Well, it's the end of august and I5 will go through soon, but I still will suggest a couple of things...cause hey, why not? I suggested earlier that EA should be more of a single target drain to help out in 1v1 situations with AV, but that fell on deaf ears. So, I was thinking why not give EA, since we have to herd up 14 mobs for max defense anyways, a +heal component...say 7 - 10 %/mob enhanceable...kinda like dark regen? It should give an unique characteristic unlike other tankers, and maybe better survivability.
You should copy the not-ice-tanker specific parts of that post to the defender thread. Statesman made a post there about defense vs. resistance, and why defense is superior and thus needs to be weaker.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
This is a slight duplicate of a post I just made but I thought here was the best place for it.
How about an ice tanker power that acted like the new blaster power based on the HPs. Instead of a damage boost the ice tanker would received a defense boost once the hps got to a certain level and would continue to get extra defense as the HPs went down, so that potentially you could have 1 HP but put even +2 AVs to the to-hit floor.
- It would be possible code widse because of the new blaster power
- it would fit the all defensive theme of ice tankers
- The 5% to-hit ensures that even with massive defense we could still be easily killed on an un lucky streak
- It would give ice tankers a unique power (maybe tier 9)
- It would bring us back onto par with the other tankers (in the +32 game if it was tier 9)
- It would decrease the chance of being 2 shotted
- The 5% would mean it wouldn't allow us to herd
Unfortunately theres also about as much chance of the devs doing it as there is for me to be the next man on the moon but hey!! :-(
Holding out for new powers isn't going to happen at this stage of the Issue 5 release. Let's lower the bar (again) and shoot for some tweaks to defense values and with a bit of luck EA, the once crowning jewel of the set, the main driver for 26 levels of suckitude can, at the very least, be on par with invincibility.
Having the defense-ice specialist getting out defensed and out iced routinely by tankers and some scrappers is counter intuitive and frustrating to say the least. Give Ice tanks a role. We pay for and do in fact deserve to enjoy the same content as the better performing or preferred tanker primaries.
Late I5 Suggestions:
- Tweak Absorb % - 7% is a waste of coding time and does nothing to address longstanding Ice Tank Issues (AVs, monsters, natural 20s, 1 or 2 shot kills)
- Consider a static defense bonus for Wet Ice if EA values are intended to be very low.
- Review Defense % for EA - the endurance recovery is nice, but a lot of old timers have come to rely on it for defense. 85% down to 14% (assuming one spends slots on something that is only worth ½ point and is willing to herd) is a tough pill to swallow.
- To deter herding, adjust EA Defense per mob and cap. One major thrust of this issue was to deter herding. With the current EA metrics Icers are being channeled towards the very behaviors that the Dev Team are trying to eradicate.
TTR
Hmm.... shoot me down in flames, but I'm not about to wade through 40 pages of posts.... BUT if any dev met my challenge of responding to the painfully obvious issues surrounding post-I5 ice tanks and identified how they'll be addressed so that ice tanks are rebalanced in the tank world THEN I'll eat my hat. Infact I'll eat anyone's hat.
Address for to send head-garments for hat-eating supplied on request 
Circ and I both offered considerable quantities of adult beverages. So either they are on the wagon or just can't be bothered.
tick tock tick tock
TTR
[ QUOTE ]
Circ and I both offered considerable quantities of adult beverages. So either they are on the wagon or just can't be bothered.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah two full cases of beer of choice were offered between Toshi and I for direct answers to all points of all questions laid out by me towards the beginning of this thread. And most of the questions remain unanswered still.
Lets go over them all in summation...
[ QUOTE ]
0) Why were Ice Tankers, who were clearly on the bottom of the Tanker barrel to begin with, having been on par with Invuln Scrappers defensively, hit so hard for this Issue?
[/ QUOTE ]
No clear cut explanation for this whatsoever.
[ QUOTE ]
1) Was the Slow Resistance fixed on Wet Ice? The patch note only mentions fixing it for Energy Absorption, and yet on live Wet Ice has the same bug.
[/ QUOTE ]
No answer on this at all.
[ QUOTE ]
2) Why is Wet Ice no longer offering a measurable amount of DEF? Is this intentional? If not, what can we expect here in the future in the way of DEF?
[/ QUOTE ]
We all know how this worked out. Another one-slot-wonder. Between this and the EA change, Ice Tanks no longer have a decent sustainable base DEF anymore.
[ QUOTE ]
3) Question (2) but sub "Wet Ice" with "Energy Absorption"?
[/ QUOTE ]
14 mobs. The "enforced herding" change (also known as the "drag some mobs around with you while you kill everything else" change). Summed up in 3 words: Piss Poor Design.
[ QUOTE ]
4) Is this the face of Ice Tankers going forward defensively? You've put us into a range defensively where we're only maginally better than an SR Scrapper (our base DEFs are slightly higher, but their DEF is total coverage, whereas ours is not). And when they pop Elude they end up with a much higher DEF than our totals.
This means our defenses are down in the low end of Scrapper range for I5, and yet we are not being subsequently provided with a compensation for this - Scrappers get their damage, what do we get as Ice Tankers?
[/ QUOTE ]
All comparisons continue show us sitting toward the bottom of the barrel still, somewhere in Scrapperdom defensively. Though to be fair we can eck out a better life in I5 than SR Scrappers can.
[ QUOTE ]
5) Can you please! please! please! do something with Permafrost? It just sits there, and because its highly redundant with the RES in our other Armors it ends up not being taken by a large majority of Ice Tankers.
There are two things I could see you doing here:
a) Remove Permafrost completely, then either replace it with something new and exciting, and attractive, OR slide the powers that come after it down one tier (Icicles, Glacial Armor, Energy Absorption, and Hibernate). This would make room for a more exiting and melee oriented power at level 32 (more on this below).
b) Make Permafrost more attractive. Add Toxic RES to it (in addition to what's on Hoarfrost). Maybe throw in some Smashing/Lethal RES so we don't have to pool dive for Tough (a situation that the Test Server changes don't make any less necessary). How about Psi Resistance (the mind is as densly cold as the body).
[/ QUOTE ]
What did we get? 2.5% more Fire RES, and Slow Resistance. Was anyone who was Ice saying "Gee, I need more Slow Resistance?" No, not really. What you basically did was strip Ice of any real DEF vs Fire so that it basically had to take Permafrost if it ever wanted a chance of living vs Fire. Fire of course, being the 4th most common type of damage in game.
[ QUOTE ]
6) If we are to have such a strong weakness to Fire, why must Ice Tankers also be weak towards Psi? And please don't answer this with more than "Psi is the Tanker weakness", because we both know that Stone Tanks get Psi defenses. Also please don't try to tell me that Chilling Embrace covers this, we both know Psi attacks are all ranged, and CE is a melee range effect on foes.
[/ QUOTE ]
No answer on this at all.
[ QUOTE ]
7) Can Chilling Embrace please be changed to not take level into account when affecting higher (or lower) level foes? It just falls off too rapidly to be as useful as its supposed to be. Even on a heroic mission with other teammates you can see mobs as high as +2, and that 25% drops down to 20% by that point, so it ends up not being as "equivalent" to RES as it should be.
[/ QUOTE ]
No answer on this at all.
[ QUOTE ]
8) If Chilling Embrace is really intended as a RES substitute (which is something I've always felt it was supposed to be), then can it please get a larger AoE for Tankers, to potentially affect more at range. Right now since it only affects melee range, its offers no protection at range at all.
[/ QUOTE ]
No answer on this at all.
[ QUOTE ]
9) The Hibernate lunch list:
a) Can it please not turn off any powers.
b) Can we please be able to turn on powers while using it.
c) In the advent that you choose to leave it the level 32 power, can you make it more melee friendly? Perhaps a Taunt Radius? an AoE "Bitter Frost" that causes a slow like Chilling Embrace? Or maybe just let Chilling Embrace work while its active?
d) Its nice that it heals, but there's no way to make that heal avaialble often enough to be of great use. The best recharge you can eck out of it is 16s and that requires perma-Hasten and 6 recharge enhancements. As most Ice Tanker deaths occur in the span of 5-10 seconds, that recharge time will never be fast enough. It basically has to be useful all the time more or less.
[/ QUOTE ]
We got (a). (b) and (c) were ignored, and (d) was made worse.
[ QUOTE ]
10) Cut the End cost of Icicles by at least half. The 1.5 EPS that it is on live is just way too high.
[/ QUOTE ]
No answer on this at all. Basically 100% ignored, as it was litterally the most requested Ice Tanker change bar none.
[ QUOTE ]
11) Why doesn't Glacial Armor (E/N DEF) protect vs Rikti Swords (S/E damage)? (please say bug!!!)
[/ QUOTE ]
Was a big, and was fixed. No mention was made that it was fixed though, basically it had to be tested for by players.
[ QUOTE ]
12) Despite all the Accuracy changes listed above, this does not at all address the fact that attacks performed by AVs and Monsters are designed to kill characters with capped or very high RES. There are some AVs who have attacks that can one shot a full green health bar of Hoarfrosted health. This has to go. You need to either reign in the attacks of AVs and Monsters to reasonable levels, or you need to provide a means whereby DEF based builds (Ice Tanks and SR Scrappers) do not get one-shot killed. Melee classes have defense, but vs large attacks DEF withouth RES is quite meaningless. And there's nothing a healer or anyone else on your team can do to alleviate this - except perhaps some RES buffs from an SB or Dark Defender, but to say we have to get those all the time is ludicrous. A real solution needs to be provided.
[/ QUOTE ]
Addressed for everyone in game, but not specifically for Ice Tankers, though DEF does gain more of a benefit.
Then of course there's these issues...
[ QUOTE ]
1) Swarms (both regular and Devouring Swarms) need either a lower Accuracy, a lower rate of attack, or quite possibly both. They're a pet/underling. And yet, because of Taunt Aura's and Punchvoke they will stick on a Tanker like glue, and not let up in a most unrelenting fashion. They need to be reigned in big time.
This is a huge issue for DEF only since they have no way of naturally toning down the damage leaving either Tough or Health as the only ways out. This is more an issue for younger Ice Tankers. Chilling Embrace's Slow doesn't much cut into their attack rate, but its what attracts them, and yet you can't exactly turn it off, since you need it on to help protect you from other things around you.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not addressed at all. In fact, made tremendously worse.
[ QUOTE ]
2) Auto-hit aura's on AVs have got to go (e.g., the Envoy of Shadows). Without anything sitting behind DEF, these powers basically negate any defenses for an Ice Tanker leaving them soft and squishy. Again the only real way to help with them is Health.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not addressed at all. In fact, made tremendously worse.
[ QUOTE ]
3) Mobs that can buff each other's Accuracy or debuff DEF seem to have strong abilities in this area. Devouring Earth Quartz Beacons are a great example, as they seem to impart at least +100% Accuracy to other DE. I did notice that the length of time that Nemesis Vengeance lasts seems to be shorter on Test server right now, which is a big boon here. More changes like this need to come.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not addressed at all. In fact, made tremendously worse.
[ QUOTE ]
4) Base PvP Accuracy is 75%. This means that from the get-go an Ice Tankers Defenses are nullified come I5. Not to mention that 1 Accuracy Enhancer will cap that Accuracy for a non-AoE power. Weapon draw sets get +5% Accuracy. The prevalence of BuildUp, Aim, Focused Accuracy, etc. A DEF based melee set is utterly crippled in PvP. It'd be nice to know if this is going to be addressed somehow.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not addressed at all. In fact, made tremendously worse.
Then there's this post made by Statesman, where basically he tells us that he listened to Ice Tankers by:
[ QUOTE ]
4. Added -Damage to Chilling Embrace
[/ QUOTE ]
7% base. Resistable by mobs, basically like putting a band-aid on a compound fracture. This really doesn't do more than give us a little thing to do, it doesn't reduce damage enough to prevent excessive damage.
[ QUOTE ]
5. Increase Def to Smashing/Lethal for Ice Tankers
[/ QUOTE ]
By 1% over what it was initially. Still lightyears behind either Invuln or Stone, with no real explanation as to why this is at all. We do not even have Cold as a niche over Stone mind you, they even blow Ice away in that department.
[ QUOTE ]
6. Improved Hibernate for Ice Tankers
[/ QUOTE ]
Somewhat. At the same time you worsened certain issues with it (see above), and there's no real explanation for the 30s time limit. Not like you can Hibernate through a mission and complete it - in terms of Hibernate the 30s duration is the one true PvP change that I think you made because there is no other explanation for it whatsoever. Not to mention the 30s duration isn't really that since the timer starts from the power being clicked not from when activation is complete.
So, while I think that Statesman tries to listen to us, I think he hears us saying only what he wants to hear us saying.
[ QUOTE ]
So, while I think that Statesman tries to listen to us, I think he hears us saying only what he wants to hear us saying.
[/ QUOTE ]
or maybe the Ice Tank they play test with lives in Mythical Overpowered Land with that DM/Regen that was 2-shotting +7s.
I'm so bitter I'm still dwelling on the past...
It's over... Ice lost.
We begged (can I use that word?) for changes since the onset of Issue 4. And only at the tail-end of issue 5, have any changes been made.
Sure, the Global Defense changes hurt everybody in melee, but that doesn't matter. We're supposed to dance around in a circle, keeping mobs "slow" but not in melee range, debuffing their damage by 7%, and having them not attack. Works great vs Hellions and Skulls. Totally worthless against anything that does more/mostly range attacks.
And I still want to know why Invincibility 6-slotted gives more defense then every power we own, also 6-slotted for defense. 14 mobs, and they have us beat. Plus resistances. We will play on because the there must be a "hard" tank to play... like setting the difficulty of a game to Impossible and still trying to win. But I expect no more help to Ice tanks.
This is final. This is the will of the devs.
ICE... R.I.P.
[ QUOTE ]
And I still want to know why Invincibility 6-slotted gives more defense then every power we own, also 6-slotted for defense.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is because of the same reason that an empath can render the entire force field set moot with fortitude - because these developers have a highly skewed sense of 'balance'.
It's not okay for one power in your own set to render the others moot (like old-style Unstoppable), but it's okay for someone's singular power in another set to render your entire set obsolete. I just wish Statesman could explain that one.
I for one am not seeing how issue 5 is at all balanced.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And I still want to know why Invincibility 6-slotted gives more defense then every power we own, also 6-slotted for defense.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is because of the same reason that an empath can render the entire force field set moot with fortitude - because these developers have a highly skewed sense of 'balance'.
It's not okay for one power in your own set to render the others moot (like old-style Unstoppable), but it's okay for someone's singular power in another set to render your entire set obsolete. I just wish Statesman could explain that one.
I for one am not seeing how issue 5 is at all balanced.
[/ QUOTE ] I can explain that one. 6 slotted for defence fortitude can only be kept on 3 teamates maximum, and that's with hasten. Slot fortitude with 6 recharges, and now it's less than FF, and I don't think it can be kept on 7 people still (at least, not without extreme micromanagement.) FF can be kept on an entire team. It also provides protection against toxic, something fortitude lacks any protection against. Sometimes, the compairison for powers has to be looked at a little deeper than numbers... Don't get me wrong though, I think FF needs a very large boost, either in numbers, or getting powers that do more than +def (and that're useful.) People need to stop singling powers out like this though, saying X completely whomps Y. My Stormies hurricane drops enemy %tohits to the base 5%, and that's affecting anyone in my team, including the user. Fortitude can't be kept on the casting empath, and FF only gets a small self defence boost from Dispersion bubble. The last thing we need are -more- nerfs.
One thing that really irks me, however -- Statesman said, a while back, that he was looking at Super Reflexes because he thought the set was to weak... I kinda figured Ice Armor was also up there for things he wanted to look at, seeing as it's much like SR... here we are, issue 5 -- SR gets nothing looked at but made weaker, and Ice Armor kinda-sorta gets looked at, but also made weaker. I hope Statesman doesn't go back on his word about looking at SR (and hopefully, isn't done looking at Ice)... :\
So if you saw a Rad defender whos aura does more healing than yours you wouldn't mind? Please, the Bubblers entire set is based on def, an empaths is healing. If your def fails they can still get a full heal. With a bubbler if the def fails then you got to hope they know when to run. Just like invuln Vs. Ice. If an invulns def fails they got resistance, if our fails we're dead. Plain and simply if you have to depend on one thing then it should be better than all the others.
Balance means you can't have the best of both worlds
[ QUOTE ]
I can explain that one. 6 slotted for defence fortitude can only be kept on 3 teamates maximum, and that's with hasten. Slot fortitude with 6 recharges, and now it's less than FF, and I don't think it can be kept on 7 people still (at least, not without extreme micromanagement.) FF can be kept on an entire team. It also provides protection against toxic, something fortitude lacks any protection against. Sometimes, the compairison for powers has to be looked at a little deeper than numbers... Don't get me wrong though, I think FF needs a very large boost, either in numbers, or getting powers that do more than +def (and that're useful.) People need to stop singling powers out like this though, saying X completely whomps Y. My Stormies hurricane drops enemy %tohits to the base 5%, and that's affecting anyone in my team, including the user. Fortitude can't be kept on the casting empath, and FF only gets a small self defence boost from Dispersion bubble. The last thing we need are -more- nerfs.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not knocking fortitude, don't get me wrong - I just know for a fact that the power by itself outperforms the entire force field set in small teams; I should've qualified that, I suppose. My mind controller is using it already to impressive effect 'out of the box' in a deadly duo I've been running with a claws/inv scrapper friend of mine (attack of the gimps!).
It's not a point to get a specific power itself reduced so much as an attempt to point out just how mistaken certain developers are in changing certain power sets for the worse. When some ice tanks compare their set to others it's impossible to not note such huge issues as the Invincibility/Ice Armor thing,
(Especially when every SINGLE invunlerable tanker I talk to would rather have the resists intead of the defense, because they KNOW that no matter how much statesman sugar coats it, +res is superior to +def, particularly since there aren't FIFTY resistance debuffing powers in the game).
The point there was to use fortitude as an example, not to derail the conversation - it just seems that the same developer logic applies in both situations, however flawed that logic may be. I can't think of any other situations like this offhand, but then I have yet to actually play every power set in the game (working on that).
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah two full cases of beer of choice were offered between Toshi and I for direct answers to all points of all questions laid out by me towards the beginning of this thread. And most of the questions remain unanswered still.
[/ QUOTE ]
Prolly should of placed this in the Ask Geko thread too. Maybe he would answer them himself.
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah two full cases of beer of choice were offered between Toshi and I for direct answers to all points of all questions laid out by me towards the beginning of this thread. And most of the questions remain unanswered still.
[/ QUOTE ]
Heck, throw another case of beer and a handle of Grey Goose in there from me. We'll see what their price 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
So 3 cases of beer and some top shelf liquor have now been offered. My business will match dollar for dollar the cost of these offers with a donation to the Charity of your choice in your name, all for some honest answers to legitimate customer questions.
We want honest answers - not the fine display of Astroturfing that the Force Field Defenders received. Give us honest answers (hopefully with some metrics included) and it's 3 cases of beer, some top shelf Vodka, and a Donation to the Charity of your choice in your name from NTC.
It is ridiculous to have allow things to get to this point and escalate this far.
The ball is in your court.
TTR
[ QUOTE ]
We want honest answers - not the fine display of Astroturfing that Force Field Set received.
[/ QUOTE ]
The sad part, Toshi, is that this is exactly what I expect to happen. We'll get a dev response (if we're that lucky) that basically goes over the powers in a manner similar to FF. We know what the powers are, and our complaints are that they are underperforming in almost every aspect. We don't have enough DEF from our +DEF powers. Wet Ice now only provides status protection and gives no DEF. Icicles costs too much for what it provides, and EA is no longer a +DEF power but an endurance recovery tool. Don't even get me started on how misplaced Hibernate is in a tanker set. So yes, we need a Dev response that tells us exactly what the vision for Ice Armor is and why it got smacked like it did. But I'm cynical, and don't think we'll ever get what we're asking for, no matter how much alcohol we offer.
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
All I want to know is the reason they feel Ice Armor had to be hit so hard. We know that the overall goal of all these changes is to make the game more difficult, but what was the line of thinking SPECIFICALLY in regard to Ice Armor?
I don't want a dev to come in here and "wing" some explanation of how defense is so much better than resistance because you can avoid Sappers or something else like that. When Devs make up reasons on the spot, they tend to spout misinformation like Ice Armor having psionic defense, or Unyielding giving more resistance for each mob in the area, or green enhancements giving an extra bonus to the base value of a power. They had a reason in their minds and cold hard facts in front of them months ago when they came up with the power changes, and that's what I want to hear.
Why, months ago, did they think it would be wise to take practically all the defense out of Wet Ice and Energy Absorption? Why did they make the limit on EA only 5 mobs in Issue 4 if they were going to require us to herd 14 mobs to use it in Issue 5? Why do you think Slow resistance is good enough to make Permafrost worthwhile? Why should we accept a reduction in the slow effect of Chilling Embrace in exchange for a 7% resistable damage debuff? What were the numbers you looked at to validate these changes?
I have faith that these changes were well thought out after much deliberation. Just tell us what you were thinking, devs, and I'm sure a lot of us will feel better.
[ QUOTE ]
I can explain that one. 6 slotted for defence fortitude can only be kept on 3 teamates maximum, and that's with hasten. Slot fortitude with 6 recharges, and now it's less than FF, and I don't think it can be kept on 7 people still (at least, not without extreme micromanagement.) FF can be kept on an entire team. It also provides protection against toxic, something fortitude lacks any protection against. Sometimes, the compairison for powers has to be looked at a little deeper than numbers...
[/ QUOTE ]
You're right.
Fortitude provides an untyped defense boost greater than FF, and can be kept on three characters at once. The accuracy boost, despite protests to the contrary, is more than worthwhile when fighting higher-level opponents. In addition, you can make endurance a non-issue most of the time, make everyone into regen scrappers, and keep your teammates' health up if it falls.
In contrast, FF can provide def against everything but psi and toxic, resist against toxic, mild defense against psi, and more knockdown than you can shake a stick at. It's much less versatile than empathy. FF can't buff regen rate, recovery rate, or heal if the first line of defense fails.
So, yeah, you're right - you need to examine a set more deeply than just the numbers. However, I think you're underselling empathy yet again.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
Well, its live. Thanks to everyone for posting their experiences and opinions on Ice Armor.
Hopefully, I can 17-slot permafrost with my free respec tonight and I hope to see all of you next winter. 
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
<doom>
- JJ
[ QUOTE ]
<doom>
[/ QUOTE ]
I'd more say its replace the "d" with a "gl".
7 months of effort to effect change, only to get table scraps in the end.
7% damage resist and defenses surpassed by a single parry could easily be considered a waste of coding time. It's too bad that we are not deemed worthy or deserving of legitimate communication and answers to questions (READ: not Astroturfing) despite monetary and charitable rewards being offered for such dialogue.
TTR
[ QUOTE ]
7% damage resist and defenses surpassed by a single parry could easily be considered a waste of coding time. It's too bad that we are not deemed worthy or deserving of legitimate communication and answers to questions (READ: not Astroturfing) despite monetary and charitable rewards being offered for such dialogue.
TTR
[/ QUOTE ]
And don't forget the nice, frosty beverages.
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
I will lead off this post by reproducing an article I wrote for a group of my friends who recognized the weakness of Defense in certain situations but had only a sketchy understanding of why. These friends all had mathematical training, but no real numerical intuition, so the article is unfortunately not targeted at those completely unschooled in statistics. It was also hastily converted from HTML using a 'sed' script. But I simply don't have the time to rewrite it. Anyway...
Damage Mitigation Strategies in City of Heroes
The Stress Test
There are four types of damage mitigation in City of Heroes: Resistence, Defense, Recovery, and Preemption.
Resistence is the ability to shrug off damage, it simply reduces the effects of being hit. Defense is the ability to avoid being hit. Recovery is the ability to heal or negate the adverse effects of a power (such as escaping from immobilization), and Preemption is the ability to keep an opponent from attacking at all. (NOTE: Because the term 'defense' has a very specific meaning in the game I will use it in that manner. Defense in more general terms will be termed 'damage mitigation'. With 'damage' meant to include being held, put to sleep, and other similar effects.)
The three basic tests of a damage mitigation strategy are how well it works on average, how well it works at its best (in case you feel like gambling), and most importantly, how well it works when things go wrong.
This last test is what I'm calling the "Stress Test". It is the ability of the damage mitigation strategy to bend without breaking. A failure here is basically a stress fracture of your armor, and may result in very bad things.
The course of events in City of Heroes can turn ugly for a number of reasons. Surprise is one reason things can go wrong. Drawing aggro from a second group by mistake, having a patrol wander into a fight, overlooking a particularly nasty member of the opposition, blundering into a group, or simply encountering an opponent that you know nothing about can lead to a real test of your damage mitigation abilities. All of the damage mitigation strategies except Preemption handle situations such as these fairly well. Recovery can shine here, while Resistence does its usual steady job (especially strong is the ability to resist holds and the like). Preemption isn't likely to happen here (exceptions are Preemptive toggles such as Ice Armor's Chilling Embrace, Dark Armor's Cloak of Fear, Radiation Emission's Choking Cloud, or perhaps Gravity
Control's Singularity.) Lastly, Defense can reduce a surprise situation to one of being lucky or unlucky. An example of getting lucky would be having an Aberrent Rector miss your Super Reflexes Scrapper, allowing her to put up Practiced Brawler instead of being put to sleep and having all her defensive toggles get turned off.
Simple luck is the most common reason that your damage mitigation ability will be stress tested. This plays a big role in the value of all types of damage mitigation except Resistence. A run of lucky hits can overwhelm a hero relying on Defense, or knock someone relying on Recovery down to the point where only the ultimate Recovery powers will work. And anyone who has fought Malta Sappers knows how bad things can get when your preemptive strike fails.
Expected Damage Taken and Its Variance
T Number of time periods considered
n Number of times attacked per period
p Probability of each attack hitting
d Damage each attack does
r Resistence to each attack
H Maximum healing rate
D Expected damage taken
Tnpd(1-r)
h Estimated effective healing rate
H(1-(1-p)^n)
i Estimated injury rate
Tnpd(1-r) - H(1-(1-p)^n)
sn Variance of hits taken Tnp(1-p)
dD Mean deviation of damage taken
sqrt(Tnp(1-p)/(Tnp)^2)
sqrt((1/p-1)/Tn)
cn Critical hit number; the number of hits that is
three standard deviations more than expected
Tnp + 3*sqrt(Tnp(1-p))
cD Critical damage amount; the amount of damage
one by cn hits
d(1-r)(Tnp + 3*sqrt(Tnp(1-p)))
ci Critical injury amount; the amount of injury
sustained by cn hits over time T
d(1-r)(Tnp + 3*sqrt(Tnp(1-p))) - HT(1-(1-p)^n)
Notes:
(1) All attacks are assumed to have the same chance of hitting.
(2) All attacks are assumed to do the same amount of damage.
(3) The resistence to all attacks is assumed to be the same.
(4) The damage rate is assumed to be higher than the healing rate.
All of these simplifying assumptions are generally untrue. This means that the variance of damage taken is really quite a bit higher in practice than is estimated here.
The Downfall of Defense
Defense is great, up to a point. Being able to avoid damage altogether is better than being able to absorb it. The problem arises when you simply can't avoid getting hit often enough any more. And this inevitably
happens in City of Heroes. No matter how good your defense is you will, at some point, find yourself up against opponents who are either so numerous or so skilled that they will hit you. For a Scrapper you can usually avoid drawing too much attention to yourself and supplement your Defense with Recovery (often through inspirations) or Preemption to handle this. But if you are a Tanker you will have problems dealing
with the ever increasing likelihood of being hit as you move up in level.
Looking at the equations for mean deviation of damage (dD) given above, you can see that as the chance of being hit (p) goes down, the mean deviation goes up. Hence, increasing Defense garners diminished returns in avoiding critical failure. Relying on good luck too much tends to lead to trouble in the end, no matter how lucky you are.
In short, Defense yields dimishing returns as the villains you fight go up in level and class (Lieutenants, Bosses, and Archvillains.) And there are some powers that hit you no matter how high your Defense is (e.g. Devoured Earth Swarms effectively ignore the defenses of an Ice Tanker and can do a surprising amount of damage as a result). Also, the best defenses (e.g. Phase Shift, Personal Force Field, Hibernate) render you unable to attack or do anything else but use whatever Recovery skills you have.
If you are going to rely on Defense as your primary formof damage mitigation you will either have to aggro fewer bad guys, villains who do less damage or are less likely to hit (i.e. are lower level), or heavily supplment your Defense with other forms of damage mitigation. Just try fighting Devoured Earth Guardians, The Envoy of Shadows, or the Devilfish with an Ice Tanker and you can quickly see the shortcomings of
Defense as a damage mitigation strategy. If you rely entirely on Defense, then you will often run an unacceptably high risk of a critical failure of your armor as you move up past level 30.
Bouncing Back (or Dead Men Eat No Insps)
Recovery takes many forms. The Regeneration Secondary for Scrappers and Empathy for Defenders are the best
Recovery sets. The biggest problem with Recovery for damage mitigation is that it can be overwhelmed by a
simple increase in the number of bad guys or their strength. As a primary damage mitigation strategy Recovery either needs some supplementation from other strategies or a degree of caution.
Some strategies aren't immediately recognizable as Recovery damage mitigation. One of these has been employed by every hero - run away and rest. A less extreme version is running to buy time to allow you to eat an inspiration, get healed by a teammate, or simply to allow your own healing abilities to bring you back to a safe level (the "Bouncing Baby Regen Scrapper" tactic.)
The ultimate Recovery powers are the self-ressurects. These include Rise of the Phoenix (available to Fire Tankers at level 32, and to Blasters with the Fire Mastery Epic Pool at level 47), Revive (Regeneration Scrappers can get this at level 35), and Soul Transfer (Dark Armor Scrappers have this available at level 38). But since these Recovers don't return the lost experience points to you (they should return at least 50%, in my opinion) they are poorly thought of by most heroes under level 50. In addition, Revive is hard to use if there are bad guys still around since you come back with no endurance, 50% health and no active damage mitigation running. Unless you have Moment of Glory ready to go Revive isn't much better than an Awaken.
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
All Archetypes may Preempt an opponent. In fact Blasters have few other ways to mitigate damage until level 41. The best defense is to keep your opponent from being able to use an offensive power. However some Archetypes offer very few powers whose primary value is Preemption (Ice Armor's Chilling Embrace and Energy Absorption and Fiery Aura's Rise of the Phoenix are it for Tanker Primary pools).
Like a reliance on Defense, a reliance on Preemption is putting your trust in luck. Preemption works very well at its best, is pretty good on average, and can be disastrous when it fails.
All archetypes should use Preemption whenever they can, but it is most important for those not possessing any other form of damage mitigation. Even for those with good damage mitigation it offers a solid supplement, even if it does no more than buy time to use Recovery powers. For a Tanker, Preemption is just icing on the cake, or perhaps an Ice Patch at her feet.
Resistence is King
Resistence is the steady performer, always working as
advertised. There are no "armor piercing" attacks in the game. There probably should be, but there aren't. As is the only time Resistence fails the "Stress Test" is when a group of villains hit you with multiple holds or the like and overwhelm your "Mes Res". (NOTE: A form of "Armor Piercing" may be used in the Arena for Player-vs-Player, allowing a percentage of Blaster damage and Scrapper Critical Hits to bypass Resistence.)
The only way to beat a Resistence Tanker is to go around their Resistence (can you say "Psi Clocks"?) or to grind them down. And the latter takes time, which gives the Tanker a chance to supplement their Resistence with Recovery (Dull Pain, Healing Flames, Earth's Embrace) or Preemption defense (Hand Clap, Ice Patch, Clobber, or the like - or just plain dealing out damage and reducing the number of foes doing the grinding).
Resistence removes luck from the equation and buys time for a Tanker to use other damage mitigation strategies. In addition, it is usually the only way to avoid a true disaster such as being held.
One way of looking at Resistence is to consider it to be an increase in a hero's health and the amount of any heals he receives. If you have 50% Resistence to the attacks you are facing you effectively have not only twice as many hit points, but since you only took half as much damage, each heal is twice as good to you. An Invulnerability Tanker with the usual 95% Resistence effectively has 20 times as many hit points as a same level Ice Tanker. And in addition, his Dull Pain repairs the damage done by 20 times as many hits as
does the Ice Tanker's Hoarfrost. Yes, it truly is good to be King.
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The last point, that heals help Resistence tankers more than Defense tankers, is one commonly overlooked. And until I5, most buffs didn't help a tanker with near maximum Defense much either. So Resistence tankers benefitted more from Bubbles and the like as well (for example, and Icer might go from being hit 10% to just 5% while a Fire tank could go from being hit 30% to the same 5% with a Bubbler around).
What the high varience in the performance of Defense means is that for it to work as well in large teams at higher levels as other Tanker damage mitigation strategies do, it would have to be scaled up as the tanker levels. Otherwise it would be over-powered at lower levels where such things as DE Guardians, Crey Radiologist, DE Swarms, and Archvillains don't exist. The obvious way to do this is to move more of the damage mitigation ability to later powers.
Personally, I'd prefer to see Endurance Draining a foe actually mean something. That would make EA much better. As it is now, I recently drained a pair of Freak Tanks (conning orange) and they didn't suffer a single missed attack or lose a single defense. And in I5 a pair of orange conning bosses are quite dangerous. I suggest two changes:
1) EA should prevent END recovery for a short period of time as Short Circuit does.
2) Mobs who have no END should suffer a penalty to their damage mitigation. Since they are not getting their protection from toggles, I'd suggest a simple Defense debuff when they are out of END and having their resistence to Mez removed.
Next, to deal with autohit attacks, I'd make Slow effects reduce the tick rate (or if implementing that is too difficult, simply reduce the damage) of Auras in use by effected foes. This should include the damage done by foes such as DE Swarms.
Lastly, I'd make Permafrost worth having. The Slow Resist isn't enough to make this power even marginally worthwhile. Since Ice Tankers biggest problem is handling big hits I would make Permafrost give a permanent 10% HP boost. Perhaps even an enhanceable boost.
As for my I5 experiences with Ice Armor; much improved, but still more scrappy than tank-like. I did a L35 Invincible mission against Nemmies. Mobs were 37 and 38, conning orange to purple. I was able to collect several groups together and do OK against them. I had to use Hibernate too often. It's a nice power now, but taking a time out during a fight isn't likely to endear one to the team. IMO, at least Chilling Embrace (and it's punch-voke) should continue while Hibernate is on.
Once again, the testing has led me to conclude that many powers are simply not worth having any more in I5. Powers such as Icicles should be improved. I'd increase the aggro generation of damage auras.
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Kosmos
Kosmos
Global: @Calorie
MA Arcs in 4-star purgatory: Four in a Row (#2198) - Hostile Takeover (#69714) - Red Harvest (#268305)