Angela Altena's Guide to Ice/Ice Blastrollering

So, you're wondering. Why Ice/Ice? Angela went down that path for thematic purposes, but in reality, Ice/Ice can be surprisingly powerful, with a lot of solo capability. The combination comes out to be very controllery, and as a result, you're the one in control of the entire situation. Or at least, you will be, once you level up some. Also, Ice has the really nice secondary effect of slowing enemies and increasing the recharge times of their powers. So, in addition to dealing damage to them, you're lowering the amount of damage you're taking. Quite handy if you ask me, be it in a solo situation or fighting an archvillain. Before I get started on tactics for solo and team situations, let's start with a breakdown of the powers in both sets, starting with the primary.

Primary Power Set: Ice Blast

Ice Bolt

Ice Bolt is a nice starting single target attack. It's also the attack you'll be using the most in your attack sequence. Pick it up and slot it; if you don't pick this one up at level 1, I recommend you do at level 2.

Ice Blast

Ice Blast is a higher damage version of Ice Bolt. Deals about double the damage for double the recharge time. Grab it, slot it, love it. Pick this one up either at level 1 or level 2.

Frost Breath

Frost Breath is a really nice cone. Properly placed, you can catch an entire spawn of enemies in it. The only catch is that you'll have to get close to them. That part's not really a big problem, since you'll have to get in a little to use Bitter Ice Blast later on anyway. I recommend getting this and slotting it up as well.

Aim

Great self-buff, doubles your accuracy and damage for a few attacks. Since Build Up won't be available for a few levels, I recommend picking this up when it becomes available, since Training enhancements aren't very good, and it'll be a while before you have access to Dual Origins and even longer until Single Origins. Don't slot this one up right away, go back and toss in some for recharge time later. Slotting up your attacks come first.

Freeze Ray

Now we're talking! Those blasts may be nice, and Frost Breath too, but Freeze Ray is what really makes this work! I skipped it at first because it dealt no damage. Boy, did I regret that! Freeze Ray is what gives you an edge over all the other blasters out there. It's a single target hold that deals (effectively) no damage, and can hold up to a lietenant. A second application of Freeze Ray (or any other hold for that matter) before the first runs out will allow you to hold a boss. Nifty, eh? Slot it for accuracy first, and the later on for Hold duration. At the lower levels, slotting out your other attacks for damage comes first.

Ice Storm

Ever see Fire blasters use Rain of Fire? Or a Storm Defender use Freezing Rain? Ice Storm is what you'd get if you mixed the two. It deals a little less damage than Rain of Fire, but has none of the defense or resistance debuffs that Freezing Rain gets. But the power isn't totally useless. Slotted up for slow, it can be used as a precursor to Blizzard. That is, you drop Ice Storm, then Blizzard, and then watch the show. Of course, it's also rather nice when you have a Controller on the team laying down the Holds and Immobilizes, since they can't run. I recommend waiting on this power until later, since you should use the level 12 slot (when this power becomes available) to start your travel power pool and pick up the prerequisite for it instead.

Bitter Ice Blast

Pick this up, slot it, love it. It's your "close" ranged nuke, and it deals the most damage out of your 3 single target damage attacks. Of course, by "close", I mean 50 feet, well out of range of any auras an enemy may have up. In comparison, the Energy and Fire close-ranged nukes are both at 20. A slotted up BIB and Ice Blast will demolish any +1 minion. Nice, eh?

Bitter Freeze Ray

This is Freeze Ray's beefier cousin, Bitter Freeze Ray. It deals damage and can hold up to a lieutenant. The downside? You have to sit there for 4 seconds while this activates. Optional? Definitely, as the long activation time doesn't really justify the damage. But if you do get it, I recommend slotting this first for accuracy, then for hold duration.

Blizzard

Yay! The . . . 32 . . . nuke? For a "nuke", it's not particularly flashy. As a matter of fact, I've had multiple Fire, Energy, and Electric blasters and Kheldians use their nukes after I've set this one off. But it's still nothing to laugh at, since it's got ways to keep things underneath it for the duration. In addition to the torrent of 3-4 damage it'll do in very rapid succession, it'll slow and knockdown anything underneath it. Plus, it also has the added bonus of lowering enemy accuracy. Stack this on top of Ice Storm or Shiver, and you've got them all. Still, it's skippable for that reason. If you do get it, though, slot it up for damage at the very least.

Secondary Power Set: Ice Manipulation

Chilblain

Chilblain is the obligatory first level power you have to take from this set. It's not bad, it gives you some rudimentary control, as it sticks minions and lieutenants to the ground. They can still shoot at you, but at least they can't close into melee, where they use different attacks that (typically) deal more damage.

Frozen Fists

This becomes available at the same time Ice Blast is, deals the same damage, and recharges faster. But I still recommend Ice Blast over it. Why? First off, you're a blaster. You have very few hit points to work with, and enemy ranged attacks deal less damage than melee ones. While Ice Blast won't keep them away from you forever, there's no point in voluntarily rushing into melee.

Ice Sword

Higher damage, but still the same: Why go rushing into melee when you don't have to? I went with Frost Breath over Ice Sword when I first built Angela. Never missed having either melee attack. Ever. Never sat in combat going, "Gee, I wish I had a melee attack right around now."

Chilling Embrace

PBAoE melee slow. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Here's the catch: It'll keep *all* of those enemies stuck on you, barring a Taunt from a tank. Not so good. While the slow is nice, it's not worth the risk. Leave CE for the Ice tanks, who actually have the hitpoints and defenses to deal with mass aggro. You, as a blaster, have neither. Now, if you plan on going into PvP, though, this power has merit. CE is capable of revealing Stalkers, and since you're a 2-hit kill waiting to happen (AS from hide + some other high damage attack), will get you a lot of mileage.

Build Up

Here we go, something useful! Doubles your damage and increases your accuracy some for a few attacks. Grab it, and then throw in a few slots for recharge time if you can spare them later.

Ice Patch

If you've seen the Ice Melee secondary for Tankers, this is that exact same power. It's a smaller version of the Controller Ice Slick, and it requires that your two little feet be on the ground for it. It's not *that* great, considering you have to charge into melee to use it. I picked it up for the fun factor, and I've slapped it down for a Tanker (or Scrapper, as the case may be) to use. It's great, it keeps the spawn bouncing, and it's just fun to watch. What this is really good for, is to lay down in a narrow doorway, so you (and your team) can pick off enemies as they try to stand and utterly fail! It's not so good for archvillains, but it'll work on darn near everything else. Pick it up if you want, don't pick it up if you want. It's totally your choice. If you do get it, see if you can slot it up for recharges later. You'll want to keep this one going as often as you can if you plan to use it.

Shiver

Cone slow power. Nice, and you can use this before you drop Blizzard on a spawn. Worthwhile power? Maybe, I use it against archvillains a lot, but it's not really worth it if you're going to go with Cold Mastery for your Epic Power Pool, since you get Snow Storm from that. Which, while it's an anchor power, is always going until your anchor gets defeated. That said, you can always pick this up and then respec out of it later. But if you do get it, slot it up for accuracy.

Freezing Touch

Melee Hold. Faster activation time than Bitter Freeze Ray. I skipped it since I had Bitter Freeze Ray. Were there times I wished I had a 3rd hold? Actually, there were, and I'm probably going to add this power when I respec Angela again.

Frozen Aura

Player-based Area sleep. It's as close as you're ever going to get to an area control. And quite frankly, if you're going to have to charge in there just to *sleep* an entire spawn, it's no worth it. Not when the spawn wakes up if the tank so much as taunts them. Or if that Fire blaster team mate uses Fireball. Skip it, and don't look back. If you didn't take Ice Storm earlier, take that instead of this power.

Slotting powers:

Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, Frost Breath, Bitter Ice Blast: 3 damages, accuracies to taste (1-3, slot for acc first, damage later), and an end redux if you want/need it

Ice Patch, Aim, Build Up: 3 recharges

Ice Storm: 2 slows, damages to taste, end redux if you want/need it

Blizzard: 3 damage, recharges to taste. Don't forget to use it with Aim and Build Up once Issue 7 hits!

Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray, Freezing Touch: 2 accuracies (acc first, hold later), 3 hold durations, and an end redux if you want/need it

Shiver: 2-3 accuracies

Chilblain: Don't bother slotting, just slot the default slot with an accuracy and call it a day

Pool Powers:

Angela went rather light on the Secondary, so, obviously, she had a lot of pool powers. Here's some pools to consider:

Fitness: Must have. The 4th power in the set, Stamina, increases your endurance recovery rate. I recommend you get this, as you'll burn through your endurance very quickly in the lower levels. You have to pick up 2 other Fitness Pool powers to get it, so, I recommend starting the Fitness pool when you have power slots to spare. (Like, take Hurdle or Swift in place of CE early on.)

Leadership: If you do plan on going into PvP, Leadership might be a pool for you to consider. Tactics, the third power in the set, gives you +perception, which will allow you to see Stalkers easier, especially when combined with Chilling Embrace. Be aware that the Leadership Pool powers use up a lot of endurance. Definitely get the Fitness Pool if you plan on getting any of these powers.

Speed: Hasten is very useful, even if it doesn't provide a defense bonus like it used to. It'll lower the recharge times of all of your powers for about two minutes, and with 3 Single Origin enhancements, it'll have a 30-second downtime. Plenty fine, if you ask me. Plus, if you pick this up early, you can get Super Speed as your travel power at level 14. Certainly worth considering.

Flight: Hover is useful for getting up and away from Caltrops and Earthquakes (and any other ground-based power for that matter). It's painfully slow, but 3 SO flight enhancements makes it plenty fast and good for getting around inside missions. Air Superiority is also good . . . but you're a blaster, and you've got plenty of attacks as-is. Get either one early, and you can get Fly at level 14.

Leaping: I love this pool. I have it on most of my characters. First off, while Jump Kick isn't that great of a melee power, Combat Jumping is wonderful. It gives you some resistance to immobilizes, lets you jump higher, and gives you a small amount of defense. But I didn't get it for the increased jump or the increased defense. I got it for the immobilize resistance. Immobilized means you can't move. And if you can't move, you're just a target, even if you can defeat most of your enemies. Mobility is important to a blaster, because it let you run if need be. Super Jump is a very nice travel power; it's faster than Fly (it's about the same speed as Super Speed) and still allows you to have vertical movement. Acrobatics is great. While it's rather end heavy, 3 SOs for end redux will take care of that rather well. What it gives you is resistance to knockback and hold. Knockback is rather annoying, as you can't blast while you're doing back flips! The Hold resistance is interesting: The first hold that lands on you will turn off all of your toggles; the second holds you. It's nothing against, say, Clear Mind (empathy defender power) or Increased Density (kinetics defender power), but it'll give you some rudimentary hold resistance. Stuns and sleeps will still get you, but it's worth it for the knockback protection at the very least. After all, you can't run away in a bad situation if you can't stand upright!

Concealment: Stealth and Invisibility is useful for getting around safely, especially before you have a travel power. Grant Invisibility is nice for making the rest of your team invisible. Phase Shift is good for those really tight spots where you're about to get defeated. I've never taken much of the Concealment pool beyond Stealth, but it's worth considering if you're willing to invest in it. Stealth is also good just for PvP in general, as it makes you just a little harder to see. However, Tactics will completely negate Stealth, so, that's something for you to keep in mind.

Teleport: Fastest travel power in the game, period. Also the most endurance heavy in the game. Recall Friend and Teleport Foe have their own uses; RF is good for teaming, TP Foe is good for taking down individual enemies within a spawn and PvP, as you can fight just one enemy instead of 2 or 3.

You'll notice the Medicine pool isn't here. This is why: First off, the heals are interruptible. To get any real mileage out of them, you'd have to 5 or 6 slot them, and you just don't get enough slots for that! Secondly, as an Ice/Ice blaster, you have 3 holds available to you as-is. That's enough to hold an entire spawn when you solo. Third, if there is healing to be needed on a team, odds are, there'll be a controller or defender on the team. Most can heal, and all of them can buff the team in some way, thus, lowering the need for heals in the first place.

Epic Power Pools:

I'm no expert at these, as Angela is my first level 50. I'll simply go over the Cold EPP, as that's the only one I'm really familiar with. I wouldn't want to give anyone a false impression of what these powers do!

Snow Storm

Anchor area slow. You toss this on a boss or a lieutenant and him, and his surrounding buddies, are now slowed. Very end heavy, but 6-slotted (3 each of end redux and slow), this power is a monster! Highly recommended.

Flash Freeze

Targetted area sleep. If you wanted Frozen Aura, I recommend picking up Flash Freeze instead. Same thing, but you don't have to run in there. I have a rather low opinion of sleep powers, since sleep is easily broken by any sort of damage or a taunt, but if you want it, here it is. (I can see some usage if you run missions on Tenacious, where the spawn sizes are doubled.) If you do pick this up, I suggest 3 accuracies (area control powers have an accuracy penalty) and maybe a couple sleep durations.

Frozen Armor

Finally! A defense power! It's the same as the first Ice Tanker power, and again, you'll have to 6-slot this. 3 for end redux (very end hungry), and 3 for defense. The effect isn't readily visible, but it'll give you defense against any attack that does smashing or lethal damage. And most enemies in the game do. So, you'll find that your survivability increases a bit.

Hibernate

It may be the laughinstock of the top-tier Tanker powers, but it's great for blasters. Caught a little too much aggro and your health is in the red? Hit Hibernate. Soloing in a mission and the boss almost has you down? Hit Hibernate. It's basically the answer when you find yourself in over your head. It lasts for 30 seconds, but during that time, you're invulnerable and regenerate health and recover endurance at a rate much like that of Rest. I threw 3 recharge SOs into this, as I solo every so often and I want this up whenever I need it.

Tactics:

Once you have FR and BFR, you can basically solo any time you want. Open up combat with BFR on one target (a lieutenant if there is one), and FR on the other, and you can defeat the 3rd. Then, go back and reapply a hold on the lieutenant, and defeat his other buddy. Finishing off the last is easy. If there's a boss, simply BFR and FR him, and then defeat his minion, periodically reapplying FR and BFR as they come back up. Then, defeat the boss while keeping him held. Now, if you have Freezing Touch, simply hold the minion that'll get to you by the time you've got the boss/lieutenant held. This is why the medicine pool is unnecessary. Absolute worst case, just use a few respites to bring your health back up.

In team situations, you can be a "mini-Controller" if the team doesn't have one, assist the Controller (by applying holds to bosses), or simply blast away. I will always play "mini-Controller" if there isn't one on the team, simply because held bosses means less incoming damage. I'll assist if there's only one controller (bosses require 2 holds to be held), and I'll go all-out blaster if there's two.

Blizzard has very little place in a solo situation, simply because it's damage over time. With no endurance afterwards, (since, like most level 32 blaster powers, it drains your end after you use it) you're very vulnerable to any survivors. Ice Storm, on the other hand, is just fine, especially if you manage to hold 2 out of the 3. (Or all 3, if you have Freezing Touch in addition to FR and BFR.)

You'll notice that none of these tactics involve taking damage to "use" Defiance. That's because it has no place in the higher levels. By the time you've taken enough damage to get a decent bonus from it, you're at around 25% health and the remaining incoming damage will leave you eating carpet and earning debt. It's fine at the low-levels, where damage comes in relatively slow (if you're fighting +1s or +2s), but at the higher levels, a single +2 boss (which would con as purple) can one-shot you.

Final Comments:

Overall, Ice/Ice can be very powerful and useful, with a lot of survival tools. Also, with the way how I built Angela, it gave me a lot of room to pick up Pool powers as I saw fit. The synergy between the two sets gives you a lot of options on dealing with enemies and can be a lot of fun to play.

I will try to update this guide as new issues come out and, obviously, while I stay with the game. Also, thanks to Olepi for his guide way back when; a lot of my power choices are based off of his. This is mostly a guide for the post-ED Ice/Ice blastroller.

Best of luck to you, and happy Ice blastrollering!

~ Angela Altena

Good Post - give nice basics. Just some notes - if you PVP, frozen fists and ice sword are valuable as toggle droppers, otherwise, if you only PVE, they are skippable. Ice slick is very useful, you just have to set it up properly. I find using it before I pull can give me an additional safety net in case all the mobs charge. I pretty much went a similar route you did, including leadership, fitness, and flight pools.

Yeah, Angela wasn't built for PvP. I've never taken her into any of the PvP zones on the account that she was too squishy and not really worth it. So, I can't really give any advice for PvP beyond Regen Scrappers are very hard to kill short of 3 stalkers all ASing you at once. (Personal experience as the scrapper, not the stalker(s).)

~ Angela Altena