You know, I might be able to live with a cap. I'm not happy with it and it means I have to slot up my armors more, but I could live with a cap on EA's defense.
What I cannot live with is the reduced end drain. That's just pointless.
And then there is still the fact that my perma elude scrapper is immune to psionics and fire and cold and toxic and everything else while my Ice tankers still has multiple holes in his defenses.
Please, if you are going to nerf the best power Ice tanks have at least give us something back in return. I wouldn't mind some real Resistance so that I'm not the only tank that get's one shotted even by non psi AV's...
Geko,
If I want a Tank that can survive attacks the best, I get an Inv tank.
If I want a Tank that can do damage, I get a Fire tank.
If I want a Tank that resists PSI, I get a Stone tank.
So, slightly different question:
What do I possibly get with an Ice tank that any of the other tanks can't do better?
The ability to take naps.
Seriously though, supposedly ice tankers are supposed to be able to control better. As an added means of aggro management. But they can't.
Ain't that the truth.
Just thought of yet another way this change hurts Ice Tankers. Now the limit on the number of enemies we can aggro with EA just got capped.
That's right ladies and gentlemen, on top of putting a cap on the amount of defense one can get (and since it's been well established that medium defense + medium to high resistances >> high defenses...) and the number of enemies we can draw end from, there's the chance that our base end drain for EA was lowered, and for certain, now Ice Tankers won't be able to use it to hold aggro on large groups of enemies.
Thanks devs. You've gone and taken the best power of the weakest tanker set, and made it mediocre.
Where does that leave Ice? Further behind any other tanker primary in the game (which wasn't anything close to begin with... )
Please don't go through with this change, Geko. You like showing numbers to illustrate your reasoning. Please look over Circeus' numbers to illustrate our reasoning. Give us a reason to play this set.
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
Or make a change to permafrost that will help even this change out...
Balance...
GF
p.s. But no matter what end drain should effect all foes in area...
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For the record guys... here's the thing we weren't told about the Energy Absorbtion change in the patch notes. Not only is it now limited to getting defense buffs from only 5 foes, but it now only drains endurance from those same 5 foes. Everything else in the radius of Energy Absorbtion no longer looses endurance.
And to boot you don't get to pick which 5 get hit/loose the end. So you can no longer use the End Drain to try to lock down bosses.
So its not just 1 nerf its 2.
I'm sorry, but even if you're going to limit the defense buff to 5 the End Drain should still affect everything -- its a major part of the power, and one I know I heavily rely on (well vs foes that don't regenerate Endurance fast).
This is frakin' silly.
C'mon, cut us some slack and give us something. The change is over the top. Who the heck spends the time to nerf a single power in a set that already significantly underperforms not once, but twice.
Sheesh.
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Are you serious? I did a lot of testing last night (On test), but that's the one thing I didn't pay attention to (I was too busy surviving half of the things that I can usually survive).
I'll find a few Skulls at Perez tonight to check your findings... If this is not a bug, then is yet another reason to roll a Stone Tanker... Or should I just roll an Inv/* tanker? Is the one they want us to play it seems.
While I certainly wouldn't argue that Invulnerability Tanks have better defense I don't want Ice to be an overpowered set like Invulnerability. But if the Energy Absorbtion change means that only 5 mobs are getting endurance drained then that does need to be changed. If only 5 mobs are getting aggro then that should be fixed as well.
I do like caps though because it allows situations such as fighting DE where you have to pay attention sometimes and change tactics to be effective. Being able to jump into a group of mobs in every situation without thinking just gets old after a while.
There also hasn't been much mention of what Ice does better than Invulnerability. We have great Energy defense so sappers are much less of an issue. Energy Absorption being a click power also gives us some protection in cases where toggles do get dropped and without the negatives of powers like Unstopable. And on days when things just don't go right Hibernate can let you sit there and meditate for a moment on just how cool life can be. I also love not having to chase runners for five blocks because with Chilling Embrace they aren't going anyplace fast.
When it comes to Arch Villians I love defenders. Kinetics, Dark, and Radiation Defenders can all put Archvillian damage output to something manageable no matter what the type and frequently a Storm Defender can also help in many cases. To me the game isn't about always being the best. It is about being damn good and my Ice Tanker is definately that. This change doesn't really affect that and except for the bugs of secondary effects no longer hitting all mobs in range I don't mind it at all.
Nogala
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Wanna lay even odds that EA's base end drain got lowered as well?
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It didn't get lowered near as I can tell all end bars look about the same as they do now on live. Though it did get lowered for PvP, but all End Drains got lowered for PvP.
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Are you serious? I did a lot of testing last night (On test), but that's the one thing I didn't pay attention to (I was too busy surviving half of the things that I can usually survive).
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Just tested it a few more times to be certain. Yes only things you get DEF from get End Drained. Nothing else does. In fact its unclear the unaffected mobs are even Taunted by EA anymore either.
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There also hasn't been much mention of what Ice does better than Invulnerability. We have great Energy defense so sappers are much less of an issue.
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Becuase we really don't do it all that much better than Invuln does. Sappers are a minion. Minions have a 50% ACC. Tough Hide alone brings that close to 30%, plus invinc brings it to 25%, and then standing next to the Sapper 18%. If the Sapper has 2 friends with him like he usually does the Sapper ends up with his ACC floored. So sorry, nope I don't see this.
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Energy Absorption being a click power also gives us some protection in cases where toggles do get dropped and without the negatives of powers like Unstopable.
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I'm sorry... but can I laugh at that a little. You do realized how much more effective Unstoppable is at allowing a Tank to do its job then EA is? Even now with the way its been changed. And lets not forget its comparitive power is Hibernate. Is Hibernate really as effective as Unstoppable for a Tanker?
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And on days when things just don't go right Hibernate can let you sit there and meditate for a moment on just how cool life can be.
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And watch your teammates die horribly when you activate it in combat. Unlike... oh... Unstoppable? Or Granite Armor? Heck even Rise of the Phoenix, while being a self-rez, is an attack that pretty much disorients everything around you.
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I also love not having to chase runners for five blocks because with Chilling Embrace they aren't going anyplace fast.
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Who's arguing there? No one, but then again, to me runners are not a big deal. I have follow, and I have sprint. Even without Chilling Embrace, there's nothing that out runs me on the ground on any character. Being worried about runners is just a Space Invaders mentality.
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When it comes to Arch Villians I love defenders. Kinetics, Dark, and Radiation Defenders can all put Archvillian damage output to something manageable no matter what the type and frequently a Storm Defender can also help in many cases.
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And yet... being an Ice Tanker, the AV will still kill you dead with one shot, just like it will the defenders standing around you when you fall.
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To me the game isn't about always being the best. It is about being damn good and my Ice Tanker is definately that.
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y'know... when I became Bar Mitzvah, once I was done reading from the Torah the Rabbi turned to me and said, "You were great!" My response was, "I know." The Rabbi stopped for a second, and then said to me, "No, I'm sorry, you were good. Moses was great." (true story)
Ice Tankers are good. Invuln Tankers are great.
I'm sorry but to me the problem here is Intra-AT balance. We will likely never have Inter-AT balance (Scrappers vs Tankers vs Blasters vs Controllers vs Defenders vs Kheldians), but there is absolutely no reason for any member of an AT to be any more effective at doing their job then any other member of the same AT.
From there the numbers speak. It doesn't matter how good your Ice Tanker is, people know that by comparison Invuln is great. And on the cutting room floor when putting together a team to fight PvM if its an Ice Tanker vs an Invuln Tanker people pick the Invuln Tanker.
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If those foes are your level, that is 18.75% beyond the max possible defense to a Boss (Bosses Accuracy is 75%. Minus 93.75% gives them a -18.75% chance to hit you.
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I'm just curious whyEnergy Absorption balanced on flooring even con bosses, while most powers are balanced on +2 AV's.
It's great that it can floor an even con boss, but I don't know anybody that finds a challenge from even con bosses. My Stormy can tank those, without slotted defenses and debuffs. And Storm sucks wind (pun intended 
).
AVs have high enough accuracy that they rarely ever miss, even with debuffs on them, even with very high defense. Monsters and giant monsters are in the same boat. You can go up against them as an ice tank, but you'd better have an empath backing you up.
Debt is temporary, prestige is forever
My Screenies and Videos :: My Toon List
That's kinda my point - Inv and Stone tanks IMO are balanced to tank AV's. Ice Tankers? I've never seen them stand toe-to-toe w/ an AV or Monster w/o serious debuffing and heals.
It's fine that they stack up against bosses, but is that really an issue?
Actually you can find +20s at 31. My stone tank found +20s at level 33. With mission difficulty sliders, it's really pretty easy to do. My stone tank could also tank half a dozen of these +20s without being face planted. I'm not even going to try with my ice tank; I already know the outcome. On the other hand, the ice tank seems to do fairly well against +5s with stacked energy absorbsion. I will admit that I haven't fought many mobs with defense debuffs with him yet, but I don't forsee this as being a major problem.
Debt is temporary, prestige is forever
My Screenies and Videos :: My Toon List
After reading many posts in this thread and others... I think the main question we have to ask the devs here is this.
Why nerf Ice tanks, when they were already dealing with the worst primary for the archtype?
It wasn't like EA made ice tankers invincible gods, able to tank anything without any chance of harm. With the inherent 5% chance to hit against a purely defense based powerset, ice will always be worse than invunerablity, and yes, even less effective than stone armor in most situations because of the advantage resistance has over defense.
It just seems to me that this was an unnecessary change. One that hurts ice tanks best ability without giving back anything to compensate. If EA was so incredibly powerful, why then is it nearly impossible to find an ice tanker over level 30? Why does my character get completely owned by any villian that is +2 or higher?
Please reconsider this change. Ice tankers need help to reach parity with other tanker powersets, not a reduction to the best power in the set.
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Are you serious? I did a lot of testing last night (On test), but that's the one thing I didn't pay attention to (I was too busy surviving half of the things that I can usually survive).
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Just tested it a few more times to be certain. Yes only things you get DEF from get End Drained. Nothing else does. In fact its unclear the unaffected mobs are even Taunted by EA anymore either.
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You're right. Just got home for lunch and did some testing myself. I'm sure it's a bug, and if is not then Inv/EM here I come!
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While I certainly wouldn't argue that Invulnerability Tanks have better defense I don't want Ice to be an overpowered set like Invulnerability. But if the Energy Absorbtion change means that only 5 mobs are getting endurance drained then that does need to be changed. If only 5 mobs are getting aggro then that should be fixed as well.
I do like caps though because it allows situations such as fighting DE where you have to pay attention sometimes and change tactics to be effective. Being able to jump into a group of mobs in every situation without thinking just gets old after a while.
There also hasn't been much mention of what Ice does better than Invulnerability. We have great Energy defense so sappers are much less of an issue. Energy Absorption being a click power also gives us some protection in cases where toggles do get dropped and without the negatives of powers like Unstopable. And on days when things just don't go right Hibernate can let you sit there and meditate for a moment on just how cool life can be. I also love not having to chase runners for five blocks because with Chilling Embrace they aren't going anyplace fast.
When it comes to Arch Villians I love defenders. Kinetics, Dark, and Radiation Defenders can all put Archvillian damage output to something manageable no matter what the type and frequently a Storm Defender can also help in many cases. To me the game isn't about always being the best. It is about being damn good and my Ice Tanker is definately that. This change doesn't really affect that and except for the bugs of secondary effects no longer hitting all mobs in range I don't mind it at all.
Nogala
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Just to add to Circeus' comment:
Sappers are a problem only to solo players... That or AT's w/o holds (My Ice/Ice blaster can solo Sappers all day long). If the Inv/* is part of a team, Sappers are nothing.
EA changes are fine if you're a scrapper-wannabe or a solo player. If you are a Tanker Tank then those changes are going to get you and your team kill.
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There also hasn't been much mention of what Ice does better than Invulnerability.
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What I would like to see in this set that I think would help give it an edge over other sets: total immunity to endurance drain while energy absorbtion is affecting you.
You just drained their energy, you should be able to keep it. This would give ice tanks a bit of an edge in the arena also as every other tank type would still have this as a concern. It would also make ice tanks beasts against malta and freakshows.
Every tank set has it's strongpoint. Ice's strongpoint is just harder to find than the other sets. Especially when fighting groups much higher level than you, where the extra defense gets nullified by inherent accuracy changes due to level difference.
Debt is temporary, prestige is forever
My Screenies and Videos :: My Toon List
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I'm just curious whyEnergy Absorption balanced on flooring even con bosses, while most powers are balanced on +2 AV's.
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Can we please get our terminology right here so we're all on the same page with geko when discussing this.
Geko said:
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If those foes are your level, that is...
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That's even level not even con. An even level boss cons 2 levels higher and orange. An even con boss would be 2 levels lower then you and white.
This is very important for purposes of the discussion.
Now with that said. Yes, this fails to take into account that at Heroic and not soloing you're often fighting bosses that are +1/+2 levels higher than you depending on the size of your team (+0/+1 if team size is 4 or less and +1/+2 if its over 4). Same at Tenacious. At Rugged/Unyielding it can be +2/+3 and at Invincible its +4/+5.
Balancing for even level bosses is ludicrous.
What gets me is the "We listen to who screams the loudest, not who speaks the clearest" mentality. Previous regen/invul nerfs, people SCREAMED, both got buffs instead...
Ice tankers and stone tankers(previously) and storm defenders intelligently present their cases, and are thrown on the slab in the slap happy butcher shop that is the test server.
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What gets me is the "We listen to who screams the loudest, not who speaks the clearest" mentality. Previous regen/invul nerfs, people SCREAMED, both got buffs instead...
Ice tankers and stone tankers(previously) and storm defenders intelligently present their cases, and are thrown on the slab in the slap happy butcher shop that is the test server.
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Not to mention us Ice tankers don't even get a sticky for this thread while the regen scrappers do for theirs. 
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Why nerf Ice tanks, when they were already dealing with the worst primary for the archtype?
It wasn't like EA made ice tankers invincible gods, able to tank anything without any chance of harm. With the inherent 5% chance to hit against a purely defense based powerset, ice will always be worse than invunerablity, and yes, even less effective than stone armor in most situations because of the advantage resistance has over defense.
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/signed
I enjoy the heck out of my tanker, but without a Ill/Rad controller I always Duo with, I'm lost. Heck, just last week I took on Nosferato (sp?), at Invincible level (+2 to my level), and got my rear handed to me until my friend logged on with her Empath defender (thank the blue blazes for her!). Tough was no help against Dark attacks, and Defense just didn't get it done...
If the idea is to cap our defense so we can't tank +9 mobs, I understand. But our set is very weak against lone, hard targets (like AV's), and has none of the benefits of other tanks. We now have stackable armors, which moved us closer to par with the others. But Chilling Aura != uber Tanking, and that's our only "flavor" power unique to us. Hibernate? I duo, which means Death to Squishies!
If the Devs are looking our way, we can hope for a bit more love, and a home to call our own...
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Not to mention us Ice tankers don't even get a sticky for this thread while the regen scrappers do for theirs.
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I've asked. It probably won't happen because since there's so few of us (I suspect that Regen Scrappers outnumber us 1000:1 to be honest), and we tend to be more organize because people like myself have already made an attempt for us to be more organized. And because of that we're not starting 1000 threads about this. We have 3. One here, and one in the Tankers forum. And then another for the bugs (though I plan to start a 4th just for bugs that are active on the test server soon now).
Edit: Can that, CuppaJo rules!!!
Try three times, Circeus.
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o Defenders and Controllers will now drain more Endurance when using powers that drain endurance. More specifically, Defenders will drain more endurance when using Electricity Blast than a Blaster using the same power. Controller will now drain more endurance with powers such as Transfusion, but Defenders will still drain more than Controllers.
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Wanna lay even odds that EA's base end drain got lowered as well?