Wait wait wait, just to clarify I am not misunderstanding. As an Invuln tanker, I need to keep Invince OFF until I have the max number of mobs next to me in melee, THEN turn it on to get the defense bonus? And I can leave melee range of the mobs or lose the benefit altogether? HELP explaing to me please...
Lets really make ice a team tank. They have the aggro tools for team tanking just change a few powers to make ice a true team tank. First sense Wetice will be unenhancable for defense and the endurance cost wasnt lowered make its defense buff a team AoE. Next make all players in EAs effective range receive the Endurance buff as well. This brings these powers in line with the new CE.
Jack, I must be missing something.
A bubbler can get her teamates to 55% Defense against most things. Why not allow Ice Tanks to get there themselves after spending an equivalent number of powers and enhancements? Even 55% Defense is less than enough to floor even-level AVs or +1 Bosses, leaving Defenders plenty of room to help Ice Tankers out.
Why not simply give Wet Ice a 10% Base, leave it slottable and balance it elsewhere?
Why not have EA grant Resistance rather than Defense, making it more of a counterpart to Invincibility?
Why is there such a disparity between how tough players think Ice Tankers are, and how tough the Devs think they are. Especially compared to Invulnerability?
...
And while I'm at it, why not add a version of Power Slide to Wet Ice? Wouldn't that be cool? 
Give it the speed and 'slideyness' of Flight...
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
It seems Statesman's math is always off, almost like he's calculating Def + Rez SO's as 33%.
I wonder how much of this "balancing" may have been done on paper with that assumption.
which raises a question: if all Defense skills are being rebalanced, why do we still have 20% SOs? Why not take this opportunity to fix things so all SOs are the same?
Okay, I'm going to try to consildate my thoughts into a nice, easy to read format. I apologize in advance, however, because I know that probably won't happen.
Am I happy that Ice tankers got nerfed? No. Am I happy that Devs are looking into Ice finally and trying to patch some holes? Yes. Am I happy with I5 even with these changes? No. and here's why:
Ice tankers are supposed to be the DEF tanker. As test stands right now, we have moderate defense, and now we'll have some damage resistance (in the form of CE's damage debuff in melee). We'll still be pretty far from what Invulnerability tankers...wait, scratch that, fire tankers...can handle in terms of tanking ability.
What a lot of us are asking you now is this: what is your vision of what Ice tankers are supposed to be? Are we supposed to be the DEF tanker? Are we supposed to just be the red-headed stepchild of the set? What is it that we are supposed to be? The changes you are making to bring Ice armor back up are welcomed, but they don't show me a unified power set. And while the powersets aren't supposed to be one-trick ponies, it would be nice not to just have a couple defense powers, one resist power that not many ice tankers take, a damage debuff, and end-drain/end-regain power (which is what I will be using EA for if it goes live), a low-damage aura that costs too much to use, and a tier-9 power that's bugged and takes us out of the fight.
Just let us know what the vision for Ice tankers are, and while we may not be happy with the changes, we can at least know what the end product you are going for is.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
Yeah, if the Damage Debuff in CE is against all damage types, I can see Ice Tankers finally becoming popular. We may not have defense against Psi/Toxic/Fire, but we 1) don't have a defense debuff to Psi/Toxic and 2) can reduce the damage from Psi/Toxic that we take, and others take.
As I previously posted, this could make Ice Tanks the "Team Friendly" Tank, that Scrappers and others love to group with. As long as the damage reduction is good (50% debuff, yielding a 1/3'rd damage reduction), I think we can make due with the defense pains we've got.
I'm still hoping we get some of our defense back. Especially in EA (like 1% per mob, at least).
My only concern for the Devs, was that the changes they made look horrible, without adding this Damage Debuff into the equation. So while we didn't know it was coming, the defense reduction of Ice Tankers looked overly harsh. Now at least we have more of the picture, to know what to expect.
Perhaps Circ could try to figure into his Excel sheet, what level of Damage Debuff we would need to match up with Invincibility tanks? We ask so much of him... I'm almost afriad to ask. 
Jason: He's working on it. It was complicated to get it added.
He's been working on the spreadsheet all this morning.
[ QUOTE ]
Statesman, this has been the third time that your math has been obviously wrong. Please get it right, or at least make sure your developers have it right. I am serioulsy doubting your ability to balance the game if you cannot even add up the bonuses on paper correctly. This is not difficult, but it is essential.
[/ QUOTE ]
Breaking the thread rule and the Nth hundred response to this. But I got to respond . Give Statesman, Jack, a break. Jack is apparently like me. He's very bad with ad hoc (off the cuff) basic math. I'm the same way. Ask Circeus, he can back me up on this.
I come from a software development background. I'm to the point where I can scope out and develop complex software programs in my head. I boggle the other Admins in my group with my one liner programs. Yet when it comes to basic math. I have to check, double check and sometimes even triple check my math because I know I stink at it. Statesman had the right numbers. So he had the right details in mind. He just misplaced an operation or two. And I agree with a previous poster, I'd rather have a prompt and responsive (and sometimes wrong) Statesman rather than a belated, polished talking head. (I get enough of those in my day job.)
Edit: Spelling and Syntax (I stink at those too thing, to )
[ QUOTE ]
Jason: He's working on it. It was complicated to get it added.
He's been working on the spreadsheet all this morning.
[/ QUOTE ]
As good as from the man himself. Thanks MissDale. You've got quite a man there. I myself feel lucky to have my Wife play CoH, so I bet he really enjoys it too. 
I'll keep checking back. Good numbers are better then fast numbers.
JJ Jason
[ QUOTE ]
But Invul doesn't get any Psionic Def either... so a debuff of Any% wouldn't make any difference at all.
How can you DeBuff 0%?
[/ QUOTE ]
Easy. You wind up with a negative defense value, making you even more likely to be hit.
Assuming I understand it right, when you are debuffed, it is applied as a negative sum, not a negative percentage of your existing defense. So say your Invulnerable guy (or mine) flicks on his or her unyielding, there's a 5% defense debuff. So against attacks you lack any defense to, you are at -5% defense. It's not like you lose 5% of your 0% defense.
This just means that the bad guy, instead of his base 50% change to hit you (assuming you're sticking to the even leveled minions like a good boy), has a 55% chance to hit. Which is sort of a double edged sword, as when you're fighting the psionic minions you REALLY want status protection.
Though if you have someone to give you that (stimulant, clear mind, that sonic clone of clear mind, or the big force field bubble) you can go without and get a 5% def 'bonus'.
(though again, if you've got an empath you can just have them give you fortitude for ridiculous psi def, and keep your unyielding on. Ah, tactics.)
Mind you, I may be incorrect on how the def debuff works, so if i am, feel free to mock me Meatman... heh.
(edited to clarify)
[ QUOTE ]
a belated, polished talking head
[/ QUOTE ]
heh heh m heh heh
States,
Thanks for answering some of our questions.
Two things:
1) In the interest if Ice Armor, I'd like to once again pleeeeeeaaasse ask for changes to Devourning Earth eminators, specifically Quartz--enhances their accuracy/to-hit buff. I know you're implimenting changes to villian accuracy but, in this case, it is not nearly enough. When you're doing testing with your ice builds please run up against large groups of Devourning Earth and go against groups of DE that are lower level than you (somewhere around -5 or more). You will find that with eminators, even -5 DE can hit you easily. I have been against -9 DE on a couple occassions and been hit continually (around a dozen times) before defeating the DE. In the past, you've given the enimators less health to try and solve this. This solution doesn't work however because DE can literally lay new eminators as fast as you can kill them (especially us Ice/Ice tanks). Seems like now would be a good time to lower the buff from quartz eminators. (Might not be a bad time to look into lowering the defense debuff of Rularuu a bit too)
2) Are we going to get any comment from you concerning Ice Tanks and PvP. It really is to the point of being silly how poorly we perform in this area. I (and many others) have posted on this so I won't bore you with stuff you already know, but a comment such as "changes are coming" or "things are working as intended" would be appreciated.
Thanks.
P.S...How do you and Geko resolve issues in your "meetings"? Do you play console fighting games, winner take all?... Thumb wrestle? Curious minds need to know
Okay, after about 5 hours, I've gotten this updated based on changes that Statesman said were coming, and some bugs that were pointed out to me on the sly by the devs (at the +2 level only).
Fundamentally, the hardest thing to build into the sheet was a capped Chilling Embrace. It took a bit of doing to finagle, and it now has a -Recharge and a -Damage component that can be manipulated independantly. The math for it was very tricky, and I had a bug in it for at least an hour that I couldn't get past, then suddenly I saw the problem.
IceArmorvsInvulnTanker.xls
IceArmorvsInvulnScrapper.xls
Changes...
1) Fixed +2 level mob issue with calculations as indicated by devs
2) Added 9% Toxic RES to Permafrost based on Statesman note that Permafrost would be getting Toxic RES in line with Invulnerability. 9% is the Toxic RES on Unyielding, so this seemed the right number to use.
3) Added the ability to adjust the RES caps at the top of the sheet for Ice and Invuln (made life easier with respect to 90% for Tankers and 75% for Scrappers when modifying comparisons).
4) Chilling Embrace values can now be modified at the top of the document. Defaults for -Recharge is 25% base and 2.5% falloff. The same defaults are set for -Damage, and separately adjustable.
NOTE: if you want to get realistic values for Psi and Toxic, you need only set the %s for both the -Recharge and the -Damage to 0%, which will effectively turn off Chilling Embrace for purposes of the rest of the calculations.
* Conclusion: Damage debuff alone, and the Permafrost change still won't bring us in line with Invuln Tanks, and Invuln Scrappers will still be stronger than Ice Tanks vs Smash/Lethal/Fire.
5) I showed the calculation for enhancements, since people were interested I thought people would like to have it shown. +3 ehancements are the default.
NOTE: other possible mobs are as follows: 1.00 for +0 SOs, 1.05 for +1 SOs, 1.10 for +2 SOs, and 1.15 for +3 SOs
6) Mob caps for Invincibility, Energy Absorption, and Chilling Embrace, are set and adjustable at the top of the spreadsheet. They are set to 14, 14, and 10 respectively as per new guidelines.
7) You can now set a number of spawns, and number of each mob type (minion, lt, and boss only) at the top of the document. The document will adjust accordingly to handle these changes. Base values are 3 spawns, and 5 minions, 2 lts, and 1 boss per spawn. This is 8 mobs per spawn, and 3 spawns. 24 mobs is just a personal number that I've posted in the past that I feel we should be able to Tank.
8) DMG/Hit Base can be set per mob, and defaults to 50 for a minion, 100 for a lt, and 200 for a boss.
9) Because the devs are telling us the Invincibility numbers are 1.5% and 1.31% for Tankers and Scrappers respectively, but all player testing is demonstrating them to be 3.5% and 2.625% respectively, I've made it so this value can be easily set at the top of the spreadsheet, and I've set it to default to the dev values rather than the player values.
10) Adjustments made to slotting to make sure that both versions of Invuln were capped vs Smash/Lethal. 1 less slot used for Tanker, 5 more slots used for Scrapper (which is likely a bit too many)
Again, great job Circ!
Ok, one question, and then a few things I'm looking at:
* -Damage Falloff on Chilling Embrace. Is that the loss of debuff per level increase of the Mobs? So as a mobs level increases over your own, the damage debuff decreases. For my numbers, I left it at 2.5%, since that sounds reasonable, but is that what, say, Enervating Field sees?
* The Base -Damage % indicates the full damage debuff, by the formula: Damage = Total Damage / (1 + Damage Debuff), correct? So a 25% reduction would be 80% of the normal damage taken.
***
All that considered, look at the numbers if our -Damage buff is 50%, and maintains the 2.5% dropoff.
For S/L, Invulnerabiliy has us beat, big time, but that's expected. We do better for Energy/Negative energy (up to +2 mobs). We do better for Toxic and Psionic by a decent margin. We take more from fire, which again makes sense for Ice.
This looks almost perfect, as far as I'm concerned. Psi and Toxic are nasty, and we would be ahead of the game on this. Our weaknesses are still weak. But we're reasonable compared to other tanks.
How's that look to you?
[ QUOTE ]
You're 100% correct about assuming 14 mobs in EA AND Invincibility - though something else isn't taken into account. Invincibility works only while mobs are in melee. So as the number of mobs decrease, Invincibility decreases. If a Tanker leaves melee range for 1 second, the buff from Invincibility fades...This isn't the case with EA; it's a click that lasts 45 seconds. The calculation of mobs is done at the moment it's used - and that buff carries throughout the 45 seconds. It doesn't decrease like Invincibility.
[/ QUOTE ]
A few other things you forgot to take into account: If you do not have alot of mobs around you when you trigger EA you are woefully unprepared when more Mobs arrive.
A single mob provides more of a Buff to someone using Invinceibilty than that same mob provides to someone using Energy Absorbtion.
Tough Hide Fully slotted with ++ Defense SO's Provide more of a benifit than the same slotting of Energy Absorbtion untill you get over 9 guys in range.
I thought the power progression was: Click Powers better than Toggle Powers. Toggle Powers Better than Auto Powers.
This does not seem to be the case anymore.
The same goes for Instant Healing Issue 4 and Issue 5. Since Clicks are supposed to be better than Toggles how much will you Increase its Healing Rate?
You can't just let people with def enhancements in Wet Ice keep them. That's not balancing.
I'm not so sure I like trading Chilling Embrace's -recharge for some -damage. It sounds like a bit of a wash. And running that power at low lvl is very costly in endurance too.
How about adding a heal component to Wet Ice, like Rooted? I don't think you'd hear much complaing about lost def enhancements if you did that. 
"So, what do you want? A Be-Able-To-Hear-Things Award?" - Skwisgaar Skwigelf
"im sorry that at lvl 40 you still dont know how to play your toon. have fun with your brute " - focusinc
My Toons
The numbers look better for an Ice Tanker above level 34. It still doesn't do much for an Ice tanker starting at the lower levels. For one no DO's or SO's should be in the calcualtions for them until they can get them. A low level Ice tankers will have Frozen Armor, which possibly won't even be six slotted until level 12 or 15. They can have Chilling Embrace with the damage reduction, which does help all the damage they will get starting out. But unfortuantly Perma Frost, Energy Abpsorption, and Glacial Armor don't help them for awhile. Even though at those levels you will see negative, cold, fire, toxic, S/L , and energy because of the foes you fight at that level. So early in the game on an 8 man team as an Ice Tanker you will die quite frequently. You can only hope the defenders are healing you constantly. As well as your end goes into the dirt all the time.
I think one of the things not being looked at is where each of these solutions fall in while leveling up your Ice Tanker. Overall there is a great start with Chilling Embrace damage reduction. Ice Tankers still need a little more help on their early game for surviving.
So, Honestly I think they still need to change the order in which you can get Energy Absorption. The earlier the better for end issues and helping with def.
[ QUOTE ]
* -Damage Falloff on Chilling Embrace. Is that the loss of debuff per level increase of the Mobs? So as a mobs level increases over your own, the damage debuff decreases. For my numbers, I left it at 2.5%, since that sounds reasonable, but is that what, say, Enervating Field sees?
[/ QUOTE ]
From what I know all debuffs are affected by level difference between the caster and the target. This is defintely true for the -Recharge in Chilling Embrace for example. I believe hold durations and immobilize durations are similarly handled. Not knowing what the actual falloff is, I had to guess. But it seems to fit what one observes.
[ QUOTE ]
* The Base -Damage % indicates the full damage debuff, by the formula: Damage = Total Damage / (1 + Damage Debuff), correct? So a 25% reduction would be 80% of the normal damage taken.
[/ QUOTE ]
I actually calculated it as a direct reduction. So if its 25% then damage is multipled by 75% (for the affected mobs only). Are you sure its done the other way? I agree that if there was a damage debuff enhancement it would work the way you say, but I think an actual reduction would be direct wouldn't it?
[ QUOTE ]
All that considered, look at the numbers if our -Damage buff is 50%, and maintains the 2.5% dropoff.
For S/L, Invulnerabiliy has us beat, big time, but that's expected. We do better for Energy/Negative energy (up to +2 mobs). We do better for Toxic and Psionic by a decent margin. We take more from fire, which again makes sense for Ice.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah I think they numbers they'll likely go with would be 30% -Recharge and 50% -Defense (I think -Recharge will be higher than the 25% we have now, remember Statesman said it would be slower, and I think that's what he meant).
I do think though that my plan will defintely be to get Tough to make up that S/L difference. In fact, its in my plan.
Edit: Oh and, my biggest problem is that Invuln Scrappers still beat us defensively vs some things. I really don't think that's the way it should be, but I wouldn't want to see them be less powerful then they are either.
[ QUOTE ]
I actually calculated it as a direct reduction. So if its 25% then damage is multipled by 75% (for the affected mobs only). Are you sure its done the other way? I agree that if there was a damage debuff enhancement it would work the way you say, but I think an actual reduction would be direct wouldn't it?
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think they calculate it as a direct reduction, and here's why. Let's say a single Enervating Field reduces damage caused by a mob by 20% (from direct readings, like 100 damage down to 80 damage). If two were used on the same mob, he would deal 60. If 5 fields were used on any group of mobs, they would deal 0% damage. And we know that's not right.
So either they recalculate the base (First field takes 100 to 80, the second takes 20% off the 80, bringing it to 64), or they use the formula as I have it. By my calculations, two fields as listed above would reduce 100 to 71. To me, from a programming standpoint, it makes sense to do one calculation, instead of figuring out all the intermediate steps per field. Of course, perhaps that's why the Hami lags so bad!
Now I should test that with two Rad defenders, to see if it works as I expect. But for now, I'll reply assuming it's just a straight damage cut-off. 50% damage debuff means half damage taken.
In that case, I doubt 50% is realistic. It makes the numbers come out very close to even, but sounds too strong for the devs to give us. We can hope for it, but I'd be very surprised. I think a 33% reduction would be ok... and punching that into your sheet shows good results. We'd be worse then Inv in everything but Psi/Cold/Toxic(?), but very close for Energy/Negative. S/L is favored by Inv, so it makes sense, and we're weak to Fire.
If somebody else can test Damage debuff while I'm at work, please do. Otherwise, I'll try to test it when I get home.
There is a max that you can lower/debuff an opponents damage output...the same as there is a max you can lower/debuff an opponents recharge and speed. I remember it being done with speed way back in issue 1 because */Dev blasters could 4-6 slot caltrops with slows and effectively hold all the villains (villains will not attack you if they are stuck in the middle of a move animation, and they would be stuck till caltrops wore off).
Damage Debuffs work the same as Damage Buffs, they enhance the base ammount.
Total Damage = Base Damage * (1 + debuff/buff)
ie a 100 base damage attack enhanced by 6 same level SOs of damage and the player debuffed by a controller useing EF (25% debuff) =
100 * (1 + (6 * .333) + (-.25)) = 274.8
second example : 100 base damage villain attack with same controller EF on the villain =
100 * (1 + (-.25)) = 75
The way this all relates is that no matter what you will never be able to debuff them past 10% of their damage (pretty sure that was the minimum that was set).
Ok, but realisitcally, even if you are right (still not convinced, but we'll see), you could simulate your version of a 50% reduction by dropping a 33% into the spreadsheet because 50% in your formula is pretty much the same as 33% in my formula. So it becomes a wash. If you are correct I'll change it, I'm just not rushing to.
I just plugged the new values into the code for the EACalc, and to me its looking like slotting DEF for EA is kind of pointeless. I mean granted that with 14 mobs, and Hasten, and 3 recharge/3 DEF you can actually net as high as 33.60% for 1s - most of the time you can get it up into the 20s.
But the truth is that in a solo mob size of 3, its quite pointless to have it slotted for DEF or even bother with Hasten as the same 3/3 will only get you into a sustained 4.8% but only after waiting 22s for it to get you there.
Overall, I'm starting to get a picture of my plan for I5 (I plan to at least try a plan on test when they something more functional over there), but I'm not convinced I'll continue playing the character just yet. I still don't see enough being given in return for all this, and again I still don't see why Invuln Scrappers even compare to us so well.
For sure I think they should be considering more of the special resistances like End Drain RES onto Wet Ice at this point. I mean it looks like we're more masters of End they we are masters of DEF anymore anyway, so why not complete that?
[ QUOTE ]
Just got out of a meeting with Geko...
I completely concur that the Wet Ice Def buff is so slender that it's pointless to slot Def Enhancements...but people already have done so.
Here's what we'll do: Wet Ice will no longer accept Def Enhancements. We'll increase the base def somewhat. Def Enhancements that are currently slotted will continue to have an effect, but players won't be able to slot new Def Enhancements into it.
We're also adding resistance to Toxic in Permafrost to bring it into line with Invulnerability's Resist Elements.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ok I have to honestly say that these ice tanker changes look totally looney. Having played an SR scrapper and invulnerability scrapper there is absolutly NO DOUBT in my mind that +RES > +DEF. From my fire tank and my personal herding attempts I have learned that even the base 5%+def added by combat jump is a very significant boost when mass herding, so definately there is a synergy of some kind between +def and +res that is far superior to the some of its parts.
These Ice tank changes however seem absurd can someone take me through the ice set maybe I am missing something that makes the devs think this set is so fanastic. Here is what I got:
[*]Chilling Embrace: If this can attain the slow cap then this would sort of mitigate incoming damage by 50% in the long haul. This would do nothing to blunt the first set of attacks. Furthermore there is something very screwy with the way slow powers interact with villians. So I guess the question is how good is chilling embrace really?
[*]Energy absorption: Ok I have eclipse on my warshade which I am guessing was copied from this power. Assuming that EA and eclipse are identical, which means EA, boosts (Def, end, acc, and dmg)? this does not seem too bad for that power since it is a click and not a toggle. There is of one caveat which is that using it for defense is very very difficult and this power should NOT be a corner stone of the characters defense. So how good is energy absorption really did it orginally provide crazy defense boosts? Not really interested in numbers because they don't really reflect the game I am more interested in here ancedotal evidence and opinions.
[*] Wet Ice: Ok so assuming this power become 3% unenhanceable. Is that level of defense useful or meaningful in the ice set. Understanding that I4 combat jump was a noticible boost to my fire tanks survivability I am not willingto off the cuff discount seemingly trivial defensive boosts. HOWEVER it seems to me that trival def boost are really benefical when their is some other form of damage mitigation going on, especially resistance and alot less valuable to a set that relies wholy on defense or lack thereof. So what does a say 3% boost push ice's overall defense numbers to? Will it matter or is this power now only for status protection, which would make it by FAR the crappiest power in tanker sets for that benefit. If this is the case then I really think Wet ice should follow Practiced Brawler and be a click.
Two final points:
The thing that really stuns me with the devs silly choices is that they make it so that the defensive values are based off fighting even con minions. However fighting even +1 con minions rip the defense vaues apart. SR is my prime example you can get to about 47.5% def verse all attacks with 30 slots. Which caps minions but still leaves the scrapper vulnerable to LTs and bosses and since they have no other form of mitigation they take the full brunt of the damage from a boss which has what a 1/5 chance of hitting them, this means that before the tenth attack lands the scrapper is crippled or dead, not counting any Lts or lucky minion hits.
Now three addition factors work to futher cripple defense sets which in the above case are already a touch dicey. [*] The game is ripe with -def debuffs. Virtually every attack in the game has this componenant and since defense sets fail in an exponetial and often suddenly catestrophic fashion when these debuffs start landing defense sets are even worse off. Bascially I beleive all "weapon attacks" reduce defense, like swords, shurkien, rifles, claws arrows etc.[*] There are many +acc attacks in the game. This often seems to get glossed over but I am fairly sure that the viallans get the same inherant accuracy buffs that heros do. This means that certain energy attacks, all martial arts, rifles, and possible all weapons(everything that has to be drawn yes?). Also certain foes actually buff their own accuracy, including Nemesis, Devouring earth and CoT.[*]The final and most important weakness in all defense sets is level differances. Clearly and player is suppose to team up when playing CoH and they almost always means they will be facing villans 1-6 levels higher. Since the villians accuracy gets buffed the further up in levels they go this makes things very very dicey for defense sets on a team. Several times I have gotten smashed senseless by the combination of increased volume of attacks from higher level foes. Getting hit by one in attack in 5 is catestropic if you rely only on defense.
Second point:
In Statesmans rebuttel to Circeus numbers he said:
[ QUOTE ]
A quick scan down at the damage comparison shows that Invulnerability is superior only in Smashing, Lethal Damage and Fire damage; Ice bests Invulnerability in the other categories.
Unless an Invulnerability Tanker fires off Invincibility when 12 or more mobs are within range, according to Circeus' chart, Ice Armor will be superior to Invulnerability against Cold, Psionic, Toxic, Energy and Negative.
[/ QUOTE ]
It seriously need to be pointed out that the most common attack types by at least twice at ALL levels is smash/lethal. In fact often attacks S/L is coupled with other rarer attack types making it even MORE common. So saying that ice has superior protection verse Cold(super rare), Psionic(rare), toxic(rare), Energy(common) and Negative(uncommon) is silly when Invulnerabilty is superior in Smash(Ultra common), lethal( very common), and fire(common).
It also is worth mentioning that smash/lethal is almost always the most damaging forms of attacks. The only attack that I have seen with comparitive damage is the psionic mind spear attack.
Why nerf tanks? You should improve us, we are the ones who get to make second accounts to pl them, even if you say that is wrong atleast you get more money!
[ QUOTE ]
Total Damage = Base Damage * (1 + debuff/buff)
ie a 100 base damage attack enhanced by 6 same level SOs of damage and the player debuffed by a controller useing EF (25% debuff) =
100 * (1 + (6 * .333) + (-.25)) = 274.8
second example : 100 base damage villain attack with same controller EF on the villain =
100 * (1 + (-.25)) = 75
The way this all relates is that no matter what you will never be able to debuff them past 10% of their damage (pretty sure that was the minimum that was set).
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay well I don't think realsitically we'll be given enough of a debuff to floor like that.
That said, if you are correct kurg (which is a little different than what JJ said), then that's what I'm doing.
My exact formula for working in Chilling Embrace both for -Recharge and -Damage works like this:
1) Figure out what % of mobs are affected by chilling embrace.
2) Get the total number of attacks for a mob type at level and multiply that as follows:
(# Not Affected * Attacks/mob) + (# Affected * Attacks/mob * (1 - Recharge Debuff))
3) Apply DEF vs that number to determine Total Hits
4) Figure out the aDMG/hit (adjusted DMG/Hit) as follows:
DMG/Hit * (1 - Damage Debuf) (same as your formula)
5) Figure out total combined damage for mob type as:
(DMG/Hit * Total Hits * % Not Affected) + (aDMG/Hit * Total Hits * % Affected)
So I'm pretty sure then that I'm calculating this right based on what's being said?
[ QUOTE ]
No offense to anyone...but now I know why the Devs would rather Not give out numbers. This forum has turned into a [censored] math debate. Are we playing a game, or taking a [censored] test? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having fun, but to debate over +/- 1% is re-damned-diculous. If you were to show me, in-game, that you Always fell to a group of 5 +1 Carnie Minions, then I could see your point. If you could prove that you Always fell to a pair of +0 Banished Pantheon Bosses, I could see your point. If you can prove to me that you Always fall to a group of 10 +4 Malta Lieutenants, then good, you should be able to do that. To argue over a single percentile of a chance of being hit is just asinine. I don't play City of Heroes to practice differential equasions, I play to kick villainous [censored].
[/ QUOTE ]
Jack, next time try the same thing and just use 2 luck inspirations. You'll get the same benefit and have alot more endurance were you won't have to use the new EA as much.