Ok. So for the Pvpers, you have probably noticed most high ranked players are grandmasters. And majority of these grandmasters are ice. In general, lots of players on leaderboards are ice. Now here are some stats from a thread from Duelist: 36% of players on leaderboards are ice. 4% is storm. 558 of the players on the leaderboards are level 50. 223 of these players are ice. So almost 25% of the leaderboards are grand ices.
My point? THAT IS CRAZY! It's ridiculous how overpowered ice is and how overpowered grand masters are. At level 49, the the average critical rating is 0. At level 50 that spikes to over 100 critical. Block also makes the same crazy spike.
This thread was just to bring some attention to this topic. Nothing will change most likely but it might.
The saying goes "KI really loves Ice or really hates Storm."
Part of Ice's presence on the leaderboard might be due to bias in spells or gear, but believe it or not a great deal of it is also psychological. Your average player buys so hard into player typologies (these little sing-song things you're always reading, like "Storm has damage," "Fire has DoT," "Ice has resist") that they actually fail to prepare themselves for counter-examples, cases where those typologies aren't true.
They don't think to plan their decks or gear to defend against a high-damage, hard-hitting Ice. So, much of Ice's presence on the leaderboards is due to the element of surprise. (I personally think it's unfair that Storm players can't practically use surprise in the same way by being high resist/high health and having less damage.)
The saying goes "KI really loves Ice or really hates Storm."
Part of Ice's presence on the leaderboard might be due to bias in spells or gear, but believe it or not a great deal of it is also psychological. Your average player buys so hard into player typologies (these little sing-song things you're always reading, like "Storm has damage," "Fire has DoT," "Ice has resist") that they actually fail to prepare themselves for counter-examples, cases where those typologies aren't true.
They don't think to plan their decks or gear to defend against a high-damage, hard-hitting Ice. So, much of Ice's presence on the leaderboards is due to the element of surprise. (I personally think it's unfair that Storm players can't practically use surprise in the same way by being high resist/high health and having less damage.)
What is the element of surprise? There is no difference at the resist of an ice at level from a storm at level 50. If both have the gear and a resist pet, the resist won't change. I would say most people expect ice to be a high powered offense school.
Also, even if storm tried to Jade, it wouldn't work out. The storms, with their health, are basically forced by KI to attack every chance they get.
A storm with 4K health and 76 resist vs an ice with 5.5K health, 100 damage, and 55 resist would easily win.
What is the element of surprise? There is no difference at the resist of an ice at level from a storm at level 50. If both have the gear and a resist pet, the resist won't change. I would say most people expect ice to be a high powered offense school.
Also, even if storm tried to Jade, it wouldn't work out. The storms, with their health, are basically forced by KI to attack every chance they get.
A storm with 4K health and 76 resist vs an ice with 5.5K health, 100 damage, and 55 resist would easily win.
The stereotypical Ice wizard is not high powered offense, no. That's why it surprises people. Not everyone, no, but a lot of people assume Ice hits will not be as brutal (because of the typologies we have had beat into our heads since Day 1). You can more easily observe this bias in PvE, where even if the Ice wizard has the highest damage/critical of anyone on a team, people don't like to trust them to hit.
I'm not so sure that 76 resist storm would win. Storm's pip rate would ensure a slower rate of successful attacks and heals. Additionally, nearly all Storm's hits are single impact and can be blocked with a shield, whereas Ice's blade-stacking is more effective and the school has multiple DoT options, meaning Ice can more easily guarantee damage. I'd love to watch that fight though.
Banning the use of tier 8+ tc would completely destroy the amount of grandmaster "overlords" (mostly ice) sullying the arena. There wouldn't even be a discussion if you didn't have level 50 wizards using spells way out of their level range like lord of winter and celestial calendar.
