So How Is Ice Armor These Days?

Title says it all. I always been meaning to make an ice tanker, but never got around to it.

Ice is quite nice. Here are some of the high points:

1. Not too difficult to softcap (45%) S/L and E/NE defense with IOs. This is even before firing off Energy Absorption.
2. Trivial to hit the hardcap (90%) for cold damage resistance.
3. One of the few primaries that can reach a Tanker's max hp, thanks to Hoarfrost.
4. The only primary that can be 100% immune to slows (RechargeTime and RunSpeed).
5. Endless endurance if you have enemies around you, thanks to Energy Absorption.
6. Has a decent panic button, i.e. Hibernate.
7. Can stack a lot of -dmg on top of Chilling Embrace's if you use Kinetic Melee, Soul Mastery, Void Judgement, and Paralytic Interface.

I so want to make one. Icicles doing lethal damage pisses me right off. It seems like an end hog whenever I have tried to make one in the past, but I never got one very high.

I my Ice/Stone tank is also very very close to Perma Hoarfrost and I havent slotted even ONE LotG yet.. and since I can buy those for only 32 Astral Merits.. im off to the Trials !!!

Ice tanks are awesome. I have a level 50 Ice/Axe. Even after all these years, it is still fun to play. It got even better after IOs.

As much as I love my Ice Tank, Psi damage, DE Quartz' and Rularuu still kick my **** on a regular basis.

I run seven toggles on my Ice/Axe (two armors, status protect, Icicles, CE, Tough, Weave) and for the most part have no endurance issues. About the only time I have trouble is when I'm fighting just one tough foe so EA doesn't have much to draw on. Oh, and no Cardiac, I'm mostly doing the recharge one.

We've mentioned it in other threads but I think -DAM is a great angle for Ice to take. It sure helps with Rularuu and those others. Especially if you can add in a Void Judgement.

Interesting. I would have thought Diamagnetic would be the way to go.

I love ice armor. My fully built ice tank is ice/fire melee. Mine is capped to S/L/N/E and can run just about anything. One little thing I did for the painful content (psi and etc..) is slotted Aid Self...good for 824 heal every 9 seconds and rarely gets interrupted. Between that and perma Hoarfrost (can double stack for a bit) I am good to go.

A funny anecdote...I was a second tank to join a Kahn TF a few weeks ago. A team member who was a much longer vet than me commented that she rarely sees Ice tanks anymore...the other tank boasted that, "there was a good reason for that." I did not even respond. At the end of the TF, he made a point to ask me about my build...he died 2 times with his invuln tanker. I have no idea how well his tank was built but it sure did have plenty of IO's in his ID.

I never should have made my Ice tank an energy melee.
That stupid -hp attack is my biggest hitter and threatens to get me killed all the time. The (almost) complete lack of AoE angers me as well.

Some day I might finish the last 3 levels to 50, but every time I *think* about playing him I wish I had a different attack set. The Defense and aggro control are amazing though.

I do like Ice for a couple reasons. 1st I enjoy the graphics. Second, with chilling embrace it grabs aggro fast and the radius is bigger than most other taunt auras (10 vs 8). Also there is the 100% debuff resistance to recharge and speed.

That being said, I think the set has more holes in it's protection than others do.

1) Less defense debuff resistance than other defensive based sets. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here but my Mid's says you can get about 51.9%. That helps but with high recharge I believe shield defense can cap it and so can SR (coming to tanks now?). By comparison, invulnerability gets 50% but has more resists to fall back on.

2) Defensive Holes. Psionic, Somewhat to Fire. Fire gets a bit of defense through Energy Absorption and you get 32% resistance but a high defense would be a lot better. You can probably cap it with IOs with some work but psionic would be a lot harder. Shields and SR have positional defense with no such holes. Note: this is only a problem for attacks that are purely fire or purely psionic.

3) High Accuracy Mobs. As touched on earlier in the thread the devs have made some changes so high defense isn't quite the "I win" button it used to be. Devouring Earth was brought up as one example earlier. This is a problem any defensive set will have to deal with. There are some ways to manage it, like killing the little buff plants first but it's something you need to be aware of.

Note that Chilling embrace adds some extra mitigation through debuffs but that would be limited to up to 10 targets in it's range and the effect reduced if you are fighting higher level enemies. At the very least, I feel that Ice needs a boost to the defense debuff resistance. Without that defense you're a sitting duck.

In general I'd recommend picking up either siphon life from dark melee or aid self from power pools for some healing. One problem with using aid self is that some debuffs seem to interrupt it instantly so even if you slot it for interrupt reduction you will fail to get it off.