Its listed as a bug in my bug list. Of course only two bugs on that list were even fixed since the recharge bug was fixed back in February (that's since 2/9).
From the report:
[ QUOTE ]
Bug (Not Fixed):
A side effect of the change to cap the defense buff of Energy Absorption to 5 enemies has made it only capable of draining Endurance from only those same 5 enemies. This now makes the End Drain portion of the power completely unreliable, because the affected enemies are effectively random and not selectable by the Tanker.
Needed:
Even if the 5 enemy max remains in place for getting Def buffs, the Endurance Drain for all mobs still needs to be against all opponents in range (or else this effect is effectively neutered)
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Ok, somebody who is lucky enough to be home, tell me if they did any of the following:
1. Increased the number of mobs EA can affect (more then 5)
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Nope. Same 5 mobs.
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2. Fixed the "bug" where EA doesn't endo drain off a mob that isn't one of the affected mobs
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Nope, Only 5 mobs being drained. And... Are we sure that's a bug? I hope it is.
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3. Changed anything else in Ice on Live or Training that may indicate they tried to help Ice out
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Nothing special. Other than GA with +perception and an WI with improved Res to Slow... Slot resistance that doesn't work againts caltrops and swarms because... Well... Because they're auto-hit, and 6-8 slows is all we can handle. Oh! And the changes to Hibernate, a power that still as useless as ever.
What I'm not clear is if we (Tankers) are getting Res to Fear and Confuse... I sure hope we are... Well... It doesn't really matter really! As of this moment my Ice/Ice tanker is opting for an early retirement until they do something to help the set, not to hurt it.
Yah, I've spent alot of time on my ice tanker. Now he's pretty much useless, especially when compared to other tankers.
Why doesn't Burn only affect 5 enemies? By Geko's reasoning, they can have INFINITE damage, if there's an infinite amount of foes there!
<shrug> Changes made with good reason are a-ok with me, but there's a term in table-top roleplaying, called the FUGM, and that's what this feels like.
Well that's what this feels like to me, I guess. <shrug> I'ma look for another Archetype I might wanna play, but if I can't then I'ma move on to a different game. That is the inevitable consequence of being an FUGM, your players will leave. However, these folks - unlike your local sadist - have investors and such to answer to.
Ah well, off to brainstorm.
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Why doesn't Burn only affect 5 enemies? By Geko's reasoning, they can have INFINITE damage, if there's an infinite amount of foes there!
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You know, whether you meant to or not, I think you just hit on something. People have commented that what makes the solo game so easy is the power of AoE. So, maybe there should be a cap on the number of mobs affected.
But it should certainly be more than 5. In normal gameplay, you probably come across 10-15 mobs, max, so maybe that's all that should be affected? Now, there are times I've seen fire tanks herd 20-30 mobs, maybe more, since at that point it's hard to count because they're so bunched up, and sit there with burn and defeat maybe a dozen at a time. Heck, at level 30, I'm already easily able to do 10-15 solo, so if an Empath defender were to fly above me and cast heals, I could easily see gathering 30 mobs at a time and burning them all at once. Plus, levelling a bunch of really low levels, I've noticed the powersets that get the AoE/cone attacks early one are the ones most able to fight effectively (and I'm not talking narrow cones like buckshot or about shadow maul which barely reaches anything). Now, I realize that as people get higher levels, defense/protection becomes more and more important, but certainly we still got the AoE effect going on.
Meh, but they don't really care about reason, from what I'm told. According to a friend it's all a vast conspiracy to make everyone roll fire tanks or regen scrappers. :P
And I'm starting an Ice/Ice blaster. <crosses fingers>
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Nothing special. Other than GA with +perception and an WI with improved Res to Slow... Slot resistance that doesn't work againts caltrops and swarms because... Well... Because they're auto-hit, and 6-8 slows is all we can handle. Oh! And the changes to Hibernate, a power that still as useless as ever.
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Thanks for the update LeMoi. Playtesting my Ice tank since I4 hit, and all is as you say. Now, I can't complain that EA is broken in the defense we get. I was still able to heard a portal mission of level 50-52 Paragon Protectors, in groups of 40+. I have FA now, but only use it for AV's and Monsters, so between WI, Tough and EA, I still had no problems with large numbers of higher level mobs.
So why'd we change EA again? So I couldn't do that? Didn't change a thing.
I'm still hoping that they didn't decide that it's not worth the time to "fix" EA so the drain and taunt still work. But thanks to some farming of said Paragon Protectors, Nanoc is 48. And I'm of the mind that no significant changes will come to Ice tanks before he hits 50.
Another patch to the Training Room. Another big goose-egg for Ice tanks. I'm so glad I talked my wife out of rolling an Ice tank, and that she decided to go Invulnerability. They're so good, they even have Resist Nerf as a power!
I hope they don't water Inv tankers down further. Just show some love to the other sets.
Oh, and my burn tanker also says thanks... At least he runs with a controller, so I don't have to worry about the mobs running out of burn now.
Now just to wait for some sort of "Epic" AT for Tanks. Perma-Unstoppable, Burn and Rooted in a single set! Uber-Tank (tm).
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Meh, but they don't really care about reason, from what I'm told. According to a friend it's all a vast conspiracy to make everyone roll fire tanks or regen scrappers. :P
And I'm starting an Ice/Ice blaster. <crosses fingers>
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You're going to have lots of fun with the Ice/Ice blaster. My Ice/Ice/FN Blaster is 50 now, and with the new Blizzard is now more fun than ever... Just remember that Blizzard still is not Nova. And like you say! Better cross your fingers!
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Nothing special. Other than GA with +perception and an WI with improved Res to Slow... Slot resistance that doesn't work againts caltrops and swarms because... Well... Because they're auto-hit, and 6-8 slows is all we can handle. Oh! And the changes to Hibernate, a power that still as useless as ever.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the update LeMoi. Playtesting my Ice tank since I4 hit, and all is as you say. Now, I can't complain that EA is broken in the defense we get. I was still able to heard a portal mission of level 50-52 Paragon Protectors, in groups of 40+. I have FA now, but only use it for AV's and Monsters, so between WI, Tough and EA, I still had no problems with large numbers of higher level mobs.
So why'd we change EA again? So I couldn't do that? Didn't change a thing.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yep, that's about right. Like I said before: This changes are affecting only the tankers that want to be that! Tankers. We can still tank easy stuff, and by easy stuff I mean Freaks, Crey's, Wolfs (In fact we were and still are better at wolfs than other tankers), Nemesis if we're careful, and any other enemie that does only S/L and energy damage, with little of the rest.
What the changes to EA is doing to our set is stoping us from being efective against anything that uses lots of negative energy, radiation, or mobs with high accuracy... Plus the good old auto-hits, psionic and being 1 or 2 shooted by AV's.
What does that means? That now we are Fire Tankers without all the damage output. Specially if you're Ice/Ice like me. Before I used to say: Sure! Fire tankers can do a lot of damage! But I can out-tank them any day!... That isn't true anymore.
I'm really sad about my Ice/Ice Tanker now, and I wasn't going to play him anymore... But I can't just forget all the hours of fun and REAL tanking that I've been doing with him, that's why I've been playing around with different builds so I can keep playing with him!
This time my approach is different! I'm not looking to have a "team tanker" anymore! [censored] teams and [censored] TF's/Trials! Teams be damned! The new build is going to be a solo/small team oriented tanker. No more 5 slotting my armors, I'm going to become a EA [censored]... And if I ever join a TF/Trial, or if we're going against an AV/Monster I'll let them know that I'm the "back up" tanker.
Wolfs and Dreck! Here I come!
Hibernate would work a lot better with another tank primary that uses resistance instead of defense. A lot of times we don't have much warning when things are starting to go wrong. Our health bars crash down to zero in the blink of an eye. If our health bar slowly went down, we could have time to activate hibernate, heal, and then come out fighting. Hibernate also has a long activation time. I know this has been mentioned before, but our last power really doesn't help us. It has been improved, but I just don't think it meshes well with the set. It isn't team friendly either. I've tried to use it against AV's and Monsters so I can avoid getting killed. The problem is that they just ignore me if anyone else is around. It is more of an /afk power than anything else right now for my character.
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
Yah.
Another annoying thing is that you can be brawled out of Hibernate in PvP. I mean, if that isn't freaking ridiculous, I dunno what is? You can't be brawled out of the stones level 32 power, and you can fight in it... =/
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Yah.
Another annoying thing is that you can be brawled out of Hibernate in PvP. I mean, if that isn't freaking ridiculous, I dunno what is? You can't be brawled out of the stones level 32 power, and you can fight in it... =/
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Is that true? Hadn't used Hibernate in the arena, but now I need to go test that. If it is true, then its yet another advantage Phase Shift has over Hibernate. Are you sure you weren't hit during the wind-up phase of Hibernate?
Hm. I'm pretty sure. I was hibernating and the ice thing had already come on, and then it dropped and a scrapper midnight grasped me. I put on Wet Ice and ran around until dull pain came back up, was just annoying =/
[ QUOTE ]
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?
[/ QUOTE ]
Why did they change it? Because the Dev teams knows better than you... apparently.
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There really is some 'splainin' to do here.
[/ QUOTE ]
They do not need to explain themselves. Remember you are playing in THEIR world now!
Don't like what they did? Go cancel and pick up a copy of Guild Wars.
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Why did they change it? Because the Dev teams knows better than you... apparently.
They do not need to explain themselves. Remember you are playing in THEIR world now!
Don't like what they did? Go cancel and pick up a copy of Guild Wars.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow! An honest to goodness no holds barred Troll. Thanks. But y'know really, contribute or stay off threads you don't understand.
Also, I'm sorry despite what you think, the devs do need to explain any change and the reasons for it when they happen, and they think so too.
And geko still hasn't come back and convinced anyone that massive in the case of Energy Absorption ever equaled powerful.
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Hm. I'm pretty sure. I was hibernating and the ice thing had already come on, and then it dropped and a scrapper midnight grasped me. I put on Wet Ice and ran around until dull pain came back up, was just annoying =/
[/ QUOTE ]
Tested this a few times in the Arena vs. my wife's MA/Regen Scrapper. She couldn't knock off my Hibernate once it was up and running. She could still try to attack me, but all attackes were either "Miss!" or "Unaffected!" on a hit.
Someone said something very interesting relating to hibernate. The problem with hibernate is that you can usually not turn it on fast enough to protect yourself from the type of attack that would kill you in one-shot ( AV and Monster ).
The thought was that ice needed some resistance to balance off against the damage to allow time for hibernate to work.
I think that what might be an interesting way to improve hibernate is to have it so that it when it is active there is a response to damage. The more damage the more the mitigation effect would grow as you shifted into the hibernation ice. The down side of the effect is that you would get -SPD while the hibernation worked to repair the damage. This would make the effect of hibernation a bit more reactive to damage rather than as it exists now as a passive power choice.
------
One thing that is positive with Ice Tanks in I4 is that we get Wet Ice at level 6 and there is no -SPD with the usage. The new knockback can be pretty severe ( a scrapper alt I was using today got knocked around like a ping pong ball by the council ). Wet Ice gives Ice Tankers a great built in anti-knockback power that allows you to tank without getting bashed by the villians. This alone has probably raised player's stock in Ice Tanks as we have mobility and knockback protection.
[ QUOTE ]
One thing that is positive with Ice Tanks in I4 is that we get Wet Ice at level 6 and there is no -SPD with the usage. The new knockback can be pretty severe ( a scrapper alt I was using today got knocked around like a ping pong ball by the council ). Wet Ice gives Ice Tankers a great built in anti-knockback power that allows you to tank without getting bashed by the villians. This alone has probably raised player's stock in Ice Tanks as we have mobility and knockback protection.
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Uh? That is pre-I3 information. All tankers get that... Except for the fact that other tankers get the status efect +Res at lvl 8 there is no difference.
Well... Then there is Fire tanker. They don't get knockX +Res, and instead of one power providing status efect protection they need 2 of them (One at lvl 1 and the other one at lvl 12). But then again Fire Tanker are a special case.
BTW, what kind of scrapper were you using? */DA I guess. They're the only scrappers w/o knockX protection... That or a very young one.
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And geko still hasn't come back and convinced anyone that massive in the case of Energy Absorption ever equaled powerful.
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The more I play my new "solo/small" team build Ice/Ice tanker the more convinced I am that those changes were done to encourage people to team... The funny thing is that the changes to EA are affecting only the team tankers, not the solo ones...
I've been doing my missions solo/duo using the "invincible" settings. Most of the time I'm only running around with WI on, not even FA! EA provides more then enough defense. In fact, when soloing I don't even use EA! All I really need to be running to be able to finish my missions is WI.
And that's with Ice as my secondary! I can only imagine all the crazy things I could do if my secondary was Fiery Melee or Battle Axe 0_o?!
My current build allows me to actually be able to tank for big teams if need it, but only (like mentioned many, many times before) easy stuff! What does that means? I could farm Freaks, Worlfs and Nemesis all day long if I wanted to.
And what about not so easy stuff? I solo that. After all my blaster soloed most of his life, soloing with a solo-build Tanker is a whole lot easier. And for TF's/Trials? What I've been doing this last 3 days is bringing a real tanker or 2 alone (By that I mean Inv/ or Stone/)
This is the build I'm using right now. I'm sure I could drop CE and take BU instead to improve my damage and take the slots from health to have it up as soon as posible, but I like to bring big teams alone when fighting the easy mobs... Thus some of the power decisions. Like taking SS and Stealth so I can get close enough to use EA before being Alpha-ed.
Exported from version 1.5A of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh
Archetype: Tanker
Primary Powers - Ranged : Ice Armor
Secondary Powers - Support : Ice Melee
01 : Frozen Fists acc(01) endred(3) dam(5) dam(9) dam(13) dam(31)
01 : Frozen Armor endred(01) endred(7) defbuf(11) defbuf(11) defbuf(15) defbuf(15)
02 : Ice Sword acc(02) endred(3) dam(5) dam(9) dam(13) dam(21)
04 : Hoarfrost recred(04) recred(7) recred(17) recred(19) recred(27) recred(50)
06 : Wet Ice endred(06) endred(50)
08 : Chilling Embrace endred(08) endred(31)
10 : Taunt tntdur(10)
12 : Hasten recred(12) recred(17) recred(19) recred(21) recred(25) recred(25)
14 : Super Speed endred(14)
16 : Swift runspd(16)
18 : Glacial Armor endred(18)
20 : Health hel(20) hel(43) hel(46) hel(48) hel(48) hel(48)
22 : Stamina endrec(22) endrec(23) endrec(23) endrec(27) endrec(31) endrec(34)
24 : Ice Patch recred(24) recred(34)
26 : Energy Absorption recred(26) endred(34) endred(37) defbuf(40) defbuf(40) defbuf(40)
28 : Freezing Touch acc(28) endred(29) hlddur(29) dam(33) dam(33) dam(33)
30 : Stealth endred(30)
32 : Hibernate endred(32) endred(50)
35 : Greater Ice Sword acc(35) endred(36) dam(36) dam(36) dam(37) dam(37)
38 : Hover fltspd(38) fltspd(39) fltspd(39) fltspd(39)
41 : Conserve Power recred(41) recred(42) recred(42) recred(42) recred(43) recred(43)
44 : Focused Accuracy endred(44) endred(45) endred(45) thtbuf(45) thtbuf(46) thtbuf(46)
47 : Grant Invisibility endred(47)
49 : Phase Shift endred(49)
-------------------------------------------
01 : Brawl Empty(01)
01 : Sprint Empty(01)
02 : Rest Empty(02)
Another thing for Ice tanks to watch out for...
If your helping a Kheldian in the 40+ range they have the defeat Shadow Cysts (something like that). It's an object that spits out Nictus, that's bad enough. However once its defeated it explodes. I took over 2300 in damage, the only reasons I survived: Tough, Hoarfrost active, and the HP accolades. The first time I didn't have Hoarfrost on and I bit it. Combination lethal and fire (or maybe it was energy). Anyway just a heads up to you other icers that may still be playing.
Daristar
on Virtue:
Darkennedy dark/sonic Def
Lena Slayer NightWidow
Vengeful Woman Energy/Rad Corruptor
Hella Effing Cool cold/sonic def
Thanks for the heads-up, Daristar.
I was just thinking about ice armor and the concept of an ice wall came to mind. The clunkiness of the thing would be a big drawback and I can only imagine it being used on Monsters/AVs because of the time required to take them down. So, I discarded that idea.
Then I thought of a Freezing Area type of field that is larger than Chilling Embrace. Perhaps be a damage debuff field of sorts that also help protect your teammates. This sort of debuff idea has been brought up before and the big downside of it is it doesn't scale well. The major problem of scaling is that we would still be vulnerable to one-shotting. Damage Resistance really is the best way to avoid the coup de grace that ice tanks are all too familiar with.
I guess the major problem is that I just don't see the devs changing our powers other than just terms of numbers. They did add stacking for our armor, but I don't see them changing the way a power functions. I'm just not happy with hibernate since it takes away my ability to help my team. We just don't have that final defensive power to help us step up to the plate and take on the worst that Paragon City has to offer. I've said this before, but our final power is more of an /afk power than anything. 
I do still have questions about the ice line of tanks though for the devs.
What good is Permafrost now that Ice Armor stacks?
Why can't we slot Chilling Embrace to slow attack rates?
Shouldn't Energy Absorption be offered at level 18 instead of 26?
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread." - Blaise Pascal
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
Currently, I do not have Hibernate but plan to get it at lvl 32. You may thus freely dismiss my comparisions based on what other people on the boards have reported.
When discussing the tank lvl 32 power we should also take a look at the competition in Tank primaries as of I4.
Invul has Unstoppable - A 90% resist to all but psi. Mez protection in a click power which helps because Unyielding Stance is a toggle that drain attacks can bring down. Currently has a huge recharge time that with haste fully slotted and 6 slotted recharges makes it useful at maximum of 3 out of 4 minutes. When the time is up then the power causes a crash to 10% HP and 0% End. Powers like Conserve Power can help as do inspirtations and Dull Pain. Currently good to get you out of trouble as a panic button.
Stone has Granite Armour. The only set that now has a constant 24hr combat toggle. This gives good resistance and defense to all but Psi. The down sides are that you have one toggle that makes it a big target in PvP. Most travel powers do not work. You have a penalty to damage, speed and recharge rates that require powers like Swift, Haste, and recharge enhancements to offset.
Fire has Rise of the Pheonix. A power to use when you are already dead. You come back strong and do damage but still get an xp penalty for dying in the first place.
Ice has Hibernate. I4 increased the activation time. Not sure how fast it does activate but a long activation time is not good. Hopefully, it is not longer than Unstoppable to activate. If it is longer to activate then Unstoppable then that is a bit unfair. The good stuff is that you do not need to die to use the power. It offers a 100% protection to everything ( compared to a Invulnerability Tank that is at cap resistance and is thus not adding any real defense but switching to a click power over a toggle defense -- if they are taking enough damage with their toggle defenses then Unstoppable will not likely help much ). Ice provides a safe place to heal. Ice has the least negative IMO in I4 ( now that Unstoppable is not permanent ) because we are imobile for 10+ seconds while healing to full ( I am almost tempted to think a few greens in the insp tray would cover the situations I might want/need hibernate but I am going to game this out in the 30s and see what I find works ). The power also recycles fairly quickly which makes it useful. The best is that it is a power that is good right out of the box without needing special slotting or other powers to avoid the penalty of using it.
Is Hibernate the best 9th power in CoH? Probably not the best but it compares well with the Tank competition if not surpassing several in the I4 game.
I do hope that the activation time is not greater than Unstoppable and if it is greater that this gets changed to an equivelent panic button choice.
Hibernate used to basically have two activation times. One for the ice formations to come up and immobilize you and another for you to stop taking damage and start healing.
I think the difference now is that while the Ice takes about a second longer to come up, you now stop taking damage and start healing as soon as its up.
This change wasn't explicitly spelled out in the patch notes so its hard to be 100% sure what's going on.
My basic problem with Hibernate is its too reactive a power. Even with recharge enhancements, it takes too long to recharge to be using it often when you really do need it. For example, you're fighting an AV, your health is low, you turn on hibernate, you heal up, turn it off. 5 or 10 seconds later you're hit again by the AV and your health is back down to where it was and Hibernate is not up yet. This happens all the time.
Combine that with it immobilizing you so that if for some reason in the 10-20 seconds you take to heal back up with it someone needs your help you can't react to help. You're off the chessboard, and that is a really bad position for any Tanker to have to be in.
That's why I think RotP, despite its long recharge time comes in higher than Hibernate because its entire purpose is to keep a Fire Tanker on the chessboard. As are Granite Armor and Unstoppable.
So in the end, to me, it just doesn't play out as a 9th tier power very well. It'd make a better 8th tier power, just like Energy Absorption should be the 7th tier power and not the 8th tier power.
As per I4 Update Notes:
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"# Granite Armor, Bright Nova, White Dwarf, Dark Nova and Black Dwarf have been made immune to Toggle Drop effects brought on by Brawl and similar De-Toggle abilities. These powers are still vulnerable to being shut down by Holds and Stuns.
* These are crucial powers that should be immune to toggle drops."
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That is a PvP change only, of course. As far as I know they haven't change that. Got that from here. Not that I care since I haven't, nor I plan to PvP.
Now... Hibernate. I still don't know what to think about that power and I've been using it for a while now.
The only reason I took that power is because I respec-ed into a solo machine (Read my previous post). During teams I use that power only when there is a good tanker with the group AND if we don't have some kind of healer with the group.
If I'm either the only tanker OR if there is at least a Storm user with O2, then that power becomes pure garbage... Specially when going against an AV.
Unstoppable allows Inv/ tankers to tank Carnies' Ring Mistresses and Sappers (I think that's why most Inv. tanker keep that power actually, or at least that's what I've been told)
Granite is 96-ish Res to all - psionics and a 30%-ish Def to all -psionic with a 4DamRes+2DefBuff slotting... Not to bad for a single toggle. Add Rooted and Teleport Self to that and you have a true brick all. The only reason I haven't roll a Stone Tanker is because I can almost see Hasbro heading that way.
Then there is RotF... Very unique power for a very unique power set. One thing is for sure: RotF is way better then Hibernate! At least you don't loose agro when you use it... That's good for the team (As a tanker the team is 1st, if they don't get deb I'm happy)
Yeah, according to Geko's post, it's a cap on the number of mobs taht can buff you (effectively capping your defense at whatever 5 mob buffs gives you), not a direct cap on the defense. But that means that the mobs that don't buff you should still be affected, and assuming they still don't, that's a bug, right?