I pictured it in the same sense as "Look at them, crying out for a leader!" or "Look at this peanut butter sandwich, it's just crying out for some jelly."
As someone who's just about to start an Ice Tanker, I'm hoping the issues on Wet Ice and EA and whatever else get fixed.
The game ends at 50.
SmilegasmDo not ever give Mind Control a pet.
We need more control sets without pets.My characters are not "toons".
They are all project characters, though.Global chat @Lxndr My servers: Defiant, Liberty, Pinnacle, Virtue
Add me to the list that is confused as to why this is just an ice tanker change? This seemingly affects everyone, although Ice tankers and SR scrappers may benefit the most, along with bubblers (somewhat). Of course I would also be asking what we really acheved by reducing defense across the board and reducing accuracy across the board...
Anyway, while these changes are an improvement over what is currently on test, I think there will always be a great disparity between resistance and defense because of the 5% minimum. One out of 20 are always going to hit and that one hit is often very significant, sometimes fatal. I still like the solution that 'excess' defense be converted to resistance in some ratio, it doesn't necessarily have to follow 1 to 1, but something.
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Please can I put in a request for EA to be modified. I don't know the real numbers but let us assume for the sake of argument it grants 3% defence per opponent capped at 14 opponents. Can we get this adjusted to say 10% for the first opponent + 2% per extra one still capped at 14. This would make AVs much more survivable without changing the large mob dynamic very much.
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I like this idea 
"You wear a mask to hide who you are, I wear a mask to show who I am"
Arc ID 91456: The Zombie Apocalypse Task Force:poster 1, poster 2
CLICK THE ABOVE LINK TO HELP DO YOUR PART TO SAVE C.O.H!!!!!
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I've seen more than a few people crying for Ice Tankers to have their own place to give feedback.
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No offense, but that was a rather rude thing to say.
Circeus identified a boatload of Ice Armor bugs / relevant issues that need to be addressed.
Crying? Lordy, no one, but no one, needs a PR rep more than Statesman.
Thanks for the thread.
I never thought of ice tanks as being the low man on the tank list. I really am not concerned about the AV "issue" that people point out as I have always been able to use a combo of hibernate and hoarfrost in order to compensate. (I also run tough). I think the ice set as is it great and don't feel gimped at all as it stands. That being said...
I think that I5 hurts ice tanks most of all. We are a defense set only. When you take away the defense ice tanks pretty much have nothing.
I also agree with all the people that have said it might be a good idea to work on the AI of the mobs instead of massive rework of powers.
Why not make mobs that can't stack? Why not make mobs that don't chase you forever?
I'm still not clear what you are trying to "fix" with I5. Please just consider that as an ice tank defense is our bread and butter, take that away and we are no longer "tanks" but just guys that have a lot of hit points. Why not just give everyone access to every power in all sets, give them all the same defense, the same hit points and call it done? The ATs are really starting to not mean much of anything.
Scatterpack Rad/Rad
~ Earthguard ~
There are two issues with Ice Defences. The first is the odd scrambling. Ice tankers on I5 do not get defence against Psi, Cold, Fire, or Toxic. They do get wildly varying resistance to Fire, Cold, and Toxic. No other tanker or scrapper has weaknesses to as many different damage types.
The other issue for the defense oriented Ice Tanker set is that Defences scale terribly while resistances scale well. This hits Ice tankers in multiple ways. A lower level tanker with no SO's and few slots will only have about 15% defense. Against an even level minion that means about 30% damage mitigation which is comperable to a resistance tank. Take on a red minion and the low level Ice tanker has about 3% damage mitigation while the resistance tanker keeps her full damage mitigation. When you consider that group play can definately result in red minions that is a huge imbalance. This comes from my current understanding that a mob gets ~6.5% accuracy improvement for each level above you.
Now lets look at the Arch Villian end of the spectrum. A low level Ice Tanker verses an even level Archvillian only gets a 20% reduction in damage compared to somebody with no defenses. An fully slotted Ice Tanker can get a 40% reduction in damage, worse if the arch villian is fire, Psi, or Toxic. This is much worse than what a fully slotted Resistance Tanker will achieve. If the Arch villian is a higher level then that damage mitigation drops dramatically.
This all results in a situation where if a team wants a tanker to help with bosses and Arch Villians then the last tanker they want to get is an Ice Tanker. Unless the underlying scaling is changed the only solution I can see is to make an Ice Tanker better in many group settings but worse in large groups with higher level mobs.
What you have now is a situation where the Ice tanker is only better in Solo Heroic Missions with no Bosses and no fire, toxic, or Psi damage. If the mission throws any yellow mobs at you then even that slim advantage goes away.
Others have mentioned the benefits of resistance in other areas. Lower probablility of getting one shotted with resistance means your team can help out with a heal. Mixed resistance and defense means a greater chance that buffers will be able to cap you in one or both categories.
One final area that gets to me personaly is that many defender types can give anybody much better defenses and to more damage types with a single buff than my Ice tanker who is dedicated to self defense can obtain. If my defenses are considered to make the game too easy then why won't more powerful buffs trivialize the game?
One final note is I don't see how you can keep the game challenging for a high level and not too tedious or hard for a low level player if high level powers can double the defensive effectiveness of any power with SO's. I just don't see how this is ever going to be possible.
Nogala
First thanks for posting this.
Secondly what Circeus said.
Really the acc numbers are nice. And while this does help Ice tanks and SR scrappers, it helps everyone, not just the Def based sets.
I admit I've not played my ice tank extensively on test, but my brief time there convinced me my Ice tank is toast. Yes I went into the RCS (so I should have had a team with), looking for a roughly even level group. Found a couple over the course of the session, and I was killed quickly with 2 EA's up, WI, GA. Hits from Ritki swords were in the area of 75% or higher (50 or 51 Lt's, no more then 2 at a time). DE Sentries I think we also hitting me at that rate. I'm going to do some more testing in a non-hazard zone but still, this was an eye opener. I admit that it shouldn't be as do-able to solo in the RCS as it is on live now.
Why is our level 32 power designed to take us out of the fight. Our job is take/maintain the aggro, which to mean means to be able to stay in the fight in some fashion, not running off ot hide in our little bock of ice. How comforting is that for our teammates? Really your team is in a big fight with a large group of mobs (say a pet went off and aggrod 2 other spawns) and your tank goes into a block of ice...does that make you feel better?
Here's an idea of how I'd like to see the Ice Armor line:
Frozen Armor S/L Def at 15% (I can live with that) Fire/Cold/S/L resist 5%
Chilling Embrace as on live
Hoarfrost as is
Permafrost: Increased heal rate. Passive (like Fast healing really).
Wet Ice: Status protect vs all. Def 5% vs all.
(note the vs all. Piddly versus everything, but at least you get some. If you really want to make them cry, make 10-12% so it's tempting to slot it).
Icicles: Reduce end cost/up damage. If not, then should slow the mobs (don't recall that it does). But really reduce the end cost.
Glacial Armor: As Frozen Above, just change the S/L to En/Neg. 5% res to en/neg.
Energy Absorbtion: Up the end drain. 10% deff per mob at least. you get end depending on how much end you drain. If you have to cap the def given fine, but make it a reasonable cap. Or maybe different values for PvE and PvP. Ie PvP would be a higher def bonus per enemy since there are going to be less of them and they won't gather nicely for EA. (not a big leap to say that people will play smarter then the AI of the spawns)
Hibernate: change the name, change the power.
Winter's Wrath. Click power, long recharge, Ranged AoE with a small radius. The Ice tank channels air/snow/ice directly from the north pole to a spot chosen by the Ice tank. All mobs in the effected area are rolled to hit, if they're hit: -recharge, slow, -dam (20%), DoT minor 5-10 seconds. End cost 35.
Or...
Winter is Coming (cookie for naming the reference): Click power, long recharge, Ranged AoE with a small radius. The Ice tank channels air/snow/ice directly from the north pole to a spot chosen by the Ice tank. Affected enemies (roll to hit) have all they're damage changed to DoT for 20-30 seconds.
Basically I'm asking the devs to not make me change my advice to people asking about Ice tanks. If I have to change my advice it'd be to, don't play an Ice tank. That's just wrong.
There are many ideas out there, plenty better then mine.
And if you haven't gotten Ice Tank concerns by now, I'll try to recap again for you:
1) No one-shot defeats. It's not fun, and often leads to team wipes. Lowering accs doesn't change this.
2) We're ok with having a weakness. But do we need to have more then any other tank set? Most tanks that I've talked to would be fine with 1 weakness and it's ok if it's different per primary. This Psi is the weakness is BS though. Especially when you add another weakness on top of it.
3)In general characters should not have to go into a Pool Power set to effectively do their job. As it stands Fire/Ice and to some degree Stone have to go into the Fighting Pool (ie Touch, Weave) and Fire typically goes into the Leaping pool as well for Acrobatics.
4) Really if we're (Ice Tanks) that overpowered wouldn't there be more Ice tanks than the other 3 combined? Look at the numbers, shouldn't the dearth of Ice tanks point to a problem.
As far as I know I'm one of 2 level 50 Ice tanks on Virtue. Compared to countless Invul and Fire tanks. In my mid 40's I'd get comments like, "wow an Ice Tank." or "OMG a 46 Ice TANK!" etc. In fact the most ice tanks I've seen on Virtue in 1 day is 3, including myself. I see that many Fire tanks in an hour.
5) I personally wonder if any dev has played an ice tank in the 35+ game on a pick up team going againt AVs. Try it, assuming the team doesn't kick you for not being a 'real' tank.
edit: 6) I forgot the high acc/auto hit things in the game, swarms and Caltrops come to mind.
I apologize if my tone comes across as well not friendly. But for some of us it's been a year of putting up with Ice's shortcomings. The only reason I got my main to 50 was because I'm stubborn, and I had stone melee to keep me amused.
Daristar (so yeah I'm trying to prevent Ice tanks from dying from Alpha Strikes, so sue me)
on Virtue:
Darkennedy dark/sonic Def
Lena Slayer NightWidow
Vengeful Woman Energy/Rad Corruptor
Hella Effing Cool cold/sonic def
Am I missing something, what do these changes have to do with Ice Tankers? My Stone Tanker appreciates the reductions, mind you, but I thought you were going to talk about how you were going to talk about the weakest Tanker power set?
A number of Ice Tanker powers have also been bugged for quite a long time, any chance that those will get fixed?
Scorus
Minotaur mentioned having EA buff 10% for the first mob and then a smaller rate for each additional mob. I like that idea a lot.
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
So, first you drop the Defense of all heroes across the board, then you drop the Accuracy of most of the more accurate of the mobs across the board.
Initially you'd think that you're back to square one. However, the end result will be is that minions are going to comparitively seem to be more of a threat. Even though their accuracy is the same, they will hit you more often with your defenses up in I5 than in I4. While Defense that was formerly considered as being needed to be high to deal with Lts. and Bosses, this has been rendered unneccessary.
The goal would seem to be to make minions more of a threat in situations where you gather a great deal of them. Personally, I have an idea I like a little better. I'll post it up on the Suggestions board.
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crying
[/ QUOTE ]
Do you even listen to yourself talk?
"I tune in and out yeah..."
Thanks for actual numbers though, hip hip hooray.
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I've seen more than a few people crying for Ice Tankers to have their own place to give feedback.
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you never fail to impress, states.
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crying=pleading, why does this bother you?
*edit* apparantly many people have no farking idea what context is.
Main Entry: 1cry
Pronunciation: 'krI
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): cried; cry·ing
Etymology: Middle English crien, from Old French crier, from Latin quiritare to make a public outcry, perhaps from Quirit-, Quiris, name for the Roman citizen
transitive senses
1 : to utter loudly : SHOUT
2 archaic : BEG, BESEECH
3 : to proclaim publicly : ADVERTISE <cry their wares>
intransitive senses
1 : to call loudly : SHOUT
2 : to shed tears often noisily : WEEP, SOB
3 : to utter a characteristic sound or call
4 : to require or suggest strongly a remedy or disposition <a hundred things which cry out for planning -- Roger Burlingame>
First - thank you to Cryptic for creating this forum.
Second - I apologize for the community's apparent inability to remain on-topic.
Third - I trust that we are moving towards a system in which defense and resistance are distinct, but both attractive. We might already be there, in fact. I'm comfortable with the direction, at least.
Fourth - We really need to get Wet Ice and Energy Absorbtion working on Test. If zero defense is the plan, we need to be told that explicitly.
Fifth - Ice Tanks would really appreciate being thrown a bone on the AV issue. There are two basic (reasonable) approaches to this:
* Allow EA to give us a decent DEF buff vs 1 foe.
* Reduce the damage of very large hits. (I would like to avoid resistance on my ice tank - but some special reduction to extreme-damage hits would be a benefit.)
With my specific experiences on Test (on Pre-EA tank, one post) I found that pre-EA defense was passable, though not by any means very good. Post-EA I felt very weak indeed.
I hope we can remain on-topic.
Because he could have just said "asking" but instead stretched for the sake of DRAMUH~!
Any defensive set like the ice tank (or scrapper SR, or whatever else) will be sub-par until such time as the 5% hit chance is removed. Due to this 5% cap, there needs to be a significant amount of resists to back up the defense.
Seems to me the resists available to ice tanks in I5 (I4 too, to a lesser degree) are quite insignificant for their tanking needs. Up the Ice tanker resists or remove the 5% hit chance minimum from the game.
Thank you.
Almost forgot...crying? You're the guy doing the PR? Yikes!
Thank you for listening States. Cries of frustration, cry of help, however you want to phrase it we appreciate that you are listening and respond to our PMs.
Thank you for your testing Circeus, I've already PMd you before to say how much your testing is appreciated on behalf of all ice tanks.
Now down to business ...
Firstly the ice tank issue isn't an issue 5 problem only - it is and has been an issue on live for a while. The current changes on test only compound the problem. You only have to see how rare ice tanks are to realise that we are underperforming in our role as a tank.
First off defence. I appreciate that you are trying to achieve balance, and that everyone wants their characters to be strong but the changes on test are too far imo. I love that EA regains end, I'll even overlook that it now seems to offer no defence at all but couple that with the seeming lack of any defence from wet ice and its too much. Yes the changes you mention to accuracy will help, but they are not ice specific.
The main problem is one shots, and certain enemies (such as DE) that cut through our defence and leave us as vunerable to one shots/fast death as the squishiest members of the team. Yes we are a defence build but please give us some damage resistance or another way to avoid these humiliating deaths!
Please look at icicles, the damage it does its awful. Maybe give us some extra offence as our defence. Fire tanks get burn, why not make icicles count for something other than end drain? If we are the weakest of the tank sets why not give us more damage to compensate?
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Winter is Coming (cookie for naming the reference): Click power, long recharge, Ranged AoE with a small radius. The Ice tank channels air/snow/ice directly from the north pole to a spot chosen by the Ice tank. Affected enemies (roll to hit) have all they're damage changed to DoT for 20-30 seconds.
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Going for my cookie now. Reference is to the Mantra of the Starks of Winterfell in the Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martin. Chocolote chip is fine, but chocolate chunk would be better.
Oh, and to all those upset about the usage of 'crying'? As stated above: Context. Crying in this context generally lends to plead or to declaim strongly, as in "he was crying for help" or " 'To Arms!' He cried". Notice that when you hit the F-10 key you shout your Battle CRY!? The oversensitivity is not helping. Seriously.
This is not something for Ice tankers or SR scrappers. This helps everyone. All those DR defense folk, those with no defense at all, they will also get hit less and take less damage.
Lower ACC and everyone benefits. The fact that you play a DEF powerset means nothing. As it is, ATs with 70% DR will still have 70% DR and get hit X% less because of the accuracy reductions.
Meanwhile, those DEF defense based players also get hit less, but (as an SR scrapper with no DR) will still take the same amount of damage.
I do not see how reducing accuracy helps Ice Tankers or SR scrappers any more then it helps Invulnerable, Fire or Regen. Everyone gets the benefit!
So while I think it's good that accuracy has been reduced, I fail to see why this would be considered specifically good for those with a DEF based powerset. It's no better for them than anyone else.
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This seemingly affects everyone, although Ice tankers and SR scrappers may benefit the most, along with bubblers (somewhat).
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Actually, they may benefit the least. If somehow, using power pools and whatnot, you managed to floor the ACC of an attacker to 5% before this change, then this change will have absolutely no impact on you whatsoever.
For example:
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Reduced Accuracy of Archvillains from 90% to 75%.
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So a 15% reduction...
If you had reduced their ACC to 15% before the change...you will only see a 10% improvement as 5% is the floor.
In order to get benefit from this 15% reduction, the mobs will need to have at least a 20% chance to hit you in the first place. Otherwise you will not see a 15% improvement, you will only improve enough to lower it to 5%.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This seemingly affects everyone, although Ice tankers and SR scrappers may benefit the most, along with bubblers (somewhat).
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, they may benefit the least. If somehow, using power pools and whatnot, you managed to floor the ACC of an attacker to 5% before this change, then this change will have absolutely no impact on you whatsoever.
For example:
[ QUOTE ]
Reduced Accuracy of Archvillains from 90% to 75%.
[/ QUOTE ]
So a 15% reduction...
If you had reduced their ACC to 15% before the change...you will only see a 10% improvement as 5% is the floor.
In order to get benefit from this 15% reduction, the mobs will need to have at least a 20% chance to hit you in the first place. Otherwise you will not see a 15% improvement, you will only improve enough to lower it to 5%.
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You're mis-stating the benefit here. The difference between being hit 15% of the time and being hit 5% of the time is a 300% increase in defense, not 10%.
The accurracy changes actually do help +DEF powerset significantly more than other sets, because it helps get us closer to the 5% cap.
Imagine acc was reduced from 50% to 49%, and Ice tank +DEF was 44% max.
Just going from 6% to 5% is a 16% increase in survivability. Going from 50% to 49% is only 2%.
The +DEF character is getting eight times the benifit.
Going from 90% to 75% is a 20% boost in survivability for everyone. But if that change moves you very close to the 5% cap, your benefit will be siginifacantly greater.
--Mr. Strange
Just for clarification, to those reading a bit much into it:
cry Audio pronunciation of "crying" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kr)
v. cried, (krd) cry·ing, cries (krz)
v. intr.
1. To sob or shed tears because of grief, sorrow, or pain; weep.
2. To call loudly; shout.
3. To utter a characteristic sound or call. Used of an animal.
4. To demand or require immediate action or remedy
As for the changes, I don't have an Ice Tanker, but I don't see how they help them, specifically. While it would be a nice change for everyone, it doesn't balance the Ice Tankers with the other sets.
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I've seen more than a few people crying for Ice Tankers to have their own place to give feedback.
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lol... good job States tellin us how you really feel.
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As for the changes, I don't have an Ice Tanker, but I don't see how they help them, specifically. While it would be a nice change for everyone, it doesn't balance the Ice Tankers with the other sets.
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Allow me to elucidate:
How changing AV accuracy from 90% to 75% helps Ice Tanks specifically (and SR scrappers).
Consider three tanks.
Tank A has 90% resistance to lethal damage. (Inv)
Tank B has 90% resistance and 28% defense to lethal. (Stone)
Tank C has 0% resistance and 70% defense to lethal (Ice)
damage taken = Damage*(%resistance)*(AV acc - DEF)
With AV acc of 90%:
A takes 9% damage from the AV.
B takes 6.2% damage from the AV.
C takes 20% damage from the AV.
This is essentially how it works on live. Inv takers (A) are even better off if they can keep enough foes around to get Invincibility running well.
Now let's see how an acc reduction affects things.
With AV acc of 75%:
A takes 7.5% damage.
B takes 4.7% damage.
C takes 5% damage.
Zing! Ice tanks benefit much more than the others do.
So does this mean Ice tanks are balanced with the other types? Well no. On test Ice tanks are not hitting anything like 70% DEF, probably due to some bugs. Also, damage taken over time (resistance style) is easier to respond to than damage taken in bursts (DEF style).
However, that's a point for another post. The point here is that, in fact, lowering hig acc values has significantly more benefit for DEF sets than others.
--Mr. Strange
[ QUOTE ]
Consider three tanks.
Tank A has 90% resistance to lethal damage. (Inv)
Tank B has 90% resistance and 28% defense to lethal. (Stone)
Tank C has 0% resistance and 70% defense to lethal (Ice)
damage taken = Damage*(%resistance)*(AV acc - DEF)
With AV acc of 90%:
A takes 9% damage from the AV.
B takes 6.2% damage from the AV.
C takes 20% damage from the AV.
This is essentially how it works on live. Inv takers (A) are even better off if they can keep enough foes around to get Invincibility running well.
Now let's see how an acc reduction affects things.
With AV acc of 75%:
A takes 7.5% damage.
B takes 4.7% damage.
C takes 5% damage.
Zing! Ice tanks benefit much more than the others do.
So does this mean Ice tanks are balanced with the other types? Well no. On test Ice tanks are not hitting anything like 70% DEF, probably due to some bugs. Also, damage taken over time (resistance style) is easier to respond to than damage taken in bursts (DEF style).
However, that's a point for another post. The point here is that, in fact, lowering hig acc values has significantly more benefit for DEF sets than others.
--Mr. Strange
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Ice tank takes weave...+12% = 82% defense.
Now they only take 8% damage initially which gets reduced to 5% after the change. Only a 3% increase. If they slotted weave and reduced the AV to 5% then they get *no* benefit from this change.
Because there is a cap, the closer you get to it (which only happens with DEF defenses) the less impact this change has on you.
In some cases it's better for a DEF, in others it's worse. For AVs it's better, for minions it's near no difference for DEF based defenses. Others do get the benefit though...
All I'm saying is this change is not UBER for SR scrappers or Ice Tankers.
Also, your math example only works because the first has 90% resist, while the DEF based Ice tanker has only a 70%... if the Ice Tanker had a 90% DEF it would be the same for both. So it improves the most for us because we are already lower than the rest...yipee.
Crying? Maybe he meant 'decrying' like we were making ourselves and our legitimate problem heard.
Not crying like we are a bunch of babies that need a pacifier.
At least that is what I hope.
kenny