Will we ever get an Ice Melee revamp?

As one of the people ( Tundara, Molar_Mauler, Ice_Ember, Wonderslug, and Aett_Thorn ) who fought for the most recent Ice Melee changes and has multiple Ice Melee tankers since launch, I have to say the only change that should be asked for is Greater Ice Sword to have another look. Ice Melee is about control and the only reason we asked for the changes were due to some of its control being reduced due to target cap changes "see Ice Patch target cap changes" and Frozen Aura being mostly worthless and an automatically skippable power way back when. With the Frozen Aura changes and Frost being (bare with me) used intelligently, Ice Melee does very well with multiple targets.


If I were to consider realistic options to improve Ice Melee this would be my list. For myself most of these besides GIS are QOL changes.

Either increase GIS damage from 87.2 to 108 (at 50) or decrease its activation from 2.33 seconds to 1.86 seconds and the recharge time from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. (Just a note, a power called Greater Ice Sword should be "Greater" then Ice Sword. )

Make Freezing Touches damage non DOT or frontload most of it like the Midnight Grasp change.

Frontload or split Frosts DOT into only 2 ticks of damage over 3 seconds instead of 6 ticks over 5 seconds .

Overall Ice Melee is performing much better then it used to. I am not going to quote numbers to support my position, but my experiences are more then enough to back up my point.


Ice

Well, they could always just proliferate the set to Stalkers and make the larger changes to GIS to see how it went. If the datamining shows it performing a lot better, maybe it will leak back over to the Tanker set >_>

So if they leave Ice Melee as it is, what does it work well with ?

And why ?

It works well with just about anything. Stone, Ice, Fire, Dark and Elec have damage aruas that cause mobs to try and run away when they get low on health. Ice patch hleps keep mobs in check.

Frozen aura is great mitigation for minions. With lots of mobs around you if solo, you can put the little stuff to sleep, concentrate on the boss and still feed RTTC, Invincibility or AAO.

Also adding more slows to mud pots is always a luagh.


What it does not go well with is trying to kill stuff fast solo.

I have been away for a few days,

Quote:

Originally Posted by New Dawn I'd like to think that the Devs looked at the other forums too but have to say we didn't do a lot of fighting, complaining or anything and so it was a way less laborious read.

Agreed, we did alot of crunching back and forth with numbers. Unfortunantly the actual Ice Melee 1 2 and 3 threads no longer exist. Honestly I didn't see much in other forums about Ice Melee besides the Main Powers forum and here. Alot of people pushed for the changes and my apologies to those that did push that I didn't mention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn Well, it was pretty much agreed that Ice Melee needed a change. Our fighting typically tended to be about HOW it should change, which made it so that our conversations were pretty cordial and on track.

Agreed, we had some heated and fun debates about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HelinCarnate None of those changes to GIS would happen as you suggested. The damage and endurance for GIS is currently the same as other single target 10 second recharge attacks. If the devs were to increase the damage, it would probably be to 101.4 and would also have an additional 2 seconds added to the recharge and bump up the end cost to 11.9. Some people could live with this change, but others would not because their attack chains would be messed up. Decrease in animation time may be possible but not with a lower recharge time. At least not without other changes. If the recharge time was dropped to 8 seconds then the damage would probably drop the damage to 73 and endurance to 8.53. I also imagine they would drop the slow from -16% to -8%. Again while some people would be fine with those changes, many would be upset over lower damage. (Me being one of them) About the only thing that could be done to GIS that would make the fewest people upset would be to just decrease the animation time. Put a big Ice sword in hand and do the Jawbreaker animation, for example, for a cast time of 1.83 seconds. (damage numbers for lvl 50)

Agreed, my analysis was not as detailed as I should of made it. A long time ago I had a proposal bout GIS emulating GFS except without the DOT damage that GFS has (80% of the time) While a 2 sec increase in recharge time and a end bump should not do major damage to someones attack chain someone will be upset. No matter what change is made someone will complain. When FA was changed we had a few upset because of they used the sleep to their advantage.



As for what goes well with Ice Melee, Fiery Aura, Shields and Ice imo would work best. It also depends on what you want to do. If you are building more for AOE damage then those 3 would be great choices. Ice Melee is a benefit for any tanker primary with Ice Patch alone.



Ice

I personally would like to see Ice Patch's cast time shaved down a bit. Right now it is just too long IMO. GiS could stand a look at as well, though.

Here is what I like to call a "Meta Idea". It can be applied to everything in the cities, but Ice offers a great example. Have different "tracks" for a powerset. If you envision the standard Ice Tanker, fine, you got your build. However, if you want to ditch all those cool control powers, take the Icy Fist track, and freeze/smash to your hearts content. The stuff would be high damage single target smash/cold, with secondary effect a tiny amount of stackable slows.

Apply this idea to every build/set in the game to allow more diversification within an already developed structure and you have the meta idea!

Since I posted this in another thread...

I think that FA's radius should match Foot Stomp's and GIS should use Clobber's damage/rech/end numbers. This way Ice Melee would have a hard hitter, but not a KO Blow/S. Smash potency power.

I'm just saying Frost should be a PBAoE.....