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i wanna make an ice concept char but can't decide between storm/ and cold/ ,i wanna be able to solo efficiently, but still bring mitigation to the team
cold/ fits the concept better but i don't wannabe a buff bot
i hear storm/ is fun but i dont want that much chaos
i also considered ice/storm controller but im not a pet person and the lack of dmg at low lvs would drive me nuts because i can't always find a team
anyway tell me which you think is betterand why
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You say you don't want chaos, so my knee-jerk reaction is to say Cold/Ice. There is no chaos with Cold/Ice, so no worry there. Also, Cold isn't really a buff-bot like Kin or Emp, and it's arguably better than FF and Sonic, as well, because it has Sleet and the two single-target debuffs.
I hear Heat Loss is nice, too, but its recharge is too long for me to enjoy it. Kin has a power to grant nearly infinite endurance (Transference), so I don't see why Heat Loss couldn't do the same. Heck, I would even take a decrease in the per-target buff if it had the same recharge as Fulcrum Shift. Not too much of a decrease, though. If it was only like 15% or 25%, then that's just too low. But now I'm off topic.
I think the real trick to Storm is to do one of two things: either learn to love the chaos and embrace it, or learn to control the chaos and use it. Of course there are those people who just go nuts with no concern for the consequences, but I bet they stop playing their Stormie relatively quickly. Blowing foes around without actually killing them gets old after a while.
Storm will solo about 100 million times better than Cold will, so keep that in mind. I'll try to give a little run down on what each set will do so you can decide for yourself:
Cold/*:
Obviously, your shields are good for mitigation, which you say you want to do. You'll want to keep them up as close to all the time as you can manage. Snow Storm and eventually Sleet will also considerably help your mitigation, because they slow recharge, which combines well with defense. Sleet alone is substantial mitigation, as well, by consistently knocking foes down and applying all the tasty debuffs. Put enough recharge reduction into Sleet and it should be ready for every fight, even when the team is moving fast.
Infrigidate and Benumb are great for single hard targets like AVs, and combined with Sleet and the shields, you'll bring many many good things to a team facing AVs. So much so, in fact, that I could see the argument being made for Cold to be the best single set to bring to an AV fight. It may not be true, but there's a lot of evidence to support that claim, so it should be close to true.
Solo is a different story. A lot of the general mitigation Cold provides resides in the targetted buffs, which means you don't get their benefit. You still have Sleet, which is big, and you've got Infrigidate and Benumb for the hard targets, but there just isn't a lot of protection in Cold for the Cold user. You can build and slot for it, but it will be a lot of work, and I don't think you'll ever be able to take on huge numbers of +3s on your own without a lot of inspirations. It's just an uphill battle.
Storm/*:
Storm is a whole mess of fun. It's much more in-your-face than Cold is, so it feels more active, even if it actually isn't. Storm plays best as the center of attention, as well, so you'll probably want to assume the role of "Tank" on your teams, or at least "off-Tank". If you hang back and let other people deal with the aggro and positioning, then all you really bring is Freezing Rain and Lightning Storm, so you really might as well just play Cold.
Storm probably doesn't bring as much to AV fights, either. Storm is all about debuffs and damage, and AVs resist those debuffs to a staggering degree (85%, I believe). That means you really just bring damage, and while that damage is usually enough to beat the regen of an AV (making it better than -regen debuffs) the damage alone is probably not enough of a reason to bring the Storm along.
The good news is, actual AV fights are a pretty small percentage of the game as a whole, and it's not like Storm is useless versus AVs. As I said, the damage from Lightning Storm and Tornado + Freezing Rain is usually enough to beat the regen of the AV, meaning you beat out powers like Lingering Radiation or Howling Twilight with regards to the speed an AV falls. It's just that Storm is really unremarkable against AVs, not bad but not amazing. You'll really shine in all the other encounters, however.
Solo is a whole other world. You are a beast solo. Storm/Ice is a good combination for solo play, as well, with a couple single-target holds and good single-target damage. I have been running the MA stuff on my Storm/Dark pretty regularly, and I tear up most of those missions solo, even on invincible. I have a Cold in the low 30s, and my Storm is much MUCH more capable solo than my Cold. It's really just no contest.
So, ultimately, it depends on what you want to do. Storm is better solo, Cold is better versus AVs, and they are both pretty great on teams. Both sets are great, so there's no wrong choice here. If you don't like one, you can always roll the other and see how it goes.
Whichever you choose, good luck, and have fun with it. 
Bye, everybody!
*Champion*
For what its worth Ive played roughly 20 characters into their 20s. Cold/Ice was about #17 to do so, and the first to hit 50. He was late to the game, but I couldnt put him down.
You are just fine solo. You get two single target blasts early, and a hold not longer after. By the 20s you have the sleet/ice storm combo which will nearly kill a full spawn of white minions (one blast each finishes the job, while you keep the liet held). You also have your third blast at 26 which will give you an excellent single target attack chain.
Arctic Fog is very nice defense, but nothing near Storms. You pretty much have to stick to whites/yellows when not grouped, which the storm doesnt have to do. Thats the only real negative I saw, but that gets remedied in the 40s with your ancillary pool picks.
And that my friend is cold/ice on its worst day. Put that very same Cold/Ice in a group with both shields (you can have a solo build with dual builds so you can use these slots for something else if you want. I never felt the need for two builds though) and your day just went from great to amazing. Once you have sleet going down on every group your teammates will be steamrolling missions. They have no fear with their excellent shields, all of their attacks do 30% more damage with a well placed sleet. You are mostly free to pick on the bosses once sleet is down, and AV fights are over much much more quickly.
Oh I forgot to mention heat Loss didnt I? You know how Nukes suck on defenders? What if told you, you could lay down a blaster damage nuke (Blizzard and Ice storm are not on the defender damage scale since they are pets), then toss down a heat Loss to bring your end bar back to full? It sounds pretty sweet, eh? Its a lot sweeter than you think. Especially when your team gets surprised by an ambush. Instead of dying, you just took out the whole spawn for them and you buffed their recovery and blue bar in the process.
You only buff once every 4 minutes, you are free to kill stuff in between thanks to a lack of heals. Its the only 50 I still regularly play. My friends always ask for him when we run TFs.
I am not biased at all, am I? You might want to take that into consideration
Both are great, I play both regularly.
I solo both on challenge level 4 regularly. I like the larger groups of victims.
Storm will have more problems with endurance, and heatloss with heavy recharge completely negates that problem for Cold. However, Prior to recharge reductions, Hasten, and IOs the recharge between heatlosses (may or may not) be too great for your taste.
Storm can be entirely tankish if played offensively, and loses that advantage when played more passively. Playing storm passively is NOT reccommended, but can be viable on larger teams so long as someone picks up the slack.
Storm is also be closest thing to a barrel of giggles I've found. It's a pure delight to play.
Storm tends to make teams safer, but slower. Many people, especially melees will complain loudly about this. However, in actual mission times, the difference is in the 10% to 20% range. A well played storm can make a team nearly twice as safe, and at the cost of only 10% mission time, that can be a real bargain if you ask me. But then If I was playing my pre-nerf trapper that liked nice tight clumps, I might be complaining too. It's a playstyle thing. Of course the stormer can scale back the chaos if the team is already safe enough, but then, if you don't need the safety you might as well switch to the Cold/Ice for the additional buff/debuff magnitudes to increase team speed even more.
Both can solo AVs, however, I think Cold gets the edge here because they can use heatloss to mitigate endurance problems while focusing all their ST debuffs on one target. Even with the AV resistances they can really do a number on AVs. Meanwhile, Storm gets pets and damage, but recently LS was nerfed to oblivion, and Hurricane will be heavily resisted. Pre-nerf, I'd have said it was closer to neck and neck, each with it's own advantages and dis-advantages, now I think the Cold will come out ahead of the storm when soloing AVs. However, the Storm should come out ahead of the Cold when doing general soloing or facing large less focused groups.
I tend to think of my Storm/Ice as my tank, while I think of my Cold/Ice as my destroyer. The Storm/Ice can easily solo an entire ITF rooftop simultaneously, whereas the Cold/Ice has some real difficulty with that.
At the same time, the Cold/Ice completely neuters the Nictus while plastering Rommy and the bloom with -resistance and AoE destruction. You can -damage the autohit nictus, you can -heal the healing nictus, you can heatloss+nuke+rain+sleet the bloom nictus, and all while -recharge flooring the AV of your choice. Three kittens and a frost bitten romy are child's play compared to what you'd face otherwise.
Most of the high level fast moving teams get more out of pure buff/debuff of the Cold/Ice than they do out of the tankishness of the Storm/Ice. The Cold/Ice takes a good team and makes it that much faster. The Storm takes a variable team and makes it safer, but at a small cost to speed.
In the end, both are great, you really can't choose wrong.
I would just like to say that I don't think Storm categorically slows a team down. It just depends how you play.
On my Stormie, for example, I frequently create tight clumps instead of ruin them. Admittedly, my Storm is Storm/Dark, so mobs stay where I put them, but the idea is still the same. Storm doesn't always cause scatter, even when they're in the thick of it.
Bye, everybody!
*Champion*
I have a storm/ice and enjoy using her. It took some time to learn how to really harness the chaos and use it for the team's benefit. May get a grumble here and there but after being the one responsible for stopping a team wipe, they go away. I have never used a cold/ice before so cannot add anything there.
i wanna make an ice concept char but can't decide between storm/ and cold/ ,i wanna be able to solo efficiently, but still bring mitigation to the team
cold/ fits the concept better but i don't wannabe a buff bot
i hear storm/ is fun but i dont want that much chaos
i also considered ice/storm controller but im not a pet person and the lack of dmg at low lvs would drive me nuts because i can't always find a team
anyway tell me which you think is betterand why