Doubled tanker primaries are nothing on doubled defender primaries. Empathy + FF, anyone?
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It's a matter of taste and play stile, fire/fire is the most damaging tanker around, fire/ice is the most resilient fire tanker build around. 
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C'mon issue 7, c'mon...
Ice tanks will rule the tanking world!
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It's a matter of taste and play stile, fire/fire is the most damaging tanker around, fire/ice is the most resilient fire tanker build around.
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C'mon issue 7, c'mon...
Ice tanks will rule the tanking world!
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Everyone seems to forget that Stone and Invuln both have lots of defence, just a load more resistances than Ice...
Stone in Granite and an Invuln with Invincibility + Tough Hide with some mobs around are both at almost the same level of defence as an Ice tanker with all his armor running + EA.........
Ice will do a lot better for sure but Stone and Invuln will still be better.
Stone + Invun - some defence, some resistance
Ice - all defence
Therefore:
Stone + Invun some improvement
Ice better improvement
Smiles all round, but you cant say that Stone + Invun are gonna be "more" better than Ice. Ice is biggest winner as is ENTIRELY defence base
But my point is that Ice won't be the super duper uber tanker as many are thinkin, it will be much better than now, for sure, but every other set will do much better aswell because any non-fire tanker gets defence from theyr primary.
By taking all the primaries that matters and at their best (with 10 foes in the range of Energy Absorption and Invincibility)Ice has roughly 41% def to all but psi and 90% res to cold and a bit to fire(can't recall if it's 15-20%)while Invuln has 32% def('some', lol)to all but psi BUT Invuln also has 67% res to S/L(yeah, 'some' res)and around 28% to other elements(always not psi) without other power pools those number looks fairly in favor in Invuln, the player matters a lot anyway, cos i've seen Granite tankers being outanked by Invulns, but that's another story 
Not to talk of Granite that gives you some resistances, like 80% to all,and 32% def to all...
They all will be better, Ice will be helped more but anything with a defence power will take adavantage from the change(even a blaster swallowing a handful of purples for the matter).
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They all will be better, Ice will be helped more but anything with a defence power will take adavantage from the change(even a blaster swallowing a handful of purples for the matter).
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2 purples rather than a handful. If he swallows more than 2 he is wasting them, 2 lucks will cap defence unless they change them. I suspect they will, they are overpowered anyway.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Ice tanks Chilling Embrace is the signature power of the Ice set.
When comparing tanks, you cant just look at Res and Def. Anything in CE rather large effect is slowed (damage mitigation) and does -14% damage (to ALL damage types) IIRC. These are very important damage mitigation tools.
And "toughness" aside, Ice tanks are, IMO, better at keeping aggro than any other tank: therefore more valuable in teams.
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Ice tanks Chilling Embrace is the signature power of the Ice set.
When comparing tanks, you cant just look at Res and Def. Anything in CE rather large effect is slowed (damage mitigation) and does -14% damage (to ALL damage types) IIRC. These are very important damage mitigation tools.
And "toughness" aside, Ice tanks are, IMO, better at keeping aggro than any other tank: therefore more valuable in teams.
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Chilling Embrace is deffo a good tool to increase survivability but as the relative level of the foes you're fighting increase the effect of the debuff drops drastically and it's only in melee range, so it's just a pseudo-res.
No doubt that ice has one of the best taunt aura(CE) that along with Icicles(that no one seems to value but for keeping aggro are ace)grants you total attention from the crowd.
But while tankin and keeping aggro you have to take in account to many stuff than just the primary, fire secondary grants you uber crowd control even for an invuln without CE, almost all the other melee have near wothless AoE for keeping aggro except for the Footstomp that with his knock up help A LOT while tankin, I noticed that while in mish with Unthing and his Goldem Golem, never thought of that before but that knockup is an excellent way to increase survivability.
I could spend loads more words on tools helpful to keep aggro but it's not the time nor the post to do so 
CE maybe a pseudo-res, but when I tend to fight I have nearly everything in melee range, so its still 14% damage mitigation.
In protracted fights, a 3xEnd Mod SO 1xRech SO energy absorbtion can also mean "game over" for minions quite quickly as they are sapped to zero end. Another method of controllery type defence around. Mind you fire does things similar.
Id have to say that pre lvl 32 its gonna be very hard to beat Ice tanks in issue 7 for damage mitagation and aggro grabbing ability. Ice only really let down by a rather spectacularly poor lvl 32 power, which is only a rather average "oh ****" button...
Id still put money on ice vs stone at 1 on 1 if anyone could face the 3 hour fight. Mainly cos of energy sapping ability of ice. That could lead to some nasty detoggling.
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CE maybe a pseudo-res, but when I tend to fight I have nearly everything in melee range, so its still 14% damage mitigation.
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You are forgetting the -recharge and slow. The -recharge is significant. Also with a bit of motion on the tanks part slow can reduce DPS slightly too, ever seen a blaster use Caltrops?
The problem is that all of the Ice tanks nifty tricks ( defence, -recharge, -damage, -end ) are reduced in effectiveness when fighting high level opponents. Resistance doesn't do this. They are fixing defence in I7 so it it isn't reduced in effectiveness but that still leaves the other Ice effects.
Also damage debuff is resistable. A enemy with resistance to the damage type of its own attacks is debuffed less. For instance an Inv/SS tanker or Brute with 50% resistance will only be damage debuffed by 7%. This means that against some of the more dangerous foes, your damage debuff has less effect.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
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I wonder what the best two primaries together are. Probably something boring like Ice/Ice for double stacked Chilling Embrace and capped defence before Energy Absorption.
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What about stone/fire. granite armour, mudpots for slow, blazing aura, then burn em, burn em all.