Miladys_Knight

I've seen mobs stand and shake in AA though to be honest I've not looked for it or specifically noticed it since they made the confusion effects more visible. With Ice Control there's too much going on what with the mobs flopping and having purple bubbles on their heads. Mids even has the slotting options for both versions of the powers correct and has for some time. It's not a bug. Its been that way since they introduced Doms. That was of course back when CoX was "2 different games, yet one game". If the Dom version no longer applies both a fear and an afraid that would be the bug.


Tell this to my Aura using blasters (/fire, /elec, and /dark) who have inspirations and outside buffs as their only means of keeping their Aura toggles on. Some are further hampered by having no single target hard control available in their primary let alone one with a decently quick animation time or adequate range.

The Devs don't consider simply solo factors. There are outside buffs that raise total hit points (like Frostworks) these are a waste to use on stalkers and blasters (the ATs that actually benefit most from team buffs) at the moment. If the devs plan on adding more of these type powers then the blaster HP cap should be looked at as well.

It's not required to make the power functional. It works perfectly well on a team where you have an alpha absorber like a tank or a brute. If you want it to work perfectly well solo adding a couple range enhancers works quite well. It solves the Alpha problem solo AND you get to use it from farther away ALL the time. That sounds like problem solved and BONUS! to me. One of the most amusing teams I was ever on I played a low level Ice/Ice Dom and was with 3 Bots MMs. All I had to do was drop Ice slick (which was slotted 2 rech 2 range) and let the Bots shoot stuff. I don't think we lost a single Bot or took a point of damage and we spent most of the time chatting about how amusing it was.

I've played blasters for a looong time. I learned quite awhile ago just how valuable a little extra range is. Why do you think none of the top of the line ranged single target damage IO sets have range enhancements in them? The devs know just how vaulable a little extra range is too.

A few flaws here. MOST AoE hard controls have short durations, long recharge, and lower than standard accuracy. If you are going to use them at all its 6 slots worth or you are wasting your time. With slows you can get lots of mitigation out of 3 or 4 slots. Ice control is probably one of the easiest control sets on your slot budget. That's what allows me to use a couple extra slots for range in Ice Slick and Flash Freeze

When you put it like that it makes it look bad. The problem is that you haven't added in all the other effects you get when you are using Ice control to cap -rech (you can't avoid them they are built in) you get that confusion that pulses and leaves things confused "most" of the time. You get the cower in fear when it ticks a large amount of the time, and it's all layered inside capped -rech and capped -run speed.

Spreading the Alpha out with a KD patch and slows is valuable. I admit its not near perfect mitigation like a hard control or soft capped defenses but spreading the Alpha out gives your regen a chance to work, gives you a chance to pop an inspiration with out getting overwhelmed with incoming damage, or a chance to activate a self heal and the opportunity for that self heal to recharge and be ready for use again before its needed.

Last, but not least, hard controls DON'T lock every thing down immediately. I frequently take some alpha damage from opening with Cinders, Flash Fires, Char, etc. The thing with Stalagmites and Flash Fires is that they have a 70' range and a 25' radius. That means that the lead mob is generally in perception range but the rest of the spawn isn't. The lead mob gets a chance to retaliate and even if you notify with a miss the rest of the spawn doesn't because they don't chain aggro because you are out of perception range..

You mean like the fights you have in the early levels as a solo dom when you don't have a lot of AoE and it isn't up as often? That would be when it shines. Ice, Plant, and Elec are 3 primaries where I can turn up the spawn size early when I'm still slot poor and survive for a long long time.

Cooperative terrain is available in about 90% of the places you run into spawns on indoor maps. It is alot more common than you are making it sound and even when it is out of range a strategically placed Ice slick and a single pulling attack gives it right back to you. In any case all those things plus... an Alpha absorbing teammate like a brute or tank, 2 range enhancers in Ice Slick, 2 range enhancers in Flash Freeze.

It isn't. It's the only set that only has 1 standard control power in it. A problem that I don't think the devs will remedy by morphing the other powers in the set into a standard control. Ice takes some thought and different tactics to use well but it has a lot of mitigation potential. I kind of like to be able to use something that is different but still powerful. I really like it as a change from the "click - hurry we have 20 seconds to kill all these stone statues" approach that most of the other control sets bring to the game.

How about if I tell you that the only thing I was using from Rad was AM and Choking Cloud? It took me about 7 minutes to solo that spawn. My damage was all from Block of Ice (slotted for hold not damage), Frostbite (slotted for immob [grav anchor] not damage and no damage procs), and Jack, who lived the whole 7 minutes and still had 2/3rds of his health left. I only solo'ed it because I was waiting for my wife to get back from taking the dog out and was curious to see if I could. I would have run out of endurance long before the spawn was dead if I had run the other rad toggles.

Lots of sets have powers that contradict each other or are redundant. Earthquake and Stone Cages, Salt Crystals and Earthquake, Fire Cages and Hot Feet, Bonfire and Fire Cages, Dimension Shift and any damage power, Mass Hypnosis and Terrify, Spore Burst and Roots, Spore Burst and Carrion Creepers. That's every control set currently available to Doms and they all have powers that contradict each other.

I frequently open with Flash Freeze, then move into melee range so that AA takes hold, and then drop Ice slick where I'm standing. The mobs that start flopping are locked out of animating powers, those that aren't flopping yet are still asleep, and if the others stop flopping for a couple of seconds they are at the -rech cap, confused, or afraid.

I've played it to 50 on 3 different controllers and 2 different doms and I'm working on a 3rd Ice Dom. I don't have the trouble that you seem to have, but then I slot extra range in Flash Freeze and Ice Slick. Also why so impatient? Even without Domination up or using Hasten you can get Block of Ice recharging in 4 seconds and a duration of 35 seconds just frankenslotting cheap hold sets. I always lock down the most serious threats before I start flinging my AoEs.

Now that makes no sense to me. Comfortably skip sounds like its overpowered and you can get away with only half the stuff. Turning around and saying that its weak after you skipped half the stuff is kind of a head scratching 'duh' moment for me. My doms use everything from the primary but Chilblain and Jack. I don't need the single target damage from Chilblain with an assault secondary and I don't like the unplanned aggro that Jack can draw. If I were planning on building an Ice troller to solo I'd be taking every thing from the primary.

It sounds more like you are saying you don't like it so it should be made different (ie: make it like all the other control sets..... except Illusion [which doms don't currently have access to] and Grav).


I'm starting to think that most of you don't like Ice control because it's not a "click one button and rush in with AoEs blazing", easy mode, power set.

Wish granted. The controller version has a 50% chance of a mag 3 fear that lasts for 3.75 seconds but is unenhanceable. The Dom version has a 50% chance of a mag 3 fear that lasts for 3 seconds but is enhanceable. enhancing to the ED cap gives you a 50% chance of a mag 3 fear that lasts for 5.8 seconds. Since the power pulses once every 2 seconds most targets will be affected by fear a large majority of the time.

True but controllers can mitigate this by paring with Forcefields or Sonic Resonance. Dominators mitigate this with Domination which can be made permanent.

And this differs from Earthquake breaking salt crystals in what way?

Sirens Song does the same thing but has a 20 foot shorter cone. Slotting range in Flash Freeze greatly alleviates the problem. You can't slot enough range in Sirens to help it.

And this differs from Earthquake and Stone Cages in what way?

I'll also note that both Earthquake and Ice Slick can be cast from around a corner and a single mob can be targeted with Stonecages/Frostbite and 12 seconds later the whole spawn is flopping yet immobilized.

Neither does Earthquake.

And this differs from Earthquake in what way? Earthquake has a higher KB mag (.67 as opposed to Ice Slick's .5) but a lower chance to cause KB (7% as opposed to Ice Slick's 8%)

Yeah, you mentioned that all ready. You can fix a lot of the problem by slotting up some range. Earth's sleep is PBAoE. You're melee/close range when you use it.

It costs the same amount of endurance as Hot Feet and provides a lot more mitigation. Hot Feet ticks damage and slows mob run speed (it slows mob run speed more than Artic Air which is kinda of a HUNH?!?!?! thing admittedly).

Arctic Air causes afraid effects, drastically reduces mob recharge rates, and can confuse the mobs so they do full damage attacks to each other. Arctic Air has a 5' larger radius so you are lots more likely to get "punched in the face" using Hot Feet than Artic Air. Arctic Air also has -stealth in it so that those annoying critters that disappear from view like CoT Ghosts and Tsoo Ancestor Spirits can still be targeted and hit by you.

IF you ED cap the confuse slotting it pulses every 2 seconds and has a 30% chance of applying a 5.8 second (7.5 for controllers) confuse. I don't call that "doesn't confuse much". It sounds like it confuses quite a lot. The Dom version also allows the fear component to be enhanced. You can Frankenslot Cheap IOs to maximize all the mitigation components and still have excellent accuracy enhancement and endurance reduction.

Arctic Air is VERY under appreciated for the amount of mitigation it does provide. Most people's problem with it is that it doesn't do much damage. I just see any damage that confused foes do to each other as a bonus.

Jack's getting buffed.

No argument here. This is what I would call the bane of the set. It's worse for Doms than controllers with the lower base duration though.

Slows are one of the most powerful soft controls in the game. Capped -rech can reduce incoming damage over unit time by 75%. That's almost identical to having 75% damage resistance, it adds together with any defense and resistance that you do have to provide even more mitigation, and it slows damage down enough that any regen you have works even better. Not only that but it applies to you, your entire team and Jack. Wanna know what's even better? There's enough -rech in Ice/ to -rech cap +4 mobs.

Smart play gives you lots of ways to avoid an Alpha Strike. The problem with most players is they are too impatient to let that mitigation take hold before they start attacking.

My Ice/Rad controller has pathetic damage and has soloed +0/x8 spawns without taking a point of damage or having to use Radiant Aura.

I don't get the hate for Ice Control. It's not weak. It just requires a different (melee centric) play style.

Try slotting more range in Flash Freeze. A set of Sandman (every thing but the proc) with a level 50 range IO in the 6th slot will give you more than 80' range that will put you out of mob perception range when you cast it and will solve quite bit of the Alpha problem you describe.

Slotting Ice Slick with 2 rech, 2 range will do the same to relieve most of it's problems too.

I wouldn't make any of the changes that you all are suggesting. I'd simply make the range of Ice Slick and Flash Freeze the standard 80' and then reduce the recharge of Flash Freeze to 45 seconds.

AA is where I would make the changes. I'd increase the pulse duration to once every second instead of every 2 and set it up so that it could stack up to a mag 4 confuse 10-25% of the time.

The highlighted section of Trickshooter's post is the important one to consider.

CoX is a game for us, but it is a business for the owners, and the way they feed themselves and their families for the developers.

It is in all their best interests to buff under performing sets and modify underutilized sets especially now that the game has gone f2p.

Under performing and underutilized sets mean that development time (which is expensive) is not generating the revenue that the company had planned. (In other words they wasted development time.)

For those of us here this is a game of Alts. That means the more sets that are fun (and that means different things for all of us. Some of us think performance is fun, for some its all about the look and feel of the animations, for some is how the secondary effects or "gimmick" of the power set works [or fails to work], for some it's even "how does this power make my character look while I'm roleplaying?") means the more time we will play and pay.

Having more power sets that are at least average in most areas, and really shine in 1, means that we have more options for what we consider fun and will spend more time/$$$ on their product.

From the f2p aspect having a player download, log in, and create their first character (most likely in the image of their favorite comic book or RPG character) and have it fail utterly to live up to any of their expectations means that they can permanently lose that person as a player and kiss any hope of present or future revenue goodbye.

The devs need to put their best foot forward in as many areas as possible for these reasons.

To expand on Urchin's ideas the chaos creature could be from Norse legends. Norse legends feature, chaos, ice/cold, and stone.

If you go with a Norse theme an Ice/Earth/Psi Dom could be the perfect bridge to your concept and could account for all the elements in your original idea while including all the other secondary effects that you get from those power sets.

Since all the Norse deities and demons are giants or of epic proportions that could also explain the fear component.

I would have to differ with you as this is a strategy I use quite successfully with my Sonic/ blasters. While the strategy you mention is quite a bit safer it is also measurably slower taking roughly 3 times as long to eliminate a 6 player spawn.

First off, if you read the text, you'll notice that Shockwave isn't the opener, Sirens is. Sirens has lower than standard accuracy so vs a 6 player spawn you are likely to miss 2-3 mobs (higher than a 6 player spawn would further complicate things due to the cones having a 10 target cap). This is why I mention that the next step is to hard mez the missed mobs with Screech and Shocking Bolt.

Next is Shockwave. The purpose here is not damage but mitigation. The build is a small purple insp below the defense soft cap vs ranged attacks. The mitigation that this step provides is important for 3 reasons. 1) Some of the mobs will get their attack rolls in during the split second between being awakened by the damage and being locked out of activating powers due to KB. 2) You may not always have a purple insp and you may not have enough or enough of the right insps to create one (mainly because of (s)low(er) drop rate of insps from a 6 player spawn setting and longer intervals between getting insp drops due to lengthy animation times). 3) The animation times of the cone powers in this power set combination are so lengthy that if the situation goes south you may not have the opportunity of popping any other inspirations before being defeated.

Additionally.... I freely admit that there is a learning curve in getting the KB to work properly while leaving the spawn within range of your other attacks. You'll notice that this build has Hover. If you have a 45 (or greater) degree angle between your hero and the spawn you can minimize both the KB distance and the scatter effect. You can further limit this by positioning with a wall or other object in back of the spawn. On an outdoor map you can easily hover directly over the spawn making this point moot. I do realize that you can "punch the middle out of the spawn" because of the varying cone widths of this combination. (Sirens 50 degrees, Shockwave, Howl, and Psi Scream 30 degrees, Static Discharge 45 degrees) but if that is the case the mobs that are still standing are still sleeping which leaves your mitigation in place.

Sirens is the closing power for mitigation purposes. In the time it takes to activate Howl and Psi Scream the mobs will have regained their feet. In the time it takes to animate Static Discharge they will have closed to Sirens range again. When Sirens finishes activating they would be in melee range (if you weren't hovering out of melee range). The total animation time of the AoE chain is 9.34 seconds. With this build the recharge time of Sirens (the longest recharging power in the chain) is 9.24 seconds so this AoE chain is seamless. You needn't take the hard mez step in the second iteration if your green bar is still in good shape, just follow up immediately with Shockwave. The chances are that any un-slept mobs will be KB'd and you should have enough defense to handle any attacks from mobs that are neither slept nor KB'd. 2 iterations of the AoE chain "should " be enough to wipe out even con minions.

If the spawn is lieutenant heavy it makes sense from an endurance conservation and kill speed perspective to run the AoE chain twice more to take out the lieutenants leaving only the boss(es) to be finished off with the single target chain.

You "can" run the single target chain after the initial Sirens instead of the AoE chain but this can needlessly prolong the duration of the fight. The amount of defense in the build "should" be enough to reduce incoming damage from unmezzed bosses to a tolerable level especially since they too will be KB'd by Shockwave.