Ice/Stone Advice


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Posted

Hey all, I've been playing an Ice/Stone tank lately as a few Ice tanks have really inspired me to play the set; I picked earth simply because it's one of the only 2 attack sets I'd yet to try (Axe, Earth). Anyways, my tank is now level 36 and I've begun hearing how great of a power fault is (I skipped it). Only issue is, if fault really is a good power, than grabbing it will really mess up my plans.

Since I'm currently lv 36, I only have 5 powers left to choose, and what I had in mind was, Seismic Smash, Weave, Buildup, char, fire blast. Anyways even with this setup, I still cant grab fireball, which is what I really wanted; but now that I'm seeing fault as a useful attack, grabbing fireball will be just be alot harder now. I'll post my build for you all, and any critiquing you can give would really help...

One more thing, the only reason I'm so pressed on fireball is simply because my build is a elemental theme; without fire, it just wouldnt feel right.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

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Enchampion: Level 36 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Ice Armor
Secondary Power Set: Stone Melee
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Frozen Armor -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(3), DefBuff(3), EndRdx(5)
Level 1: Stone Fist -- Dmg(A), Dmg(5), Dmg(7), Acc(7)
Level 2: Stone Mallet -- Dmg(A), Dmg(9), Acc(9), Dmg(11), Acc(17), RechRdx(17)
Level 4: Hoarfrost -- Heal(A), Heal(11), Heal(13), RechRdx(13), RechRdx(15), RechRdx(15)
Level 6: Heavy Mallet -- Dmg(A), Dmg(19), Acc(19), Dmg(21), Acc(21), RechRdx(23)
Level 8: Chilling Embrace -- EndRdx(A), Taunt(23)
Level 10: Wet Ice -- EndRdx(A)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 14: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 16: Icicles -- EndRdx(A), EndRdx(25), Acc(25), Dmg(27)
Level 18: Glacial Armor -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(27), DefBuff(29)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(29), EndMod(31)
Level 22: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 24: Super Jump -- Jump(A)
Level 26: Energy Absorption -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(31), DefBuff(31), DefBuff(33), DefBuff(33), EndMod(33)
Level 28: Boxing -- Acc(A)
Level 30: Tough -- ResDam(A), ResDam(34), ResDam(34)
Level 32: Hibernate -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(34)
Level 35: Tremor -- Dmg(A), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), Acc(36)
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet


- Im Not Talking Fast, You're Just Listening Slow.
- To Each His Own

 

Posted

I'm no ice/ or /stone person, so I can't really say anything about your build.

Now, I don't know what your planning on doing with this build, so I can only assume normal lead tanking.

With that in mind, I would suggest getting rid of Build-Up for Fault.

If you are willing to do a respec, I would also suggest taking out one of your Mallets to squeeze in Fire-Ball into your build. I've seen plenty of /stone brutes and tanks skip a Mallet and do perfectly fine.

...Those are just my 2cents, take it however you want.


 

Posted

My first suggestion is to get Fault, it's in my opinion one of the best powers in the entire Stone Melee set; make room for it by dropping Stone Mallet. I'd also personally try to find a way to squeeze in Taunt but that would mean dropping Fire Ball.

My best suggestion would be to eliminate Stone Mallet, move Hoarfrost to 2, Heavy Mallet to 4, Hurdle to 6, Combat Jumping to 12 and slot Fault in at 22. Pick up Seismic at 38, then Char/Fireblast/fireball and Weave at 49.

Any way you look at it you're going to be making some fairly painful sacrifices by including the Fighting pool. At a cursory glance over your set you'll need to find about 8% S/L/E/N defense in set bonuses in order to soft cap your defense... which is fairly easy to do. You can forgo getting Weave and make up for it by finding ~16% in set bonuses which is also relatively easy to do.

Sets you could look for to boost your defenses:
<ul type="square">[*]Kinetic Combat - 4 of these is worth 3.75% defense to Smash/Lethal and you can slot 4 sets of them for 15% defense to S/L (Stone fist/Heavy Mallet/Boxing/Seismic Smash. [*]Blessing of the Zephyr - 2 of these gets you 1.56% Energy/Negative defense; you can toss them into Combat Jumping/Super Jump for 3.12% E/N defense.[*]Steadfast Protection 3% def unique - you can toss this into Tough or Permafrost for a 3% defense to all types.[*]Reactive Armor - 4 of these gives you 1.25% S/L/E/N defense, you can toss the set into Tough.[*]Thunderstrike - 3 of these gives you 2.5% E/N defense, the set fits nicely into Fire Blast[*]Mocking Beratement - lots of goodies in this set, bonus end, 2.5% S/L defense and 7.5% recharge are the big ones. This goes nicely into Taunt.[/list]
As you can see, once you start thinking in terms of IO set bonuses you can find more options in your build and ways to "loosen up" your build a bit. Your S/L defense is by far the most important one; the vast majority of damage you'll take will either be S/L or have a S/L component. Due to the way Defense works an attack that does, say, 100 energy and 100 smashing damage has to get thru the highest applicable defense you have... if you've 30% energy def and 45% smashing def then the attack has to get thru the 45% defense or it misses completely.


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Posted

You can also slot the Steadfast +3def unique in Hoarfrost.


 

Posted

Thanks for the advice all. Considering what you said, I think I'll skip buildup for fault, and drop stone mallet for fireball. Although I know Im gonna miss that burst damage, but ah well. That's why they call it sacrifice.

In due time however, I may just grab buildup instead of weave, depends on how my defense bonuses playout.

Once again, thankyou


- Im Not Talking Fast, You're Just Listening Slow.
- To Each His Own

 

Posted

Truthfully I've always looked at Build Up as a completely skippable power for any tanker... there's always something else available that will help you more. While you obviously have damage remember that it isn't your primary focus... you're mainly looking at controlling and surviving aggro that would turn most other AT's into a grease spot on the carpet.

In your case you've a tight enough build that there's lots of powers that I'd take first... Taunt for one. It's a ranged attention getter that you can toss some really nice inexpensive IO bonuses into. I always apply the following general philosophy with any tanker I roll up:
<ul type="square">[*]1. Will this power help me with my primary purpose, to control and hold the attention of the baddies?[*]2. Will this power help me survive the aggro I generate by my #1 priority?[*]3. Will this power help me deal damage to the mobs I have aggro'd on me from my first two priorities?[/list]I look at the powers available to me and prioritize them in that order, #1 is aggro tools, #2 is survival tools and #3 is damage tools. Obviously there's some overlap as the #1 and #2 go hand in hand but that's the thought process I apply for any power choice.

Applying that logic I want my taunt aura and armors as a priority so I can get and survive the team's aggro, followed by attention getting attacks and damage mitigation attacks such as Fault. I want to have the endurance to last out the fight and finally I want to have the damage to both kill the mobs and keep their attention via Gauntlet.

That thought process prioritizes my power selections; by using that priority list I find that I've run out of power slots long before I run out of higher priority powers than Build Up.


COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

 

Posted

If it were me and I was trading out a power from your build for Fault I would drop Icicles. You have Chilling Embrace for a taunt aura and Fault provides a larger AoE and better damage mitigation than Icicles.


"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull

"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the advice all. Considering what you said, I think I'll skip buildup for fault, and drop stone mallet for fireball. Although I know Im gonna miss that burst damage, but ah well. That's why they call it sacrifice.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. But remember - you can have two builds. On a team, you'll be doing less damage than nearly everyone else, so give or take an attack and it won't really matter.

On your solo build, you can skip Taunt and probably something else, and fit in more attacks and Build Up.

Fault tip - slot it for accuracy and recharge. Regardless of how good or bad your defenses are, they can't hurt you if they aren't standing up. Between Tremor and Fault you can have angry critters bouncing all over while your team wipes 'em up. Plus, Fault has a 20' range, so you can topple a spawn as you approach, before they get an alpha attack ready.

Also, Energy Absorption has low(ish) defalt accuracy, but doesn't take accuracy enhancements. But you can slot Endmod sets that enhance accuracy, such Performance Shifter, and Efficacy Adaptor. I slot a pair each of endmod/acc/rech and endmod/rech, and it works pretty well.

Also, it's nearly useless to slot +Def in EA. The base defense is .6% and you can slot that up to .9 with three SOs... but that space is better used by recharge, endmod and acc. Or even an End Redux, since it costs 13 Endurance, and when you're that low is when you really need it.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
If it were me and I was trading out a power from your build for Fault I would drop Icicles. You have Chilling Embrace for a taunt aura and Fault provides a larger AoE and better damage mitigation than Icicles.

[/ QUOTE ]

You'd find that over time Icicles does more damage than any other attack you have; I find on my Stone/Fire tanker that Mud Pots actually outdamages Fire Sword Circle by a substantial margin. This is taken from Herostats; those small pinpricks of damage that a damage aura puts out really add up. It may only be dealing small bits of damage, but it deals lots of them constantly to everything around you. Those little bits of damage also work with your taunt aura to make sure the baddies pay attention to you.

Of course I firmly agree that Fault is a large part of the reason for rolling a Stone Melee tanker in the first place, it's an incredible amount of control and mitigation and should always be taken ASAP... I put Stamina ahead of it but taking it later than 22 is a big mistake.


COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes