Does Ice Control Need a Buff?
By
Airhammer,
Posted on: 2010-12-01 13:04 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
/signed
It's a very low damage set. Only 4 of the first 8 powers do damage, and only 2 of those 4 do anything respectable (thankfully, they come as our first 2 power choices). True, Jack helps with the damage output, but he is a bit of a loose cannon, and essentially nullifies Flash Freeze since he likes to attack everybody. On a team, I have a ton of fun, considering I usually throw Ice Slick down, tag an enemy with Snow Storm (my guy is also /Cold) and then just let the team do their thing. The mob is usually dead before the enemies can actually stand long enough to attack. But solo? Not so much.
I know, not all controllers can be Fire/ or Plant/ in terms of devastation, nor should they be. And not every powerset combination is suited for soloing. But Ice Control could use something that may give them an edge when solo. Other than just maintaining Frostbite and watching the enemy health bars sloooowwwwwly dwindle.
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I would just settle for them fixing Jack again. They broke him ever since the pet recharge nerf. He hasnt been right since that time. He just stands there most of the time instead of cycling attacks like the way Poo-man does. If they could just do an AI transplant on Jack from Poo-man the set would be ok. As for as control goes I think its fine so long as you dont have idiots on your team who do immobilizes on the ice slick. Now if your talking about icy assault that doms get, that could use a huge damage buff. Its the only set the didnt change when they did the dom revamp. The powers cost too much end for such little damage.
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Ice and Earth used to be tied as the low damage sets.
The introduction of temporary powers (first veteran ones, then purchasable ones) let Earth pull ahead, since its -Def secondary effect lets you use temps much more reliably.
I think your suggestions would help the set a lot, Tex.
In all honesty I like Ice quite a bit the way it it. It is a low damage set, but not all controller sets need to be for damage. Depending on the secondary you choose, you can create IMO one of the most powerful sets for completely shutting down a mob and I have done it quite a few times over the years on my Ice/Storm and now on my Ice/Cold.
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
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Originally Posted by Airhammer
In all honesty I like Ice quite a bit the way it it. It is a low damage set, but not all controller sets need to be for damage. Depending on the secondary you choose, you can create IMO one of the most powerful sets for completely shutting down a mob and I have done it quite a few times over the years on my Ice/Storm and now on my Ice/Cold.
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I agree about the low damage. It's the endurance from Arctic Air that really hurts me. Although I wouldn't object to Jack getting the Animate Stone treatment and earning himself a Taunt power and better armor, because Ice could certainly justify having a need for it, with its dependency on soft control and -Recharge (which only has meaning if enemies actually take a swing).
I think we've gone 'round on Ice control before...
I disagree that its powers conflict with itself - I know you're thinking of ice slick and frostbite, at least if I'm remembering correctly. We see the same thing - to some extent - in EQ and Cages, as well as Bonfire and Fire Cages. (Admittedly that last one is doing Fire's damage-damage-damage theme.)
I won't argue that AA should have its END cost reduced. It's one of the things that keeps me from taking it early in most instances (and still hurts later.) As far as the (as you put it) risk it takes to use AA? Ice slick in most instances counters that. Find mob, drop slick, jump in with AA. They're flopping, then they're slowed and confused. And that's ignoring your secondary and its buffing or debuffing and all the variance there (and don't forget, we have to keep Dominators and their /damage secondary sets in mind.)
As far as damage in ice slick... eh. It wouldn't make a lot of sense, to me. If we need more damage, up the damage in the regular powers.
Sleeps... Sleeps? Anyone take these (other than in Mind?)
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I'm not sure if we've talked about it before I disagree with you anyway. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I disagree that its powers conflict with itself - I know you're thinking of ice slick and frostbite, at least if I'm remembering correctly. We see the same thing - to some extent - in EQ and Cages, as well as Bonfire and Fire Cages. (Admittedly that last one is doing Fire's damage-damage-damage theme.)
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The difference is that Earthquake and especially Bonfire are not mainline controls for those sets, and both Earthquake and Bonfire both have a secondary effect that works even if enemies are caged. Earthquake even has an enhanceable auto-hit -ToHit debuff. Earthquake also takes three sets worth of IO types, allowing for damage procing. Ice Slick takes no sets at all, not even knockback.
Basically what I find often happens with Ice Control is I'm standing around my teammates going "You know what would be great? If the set that depends the most on teammates could actually use it's main AoE when other Controllers are around."
Admittedly though it's happening less often now that Red side ATs are around, since Dominators have become somewhat popular and they don't need cages for Containment. But I'm still not sure this justifies the dead last damaging set in the game, who is extremely dependent on teammates, being one of the easiest to make irrelevant when those teammates are actually there.
I also disagree with your statement that Arctic Air is not dangerous. It's certainly fun, and a huge part of the reason I took two Ice Controllers to 50, but that power is one of the most hazardous controls I've used, and compared to powers in the Seeds of Confusion > Flashfire > Stalagmites > Synaptic Overload lineup it's hard to call it "safe." Especially now that IOs and alpha slots are pushing the recharge time on that style of power to about 10-20 seconds.
But yeah I'd settle for a toggle cost reduction and a slightly buffed pet if nothing else. I do think the change to Ice Slick would be a huge positive though. The set wasn't designed with Containment in mind, and once it happened, the inherent conflict between damage and safety kind of blew the balance on this set, IMO.
For what it's worth I think gravity is much worse off than ice, but the only ice control character I have is a dom, so I don't have bad endurance problems and can use domination to stop arctic air from getting detoggled.
For controllers recharge on arctic air definitely needs to go down A LOT. No question. When a half second stun neuters half of your control capabilities for such a long time there's a problem. It also uses up so much end that it seems like you should be able to switch it on and off quickly.
If I were going to change something else in ice I would actually change shiver somehow, maybe reduce the animation time. Maybe add some -damage or something. I'd say give it a weak kind of pulsing sleep like elec has, but I guess the only way to do that is with a patch and, well, cottage rule and all.
Active (Freedom): Setna (Ice/Psi Dom), Arram (WP/KM Tank), Tesmiel (Elec/SS Tank), Astredax (Robot/Dark Mastermind), Operative Vidali (melee fortunata)
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Cottage Rule wouldn't necessarily apply. If Shiver still slowed them, no matter what else it may do, it isn't changing the basic nature of the power. If it remains a cone slow power, it's still basically the same power, even if they add a pulsing sleep to it.|
Originally Posted by Tsuji
If I were going to change something else in ice I would actually change shiver somehow, maybe reduce the animation time. Maybe add some -damage or something. I'd say give it a weak kind of pulsing sleep like elec has, but I guess the only way to do that is with a patch and, well, cottage rule and all. |
Conserve Power being turned into a self heal didn't break the Cottage Rule because it still gives you an endurance discount when you use it, just like it did before.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Originally Posted by Tsuji
For what it's worth I think gravity is much worse off than ice, but the only ice control character I have is a dom, so I don't have bad endurance problems and can use domination to stop arctic air from getting detoggled.
For controllers recharge on arctic air definitely needs to go down A LOT. No question. When a half second stun neuters half of your control capabilities for such a long time there's a problem. It also uses up so much end that it seems like you should be able to switch it on and off quickly. If I were going to change something else in ice I would actually change shiver somehow, maybe reduce the animation time. Maybe add some -damage or something. I'd say give it a weak kind of pulsing sleep like elec has, but I guess the only way to do that is with a patch and, well, cottage rule and all. |
I agree about Gravity. I think it's in much worse shape than Ice. I think what Ice needs is a "love tap." Gravity needs to get smacked with a 2 by 4.
What's weird about Shiver is it's a shared power with Blasters. For some reason the Blaster version recharges in 12 seconds and the Controller/Dominator version in 30 seconds. The reason for this is one of the great mysteries I've never been able to solve about this game. Given the already strange recharge ratio, it wouldn't be totally off the table to me to split off Shiver into a totally new power for Ice Control. Keep the current effect, add something new to it to justify its longer Recharge. I agree that -Damage would be appropriate. Another option is to make it a much weaker, unstackable AoE Benumb with perhaps a -15% to all effect.
I agree with this to some extent, but if you make ice more damaging it takes away some of the flavour of the game...kind of like powerset proliferation, it makes everyone more similar instead of different. I know this is a minority opinion, but I love my ice/storm for all the AoEs and debuffs.
I would really like the arrow to go the other direction and have ice as the uber controller. Having slows take bad guys down to the 25% cap isn't enough, it would be great to have it even lower to make AVs and really tough baddies actually be affected by the debuffs (more unresistable mez components) that Icers can bring rather than just a damage buff from low to meh.
If I want damage I'll bring a fire/kin. Too bad a single siphon speed as a runspeed debuff slows down most AVs more than stacking ice/storm slows.
Arctic Hog should also have the end costs looked as well as recharge, but the bigger problem is that Jack has a glass jaw. His aggro slow aura tends to get him killed so fast in any end game that I rarely cast him unless I am solo/duo. If he was tough like poo man I'd have fewer complaints, but he melts faster than an ice cube in the Texas sun.
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What was its recharge before all the AOEs were smacked down years ago? Did it get hit then?|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I agree about Gravity. I think it's in much worse shape than Ice. I think what Ice needs is a "love tap." Gravity needs to get smacked with a 2 by 4.
What's weird about Shiver is it's a shared power with Blasters. For some reason the Blaster version recharges in 12 seconds and the Controller/Dominator version in 30 seconds. The reason for this is one of the great mysteries I've never been able to solve about this game. Given the already strange recharge ratio, it wouldn't be totally off the table to me to split off Shiver into a totally new power for Ice Control. Keep the current effect, add something new to it to justify its longer Recharge. I agree that -Damage would be appropriate. Another option is to make it a much weaker, unstackable AoE Benumb with perhaps a -15% to all effect. |
(And gravity really just needs Propel speeded up, IMHO. Perhaps the initial animation for Wormhole, as well. I've gotten to where I just don't take Propel, or put it off - by the time I've finished animating my lamp post, computer, etc. either the team has finished that mob, the one beyond it, and the one past that, or the target has died of old age.)
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
What was its recharge before all the AOEs were smacked down years ago? Did it get hit then?
(And gravity really just needs Propel speeded up, IMHO. Perhaps the initial animation for Wormhole, as well. I've gotten to where I just don't take Propel, or put it off - by the time I've finished animating my lamp post, computer, etc. either the team has finished that mob, the one beyond it, and the one past that, or the target has died of old age.) |
There's a note in the Issue 5 Release Notes that says:
Increased Recharge time of Ice Control/Shiver. Change to bring this power more in line with other AoE control powers.
So my guess is they nerfed the Controller version and forgot a Blaster version existed (operating on the assumption Ice Manipulation existed at the time, which I'm not sure of).
Here's a thought...what if some or all of Ice's stackable slows were more difficult for AVs to resist? Right now AVs wipe out 85% of a debuff. Ice can stack numerous -recharge slows compared to some sets, but with that resistance, even that's pretty limited in effect.
Slow is only useful on hard targets like AVs (because everything else dies before more than a few recharge cycles of its powers). Put another way, stacked slows don't mitigate much, if anything, of the damage a group of minions deal out, because they alpha and perish before recharging their attacks (maybe before you've even gotten all your slows stacked).
Slowed AVs would do a lot less damage to teams -- but not die any faster, and they could still deal out big-damage hits occasionally, so they'd still present some challenge. And such a change wouldn't affect non-AV play at all, and be no benefit to farmers. It also wouldn't speed up Task Forces (and thus merit gains) except inasmuch as it reduced time picking up dead characters and rezzing everyone after AV-induced teamwipes. But it would be popular for the high-end content we're seeing more of these days.
Ice could find a neat niche specializing in slowing AVs if their resistance just to slows or just to Ice's specific slows was a little less severe. I don't know where the line would be...60%? 50%? Devs would have a much clearer idea of the appropriate numbers.
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I agree with the changes completely. My first guy I created, soon after release, was an Ice/Storm Controller. I deleted it in the teens because I just could not figure out what the point was. Without the ability to respec, having Frostbite and Ice Slick was awful. I couldn't afford Snow Storm and Arctic Air. I realize it was mostly me not knowing what I was doing and everything, but it turned me off to Controllers altogether.
Years later I made and played to 50 Ice/Thermal, and I ran into all the problems you laid out here. Arctic Air + Ice Slick feels like the glass cannon of controls. I could stand amidst x6 groups no problem. Be the main source of control/mitigation for whole teams, sure. Then all of a sudden an AoE immobilize, or KB protected enemies, or confuse fails a few times and KAPOW! FACEPLANT! Cimerora is the worst. Those Romans. Aside from caring so little about Ice Slick, then they give each other 10 points of Confuse protection. Good luck with that, Ice Controller.
Jack was such a huge let down. I thought having a pet to buff and heal might be nice. I forget he's there until he aggros some extra mobs for me.
My only concern with the changes is that if Ice Slick took KB enhancements, it'd become Knockback instead of Knockdown. They'd have to lower the KB magnitude to avoid that (it's 0.5 now, vs say 0.1 of Freezing Rain), but that could mean HAVING to enhance Knockback to make it work on some enemies. Of course they could work around that. Give it a 0.25 enhancable effect, and a 0.25 unenhancable effect. That way it starts at the same base, but doesn't turn into knockback unless they're a lower level than you and super enhanced.
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It did. The only Blaster secondary that's been added since release was Mental Manipulation |
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
So my guess is they nerfed the Controller version and forgot a Blaster version existed (operating on the assumption Ice Manipulation existed at the time, which I'm not sure of).
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@Gilia1
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The KB/KD mechanic is so broken because of this. Ice slick is really only useful getting to 50, after that, its utility is really curtailed by KD/KB resistant mobs like the Cims and AVs and GMs.|
Originally Posted by Gilia
My only concern with the changes is that if Ice Slick took KB enhancements, it'd become Knockback instead of Knockdown. They'd have to lower the KB magnitude to avoid that (it's 0.5 now, vs say 0.1 of Freezing Rain), but that could mean HAVING to enhance Knockback to make it work on some enemies. Of course they could work around that. Give it a 0.25 enhancable effect, and a 0.25 unenhancable effect. That way it starts at the same base, but doesn't turn into knockback unless they're a lower level than you and super enhanced.
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I'd prefer a 5% chance of spontaneous knockdown (unresistable) in 1 second ticks, 25% chance while trying to move (resistable) and 50% chance after attacking (resistable) and/or -25% to hit debuff (unresistable), but that's just me dreaming. And of course the slow.
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As a long-time Ice Control devotee, this has been my Control-based pet peeve for years, so please excuse me if I seem inappropriately strident. I'm not aiming any of the following at any particular post or poster.|
Originally Posted by DrMike2000
Ice and Earth used to be tied as the low damage sets.
The introduction of temporary powers (first veteran ones, then purchasable ones) let Earth pull ahead, since its -Def secondary effect lets you use temps much more reliably. I think your suggestions would help the set a lot, Tex. |
Ice and Earth were always analogous in terms of damage potential. Because they were so similar in terms of offense, I believe that players were prone to fall into the logical trap of assuming that the two sets were also tied in terms of control.
They weren't, and they aren't. On paper, sure, all the slows in Ice look very sexy. So does Arctic Air's confuse/avoid effect. Ice Slick is a great stand-alone power. But the (PvE) game fundamentally favors hard control where it's applicable. It favors controls that can consistently mitigate alpha strikes. It favors pets that don't get killed by an errant sneeze. It favors layered effects of all stripes (whether we're talking about layering DEF with RES or holds with stuns) -- the ability to pull out a second, third, fourth different trick to address unusually resilient opponents.
Earth is perhaps the best set in the entire game by the above standards. Earth deserves its low damage.
Ice isn't. It gets Earth's low damage with little or no practical pay off. In days past, you could argue that Ice's slow effects made it much better at PvP, but ever since Issue 13, PvP is a ghost town, and in any case we have Buff/Debuff diminished returns.
Scratch that. Ice gets worse than Earth's damage these days. Stoney is better both at surviving and dealing damage than Jack Frost. Earth's copious AoE powers take more procs. And as DrMike points out, Earth's -DEF adds at least a small amount to over-time DPS.
About the best thing I can say about Ice is that it looks cool (no pun intended). Oh, and having a bajillion redundant slows is arguably a good thing against AVs' 85% debuff resistance.
Doesn't mean that Ice can't be made to work; Controllers and Dominators* are among the stronger ATs in the game to begin with, and so it'd be a stretch to say that Ice Control's flaws constitute a pressing balance concern.
But there are flaws. Making Arctic Air cost less and giving it no-detoggle status would be a great start. Getting rid of the worthless tick of damage on Flash Freeze and giving it the Mass-Hypnosis no-aggro treatment would be an awesome move too.
(* - It's worth mentioning that Ice benefits almost not at all from Domination. Arctic Air's confusion isn't enhanced by it from what I can tell, and the only other hard area control worth mentioning is Glacier -- which is a PBAoE on the same four minute timer that all other AoE holds have.)
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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I dunno, -recharge can really neuter mobs to a ridiculous point. It's why I think the mob run AI isn't totally out of line in some situations.|
Originally Posted by Sailboat
Here's a thought...what if some or all of Ice's stackable slows were more difficult for AVs to resist? Right now AVs wipe out 85% of a debuff. Ice can stack numerous -recharge slows compared to some sets, but with that resistance, even that's pretty limited in effect.
Slow is only useful on hard targets like AVs (because everything else dies before more than a few recharge cycles of its powers). Put another way, stacked slows don't mitigate much, if anything, of the damage a group of minions deal out, because they alpha and perish before recharging their attacks (maybe before you've even gotten all your slows stacked). Slowed AVs would do a lot less damage to teams -- but not die any faster, and they could still deal out big-damage hits occasionally, so they'd still present some challenge. And such a change wouldn't affect non-AV play at all, and be no benefit to farmers. It also wouldn't speed up Task Forces (and thus merit gains) except inasmuch as it reduced time picking up dead characters and rezzing everyone after AV-induced teamwipes. But it would be popular for the high-end content we're seeing more of these days. Ice could find a neat niche specializing in slowing AVs if their resistance just to slows or just to Ice's specific slows was a little less severe. I don't know where the line would be...60%? 50%? Devs would have a much clearer idea of the appropriate numbers. |
That said, I'd probably consider making Ice (and Gravity's) -runspeed partially not resistable as a bigger impact on those fights as a damage buff. Just my opinion tho...
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Originally Posted by Gilia
My only concern with the changes is that if Ice Slick took KB enhancements, it'd become Knockback instead of Knockdown. They'd have to lower the KB magnitude to avoid that (it's 0.5 now, vs say 0.1 of Freezing Rain), but that could mean HAVING to enhance Knockback to make it work on some enemies. Of course they could work around that. Give it a 0.25 enhancable effect, and a 0.25 unenhancable effect. That way it starts at the same base, but doesn't turn into knockback unless they're a lower level than you and super enhanced.
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Earthquake has the same issue, but is slottable with knockback IOs anyway. No one actually slots it this way, instead what they do is slot a damage proc. Ice Slick (and Ice Patch, the mini version) is an IO vacuum. It takes only range, recharge, and endurance reduction commons.
The only advantage Ice Slick has over similar "knock patches" is its chance for knockdown is 9% per pulse. Earthquake is 8% but it has enhanceable auto-hit -Defense and -ToHit. Ice Slick's -Run Speed is not enhanceable, but probably should be.
Might I add that a small part of Ice Control's IO woes is the sheer lameness of the Slow IO sets as a whole. The phrase that comes to mind is "genuinely inapplicable." That goes not just for Ice Control but for all of the slow-heavy sets. The bonuses are weak and there isn't a power I can think of that would benefit from actually 6 slotting any of the slow sets. What's with the combo of Accuracy, Endurance, Recharge, and half-axed Damage? The damage is too low to match a real damage set, so its inclusion just tanks the usefulness of the sets. One useful proc would really kick the slow-toggle powers into gear and immensely increase their utility.
[EDIT]
The only slow power I can think of that combines all of slow IO boosts are actual damage powers, and Flash Freeze. Flash Freeze is puzzle wrapped within an enigma to me. Not only does it have the longest recharge of all dedicated AoE sleeps available in a primary set (including Blasters), it requires enemies to be close to the ground to even work. And just in case you were thinking of somehow stacking it, it features what can only be described as "screw you" damage to thwart you. The power does six points of damage at level 50. While it's dangerous to compare powers across sets, clearly someone thought Ice Control was already very powerful compared to say, Plant Control, and decided the power needed not 1 nor 2 but 3 downsides to it. I wonder what that person would say if he or she saw the game now.
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Impeded Swiftness: Chance for Smashing Damage.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
One useful proc would really kick the slow-toggle powers into gear and immensely increase their utility.
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... well, you DID say "one." There's also a "Chance for recharge slow," but that's pretty useless in Ice Control (where everything does that, for the most part.) Minor defense buff to melee (2.5) and s/l (1.8) with that six slotted...
.. yeah. Slow (along with snipes, I'd say, among one or two others) I don't think they really figured out what they wanted to do with. I don't think we need a bonus to slow, since slows stack very noticeably and easily. And a good set would fit most of the ATs in game (except... what, masterminds - wait, no, they have storm. Everything but Peacebringers, Scrappers and Brutes, maybe Soldiers as well? Actually - no, everything but peacebringers, as I'm reasonably sure the others could use it in their APP/PPPs, and warshades do slows with every attack.)
So... cooking up a good "Slow-slottable Damage set" wouldn't hurt. Two, actually, one with Damage as part of the set and bonuses, one with a Damage proc and perhaps small damage set bonus.
Actually, many Spines attacks and Mud Pots from Stone Armor take Slow sets, as does the Bane Spider's Web Cocoon. Don't even need Epics.
arctic are is really good with procs but thats just about it. -Recharge isnt that great when brawl can still be used. It kind of suffers from the same thing that sapping does until they created a real sapping set with electric control. So now they need to make it where with enough -recharge the powers never ever recharge period.
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I played an Ice Control Dominator to 50 and IO'ed it to permadom along the way. When we were given free server transfers that character got banished to an unused server. Maybe my problem was starting out with some of the stronger control sets before trying Ice Control. I couldn't think of any reason to continue playing the set. It gives up reliable, solid control compared to other control sets and gains nothing in return.
I love Ice Control, but I can't help but wonder about its performance compared to other control sets as we continue to see more enemies with AoEs and melee auras. It seems to be designed to be a melee-oriented set, with a unique power in Arctic Air. It is also possibly the lowest damage set in the game, and the only control set founded almost completely on soft control. Many of its power conflict with each other and with the powers of other Controllers.
I feel like the cost of Arctic Air is too high and its Recharge a little too long. It looks like it was balanced using the same formula used for Hot Feet, and I'm not sure if that's appropriate for a set that has endure such long fights. The issue is the extreme risk Arctic Air (and Ice Control in general) entails in order to be leveraged. It is extremely vulnerable to de-toggles, and its cost means armor powers like Tough, Manuevers, and Weave, which would help protect you from getting hit, are impractical.
What I wish is that Arctic Air could have its endurance cost cut (to make it possible to run additional armors, which you will need more than many other Controllers) and be reclassified as an "armor" power, so that it suppresses-on-mezz instead of fully detoggling. If that's not possible, cutting the Recharge time from 15 to 8 seconds would be a huge boon. I also think the Sleep power needs to be revisted. Right now it's on a 90 second Recharge--twice as long as similar powers in other sets. I think it would be MUCH more appropriate to the set if the sleep duration decreased greatly, and the recharge were decreased to 30-45 seconds, OR the power's barely-there damage component upped to T1.5-blast level to at least give Ice Control a way to occasionally defeat enemies.
For IOs, Ice Slick should be slottable for damage procs like Earthquake is. At the least, Knockback IOs (which Earthquake does take).I also wonder whether Ice Slick should have a debuff of some kind besides -RunSpeed (-Damage? -Range?) to make up for the fact that Ice Control, which is inherently a team-dependent set, often gets stuck contributing little with one of its best powers because it gets cancelled by other Controllers setting up Containment.
Just my thoughts. What are yours?