I've tested all the tank powers and every time I do, I want to go back to the ice, because I like this style of power, but why on earth does this tank do everything wrong? The aggro is really debatable, well the mulitcible aggro (mainly) really leaves a lot to be desired compared to the other powers, some adds don't come, or others reappear very easily towards someone else or wherever they want to go... The resistance as soon as there's no more shield life is really scary, the tank ice is practically nothing when it has no shield and the experience is even worse when boss with a lot of adds. The most disappointing thing about this power is that, for an ice power, it doesn't have any effect that represents this power, just scaring the target and an annoying effect, in name only, because it doesn't do much, nothing freezes the adds in place, not even a real annoying effect, but why the hell doesn't ice have any cool effect and a real active effect for the tank? Some powers have the right to 2 effects, Ice deserves to have an effect more suited to the tank role, plus this power is increasingly out of favour because of the "auto heal" tank meta, this power is in dire need of an overhaul to keep up with the other tank powers!
I haven't really used ice tank with lots of SP and 200 arts but I think it's one of the best with so much shield you can hardly never be shielded. Typical spec would be max out dom and put the rest in res. And i think you gain defence if your shield break giving you time to pop another shield. With superman your group breakout gives you 2 shields in one ability. Manacle reduces heavy damage. Honestly I think ice is great it better the earth with not enough ability tray and single or at most double pull. earth gemstone shield is also annoying with the combo that can be interrupted and it removes you from fast movement.
Ice Tank depends on a lot of skill points on dominance which is a slow grind. It takes augments and artifacts to get a few percent boosts. Ice tank is 65% Defense and another 30% when using abilities that gives ice armor. And that's it. Nothing else can do until dominance is high enough to be able to survive from shields. I don't like to use Hard Light shield that's outside of the tank power and tanking mechanics. Snowdevil can be updated to give some extra defense or takes a percentage of your damage. And shattered Restraints shield is 0.7 much too weak and can be updated to reduce incoming damage % percentage based on your dom, that way you take less damage than the 0.7 shield. Or the Reflection can be buffed a bit and Winter Ward. New players that likes ice and wants to ice tank, it's just not comfortable until they have about 60sp in dominance and arts at about 100 for some dominance % Which can discourage players from ice tank and grows into just DPS.
It's in a neat place in the sense that it's the best for stomping scrubs in regular content and also the best in survival mode where things get ridiculous. The health bar doesn't need to even move in regular content because they don't hit hard enough to threaten their shields. Then when it comes to survival mode... the self healing tanks just crumble under the boss' haymakers. Ice really shines there as well. Earth is the only other viable option and even they generally agree that Ice is better for it. It's just somewhere in the middle difficulty levels where it's weaknesses stand out. When the self healing tanks are capable of sustaining themselves indefinitely... and Ice... well... melts under the overwhelming pressure. Circe's mask tried to help with this, but the annoyance of random crowd control effects outweighed it's assistance in that regard.
Aggro works the exact same way across all tank powers. It doesn’t work differently for ice at all. If you cast an ability and an add is near by you will gain their aggro. If you cast an ability in a target at range, you will gain aggro on said enemy and all enemies near them. This works regardless if you using a damaging ability or not. For example, if you pop a shield and don’t have anything target locked you’ll get aggro on all nearby enemies. If you have a group of enemies at max range (even if they are greyed out) and you cast a shield you’ll still gain aggro against that enemy at max range and any enemy near them. If you’re finding that enemies keep walking away from you than it means that either: A) they were not within range and you didn’t have them target locked or anyone near them. B) they have a scripted mechanic that makes them target someone else C) there’s another tank that gained aggro on them. As for the way ice works. Ice has arguably the best tank CC ability in resonating gale. A range knockdown that also draws enemies in to its epicenter. You essentially get a ranged pull that keeps things knocked down off of you. Even if you’re surrounded you can cast gale on an enemy at the edge of the group of adds on you and it would pull things off to give you a second to kite.
I'm sorry, but a raid like USN with adds to the ultimate soldier boss is a real mess for the ice tank...
There is one other reason the enemies may be walking away: a troll may have transformed them. I know it seems helpful to transform the ads into something not attacking anyone but they wander everywhere unless recaptured by the tank.
That is due to the stats clamp. The dom ice tank has with all skill points and augments in dominance with the stats clamp is definitely a gameplay experience change. Back then when at few CRs lower than their raid's level. The dominance stats then was good enough for USR. After Stats clamp As in Metal II Stats clamp my dom is 16k at 15 CR above the Alert level. My Arts is more and more sp and more augment in rank stats before stat clap my arts and CR and SP and augments was a bit lower and my dom was at 28k and haven't gotten any Metal II Gear and only half metal 1 gear.
Which part. You will get overwhelmed with the ads. Stuns/Juggles/Knock downs. Need to change up your toolkit in there, just turtling won’t cut it.
Best ST tank especially if you cheese the movement. Best cc in the game as well. Just very poor when there are multiple bosses to tank.
