fire/ice is quite useful cos of burn + ice patch that work quite well.
at the opposite ice/fire will have lots of aoe (combustion/circel of fire) and the ice primary is perhaps less good than the fire (with tough) so people perfer go fire???
Ice is considered a gimped set, because in I3 and I4 it was [considered] sub-par to the other tanker set, Stone has Granite, Inv could almost cap all non-psi resists and had uber defence, fire has good resists but had a herders dream power in Burn.
So despite Ice now being very similar in survivability to Inv few people actually pick it. Ice performs best when collecting enemies together in a big bunch, as that's when it's best Aura, Chilling Embrace, protects best. Also Energy Absorbtion give defence per enemy in melee range.
Fire is the most damaging secondary because it has 2 solid AoEs and a reasonable single target attack chain. This makes it a good fit for Ice, as Fire benefits from having many enemies in melee range as you can damage them all at once.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Ice/Fire is probably as good agro control as you can get, all the AoEs. Defence is always more risky than resistance, bad luck and you're dead with defence, bad luck with resistance and you're popping respites until they're gone, then you're dead
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
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They're now putting it all together.
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I wonder why I see so many Fire/Fire or Fire/Ice, but it seems that I rarely see Ice/Fire.
Is it that bad? Simply not up to par compared to others?
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Someone may have posted a guide to this build in the past... look for Spad's guide in Guides forum.
It should make for a good PBAoE Scranker build - lots of damage from Fire secondary. Ice is a nice primary that's underappreciated. I wouldn't go Ice/Fire myself as I'd miss the control effects the other secondaries offer - but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work for you.
By my 50s shall ye know me:
Tundra, DVM, The Late, Neutrino Ghost, Sir Clanksalot, End Of Days, Prof. Migraine
Howler Monkey
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It should make for a good PBAoE Scranker build - lots of damage from Fire secondary. Ice is a nice primary that's underappreciated. I wouldn't go Ice/Fire myself as I'd miss the control effects the other secondaries offer - but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work for you.
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Having done Inv/Fire for 50 levels I would say that Ice/Fire is not only a scranker build but is a truly viable tanker build. If you concentrate on AoEs and leave off the single target attacks until later you can fill up with enough defensive powers to allow yourself to tank with the best of them. Ironically one of your defensive weaknesses is fire, the same as my Inv/Fire who never got Resist Elements.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Being bored of my ice/ice (lvl 30), mainly 'cos i hate having primary and secondary same "type" (my new rule 
), just rolling an ice/fire.
I anticipate loosing a lot of damage mitigation from ice slick, which might be tough (so i will have to get "tough" hehe).
However, even at low lvl i can see the attraction of chilling embrace and a slotted up combustion (thats a tasty power actually, if you check out the DoT compared to the hypnotic effect of one shot big numbers) - you can really get everything into you AoE.
And its going to be a complete aggro magnet. Might consider whether ice/fire needs taunt (as it seems to me ice best primary and fire best secondary for grabbing aggro).
My one concern is it going to be tough enough? hopefully i7 and scaling defence will kick in by the time i need it...
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It should make for a good PBAoE Scranker build - lots of damage from Fire secondary. Ice is a nice primary that's underappreciated. I wouldn't go Ice/Fire myself as I'd miss the control effects the other secondaries offer - but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work for you.
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Having done Inv/Fire for 50 levels I would say that Ice/Fire is not only a scranker build but is a truly viable tanker build. If you concentrate on AoEs and leave off the single target attacks until later you can fill up with enough defensive powers to allow yourself to tank with the best of them. Ironically one of your defensive weaknesses is fire, the same as my Inv/Fire who never got Resist Elements.
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Oh, sure. It wasn't meant to denigrate the ability of Ice/Fire to Tank, rather to point out that it will be a very aggressive build since all /Fire offers is damage and lots of it. Of course that also brings the benefit of lots of aggro, but it does leave you with no control options at all other than drawing aggro. Not a bad thing at all, but I like more variety in my control.
By my 50s shall ye know me:
Tundra, DVM, The Late, Neutrino Ghost, Sir Clanksalot, End Of Days, Prof. Migraine
Howler Monkey
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And its going to be a complete aggro magnet. Might consider whether ice/fire needs taunt (as it seems to me ice best primary and fire best secondary for grabbing aggro).
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I thought I could get away without Taunt pre 20. I couldn't and got it at level 12 after doing some Hollows pickup teams ( with mainly sensible players too ). You will have no problem keeping aggro locally most of the time with just Chilling Embrace and Combustion however that is not what taunt is for, it's for keeping aggro in 2 places and pulling.
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My one concern is it going to be tough enough? hopefully i7 and scaling defence will kick in by the time i need it...
[/ QUOTE ] Don't know, I haven't got an Ice tank very high, however I hear the Medicine pool is your best defence for the self sufficent tank, although any defender/controller with an occasional heal on you would be just as good. I haven't decided what I am getting for my last power pool to bolster defences, it is either Fighting ( Boxing, Tough, Weave ), Leadership ( Maneuvers ) or Medicine ( for Aid Self ).
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
Ah, Issue 3. The halcyon days when I could herd up huge numbers of mobs, fire EA to give capped (Hard cap, not the 95% soft cap) Defence vs anything ('cept Psi/Tox, of course) - and as a result effectively make me immune to Def debuffs - and then pop build-up, combustion, fire sword circle while the rest of the team dealt with the survivors. Of course I couldn't tank most AVs without massive risk of insta-death (Back when Shadowhunter hit for 3200+ base damage and I could only manage 2900 HP with double-stacked Hoarfrost), but hey.
That was before the Defence Nerf, the EA Nerf, the Aggro Cap, the AoE Cap, ED and all the other little nerfs here and there.
Ice/Fire was an excellent combination, it's still a good one.
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I wonder why I see so many Fire/Fire or Fire/Ice, but it seems that I rarely see Ice/Fire.
Is it that bad? Simply not up to par compared to others?