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Guess I'm the minority, my Fire/Ice seems powerful enough to me.
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I think that's the point, and has been heavily discussed in the 3 threads on Fixing Ice Melee. No one is debating Fire/Ice isn't fine in the dmg department, but that's mainly due to the one trick pony of Ice Patch+Burn.
Someone suggested datamining Ice Melee's performance after *excluding* Fire/Ice. Seems like a good place to start.
Let me add: fixing the pause after GIS is more of a bug than a balance issue IMO. If GFS was fixed, so should GIS...and fast.
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You can't exclude Fire/Ice from balancing. If Fire/Ice is "pretty good" now, then if /Ice receives a buff, it goes from "pretty good" to "potentially overpowering", depending on how they do it.
Some sets tend to have natural pairings. Some sets are balanced around those natural pairings. DM/DA, for instance. /DA is a horrible end hog, and can have difficulties with survivability unless played "right". DM provides an end recovery power and numerous survivability powers that tend to mesh with what you're trying to work with in DA. Now, while /DA is hardly gimped... you cannot argue that it operates far more efficiently with DM. Just like Fire/Ice. Like I say, /Ice needs work... but leaving Fire out is dangerous at best.
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
I'd leave Fire/Ice out during the first part of Arcana's suggestion To Get Things Changed, which I'll call the "identification phase." Factoring it out may help the devs see (and agree that there is) a problem. Even in this thread, those with Fire/Ice say that Ice Melee is fine. What about the others?
Similar analogies can be found with AR and Dev (both are pretty decent but together, not so much) and Elec primary with Elec/Eng vs non-Elec/Eng secondary.
However, when making a fix, yes, all Tanker primaries should be considered. So your point is well taken. Though how they addressed AR/Dev indicates that they are willing to make fixes based on the actual power combinations. Say a buff to Ice Melee which may not be as effective with Burn?
There is still debate, I think, on what folks want from Ice Melee. More dmg b/c they should be compensated for less control? Or more control, to make it the definite "king of control" for tankers?
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But the fact is I had little trouble even solo doing missions on Invincible. Sure I skipped the tier 9 power in Ice but there are a lot of sets with marginal tier 9 powers like MoG on a Stalker (having a high resistance doesn't help when it only leaves you 3 HPs).
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It's not that /mace is viewed as an unholy union of unusable and unplayable, but rather that it underperforms the other secondaries (except /ice). Anything in the game can solo to 50, if you are willing to put in the time. The relevant question here is how long did it take you do get there, and how would that compare to getting there as a /fire, /stone, or /SS?
RagManX
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You have obviously missed the point of Castles post to which I was agreeing. He said that Tanks are stronger than OTHER ATs not that every build is exactly balanced.
I could care less if every build is exactly balanced as long as none are unplayable or badly overpowered. The only way to make them exactly balanced is to make all the attacks and defenses the same.
And actually I blew through missions quite fast with Ice/Mace once I got to higher levels. The lower level Mace attacks are a problem but the higher level ones work well plus there is the "bug" that lets you perform a sort of combo attack and avoid weapon delay which really helps. If you queue another attack while Bash annimation is running the next attack plays immediately without the normal weapon delay. Only down side is like ranged attacks if the attack is queued up and mob dies you still attack him.
----------------------------
You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
The Devs don't seem to listen because they have different standards than the general board populace.
Ice Tankers do not underperform as a set compared to Blasters, Stalkers, and possibly Dominators.
But what about Ice Tankers compared to other Tankers?
Well, let's face it: someone is going to be (perceived as being) on the bottom. That may be Ice Tankers (it may be Fire Tankers). In any case, Ice is not intended to compare to Stone: that's why Stone has built-in self nerfs. If the Dev raise Ice up above som other set, they'll have to deal with the outcry from that set. Ergo, there's nothing wrong with being on the bottom of the Totem Pole, so long as you can still have fun there.
The point is, we are looking at: Is Ice the worst Tanker set?
And the Devs are looking at: Is Ice a good enough Tanker set?
If Ice is 'good enough' and something else isn't, the something else is going to take priority. If all of the Tanker sets are 'good enough', then Tankers as a whole will have to wait for something that isn't to be fixed first.
What is 'good enough'?
Looking at the way the game is built and the Dev Responses, it seems to be:
- Do Ice Tankers solo their own missions in the range of the 'average rate'?
- Can Ice Tankers get groups?
- With support from a team, can an Ice Tanker tank the aggro cap of enemies on average at even to +2 level?
I'd say the answer all of these is yes.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Uh, Kitsune, they're talking about /Ice Melee, not Ice/ Armor. 
Mm? Did I say Ice Armor?
EDIT: Perhaps I confused the issue by mentioning the Stone self-nerfs. But I was talking about Ice Melee.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Yeah, it was the "self nerf" comment that threw me off. I'm not aware of any "nerfs" applied by Stone Melee. Also, the 'tank aggro cap of +2s' made me think you were talking about armor as well.
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Mm? Did I say Ice Armor?
EDIT: Perhaps I confused the issue by mentioning the Stone self-nerfs. But I was talking about Ice Melee.
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- With support from a team, can an Ice Tanker tank the aggro cap of enemies on average at even to +2 level?
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this implies ice armor, not ice melee as well.
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- Do Ice Tankers solo their own missions in the range of the 'average rate'?
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compared to what? Compared to their tank secondaries with the same primary or across AT's. I hope a /ice tank can solo faster than a mind/emp or ice/emp controller. The fire/kin and fire/rad will go was faster than a /ice tank.
and to quote myself from page one of this thread...
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take ice for an aoe sleep power at lvl 38 which is out done by another aoe sleep power at 41.
take ice melee if you wnat you highest damaging attack at lvl 35 which does the same damage as other sets lvl 4 attack power
take ice melee if you dont want a true aoe attack power
take ice melee if you dont want a large cone attack power
take ice melee if you want you aoe damage aura to out damage your entire attack set
take ice melee if you want the fire epic power to out damage your entire attack set
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YMMV---IMO
Ice Ember
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I suppose I can understand why he thinks that way. Which is why I've tried, and apparently failed, to bring his attention to what my analysis has shown.
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You've not 'failed' -- I just haven't had time to address Stalkers issues, even just the ones I *can* do something about.
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I suppose I can understand why he thinks that way. Which is why I've tried, and apparently failed, to bring his attention to what my analysis has shown.
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You've not 'failed' -- I just haven't had time to address Stalkers issues, even just the ones I *can* do something about.
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Fair enough. As long as I know that, given adequate time, the issues will be addressed, whether with Stalkers or Ice Tanks whatever, I'm happy.
Also, it's getting kinda funny having to hound you in other subsections of the forums to get comments on Stalkers. 
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
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The problem with most mathematical experiments I see here in the forums is that they are measuring the extremities of performance. The datamining I do shows how players are actually performing in the "reality" of the game. The two are related, but there is often a vast gulf between what a set is capable of and what it is typically asked to do in gameplay.
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The reason we do that is because you (the Devs) when you talk about how you balance a Powerset seem to suggest you do so at the extremes of lvl 50. Is that wrong?
I ask because I would love to seem some discussion about "normal" builds and "normal" AT performance.
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The word "balance" means several different things in different contexts, and here in particular means two different things.
When the devs *design* a powerset, they generally design it on paper based on what the powerset could do theoretically, given all of its powers, within certain limits. That's apparently how defensive sets, like scrapper secondaries and tanker primaries were designed. So on paper they look at what the set will "mature into" at level 50, and see if what they've built is reasonable. That's "on paper design balancing."
However, when they "balance" archetypes and powersets that have already been designed and are in play, the *first* question they ask themselves, before they even *look* at the numbers, is apparently "is the average player hurting when playing this set?" To answer that question, they directly look at the XP rate (and some other metrics) of all players with that set, cross-referenced against a lot of variables (like combat level, paired powersets, etc). If that group of players appears to be progressing through the game at the expected pace, then that set is declared "good enough for now, find someone broken." That's "seeing if something is out of balance in actual play."
Mechanically attempting to balance something on paper, and detecting to see if something is out of balance in actual play, both are described as "balancing" but are totally different things at Cryptic, performed with two completely different perspectives.
Theoretically speaking, if they discovered a set that had radically lower than expected performance from level 20 to level 30 only, they might take that power set, throw away the powers you get from level 30 on up, and see if the remaining powers need a buff - a case of "paper-balancing" below level 50. But this is very rare because, I believe, its hard to underperform at level 30, then suddenly become a monster at 31: its unlikely to happen often.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
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Arcanaville,
You and I both know It is very hard to debate someone's results if you can't actualy see the results, the methods they were collected and see if you arrive at the same conclusion. Other wise its the old trust us...we know better....Cyrptic is hardly a transparent organization and they never seem to get in discussions of why they made what choices and that makes for a lot of dis-infranchisement.
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This is also a response to A_C as well. Yes, as I said, its not "fair" that they can see ours, but we can't see theirs. But that is the game and those are the rules, and Castle doesn't make up those rules either. Were I Positron, I would probably be telling Castle a similar directive of being very careful about not giving out our raw data or precise datamining methods. There's just no end to the kinds of problems that can create, even if its helpful for some players.
I look at this process as something akin to investigative journalism, where we have a source (Castle) that can tell us some things, and not other things. Our job is to work within that system to try to get as much information as we can, and conversely to try to give him as much information as we can about what we want him to look at, and deal with for us. Castle has practical limits on what he can do, and how much he can do. I understand he has a day job designing powers for an MMO when he's not working on our stuff.
So while its not "fair" that's a given, and an immutable, of the situation. The question is whether or not, fair or unfair, you want to play that particular game. Its no shame on anyone that decides its not for them, because it is in fact unfair. But that fact is not likely to change, its just the situation at hand.
Do I think they could be more open? Hell yes: there's lots of things they could discuss with us a hundred times better than they do now, even factoring in the time it would take, that have no problems intrinsic in disclosing sensitive data or methods. If you want to march on Cryptic asking for more thought process communication, I'll help light the torches. But in this case, Castle really is in a bind: he's not in a position to hand out datamining raw data (of course I've begged for it: remember who this is) so that's a limitation we simply have to work around.
Castle does seem to be able to say "X underperforms" especially when it does so strongly enough for the devs to have already made the decision to do something about it. So, to the extent that Castle has the time to indulge us, one way to get at the data without getting the actual data is to start asking intelligent question he can answer of the form "if Ice melee doesn't underperform, does it underperform for all players that take at least six Ice melee powers?" Or: "does Ice melee underperform for solo tankers, separate from when they are teamed?" Keeping in mind that the more questions we ask, the less time Castle will have to answer any one of them.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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hey castle, thanks for staying in the thread.
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Yer kiddin right? You couldn't hide this stuff from him if ya wanted to. If it even smells like a spreadsheet or new Power-Alt/min-max, he's on it like white on rice...
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_Castle_ wrote:
Ice Melee does well at all power levels
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
LOL.
And Kheldians don't suck.
And the check's in the mail.
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Whoa, Khelds don't suck.
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Well, in his defense, khelds do suck. a warshade can bring a decent force to a pve team, but a peacebringer is nothing but a burden. they should just all set their battle cries to "PLZ KILL TEH QUANTUM"
But back to the original point at hand, ice melee functions fine at any level. ice patch is what really makes the set in pve, and while its low damage (obviously) its control more than makes up for it.
as annoying as they are, stone/ice tanks are probably the best tanks you can build for pure tanking.
The Kheld thing aside, since my Peacebringer has been requested on many teams, and I need no help with Quantums or Voids, I still disagree with everything you've said.
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But back to the original point at hand, ice melee functions fine at any level. ice patch is what really makes the set in pve, and while its low damage (obviously) its control more than makes up for it.
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Really...would you like to discount the math that people have put up to show that no, it doesn't? Ice patch is good, but on the whole, the control level isn't as good as you seem to think it is. It's barely above stone, and the lack of damage is well below stone. We've backed this up with numbers. If you'd care to do the same, or have any evidence to back up your opinion, that would be great.
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as annoying as they are, stone/ice tanks are probably the best tanks you can build for pure tanking.
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I'd agree with that, but they're not going to be doing any damage. And therein lies the problem. No one here is arguing that /Ice allows for good control, what we're saying is that the corresponding lack of damage is actually lower than it needs to be for the control that we have. Especially the functional control.
Ice Patch should not mean that the rest of the set has to suck, and we have numbers showing that it pretty much does.
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 don't really care numbers as I'm not so obsessed with a character's crappiness that I have to sit there and crunch numbers on ice melee. It's like dark melee. I deal with what I have when I play that character. they're not going to ever give it buildup or anything.
just reroll if you hate it so much. of course they won't be doing much damage, as they picked STONE ARMOR and ICE MELEE. that's not the point. the point is they'll make the strongest tank for pve there is. If the rest of your team doesn't suck, you won't need to do any damage, because you should have blasters dealing with that issue, except you people whine that blasters supposedly suck too so it's lose lose arguing about that part.
my "numbers" show that ice melee tanks tank just fine. my "numbers" also show that blasters are fine too but apparently because other people don't know how to play them and die 6 times a mission, they must be underpowered.
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apparently because other people don't know how to play them and die 6 times a mission, they must be underpowered.
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As a matter of fact, this is a true statement. The game is not balanced around what you can do, but what the average player can do.
I'm also always amused by the implicit statement behind most posts like this, which is that if the game was balanced around "skilled (fill in the blank archetype) players" they'd actually be one of those the game was balanced around. There's no allowing for the possibility that if the game was only balanced for "skilled" players they'd be playing golf on a Wii right now.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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[ QUOTE ]
I don't really care numbers
[/ QUOTE ]
So, all you have is opinion, not facts.
Have you played Ice melee tanks?
Have you played a stone/ice tank?
Have you played an Ice/stone tank?
IMO, Ice/stone and Stone/fire would be the strongest tanks. I have proof of the ability of one and I am working on proof of the other. (Ice/fire is a great powerhouse as well...)
And just because you could not figure out how to play a kheld does not mean they suck. Maybe it means you just suck at playing them. My WS and PB are both great. On the otherhand, my fire/ice tank is under performing by my experiance, and the experience of other members on the boards, and we provided data for the dev's to look at. You just have a baseless opinion on them.
And if you dont like it, take a look at the link in the sig...
YMMV---IMOIce Ember
_Castle_ ... you have once again proven why you are one of THE most appreciated red names to appear in the forums.
'Nuff said. 
On the subject of */Ice Melee, specifically, is there anything in the Fixing /Ice Melee; 3.0, or its preceeding thread(s), that is of *any* use to you? Do you have any "points of interest" with regards the powerset that you would like to know more about, either in general or in specificity?
In short, is there anything that We The People can do for you, _Castle_?
It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
ice ember you need to probably work on your slotting then, or maybe choose a build that doesn't totally revolve around dropping ice patch and spamming burn.
[Just using the first post to reply]
I think I can see where /Ice Melee is being seen as not the best/but not the worst.
Solo wise, while slow (maybe it's my build) to arrest, feels quite safe with just 1 RCH in Ice Patch.
However, I don't need Ice Patch to survive solo either. In some situations it does help tho.
And with 1 RCH and my other +recharge set bonuses, I can lay more than one IP down at a time with my Ice Tank when teaming.
Add in that I have a hold attack...Ice Melee is really safe set.
That being said, and I think it's been shown, Ice Melee's control just isn't worth the dmg loss.
Again, maybe it's my lack of Frost in the build. However, I have used it, and just wasn't impressed with it. Looked cool animation wise, but dmg wise...meh. :P Should I be respecing it in?
Already have it planned to take Frozen Aura...but I figure I need to try that power out too (less than a lvl away). Tho, while I'm here...does FA generate aggro? Cuz, I was thinking, the sleep might be worthless, but at least it's a PBAOE taunt attack.
Also, just from my experience on Victory Server, Ice Melee is pretty well known to be sad in the dmg department (I don't think it's just a forum thing). However, in game, it does seem to be looked at with smiles, when it comes to Ice Patch (even if it's not as great or 100% effective in keeping the 5 targets from attacking).
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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The problem I have with numbers is, to quote someone, "Lies, damned lies and statistics"
Statistics NEVER tell the real story. despite how many times you may have watched numb3rs episodes, People honestly do not work that way. The only way to get a real idea of what a powerset can do is to play it yourself, all the way.... and even then, your playstyle is going to be very, very different from someone else adn they may get a million times more effect out of it.
Ice melee is a perfect example.
Numerically, it might seem to underperform other sets.
So let's look at it from a different perspective. In this case, let's look at the numbers for secondary effects instead of the primary numbers that everyone else looks at. the numbers here are 'damage mitigated' instead of 'damage caused'
The problem is that no matter WHAT you are 'statistically analyzing' you are ALWAYS trying to prove something. You discard attributes that don't agree or seem 'relevant' to whatever you are trying to prove, or you might even discard them because the math is too hard or the effective uses require a level of skill that you don't, personally, possess.
That's one of the reasons I tend to argue with angry_Citizen a lot. Because I disagree....not with his math, but with the fact that I don't agree that the things he is calculating are the correct things to be calculating.
Perhaps there are other factors here that people haven't thought about...remember only a very small part of the playerbase actually hangs out on the forums, it is entirely possible that we missed things without understanding what it was we missed or why.
There might, potentially, be scores of players who are getting incredible amounts of mitigation out of frozen aura, using a tactic that none of us has seen used before.
Maybe there's a trick with greater ice sword that turns it into an incredibly destructive 'insta-kill' power, and we haven't seen it.
Maybe there are combinations with other AT's that make /ice tankers incredibly powerful, and we haven't seen it.
The problem is that there IS no fair way to 'run the numbers' to calculate a reasonable figure based on damage, recharge, end use, and mitigation. Mitigation is a hugely slippery concept.
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Add in that I have a hold attack...Ice Melee is really safe set.
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Tanker Secondaries with 100% chance hold/stun attacks:
Energy.
Stun: Mag 3 Stun, 6.67 Smashing, 4.45 Energy
Total Focus: Mag 4 Stun, 44.49 Smashing, 113.89 Energy
Ice.
Frozen Touch: Mag 3 Hold, 6 * 12.46 Cold
Stone.
Seismic Smash: Mag 4 Hold, 158.38 Smashing
Super Strength.
Knockout Blow: Mag 3 Hold, 158.38 Smashing
War Mace.
Clobber: Mag 3 Stun, 11.12 Smashing
Ice's hold attack isn't even slightly the best.
@JohnP - Victory
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Hmmm... I wonder if I could get Positron as well...
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my only losses were in SG v SG events and my 1 on 1 against Pohsyb's Ill/Kin Controller.
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/em flex
\o(^_^)o/
[/ QUOTE ]
/ZOMG! I got 2 Devs at once!
/em Flex2
/em Victory
Mace and Invul tankers, eat your hearts out.
d=^_^=b
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Ok now you are just herding! Stop it before the entire tanker forum gets nerfed!
[/ QUOTE ]
Aww... but herding is such fun.
=. .=