Can't decide on which blaster to make

I have been away form the game for several years, 3 to be exact, but I am coming back now. I have decided to make a Blaster AT since I was not having much fun with my Scrapper I made several years ago. I have toyed around with Blasters and I like the playstyle much better.

Anyways my question is that I want to primarily solo with my Blaster and occasionally group for TF missions and such. I am stuck between an ice/elec, an ice/mm and an ice/ice blaster. What are the pros and cons for each and which would be better at soloing?

Both will be good.

Ice/Elec gonna play more like a blapper. You cant sap as well as Elec/Elec as you miss Short Circuit, but you have tons of control. Should be fun !

Ice/MM is a great combo and synergy too. Both your primary and secondary nerf mobs recharge, and they do it very well. /MM is arguably the best, or one of the best, blaster secondary. Furthermore it gives you the AoEs that Ice lacks. Would be my favorite choice here.

Ice/Ice has a lot of toys to provide mitigation- slows, holds, ice patches, more slows... it is possible to play an Ice/Ice and never get to the part where you do damage.

That's a good problem to have, but it is a problem to watch out for.

Ice/Elec gives you a whole lot of single target damage. Given that solo, you rarely have more than three or four targets that should be a very effective combo.

Ice/Mental- I don't know how this would work. I suspect "very well". Mental has a lot of nice toys, but on my Sonic/Mental I only end up using like three of them.

I'd probably go ice/elec. You can throw like seven or eight big hitting attacks during Build Up.

( Obligatory plug for my new intro to blasting guide goes here. )

Well, Ice is a fantastic soloing set no matter what primary you pick, but my vote probably goes to Ice/Electric for being the best mix of control and damage.

Just make sure you skip Lightning Field, and you'll be golden.

[ QUOTE ]
Ice/Ice has a lot of toys to provide mitigation- slows, holds, ice patches, more slows... it is possible to play an Ice/Ice and never get to the part where you do damage.

That's a good problem to have, but it is a problem to watch out for.

[/ QUOTE ]

cybrgamer - I am available for counseling if you should ever go Ice/Ice and fall victim to "overmitigating". You can certainly do superior damage, as often as you like, with Ice/Ice.

I may have misspoken. Ice/ice has very good damage. I never meant to imply otherwise.

But it's easy to fall into the trap of "hold this guy, hold that guy, Shiver, Ice Storm, Ice Patch, oops gotta rehold that guy" and never get around to that actual damage.

I also found myself going "I have these REALLY GOOD things in my power tray that I just never get to because I have even better things to do instead."

It's a good "problem" to have.

[ QUOTE ]
But it's easy to fall into the trap of "hold this guy, hold that guy, Shiver, Ice Storm, Ice Patch, oops gotta rehold that guy" and never get around to that actual damage.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think if your inherent play style pulls you in that direction, yes, you can easily become the Blastroller. When I was new to the game, I went that route...but I soon learned that it was far better to expedite destruction, rather than to "toy" with mobs.

This is not to say that I didn't utilize Ice Patch (never laughed harder) and Shiver, at times. But as I reached the higher levels, I trimmed the excess mitigation off of my build and focused on damage.

I have also heard that blasters fall behind all other classes at around lvl 18 - 20. Is this true with all blasters or just certain ones? I am looking forward to an ice/? blaster but I dont want to peak early on and have nothing else to look forward to until my 40's or so.

It's all about how well you utilize what you have - no more complicated than that, unless you make it so. You might find some stretches trickier than others, but there's nothing about Ice Blast itself that will hold you back.

[ QUOTE ]
I may have misspoken. Ice/ice has very good damage. I never meant to imply otherwise.

But it's easy to fall into the trap of "hold this guy, hold that guy, Shiver, Ice Storm, Ice Patch, oops gotta rehold that guy" and never get around to that actual damage.

I also found myself going "I have these REALLY GOOD things in my power tray that I just never get to because I have even better things to do instead."

It's a good "problem" to have.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having played ice/ice to the 40's I know exactly what you are talking about and agree. Ice blast is controllery enough on its own, it almost doesn't need the /ice secondary. IMHO something like fire/ice I think works better where you can leverage the safety of /ice better.

Tried ice/mm and it didn't click with me, just don't think I'm a fan of /mm despite it looking good on paper. Just a personal preference probably.

More recently did start an ice/electric with plans to go ice/electric/electric and have to say I'm liking it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I may have misspoken. Ice/ice has very good damage. I never meant to imply otherwise.

But it's easy to fall into the trap of "hold this guy, hold that guy, Shiver, Ice Storm, Ice Patch, oops gotta rehold that guy" and never get around to that actual damage.

I also found myself going "I have these REALLY GOOD things in my power tray that I just never get to because I have even better things to do instead."

It's a good "problem" to have.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having played ice/ice to the 40's I know exactly what you are talking about and agree. Ice blast is controllery enough on its own, it almost doesn't need the /ice secondary. IMHO something like fire/ice I think works better where you can leverage the safety of /ice better.

Tried ice/mm and it didn't click with me, just don't think I'm a fan of /mm despite it looking good on paper. Just a personal preference probably.

More recently did start an ice/electric with plans to go ice/electric/electric and have to say I'm liking it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree about Fire/Ice. The most damaging primary with the most mitigating secondary sounds good to me. Fire's mix of attacks lends itself well to soloing, and its AoE attacks combined with /Ice's AoE debuffs also make it very effective on teams.

My two blasters at the moment is a Fire/Ice (Thermatrix) and an AR/MM (Gunslinger Savant). The latter is used almost exclusively for teaming, but I find the first lets me do pretty much whatever I'm in the mood for, and do so very effectively.

[ QUOTE ]
Ice blast is controllery enough on its own

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of the powers offered in Ice Blast are quality damage dealers. Aside from the two holds, its flavor is definitely "Blastery".

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ice blast is controllery enough on its own

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of the powers offered in Ice Blast are quality damage dealers. Aside from the two holds, its flavor is definitely "Blastery".

[/ QUOTE ]

I also put ice storm in the "controllery" category, now we're up to 1/3 of the set. And every blast has a good amount of slow and -recharge. And my comparison is on scale with other blaster sets, not comparing to a true controller.

[ QUOTE ]
And every blast has a good amount of slow and -recharge.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed. Add that to the quality damage it does and you have an ideal Blaster set.

Speak for yourself. Ice is good, but I find that the hard control in putting people in the Zig makes Fire my ideal Blaster set.

[ QUOTE ]
Speak for yourself

[/ QUOTE ]

I think saying that a set with high damage + slows is an ideal Blaster set is not speaking for myself too much.

Although I do often speak for myself, which generally follows thinking for myself.

Maybe the ideal blaster set differs from person to person?

My answer to the OP (I'll try to make it short, but I warn you I'm not good at that):

Ice/Ice will be more "controllery". It's probably the safest blaster combo for soloing. That doesn't mean it's not great as a damage-dealing blaster, before anyone feels like they need to correct me. It just has more control than other blasters. I agree with Fulmens that it's possible to get so wrapped up in the control aspects that you end up doing less damage, but that's not inevitable. It's up to you.

Ice/ Elec is also a good soloist. Ice/Elec is more damage (single-target melee) than Ice/Ice, not quite as much control.

Ice/Mental would have more AoE damage than the other two because of the two AoE damage powers--and one of them is even ranged, which is important or not depending on how you like to play. Also not quite the control of ice/ice. You would, however, have even more recharge slows, so that would add to the safety.