Tanker Ice Armor: Replace Hibernate with Icy Bastion

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

Hibernate also hurts aggo albiet not directly , but sitting in the Ice Block for 2-4 seconds does stop you from doing anything .thus you cant protect the team. 3 seconds is an eternity in a fight.

Originally Posted by Chyll

As long as the enemy keeps shooting the ice blocked safe tank... team is protected, so this arguement doesn't make much sense.

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

Sure it does....new aggro occurs on teams in that time, not all enemies were taunted by you when you where forced into Hibernate..and so on

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

In a nutshell, it says that, "barring an overwhelming balance issue, the Devs will never replace a power with a different power, or make large changes to the core function of a power in an existing powerset."

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

Hibernates a quick new life but you have no increase in durability. So if for example I was soloing alone on +3/ 8 person missions, you have nothing really available to defeat the mobs if they are inflicting serious damage on you consistently. My EA Brute has a way out, other Defensive sets offer a way out. Ice does not in this case.

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

You rarely if ever need to use Hibernation for the full time period, and on my Ice Tanker, the numbers of times I've lost aggro when I've needed to use this is are even fewer. Between the two aggro auras causing 13.5 second Taunt on enemies contantly, trust me, I have the aggro. Unless someone else Taunts the foes while I'm hibernating, they're good. And if they are Tauntint, then they can handle the aggro.



If you are soft-capped in your fight before popping Overload, unless you are fighting +6s (which you can't get solo), then Overload is only giving you the HP boost. You're gaining nothing from the Defense bonus.

Amazingly, you're trying to tell us that this change is needed based on SO-level survivablity differences between /EA and Ice/. Then you're talking about testing your limits in battle on what I would assume is a well IO-d out Brute, if you're that softcapped before Overload. And you're saying that my Ice Tanker will lose aggro but you're soloing on your Brute. If I'm soloing, and testing my limits, I don't need to worry about lost aggro, and while I may not be any stronger coming out of Hibernate than when I went in (debateable, depending on the enemy), I often find that I don't need Hibernate that much in the first place, meaning that usually I'm strong enough as it is.

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

Telling me Overload is useless because I am already softcapped ? Does not seem logical..maybe you can explain yourself.

My lowest number of typed defense with exception to Psi on my Brute is 46% . I jump into a group of mobs who seemingly have defense debuffs or a better chance to hit me cause they are +3, they start hitting me.. I lose health.... I hit Overload...they dont hit me, at least for a while anymore.

The notion of there is no reason going passed 45% defense seems silly. Overload ensures they the constant 5% chance to hit me stays on for a much longer period as it takes longer for my defenses to cascade failure. Also when facing cascade failure I assume Overload would boost my defenses back up so the enemies would have to start cascade failure all over again.

Or is that theory wrong? And what about a +2 boss. If I have 45% defense, does he always have a 5 % change to hit me or is his chances greater since he is a +2 boss. If his chances to hit are greater so..then would it not be logical to have Overload to go well passed the softcap to reduce this +2 bosses chance to hit?

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

Sure it does....new aggro occurs on teams in that time, not all enemies were taunted by you when you where forced into Hibernate..and so on.

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

The Developers would decide that naturally. I just wish they will want to implement such a change. Hibernate just seems so illogical for Tanking and I hate how you cant slot it for recharge or anything which means its not avaliable often.

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

Having Defense over the softcap will help with Defense Debuffs, yes. However, not all enemies have Defense debuffs, or at least not enough to reduce Defense significantly. there are a few enemy groups where this is a concern (such as those greek yuppies). Enemies with significant +ToHit buffs, such as DE Quartz Eminators or the Rularuu eyeballs, will generally negate any Defense values you might have, with or without Overload (for instance, the DE Quartz eminators give out a +100% ToHit buff).

That +2 Boss will have the same chance to hit you at 45% Defense as he would at 90% Defense. It will be higher than 5%, but adding more Defense won't change that. +2 enemies, and higher-conning enemies like bosses, get Acc boosts, which factor in after the Defense part of the Tohit calculations.

So while yes, there are some advantages to going over the softcap, but not as many as you might think (and then you've got the Incarnate softcap, which having 3 minutes out of 16 at the softcap isn't going to be that useful overall - no more so than being able to completely ignore attacks for 45 seconds every 2 minutes).


So yes, cascade failures can happen. EA and Ice Armor deal with this in two different ways. EA can hit Overload, basically throwing more of the same at the problem, meaning that it takes longer for the cascades to factor in. Ice Armor waits the debuffs out, basically allowing you to reset the fight. I don't mind that they have two different ways of dealing with the problem.

Originally Posted by Hopeling

Uh, what? Hibernate definitely takes recharge. Edit: Oh, you mean the NoPhase I guess?

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

Yeah thats smart. As long as the mechanic exists then if should not be hard. Dreadshinobi just confused me for a sec when mentioning throwing that around to other sets... . ...Like what sets ? Someone feel a power needs replacing on another power set or something ?

...

Originally Posted by New_Dark_Age

I think Ice Armor is a cool set even though I never really play Tankers anymore. Nevertheless, I wanted to point something out and advocate a logical change.

The thing that I have noticed is the superiority Icy Bastion seems to have over Hibernate as a Tier 9th power. Icy Bastion would be far better on an Ice Tank than Hibernate with its ability to temporarily plug Ice Armor's weakness of lack of resistance. In addition the added resistence from Icy Bastion would stack with Ice Armor's Fire resistence and better allow Ice Tankers to absorb the Alpha Strike.

Hibernate on the other hand works against gaining aggro since it locks you in a block of ice. So by phase healing yourself , you are not Tanking and cannot protect your team. In addition the phase nerf made Hibernate a shadow of its former glory. The Nophase timer just seems long and many Ice Tankers never use Hibernate often anyway. The Ice Tankers who do have to use Hibernate often would find they would not need to if they had an alternative power to plug Ice Armors gaps, a Resistence version of Shadow Meld in a way, although with a longer duration and longer recharge time

Stalkers by the way get access to both Icy Bastion and Hibernate while Tankers cannot so I do not see a balance problem with Tanker Ice Armor getting Icy Bastion instead of Hibernate. Stalkers can also get Shadow Meld combined with Icy Bastion too.


As such, I am suggesting to replace Hibernate with Icy Bastion as the Tier 9th power in Tanker Ice Armor since the latter is more useful to Tankers and more logical to Tanking Philosophy.

Thanks