Ice/Ice blasters are very "controllery" to the point where you can easily spend so much of your time "controllering" that you can forget to kill the mobs.
Sonic/Ice is also a very controllery blaster.
I'd venture to say that /devices is safer than /ice but that additional safety comes at the cost of long set up times.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Think of it as a sequel game- sort of the same in general, but none of the specifics are the same. Look in my sig for a starter guide to Invention Enhancements. Don't freak out about the prices- you can SELL for millions as well as BUY for millions.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
To answer the actual asked question: Ice/ice is like three or four times as survivable as AR/DEv, unless you spend a very long time setting up every fight.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Ice/Ice blasters are very "controllery" to the point where you can easily spend so much of your time "controllering" that you can forget to kill the mobs.
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Cookies are very "yummy" to the point where you can eat a whole [censored] box of 'em while staring at the electric clock.
Or not.
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How safe do you feel as a ice blaster and is it very controller-ish?
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I've always felt quite safe. Early on because of the ability to do serious damage and the security of having some nice mitigation powers. Later on because of the ability to do more and more serious damage - period.
I'd suggest not going Ice/Ice. It's very safe but it's also pretty slow. I'd suggest Ice/Mental... that gives you holds and good single target damage in your primary plus some decent AoEs and utility in your secondary. Frost Breath + Psychic Scream is a good AoE opener and both powers have -recharge, plus you have two holds to deal with bosses or annoying mobs like Sappers.
Fire/Ice is another interesting set. You can hit a group with Shiver, then jump in and fire off Ice Patch and Chilling Embrace to slow everyone to a crawl and cause them to fall down... just the thing to make Rain of Fire more effective. You can also use Ice Storm, but Rain of Fire hits harder and can be followed up with Fireball. 
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
Stick with your AR/Dev imo... get into a good SG or find friends and group up a lot... the damage is awesome... yeah we are squishey... its called situational awareness...
I have been playing AE (where it is easy to get grps) a lot lately and having a great time raining down metal on mobs and rarely getting killed... the only time I will die is if I lose track of a squirrel (a mob that climbs trees or poles to shoot me)... the aoe dmg is fun...
(QR)
I disagree with the claim that /dev's survivability requires long setup times. /dev does benefit from setup time, but where it benefits is offense, not survivability. Survivability in /dev, in my experience, means:
1: Caltrops. These come out fast; you can basically do it on the move. The key is that you need to be able to quickly evaluate the terrain to place them well, and you need to maneuver to leverage them during the fight.
2: Web grenade. This isn't a matter of setup time at all; you toss a webnade at something that wants to kill you and it can't come close to you. You can do this during the fight.
3: Avoidance. This is just Cloaking Device + Smoke Grenade to stroll right to your mission goal (or CD + SS, or CD + stealth IO, or SS + IO but that's not /dev-unique)
The long setup powers for /dev are the auto-turret, time bomb, and proximity mine. These are offensive, rather than defensive, powers (although you can argue that the turret is defensive by drawing aggro off you.) I am not of the "set up an entire field of mines" school of thought, but I do use them - since you don't have Build Up, when you're soloing you can lay a mine before dropping your alpha. When you're grouping even one mine is often too slow, admittedly, but when you're grouping your defensive concerns are proportionally lessened.
My usual method (with an arch/dev) is to toss out caltrops in front of me, lay _one_ mine as a pseudo-Build Up, then Rain of Arrows and proceed throwing AoEs while keeping the enemies running around on the caltrops. The AI is very bad at dealing with caltrops; as long as they have the theoretical path to you, melee-preferring enemies rarely just say 'screw it' and change to ranged attacks; they will instead waffle between "I want to run at this person" and "I want to not run on these spiky things" instead of attacking for the most part. If they make it through, hop to another position to keep them on the trops. If they step on the trip mine, then hey, bonus, but its focal purpose is for the initial build-up.
Yes, caltrops is a great power for controlling who attacks you, but I still think ice/ice is a safer bet. However, the best defense for any blaster is to kill the one attacking you so that should be weighed against any 'controlling' aspect of a set. I think in many cases the controls are secondary, and more of a simple stop gap to allow you to regain your footing and resume the damage barrage.
Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.
The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
Trip mine [4 seconds]
Caltrops [1 second]
Wait for Recharge [5 seconds; may include a second Caltrops]
Trip Mine [4 seconds]
Pull With Fireball [1 second]
Wait Around Corner For Badguys To Arrive [5 seconds? I dunno]
... 20 seconds for one spawn. I could be on the next spawn by then.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
AR/Dev is a very effective and safe combo IF you play it to its strengths, which are using Smoke Grenade/Cloaking + some other form of stealth (a former SG mate of mine used Super Speed and Cloaking Device to great effect), drop a bunch of Trip Mines, back up, drop Caltrops, then open up with either Full Auto or Ignite from the edge of your range. Fulmens' time estimation of 20 seconds actually sounds kind of fast for the spawn kill time. It felt like it took my SG mate longer, but the fact remains that its a very "safe" way to play.
Ice/Ice, in my limited experience with the combo, is also a very safe build.. but keeps the "action" factor up, as most of the damage mitigation is done in real-time as opposed to being done in set-up.
I wouldn't be me if I didn't mention Elec/Elec as a safe combo as well. I'm usually able to solo spawns that other Blasters have to pop insps for. Hate fighting Cimerorans though... their high Defense makes them generally tough.
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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.
The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
Trip mine [4 seconds]
Caltrops [1 second]
Wait for Recharge [5 seconds; may include a second Caltrops]
Trip Mine [4 seconds]
Pull With Fireball [1 second]
Wait Around Corner For Badguys To Arrive [5 seconds? I dunno]
... 20 seconds for one spawn. I could be on the next spawn by then.
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I'm a newbie blaster Fire/Dev so forgive me if my method sounds trite.
My typical attack sequence for Lt/Minion/Minion goes like this:
~ Run up to the spawn in stealth and taser the Lt.
~ Blaze/Fireball/finish to kill the first minion.
~ Nemesis Staff (not reliable without Targeting Drone) the second minion and finish.
~ Back up and open up the whooping on the Lt. with Blaze.
Sometimes I drop one Trip Mine someplace where I can pull three groups as a precaution more for the knock down than the damage and then eliminate the three groups without tripping the mine. Stealth really helps. Trip Mine ends up being my "run to here if in trouble" option; like Taser misses. 
Recently I have taken to opening with Rain of Fire (haven't had it that long) and just killing the minions before they run out, then using Taser on the Lt. when it finally decides to attack me. I think the real advantage of /Dev isn't Trip Mine or Caltrops; it's Stealth + ToHit + Stun.
I also think /Dev *really* came into it's own when they changed controls to suppress rather than detoggle. Retoggling Cloak and TD was really getting old.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.
The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
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The way I see Empathy (and, for that matter, rad and thermal and almost every other defender set) used is generally "hammer on the heals like a madman". That doesn't mean that's how you should use the set, and doesn't mean the set is bad at what it does.
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I've recently got back into the game after a very long abscence for most of my characters, so I am dusting off some of the older ones. One of them I used to play alot is an AR/Dev blaster which is sitting at level 32.
Things are way different now than when I last played this character( which was pre ED and pre CoV, really, though I did play villains for a while when COV came out) I've respecced to a more updated spec but I've not been very impressed. Maybe I am spoiled a bit by playing mostly melee based characters, but I do not recall blasters being quite so squishy.
In any case, I've been interested in an ice blaster for a long time so I am wondering, how much difference is there between the survivability of a AR/Dev blaster and an ice/ice blaster?
I've also noticed how I am not too happy with the 'set up' time Devices requires, setting up a trip mine or two, laying out caltrops, pulling, etc.
I'm leaning towards ice because it seems much more controller is and you can control the flow much more reactively than having to set up before hand and hope for the best.
So I guess my question is how big of a difference is there in survivability between these two and how different is the playstyle? How safe do you feel as a ice blaster and is it very controller-ish?
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Ice is a control heavy set that at times can cut into your DPS but it has very high survivability rates.
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.
The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
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The way I see Empathy (and, for that matter, rad and thermal and almost every other defender set) used is generally "hammer on the heals like a madman". That doesn't mean that's how you should use the set, and doesn't mean the set is bad at what it does.
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Fair point. I still value Build Up roughly as much as the entire /Dev secondary. Add a good melee attack and it's no contest.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Maybe I am spoiled a bit by playing mostly melee based characters, but I do not recall blasters being quite so squishy.
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Nah....spoiled....its not that....you where probably just getting hit with your own secondary effect the -defense.
Seams to be a small bug with blasters doing that to them selves...doesnt show up in the game's own statistics either....but you will notice it when you play.(hero stats seams to be able to list he effect i don't know why the game itself doesnt)
It was the most noticable on an ice/ice character i play...i slowed my own recharge down alot.....and ended up getting hold badges...when I never got held....(my guess is the slowing fromthe ice is considered a form of hold LMAO)
it seems electricity also gives points toward the hold badge too btw.....
Anywise that's probably why you actualy felt more squishy....
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Fair point. I still value Build Up roughly as much as the entire /Dev secondary. Add a good melee attack and it's no contest.
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Oh, I won't contest that /dev is probably the weakest secondary offensively, for pretty much that reason: it doesn't have Build Up, and the offensive powers it has are too slow to make use of once the fight has started. However, I would rate it as one of the highest in terms of its defensive capabilities, and I was objecting to the claim that its defensive powers take too much setup to be useful.
QR
If Ice/Ice feels slow, you're likely doing it "wrong".
And by wrong I mean a combination of:
1) Too many controls
2) Not enough AoEs
Of course, there are times when you want a lot of controls or high ST damage, and Ice/Ice certainly gives you that, but if you're aren't mowing through crowds at a fast pace, it's your own damn fault.
Oh, you want safe w/a minimum of fuss? Try casting Ice Storm & Blizzard (not necessarily in that order) around a corner/over a wall. Drop down an Ice Patch first if you're really worried about things coming around that corner/wall, but you shouldn't have to.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.
The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
Trip mine [4 seconds]
Caltrops [1 second]
Wait for Recharge [5 seconds; may include a second Caltrops]
Trip Mine [4 seconds]
Pull With Fireball [1 second]
Wait Around Corner For Badguys To Arrive [5 seconds? I dunno]
... 20 seconds for one spawn. I could be on the next spawn by then.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm a newbie blaster Fire/Dev so forgive me if my method sounds trite.
My typical attack sequence for Lt/Minion/Minion goes like this:
~ Run up to the spawn in stealth and taser the Lt.
~ Blaze/Fireball/finish to kill the first minion.
~ Nemesis Staff (not reliable without Targeting Drone) the second minion and finish.
~ Back up and open up the whooping on the Lt. with Blaze.
Sometimes I drop one Trip Mine someplace where I can pull three groups as a precaution more for the knock down than the damage and then eliminate the three groups without tripping the mine. Stealth really helps. Trip Mine ends up being my "run to here if in trouble" option; like Taser misses.
Recently I have taken to opening with Rain of Fire (haven't had it that long) and just killing the minions before they run out, then using Taser on the Lt. when it finally decides to attack me. I think the real advantage of /Dev isn't Trip Mine or Caltrops; it's Stealth + ToHit + Stun.
I also think /Dev *really* came into it's own when they changed controls to suppress rather than detoggle. Retoggling Cloak and TD was really getting old.
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You are right - that IS the typical way /dev blasters are played, mostly I think because everyone talks about how powerful a field of trip mines is and folks get hung up on that - forgetting that it can take a minute or so to set up a serious field.
I play my archery/dev exactly the same way Ben does - stealth into cone range, trip mine at my feet (for buildup + extra damage to a meleer who closes), caltrops around me, Aim + RoA + Fistfull + explosive, move on to the next group. Total setup time - 5 seconds in exchange for a 30% damage boost in nearly every fight AND being fairly safe from melee foes (those who close with me take a trip mine in the face).
However, I also have an archery/ice who is fun as well - not quite as safe (I take more alpha on that character than on the /dev) but it works fairly well - tradeoff there is you get build up, which is no small thing.
So if you are looking for a safe blaster to play, at least as safe as any blaster gets, either secondary would work.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.
The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
Trip mine [4 seconds]
Caltrops [1 second]
Wait for Recharge [5 seconds; may include a second Caltrops]
Trip Mine [4 seconds]
Pull With Fireball [1 second]
Wait Around Corner For Badguys To Arrive [5 seconds? I dunno]
... 20 seconds for one spawn. I could be on the next spawn by then.
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I normally have a lot of respect for you and your efforts on guides and such, but "i'd rather die?" wtf? 
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Maybe I should have rephrased it. I'd rather die than wait for Devices to do its work.
The way I see /Dev used -and I know you use it differently- is generally like this:
Trip mine [4 seconds]
Caltrops [1 second]
Wait for Recharge [5 seconds; may include a second Caltrops]
Trip Mine [4 seconds]
Pull With Fireball [1 second]
Wait Around Corner For Badguys To Arrive [5 seconds? I dunno]
... 20 seconds for one spawn. I could be on the next spawn by then.
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I normally have a lot of respect for you and your efforts on guides and such, but "i'd rather die?" wtf?
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Fulmens, like most of us, just has some power blind spots. /Dev, Torrent + Explosive Blast, and soloing a defender are his 3 most prominent ones.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
It's not going in a guide or anything; it's personal choice. I'd rather do two spawns in complete danger of faceplant than do one in complete safety.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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It's not going in a guide or anything; it's personal choice. I'd rather do two spawns in complete danger of faceplant than do one in complete safety.
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I just reread that. Whether intentional or not, "I'd rather die" could be taken literally there.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
I've recently got back into the game after a very long abscence for most of my characters, so I am dusting off some of the older ones. One of them I used to play alot is an AR/Dev blaster which is sitting at level 32.
Things are way different now than when I last played this character( which was pre ED and pre CoV, really, though I did play villains for a while when COV came out) I've respecced to a more updated spec but I've not been very impressed. Maybe I am spoiled a bit by playing mostly melee based characters, but I do not recall blasters being quite so squishy.
In any case, I've been interested in an ice blaster for a long time so I am wondering, how much difference is there between the survivability of a AR/Dev blaster and an ice/ice blaster?
I've also noticed how I am not too happy with the 'set up' time Devices requires, setting up a trip mine or two, laying out caltrops, pulling, etc.
I'm leaning towards ice because it seems much more controller is and you can control the flow much more reactively than having to set up before hand and hope for the best.
So I guess my question is how big of a difference is there in survivability between these two and how different is the playstyle? How safe do you feel as a ice blaster and is it very controller-ish?