Ice

[creedo]

Haha, I'm not such an armor fanboy, in fact I am always searching for reasons to not pick armor for serious matches.  It's not even that armor's too good or needs to be nerfed, I just like having 'specialties' that make a bot more fun than armor, or useful in situations where armor wouldn't be.  For example, playing nak is difficult and fun and sometimes when you're buried in a pit, nak is theoretically better than armor.  Or for example it's item lock and you absolutely need 500 damage, turtle can do that and armor cannot.. so in specific situations there are places where not having armor can be an advantage.

But when I look at ice and try to think "would ice be better here than armor" or "is there something more fun I could be doing with ice"... the answer always comes up 'no'.  It's kinda sad.  Even something as simple as a more interesting SS would make ice a much more fun bot... for example, a 0-dmg SS that temporarily leaves a crust of ice on the bot for about the same amount of time as 1 weather condition (i.e. 8 turns in a 4v4 games)... hits during that time would do really noticeable, nasty damage, like 150% of the usual damage.

THAT would be more fun to me than the fixed 20% defense reduction, which you barely notice (200 dmg shots now do... 240! WAH! ...zzzzz).

[Tooya]

What is this destroying defense business??  Can you go into a stat hore room with low avatars (or none), shoot ice ss at them and completely destroy there defense, I mean, How does it work in avatar on room compared to avatar off??

[GoodLad]

BUT the low delay of ice helps some compared to the high delay of a nak or armor.I have beaten quite a few armor players around with ice.But when u go up against a GOOD armor player that hits u wherever whenever with an ss or a dual+ u gotta watch out.They are very hard to beat.Back when I was using mage I fought this chick who said he was in cbchui's army and he was quite a skilled armor player and I beat him a couple times but he won the majority of the time and I ended up having to switch to armor myself.

[creedo]

yeah, having higher delay is sort of overrated.  Items, slight intangibles like having to walk to regain angle or wasting time calculating, etc.. can render many delay advantages meaningless.  Early in the match, 90% of the time if I open with shot 1, the opponent will get 2 turns in a row on me, but then I will get 2 turns in a row on them.  So at the end of 5 turns it's armor 3 hits, enemy 2.  

Where it really hurts is when someone stupidly duals when delay is about even, that is when someone can get 3 turns in a row on armor.  I consider eating 2 turns in a row a natural occurrence with armor, not really a fuckup.  It's just bound to happen even if you play the safest shot possible.  Later you will steal back the extra turn so I don't stress over it.  

But 3 turns in a row... that's a genuine fuckup.  It means a poor decision and/or wasting too much time measuring, moving, or whatever.

[Alvinho311]

Yesterday, I was playing 2 x2. I had Ice/Turtle, and my teammate had Ice/Cake. We were playing against Aduka/A.Sate and Aduka/Nak. Needless to say, we won. Ice is just good against Aduka, even though Lasers PWN Ice. In the end, that tiny defense lowering thingy made a difference.