Stats Revamp: Ice

If you enjoyed popping a shield then blocking, more power to you I suppose. Not everyone did though and the fact they felt the need to change it shows the feedback they got from many ice users. I swapped to atomic for that specific reason cause I wanted an active tank. Three years as ice and I got fed up. This update will definitely make me go back, and I'm sure many other tanks will pick up ice again.

I also might be revisiting ice.

Currently winter ward doesnt say its a breakout not sure if thats an oversight or the breakout aspect has been removed

Self Power healing abilities depend on your power pool and power. To increase the potency of this type of ability you must spec into Power. Your weapon attacks also regen power based on their animation time.

Bitter Winds can still be clipped by beneficial powers.

Just have some feedback regarding some Ice aspects. I was only able to get to the Lex boss mentor mission due to it being bugged.

• Dominance not doubling in tank role. Not sure if a bug or not. Defense no longer being 90% increase for Ice (though I understand why due to the defense changes so I'm sure intended).

• Winter Ward is no longer a group breakout and it still has a 20 second long cooldown with 6 second duration. It works almost exactly the same as Reflection now (without the reflect aspect) while Reflect has a 6 second duration and 12 second cooldown. Makes it tough for the Shields to be rotated.

• Inescapable Storm and Frost Snipe have longer cooldowns in Tank stance. Could make it harder for pulls for some Tanks. For comparison sake, Flight's Low Pressure (same as Ice's pull) has a short cooldown exactly like it is on Live.

• As some in the bugs, I also found some nice key highlights. The 85% defense mitigation without blocking is pretty good and gives tanks the ability to stay on top of counters and play reactive just as it is supposed to be...in skilled manner. Excellent. I noticed that it says in current effects, Tank Role 85% defense (+0.275 seconds) and Ice Armor 25% defense (+0.275 seconds)....I'm assuming the seconds is for like when you are not blocking? Do the 85% and 25% stack? Is blocking now at 85% defense mitigation? And does this apply to all tanks now theoretically? Oh and is there still a defensive/mitigation cap or is a bit different now?

• Another key highlight, Hibernation being able to now Taunt you instead of others while encased is a god send! Assuming it still works like a percentage based heal, it makes it a great super charge to pop in stressful situations. I'm sure other powers with the similar supercharge will be happy.

Also, what are the statistical strength numbers behind Reflection and Winter Ward now? Reason I ask is because now Ice has only two shields to rotate and I was wondering if they are still (reflect 10,000 + dominance) and (winterward 100% dom and 100% resto)? In end game content and survival mode, two shields usually isn't enough to survive but then again things have probably changed so that is why I'm asking if it has.

And in previous content, Winter Ward used to drop tank taunts for some. Has this been looked into? I haven't been able to test it out in a group but when I get the chance I will love to see for myself.

Not sure how changes to tanking will coralelate to gamplay in raids. Very curious to see how it goes but currently I can tell that the changes to pulls and single target taunts was not needed (inescapable storm and frost snipe). If the sacrifice for these powers will be damage output to make shorter CDs then it's a sacrifice worth concidering.
As for tanking in general I'm not too pleased about the sudden changes to core mechanics, it would be understandable if the old one remained let's say in a form shifting (to ice elemental) and the new mechanics worked outside of it.

I understand that now support roles will be closer to damage but concidering how fire tanking is all about blocking and keeping that flame up to help mitigate a bit more, I don't want to see it completely change to a vanilla atomic brother. I love fire as it is and I deeply dislike how atomic has been. Seeing how ice is now, my speculation probably isn't too far off.

i hope that this will be good change

i just cant picture ice like this at very top rounds of SM thoe, but then again maybe stats matter will change that... if they nerf/change fire also, i see only earth being good as tank for SM battle tanks go go go

Just wanted to clarify my post from earlier. I had typed i hope the pools get adjusted and it was meant to be pulls. I usually reread but didnt with that post. Sorry for the confusion if there was any.

Im still on the fence about the whole not needing to block and being a battle tank. What i see is there was a lot of positive feedback from people who switched to atomic for tanking. So the idea is lets make all tanks that way? Im not sure if that is a good idea and i wonder why that decision was made. I also atomic tank. I do both because i like the differences and enjoy playing both styles. Do i want all tanks to be that way? No i dont. I want the powers to work differently. Everyone being the same with just different colors is not my idea of variety.

I see 1 odd comment already and i hope this can be kept to the people actually testing things. I know there is an animation, dmg, and cooldown pass going on with all of this. But imo what is done in support role should not affect the dps side. Maybe im wrong here but it kinda looks like the pulls were adjusted on cooldown because of the dps side?

And from early dps testing what i see so far is optimal dps might be wpn attack clipped with buff, pwr back power, and supercharge builder. 4th power would be the supercharge which leaves room for only 2 other powers. Which would then lead to wpn attack clipped with 5 then wpn attack clipped with 6 until the 123 came off cooldown. Rinse repeat. Cast supercharge when its ready. I could be wrong on this as its still very early but it doesnt leave much room for variety. #5 or 6 power could maybe be a finisher if possible. Im assuming that is what an execute is?

Lastly i was killing some bosses way faster then adds in some missions. Sometimes add or a boss died extremely fast and other times they seemed to take quite a bit longer to kill. It just is a bit out of whack. I understand its only the 1st day. Just reporting what i saw

It's almost 3 am and after what little testing I did, I concur that pulls need to change their cool down. Also everything light FX said.

12 seconds of cooldown for Inescapable Storm seems a lot, at least on Ice tanking as we know it. Is it working as intended?

Yes, I do know that weapon attacks also regen power. And I know bitter winds can be clipped but you can't clip with it. Still useless.

i would like to know is why winter ward lost its immunity and kept its shield and shatter restraint lost its shield and kept its immunity. its like u handicapped both the powers.

I like what Ive played so far ice wise...seems a more thought out way to present Ice relevant to games lore and mechanics

Just on test with a villain ice character and I'm just wondering what's the logic for the 12 second cool down on frost slam you get at level 3? Its just a basic aoe single hit skill with no damage over time or anything to make it stand out but the cool down is 12 seconds. This could be reduced to 6 seconds and wouldn't effect game play in any way.

Also any chance we can switch Resonating gale with inescapable storm? It would be nice for the tank powers that have a pull (sorry fire tanks) to have that pull at level 9 so they can use it themselves before they go into alerts to get a better grasp of the tank role rather then them getting it randomly at lvl 14

resonating gale is CC. inescapable storm is pull. what switch are you talking about?

pull is 12 sec on test server , better get flight pull then. power pull doesnt matter if cooldown 12 sec... or get 2-3 pulls if all have 12 sec cooldown

BUG REPORT (?)
- Not sure to what degree is intended but you can't return to normal after using ice elemental.
In other words if I use the power "return to normal" after using ice elemental supercharge I can't go back no matter how many times I press it.

I hope it's intended so people doesnt abuse the supercharge like people do in live right now, but at the same time I think there are probably other ways to fix that without compromising the return to normal with ice elemental.

Please fix Ice Elemental Supercharge some players get stuck in transformation state and are unable to use ability or to attack

I have been testing as DPS for the time being. I do not think it's worth testing as a tank before reaching level 30!
And one thing I'm not really liking is the need to have to use the guns!
The return of power is not enough to keep me going!
I liked being able to use the iconic powers along with the powers of the ice and even then I had a return to power!
This gave me many ideas!
However I still believe that the return should be a little better!
Otherwise we will see "specific weapons for DPS" coming back! And I do not like this idea!
I like the idea of freely personalizing my character ...

I'm not comparing the 2 one as you said 1 is a crowd control which pulls mobs into its centre and knocks them down and the other is a basic pull. What I's asking is to switch those 2 skills around so new players get a pull early on right before they start doing alerts so they get used to the skill and feel like a tank at lvl 10 where they can use both shield and pull. Its the basics of tanking but a new person who starts doing alerts without a pull may miss the pull as they level up and not notice they got it