Solarverse

I am very reluctant to do this because honestly, the Suggestion Forums has a way of bringing out the worst in some of the best people on these boards. I have seen many of you post since the beginning of this game and I am fond of a great deal of you...however, these Suggestion Forums have been known to turn you in to something that you are not. So please bare this in mind and be nice. I swore the Suggestion Forums off, so I am taking a much larger chance posting this than I am comfortable with...however, I am compelled to do so in order to get a feel of the other gamers where Ice is concerned. Having said that... The History My favorite combinations for my Tankers has always been [Willpower/Energy - Ice Armor/Ice Melee - Anything/Stone - Invulnerability/Super Strength] and in that order. If you ever took a look at my Tanks, you would see that they very seldom deviate from this...and if I do create a character that goes outside of this, that character usually doesn't last very long. However, the only thing that has kept Ice from being in my number one spot, is the absurdity of some of the powers and how they aren't really all that pertinent to a Tank. For theme, I absolutely love Ice/Ice as a Tank, but the reality is that there is only one ability that really helps give Tanks crowd control and damage mitigation. I know what you are thinking, you are thinking, "But Solarverse, what about all that -recharge!" You mean all 8% of it? Not really a big help since you only have one power that is really somewhat useful with the -recharge and that is Frost, which is a short range (but now wide...thank God) cone and we are still only looking at -8% Recharge/Slow. Frozen Aura does not do this, in fact it is arguably the worst power in the set and it's a Tier 9 Power that has an AoE Sleep, which is broken immediately. It is completely useless outside of an AoE Cold Damage type. All of the rest of the powers are straight forward single target damage and that -8% Recahrge/Slow is hardly worth getting all excited about. I have been playing Ice/Ice Tanks since the very beginning and after all these years, my opinion of the set has not been changed. The two best things to happen to Ice Melee since 2004 is when they added damage to Frozen Aura (which should have been done straight out of the gate) and the extra damage to Frost....which was desperately needed. However, regardless if you agree or disagree I ask that you at least take a bit of time to check out my proposition for the set and kind of ignore my personal biased views on this set. I am going to love this set no matter how horrible the set is...I loved it when it first came out, back when it was pure garbage, and I still love it now. However, I think it needs some attention if it is ever going to be (which it has never been) on par with other sets. I don't expect this set to ever be the best, but I would like if it were at least ranked among the top 10 for once in its life. THE COLD RULE!!! One thing to keep in mind here is the COLD RULE (something I made up...sorry for the lame term) which is this: Any power that has a -8% Recharge/Slow must be accounted for when making any changes to a power. For an example, if you add a chance for Mitigation to a power that already has a -8% Recharge/Slow, that Mitigation affect must be no greater than half of what the duration or percentage of chance would be for similar mitigation tools of other sets. ICE MELEE Anything written in regular blue print are edits made after considering constructive feedback. All damage scales are pulled from base Tank values at level 50 FROZEN FISTS: Change animation and activation time to match Stone Fist, Increase recharge from 3 to 4 seconds to keep in line with Stone Fist. Add a 10% Chance for a Mag 2 Scale 3 Stun (half the duration of EM Barrage since COLD RULE applies) to target, as the hit from a fist wrapped in Ice can cause a sudden cold rush to the head giving its victim brain freeze, stunning your target. ICE SWORD: Add a 25% chance for a Mag 2 Scale 6 Immobilize on target (half the duration of Spine's Lunge, half the chance as Stone Mallet) as the hit from Ice Sword can create large Icicles on the ground surrounding your target. (Uses the same VFX as Chilblain whenever the Immobilize procs) FROST: Reduce cast time from 2.27 seconds to 1.83 seconds (matches Swoop from Battle Axe) and add a 35% chance for a Mag 2 Scale 7.45 Immobilize on all targets hit (half of the duration of Spine Burst of the same tier, half the chance as Swoop from Battle Axe) as the quick formation of Ice Crystals can accumulate to shackle your targets in Ice. TAUNT: Stays the same, no change. BUILD UP: Stays the same, no change. ICE PATCH: Apply the same radius percentage bonuses to Ice Patch that Tanks get for other AoEs. Not sure why this was left out as a Tank's primary function over Brutes is to better mitigate damage. I believe this was simply overlooked. Also reduce cast time from 3.47 seconds to 3.1 seconds (matches Ice Slick cast times from Controller/Dominator sets). It has been argued that this is not enough, however, I feel the Devs would never allow a Tank to drop an Ice Patch faster than a Dominator or Controller can. Having said that, if a Dev decided that I was wrong, I would not be disappointed in the slightest. FREEZING TOUCH: Stays the same. GREATER ICE SWORD: Change the animation to that of Greater Psi Blade, change cast time from 2.33 seconds to 2.5 seconds to match GPB and add a 35% chance for Knock Down (less than half the chance for Heavy Mallet) which applies the COLD RULE and keeps the chance of mitigation in line with that rule. Increase Recharge from 10 Seconds to 15 seconds and add the values of Greater Psi Blade's damage scale. This increases the damage of Greater Ice Sword from 103.55 base value to 218.71 base value. FROZEN AURA: In addition to the 100% chance for Sleep, add a 100% Chance for a Mag 2 11.175 Scale Immobilize to all targets hit (half of Chilblain in the Epic Pool Power for Tanks, but also ignores the COLD RULE due to there being no -8% Recharge associated with Frozen Aura) which will greatly help Tanks and other Melee classes with aggro control and situational control (I.E. Knock Back prevention, runner prevention) on teams, but does not interfere with solo play and the usefulness of Sleep. This Immobilize will not prevent Knock Down, but rather prevent Knock Back. Any target hit with a Knock Back will be Knocked Down instead. Conclusion The original iteration of this proposal had a couple of nerfs to certain powers that I felt might be a wee bit too over powered. However, after talking with people in the thread, I came to agree that the last thing Ice Melee needs is a nerf to justify a buff. Having said that, I felt that this was primarily a well deserved mitigation buff to Ice Melee with a slight DPA buff to the Tier 1 (Frozen Fists) ability and a Damage buff to the Tier 8 (Greater Ice Sword) ability. I am not a huge fan of buffing anything in this game, I do not believe it is any big secret that I hate the Power Creep that has been introduced to this game over the years. However, what I hate even more than Power Creep is when one powerset is far exceeded by others in the balance department, especially when a particular set that came straight out of the box (since day one) and has always remained far behind the others sets for the entire existence of the game. I don't ever expect (nor want) Ice to be the #1 powerset, however, it would be nice to see the set rise above the lower levels (in which it has always been a dweller of) high enough to finally be able to wave and say howdy to the other sets who didn't even know it existed.

He posted often on the original forums and he played as an Invuln/SS Tank and an SS/Invuln Brute on the Protector Server. Anyone know if he's back, or know him personally?

Which is not quite as bad as I thought...but IMO just backs up my point with facts instead of bad memory. Wait, is the recharge different for a Dom's Whirling Hands than it is for a Tanks? My Tank is nowhere near capped, he doesn't even have Hasten and my recharge is up every 5 seconds. So I am assuming (without checking Mids) that a Dom's version of Whirling Hands must be on a longer recharge?

I raised my eyebrow at you thinking, "WTF, Troo? Did you lose your mind? Then I red the part in purple, lol.

Pretty sure that is not what they were saying.

Anything that is strictly Lethal/Smashing is Bad. The only reason that SS gets a pass is because of Rage. At least that is according to my old knowledge of PvP...which is quite out dated.

Neither was my primary point. This was. when a Dominator stuns a target, they used to get bonus damage when using Whirling Hands. What you quoted was the secondary point. Almost every Dom slots for recharge which makes Whirling Hands recharge in like 3 seconds flat. So giving them a mechanic that grant Whirling Hands an auto recharge is completely pointless all together. I'm sure Dom players would have rather been left out of that EM buff all together since what they already had worked well for them. I'm not 100% certain, but judging from descriptions, Doms also lost that extra damage they would get to stunned targets as their exclusive mechanics that was specific to Doms...and if this is true, the changes to Energy Assault for Doms was more of a nerf than it was a buff.

because this needed to be re-posted posted posted posted posted posted.........................

I remember that, lol. He had absolutely no idea, lol. I honestly hope he comes back again.

One day in the neither hither nor afar shall arise a great and shot tempered hero known only as the one the only Unique Dragon when he shall will sometimes but never always rise from the ashes of the fallen frowny face happy Americans after their failed around sometimes purpose attempts to jerk some hacks in their asses so filled with jello sorrow candy and one day Unique Dragon will set ablaze the hacks for the jerks who be afar dupin rares from the feet of babies for one day Unique Dragon will return and fulfill the ageless and untainted smelly prophecy laid out hence forth we shall here him shout COH WELL BE GONE TO THE AMERICANS!!!!! > : (

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Great...another mouth to feed and another person to argue with on the forums. Welcome back!

I don't know about that, but on my Ice Tank I use Energy Absorption quite often. Lately I have been finding myself on teams who have other Tanks with the Teleport power and they tend to teleport the mobs to them after I already have them stacked on me...which can be frustrating because they seem to do it right when I hit Energy Absorption...which means I get zero Defense buff and zero Endurance. This teleporting mobs thing was a huge bane during my Numina run today.

I play Kinetic Melee on a Stalker and although it doesn't seem like it hits quite as hard as other sets, I can chain the attacks together much faster to equal more damage in quick successions. Now, granted, a Stalker uses Build Up, so that helps quite a bit. I have not played the set on any other class, so I can't really comment there.

Ugh, how did I miss that? Yup yup, thanks for clearing that up.

Depends on what you are using it for. Back pre i13, I used to PvP like crazy. It was pretty much all I did. i13 changed that with the famous PvP nerf they brought in that has never changed since then, but...when I played as a Spines/SR Stalker, I had Stealth and Invisibility. I would stack Invisibility with a Stealth I.O. along with Hide....even somebody with stacked Perception could not see me unless I was literally standing right in front of their faces. I would come up behind them, click Stealth (which allowed me to transition from Invis to Stealth in order to activate Assassin's Strike) and then go for the kill. Most always, Heroes would come out of nowhere and everywhere to kill my Stalker after killing their precious Empathy Healer...so I had to run like hell. I would hit Invisibility again and with my insane Defense, I would be right back in to full Hide+Invis+Stealth I.O. in no time and leaving behind a bunch of sad faced panda Scrappers who got all excited to kill a Stalker and had to watch their precious catch get away. It teased the living hell out of them and I loved it. When a Scrapper seen a Stalker, they foamed at the mouth in anticipation of killing a Stalker. Killing Stalkers was a Scrapper's wet dream come true....it was always satisfying denying them their trophy. I would have never been able to pull that off if not for having both Stealth and Invis in my build.

You have to improvise. If you check out this gif, you can see the one that I had made. If you like it, the costume for it is in the clickable file. Just copy the file and drop it in your costumes folder and it will be under the name of Ms. Liberty. Ms. Liberty.costume

Crap, you're right. For some reason I was counting Spines' Quills which swayed the numbers a bit in my head. But yeah, that is a secondary attack power, not a primary defensive power. Which now begs the question, why would a Tank even have a Damage aura if the Tank already has a Debuff Aura? The whole point of the Primary set is to mitigate damage, so where does it make any logical sense that a Tank gets a power that does nothing but Toggle AoE Damage? You could say to hold aggro with, but then that leaves Ice in question because it already has Chilling Embrace, so it doesn't need Icicles for that. Sorry, things in my head have to add up logically or I tend to dwell on it until my brain can find a way to make logical sense of it.

So wait, when a Dominator stuns a target, they used to get bonus damage when using Whirling Hands. That used to be a mechanic that was specific to them and only them. The changes to EM did away with that and replaced it was a instant recharge mechanic instead. A Dom's main complain is that their recharge is so stupid high, they do not need an auto recharge ability because by the time they use Total Focus, Whirling Hands would have already been recharged anyway. So the new changes do not help Doms. So unless my definition of mechanics is completely wrong, I believe that qualifies?

very possible.

I know a lot of PvP Stalkers who would RIP your face off if you got Stealth changed. Stalkers use Stealth to layer their invisibility levels so that people with stacked perception still can't see them until it's too late.

Answer me this; does your character sometimes randomly just refuse to go in to battle stance? If so, that can cause the missing animations. Happens to me on all kinds of different powersets. Usually after using any build-up type of buff. Happens with Conserve Power type buffs as well. Those buffing powers seem to be the culprit behind characters refusing to go in to battle stance....which in turn has a tendency of not activating random animations/Effects If this sounds familiar, I have a bug report on this. Some players find it a bug that can wait on a fix...even though the bug has been around since issue 12ish. So unless that bug report garners support, that bug will never be fixed.

I love those guys. They have great skits they do.

This is a very educational video for you Mac users out there, I highly suggest watching this video and everything will be crystal clear. You're welcome.