I really want to roll an Ice Tank but...

I've been wanting to roll an Ice Tank for the longest time. They seem to be amazing tankers in the upper levels, survivability as well as holding aggro.

Only problem is, what am I suppose to do when I'm tanking AV's? Don't AV's have pretty high base tohit and/or accuracy?

If so, AV's are bound to land several hits on me...and I wont have any resistance at all to withstand it. Sure, Chilling Embrace offers that -14% damage debuff, but that's all I have for mitigation besides my defense and the occasional Hoarfrost. I'm thinking it's going to take a good 50%-75% of my HP per hit from an AV.

I was thinking of going with an Ice/Dark tank, since Dark Melee seems to be the only secondary that has some form of mitigation against AV's, mainly the -tohit debuffs. I was just hoping that stacking -tohit debuffs along with my own defense would help me survive and that Siphon Life would be a nice 20% heal whenever Hoarfrost is down. Is there a better secondary for me to go with besides this?

Edit: Just another question. If Chilling Embrace debuffs a critter's damage by 14%, how does this stack or not stack with your own resistance? For example, if a critter does 100 damage, then Chilling Embrace would cause it to deal 86 damage instead. However, if I have resistance against the critter's damage-type, would my resistance kick in base on the critter's base damage of 100 or would it kick in after Chilling Embrace's damage debuff, which would mean that it'll work off the 86 damage instead of 100 damage.

I run an Ice/Stone Tank and have had a very good experience. No one strips agro off of me, but I also employ Taunt regularly for the -75% range to keep spawns tight.

For AVs, I run with Absolute Amazement's proc in Stone Fist and have had really good experiences with it. The debuff is marked as just -7.5%, bit it's irresistible. A lot of players don't socket Hibernate for Heal, but if you do, you can basically Taunt an AV (well slotted Taunt), hit Hibernate, and 5 seconds later emerge with full hitpoints. I can't stress how potent Hibernate is when it puts you at the regen cap, makes you unkillable, and Taunt forces foes to keep on targeting you,

One thing that would be quite good is an Ice/KM/Soul with Darkest Night. You would stack nearly -50% damage from just Burst, Darkest Night, and Chilling Embrace. I would make this build if I didn't already have an Ice/Stone.

I've never had problems tanking AVs with my Ice/SS/Pyre, and I'm running without Fighting pool. Hibernate, Hoarfrost and +regen set bonuses supply me with enough damage recovery to get through anything that doesn't have a lot of +ToHit. -Def isn't a problem because in bigger spawns I usually have around 55% Defense thanks to Energy Absorption.

The Ice/Ice Tankers I've run with never seemed to have trouble with AVs. IIRC, they used Tough and slotted for softcapped defense and +hp. Combined with -damage and -recharge, that was likely enough.

Not sure about how the combination of -damage and resist works in COH.

Ice tanks are only second to Shield tanks as far as aggro generation, I believe. I can't find the post, but the primaries were all compared once, and ice performs well in that department. As far as a shield scrap pulling aggro off of an ice tank, it is unlikely, but can happen. Shields just packs that much aggro generation. I think it is the risk of running AAO. Sure, it buffs you like crazy, but you also generate wondrous hate for it.

I recently rolled an ice/ss. It was my third tank to date. I only rolled her as I wanted something I couldn't get redside. I know everything has a hole or two to patch, but ice's holes seem workable.

My Ice/SS is a beast- I have /pyre in my PvE build and /stone in my lolzone PvP build. For AVs bring a few oranges and greens as you will get hit (well real AVs, not Romy at +0), chilling embrace is your friend as its -14% to enemy damage in it's radius, hoarfrost for the dull pain effect as well. This is the tank I do ITF speed runs with and have tanked the STF with it and although I didn't die it was a bit more challenging that with a stone, WP or invuln.

If your already at the soft cap for defense? It wouldn't. They would already have a floored chance to hit. If your not at the soft cap, reduce their chance to hit by roughly 2.5%

People that are asking about why shield scrappers can pull off of them is that AAO has a tank level taunt. So added to scrappers damage, and they can easily grab aggro from tanker with just a taunt aura and moderate damage.

Imagine my surprise when I was teamed with seven tanks while on a TA/A defender. And I kept pealing aggro off them when they go in first.

Let that be a lesson then. Relying only on the taunt aura means others can peal aggro off you.

I don't have much problems yet, but then I alternate targets with each attack while teamed. I work punchvoke.

Definitely, I always believe that all Tanks should take Taunt. Auras are good at grabbing aggro and alphas, but in order to hold aggro effectively, you need that Taunt!