This topic confirms one thing for me...
I better retire my Ice Tank because it was hard enough just not dying...
MY Ice Tank has to rely heavily on Pool Powers because I like to run invincible... Tough Weave and Hasten slotted for defense. Plus I got all the ice armors 6 slotted. I get hit so much, I almost have that damage badge for 10 million...
The one thing I liked was that EA saved me some debt, but that is being changed.
There come some drawbacks to having just resist (Fiery Aura). We get hit by damn near every shot, until pools are taken. You add knockdowns into that mix, and Fire stands a bit shorter on the totem than the others as for lasting ability, as a flipped tanker cannot set Burn patches. Again, pools must be tapped into to be able to do some of the impressive tanking that can be done. I really wish there were a way to get knock resistance other than acrobatics, but that's nothing to do with this thread.
I would agree that there should be a suitable balance found with a purely defensive set like you Ice tankers have. Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions on that, seeing as I've only ever played Fire tankers beyond lvl 15 or so. I really hope you guys get helped...
The one thing I did want to clear up:
Someone did mention that Blazing Aura did more damage than Icicles. I would kindly remind you that the boost in BA's power came after the balance to Burn's tick speed and recharge. Icicles should not be equivalent of BA there. As for differences in endurance consumption, again I am unknowing here. I would've figured it'd be the same for BA, Icicles and Mud Pots.
Brushfire 50 Fire/Energy --Archons of Justice
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Well, aparently both the ice tankers got together and managed to tank something, so the Devs felt it was time for a nerf.
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They had a regen scrapper with them that's how it was noticed. 
Like I said before: Give us the damage Fire tanker do and I'll stop complaining about the need of resistance, and now about this new EA fiasco.
Now, about Icicles vs BA:
- We get Icicles at lvl 12, you get BA at lvl 1 (Why would you get it at lvl 2?)
- Icicles uses between 1 and 2 end per sec (Depending to whom you ask), BA uses less than 1.
- According to the BI, Icicles does 0.55 Letal per tick. BA does 0.611 of Fire damage per tick. Both powers tick at the same rate, and as we all know S/L are the most resisted damage type in the game.
Now... This has nothing to do with this threat. Nor do I care what Fire tankers can or can't do. Just answering your questions.
Oh! And one more thing: Yes! Only Res is not a good thing either (That's why Fire tankers are the weaker "tankers" of them all)... But at least there are many pools, inspirations and other heroes powers that can increase your defenses.
There is only one pool we can take to get some kind of +Res, and that's only agains S/L, and just 2 or 3 powers from other AT's that can give us some kind of +Res... There is no such thing as a +Res Inspiration.
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Well, aparently both the ice tankers got together and managed to tank something, so the Devs felt it was time for a nerf.
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They had a regen scrapper with them that's how it was noticed.
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Too Funny
Ice Armor needs some problems fixed before you put a cap on their best power. If you want to add some real damage resistance to the set, then feel free to have the cap. We get one-shotted by reasonably leveled AV's which is embarassing. We get killed by underlings (swarms). We have no protection from psionic damage. We always have to face the alpha-strike (getting hit before energy absorption and chilling embrace go into effect.) Defence scales to level. There are some attacks that are auto-hit and we have Zero way to counteract that. Tons of defense debuffs and accuracy buffs that we have to face. There is always at least a 5% chance to hit us and when we get hit we take full damage (which leads to AV's one-shotting us). We are supposed to be tanks.
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The power is still quite massive, and probably still too powerful.
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EA is all we have and this "massive" power has a cap already. Why lower the power before fixing other issues with Ice Armor?
I appreciate the changes that were made with Issue 3. Stacking armor has certainly helped and the changes to Hibernate are a ton better. It isn't that we are on god mode here. We aren't tank-mages. If you want to add caps to Energy Absorption, how about throwing some damage resistance in permafrost?
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
I just started my Ice Tank and many of the posters in this thread gave me a lot of great advice. The Human Cold is still only level 12, so I can't really comment on EA. Already, though, I've been put to shame multiple times by Inv tanks. If I join a pickup team, I have to tell them that they're going to need another tank since I will be dying frequently. That's sad. I was planning on EA really making a big difference in my tankability. Fortunately, I haven't spent too much time on this toon. The problem is that I really like this guy. He has a lot of great, fun powers that should make me super great at protecting my teammates. In theory should be a pretty decent tank. It just doesn't seem to work out that way.
LeMoiCavalier, you mentioned you were on Liberty. That's my home. If you have some spare time, would you mind SKing me so I can get a look at the Ice Tanker's powers?
I've never met one. <- Maybe that's the easiest way to see that Ice Tankers need help before nerfs.
Hey just wanted to clarify that I messed up a bit in the calcs and wanted to correct them. Capped Resistance for a Tanker is 90% now, not 95%, my mistake. And again remember that even con bosses have an 85% chance to hit.
For the capped Resistance:
20 * 0.85 = 17 hits
17 * 250 = 4250 gross damage
4250 * (1 - 0.90) = 425 net damage
That actually puts pure defense above pure offense when fighting even level mobs by 41%.
That said, I'm also finding some things out about Invuln (been a while since I played one, so was not so familiar with the new numbers), that Invince is most likely in the ball park of 5% base and 7.5% per mob. So:
5 + (7.5 * 5) = 42.5%
w/6 slotted Tough Hide for another 16.5%
42.5 + 16.5 = 59%
However, Unyielding has a 5% debuff
59% - 5 = 54%
For the capped Invuln tanker the following happens:
100 * (0.85 - 0.54) = 31 hits
31 * 250 = 7750 gross damage
7750 * (1 - 0.90) = 775 net damage
Which is actually slightly more than the Ice Tanker was:
100 * 0.75 = 75 hits after CE
75 * 0.05 = 3.75 hits
3.75 * 250 = 937.5 gross/net damage
This puts Invuln 17% ahead of Ice Tankers, not 40%. Overall that would mean that to properly compete with a Invuln Tanker as they stand today, an Ice Tanker would need 17% Resistance -- which would imply sticking a 7.5% base resist somewhere int the Ice Armor mix (preferably Permafrost).
Now that 17% is a very interesting number, because that 17% is almost exactly the addtional defense that Tough Hide provides. In fact if you take Tough Hide dropping the Invuln Tankers DEF to 37.5% out of the picture you get the following:
100 * (0.85 - 0.375) = 47.5 hits
47.5 * 250 = 11875 gross damage
11875 * (1 - 0.90) = 1187.5 net damage
Which would actually be more in line with an Ice Tanker, and would put an Ice Tanker ahead by 21% exactly one less hit from the attackers (250 damage) in this case (others may vary).
I really don't think this is a big change. I don't remember the last time I hit more than 5 enemies with an EA, and usually if I hit only 3 then I'm invincible until it wears off. Capping it at 5 seems fine to me, if they needed a cap on it (and I'm assuming they needed a cap for technical reasons.)
However, Ice needs *help*. Nerfs, even insignificant nerfs, are not a good idea. Ice needs something to bring it up to the effectiveness of other tank primaries, and/or something to set it further apart from the other primaries.
Permafrost is sitting there, ready for the devs to do something with it. I think either S/L resistance or a massive +HP perma buff would be good things to put in Permafrost. The S/L resistance would be better, but a +HP buff would make Ice armor just as effective, giving it some regeneration-like qualities, and would make it more unique.
Just do *something* for Ice. Something *helpful*, please. 
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New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
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Also, if you don't slot your other armors
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Maybe that was the intention of this change to EA, so Ice tanker will pick up their other armors and slot them. As it currently stood, it seemed that Ice tankers could easily get by with just Wet Ice and EA.
Okay looking at the calculations for Invuln max resists are as follows:
Lethal 90% (above cap)
Smashing 90% (above cap)
Cold 88%
Fire 88%
Energy 88%
Negative 88%
Toxic 44%
Ice Armor already has the following resists (assuming standard slotting, and assuming no one takes Permafrost):
Cold 90% (exactly capped)
Fire 9% (no one slots Frozen Armor for Resistance)
Toxic 20% (no one slots Hoarfrost for Resistance)
Using the 7.5% base number in an auto-power to compensate (accepting Permafrost as the logical choice here), and knowing that max slotted for Resistance this would put the 7.5% to 16.5%.
Adjusting Permafrost as follows would bring Ice into alignment with Invuln (these are base Resist numbers btw):
Lethal 7.5%
Smashing 7.5%
Cold 20% (not changed from current)
Fire 10% (not changed from current)
Energy 7.5%
Negative 7.5%
Toxic 11%
This would bring a Max Slotted modified Permafrost to:
Lethal 16.5%
Smashing 16.5%
Cold 44% (not changed from current)
Fire 22% (not changed from current)
Energy 16.5%
Negative 16.5%
Toxic 24.2%
And this would plug the 17% that Invuln has over Ice.
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Edit: I just wanted add that adding Resistances somewhere is not the only way to solve this issue, just the most inherently easy way to solve it.
For example, a modification to Hoarfrost that makes it less like Dull Pain and more like Healing Flames would compensate greatly. If the 100 hits example happend over the course of 2 minutes and we could be guaranteed to heal the difference of 17% damage in those two minutes, boom you're done. Consider it a re-icing if you will.
I honestly think the intention with Hibernate is to work this way, considering it comes up every 60 seconds by default. But realsitically because Hibernate stops a tanker from doing his job, it falls short. Healing Flames and Rooted for example do not stop a Tanker from working. Hibernate takes the Tanker off the chessboard.
And don't get me wrong I don't think Hibernate is a bad power. I know Blasters and Controllers who love it in their Ancillary Pools. And for them it works well... when they're hurting they want to be taken off the chessboard. When a Tanker is hurting he wants to keep going. This makes Hibernate a poor Tanker power.
No feedback?
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I just started my Ice Tank and many of the posters in this thread gave me a lot of great advice. The Human Cold is still only level 12, so I can't really comment on EA. Already, though, I've been put to shame multiple times by Inv tanks. If I join a pickup team, I have to tell them that they're going to need another tank since I will be dying frequently. That's sad. I was planning on EA really making a big difference in my tankability. Fortunately, I haven't spent too much time on this toon. The problem is that I really like this guy. He has a lot of great, fun powers that should make me super great at protecting my teammates. In theory should be a pretty decent tank. It just doesn't seem to work out that way.
LeMoiCavalier, you mentioned you were on Liberty. That's my home. If you have some spare time, would you mind SKing me so I can get a look at the Ice Tanker's powers?
I've never met one. <- Maybe that's the easiest way to see that Ice Tankers need help before nerfs.
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Sure thing. Just add me to your global handle @LeMoiCavalier
I'm usually on and off after 6-ish pm Central.
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I really don't think this is a big change. I don't remember the last time I hit more than 5 enemies with an EA, and usually if I hit only 3 then I'm invincible until it wears off. Capping it at 5 seems fine to me, if they needed a cap on it (and I'm assuming they needed a cap for technical reasons.)
However, Ice needs *help*. Nerfs, even insignificant nerfs, are not a good idea. Ice needs something to bring it up to the effectiveness of other tank primaries, and/or something to set it further apart from the other primaries.
Permafrost is sitting there, ready for the devs to do something with it. I think either S/L resistance or a massive +HP perma buff would be good things to put in Permafrost. The S/L resistance would be better, but a +HP buff would make Ice armor just as effective, giving it some regeneration-like qualities, and would make it more unique.
Just do *something* for Ice. Something *helpful*, please.
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And I'm sure that's how much Ice tankers feel. Like I said before: Give us a cap! That's fine. But what are we getting back? More +Res to slow? Who cares! Our Res to that is good as it is. A "better" hibernate? Can't care less about that, I'm taking that power at 49, if at all. Give us damage! Give us +Res to all -psionics. Give us a pie making power.
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Hey just wanted to clarify that I messed up a bit in the calcs and wanted to correct them. Capped Resistance for a Tanker is 90% now, not 95%, my mistake. And again remember that even con bosses have an 85% chance to hit.
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Incorrect. An Even Con Boss has a base To-Hit of 75%. A +1 Boss has a To-Hit around 81-82% and a +2 Boss has a To-Hit closer to 88-90%
Sgt Liberty - 50 Martial Arts / Super Reflexes
Verdigris Eagle - 50 Archery / Energy Manipulation
Stormeye - 50 Storm Summoning / Electric Blast
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Adjusting Permafrost as follows would bring Ice into alignment with Invuln (these are base Resist numbers btw):
Lethal 7.5%
Smashing 7.5%
Cold 20% (not changed from current)
Fire 10% (not changed from current)
Energy 7.5%
Negative 7.5%
Toxic 11%
This would bring a Max Slotted modified Permafrost to:
Lethal 16.5%
Smashing 16.5%
Cold 44% (not changed from current)
Fire 22% (not changed from current)
Energy 16.5%
Negative 16.5%
Toxic 24.2%
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Hire this man and fire the old power balancing guy, we have a winner.
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Incorrect. An Even Con Boss has a base To-Hit of 75%. A +1 Boss has a To-Hit around 81-82% and a +2 Boss has a To-Hit closer to 88-90%
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Yeah you're talking even con and I'm calculating for the more common even level situation. An even level boss has about an 85% chance to hit. An even con boss would have less of a chance to hit.
And if an even level boss did hit at 75% that means that the discrepency between Invuln and Ice is much higher...
Invul with boss calc at 75%:
100 * (0.75 - 0.54) = 21 hits
21 * 250 = 5250 gross damage
5250 * (1 - 0.90) = 525 net damage
Ice was at 937.5 net damage (its calc doesn't change, floored ACC is floored ACC). That makes the discepency 44%
This would mean that Permafrost's bases would have to be:
Lethal 20%
Smashing 20%
Cold 20% (not changed from current)
Fire 10% (not changed from current)
Energy 20%
Negative 20%
Toxic 11%
Which makes Max Slotted modified Permafrost:
Lethal 44%
Smashing 44%
Cold 44% (not changed from current)
Fire 22% (not changed from current)
Energy 44%
Negative 44%
Toxic 24.2%
So sure I'll take that over the other of that's really the case. But clearly the problem is huge whether its a 17% difference or a 44% one.
Edit: Also that would explain why Ice Tankers who take Tough are so much better off then Ice Tankers who don't in overall performance. At 75% they would be exactly covering the smash/lethal gap. Of course, they're likely getting Tough at the cost of permafrost which means they loose the extra Cold/Fire Resistance and unlike my example do not have the Energy/Negative Resistance or the additional Toxic Resistance.
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Also, if you don't slot your other armors
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Maybe that was the intention of this change to EA, so Ice tanker will pick up their other armors and slot them. As it currently stood, it seemed that Ice tankers could easily get by with just Wet Ice and EA.
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You have never played an Ice tanker before, have you? No good tanker is going to be able to TANK by only using those two armors (Here I'm assuming that the tanker took all his armors up to lvl 26, then respec-ed out of them)
If there is an armor that I can see people not taking (or at least not 6-slotting) is Glacial Armor, and even so I feel that's a really stupid move! There are way too many mobs that do Energy/Negative energy only atacks (Outcasts, Vampiry, Clockworks, Sappers, Kheldians :if you're into PvP, and you get one or two "evil" Kheldians during missions, too:, Voids, Quantum mobs, Freakshow, Neuron's Grey Robots, Antimatter's Blue Robots, Rikti, many AV's... Those are the ones I can remember right now)
Please also notice how must energy/neg-energy either lower your defense, or drains your end. In fact, most mobs are going to lower your defense (That's why putting a cap to our defense is a very stupid thing to do... Defense is all we have!)
If you want to be a good Ice Tanker you can't just go running around with only 2 armors! You need them all, and you need them with at least 4 Def Enh each.
Also, you CAN NOT rely on EA to fight AV's... Unless they're -2 or lower to you.
Please, go back to the beggining of this threat and read all the posts. You're going ot find even more insigh.
Would you consider the extra aggro and of CE and the damage of Icicles to balance out that extra 17%? It seems like it should at least be good for something. Not sure if its the whole 17%. Also, doesn't some testing show that Tough hide doesn't stack with Invince. You can check Dark Golem's post in the Tanker forumn if it isn't buried by PvP stuff.
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Would you consider the extra aggro and of CE and the damage of Icicles to balance out that extra 17%? It seems like it should at least be good for something. Not sure if its the whole 17%. Also, doesn't some testing show that Tough hide doesn't stack with Invince. You can check Dark Golem's post in the Tanker forumn if it isn't buried by PvP stuff.
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I thought a dev had chimed in and said they were wrong and that they do stack, and that's why the post is now so buried. I did read through it, and it was all a lot of speculation, but numbers showed it could be going either way. And every Invuln I've ever spoken with says Tough makes them better off, so it should be stacking just fine.
And if Icicles did damage on the order of Burn, sure it would balance out, but since its damage output is worse than Blazing Aura's and that BA is worse than Burn... well no... it ain't there.
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Also, if you don't slot your other armors
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Maybe that was the intention of this change to EA, so Ice tanker will pick up their other armors and slot them. As it currently stood, it seemed that Ice tankers could easily get by with just Wet Ice and EA.
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You have never played an Ice tanker before, have you? No good tanker is going to be able to TANK by only using those two armors (Here I'm assuming that the tanker took all his armors up to lvl 26, then respec-ed out of them)
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My Ice tank, which I leveled past 26 before the toggle armors were made stackable, used nothing but Wet Ice and EA. At 22 he picked up Tough. That's it. That's all he needed. He wasn't as effective as an Invuln tank, but he was still durable enough to tank for a team.
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Please also notice how must energy/neg-energy either lower your defense, or drains your end. In fact, most mobs are going to lower your defense (That's why putting a cap to our defense is a very stupid thing to do... Defense is all we have!)
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Negative energy lowers accuracy. Slashing/lethal attacks (like assault weapon fire, some claw attacks, etc.) lower your defense. What's more dangerous are the enemies that buff each other's offense -- aren't DE Quartz eminators a +100% accuracy boost to all DE nearby? No defensive powerset is going to be able to stand up to that.
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If you want to be a good Ice Tanker you can't just go running around with only 2 armors! You need them all, and you need them with at least 4 Def Enh each.
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Actually you can get by with only WI and EA as armors. 'Get by', mind, not 'do well'.
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New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
I'm aware it looks like the Ice tanks are [censored] about nothing. 100%+ def off of one click as the max is a very large number.
1 Quartz, and that drops to 0%.
My issue is that I can -feel- if I only have 5 people buffing me with EA. I know when I've hit that few, and I know there's a chance I'll be hitting hibernate, because quite a few foes have some extremely high +acc abilities, or modifiers. Maybe what I'm used to thinking of as 5 with 2 Defbuff encs is actually only been hitting just one. Maybe I'm completely on crack.
But I honestly don't think so.
That said, EA is crazy amazingly powerful when used properly, and was probably a bit high. I just think the cap is too low. I don't care about tanking +15s, but I would like to not worry so much about tanking +3s (this is leaving aside the AV and oneshoting and the fact that Swarms kill us amazingly quickly, and all the other issues Ice has).
So...yes. I'm going to test a bit more, but I really think I'm giong to shelve my ice tanker. I just don't see the point.
I put this in the open Ice Tanker forum, but it looks like this thread had replaced it.
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What if EA gave a large, inherent defense boost and a smaller def boost per minion?
Say, activating EA with 0 enemies around gave you +30% def vs all and each enemy gave you and additional 10%?
With the new mob cap in EA, you would get +80% defense in a group, but still +40% against a single boss/AV/monster.
Stacking EA and wearing your other armors could still cap your def against reasonable enemies in groups and give you a chance against single enemies. The numbers would have to be fudged with, of course.
What I would like to see for Ice Tanks is the ability to easily floor any reasonable enemy's chance to hit at 5%. This includes fire and psi. If this were the case, I would say to keep us at 0 resist except to cold and MAYBE fire. Then our weaknesses would be auto hitting powers and the occasional, very infrequent, one-shot.
The fun of Ice Tanks should be gambling. It should be possible on a good day to tanks 100 +10 bosses and not get hit. But on a bad day, 3 lucky hits from an even level boss could kill you.
What about if Hibernate was a toggle power that:
1) Made you 100% invincible
2) Generated a area of agro
3) Drastically increased your HP regen
4) Shut off when your HP was full
This would let you continue doing your job as a tanker, while keeping you from simply turning on hibernate and being indestructable while the enemies all attacked you.
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These are just ideas. I haven't gotten far enough with my Ice Tank to gnow how well all these powers work.
Where does the slow from CE factor into this balance, Circ?
Is it commonly used by ice armor tankers? Is it taken?
How does the slow work to balance out?
I've seen lots of your concerns deal with defense and resistance, but if the mobs are slowed, would they not be able to toss as many attacks at you as against a different armor set?
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, and moreover am just curious.
Changing Permafrost, sure, not a bad idea, it's in the same boat as FA's Temperature Protection. Couple of those never-taken powers.
Yeah... good luck Tanking without Wet Ice.