HeroJunkie's Ice/Electric blaster guide for i10

I see the requests for an ice/electric guide so I’ll take a shot at it. This will be my first guide. My ice/electric/electric blaster is level 47. This guide was created in Issue 10 by HeroJunkie. This guide is not a player vs. player guide though some power descriptions might be helpful.

Introduction:

Ice is a single target blaster set. It has one good AoE cone attack, Frost Breath, and of course a nuke, Blizzard. But if you want mostly AoE damage go with Fire Blast or Assault Rifle. Electrical Manipulation has VERY powerful melee attacks and a great melee range endurance stealing power in Power Sink. In my opinion, it would be a waste to choose Electrical Manipulation and not use your melee attacks. If you want to stay at range, you could take Devices if you like setting up mines (but you’d be giving up Build Up, which greatly increases your damage output). You could also take Energy Manipulation for Boost Range, which is nice (but you’d be missing out on VERY powerful melee attacks if you didn’t take the melee attacks from Energy Manipulation). Ice Manipulation has Ice Patch…

But let’s assume you’ve chosen Ice Blast and Electrical Manipulation. This build is very powerful and allows you to do a number of great things. You can freeze enemies from range then run in and destroy them with electrical punches. You can freeze enemies from range then fight them from range or possibly from the air while hovering. You can blast enemies from range then destroy them with electrical punches if they dare approach you. You can throw a hold on a lieutenant from outside his perception range. You can hold bosses. You can hold a boss and a lieutenant at the same time. You can do even more when you get your Epic power pool.

Ice Blast

Ice Bolt

This is a good filler on your ranged attack chain and you can fire it while mezzed thanks to the defiance changes. You should take this.

Ice Blast

This is an excellent power with good damage, good range, fast animation. It looks great with shards of icy death flying at your enemies. Even as a blapper, you will want this. You can use this along with Bitter Ice Blast to two-shot minions and lieutenants as they are charging you if you use Aim or Build Up. Picture this: a lieutenant and a minion charge you. You target the lieutenant and hit Build Up. You fire off Ice Blast and Bitter Ice Blast. The lieutenant is dead and the minion steps up to receive a built-up Havoc Punch to the face. Dead minion. Dead spawn in three hits. That is the power of Ice/Electric.

Frost Breath

This is a good cone attack. It does two ticks of damage fairly quickly, though it has a slow animation time compared to your other attacks. You should get this power and use it often if you team because AoE does more overall damage if you can hit many targets. At early levels, you need this power to fill out your attack chain. I have made good use of this power all the way through level 47 and I still use it to finish off enemies or open with it if on a team. It doesn’t look as cool as Fire Breath but its pretty neat to just breathe on the bad guys with a ‘hush’ sound and watch them keel over.

Aim

You must get this. It’s a significant boost to your damage as well as your accuracy. Three slot this with recharge SOs and alternate it with Build Up. Your damage output will be much higher if you make good use of this and Build Up.

Freeze Ray

It’s a ranged hold and you get it at level 8. The recharge is not too bad and you can use this power all the time. Minions and lieutenants are doomed when you freeze them then hit them with electrical melee attacks. Freezing enemies is your main form of defense so you will get hurt and hospitalized much more often without this power, especially if you solo. When you get Bitter Freeze Ray you can use these together to freeze bosses. It didn’t even think about getting rid of this power until I got Shocking Bolt, the ranged hold from Electrical Mastery, at level 41.

Ice Storm

I respec’ted out of this power. Enemies quickly run out of it and it does lousy damage if you can’t keep them in it the whole time. Goes better with Ice/Ice. I prefer taking the bad guys out with electrical punches. Teams don’t like Ice Storm because it scatters enemies. If you solo most of the time you could use this as a form of defense by casting it around yourself. Try it on the test server. It does look pretty cool summoning a rain of ice shards out of thin air. You could make good use of this if you have enough controllers on your team to slow or lock down enemies.

Bitter Ice Blast

This power does very good damage for a ranged attack. It doesn’t do as much damage as your melee attacks, but you can take out enemies with this as they are charging you. Also you can two-shot enemies along with Ice Blast and either Aim or Build Up. These two powers animate so fast that your target will be defeated without taking a single step towards you, sometimes without firing a shot. The range on this power is fairly short, but if you are careful, you can set this up without enemies seeing you. Adding range to this power is really nice (my 47 blaster now has two Centriole HOs in it and the range is quite good now). This power doesn’t look as good as Ice Blast, in my opinion. It’s a quick backhand animation that flips a spot of cold white energy at the enemy. Fast and effective, but lacks any sort of wow factor.

Bitter Freeze Ray

This is your second ranged hold. Together with Freeze Ray you can freeze bosses before they do serious damage to you. The animation time is still long, even though it was reduced in Issue 10. However, Bitter Freeze Ray has a long range. If you open with it, you can freeze a lieutenant outside his perception range. A lot of mezzers are lieutenants. The ability to freeze a mezzer before he can get off a single mez attack can really save your life. I recommend this power. It also has a cool-looking animation as cold power travels up your arms and then out of your hands to freeze the target. Slot for hold.

Blizzard

This is a fantastic power. Slot it with three damage SOs and three recharge SOs because you will use Aim and Build up with this. Actually it seems to have good accuracy even without using Aim or Build up. Perhaps this is because it’s damage over time and a lot of the ticks of damage hit even without accuracy. But the best thing to do is use Aim and Build Up with it for maximum carnage. Or you could use IOs. I have only recently started to buy IOs and I can’t advise you on them. Blizzard is best used on a team after the tank has grabbed aggro. It will not scatter the enemies because it will knock them down and slow them and they will stay focused on the tank if the tank is taunting. It does HUGE damage, like other blaster nukes. When solo, it’s good to have this power ready against a tough boss. Pop two luck inspirations for defense, then freeze the boss. Then hit Aim, Build up and three other attacks against the boss. Before the Aim and Build Up wear off, activate Blizzard. Minions around the boss will be knocked down and slowly defeated by the Blizzard. The boss is frozen and hurting. Now you pop one Catch a Breath and hit Power Sink, recovering your endurance. Note that you have to be in melee range to use Power Sink so I like to drop Blizzard as I’m running towards melee range. Proceed with attacks against the frozen boss until he is defeated. If you are like me and you like to play on Invincible, you may need to refreeze the boss using Freeze Ray and Shocking Grasp (if you have it). Bitter Freeze Ray is often too slow for this, but YMMV. By the way, if you are soloing, you should play on Heroic, Rugged or Invincible. Tenacious and Unyielding will present you with too many enemies to freeze and you will take a lot of damage from minions and such. Remember you don’t have a lot of AoE attacks so lots of enemies at once are bad news for you.


Electrical Manipulation

Electric Fence

This power isn’t that great, but what do you expect from a Tier 1 secondary power? Throw it at the enemies for the first few levels because it’s better than nothing. Then remove it from your tray. You’ll be freezing enemies solid at level 8. Don’t slot this.

Charged Brawl

You will be amazed at how fast you can defeat enemies with this power. It’s fast and does very good damage. It looks good too. Slot this power up and use it throughout your career.

Lightning Field

This is a power that looks really cool but it does very little damage while potentially drawing aggro to you in team settings. Generally damage auras are risky for blasters and this power won’t give you as much bang for your buck as other powers. I actually have no experience with this power, so you’ll have to see for yourself. Try it on the test server if you like.

Havoc Punch

This is another powerful melee attack which you should definitely take. You can easily two-shot minions with this and Charged Brawl. You can two-shot lieutenants if you have Build Up or Aim running. Picture a typical solo spawn with one lieutenant and one minion. If you hit Build Up you can use Ice Blast and Bitter Ice Blast to two shot the lieutenant, then you can two-shot the minion with Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch. If you already used Build Up, then target the minion first. Hit Aim and two shot the minion with Ice Blast and Bitter Ice Blast, then two-shot the lieutenant with your more powerful melee attacks Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch. You will have time to throw a Freeze Ray in there to make sure you don’t take much damage. Havoc Punch is a double fisted slam with crackling electricity on both hands. It will often knock your target back which is why I use Charged Brawl first and finish with Havoc Punch.

Build Up

You must get this. With the fast animating attacks of ice/electric you can get in five or six attacks before the duration runs out. That's five or six attacks that do double base damage plus enhancements. Slot for recharge and alternate this with Aim. The accuracy bonus is just gravy.

Lightning Clap

I skipped this power. I had Hand Clap on a brute, which I think is the same power. It knocks back all the enemies in melee range. If you didn’t have the Ice primary and you couldn’t freeze your enemies, this would be a more valuable power for defense. I might take it as my level 49 power, cause I don’t have much left to choose from. You could try it on the test server. The thing is, you will either be teamed or solo. If you are teamed and you knock all the enemies backward in every direction, the team will hate it. If you are solo then there are only two or three enemies to deal with. You could be hitting an enemy with a hold or taking half their life with an attack instead of knocking them down. I may try chaining this power with Thunderstrike to knockdown mezzing bosses that I can’t freeze quickly enough. If I like the results, I’ll let you know. Edit: The results are poor. I don't recommend Lightning Clap but YMMV.

Thunderstrike

I really like the way this power looks and it does tremendous damage. You jump up with both fists held high above your head, crackling with electricity, then, you come down full force upon your enemy. Besides great damage, this power does knockback. I love freezing Crey snipers on rooftops, hitting them with a couple of attacks, then, finishing them off with a Thunderstrike. They go flying off the building and are dead before they hit the ground. There are a couple of problems with this power that cause some people to skip it. It has a long animation. You can get hurt during this time if your target is not frozen. Also some people do not like the knockback. This power actually has AoE knockback so any nearby enemies will also go flying. These other enemies take very minor damage. Only the main target takes heavy damage. You could skip this power if you needed to get something else. You will have plenty of attacks between your ice blasts and your other melee attacks. I don’t use this power as much as the other melee attacks but it is a good finisher against a boss.

Power Sink

Even with one slot, Power Sink will fully recover your endurance if you hit it while three or more enemies are within melee range. It is auto hit, which is great. This power has great synergy with Blizzard because after you hit Blizzard, you have time to pop a Catch a Breath and hit Power Sink to recover all of your endurance before the damage over time from Blizzard kills all the minions and lieutenants. You have to be in melee range to do this. Once you fire off Blizzard, you should have time to use Power Sink because the enemies will be falling down. If you slot this power, you can use it more often to recover endurance whenever you are low. This power drains a chunk of endurance from enemies, but since you don’t have Short Circuit from the electricity primary, this won’t be enough to really help you.

Shocking Grasp

This is a melee hold that also does high damage over time. You can use it in a couple of different ways. If you have frozen a boss from range using Bitter Freeze Ray and Freeze Ray, you can pummel the boss with your ice blasts and with your lower tier melee attacks. Freeze Ray recharges pretty fast. Before the boss is unfrozen, hit the boss with Freeze Ray and Shocking Grasp. Now the boss is held again and you can continue to pummel him. Or you can freeze a boss from range, then, charge the lieutenant or minion. Hit the lieutenant or minion with Shocking Grasp and now he is held too. Finish off the lieutenant, then throw Freeze Ray and Shocking Grasp on the boss to make sure he’s still held, then finish off the boss. All the while, Shocking Grasp is dealing out good damage. If an enemy minion or lieutenant is attacking you in melee range, this should be the first power you hit him with. Finish him off while he’s standing there writhing from the electric shock. I can’t think of any power you would take instead of this power, even if you don’t like damage over time powers. Slot for damage.


Power Pools


Fitness

All of my characters except my empathy defender (who has recovery aura and conserve power) and my regen scrapper (who has quick recovery) have Stamina. I play aggressively and burn a lot of endurance. Even with Power Sink I recommend Health and Stamina. Choose Hurdle if you are a superspeeder so you can jump over obstacles. Otherwise I’d go with Swift.

Speed

I played without Hasten. You could take it and be even more powerful, but now that Hasten isn’t a constant bonus I don’t like it anymore. I didn’t need it. It’s still a good power. I just don’t use it anymore. Superspeed is a fine power, especially if you have the Raptor Pack, the Zero G pack or the Good vs. Evil pack for vertical travel. Hover works, too.

Leaping

I took Combat Jumping, Superjump and Acrobatics and used these for most of my career with my ice/electric blaster. Knockback protection is almost a requirement for a blapper. Eventually I got a knockback protection IO and respec’ted into Flight instead. As long as you can get basic knockback protection, you should be okay with any travel power.

Concealment

I took stealth late in my build and I bought a stealth IO. This gives you double stealth, which works like invisibility except that you can attack. It comes in handy sometimes to be invisible.

Flight

I respect’ed into the flight pool so that I could use my wonderful melee attacks on fliers. Not being able to use my strongest attacks (my melee attacks) against the Arachnos flying transport in the STF is what caused me to drop Leaping for Flight. I spend 4 million on a knockback IO. Fly is slower than superjump, but by the time you stand up and stretch, and move around to get some blood pumping through your legs to avoid clotting from playing CoH all day, your character will be at the mission door and all will be well. I did slot Fly with three SOs to get good speed out of it. I took Hover from this pool because fighting in the air with Fly drains too much endurance and you can’t move due to travel power suppression. I did not take Air Superiority because it did not fit my electrical punch theme and because I do not like the weird flip animation it causes the enemies to undergo when you hit them. This is a matter of taste, however. You could get Air Superiority, Lightning Clap and Thunderstrike and be a master of knockback/knockdown as well as freezing and shocking enemies if you wanted to.

Teleportation

I just got Recall Friend at level 47. I plan to use it along with double stealth to help my team ghost some of the missions in task forces. Task forces are so long it’s nice to sneak past parts of them sometimes.

Fighting, Presence, and Leadership

These power pools aren’t the best choices for a blaster, in my opinion.

Medicine

Aid Self is a good power and it’s nice to be able to heal yourself between battles. The rest of the powers in this pool aren’t great, though. As a blaster, you don’t have time to play healer, especially using weak, interruptable pool powers. You could fit Aid Self into this build if you wanted to. Some people don’t like the techie tricorder animation for their magical or mutant characters, though.

Epic Power Pools

Munitions Mastery

I have a level 50 AR/Energy blaster with this Epic Pool. Cryo Freeze Ray is a good, ranged hold. Sleep Grenade also works well and you can sleep three grouped minions or lieutenants with plenty of time to pick them off one by one. LRM Rocket is okay. Damage is solid and has a small AoE, but the damage is nowhere near the level of a nuke or snipe. Of course, these powers are fired from the Frankengun assault rifle, so that may clash with your character’s theme. Or not.

Electrical Mastery

This is the pool I chose because I like Shocking Bolt. It’s a hold with a long range that matches Bitter Freeze Ray. When you have these two powers, you can stand outside the perception range of a boss and freeze that boss before he can move. Shocking Bolt has a fast animation. You activate Bitter Freeze Ray then queue up Shocking Bolt. Just as the boss is alerted by the impact of the Bitter Freeze Ray he immediately gets zapped with the Shocking Bolt. Now the minion wakes up and starts to come at you. Bam! You freeze that minion with Freeze Ray. Now the boss and the minion are helpless and you can pummel them. If you are playing on Invincible you’d better get in there with attacks and holds before the boss breaks free and hurts you or mezzes you. I tried Static Discharge from this pool and paired it with Frost Breath to try to get some AoE cone damage for when I’m on large teams. The damage from Static Discharge is not very good, though, so I gave up on this idea and respec’ted out of it. I also have Charged Armor, but it’s not helping much against the renegade Vanguard right now. I have not tried EM pulse.

Cold Mastery

I tried Flash Freeze, a ranged AoE sleep, but I thought the area of effect was too small and I didn’t like the looks of the other powers in the set. Snowstorm could be good, but I wanted to focus on holds and attacks rather than slows. I have not tried the other powers in this set.

Flame Mastery

I haven’t tried this set.

Force Mastery

A lot of people like this set. Force of Nature is supposed to be awesome. It does have a recharge of 16 minutes unslotted and it does drain all you endurance when it drops. Personal Force Field is a good panic button. I can see myself trying out this set using a freespec on the test server. It might be worth switching from Electrical Mastery.


Slotting

I slot my powers with two accuracy SO because I don’t like missing. I slot three damage or three hold SOs in the appropriate powers. I slot one endurance reduction SO. When you have many different attacks, you don’t need to slot them with recharge to make a complete attack chain. Late in the game, I have been fighting a lot of AVs and have been forced in those situations to stay at range. With only three damaging ranged attacks (not including Bitter Freeze Ray which is too slow and isn’t slotted for damage) my ranged attack chain is not very good. I needed speed boost to make a good attack chain. Recently, however, I spent about twenty million influence and tricked out my ranged attacks each with one nucleolus exposure HO (accuracy/damage), two centrioles (damage/range), two level 50 common recharge IOs and one accuracy/endurance reduction set IO. Now my ice attacks have great accuracy, damage, range, and recharge. I have a respectable ranged attack chain for fighting AVs.


Well, look at the time! It’s late and the guide is complete. I hope this information is helpful to someone. I’m sorry there are no numbers for you. I’m one of the people who always asks the OTHER people for numbers. Happy gaming!

P.S. Comments on this guide are welcome. I'd like to know if people are finding it useful. Thanks!

Thanks for posting this guide, HeroJunkie!

Do you have a recommended power progression that you'd be able export from Mid's or something to that extent?

Great guide thanks for taking the time

Really good guide, just having a few problems with power selections and what level to take certain powers..any chance of posting a build through Mid's to help a brother out?