Untag Ice Tank Hibernate as a 'Phase' Power

This.

Ice is the only power set in the game that can, on it's own, reach Smash / Lethal Softcap Defense on SO's with no IO boosts in mob combat without activating a Tier 9 Alpha Defense:



Ice also gets a good amount of Defense Debuff Resistance. At level 50, you'll be pushing 51.90% Defense resistance (17.30% from Glacial Armor, Frozen Armor, and Wet Ice). Thus, if you've got the cash / merits, you can rack up on IO defense boosts and pretty much never be put into cascading defense failure.

Ice also gets one of the strongest Mob Endurance Reduction powers in the game, as Energy Absorption can yank in -70% AttrEndurance when slammed into the ED limits. Two swipes will pretty much do in every single minion / lewy in the game, and wipe out most bosses. Ice also gets one of the strongest constant toggle slows in the game: wiping out 56% travel speed and 32% recharge on an end usage of .26/s. A Controller Cold Dom / Storm's Snow Storm uses up twice the end per second for a 62.5% run drop... although the recharge drop is better as it's 62.5% as well.

Even on SO builds, Ice is one of the more potent tanker sets in the game. When you start accounting for team-buffs, IO boosts, and accolade powers, Ice gets even more disgusting.

Hoarfrost, for example, can push an Ice tank to 3212.69 Hp. That's cap. That's: MAXIMUM HP:



Even better, Hoarfrost has a base recharge timer of 6minutes and an effect of two minutes. So, just on SO's you can punch it down to a 3 minute timer. If you work the IO system, you can almost get massive recharge boosts and get Hoarfrost really close to perma.

***

Okay, fine. Ice does have some glaring weaknesses. It is only a defense set, so pretty much any attack that does make it through is going to hit for full damage. And yes, it does have a gaping Psi hole so Rularuu / Carnies / Rikti cackle madly with glee. It's also a tremendous end hog, chewing up around 1.56 endurance per second unslotted, never-minding tough and weave.

But for what the set can do on SO's and then IO's? Those tradeoffs, and the hibernation trade-off... are more than worth it.

Thanks for the mildly patronizing tone (I expected that, of course), but there is nothing wrong with my build, or my playstyle. I am softcapped to Energy/Negative Energy, as well as Smashing/Lethal with sets + tough + weave + combat jumping, at a level of 45.07% or so. My sets are Ice/SS. I have both Hibernate and Hoarfrost, and a global recharge bonus of around 80%, 150% or so with Hasten.

Hibernate is not 'better' than a phase power, it's a different kind of power. You are not 'phasing' out of reality, you are building a wall against the world. Conceptually... that seems different to me.

Thanks for bringing up the fact that this was changed for PVP reasons.. PVP has no bearing whatsoever on this power for PVE, nor should it. It can remain flagged for PVP purposes - I could really care less with PVP as borked as it is right now.

I have no issues with regular spawns of enemies on a decent team. However... Ice is very weak to AVs, imo. First of all, AVs above +0 difficulty can practically ignore even softcapped defenses.. because Ice lacks in terms of diversity of mitigation, this leaves you with your big heal and hibernate to stop the incoming damage. Try the following simple experiment:
1. Get a bank mission with an AV. Put on your team 3 or 4 damage dealers and 3 debuffers with relatively minor heals (if they have heals at all - a typical PUG build, in a mundane situation compared to the classic AV fight).
2. Bring a tray full of greens and purples.
3. If you and your team defeat the AV without dying, you shall be awarded a trophy.

I have done it once, but I died directly after the AV.

Ask yourself: do your other tanks have this kind of difficulty in such a mundane situation?

AVs still spawn in safeguards? I haven't seen a Hero spawn in a Mayhem for many months

Look- I love my Ice tank for concept reasons. Pragmatically speaking, I've improved him greatly with IOs. I do well with him. But out of the box was he any good? Ha ha ha. If you have an alternate build with no IOs, try doing a standard +2 Arachnos radio mission with a team of 8. Let me know how that works out for you. You can substitute Carnies and Malta in there if you like. That leaves... oh yes, two out of the five factions you typically encounter at high levels, being 'straightforward' for ice... namely Council and CoT. Oh wait! If you happen to encounter an all behemoth spawn (fairly typical for CoT), you'll probably die because of your laughably weak fire resistances.

Point by point:
+Capped smash/lethal resistance with SOs - yes, with all the other tradeoffs you'd Better have some advantage. Ask yourself, is tough/weave Mandatory for survivability on most other tanking builds?
+'Ice also gets a good amount of Defense Debuff Resistance.' That's good, I was not actually aware of the DDR going on here. However... it's on par with other defense based sets that have actual defense against fire/cold (Shields/SR). Fire seems like an extraordinarily common enemy damage type in this game.
+'Mob Endurance Reduction' - doesn't do anything for your survivability, because of the binary nature of endurance in PVE. You will never completely sap your enemies in my experience (how are you slotting to accomplish this?), so you are not really stopping them from attacking you. In long fights it can occasionally make a difference against bosses, but it is hardly noticeable.
+'Slowing/Recharge Reduction' - The slow is enhanceable, the recharge reduction not, correct? The slow is a good deal for keeping taunted enemies near you. I think the recharge reduction is balanced by the fact that if this and Icicles are ticking, you are pulling aggro to yourself like crazy.
+'Hoarfrost' - Most other builds with a big heal (Dull pain, for example) can cap with the heal and make it perma. I don't see this as a huge advantage over most other sets, although the heal is certainly useful.

So, to summarize, we have features that are fairly standard for defense based sets (some decent ddr, ability to cap), a recharge slow (compared to a personal recharge speedup for SR, for example), and a self heal (not standard for defense based sets), balanced against very very low smashing/lethal resists, pathetic fire resists, low base regen, massive psi hole, massive endurance drain only somewhat able to be mitigated by a long animating recovery power, and a tier 9 which, unlike everything else in the game I am aware of, cannot be enhanced in any meaningful way, and which precludes the use of the only true emergency 'temp' power in the game, 'phase.'

I rest my case.

You're conflating a bunch of things that shouldn't be conflated, in order to make me seem unreasonable.

Ask yourself: Was Hibernate balanced for Ice Tanks, 'out of the box?'
The answer is: 'Yes.'
Only many issues later, when PVP exploits arose, was a sweeping 'global' change made to this power. It is my contention that this change was not properly considered with respect to the only tanker primary that uses it as a 'stock' part of its repertoire.

If you follow this reasoning, what you are saying about game balance intentions goes out the window. As far as I am aware, the PVP change was not made to impact Ice tankers specifically, nor was it intended to balance the PVE aspect of the game. Therefore, your point has no merit... this change was not a PVE balance consideration. The fact that you think the set is more 'balanced' to your playstyle now is also irrelevant.

I am not talking about soloing AVs, here. I am talking about a reasonable 'emergency' power used by the prime tank to prevent teamwipes in combination with taunt.

You guys should make a golden calf and call it 'current status quo.' Why so deferential to imagined authority?

The only trouble with taking the status quo as your metric, in this case, is that the status quo was different before (balanced), and the only reason it was changed was because of a gaming system (PVP) that has now been completely separated from PVE. Thus, a proper status quo argument would actually involve reverting the power to its pre-PVP stage, as PVP considerations no longer apply.

Well, actually, no, it wasn't balanced out of the box. Hence, the reason for the change. No, the change was not to specifically target Ice Tankers, but being able to chain Hibernate -> Phase -> Hibernate was also not particularly balanced, either in PvP or PvE. Certainly, it had a bigger effect in PvP, but it wasn't supposed to be that you could use Taunt, then go into Hibernate, pop out, Taunt, Phase Shift, pop out, Taunt, Hibernate again, either.

You have two emergency powers to use when facing an AV. Use Hoarfrost first, then if you need another, use Hibernate until you are healed back up.

I have never had a problem, using those two powers, even after the nerf to Hibernate, against AVs. Heck, I rarely even have to use Hibernate, especially on an even halfway decent team. As such, I am not really seeing a need for a change like this. I am unsure as to why your tank cannot survive for 45 seconds against an AV with team support, when Hibernate will be back up.

We are not just defending the status quoe for the sole reason of defending the status quo. I will not speak for the others, but I am worried that, if your change were to be made to the power, that the Devs would change some other factor of the power to compensate.

PvP was NOT the only reason it was changed. Was it a large part of the change? Yes. Was it the ONLY reason? No, it was not. There were some PvE exploits with it as well.

Alright, well then we have a different perspective, and can agree to disagree on this. From a gameplay standpoint, I see it as a boring power. Useful? Yes. Fun? Not particularly. I would like something that would allow me to be a bit more active.

If it were my call, I would advocate for eliminating the phase temp power (Ethereal shift) and leaving in the pool power. I think there are a lot of things more game breaking than chaining hibernate and the pool power.

It's far more than two powers. Little bit of game history -

Back a good ways, Phase Shift (pool power) used to be a straight toggle. You could turn it on and leave it on as long as you had the END. No, you couldn't attack, but you were perfectly safe. (I used it, for instance, to enter the Hive back in I3-I4 and run right into the middle of the Hamidon.)

That was changed so it would time out, END or no, in 30 (actually 27, given activation time) seconds.

Peacebringer Quantum Flight was the same way - turn it on, as long as you have END you're phased (and at capped flight speed.) That was also changed - twice. First time it gave an increasing END cost, so you would run out of END eventually (which people still worked out ways to stretch,) then it got the timer and "nophase" followup. (The last was added to every phase power.)

Hibernate is like QFly in a way. Puts you in a phased state (graphically different, yes, but the effect is the same, unlike just a "high def" power) and has a special effect. In Quantum Flight, it's the max flight speed. For Hibernate, it's ramped up recovery/regen.

There are two temp phase powers, as well - Hyper Phase, which you can get three times, lasts for 30 minutes, for doing a patrol in Warburg. It times out after 30 seconds. Then there's the Etherial Shift temp power, which is crafted and has five uses - and still shuts down after 30 seconds.

Now, PVP was brought up for this - as people would stealth, attack, and phase to avoid retaliation... and be able to just keep chaining phases. But the only thing PVP did was bring it *more into the spotlight.* The devs have made it clear in the past that they don't want you to be able to do something risk free. Chain-phasing, including with hibernate, would have been "risk free" (or low enough to be otherwise.) Heck, it was one of the reasons given for the very first phase change - "Phase tanking." It was, frankly, inevitable that hibernate would get that change.

You're arguing against a change that, honestly, was done years ago and has only trickled down to the other similar powers recently. It has been argued about, and the devs have made their stance clear. And I'm not just saying this from the standpoint of an ice tank, mind you, though I do have a couple. If anything, my Ice/Emp/Ice controller (who also has hibernate) would benefit from removing that *even more.*

I'm just giving you the reasons we're not going to see it happen. *shrug*

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You're retreating into a block of ice to heal...how could that ever be exciting?