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Weave doesn't stack with any Ice Tanker +DEF abilities. It would only protect vs. Toxic and Psionic damage.
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According to a PM I got from Cuppajo it does. I can't say I've tested it myself so I'm just going to take their word for it (This whole I5 fiasco happen around the same time, bigger fish to catch)
Post deleted by Jex_QACC
Instead of adding more things to powers, that will most likely cause more imbalance issues, how about you adjust the current powers. Why does everything in this game either do it all too well or doesn't do anything. 10% def to .5%. You couldn't try the middle ground why? There's lots of numbers out there. You could try a few different combinations. It doesn't have to be all or none.
They are. However making Ice less of a "Hit/No Hit" set is a good thing and should be encouraged.
I find the idea of a damage debuff novel and more endearing to being a team tank.
Quick question.
As much as EA was reduced in effectiveness, I have to say that the endurance boost it at least some compensation... sort of. But just going from the feel of it, why has the endurance COST of the power on test seemingly skyrocketed?
I do enjoy getting some endurance back to pay for the massively overblown cost of the toggles, but it seems that if I don't have about a quarter bar of end to start, I can't even power the thing to begin with.
Since this is seemingly the only way I can get SOME sort of defense against fire and toxic attack (and not a lot at that), why is it costing so much to run? Sure having one guy in it almost pays for the activation, but if I'm running real low and i"m out of blue inspirations, I can't fire it off anyway (real painful against, oh, every fire-wielding enemy in the 26+ game).
If this is meant to alleviate all of the endurance concerns of the ice armor set, I think it failed.
I'd also like to know if EA works like other transfer powers (ala Kinetics) where End Recovery and End Drain enhancements affect both the Drain and Recovery portions of the power. So you only need to slot one type to help both effects.
Because if not, then they should.
Tested just now, enhance endurance drain did not make it give me more end...but big surprise was that ONE +3 level end drain made a same level drop 50% of his end. Personally starting to think EA will be far better with 3 end drains to severly lower the number of incoming attacks. I am looking at slotting it 3-6 end drains when this goes live.
That would be ugly in Tank VS. Tank fights in the arena. I can hear the whining now, especially considering the negative recharge effect.
That is something that could be exploitable, I am not sure but it could be. Something to think about in any case.
It is. Though it's not the same game as it is on current.
On live, I could a) drain the tankers' endurance around me with EA, and then b) stand in their burn patch and mock them while they bounced on the ice patch, since my defense would be high enough that it wouldn't hit very often (at least, on a really big brawl, when a mob of burners swarmed me thinking i'd be an 'easy' target). And then I'd tag them again right after they get their toggles back on, etc...
I found that with four drain SOs you could cut a hero's end by about half (since its' effect is reduced in PvP, the drain). Much more efficient than those dumb detoggling effects, especially if your opponent is already low on E when fighting you.
With issue 5, you can detoggle them, but they can cook you alive (fire vs ice), since the +def is LAUGHABLE. As it is I think endurance drain is the only way to de-transform stone tanks or aliens. That may be an unpleasant surprise for a stone tanker... heh.
Of course, since my ice tanker's defense has been lowered to the point of true mediocrity thanks to this issue, there's no WAY I'm getting into the arena. Ever. Not unless they ALSO nerf every single hero's accuracy, not to mention every single +acc power like targeting drone, or focused accuracy. And accuracy SOs. Better nerf those too.
Because though EA is a nifty tool in PVP, the rest of ice armor isn't. And I don't know how that's supposed to be BALANCED, but ice tankers simply aren't going to be able to hack it in the i5 pvp thing. Much less when city of villains is interfaced with city of heroes.
Why ice tankers can't enjoy the SOLE content/gameplay that issue 4 provided, I don't know. Perhaps the developers can enlighten me on that one.
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Of course, since my ice tanker's defense has been lowered to the point of true mediocrity thanks to this issue, there's no WAY I'm getting into the arena. Ever. Not unless they ALSO nerf every single hero's accuracy, not to mention every single +acc power like targeting drone, or focused accuracy. And accuracy SOs. Better nerf those too.
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I have the same outlook on the arena. 
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
We have some forward progress with the recent 2-way communication and reported damage absorb. That is a start. We still have quite a ways to go, but for the first time in months I am encouraged.
Consider the following open issues:
- Defense values. The alleged "kings of defense" getting hit one out of five swings vs. even cons in a Heroic level mission seems ill-conceived and not fun to play.
- Endurance consumption for Wet Ice. If Wet Ice is going to be status only (.5 defense is not worth mentioning) should endurance costs not be lowered?
- Icicles. More than double the endurance cost of the comparable fire-set power for roughly half the damage. Screams for a cost reduction and/or a new feature, such as an accuracy debuff.
- Permafrost, even with small Tox resists is nei-useless and probably not worth slotting for all but the theme tanker.
- One/Two shot kills could still be a serious and real threat unless the new damage absorb is massive. Making that absorb massive could actually cause some balance concerns in regular missions. A Damage Coefficient (see below) could solve the 1-shot issues while keeping the new damage absorb tame and free from future nerfs.
I have not had the opportunity to test the new damage absorb on CE. If that is to be our only "fix" this patch, it needs to be high enough to eradicate some of our AV issues. If the value is low (I.e. below 30%) it will not get us where we need to be. Think of an attack from some of the bigger boys doing 3000+ damage (it does happen, often). 15% of that attack is nothing in the grand scheme of things. The Ice tanker is still down in 1 or 2 hits, all the while we have wasted coding time on a fix that does not resolve any issues.
Some how CE is going to take a nerf out of this mess. WHAT?!? Lowering the recharge/speed debuff on CE when we have already admitted/established that Ice is under performing seems like we are working backwards instead of forwards. Move the new absorb to Permafrost to make it worth taking or leave it on CE, just do not nerf CE downward when we have already proven and/or admitted that Ice is not even close to meeting expectations in I4, let alone on test.
Damage Coefficient - an Immediate Ice Tanker Solution
I am still screaming for a damage coefficient. Set a max damage value that no single attack can do to an Ice Tanker. 33% of max base hit points for example. Damage from a single attackover the coefficient is discarded (in the case of a critical, each number generated by the critical is lowered to the coefficient.)
Attacks by Minions, LTs, and Bosses do not generate the level of damage required to exceed the coefficient in a single hit and therefor would not be affected. Damage inficted by Monsters and AVs, who easily generate the damage required to do 33-100% of our hits in one or attack would be lowered. This has been and still is our #1 issue to date.
Minimal coding would be required for a Damage Coefficient to be put into play. The power would be passive, requiring no artwork or animation. Developers would remain in direct control of the power as there is no damage coefficient enhancement in the game, so we eliminate the worries about powergamers using the power in a manner that does not meet The Vision. Herding would not be promoted one iota with a damage coefficient as minions-bosses are simply not capable of dealing 30%+ of an ice tankers base hp in one hit.
This would solve the one shotting issue immediately with minimal coding and get us away from this Band-Aid model we have now. It would allow the developer to directly set an AV metric; This is where you should be. That metric could be tweaked and tested at any time just by changing the value for the coefficient. No retooling of AVs, new animations, slots, etc. required.
Ice Tankers pay for in do in fact deserve to enjoy the same content enjoyed by better performing or favored Tanker primaries.
TTR
Here's an (I hope) original suggestion....
How many times have you gone out, slipped on ice or grabbed the wrong area of something covered in ice?
Ice tends to be sharp as a knife. I have accidently cut myself on ice.
So have ice have "retribution" properties and hurt the attacker when they hit us when we are armored in ice....
Since we're discussing power changes, I'd like to point out that the end drain of Energy Absorption and the -recharge of Chilling Embrace are not very complementary. If your powers are recharging more slowly, you don't need as much endurance. I think -recharge fits the ice armour theme better, so I'd like to see the end drain on EA replaced with another debuff. Another -recharge which stacks with CE would be nice, or a -Def debuff has nice flavour with the +Def.
Also, I've taken my lvl 27 ice tanker out for some missions on the test server, and have the following questions:
<ul type="square">[*] On anything other than heroic, is it expected that I will need a lot of inspirations? Taking luck is embarrassing to me as an ice tanker.[*] Am I expected to be able to tank missions for heroes 2 levels above me? Because the sidekick system puts me in that position sometimes.[/list]I used a lot of inspirations, and actually had to use Rest after some of the fights. I was running Frozen Armour (5 Def SOs), Wet Ice, Chilling Embrace, Icicles, Energy Absorption and Glacial Armour (3 Def SOs) when needed.
Even con minions and lieuts were pretty straightforward. In one case a group of +1 Family (5 minions and a lieut) brought me down to half health in a few seconds, but I think that was more just a few lucky shots, or could be their -Def. I did one mission duo with a lvl 29 blaster, which meant taking a lot of inspirations, since I was tanking +2s and +3s. If the mission had been set for 3 I would have been in serious trouble. On a team of 3, I was 29 and they were both 30, using a lot of inspirations everything was ok.
Well I just realised what all the changes to the Ice tanker point towards. All the new changes seemed to add many debuffs, which are welcome to a team. But overall seemed very similar to me.
- damage debuff
- recharge debuff
- speed debuff
- end recharge
+ end recharge
Hm.... Man that's a kinetics defender set of powers. Why couldn't they create a new Tanker set calling it a Kienetics Tank with these powers? Anyways its very similar to my high level Kinetics defender, who by the way has very low defense/res for itself.
If they created a new Tank set, then they could keep Ice more towards higher def? Ah well just a dream of a thought during the weekend playing my Ice Tank. This would never happen but definitly I good idea. At least i tought so.
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In one case a group of +1 Family (5 minions and a lieut) brought me down to half health in a few seconds, but I think that was more just a few lucky shots, or could be their -Def.
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Another thing that I can't help but mention - are the 50 or so defense debuffs in the game being reduced or removed to reflect the similar reductions in every hero's +def values, or every non-fortitude +def buff? How it is fair for a defense-based character if just a few shots from some low-rent thugs reduce the entirety of their damage mitigation to zero or less?
How is this balanced? This is another thing I would like to be explained, but I don't think that anybody responsible for these changes can even do so. Why is it that there are 50 or so defense debuffs, but only, say, three resistance debuffs?
Please explain why a few hellions can eliminate completely a low level ice/stone tanker or SR scrapper's defenses, but almost any other defensive set is just fine against these foes.
I would appreciate an answer to this in addition to the arena quandry you have created.
I want to add one more time, being a defense based set, I hope when you "Right the Ship" for Ice Tankers, you increase our defensive values 1st, then look to the damage debuff addition second.
Defense is what makes an Ice Tank, lets keep with that line of thinking. Adding the debuff is a great enhancement idea for a set that needed help with the big AV hits. Fixing some of the foe's auto hit or high accuracy attacks is also another great step to take. Please don't make Debuff and lowering of villain accuracy be the focus of getting Ice Tanks back on par with our other fellow tankers.
Defense 1st. Increase the base of FA and GA above the 15% it is currently at now.
Tweak 2nd. With Damage debuffs etc...
Possibly all of this has been mentioned before, but:
I'm really concerned about the base numbers for stuff like Frozen Armor. 15% BASE?! If everyone else can reach the s/l resistance cap against an enemy, defense-based armors in turn have to be able to floor the accuracy of an even-con minion AT LEAST.
Is the bare minimum of 20% Frozen Armor and 5% Wet Ice really that bad? That's flooring even minions and lieutenants when both are fully-slotted (it's wrong to count +3 SOs, because how in the world can I possibly keep my SOs +3 for 28 levels?). And not allowing to slot Wet Ice? What was the reason for this again?
Raising the armors to 20% base also allows for SR to go up to 15%-- that seems like a better number for them.
Energy Absorption should not be factored in as heavily as it is. It doesn't work well against very small groups of enemies, and to encourage players to keep a crowd on them at all times is not only exceedingly slow and difficult, but it encourages HERDING.
But I do like the damage debuff ideas. As long as it's strong enough to mean the difference between getting one-shotted by an AV and not, it'll be a step in the right direction for Ice Tankers.
Just make it work on the higher level enemies FIRST, please. 
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7.5% base * (1+ (6 Enhancements * .2 Enhancement increase)) * 1.15 for +3 Enhancements = 18.975.
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Wait... the extra .15 affects the base too. No I think that, according to rhetoric, the equation would be
7.5% base * (1+ (6 Enhancements * (.2 Enhancement increase * 1.15 for +3 Enhancements))) = 17.85
Insignificant difference might I add
17.85/18.975
Only a 6% difference
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The number isn't 3.5% base - it's 1.5%. To be honest - I don't know where the data came from that led to 3.5%.
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The blatant irony in this statement causes a searing pain to course through my head much in the same way I imagine a flaming, hot dagger would. (slight exaggeration)
You don't know where the data came from that led to 3.5%, huh? That's funny, I would think you would know, SINCE YOU REFUSE TO GIVE OUT ANY NUMBERS ON ANYTHING IN THIS GAME THUS FORCING PEOPLE TO HACK AND SCRATCH ERRONEOUS DATA TOGETHER THEMSELVES JUST SO THEY HAVE SOME VAGUE IDEA WHAT THE HELL ONE SLOT DOES VERSUS TWO!
"Wait, here's a good idea. Let's offer people two powers that increase defense. But, let's not tell them how much of an increase they provide. That way, they will just pick a random slotting configuration, instead of realizing slotting one of the powers is completely useless. Yeah, good idea. What a way to have informed player decisions. Totally makes sense to me!"
"Hey, what the Hell?! People are doing their own testing to try and figure out the defense increase?! Holy crap, their numbers are so totally off!!! What is wrong with these people?!"
Bleh.
Elsewhere on the forums, someone suggested a QoL feature consisting of a little bar graph for each power, showing the relative effectiveness of each before and after slotting. There'd also be indicators to show if you've reached or exceeded a cap.
"Whoa, I won't be slotting Wet Ice for DEF. I didn't realize how little it gave me. I'd better use these for Icicles since it shows that power eats up endurance like crazy."
"Switching to SOs meant I exceeded the DEF cap. I'll move some of these +DEF enhancements out of my toggles and put in endurance reducers."
"My Fly speed doesn't need to be 5-slotted, I've already hit the speed limit! I'll use that slot elsewhere."
Of course, you'd need to be able to undo whatever you've just done once you found out that you slotted poorly. This means some sort of mechanic in place that doesn't involve you leveling on the Test Center first each time.
~~~~~
It'd be even better if, by merit of each power's construction, there were no "wrong" ways to slot things. Too much ACC in your attacks? Use the surplus as +PERCEPTION or a(n increased) chance to critical. Fly movement maxes with about 4 speed SOs? Slow Flight down to where 6 SOs hits the cap, or raise the cap to let 6 mean something.
Man, it's like we have to think of everything around here. 
Really good post except for the part where you suggested they might SLOW DOWN FLY!!! Are you nuts?!! Never say that again!!! My God it's barely a legitimate travel power as it is! If you do that again I will be forced to remove the flaming, hot dagger embedded in my skull and jab it into your eye! (slight exaggeration)
Just a little idea i was thinkin about to make hibernate a more usefull power. It is the final power in an ice tanks primary so why not make it act like a final power and make it usefull. Yes i think it comes in handy from time to time but all in all not used much at all. Reason being you click the power on and are pretty much a sittin duck surrounded by baddies. So now what your sittin there surrounded by ice thinkin wow im surrounded now what. Well how about when you click the power to break out of the ice instead of just the ice breakin off you in chunks and then left standin there how about make it an pbaoe that damages all foes around you when you click power to free your self from the ice. Im not talkin super damage but moderate would be nice. So once you break free you damage all baddies around then makin your job of survival a little more reasonable. It would add a little more damage that ice could deal. maybe makin the animation more of ice shootin off you instead of just crumbling off to the ground. Well thats all just a thought but i think would make people think hibernate is worth taking. Also the time the power takes to kick in is a bit to long maybe shortening that to a little woule help out. Well just a thought i would like to hear what others think.
My 2 cents: (Extreamly reduced ranting, with suggestions that stick to the theme and require little change, and key points for quick reading.)
--->key point--->Don't nerf CE, getting hit less is good, -recharge is awsome Hands off!
Uselessfrost could have 200 percent resist to ice (Yes that does equal healing) and it would still be worhtless. Permafrost doesn't stick to the theme, perma!! getting melted isn't perma, 100% fire resistance now that's perma. course make 99% to fire and ice, and some enhanceable amount of something usefull like S/L heck even one or the other, then we'll start to consider it. ---->key point------>This is the one power that seporates us from the squishys, Make it act that way!
EA ; take the energy out off everyone around you, so they can't act as fast. --->key point--->EA should act like a backwards sypon power but with the hasten and slow affects of syphon speed. That'll stick to the Ice=slowing down theme, and give you the debuff you wanted to put in CE.
Hibernate: Where do we begin with the brokenness. (deap calming breath) worst off It doesn't even stick to the theme. If you're hibernating you are in a deap sleep, you slow down your heart, use less energy. What is the actual power consumption of this, well a poorly slotted stamina won't keep up with it (especially with CE running).
OK, more themelessness, i'm covered in Frost Armor, wet ice and glacial armor, And now it's time to completely encase myself in ice and take a nap, oh wait better remove the ice from myself, stand around for a sec, then encase myself in ice? What? Can't stack ice ontop of ice makes no sense, let alone getting us killed.
*necessary ranting* I need to make a bind to coming out of hibernate so i can shout 'Look at me i'm a squishy!!' We should be grouchy when awakening from a long sleep, turning off hibernate should amount to rampage time. Not, hope i can get my toggles on befor i die, and have enuf health left to survive long enuf to gamble on using hibernate again.
Hibernate isn't really phased, the ice is there, CE and icicles are passive agressive. I agree that you shouldn't be able to do anything while asleep, but it's not our fault if everyone is cold and stabbing themselves.
*Necessary ranting* Grannite armor isn't too heavy to tp, why is a big block of ice.
---->key point---->Hibernate should have next to no endo cost, and not drop any toggles. Alowing CE/icicles to affect others may be just enuf overcompensation to alieve the nerfing being done to our class. make ice the new fire tank! (gets down off soapbox)
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Just a little idea i was thinkin about to make hibernate a more usefull power. It is the final power in an ice tanks primary so why not make it act like a final power and make it usefull. Yes i think it comes in handy from time to time but all in all not used much at all. Reason being you click the power on and are pretty much a sittin duck surrounded by baddies. So now what your sittin there surrounded by ice thinkin wow im surrounded now what. Well how about when you click the power to break out of the ice instead of just the ice breakin off you in chunks and then left standin there how about make it an pbaoe that damages all foes around you when you click power to free your self from the ice. Im not talkin super damage but moderate would be nice. So once you break free you damage all baddies around then makin your job of survival a little more reasonable. It would add a little more damage that ice could deal. maybe makin the animation more of ice shootin off you instead of just crumbling off to the ground. Well thats all just a thought but i think would make people think hibernate is worth taking. Also the time the power takes to kick in is a bit to long maybe shortening that to a little woule help out. Well just a thought i would like to hear what others think.
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I like this idea 
But instead of damage... make it knock back and slow. So that it gives us some time to react after coming out of hibernation. And I agree that the activation time needs to be severly reduced. This power is supposed to save us... but it takes for ever to activate. So what am I supposed to do? activate it while I'm still in the green? I understand the devs don't want to make it too uber cause then ice tanks would never die, we would just go possum instead when we were close to hitting pavement. I say lower activation time, increase recharge time.
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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.
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This is all fine. I would still like to very strongly suggest increasing Frozen Armor's fire resistance to make an Ice Tankers fire weakness more equal to a Fire Tankers cold weakness. All Fire Tankers will slot thier S/L armor for resistance, boosting thier 10% cold resistance to 20% or so. No Ice Tanker in thier right mind will slot thier S/L armor for resistance, especially in I5. The tiny defence bonus from I5 Wet Ice and Energy Absorption plus the new damage debuff from Chilling Embrace barely help equalize this disparity between Fire and Ice tanker weaknesses. Please consider boosting Frozen Armor's fire resistance to perhaps 15%.
P.S...Please don't fix this by nerfing Fire Tankers cold resistance.
P.P.S...Now that I think about it, I'd also like to say that I don't really approve of the lowering of AV damage to prevent Ice Tanker one shots. This is another universal change that will end up benefiting resistance based tankers more than us. I'd prefer if a change be made to Ice Tankers themselves to prevent this. Perhaps the level of the damage debuff in Chilling Embrace can be used for this. However, that doesn't help against ranged attacks. I don't have a ready answer for you to solve this, but I don't think universal game changes are wise for this issue.
P.P.P.S...Something else. What about Icicles?