I have three KB IOs also. One is good for general use, but I wanted three so I could go on Hami raids. Hamidon and friends will knock you all over the place with only 1 or 2 IOs.
...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
If you've only got -4kb protection, Fake Nemesis attacks will also make you bounce around.
Throwing darts at the board to see if something sticks.....
Come show your resolve and fight my brute!
Tanks: Gauntlet, the streak breaker and you!
Quote:
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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Yup, Fake Nemmies, Storm powers (Katie TF), Pylons, Carnie MI phantasm summons (w/their decoy both hitting you w/ET), quite a few things. If they hit, anyway, and my def is high enough where it's not usually an issue. Still, adding an extra 4-8 points wouldn't hurt, if you can find the space.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
*curses*
even with 12 pts, Mary MacComber knocks me all over the place.
Quote:
That's because she is running Hurricane, which is actually a repel power, and not affected by KB protection IOs. It has a separate category under protection/resistance. She'll bounce Fiery Aura around too.
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Originally Posted by EJI
*curses*
even with 12 pts, Mary MacComber knocks me all over the place. |
Quote:
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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. |
Right, but Hurricane also has a chance to KB, which afaik *is* covered by -KB IOs. That's the thing that puts us on our backs, not the repel aura, right? And the defender version at least is +8.3 KB (@5% chance) so you should need 12 pts of -KB to withstand it.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
Quote:
Mary MacComber appears at +4 levels by the end of her TF. Perhaps the Purple patch is making her KB scale up to over 12 because of the level difference?
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Originally Posted by dave_p
Right, but Hurricane also has a chance to KB, which afaik *is* covered by -KB IOs. That's the thing that puts us on our backs, not the repel aura, right? And the defender version at least is +8.3 KB (@5% chance) so you should need 12 pts of -KB to withstand it.
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...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
Quote:
Indeed, that'll do it. I wasn't aware that she was scaling again. They must have fixed that between my last KHTF and now.
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
Mary MacComber appears at +4 levels by the end of her TF. Perhaps the Purple patch is making her KB scale up to over 12 because of the level difference?
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Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
I haven't had much playtime with Night-Shivers since my last post. I picked up OG at 26 and am now 27.
Because of the limited playtime I didn't have a chance to build a full team so I was mainly on small teams. This is when Night-Shivers' weakness really shows up. I can tank a good sized group but I don't really contribute much damage so the fights seemingly take forever.
I hope to pump out a couple more levels over the next few days and get me closer to Ice Stomp. :-)
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Funny, I just saw this thread today and my DA/Ice tank just hit 30 over the weekend. Here's my experiences with the powerset combination:
Soloing is glacial- exceedingly slow but very steady.
Teaming is a mixed bag, I find that I don't always have enough AoE yet to grab all the attention for an 8 man team. Last night I teamed with 6 scrappers and a mind/rad controller and I definitely lost agro from time to time. Very few deaths though. And he's a sturdy frickin' tank, that's for sure. 4 DE bosses pounding on me at once was one of the few things that I had to use dark regeneration for.
Endurance usage is a problem, even without having to use dark regen much. I tend to run cloak of fear (for the tohit debuff if nothing else) and death shroud (so I can get agro around me and focus my single target attacks on problem children and use taunt for ranged attackers). So, that's where that's probably coming from. Additionally I don't have a lot of Set IOs slotted yet (although I do have the Theft of Essence proc, so that's a Godsend), so I'm operating with very little end reduction in my attacks. Double whammy.
As I look at set IOs, I'm kind of thinking that I want to build towards 1) Recovery, 2) Recharge, 3) Picking up additional end reduction through the individual set IOs I use. How expensive is it to pick up a significant amount of defense with DA/Ice? What amounts to significant, considering I have CoD and Combat Jumping to build from for starters? (Eventually I'll pick up Weave). I haven't played around with it much yet.
Quote:
Our experiences are very similar. I won't even attempt to solo him, it would take me forever to get through a mish and would probably accentuate the end issues since I would need a full attack chain. Right now I have Frozen Fists with the default slot, Ice Sword is 3 or 4 slotted and Frost has 5-6 slots. I do have an end reduc SO in both Frost and Ice Sword. |
Originally Posted by Valorin
Funny, I just saw this thread today and my DA/Ice tank just hit 30 over the weekend. Here's my experiences with the powerset combination:
Soloing is glacial- exceedingly slow but very steady. Teaming is a mixed bag, I find that I don't always have enough AoE yet to grab all the attention for an 8 man team. Last night I teamed with 6 scrappers and a mind/rad controller and I definitely lost agro from time to time. Very few deaths though. And he's a sturdy frickin' tank, that's for sure. 4 DE bosses pounding on me at once was one of the few things that I had to use dark regeneration for. Endurance usage is a problem, even without having to use dark regen much. I tend to run cloak of fear (for the tohit debuff if nothing else) and death shroud (so I can get agro around me and focus my single target attacks on problem children and use taunt for ranged attackers). So, that's where that's probably coming from. Additionally I don't have a lot of Set IOs slotted yet (although I do have the Theft of Essence proc, so that's a Godsend), so I'm operating with very little end reduction in my attacks. Double whammy. As I look at set IOs, I'm kind of thinking that I want to build towards 1) Recovery, 2) Recharge, 3) Picking up additional end reduction through the individual set IOs I use. How expensive is it to pick up a significant amount of defense with DA/Ice? What amounts to significant, considering I have CoD and Combat Jumping to build from for starters? (Eventually I'll pick up Weave). I haven't played around with it much yet. |
He's stalling a bit since I will only play him when I know I will have an uninterrupted play session so I can create a team. During my more limited sessions I will solo with my elec/stone dom. He can easily take on a +1/x4 mission solo.
I solo'ed mine a bit last night at -1 x2; That made it a bit fun. I could gather up 2 or 3 groups, focus my single target attacks on the LTs and let Frost/Death Shroud wear the minions down. I suppose I could amp up the "team size" to x3 or x4, but somehow that would feel too slow. For the record, I ended up finishing 5 tip missions in an hour and 10 minutes, not horrible all things considered (that included a market break or two). I have more slots in my attacks though, so YMMV.
Quote:
Yes! That's exactly how you should play Ice Melee! |
Originally Posted by Valorin
I solo'ed mine a bit last night at -1 x2; That made it a bit fun. I could gather up 2 or 3 groups, focus my single target attacks on the LTs and let Frost/Death Shroud wear the minions down.
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Quote:
| I suppose I could amp up the "team size" to x3 or x4, but somehow that would feel too slow. |
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
Here's what I'm rolling with while I'm leveling anyway (Thanks Titan Sentinel for making this easier). Hopefully it's not too much a digression from the thread topic, I thought perhaps I could see where folks did things differently or maybe folks could see how I slotted and make adjustments themselves. As I said before, it solos like a glacier. Slow, steady erosion . Not a lot of recharge reduction in Dark Regen, but I haven't needed it much. Common IOs were crafted off my own drops, most of the set IOs were picked up with the intent of helping to get more enhancement from my (limited) slots. Also, oddly it's not showing my two additional slots in stamina.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.91
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Fallen Legend: Level 31 Magic Tanker
Primary Power Set: Dark Armor
Secondary Power Set: Ice Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Dark Embrace -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(3), ResDam(3), ResDam(5)
Level 1: Frozen Fists -- Acc(A), Dmg-I(5), Dmg-I(7)
Level 2: Murky Cloud -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(7), ResDam(9), ResDam(9)
Level 4: Frost -- Acc(A), AirB'st-Dmg/EndRdx(11), AirB'st-Dmg/Rng(11), AirB'st-Dmg/Rchg(13)
Level 6: Obsidian Shield -- EndRdx(A)
Level 8: Dark Regeneration -- Theft-Acc/Heal(A), Theft-Acc/EndRdx/Heal(13), Theft-+End%(15), EndRdx(15), EndRdx(17)
Level 10: Death Shroud -- EndRdx(A), Acc(17), C'ngBlow-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Dmg(19), Dmg(21)
Level 12: Ice Sword -- Acc-I(A), Dmg(21), Dmg(23), Dmg(23)
Level 14: Taunt -- Taunt-I(A)
Level 16: Combat Jumping -- Krma-ResKB(A)
Level 18: Cloak of Fear -- EndRdx(A), SipInsght-Acc/ToHitDeb(25), SipInsght-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(25), N'mare-Acc/EndRdx(27)
Level 20: Ice Patch -- RechRdx(A)
Level 22: Super Jump -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Tough -- EndRdx(A), ResDam(27)
Level 28: Freezing Touch -- Acc(A), Dmg(29), Dmg(29), Empty(31)
Level 30: Cloak of Darkness -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- Empty(A)
Ahh, thank you double xp weekend. :-)
I ran Night-Shivers for a couple of hours last night and shot from 29-32. I was leading an awesome PuG that I inherited after 1 mission and I think 6 of us stayed on through the whole time. The team makeup was such that we were plowing through red and purple baddies like a hot knife through butter.
Night-Shivers represented the Tank brotherhood well last night. I'm finally getting some slots into my attacks, including upping the dmg on Death Shroud. I'm liking the relatively big numbers that Death Shroud was putting out per tick.
Someone once commented that with Dark Armor your health bar is on a constant see-saw. And that was surely the case last night. But the RP'er in me was enjoying it. It has to be so demoralizing for the bad guys to see my health bar dropping and think "we got we got him we got hi....ahh f**k, he's at full health again! I'm going home." :-)
Much fun was had last night and with Soul Transfer at 32 I'm expecting much more fun to be had by all this weekend.
Quote:
Dark Armor: If you can't kill it before Dark Regeneration recharges, you can't kill it. |
Originally Posted by Asha'man
Much fun was had last night and with Soul Transfer at 32 I'm expecting much more fun to be had by all this weekend.
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If you can kill it but can't kill it again before Soul Transfer recharges, it doesn't count. In fact, it's better for you if you don't kill it at all. Mag 30 stun's a beach.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
as far as building defense. though dechs is probably more of an authority on this, the first places to start are kinetic combats in melee attacks, and reactive armors in resists. each only take 4 slots fortunately.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Dark Armor: If you can't kill it before Dark Regeneration recharges, you can't kill it.
If you can kill it but can't kill it again before Soul Transfer recharges, it doesn't count. In fact, it's better for you if you don't kill it at all. Mag 30 stun's a beach. |
Dechs, does Dark Armor have any resistance to -Rech? I found that while soloing a x8 group of Council a bunch of Marksmen hit me with their ice attacks and slowed me down considerably. How do you overcome -Rech?
Oh, and they learned that killing me isn't always the best idea... :-) Soul Transfer FTW. LOL
I didn't get nearly enough time to play this weekend but I was able to ding lvl 35 and picked up GIS. By most accounts here I will be dropping it eventually but I felt i needed the extra damage while leveling up to 38 (Frozen Aura).
Quote:
Right now I have the Winter's Gift unique slotted somewhere, but I'm not sure it helps. Usually, if slows are enough to cripple you, they're enough to cripple you even if they're resisted by 20%.|
Originally Posted by Asha'man
Dechs, does Dark Armor have any resistance to -Rech? I found that while soloing a x8 group of Council a bunch of Marksmen hit me with their ice attacks and slowed me down considerably. How do you overcome -Rech?
|
The other option I'm aware of is Hasten. Most people just take hasten and put it on auto, but that requires a build to be able to sustain that endurance crash and the heightened use of endurance heavy powers. I have considered taking it on my tank (if I can decide what to drop) to be able to use it as a panic button or a "make 70% worth of -recharge go away" button.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Quote:
That's what my namesake is. Almost IO'd out, and he also has cardiac slotted. May need to tweak the build some, but go for it. It's kinda fun. In a masocistic sorta way.
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Originally Posted by SkarmoryThePG
Part of me wants to play a DA/DB.
Most of me thinks that part of me is mad. |
"L'on'das: "Query: madness? Current location: SPARTA!!!!!!""
-gnosis05
Quote:
I do that on my Fire/Fire. It's a huge help if you're about to dive into a big spawn of Tarantula Mistresses or something else with heavy -Rech, and it's still helpful if you remember to hit it before a group that looks generally tough - more attacks coming back faster means the scary stuff is dead, rather than killing you. Of course, Fiery Aura has Consume, so if I overdo it on the blue bar, I have a guaranteed refill every minute-and-a-bit, so your mileage may vary.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Right now I have the Winter's Gift unique slotted somewhere, but I'm not sure it helps. Usually, if slows are enough to cripple you, they're enough to cripple you even if they're resisted by 20%.
The other option I'm aware of is Hasten. Most people just take hasten and put it on auto, but that requires a build to be able to sustain that endurance crash and the heightened use of endurance heavy powers. I have considered taking it on my tank (if I can decide what to drop) to be able to use it as a panic button or a "make 70% worth of -recharge go away" button. |
See, what Dechs won't tell you is that Dark Armor has a big KB hole, leaving you vulnerable to being knocked up in RP.
Quote:
And Dechs won't tell you it because that "big" hole can be patched with just a couple of IOs. One Blessing of the Zephyr knockback protection in your travel power (or Sprint if you don't have one), and two Steadfast Protection knockback protections in the shields of your choice. Mag 12 KB protection covers almost all the resistible knockback and knockup outside of PvP. And non-resistible knockback is going to KB people with full knockback protection, too. Frankly, I think this is a little excessive, and stick with just the one Steadfast IO in my fire tanker, and accept that I'm going to get knocked over occasionally.|
Originally Posted by Emgro
See, what Dechs won't tell you is that Dark Armor has a big KB hole, leaving you vulnerable to being knocked up in RP.
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Also, I find damage auras make a very good means of contraception, if that's what you're worried about. Just say "Ow".
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Emgro
See, what Dechs won't tell you is that Dark Armor has a big KB hole, leaving you vulnerable to being knocked up in RP.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by AnElfCalledMack
And Dechs won't tell you it because that "big" hole can be patched with just a couple of IOs. One Blessing of the Zephyr knockback protection in your travel power (or Sprint if you don't have one), and two Steadfast Protection knockback protections in the shields of your choice. Mag 12 KB protection covers almost all the resistible knockback and knockup outside of PvP. And non-resistible knockback is going to KB people with full knockback protection, too. Frankly, I think this is a little excessive, and stick with just the one Steadfast IO in my fire tanker, and accept that I'm going to get knocked over occasionally.
Also, I find damage auras make a very good means of contraception, if that's what you're worried about. Just say "Ow". |
Pst. "Knocked up..."
RP ="Roll playing..."
eh hem...
Maybe Dechs' toon has been spending to much time in Virtue's Pocket D.
Throwing darts at the board to see if something sticks.....
Come show your resolve and fight my brute!
Tanks: Gauntlet, the streak breaker and you!
Quote:
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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I get by w/just 4pts of KB protection on my Dark tank and while I occasionally get knocked on my butt, I deal w/it. You could slot a Karma or BotZ in the aforementioned CJ also if you wanted some extra -KB.
Glad to hear you're enjoying your DA/IM, and thanks for the props in your OP. Always happy to hear someone enjoying Ice Melee for a change.
Going through my brain rolodex I just remembered that one of my other toons crafted a lvl 30 Karma -KB IO recently. I will reserve it for him to use when he's of age (lvl 27), although I was thinking of using it on either my elec/stone dom or elec/rad troller since they both live in melee.
I'm enjoying Ice Melee as a change of pace. Unfortunately I don't have any heavy hitters yet and I haven't really slotted my attacks for heavy dmg, they are mainly gauntlet bots. Frozen Fists has just 1 slot (acc), Ice Sword has 2-3? (Acc/End red/Dmg) and Frost has felt the most slot love (4-5 Acc/End red/2 Dmg). So I hit with the force of a wet noodle. I'm hoping to show my attacks some love as I get up in lvl and get my big-guns (Freezing Touch/Frozen Aura/maybe GIS?)
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