Hey, none taken! Better to have the facts straight then to be mislead by incorrect assumptions. I had to take what I knew from the boards because I just don't have the time to go and make a version of every AT to become familiar with how each power works.
Even so, the disparency is still there, and still rather bad. As I showed in my version of Circeus' spreadsheet, just one 25% defense buff makes Ice Armor's ability to floor a boss' accuracy moot. Factor in additional defense buffs and an AV/Monster's much higher base accuracy, and things slip further apart between Ice and Invulnerability. I don't imagine it gets much better when comparing the other sets to Ice, either.
And I'll restate this again for the record, though I know I've said it numerous times before. I do not want the other Tanker primaries nerfed at all. While I may not like Invulnerability, that doesn't mean the users of that set need to suffer the same way Ice Armor tankers have. Sharing the misery only makes more people unlikely to play the AT in general; I'd much rather make Ice more appealing, so that there is more viability for the set in the post 40 game.
And to add my own personal thoughts: I spent the first 35 levels almost completely soloing Halley's Comet. Aside from a few runs through Bastion's TF and Sister Psyche's TF and one trip through Manticore's TF, I've never been been able to group with her. Most times, when I've told the team leader that I was an Ice Tanker, the offer to join the team was retracted. Or, even more embarassing and frustrating, I'd make it onto a team only long enough for the leader to find a 'real tanker', and would get summarily dropped without so much as a 'sorry'. I was so looking forward to finally hitting L35, and getting involved in the AV fights.
But beyond the Envoy of Shadows, it's exactly the same as it was before. I don't get invited, or I get dropped. And so HC is on the shelf once more, at just the time when I'd been hoping so much to get into the big team fights. 
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
A really good way to test this is against Praetorian blue clocks. They use radiation blast, which also debuffs your defense. Round up a couple spawns and see how long it takes (my experience? Not very).
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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jackDrek-
I'm sorry. I see no reason whatsoever that a SR should be able to outdefend an Ice tank. Period.
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For at least the third time explicitly stating this, I agree completely.
As for Circeus's post, I trust that there is information constantly being generated on the Tanker forum and elsewhere regarding possible fixes to Ice. But this thread is still in the Training Server forum and on the 49th page before I posted is still referring to the Energy Absorption nerf. Now, you claim that the reasoning behind the nerf was mentioned on page 2, which somehow I don't see... The only thing I do see is Geko suggesting that it's "still too powerful." Well, I was offering a possible reason for why they might think it's too powerful (actually, I ended up offering two). If you don't want to hear what possible reason they had, I guess that's fine, but good luck convincing the red names that you shouldn't be nerfed without having any idea why Ice was nerfed in the first place.
Now, you did manage to bring up the point of mobs using +acc on themselves making 95% a little too low. I could comment on a few alternative solutions, but since I know it will be misconstrued as an I hate Ice Armor post, solely because some people other appear to be die hard fans of the way it's operating on live (imo, not a viable solution), I'll refrain.
[ QUOTE ]
As for Circeus's post, I trust that there is information constantly being generated on the Tanker forum and elsewhere regarding possible fixes to Ice. But this thread is still in the Training Server forum and on the 49th page before I posted is still referring to the Energy Absorption nerf. Now, you claim that the reasoning behind the nerf was mentioned on page 2, which somehow I don't see... The only thing I do see is Geko suggesting that it's "still too powerful." Well, I was offering a possible reason for why they might think it's too powerful (actually, I ended up offering two). If you don't want to hear what possible reason they had, I guess that's fine, but good luck convincing the red names that you shouldn't be nerfed without having any idea why Ice was nerfed in the first place.
Now, you did manage to bring up the point of mobs using +acc on themselves making 95% a little too low. I could comment on a few alternative solutions, but since I know it will be misconstrued as an I hate Ice Armor post, solely because some people other appear to be die hard fans of the way it's operating on live (imo, not a viable solution), I'll refrain.
[/ QUOTE ]
Let me point something out that for some reason you don't seem to understand... Or don't whant to? I don't know... Anyways:
We Ice Tankers are not really happy with the set. We haven't been for more than a year now (More because all this has been an issue since Beta). With stackable armors and Sleep portection we were getting closer to being a tanker that people wanted to play not only because of concept or because they don't want to be and Inv/* tanker.
Again, WE ARE NOT HAPPY WITH THE CURRENT state of Ice Tankers... Even un-happier with the I4 version, and that's the reason why this thread his here... Let me quote Circeus:
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I mean c'mon... doesn't Ice Armor have enough issues as it is?
Was this change really necessary for a powerset that needs some kind of change to bring it up to par with Invuln and Stone in effectiveness?
There really is some 'splainin' to do here.
If you keep chipping away at the edges Ice Armor has (pun intended) what is going to be left?
To compensate for this, make Ice Armor able to drop ACC below the 5% floor OR allow for the DEF of Ice Armor to always work as if what is being fought is the same level as the Tanker. Give it an edge.
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All we got back from Geko was: "Its not really a defense cap. Its a cap on how many foes can give you a defense bonus" (Really not that much differente) and "The power is still quite massive, and probably still too powerful."
And AGAIN! That's the point! How come a power that lets a set do 75% of what other tankers can be too powerful? (Sure! We can tank better than a Fire tanker, but they do so much damage that even upsets the blasters) Why reduce the efectivity of a set that is already inferior?
And like you say, we don't know the real reason or the numbers that geko was using to think so. Until then all we can do is present numbers and real game experience as to why we don't want EA changed, since the only change they are proposing is a bad one for the set.
And it has been said already by all of us: Sure! Reduce EA's efectivity, but give us something in return!
And just to make it clear, I don't think by any means that you hate Ice Armor... I just think you're a troll.
With that out of the way: Welcome to Ignore. I can't stand your post anymore. Not only you have no idea of what the hell you are talking about, you have no fear showing it.
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jackDrek-
I'm sorry. I see no reason whatsoever that a SR should be able to outdefend an Ice tank. Period.
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For at least the third time explicitly stating this, I agree completely.
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It was the bit where you commented that EA is a slap in the face to SR that confused me, immedately after mentioning Winter Lord babies. Perhaps I read something out of context, but that part of your post isn't the clearest in any case.
[ QUOTE ]
As for Circeus's post, I trust that there is information constantly being generated on the Tanker forum and elsewhere regarding possible fixes to Ice. But this thread is still in the Training Server forum and on the 49th page before I posted is still referring to the Energy Absorption nerf.
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Yes, but since we're trying to look at the power in the context of the set, we're also discussing it here- that said, we've mostly moved over to the other thread mentioned.
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If you don't want to hear what possible reason they had, I guess that's fine, but good luck convincing the red names that you shouldn't be nerfed without having any idea why Ice was nerfed in the first place.
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I'll give you 3 plausable reasons. 1) Ice is already verging on vastly overpowering in large pvp battles. Uncappable defense would vastly overdo it- you think permaEluders are fun? HOed, an Ice tank fighting 7 foes can floor pretty much every single acc buff in the entire game. 2) The EA power in any other set would be vastly overpowering. From invul to fire to -blasters-, this power is only not overpowering in Ice because of the general 'mehness' of the rest of the set. 3) To force/encourage people to take all the powers in thier set. On this point, everyone's been polite enough not to say it, but glass houses and throwing stones- you considered that Elude is even worse about that than EA will ever be? How many permaEluders do you know that actually bother taking thier toggles, let alone slotting them?
[ QUOTE ]
Now, you did manage to bring up the point of mobs using +acc on themselves making 95% a little too low. I could comment on a few alternative solutions, but since I know it will be misconstrued as an I hate Ice Armor post, solely because some people other appear to be die hard fans of the way it's operating on live (imo, not a viable solution), I'll refrain.
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Not even sure what you're talking about with 95% being directly affected by the acc buffs. You do understand that defense/acc is a linear +/- system, and after all the buffs/debuffs are added to the base to hit, if it's under 5% to hit it is adjusted to 5% to hit?
We don't think you hate Ice Armor. We know (via your admission) that you've not played one in the high levels, nor does it sound like you've played -with- one in the high levels, let alone in big teams. So we do think you lack experince, because the way you play a SR is -vastly- different from the way you play an Ice tank. I don't personally have a very high level SR (I think he's 32?), but I know enough to see many differences, and know better than to talk about the set like I know it intimately.
If you have contributions, feel free to post, but please try to come up with something we haven't come up with if you're going to post. We could use suggetions, ideas, and interesting thoughts, but we really don't like being told 'your power is fine' from someone who doesn't appear to understand the ice armor dynamic very well.
Edit: Also, what the previous poster said. We're not -happy- with our set, but we were happy with EA. Now it's going to fail to protect us in certain situations where it was only doing a so-so job before. If you seriously think that we're going to take an EA unnerf and walk away smiling, please actually read the rest of this thread.
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It was the bit where you commented that EA is a slap in the face to SR that confused me, immedately after mentioning Winter Lord babies. Perhaps I read something out of context, but that part of your post isn't the clearest in any case.
[/ QUOTE ]
The reason I say it's a slap in hte face is because there will be players that are the equivalent of the perma-Eluders without toggles in the Ice set (the reason I mentioned Winter Lord).
Before I go on, I'll mention your later question about perma-Elude and SR. Off the top of my head, I can name 3 or 4 players or so that are level 50 SR Scrappers. One of them didn't even take Elude. The others stack it with their toggles. I only use perma Elude and stack it with my toggles in tougher situations. None of them use perma-Elude without toggles.
The end drops are just too annoying (the equivalent of 3 end a sec if you have 6 slotted Stamina, only they also force you to drop any toggles, including SR toggles and/or Pool/EPP toggles). For general gameplay, SR may appear to do well with perma-Elude and no toggles, but then the problem is it's no where near as saving perma-Elude for emergencies. Running off solo on 8 person team missions, where the mobs are similar to me in level, I do fairly well without even using Elude, so I doubt anyone needs more than 60% total defense (what my defense is at without Elude). And if there are higher level bosses, I throw up Elude, and have no problems there.
With Elude at a 65% base (give or take 5%), without enhancements, we're talking about 50% of our potential defense in Elude, unless we slot it.
EA on the other hand would be capped at a 93.25% base, which is closer to 2/3 of the defense in Ice, if I understand it correctly. The reason I thought the devs might've frowned on this is without the cap, it's not only potentially the "all your eggs in one basket syndrome," (and note, as I pointed out with a lack of actual toggle-less perma-Eluders, most people will/should still train both, but some may think EA Is sooo powerful it doesn't need anything else) but it's also that the one basket is better than the entire set of SR, defense wise.
There's nothing wrong with Ice outdoing SR. In fact it should.
The big problem I saw is a potential problem with people deciding they can train two powers from Ice (EA and Wet Ice for status protection), and then for the majority of the things they tank, actually out do an entire Scrapper secondary. Note, SR needs to be worse in terms of protection, against mobs, but not seven times worse....
[ QUOTE ]
I'll give you 3 plausable reasons. 1) Ice is already verging on vastly overpowering in large pvp battles. Uncappable defense would vastly overdo it- you think permaEluders are fun? HOed, an Ice tank fighting 7 foes can floor pretty much every single acc buff in the entire game. 2) The EA power in any other set would be vastly overpowering. From invul to fire to -blasters-, this power is only not overpowering in Ice because of the general 'mehness' of the rest of the set. 3) To force/encourage people to take all the powers in thier set.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm, these are things possibly involved in the devs reasoning, but they all say that EA is "too powerful," without explaining what exactly about it the devs thought was too powerful.
On that note,
1) Note, the devs have said they're not planning on changing powers just because of pvp, although I'm not entirely sure I believe this. Although, I'm a little skeptical that this was the devs reasoning, as I doubt more than 5 people would be close enough to use EA in general, anyway, since players don't tend to huddle up like NPCs.
2) I think you're getting at exactly what I was getting at, only you seem to think Ice is the only set with "meh" powers. Stick this ability in SR in place of Elude, and people would not only drop the toggles, but the passives as well. Stick it in SR with the rest of SR powers active, and you wouldn't notice a difference against anything but psionics and lone AVs and Monsters. If that's what you think the devs mean by too powerrful, then yes, I think you might be right, and that's the only thing I was trying to say in my first post, here.
3) I think only one person has stated that they don't take all the powers in the set, so I doubt this alone is really the issue. It's not just the eggs in one basket problem, from the way I see it, it's that the one "basket" could be a lot weaker, i.e. comparable in defense to an entire defensive Scrapper set, and still be an all your eggs in one basket type of thing.
4) I thought of another possibility why EA is getting a nerf, and it's not related at all to the defense (though it could be considered together with the defense). Remember the comment about Cloak of Fear changes? Perhaps the devs thought Ice Tankers were draining mobs endurance so much they were forcing enemies to use nothing but brawl, which they may consider effectively the same as locking mobs into place with fear. I certainly hope this is not the case, but it could be yet another one of the devs reasons.
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On this point, everyone's been polite enough not to say it,
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Someone's been polite? I've missed that. I've only noticed flames for trying to figure out what the devs were thinking....
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you considered that Elude is even worse about that than EA will ever be?
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To specifically clarify, Elude is most definitely not usable as the sole comprehensive defense for SR. Some people on the boards have suggested dropping Focused Senses and Evasion (the range and aoe toggle), but aboslutely everyone has to take the first meelee toggle, I have not heard of any cases of perma-Elude scrappers without passive defenses, and have yet to actually meet any of these perma Elude only scrappers in game, past the 40s.... So, in other words if there are level 50 SR scrappers with perma-Elude and no toggles out there, they're only dropping two +def powers out of seven.... Certianly, I've seen a few struggle through the 40s, but usually in a group with a Empath or Kinetics casting end recovery on them constantly. I hardly call that all your eggs in one basket.
[ QUOTE ]
Not even sure what you're talking about with 95% being directly affected by the acc buffs.
[/ QUOTE ]
What I'm talking about is potential solutions (and I have a few) for mobs with bonus accuracy or defense debuffs, without including a rollback on the defense cap nerf. You've made it clear you don't want to hear it, amd that it doesn't belong, here.
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If you have contributions, feel free to post, but please try to come up with something we haven't come up with if you're going to post.
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I can ask for the same thing, can't I? My initial contribution was that as an SR Scrapper, I felt I could see why the devs were nerfing EA. I was flamed, so you obviously don't care have any contributions at all. All I heard was about how Ice compared to Invuln, and how Ice sucked and shouldn't've been nerfed at all, and that really suggests to me you've been entirely ignoring what I've said and you just kept on repeating what you've been saying.
[ QUOTE ]
We could use suggetions, ideas, and interesting thoughts, but we really don't like being told 'your power is fine' from someone who doesn't appear to understand the ice armor dynamic very well.
[/ QUOTE ]
Where did I say it was fine? I've only been talking about the defensive aspect of it, and did mention suggestions on how to fix it, where I was subsequently flamed for not being an Ice Armor tank (flaming my suggsetions was clearly an afterthought).
So, what I can do to cntribute is offer advice on Ice Armor from the standpoint of an outsider. If you don't wanna hear suggestions from me, without flaming me, that's one less fresh viewpoint you're gonna get. As one of the few people here at least partly supporting the nerf, I'd think you'd want my opinions and not simply flame me for not having read 500 pages of Ice Tanker threads spread out over the boards and for not running an Ice Tanker to 50, every time I post.
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With Elude at a 65% base (give or take 5%), without enhancements, we're talking about 50% of our potential defense in Elude, unless we slot it.
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No argument there.
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EA on the other hand would be capped at a 93.25% base, which is closer to 2/3 of the defense in Ice, if I understand it correctly.
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No you're overstating the situation. Now not to turn this into an Ice vs SR thing, but since you brought it up, lets compare things more realistically.
Assuming Ice Tankers always get buffs from 5 mobs with EA shows a complete lack of misunderstanding in how Energy Absorption works. In fact, because mob sizes are not consistent over time because things die, EA ends up providing on average the roughly the same level of defense (56.25%) with EA unenhanced (which is okay since you stated Elude was unenhanced above).
Sometimes EA will be above Elude for DEF and as the mob size dwindles EA will have less DEF than Elude. Not to mention that the DEF for Elude is across the board, including Psi. As are all of the other SR powers, no holes. Meaning that SR will have better DEF than Ice in both Fire and Psi.
Also Ice's base DEF ratings are only 5% higher than those of SR for Smash, Lethal, Neg, Energy.
So overall SR compares more favorably to its cousin the Ice Tanker (in fact better off vs Fire and Psi) then an Invuln Scrapper compares to an Invuln Tanker.
[ QUOTE ]
Note, the devs have said they're not planning on changing powers just because of pvp, although I'm not entirely sure I believe this.
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Well... that's a simplification of what was said. They did also say that PvP would not affect PvE unless in looking at a power for PvP they found a glaring PvE issue for the power.
[ QUOTE ]
I thought of another possibility why EA is getting a nerf, and it's not related at all to the defense (though it could be considered together with the defense). Remember the comment about Cloak of Fear changes? Perhaps the devs thought Ice Tankers were draining mobs endurance so much they were forcing enemies to use nothing but brawl, which they may consider effectively the same as locking mobs into place with fear. I certainly hope this is not the case, but it could be yet another one of the devs reasons.
[/ QUOTE ]
I've considered that, but if that were the reason (which I doubt based on what geko posted and a side conversation I had with another dev) that would only show that the devs didn't actually ever really test the End Drain. Most things regen endurance too fast (especially after level 35) for the End Drain to be anywhere near as effective as any other End Drain power in game because it does not have a -Recovery component.
I've never been in a situation using the End Drain where what I was attacking suddenly couldn't use its main attacks for anything more than maybe a single attack and that's after a 3rd or 4th use of EA on the attacker.
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Someone's been polite? I've missed that. I've only noticed flames for trying to figure out what the devs were thinking....
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You came in here and all but called us all morons and told us we'd all proven and showed nothing. I mean did you really truly expect opened arms to that kind of an entrance?
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What I'm talking about is potential solutions (and I have a few) for mobs with bonus accuracy or defense debuffs, without including a rollback on the defense cap nerf. You've made it clear you don't want to hear it, amd that it doesn't belong, here.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'd be interested to hear it, I'd just prefer you spend the time to find the other thread in the Tanker forum, read through it. Find Havoks post on the Tanker forum and read through it. And then present your ideas on the Tanker forum thread.
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Assuming Ice Tankers always get buffs from 5 mobs with EA shows a complete lack of misunderstanding in how Energy Absorption works.
[/ QUOTE ]
I never said it did, and in fact, that's why I didn't figure in a 6 slotted EA with defense build (really seems like what you're uspposed to do if you really, really want high defense, anyway). Keep in mind, if you 6 slot Elude with Defense, it's down 3/5 of the time without Quickness or Hasten, half the time with just Quickness, and maybe 1/3 of the time with quickness and hasten. If you have Haten AND Quickness, you can make Elude perma with only 4 recharges, and can save the other two for defense, assuming you have the slots to spare.
You can effectively get EA to give you at least 40% defense every time you fight a single mob or more, if you 6 slot it with defense.
I kept the base 93.25% on EA because I figured they both have their drawbacks with regards to down time if 6 slotted with defense.
[ QUOTE ]
In fact, because mob sizes are not consistent over time because things die, EA ends up providing on average the roughly the same level of defense (56.25%) with EA unenhanced (which is okay since you stated Elude was unenhanced above).
[/ QUOTE ]
I highly doubt this, if you're fighting in large groups, because at least 1/10 of the time you spend fighting, you'll be fighting groups of 20 mobs or more, which gives you 375% or so defense, andd assuming you never use Energy Absorption after they start dropping, you'll have a 37.5% average defense already.... But when there are only 4 lts and a boss left and you're still getting 93.25% from the drain, unslotted, and so if that happens for another major portion of the battle, you'll have a pretty deent avg defense, certainly more so than 50ish. And this is all assuming that the last mobs you take down will be the toughest, since sometiimes groups try to weed out the tougher mobs, so there could very well be less danger near the end of a battle, anyway. I.e., you need your defense more at the beginning of battles than halfway into it, usually.
Sometimes EA will be above Elude for DEF and as the mob size dwindles EA will have less DEF than Elude. Not to mention that the DEF for Elude is across the board, including Psi. As are all of the other SR powers, no holes. Meaning that SR will have better DEF than Ice in both Fire and Psi.
[ QUOTE ]
Also Ice's base DEF ratings are only 5% higher than those of SR for Smash, Lethal, Neg, Energy.
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Now, this I see as a problem, not to mention the Psi problems of Ice, if it's in fact true. Certainly, the base +defense should be at least 35% on all attack types, without the big EA power.
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You came in here and all but called us all morons and told us we'd all proven and showed nothing. I mean did you really truly expect opened arms to that kind of an entrance?
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Excuse me? Quote me. Where in my first post here, where I "came in" did I even come close to calling anyone here a moron? It's inferences like these that make me highly doubt the follwing statment:
[ QUOTE ]
I'd be interested to hear it, I'd just prefer you spend the time to find the other thread in the Tanker forum, read through it. Find Havoks post on the Tanker forum and read through it. And then present your ideas on the Tanker forum thread.
[/ QUOTE ]
And again, I'm focused more on things that are happening because of the EA change than on balancing Ice in general.
[ QUOTE ]
You can effectively get EA to give you at least 40% defense every time you fight a single mob or more, if you 6 slot it with defense.
I kept the base 93.25% on EA because I figured they both have their drawbacks with regards to down time if 6 slotted with defense.
[/ QUOTE ]
And if you 6-slot it with defense it will not be up 100% of the time, unless you happened to also pick Hasten. Unlike its closest Tanker counterpart, by default EA is down 25% of the time.
[ QUOTE ]
In fact, because mob sizes are not consistent over time because things die, EA ends up providing on average the roughly the same level of defense (56.25%) with EA unenhanced (which is okay since you stated Elude was unenhanced above).
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I highly doubt this, if you're fighting in large groups, because at least 1/10 of the time you spend fighting, you'll be fighting groups of 20 mobs or more, which gives you 375% or so defense...
[/ QUOTE ]
This is a training room thread. On the training room, you can't muster 375%, you can come just shy of that for about 20 seconds if you get EA to overlap, but not otherwise.
Not to mention, 20 mobs buffing you from EA can really only be done in the circumstance of herding and getting the mobs to share physical space by exploiting the inadequacies of the game engine. The actual radius of EA makes getting buffs on the live server under normal non-herding combat very difficult.
[ QUOTE ]
so there could very well be less danger near the end of a battle, anyway. I.e., you need your defense more at the beginning of battles than halfway into it, usually.
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Depends on the battle right? Not to mention we need to close into large groups of mobs without EA necessarily buffing us with anything at all. If SR pumps up Elude before a battle they're entering the fray with a higher defense than an Ice Tanker, because they don't need mobs to feed their defense. In other words for most alpha strike scenarios a SR Scrapper is better off Defensively than an Ice Tanker.
[ QUOTE ]
Now, this I see as a problem, not to mention the Psi problems of Ice, if it's in fact true. Certainly, the base +defense should be at least 35% on all attack types, without the big EA power.
[/ QUOTE ]
You'll have no argument there from me.
[ QUOTE ]
Excuse me? Quote me. Where in my first post here, where I "came in" did I even come close to calling anyone here a moron? It's inferences like these that make me highly doubt the follwing statment:
[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, your right, your first several posts showed that you hadn't even bothered to read the entire thread (seemed more like you skimmed) or follow what was going on on the thread or with Ice Tankers in general.
You also didn't suggest anything new that wasn't already covered on the thread. +RES? Been suggested several times. Speculation that DEF was too high on live, been done, and under certain circumstances refuted as being needed through the practice of actually playing the game.
You also overindulged SR on the thread steering the topic way off focus into balance issues involving SR. I just don't for the life of me understand what the heck any of that discussion matters here.
Then you said claimed that in 50 pages none of us had actually done any testing whatsoever on test when in fact we had, and then dismissed us all (that would be the all but calling us morons part btw). Then in the same post you also imply we're all lazy because we don't have numbers to support our case, when in fact we do, and have spent countless hours coming up with those numbers. In the end, all you really did was demonstrate that you did not in fact actually read the 50 pages worth of posts.
[ QUOTE ]
I'd be interested to hear it, I'd just prefer you spend the time to find the other thread in the Tanker forum, read through it. Find Havoks post on the Tanker forum and read through it. And then present your ideas on the Tanker forum thread.
[/ QUOTE ]
You claim to have something to contribute, but I've been waiting for your 10 or so posts on this thread to actually demonstrate your ideas. But like I said, I'd rather see them over on this thread than here.
[ QUOTE ]
And again, I'm focused more on things that are happening because of the EA change than on balancing Ice in general.
[/ QUOTE ]
I just reread your posts on this thread, and I'm really not finding anything to support that statement.
I just wanted to take a moment and thank all of you ice tankers for standing together in this matter. There have been several times where I just got fed up with my ice tank and thought he was doomed to fail no matter what I did. It just made it worse to watch other tankers do what I dreamed of taking on much harder enemies than I dared. It really hurt to watch certain scrappers do the same thing.
The problem is that I love my ice tanker in spite of all of his problems. He has very weak attacks and a sub-par defense. This becomes very noticeable when I try to take on an AV in various teams. (The problems of Ice Melee are for another day and I don't foresee any changes to it for a very long time.)
I also want to thank you for the mature thread. There are many times I just want to vent my frustrations here. I keep hoping that our civility will be rewarded. Time will tell whether it works or not, but let's not blow our tops just yet. We have finally been promised that our set will be looked at and I believe that it will. It may be found that Energy Absorption is too powerful, but I hope that the devs realize that other powers in the set need to be improved to more than make up for the problems. I think everyone would like to see something done to the set that is positive.
This is our best shot for something to be changed after finding out that stacking armor still didn't allow us to measure up. Let's focus on the problem and not each other.
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
Nice post, Snorii.
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I think everyone would like to see something done to the set that is positive.
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And this is a key point, and I agree. So let's just agree to disagree, move on to the threads with various suggestions/comments and the like, and see what we can see.
JackDrek, one final note (and seriously, no offense intended by the following, or condescending tone): EA works differently than you seem to think it does, in terms of actual game performance. It is a vastly different power than Elude, and the functionality on paper is nothing like how it performs in game. As a result, it's kind of hard to judge it as a power from the outside.
So...wanna learn? I have a level 40 Ice/Ice tank, and I'm up for showing you the problems with it and functionality it has. Drop me a line at @Crenson and I'll be more than happy to show you how the power works in the game.
On a completely different note, the concept of 6 slotting EA for defense and running permahasten made me curious, so I ran numbers, and I figured out that running the basic armors, permahasten, permahoarfrost, and chilling embrace, an Ice tank's endurance recovery is around +0.35 or so- no attacks, not even icicles. Eeep.
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On a completely different note, the concept of 6 slotting EA for defense and running permahasten made me curious, so I ran numbers, and I figured out that running the basic armors, permahasten, permahoarfrost, and chilling embrace, an Ice tank's endurance recovery is around +0.35 or so- no attacks, not even icicles. Eeep.
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Yeah. Besides 6 slotting for DEF when you have perma-Hasten is not the most efficient slotting for sustained defense. It will get you higher DEF sure, but not for nearly as long as other slottings will go. The best sustained DEF with perma-Hasten is when you slot EA for 1 End, 2 Recharge and 3 DEF.
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Yeah. Besides 6 slotting for DEF when you have perma-Hasten is not the most efficient slotting for sustained defense. It will get you higher DEF sure, but not for nearly as long as other slottings will go. The best sustained DEF with perma-Hasten is when you slot EA for 1 End, 2 Recharge and 3 DEF.
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I honestly hope things don't come to a point where an Ice Tanker (to be seen as viable) has three power pool selections that they must have: speed (for hasten), fitness (for stamina), and fighting (for tough).
If geko is basing his observations of EA on permahasten, where does that leave those of us that abhor it? I have no characters that have permahasten. NONE. I don't see the fitness line as being out of character for any superhero, and I take it with every character I make. But Hasten... I won't go further, I think it's pretty obvious by now that I don't use it.
Hmm, since it seems are being more cordial, finally, I'll return to being more cordial, again.
I did not meant o offend anyone by suggesting you weren't doing any sort of testing. When people started complaining that the devs alpha strike rule (automatically hitting after an inordinately large number of misses) was affecting SR Scrappers adversely, immediately, people started testing to see the exact number of hits before an alpha strike. These numbers were posted on the boards an discussed. When someone mentionedthat the accuracy debuff on dark meelee is too low to consider slotting, I actually went on to the server and compared a sample of attacks against me without the debuff and then with the debuff going to compare (granted the sample size was only a couple hundred of attacks, which was awfully small, simply because the mobs would die if I debuffed them too much by attacking them). Essentially something you might expect the devs to do with internal testing that they don't release, only without bugs. What I was expecting was someone here, not everyone, who thought the nerf was going to actually seriously adversely affect their gameplay to compare the differences to what they can do on live and what they can do on the test server and then post it. That was before anyone agreed that the changes to EA's defense were more situational than not, so now I understand why you weren't posting numbers comparing test play to live play, but instead were comparing ATs.
So, I apologize if it appeared that I thought you were stupid or moronic. I hadn't. I was just confused why you were running numbers comparing ATs instead of running numbers comparing Live to Test.
As for slotting EA with 2 recharges along with perma hasten being optimal, I'm curious why? Someone here said it was permanent without any recharges, so is there a reason for the recharges other than making it perma? Does EA degrade or something that I don't know about?
Last thinig I'd like to say:
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I honestly hope things don't come to a point where an Ice Tanker (to be seen as viable) has three power pool selections that they must have: speed (for hasten), fitness (for stamina), and fighting (for tough).
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Just a bit of friendly advice, don't go by someone else's build. I've been told SR Scrappers need Tough to mitigate one shots. The only attacks I've been one shotted by without Tough would've killed me with Tough. This may not be true for EA, but then that's someone else's build. Also, I was told all Scrappers need Hasten, but testing it on Test, I didn't have that much different of a damage output, and I simply used more endurance, because of its drain. I needed to put 4 extra slots in it to make it permanent, which as an SR, I prefer in other places. Back when Elude changes occurred, people said respec out of your toggles, but I didn't believe them. Now more and more people on the boards are saying use Elude in addition to your toggles.
Now, Stamina, unfortunately, is probably a must for everyone, even if you don't need to 6 slot it (and more endurance intensive builds will need to 6 slot it). But I've seen people not train it....
Don't get me wrong, I'd expect that Speed, Fitness, and Fighting were all recommended for pretty much every meelee combination out there, but whether it's necessary ultimately comes down to your decision.
I understand the worry that when the devs nerf something, they may be doing it because they also trained Tough. But if they didn't train Tough, would they have trained Aid Self, which potentially could be most useful by high defense characters? Aid Self of course, isn't a must, but my point is you have to weigh the advantages as you see it. Just because the devs seem to think Ability X is a must doesn't mean we have to follow in their footsteps. Heck, I'd be running a Super Reflexes Scrapper without Elude if I followed the devs' build.....
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Just a bit of friendly advice, don't go by someone else's build. I've been told SR Scrappers need Tough to mitigate one shots. The only attacks I've been one shotted by without Tough would've killed me with Tough. This may not be true for EA, but then that's someone else's build. Also, I was told all Scrappers need Hasten, but testing it on Test, I didn't have that much different of a damage output, and I simply used more endurance, because of its drain. I needed to put 4 extra slots in it to make it permanent, which as an SR, I prefer in other places. Back when Elude changes occurred, people said respec out of your toggles, but I didn't believe them. Now more and more people on the boards are saying use Elude in addition to your toggles.
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While I do understand and agree with you (thus why HC doesn't have Hasten or Tough), that doesn't mean the majority of the playerbase does. And as long as people come under the impression that certains sets are better than others, and that certains sets are required to have certains skills to be useful (Taunt, anyone?), and that mindset is the majority, things won't improve for Ice Tankers. We'll continue to be thought of as 'less than a Tanker, and barely a Scrapper' (yes, another wonderful quote that I saved, just before I was booted from a team in favor of a another tanker.)
Bitter? Yeah, but I kinda think I have a right to be, by this point. Still, I try not to let it seep too much into my posts.
In that case, my first post should have been good news for you. I was explaining the change to Ice might have been because the community outside Ice could look at it and think EA's got too much defense (that's where I made the Winter Lord comment that some newb might think Ice has too much defense). With the EA nerf, it appears to be a fairly minor nerf, but left enough room that the community at large will definitely see it as weak, so now maybe the devs can look at Ice and do something to fix it.
Intenal testing of Tankers, of course, will probably end up being against +2s and +4s using whatever the most powerful AoE secondary is. Good luck, though.
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As for slotting EA with 2 recharges along with perma hasten being optimal, I'm curious why? Someone here said it was permanent without any recharges, so is there a reason for the recharges other than making it perma? Does EA degrade or something that I don't know about?
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EA's base recharge is 60 seconds, base duration is 45 seconds. This comes out to -requiring- at bare minimum a +3 rech enc, and realisticly in the 3-4 zone.
As to why- this is one of the reaons I wanted to show you how an ice tank actually plays. EA on 1 foe is almost wasted, except if that foe is a boss, but that'll be nigh uselss on the next spawn yet help to keep you alive through this one.
You want EA to pop before you enter every single spawn, and you want it -never- to wear off, under any circumstances. Slotting it with the 'bare minimum' recharges is simply a really quick way to end up at the hospital a lot. Assuming optimal situations, as well, Arch's calcuations show that being able to double stack for a fair amount of time with permahasten mean a lot less chance of you having subpar defense for any real period.
It seems stupid to repeat myself, but it's just so different, how IA and SR play. If I don't have a good group around me when EA is ready, there's a very large proportion of the time I should simply let it die off, because hitting 2 foes isn't going to do me enough good. Add in the inherent unbalance of bosses being by far the most likely person to be left standing in a spawn, having higher acc and higher damage, as well as not giving you enough of a buff to handle them.
As to this...
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I honestly hope things don't come to a point where an Ice Tanker (to be seen as viable) has three power pool selections that they must have: speed (for hasten), fitness (for stamina), and fighting (for tough).
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The more I look at the numbers, permahasten seems to be generally a fairly bad idea for ice tanks. Ice already pays an extremely high end cost, adding in a 20 end hit every 2 minutes that can drop you out of hibernate 10 seconds early is...fairly huge. Fitness is realisticly a requirement, as even end reduxed armors will decimate your natural regen, not to mention EA, but Fitness is probably the most common pool 'required' for any primary/secondary. Fighting is a requirement if you wish to have any dream whatsoever of tanking AVs, but doesn't require many slots.
As an aside, it felt pretty nice to grab aggro from a +7 spawn and hold it for a few moments while the team got back into order- especially since it was the everfeared Malta. I would have faceplanted eventually, but I could maintain enough attention for the higher tanker to take over and the team regroup- and my former mentor to realize unsking me was probably an unwise decision.
My story of tanking prowess for the night (and again, other tanks do it better, except for Sappers- which will be handled considerably better by Stone in I4).
Wow, Archimedes, I can't believe you and Circeus are still fighting this out. I gave up Icehawg for dead at level 33 when it became obvious that the devs don't understand their own game very well(and their close-minded "vision" of how *I* want to have fun won't allow any lee-way) and how they won't listen to the smaller player base Ice has over(or should I say "under"?) say Regen scrappers or Energy blasters.
We can't yell loud enough because there isn't enough Ice tanks and there won't be more coming because of yet another artificial "fix" to a problem that didn't even exist.
Good luck, Cicerus/Archimedes. You will need it and I hope you prevail but I don't see me getting "50" with Icehawg ever now....which is a shame since he was my first and I put a lot of hours into him(hundreds just to get to level 33).
Oh well, back to playing my Kat/Regen until I4/5 borks that too. He is already level 21 and just 45 hours in. Sweet.
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As for slotting EA with 2 recharges along with perma hasten being optimal, I'm curious why? Someone here said it was permanent without any recharges, so is there a reason for the recharges other than making it perma? Does EA degrade or something that I don't know about?
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EA Stacks. In fact, it may be the only self buff in game that stacks (not sure on that, but if there are others, they are few and far between).
Its also permanent without recharges if and only if you have perma-Hasten, normally its not perma as its duration is 45s and its recharge is 60s. Also, many Tankers do not take Hasten at all, so you have to consider that to make it perma for non-Hasten requires that at least 1 slot be devoted to a Recharge.
With that said, you have to conside that since EA can stack it has low peaks and it has high peaks. And the goal is to minimize the low peak and maximize the high peak while still having a decent amount of DEF to throw around.
So you have to stronly consider the trade-off between DEF and Recharge Enhancements in the power.
There is also an Endurance tradeoff as if you can fit 1 End Reducer in the power that will save you 25% of the @20 End cost bringing it down to @15 End.
Why would you do that? Well the EPS of Tanker armors is 0.36 (FA, GA, WI, CE, Invinc, Uy, TI, Rooted, Rock Armor, Fiery Aura, etc.). The base EPS of is 20/45 = 0.44 EPS. Dropping this down to 15 End cost means 15 / 45 which is 0.33 EPS. Many Tanker attacks have higher End Costs and recovery is generally blown, especially for an Ice Tanker who is generally bleeding Endurance rather than recovering it. So this EPS reduction can be crucial.
Keep in mind too that the DEF percents are based on hitting 5 mobs both times. I feel that in practice under normal conditions this is not a guaranteed thing.
Also note that "Recharge time" is generally also "Ramp time" - meaning the time it takes to attain the sustainable peak value. As you will tell sometimes the sustainable peak is the low peak and other times its the high peak.
With perma-Hasten it plays out like this:
6 DEF, 0 Recharge - Recharge time is 35s. Max DEF is 412.50% and it lasts 10s. Min DEF is 206.25% and lasts for 25s. Time at max 28.6%. End Cost 20.
5 DEF, 1 Recharge - Recharge time is 30s. Max DEF is 375.00% and lasts 15s. Min DEF of 187.50% also lasts 15s. Time at max is 50%. End cost 20.
4 DEF, 1 Recharge, 1 End. Recharge time is 30s. Max DEF is 337.50% and lasts 15s. Min DEF of 168.75% also lasts 15s. Time at max is 50%. End cost 15.
4 DEF, 2 Recharge. Recharge time is 25s. Max DEF is 337.50% and lasts 20s. Min DEF of 168.75% also lasts 5s. Time at max is 80%. End cost 20.
***** Start Sweet Spot *****
3 DEF, 2 Recharge, 1 End. Recharge time is 25s. Max DEF is 300% and lasts 20s. Min DEF of 150% also lasts 5s. Time at max is 80%. End cost 15.
3 DEF, 3 Recharge. Recharge time is 22s. Max DEF is 450% and lasts for 1s. Min DEF is 300% and lasts for 21s. Time at Max 4.5%. End Cost 20.
NOTE: I find this to be the sweet spot as its from the calcs 300% becomes the easiest DEF value to maintain. It then just becomes a tradeoff of if you want to sacrifice half of the 300% for 5 seconds to save yourself 5 End (see explanation above).
***** End Sweet Spot *****
2 DEF, 3 Recharge, 1 End. Recharge time is 22s. Max DEF is 393.75% and lasts for 1s. Min DEF is 262.50% and lasts for 21s. Time at Max 4.5%. End Cost 15.
2 DEF, 4 Recharge. Recharge time is 20s. Max DEF is 393.75% and lasts for 5s. Min DEF is 262.50% and lasts for 15s. Time at Max 25%. End Cost 20.
1 DEF, 4 Recharge, 1 End. Recharge time is 20s. Max DEF is 337.50% and lasts for 5s. Min DEF is 225.00% and lasts for 15s. Time at Max 25%. End Cost 15.
1 DEF, 5 Recharge. Recharge time 18s. Max DEF is 337.50% and lasts for 9s. Min DEF is 225.00% and lasts for 9s. Time at Max 50%. End Cost 20.
6 Recharge. Recharge time 16s. Max DEF is 281.25% and lasts for 13s. Min DEF is 187.50% and lasts for 3s. Time at Max 81.25%. End Cost 20.
Woot! Another patch hits test!
Oh... still no Ice changes. Unless my chilling aura was speeding recharge rate in PVP. Thanks for the fix.
Thanks for the clarification on the recharge enhancements, as well as the End usage info.
As for Hasten, I've got it on my Tank, and most that I've paired with have it. But clearly in general, Hasten is overhyped, at least imo, so I could believe there are Tankers out there that saw through it and chose for themselves. I think the problem Archuimedes and I were alluding to is that a lot of people don't. And I'd bet that when the devs test the various Tanker builds to see how they stand against the Scrapper builds, they'll throw Hasten on each of them.
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And I'd bet that when the devs test the various Tanker builds to see how they stand against the Scrapper builds, they'll throw Hasten on each of them.
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Yes, that's entirely possible considering all 4 Scrapper builds they posted had Hasten. However, they were not all perma-Hasten'd.
And I mentioned that on Page 6 of the Scrapper test thread.... Why the heck did they slot the SR Scrapper with Quickness AND A 6 slotted Hasten? 5 slots is perma with quickness, heh. I think perhaps, they typoed, and the 5 slots on DA's Hasten was supposed to be 5 slots on SR's, and the 6 slots was supposed to be on DA.... Not sure, though.
Not necessarily a reply to anybody here, but I was just curious if we have any confirmation or not about EA's change coming about due to the ... poor ... testing ground that was used to investigate regen last week or so?
With deference, Archimedes, some corrections.
Increase Density is the only +res to smashing (and energy), Shadowfall(psi, dark, energy) and Steamy Mist(fire, cold, energy) are +res PBAoEs, and that just leaves Tough.
As for damage debuffs, these are more common- Fulcrum Shift, Darkest Night (which I think you mistook for shadowfall by aciddent), Syphon Power, Enervating Field, Twilight Grasp, and I think I missed one or two. The saddening part about -those- is that they actually help resistance considerably more than they help defense- you're taking the same % off the damage, but they're resisting more. WHich means the ice will take the same relative % of damage to any other resist based set.
As for def buffs, it's worth mentioning that acc debuffs are a dime a dozen as well.
Pace all of the above, Ice's survivablity does get within punching range of the other tanks vs s/l foes with Tough. I know the numbers don't support this fully, but in my experince this is true.
Of course, as mentioned numerous times, ice is just fine against most nonbuffing/debuffing foes, it's only against heavy Vengence, Quartzes, Council Archons, ect, that we need help. AVs we need something more on the lines of an act of god.
Edit: fixed a couple typos, idiot errors. And no offense intended, Arch, just better to have it spelled out.