Ice/Ice has a lot of nice supporting powers, so I find there's a fairly wide variety of ways I may approach a fight when playing mine depending on what's seem best. Sometimes it involves AOEs, sometimes it doesn't.
I find going through and holding each mob picky in situations where it's not necessary.
The main way I use frost breath in a mission is to plant Ice Patch on a convenient corner, fire at one group, and pull on to it. When they're on it, I'll hit them with shiver, just to make sure any standing up stay roughly grouped, then Frost Breath, and maybe Ice Storm. I use single target attacks to finish up, and will probably hold any luitenents if they're looking like they might still be alive when the initial Ice Patch dies.
Sounds like a lot of stuff, actually it's a really quick process, and if you're looking at grouping 3+ mobs, it's quite effective.
I don't use it all the time, some mob types I do prefer to open with holds and stick to single target attacks, I find it really not worth the endurance unless I know I'm going to hit at least two, preferably three bad guys. Ice/Ice has a very nice selection of single target attacks which are quicker animating, more endurance efficient, and higher damage if you're only going to hit one mob anyway.
Mostly I use frost breath when teaming though. If someone is grouping for you, and there's a lot of mobs in it, it's well worth it as a power pick. The damage is actually quite nice.
I'd really suggest trying it on the test server (although preferably respec it in on the test server, rather than just copying over when you level, you wont get a feel for it unslotted - I think the same is true of Shiver as well).
If I had to choose I'd go with both Frost Breath and Ice Storm over having just one of them and Shiver. Ice Storm works well with Blizzard in a couple of levels and Frost Breath is your only actual attack (not counting Blizzard and Ice Storm, first one is a nuke, second one isn't an attack) that can hit multiple enemies.
That said, I agree with Wyx - it is really not worth the endurance unless you hit two or more enemies and you should try it on Test Server.
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I like it, works fairly well when your enemies are struggling to get of your ice patch. Hefty end drain.
However, shiver is sheer gold imho. The slow is very big and combined with either blizzard or ice storm (note: not both together, that's overkill 
) it works wonders. Add frost breath and you've just become an AoE blaster 
. Maybe not as good as Fire/* and sometimes alittle situtional (slow resitant mobs are annoying) but fun none the less.
I'm not quite sure where the orignal poster's gap comes from. I'm not much of an Ice Patch user (I find Shiver + FR to be enough control), but were I to close to melee I'd be bouncing into the fight throwing bolts on each hop.
Frost Breath is good though, although it's not worth it against just 1 or 2 targets. The whole set, situationally, is excellent. I think BFR is probably the weakest power of the set - and it's not that bad.
I lost Ice Storm in a lvl 47 respec, and went Frost Breath + Static Discharge (electric epic). Two cones with quick damage. But I don't have the Ice secondary with Ice Slick and Shiver, so I had problems keeping them in my Ice Storm.
Well I took Frost Breath and it has been quite useful for closing the gap in my attack chain - Rubbish damage and horrendous endurance cost aside
Estarriol, I don't have Hasten as Ice powers seem to recharge quickly, but I cannot get a solid attack chain just using ranged powers. There's a little bit of time when I am waiting for one of the 3 blasts to recharge, hence my initial question.
Oh, I see. Yes, Ice does have a chain gap at range if not slotted and if you don't use all your tools as most don't.
I slot my attacks with recharges, and include Chilblain in my attack chain. Crazy? Not at all - it has the same DPA (Damage Per Activation), DPS (Damage Per Second) and DPAS (Damage Per Activation Second) as Ice Bolt, and of course slows and immobilises nicely. Bitter Freeze Ray has a very low (by blaster standards) DPAS, DPS and DPE, and is vastly inferior to Chilblain for the purposes of delivering damage in almost any situation, although it's a better fight-opener due to the hold and relatively lower significance of activation metrics in a fight-opening ranged attack.
Frost Breath is excellent, btw - on a look at the underlying numbers it seems I wildly underestimated it at first. It does damage between Ice Bolt and Ice Blast (more than Bitter Freeze Ray against a single target and of course faster to cast and recharges faster), and numbers-wise is more favourable overall than Ice Bolt if it hits just 2 targets, and very favourable if it hits 3 (a common circumstance even if soloing). It also has a high base accuracy and sets up Ice Storm nicely. There's a lot to like about Frost Breath - it's not a second-string power in any way.
Basically, the way many of the sets are designed makes their strengths not entirely obvious, but if you look at the underlying numbers (e.g. from NoFuture.org.uk) and the long-term statistical performance (e.g. using HeroStats), the true utility of powers becomes clear, and there are real surprises. I'm currently performing a cross-set analysis of all damaging attacks, and it's interesting to say the least.
Icen, my Ice/Ice Blaster has just hit 30.
At 28, she took Shiver, which to me has been a bit of a waste of time as I don't use it when soloing and on a big team it's no good as an opener, but still.
Now, at for the last few levels I am just feeling there's something missing in my attack chain. I usually use BIB as an opener, then hold everything else, run up to the mobs and plant Ice Patch, and then get the Ice Sword out, plus my other blasts/bolts, but there's a noticble hole when I'm not quite near enough to use Ice Sword. Would Frost Breath, as a nice cone AoE fill that gap better than something like Ice Storm? My finger just seems to want to hit another attack to cycle through the complete chain.
Advice/opinions gratefully received