don't care how many people swear by perma-Elude for regular up to +3 minion/lt battles, it simply is not a good idea, until you start to get hurt. Now EA's obviously designed the opposite way. It works and caps you for minions/lts but it obviously doesn't cap you for the lone big guys.
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Just to point here: EA is not the mayority of our defense. We can tank up to +2's w/o EA. W/O EA we can get ~50% Def to all -{fire, toxic, psionic}. 20% Res to Toxic and 20-ish% def to fire, 90% Res to cold and 20-ish% Res to Fire... Those are good number if you plan to solo. What EA gives is the ability to be useful for teams, it gives us the extra edge... I'm talking about high accuracy mobs and mobs with nothing but fire. It's what let us tank those +3's and +4's that are so common during big team missions or during Trials/Respecs... Now, is not that we want "everything" in one place!
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With a 95% cap, it does not affect your ability to tank groups of +4s, though. Well, against everything but Psionics. That's not even taking into account the +50% defense to all but tox/fire/psi. This is simply not a nerf to groups like that, with the exception of the above acc buffers/defense debuffers, which I've been through. Well, actually, I'm not being entirely truthful here, +4 bosses will have a 6% chance to hit you now, rather than 5%... 1/100 more times you'll be hit.
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The the reason why we don't really want Res is because we don't want to be Inv/ tankers. Fire is all Res, Inv and Stone are a mix... One with more Def, the other one with more Res, we're all Def... That's good. What I want to see is monsters doing less damage to us, and I also want them to leave EA the way it is... Anything lower then elite bosses are fine the way they are.
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Fair enough. But Monsters will never do "less" damage to you simply because your defense is kept the same. Nothing will likely change with fighting Monsters because they tend to be solo, or only have a few mobs around them. What I was suggesting when I said +res wasn't the same +res that Invuln gets, eww.... I'd hardly want every primary to be the same. I was suggesting a smaller +res that would give some survivability from near full health to nil or in other words a chance to hit hibernate or whatever. Something along the upper limits of the 20% resist that you could get for fire and toxic, nothing like you'd get for cold. Maybe give EA a 5% +res against all per enemy with the same 5 enemy cap.
- 1st of all I'm going to ask you a favor. Please! Either read all 50 pages worth of this thread, roll an Ice Tanker, or move along. It's has been very obvious for a while now that you have no idea how Ice Tankers work (SR Scrappers and Ice Tankers are 2 different beasts, I know this because I've play both... Remember the part about me deleting a SR Scrapper to roll him as a DM/DA?... In fact my very 1st character was a MA/SR, a year ago or so)
- Second I'm going to give you a tip in case you ever feel like rolling one Ice Tanker... That is if they don't change the way EA works! Now, the way an Ice Tanker usually uses EA is by using the "snowball down the hill" tactic. That is;
* EA a group of mobs
* Move to the next one
* Wait for the 1st group to reach your position
* EA again
* Rinse and repeat as many times as you can/need.
That's how we're able to get enough def against mobs with either high accuracy or accuracy bonuses. That's also how we don't die while herding the mobs we need to fuel EA.
Now, if you actually follow my first recomendation (The same one I've been giving you for a while now) you can find this information all over this thread.
- And finally: This is the last time I reply to one of your comments. All you're doing now is trolling... Or at least it looks that way since you do nothing to find information about the issue (Information that is all over this thread, Tanker's forum and player guides' forum), and you're basing all your argument in nothing but suppositions.
Now... It's almost 5 am, I'm tired, time to get some sleep.
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- And finally: This is the last time I reply to one of your comments. All you're doing now is trolling... Or at least it looks that way since you do nothing to find information about the issue (Information that is all over this thread, Tanker's forum and player guides' forum), and you're basing all your argument in nothing but suppositions.
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Yeah, I'm with you on that LeMoiCavalier...
/signed
Interesting. I defend the devs from what appears to me to be trolling and I get called a troll. Skimming through the past 50 pages, no where does anyone even bring up an anecodote of actual pve play experience on Test, yet it appears many people are attacking other Tanker primaries and referring to hypothetical gimpiness of Ice on Test without actual gameplay.
As I said, the changes with EA can not possibly hae an effect on gameplay against anything lower than +5s, unless you're talking about fighting +3 or higher AV/Monsters or unless you're talking about fighting while standing over a bunch of eminators and not about the herding process. And that's not even taking into account that in regular gameplay, EA won't always hit its cap (when the AV is the only thing left, you simply can not reach the new EA cap, on Test or Live).
So, bash all the other Tanker primaries you want. Ice needs to be comparable to them, and I agree with that. But keep in mind calling me a troll for not actually testing the changes on an Ice Armor build is hypocritical, since no one else appears to have actually tested the changes on Test.
You want it to not be about supposition? Get hard numbers. High random samples that show that you're getting hit more than 5% of the time, using EA only, by +4 bosses or lower. Yes, that's an awful lot of work, but players do that sort of testing. I've at least tried to do that sort of testing when checking the acc debuff on dark meelee attacks, but then the mobs kept dying after about 20 hits, even after i waited between attacks. My personal suggestion, test with a group of 5 +0 mobs surrounding you, while you use nothing but EA over and over again... watch only one mob's hits/misses and see if it goes above 5% after a sufficiently large number of attacks. Slowly move up +1 until you get something that goes above a 5% chance to hit.
After doing that, come back and then feel free to call me a troll. But right now, I'm using hard numbers from other people's tests/info. A 95% cap, 75% chance for a boss to hit, and 6.5% chance per level difference of being hit. That means a boss at +4 has a 6% chance to hit, rather than 5%, which to me seems sufficiently close to the 5% mininum anyway. But certainly anything lower than a +4 boss will be capped on EA alone, which means in actual game play, whatever you guys were doing before, you're still likely doing it the same on Test, with the exeception of just standing in multiple eminators....
Want hard numbers showing how much more survivable Invulnerability is to Ice?
Here you go.
Furthermore, this discussion has never, ever been about Ice Armor's ability to take on any villian of Boss level or lower. It has always been about our inability to successfully tanker AV or Monster class villains.
But perhaps if you'd, you know, actually read the thread instead of using your experience as a SR to say you understand how we as Ice Tankers work, you would understand this, and you would have never brought up your incorrect points in the first place.
We don't need testing to show AVs and Monsters can one or two shot us. It happens all of the time on Live now.
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So, bash all the other Tanker primaries you want. Ice needs to be comparable to them, and I agree with that. But keep in mind calling me a troll for not actually testing the changes on an Ice Armor build is hypocritical, since no one else appears to have actually tested the changes on Test.
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In fact I do spend time testing several different builds for Ice Tankers on Test. To the point where I put together bug reports for the entire set. And I do this any time a patch list on test shows changes to the set.
I've done several encounters which led to all my number crunching on the topic in the first place. But like Archimedes said, this is not about Minions/Lts/Bosses this is about a Tanker being able to Tank AVs/Monster with a high degree of reliability.
And Archimedes is right, we're not arguing at all about standard encounters being all that badly damaged by this. That was what this whole conversation started as, yes, but it has morphed into a conversation about the general inadequecies of the set.
This has led to several different comparisons, primarily to an Invuln Tanker since they are supposed to be the baseline Tanker for Tankers.
And we have hard numbers. That's what number crunching is all about - hard numbers. And we've done our homework, and you've done little to prove that we haven't.
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You want it to not be about supposition? Get hard numbers. High random samples that show that you're getting hit more than 5% of the time, using EA only, by +4 bosses or lower. Yes, that's an awful lot of work, but players do that sort of testing.
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Hard numbers? You really haven't seen any of the info Arch and Circ have been using, have you?
You want experience? How about Nanoc. From level 26-47, he's never had Frozen Armor, or Glacial Armor. He picked up tough around 30, and slotted it from there. I've played at least 50-100 hours getting to where I am now. Wet Ice, and EA. Nothing more for defense.
Over the weekend, on live, I had a chance to play with my SG, and do some very high level missions. I tanked the AV Seige at +4 (after SK). After beating on every minion/Lt/Boss group from a 7 man group, without much problem, he knocked me around quite a bit. Thanks to two Rad's (one controller, one defender) a storm defender and a kinetics defender (increased density), I had reasonable resistance to him. Oh, and an Empath. I had a team of Defenders boosting me with everything they had. And he still nearly took me out. With two scrappers tearing into him, it took us around 20 min to take him out. I kept aggro on him the whole time, because I think it's wrong to have regen take over for me.
Do I think EA will now be worthless? It would have been in that mission. Instead of my worry about the AV, the normal packs would have knocked me out too.
In closure, with the current (live) state of EA, a level 46 Ice Tank, with WI, Tough and EA, can Tank mobs of level 52-53, in large packs (7 man spawn). Those mobs use energy blasts and energy melee. I still got hit, but with a good healer and lots of debuffs going around, I could manage. But I did survive alpha-strikes, because I could hit EA before they attacked me. Is this special for Ice?
Every other type of Tank can currently do what I just described. And likely, need fewer buffs to do it. And can Tank AV's and Monsters.
If they changed things to how they are on the Test server? Limit me to 5 targets? We've already had many posts on the limits that will place on us. I doubt I could manage what I did Sunday. Would I need to take FA and GA to compensate. Sure. There go two more powers I currently have.
Why are we calling you a Troll? Because you seem to be defending the idea that Ice is just fine, and EA needs toned down. If you feel EA needs toned down, you are entitled to your opinion.
But unless you've played an Ice Tank, please don't lecture us about how good we have it. Your time as a SR Scrapper gives you insight, but that hardly makes you an expert on Ice Tankers. I would be equally wrong to say that SR Scrappers play like a my Ice Tank does, with fewer hitpoints. I know very little about their set, so I don't go on their threads. And I don't try to take a "positive" thread, looking for creative ideas to help a set, and try to inject a need for hostile defense.
Yeah
From Circeus:
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In fact I do spend time testing several different builds for Ice Tankers on Test. To the point where I put together bug reports for the entire set. And I do this any time a patch list on test shows changes to the set.
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Ok, so you do play on Test. And your complaint is about AVs and Monsters. So, where are your hard numbers showing that +2 AVs or lower hit you more often on Test than on Live? You complained about the changes to Energy Absorption, but did you really run hard tests with sufficiently large samples to show that there really was a change to how often you got hit? If not, you're only going on the gut instinct thtat because the Test notes say there's a nerf, you're really that much worse off. Show me.
Again from Circeus:
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And Archimedes is right, we're not arguing at all about standard encounters being all that badly damaged by this. That was what this whole conversation started as, yes, but it has morphed into a conversation about the general inadequecies of the set.
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No, this topic is clearly still about Energy Absorption's defense nerf. I suggested alternatives to keeping EA's defense as is on live, and was told that Ice Armor characters want their defense from EA back. I pointed out that won't help, and Archimedes, who you're referring to, just admitted it:
From Archimedes:
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Furthermore, this discussion has never, ever been about Ice Armor's ability to take on any villian of Boss level or lower. It has always been about our inability to successfully tanker AV or Monster class villains.
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If you can't tank AVs now, why do you care about that aspect of it? It's not being nerfed, you're still able to take +2 AVs/Monsters as easily as you ould before, and even +9 AVs will be capped if they deal any damage type that Ice gets without EA.
And before anyone puts words in my mouth, I said "defense" is capped, I realize you can still get one or two shotted (depending on the level difference of the AV), but that's no different from Live.
Again, I need to see hard numbers that this is incorrect
From Circeus again:
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This has led to several different comparisons, primarily to an Invuln Tanker since they are supposed to be the baseline Tanker for Tankers.
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Again, this fits in witht he theme of the thread, simply because people think the defense aspect of Energy Absorption will keep Ice closer in line with the other Tanker sets more on the Live version than the Test, and agian, I don't see this, since defense wil be capped against pretty much everything you fight. I can completely understand other problems with the nerf (end draining 5 mobs as opposed to all of them around you would be a problem), but the recurring theme of the thread through all 50ish pages is the defense cap.
Again from Circeus:
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And we have hard numbers. That's what number crunching is all about - hard numbers. And we've done our homework, and you've done little to prove that we haven't.
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Actually, I've done quite a bit. I pointed out that the defense on Test is really not that different from Live, unless you're talking about taking much, much higher levels without using defense inspirations (would definitely need heals, but no defense insps would be useful).
So, since you've said you've done testing, show me. Answer the following questions about these hard numbers: how large was the sample of attacks against you? How many times were you hit, and how many times did they miss? Did you have Energy Absorption up at all times through the test, surrounded by at least 5 mobs? Did you ever pop a luck by accident? Were you tracking the attacks of a single mob, or were you tracking multiple mobs? Did you run the same exact test on Live and come up with different numbers?
And if you were actually able to run hard number tests against an AV to compare Live to Test, I'd like to know how....
I recognize that there are inadequacies within the set, but you're not gonna get a fix by removing the defense cap portion of the nerf on Test. Apparently, you don't eve want a small +res, from these last few pages. The only other solution, I've seen in this thread was the suggestion to remove the 5% soft cap on the mininum chance to hit against Ice Armor. But I see this event as unlikely, because that's getting awfully close to a phase shift with the ability to attack (I would hope the devs never go under a 2.5% chance if they accepted this idea, because that's really one hit every two minutes per mob, or in other words, every time Hasten recycles).
All I've been asking, and I will keep on asking, is why you want to keep extra defense against things you admit defense alone doesn't even work against?
From JJ_Jason:
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You want experience? How about Nanoc. From level 26-47, he's never had Frozen Armor, or Glacial Armor. He picked up tough around 30, and slotted it from there. I've played at least 50-100 hours getting to where I am now. Wet Ice, and EA. Nothing more for defense.
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Here's exactly why I think the changes to EA defensewise are necessary. No one should expect their defense to be capped against a +4 AV from one single ability. Tough does not help with +defense. Weave does, if that's what you meant. On the Test server, you would have had about an 18% chance of being hit in the same scenario. Had you taken Weave and not even slotted it, you would've been capped defense wise on Test (Siege would have had a 5% chance to hit you). Had you taken Frozen Armor, you would have been capped on Test. Had a defender cast Fortitude on you, I think you would've been capped, and had a Defender or Controller ran Maneuvers, you would've been capped. With one small luck inspiratin, you would've been capped on Test. In other words, even with just EA running, you'd still be just as defensive as you could possibly be on Test. Now, my real question is what you did after those 7 mobs dropped, or if you just went straight for Siege first then the mobs (which is normally not what other players will do). Whether on Live or Test, when you drop under 5 mobs, you're gonn have under the 95% defense, and that's not gonna change by allowing more mobs to drain.
Again by JJ_Jason:
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Why are we calling you a Troll? Because you seem to be defending the idea that Ice is just fine, and EA needs toned down. If you feel EA needs toned down, you are entitled to your opinion.
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Yes, I do feel that EA's defense on Live (and only its defense) needs to be toned down so it isn't so dominant, as I explicitly stated several times. You don't need a 500% defense, unless you planned on tanking Siege without an SK... and certainly it would be best if you specifically were more inclined to take more than two defensive powers from your Tanker primary....
On that note, to make sure this misperception that I think "that Ice is just fine" doesn't persist:
All quotes from me:
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(though I'd admit, it's not very effective to have a tank on the team sitting in hibernation).
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Granted the lack of Psionic protection is a problem that should be fixed,
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Maybe the 95% cap is a bit too low,
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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.
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No, Ice will not compare to other Tanker primaries.
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Defense isn't what's needed to protect from the eminators, which is exactly what I said before when I said some level of damage resistance should also be factored into Ice. You simply can't protect yourself from 20 mobs all doing buffed damage compared to your level for prolonged periods of time.
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Third, as for being two shotted by an AV, it happens, and always will, no matter how high the defense.
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Last, as for defense debuffs, it's pretty much the same idea as quartz eminators. You're never gonna be immune to defense debuffs or acc buffs used against you.
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What I don't get is why the Ice Tankers here actually want the majority of their defense in one single ability that requires multiple foes nearby (if the foes go down, so does your defense!) rather than spread out and/or mixed with more +res, based on the abilities (eg, +res vs all but psi with EA would be nice, wouldn't it??)?
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Likewise, anything that would buff or debuff that much (including DE eminators) would very likely be doing enough damage, buffed wise or level wise, that EA wouldn't help you past the test server's 95% cap, because rounding up that many mobs would kill you, anyway.
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At some point we might ask for a lowering of defense debuffs and acc buffs on certain abilities, but then every Invuln Tanker and Scrapper will cry "nerf" when they suddenly have to slot an SO or train another buffing attack besides Invincibility to be able to hit an opponenent 95% of the time.
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What I was suggesting when I said +res wasn't the same +res that Invuln gets, eww.... I'd hardly want every primary to be the same. I was suggesting a smaller +res that would give some survivability from near full health to nil or in other words a chance to hit hibernate or whatever. Something along the upper limits of the 20% resist that you could get for fire and toxic, nothing like you'd get for cold. Maybe give EA a 5% +res against all per enemy with the same 5 enemy cap.
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Ice needs to be comparable to them, and I agree with that.
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In fact, JJ, most of my posts here are really getting at what you were saying earlier:
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But if you decrease the "per mob" bonus, and increase the cap, does that really help us? Now if I only have one or two mobs I can hit in a group, I get a decent boost.
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Not needing a herd of mobs to cap defense against a +2 AV would be nice, don't you think? I do think End Drain sounds like it's important, because some claim Ice Tankers use it as another defense, but raising the cap, even back to Live status in general. 95% is almost always enough defense, accoding to the numbers. The first problem is when you run low on mobs, you're gonna want something to boost your defense, and the other problem is that you will always be hit 5% of the time, and that the cap on Test will not make either of these problems worse or better.
Again, back to my first post in this thread. I think I can see exactly why the devs put a cap on the +defense of EA. As is now, it's not only more +defense than any single ability should get, it's more defense than is really useful....
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But unless you've played an Ice Tank, please don't lecture us about how good we have it. Your time as a SR Scrapper gives you insight, but that hardly makes you an expert on Ice Tankers. I would be equally wrong to say that SR Scrappers play like a my Ice Tank does, with fewer hitpoints. I know very little about their set, so I don't go on their threads. And I don't try to take a "positive" thread, looking for creative ideas to help a set, and try to inject a need for hostile defense.
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/signed
Jack,
Please don't disregard all of the hardwork, testing, blood, sweat, tears and love that these fellas have poured into their ice tankers over the last year. They've put a lot of time and effort into learning and coping with ice's frailities and problems from levels 1-50. I think it would be a mistake to undervalue what these guys have meant to their class.
The focus of this and other ice tank threads is to foster discussion and suggest ideas for how to improve this set in a supportive and friendly environment. The end goal is have ice improved and brought more in line with other sets like invulernability, while still preserving ice's unique flavor.
We've got a good thing going here and we're always looking for more supporters for the class and our agenda, so if you'd like to positively contribute to this thread, that's just fine. I'd also encourage you to read up on what has been previously posted in this thread so that you have a clearer picture of the specific issues that are being address.
If you just want to state your outsider's perspective on the set, then consider your opinions and statements logged for the record and please move on. You can't expect to garner a lot of support from ice tanks when you pass judgement ice armor after acknowledging that you're unexperienced with the set and its issues.
JackDrek-
While I understand that what you're looking at on paper seems like EA was vasty overpowered....you're mistaken. Your experince with a purely defense-based set has given you some experince, your experince, as a whole, has been from a scrapper perspective. Ice tankers have it a bit...different.
First off, I think that JJ_Jason is completely insane (no offense intended *grin*) for not taking GA/FA. On my ice tank, I still take quite a bit of the alpha, and I imagine that JJJ takes 90% of it. If you don't think the alpha from 2 spawns is enough to drop a tank in a large group, you're simply incorrect.
So you have to take the alpha, and survive it, to hit EA in enough groups to bring your defenses in line. Without Tough, this is a very quick way to faceplant- this is why Tough was included on the list of 'defensive' powers he took.
Ice face key decisions- like do I EA on these 2 guys left in this spawn, or save it for the next spawn? This is why ice will gather 2-3 spawns continiously, our defenses -require- it.
Now, to bring it around to the changes on EA. When you're facing 40-50 foes (pretty normal, in large teams, and they will -all- be beating on you specificly, again normal), you're going to get hit moderately often. Quite a few...I'd say maybe 30%, possibly more, of lethal attacks have a -def component, and with only 5 buffs worth of guys, that 'very high' 130% defense is going to go straight down, very very quickly. Once you get hit with 3-4 of them, people hit you more, debuff you more, drop you even faster. This is pretty trivial to test, if you don't belive me- get a mission with lethal dominant foes, and watch as 40 of them start to do pretty astonishing runs and debuff chains on you.
But you might argue that that's situational- and I'd agree. As are Quartzes. You claim that you never need extremely high defense, and I say you do- sometimes. Stuff like Archon bosses are new in I3, with a -massive- accuracy boost in all thier attacks. You say that this is a weakness inherent in defense based, that these things are rare.
So I'd ask what's -wrong- with allowing Ice tanks to have a form of mitigation in those circumstances? So you can guarentee to floor any accuracy, regardless, if you take enough steps. I suppose I'm saying, if you claim it won't make a difference in most situations, fine. Leave us our power as is.
Ice tanks are -tanks-. All other tanks can tank +5s, at least with some degree of success. WE run into issues with large groupings of +3s and +4s- and in any group I've been in recently, +4s would be the norm. We're not super reflexes- something that's hard to hit and can take on a boss of some description. We're instead the meatshields who are NOT doing our job unless every single thing that's noticed us in the block radius is pounding on us. It is our -job- to be attacked, by everything.
Some other issues with the 'new' EA include, but are not limited to, the fact that we're losing a fairly potent aoe taunt factor, and since the range of the power is -less- than the graphic it can be more than a little confusing trying to figure out if you hit 5 or just 3- which is often a life or death difference.
In addition, I have no clue where you're pulling your AV accuracy numbers from, but I'm fairly sure they're wrong. I've had some experince tanking various AVs, and when a blaster nukes and leaves 4-5 standing + Battle Maiden at +2, I start begging for respites- with my 4 slotted Tough. It's happened enough times that I'm fairly certain that a +2 AV has an accuracy close to 200%- I run Wet Ice, Frozen Armor, and of course EA, and I'm getting hit more than occasionally by the av specificly.
Please keep in mind that any other tank can handle a +4 AV of most varieties with some risk, but not much. I've also personally watched every single other Tank handle at least 1 spawn of +13s, so I'm not sure why you think that Ice shouldn't be able to do the same.
And the original subject is indeed about EA- but the discussion has evolved, because the few Ice tanks that we are are attempting to look at the power within context of the set, rather than in a vaccum.
So...yes, you have some experince iwth a purely defense based set. ice works differently. From Fire to Cold to Toxic to Psi, we face different challenges and a -vastly- different playstyle than SR. Heck, our last ditch powers were originally designed with a different thought process- HIbernate keeps us alive and often getting nailed on, while Elude allowed you to run away swiftly. We stay, and even while getting pounded do our best to survive to pop out, you run and return later. While this is not how either power works now, it to me exemplifies the differences between the sets.
Edit: With the current Live version of Ice, Ice in certain situations performs up to the standards of the other sets. With the modification of EA, the number of those situations decreases. If you cannot debate either of these points, and still do not see why Ice tanker are upset about the modification to EA, please, honestly, step aside. Your opinion has been noted, and we thank you for your contribution.
Jackdrek, I'm glad you decided quote every line you've ever said about our "weaknesses". But it's not the spirt of your posts.
I never said I tanked Siege (+4 to me), and managed to floor his accuracy at 5%. He hit much more often then that. He hit me quite a bit more then that. I'd bet more in the range of 50-75% of the time. For 20 or 25 minutes of continuous combat. And that's with multiple debuffs to his accuracy. With any fight against an AV/Monster, after the first 30 seconds, nearly all nearby minions/lt/bosses will be dead. EA draws from one target, and thus only as good as that when fighting AV/Monsters
I expect an AV at that level to hit right past my defense for most attacks. I've told you I'm not a "pure" defense build, since I don't run FA/GA. At 47, I just took FA, to help manage situations with AV's and Monsters.
But what I AM saying, is that only with Tough (yeah, the Resistance buff), did I survive the attacks that hit me. Energy Transfer was a bear, and did over 1/2 my hit points in a single hit. Followed up by whirling hands, he'd have me in the red or orange.
Tough kept me alive in that fight. Tough is from a Power Pool. The devs have always maintained that Power Pool powers should not be a requirement for an AT to do their "job".
The other point we made, is that even with a full defense build, with 6 slots of defense in WI and FA and EA, and the changes on Test... an AV/Monster will still one-shot you, at even level. Defense may floor them at 5%, but the one shot that goes thru can kill you.
When I said I get a "decent" boost from just two guys, I look at it as 60% defense. I have some defense slotted into EA, so that should be fine. But that's only against mobs who don't have uber-Accuracy. Or any of the other situations we mentioned where Defense suffers.
We don't need 500% defense? Then why take it away? If, as you claim, there is never a need because we're always maxed out anyway, why nerf EA? On live I see fights where my defense is not flooring all at 5%. These are normal door missions we're talking about here, set to invincible. With FA, I expect even fewer hits... But DE could still drop frightining amounts of Acc+, and then EA is my only protection worthwhile.
Ok, the horse is dead, and that's fine. Just remember...
Invulnerability tankers can slot for 95% Resistance vs all but Psionic. 100% of the time. Why shouldn't Ice tanks have 95% defense 100% of the time? It's the least they can do. Then, we can try to balance out the AV/Monster issues, and be given our due as equals among Tanks.
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First off, I think that JJ_Jason is completely insane (no offense intended *grin*) for not taking GA/FA. On my ice tank, I still take quite a bit of the alpha, and I imagine that JJJ takes 90% of it. If you don't think the alpha from 2 spawns is enough to drop a tank in a large group, you're simply incorrect.
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Crazy like a fox... but I also have perma-Group Invisibility. I can fire off EA before the mobs turn on me. Thus, the Alpha-strike hits post-EA defense.
God bless duos! 
A bit off-topic, but I just tried my first 2 pvp matches ever on Test. I did two 1 vs 2 matches, me being the one. First against a fire/??? blaster, second against illusion/??? controller. Second match against nrg/ice blaster and a warshade. Totally womped them all. It was a total blast! And yes, I need to try fighting other archtypes.
Alright, first off, don't tell me what the tone of my posts are. This is becoming a dead horse, but it's clearly one where I'm being completely mischaracterized. The tone of my posts is NOT to bash Ice Tankers or to claim they are the uber set. It enver was, and if you think it was, go back and read my posts very carefully.
The message of my all my posts here were clearly to defend the defense aspect of the EA nerf. Not to address the one shot problems, the agro problems, the psi protect problems, etc....
For all that I've been insulted for not reading page after page of what's being called a "friendly" discussion on how to fix Ice, I have read enough to know that mostly it's people complaining about the nerf and most of those complaints specifically centered around the defense cap.
In defending the devs decision to cap, I compared EA's defense to SR. SR potentially can have a +defense of 209%, if Elude is 6 slotted with defense SOs rather than recharge (but only for 100 seconds). I don't want some crazy Ice Tanker to come along and say, "Haha, you only get 209% defense? I can jump next to that Fire Tank and get 500% defense, just from Energy Absorption!" That's ridiculous. Yes, imo, I don't think it would be a good idea not to train the other +defense Ice abilities, but the fact is some Winter Lord newbie could do that and still have a huge defense at times. The point is, there's a certain limit where you simply don't need more defense, which is why I'm asking if anyone can numerically show me that the cap actually hurts them on Test. I assume that it's 95% on Test as a "test" number, but hte purpose of a cap is very clear to me that it's to prevent a big slap in the face to SR, whether that slap is deserved or not, as well as to prevent insane situations where Ice Tankers would try to tank +13s throughout an entire mission (we're not talking about a single spawn, which would only have 5 or so in it... one hit from a +13 would one shot any Ice tanker no matter what defense, anyway). As a side note, I would never ask a level 40, no matter what build, to tank my level 50 missions, so yes, I do see a problem if some more foolhardy Ice Tankers for some reason think they should be tanking them.
As for AV accuracy, I got that from here. I've seen those numbers from other places, so I assume they've been tested, but that's the quickest place on the boards to reference them. AVs have no where near a 200% accuracy, as I can tell you from attempts to solo some of them, even without using Elude.
As for the question about why not have 95% defense all of the time when other builds have 95% res? I think the devs wrestled with that one on Test, themselves, removing the acc modifier per level, but I guess that part disappeared. One thing to note is that +res will always be better because if you're getting hit for 5% of the damage delivered, you can heal that back easier than 100% of the damage delivered in 1/10 the time (Assuming a 50% chance to hit by even level mobs). Ultimately, it goes back to keeping the enormous +defense will not give the tankiness Ice is looking for. But keep in mind, 95% of the time, 95% defense is better than 95% resistance. It's just the 5% of the time where the break in defense really sucks, because you're hit for 20 times the damage....
jackDrek-
I'm sorry. I see no reason whatsoever that a SR should be able to outdefend an Ice tank. Period. Defending SR's set (which, incedentally, could use some work) is possibly the worst reason I've ever seen for the EA nerf.
An ice tank can tank +12s, with Tough, in groups of up to 10 or so, cycling Hibernate as they do so. The other tanks can do at least that well. I've no clue why you think that Ice should not be able to perform up to the other sets. No ice tank can herd a large amount of +13s, of course, while the other sets can get larger groups.
Scrappers < Tanks for defense/avoidance/resistance/ect. Thats' the offical statement from the devs, it's in the manual, it's in the game in about 10 places in various descriptions. The pure defense tanker set should be, therefore, better than the pure defense scrapper set. It floors me that it looks like you're trying to challenge that- and I appolgise if I'm misreading you.
Resist caps are 90%, not 95%, for tanks. 85% for khelds, and 75% for all other ATs. Minor point, but worth knowing.
And I'm fairly sure that AV accuracy is off. 200% for a +2 might be very high, and it's not factoring in various defense debuffs I've been hit by, but assuming 25% def for Frozen Armor, 10% for Wet Ice, and the numbers Geko gave for EA, I've had well over 150% defense and been nailed about half the time by at least 4 AVs off the top of my head.
Ice is in need of buffs, not nerfs- even ones that only apply to more extreme situations. The change to EA is a negative one, and lowers Ice tanker's abilities to tank in certain situations. I don't see that as being 'able to be argued'. With EA as is, ice tankers < other tankers. Again, no brainer. In light of that, I have problems with anyone beliving this power being changed is called for.
Edit- I don't really understand EA as much as I should to comment
Edit2- fixed my misunderstanding again 
Ill just go back to this corner over here...
(No nerfs to Ice...I hate nerfs...)
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Ok, so you do play on Test.
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Well actually I play on both, moreso on live, but I set out strict things for myself to test on test and try out with different Ice Tanker builds.
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And your complaint is about AVs and Monsters. So, where are your hard numbers showing that +2 AVs or lower hit you more often on Test than on Live?
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Because there is no difference in practice between an AV battle on Test and an AV battle on Live. The EA change does not affect Tanking AVs, and might affect battling outdoor Monsters if they're grouped, but other than that it doesn't come into play.
Reason? Anyone who is and Ice Tanker and uses EA in an AV/Monster battle knows that by the time you and your team get to tanking it the AV/Monster itself, nothing else is left living around it to take buffs from other than the AV/Monster. And that single EA buff is never enough to survive for very long on your own. This is mostly due to the amount your being hit, which implies that the ACC of an AV/Monster can never be floored by an Ice Tanker.
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You complained about the changes to Energy Absorption
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Initially yes. But did you read further that the first 2 pages of the thread?
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but did you really run hard tests with sufficiently large samples to show that there really was a change to how often you got hit?
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I'm sorry, but exactly what constitutes a suffciently large sample size when you're talking about battles vs AVs/Monsters. Except for the Shadow Shard AVs, most AVs/Monsters are surrounded by a stock group of minions/lts/bosses (Infernal coming to mind as an exception).
One of my points early on was very simple. There is no change under normal circumstances. Throw in a situation where the mob has high acc or debuffs defense, and that all goes out the door. And its those situations that the additional buffs from additional mobs affected.
And testing shows that it is under those circumstances that the change affects us most. And those situations are extremely common in the 30+ game, enough to where these changes are detrimental to a powerset that already performs weakly.
Not to mention that at 35+ the real AVs (because anything through Hopkins really doesn't compare) of the game start to come into play as do Monsters. And enough of them not only have high ACC but also DEF debuffs or worse, have auto-hit damage auras that can't be defended against.
And without a compensatory change to anything about the powerset as a whole (not necessarily to EA) to help alleviate its other problems, including dealing with the numerous in the 35+ game where the Ice Tanker is actually in fact not flooring the accuracy of the mobs faced due to prevalence of detriment of ability of Ice Tanker during the higher levels, that taking away the one thing that helps compensate for that prevalence of detriment is in and of itself extremely detrimental.
And while it may not be a bad long term decision to make the change to EA, it is a poor decision to implement without making other changes to the set that shore it up in the absense of the additional buffs. Meaning that instead of making the change to EA in a vacuum, which is exactly what is happening now, the entire set needs to be re-examined while taking this change into account. And other changes need to be made to compensate for this change.
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If not, you're only going on the gut instinct thtat because the Test notes say there's a nerf, you're really that much worse off. Show me.
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Right. Y'know just read the thread. If the mathematics of the game mechanics that I and others went through are too difficult for you to understand, tell us what you don't understand about them and we'll help teach you. But don't tell me its not a gut instinct for any post that follows my first few posts on this thread, because that only shows that you haven't bothered to actually spend the time to read the thread.
Had you read it all you'd have seen that research was done, and tests were performed and that the forumla and mathematics of the game itself were used to demonstrate that Ice is broken. Take the spreadsheet I created and in the field for adding in DEF debuffs or ACC buffs, just fill those in and watch what happens.
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No, this topic is clearly still about Energy Absorption's defense nerf. I suggested alternatives to keeping EA's defense as is on live, and was told that Ice Armor characters want their defense from EA back. I pointed out that won't help, and Archimedes, who you're referring to, just admitted it:
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Ummm... no not really. Being the OP on this thread (despite the typo in the initial subject because I'm not the greatest speller), I can tell you that in fact this thread was about questioning the reasoning behind the change. That is all.
Once the change was explained the thread did indeed morph into showing that the set was broken, and where it was broken. Its not a bad set in concept, I love playing it, but it is not fullfilling the role of a Tanker as well as other Tanker Primaries do. And that is a matter of balance.
And you're only partly right. For the pre-35 game, rolling back the changes won't matter. But for post-35, with all the high ACCs from the key things you fight, AVs/Monsters, and the amount of ACC buffs and DEF debuffs being thrown around by mobs, I think it does make a difference.
Also the change breaks other things about the power:
* The Taunt radius effect of the power is broken, because now only the mobs that are affected by the power are Taunted instead of everything in the radius of the power.
* The End Drain only occurs on the mobs that are affected. And as mobs move around during combat the affected mobs shift and change enough that you can not reliably rely on the End Drain anymore as a defensive mechanism on the power.
There have also been many suggestions toward fixing the set, and as you said you even suggested some. I didn't discuss what you suggested, because its been suggested before (its not new). But that's a fundamental point of the thread...
You do not implement a change like this to a powerset without otherwise changing the powerset to compensate - especially in the case of an already under-performing powerset. Its just that simple.
I'm not necessarily all for the stupid-high defense that EA provides now on live, nor am I saying the change is bad. I'm saying that its bad when it is the only change being made to the set, and that it should not be made until the devs are ready to sit down and rework the set to perform better with the change in place. And you make sure that bad side effects of a change like the Taunt and End Drain changes don't come into play when you make a change - and they are clear examples of what happens when you target to change a single aspect of a power in a vacuum without looking at its other effects or the rest of the powerset as a whole.
For example, when perma-Unstoppable went away, the rest of the Invuln set was changed in such a way that it could perform extremely well in the time period when Unstoppable was down.
What if suddenly Elude was changed such that it couldn't be run perma anymore, and it was done withouth other changes being made to the set to compensate for the change?
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If you can't tank AVs now, why do you care about that aspect of it? It's not being nerfed, you're still able to take +2 AVs/Monsters as easily as you ould before, and even +9 AVs will be capped if they deal any damage type that Ice gets without EA.
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You're still missing the point that this thread is NOT just about EA anymore. It morphed, and we really took the conversation elsewhere at this point because it did morph. But its simple, if a Tanker can not reliably tank the things that a Tanker is expected to Tank, then there is a problem with the set that needs to be resolved. In the 35+ game, those things are AVs and Monsters, and the fact that Ice can't Tank them without relying heavily on outside assistance is a problem. And it needs resolution.
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Again, this fits in witht he theme of the thread, simply because people think the defense aspect of Energy Absorption will keep Ice closer in line with the other Tanker sets more on the Live version than the Test, and agian, I don't see this, since defense wil be capped against pretty much everything you fight.
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And again this is about fighting AVs/Monsters, and performing the function of Tanking as well as other Tankers. EA is the only thing that brings us close to the latter right now, and you're right AVs and Monsters won't change - which is a problem because that means we don't perform as well as other Tankers.
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Actually, I've done quite a bit. I pointed out that the defense on Test is really not that different from Live, unless you're talking about taking much, much higher levels without using defense inspirations (would definitely need heals, but no defense insps would be useful).
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And realize that because this went beyond the training room, we moved it to threads outside the training room. So you're continuing a conversation and trying to relate it to the training room, when it really no longer is an issue for the training room.
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So, since you've said you've done testing, show me...
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Show me where I need to get into the nitty gritty of it like that with spending the time to take counts from actual test runs/demos. The mathematics of the game show that an Ice Tanker is worse off than its brethren. The numbers from my spreadsheet, or the one Havok did don't differ from actual gameplay since they use the same formulas the game does with the one exception being a guess of how CE works vs mobs of higher levels (since we don't have those numbers, so its a visual estimation of effect).
Overall, I'll just sit here and wait for you to have an epiphany and realize what we're actually talking about here and that we're doing it elsewhere. And when you do, go find the other threads, since most of us have moved on from this thread to discuss the nitty gritty of this elsewhere - since we realized that its not really a training room issue other than the change to EA itself.
On top of what has been mentioned on here, I'll add something that my own research has pointed out, rather painfully.
Even though the other three Tanker primaries cannot gain near the level of defense on their own, they don't need that much. Because Invulnerability, Fire and Stone already have the ability to resist Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Energy and Negative to a workable degree (where as Ice can only do so with Ice and Toxic), it only takes a couple of power pool selections, a single non-slotted buff, or an inspiration to easily overcome that difference.
My research also find a depressing disparency when it comes to buffs: there are far, far more defense-based buffs than resistance-based.
-Between inspirations (Lucks/Ambrosias/Kora Fruit), power pool selections (Hover/Combat Jumping/Hasten/Weave/Stealth/Invisibility/etc) and buffs/debuffs (Force Field power set/Fortitude/Radiation Infection/etc), there's over 20 different ways to gain defense.
-On the other hand, if one wants resistance, you have one power pool selection (Tough), no inspirations, three true buffs (Increase Density, Shadow Fall, and Steamy Mist), and two powers that work as resistance (Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift).
That's over a 3-to-1 ratio. Given that any 8 person team is going to have at least one controller and one defender, that means that any other Tanker will have multiple means to gain more than enough defense with the resistances already within their sets to do well against almost any AV outside of Psionics.
Ice? Good luck. Increase Density has a short duration and a long recharge time. Steamy Mist is a PBAoE toggle, requiring the user to both keep it active and keep within melee range of the AV/Monster just to give the Ice Tanker the benefit. Shadow Fall is a targetted AoE toggle, and the range isn't that great (I have a baby D3 that I've tested this with). It also generates aggro, which means that the AV/Monster could turn to the Defender long enough to take them out of the fight, leaving the Ice Tanker without the benefit of those resistances. Siphon Power and Fulcrum Shift are both short (melee) ranged powers that require a to-hit roll. While it's rare for them to miss in the post+35 game, I have seen it happen. Plus, if the AV/Monster hits the Kinetics user before they hit them with the powers... splat.
All of this can easily be proven by adding the modifiers these skills provide into Havok's sheet, even at base values without slotting of these powers. But nobody leaves a slot blank, and the disparency only gets uglier for Ice Tankers from there. If you want numbers, you can get them for every thing but Increased Density here. Increased Density's base is 25% to smashing/lethal (learned this from talking to several Kinetics users).
If you wish to truly contribute to the discussion, we've moved it here.
EDIT: Also, I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but contrary to what the game manual states, Energy Absorption does not provide any defense against Psionic damage. Testing by both myself and Circeus seems to have proven this pretty conclusively, though I've asked for this to be confirmed in the other thread.
First,t he quartz thing. Yeah, DE hit you when buffed by quartzes. The DE also get a damage bonus from quartzes. When I first got Elude, I ran it with my toggles and 4 slotted passives in several tries against even and lower conning DE, who easily two shotted me, never missing (actually I think one missed once), unless I popeed defense inspirations on top of it. So, whatever the buff of eminators, it's at least equal to an unslotted Elude, probably much greater. In other words, what people are asking is to be able to fight something with a base 65+% accuracy than unbuffed mobs, or in other words, whatever they can fight now plus ten levels. Defense isn't what's needed to protect from the eminators, which is exactly what I said before when I said some level of damage resistance should also be factored into Ice. You simply can't protect yourself from 20 mobs all doing buffed damage compared to your level for prolonged periods of time.
Second, I agree completely that Ice Armor should be more defensive than Super Reflexes. I never claimed anything other than Ice Armor should not have the same defensive output through one single ability that SR has in its entire set. If for some reason you want Ice to be absolutely nothing but +def (and technically it's not), I'd suggest spreading out the defense a little more than just putting almost all of it in one ability, and I do mean almost all of it.
Third, as for being two shotted by an AV, it happens, and always will, no matter how high the defense. The fact is, if you had 6 mobs absorbed and were fighting a +1 AV, so long as Battle Maiden wasn't using Psionics (I forget what she uses), you already had your defense capped and there was a 5% chance that you'd be hit, and a one in 400 chance you'd be hit twice in a row. In fact, you would've been capped with only absorbing 5 mobs and not 6.
Last, as for defense debuffs, it's pretty much the same idea as quartz eminators. You're never gonna be immune to defense debuffs or acc buffs used against you. When herding bosses or lower with defense debuffs, chances are you'll run across more than one debuffer, so especially things like the Praetorians who have autohit defense debuffs will get you no matter what you do, because the more of them you have to absorb, the more that will be debuffing you. If you're only fighting one thing with a defense debuff, chances are it's an AV or Monster, which will have a very high defense debuff, and again, what you're asking would be aking to asking to be able to fight AVs without defense debuffs that were 10 levels higher....
The real issue is defense verse resistance, and I see this as people complaining that their defense which really doesn't do a whole lot for them currently is being nerfed to a defense that would do roughly the same, except not allow for insane situations. Instead of asking for +def back, which you were't happy with to begin with, I'd be asking for +res....