I say blazing bolt, /ice has little melee power, so i would go for defiance 2.0 friendly damage boosting 
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/Ice has moderate Melee with Ice Sword, it's about twenty times better than Frozen Fists.
However, Blazing bolt is both cool and mega damage. Get that.
Wouldn't bother with the snipe, but then I hate snipes.
Ice sword is fun, and it's the third most powerful attack you can get (after Inferno and Blaze). The snipe just eats into your DPS... you can spam 3-4 other high-damage attacks in the time it takes to animate. Chillblain, Fire Blast, Fireball, Ice sword are my first four powers on my Fire/Ice... I'd easily pick Ice Sword over Flares, it + Blaze work great against Bosses when you have them flipping on your Ice Patch... 
I can see a Flying Blaster having trouble using melee attacks effectively though, so if you find you're not using Ice Sword then there's not much point in keeping it. With the Leaping pool, I'd certainly not drop it.
Difference however, snipe gives a great defiance 2.0 bonus
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Agree, Snipes seem much more attractive as openers atm.
*Weeps that his only blaster is sonic*
[ QUOTE ]
Difference however, snipe gives a great defiance 2.0 bonus
[/ QUOTE ]
Cause apparently there's something really defiant about standing at maximum range and shooting someone that cant see you (defiance needs a name change now, it really does)
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Makes a great opener, IF you're prepared to stand still for several seconds while it animates when you could be stringing a pack of normal ST attacks together for an even bigger bonus.
But to each their own...
I dont have a snipe on any of my characters so I pick option B
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
[ QUOTE ]
defiance needs a name change now, it really does
[/ QUOTE ]This.
Also, snipes ftl for PvE. Ice sword is much better for overall DPS.
Now if only I could find me a PUG tank that's decent enough at aggro-grabbing to let my Fire/Ice really open up on a spawn without burning through an entire tray of wakies...
Anyone else noticed that Willpower's RTTC Taunt Aura is decidedly [censored]? My Peacebringer could hold aggro better... one Fireball, or even just laying an Ice Patch and it's open season on Fire Blasters...
I know there's been an issue with Scrapper Taunt Auras being too high a MaG, but I'm not aware of anything up with Tanker Taunt Auras. Still, my own INV/SS could hold aggro from multiple fire blasters very easily, but now that I'm playing the other side I seem to be stripping aggro from virtually every tanker I come across... whether I'm careful about "not pulling too much aggro before the taunt auras affect mobs" or not. Wierd.
I'm going to be heavily slotting "Rise of the Pheonix" for recharge, but it's a long way to level 47...
I've seen alot of tanks, yet i never found any where i could pull off the agro, where AR can beat fire/ not that hard with AoE spammage.
Even a fire/fire couldnt take agro of my WP tanker.
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Just out of interest, what secondary is your WP- does it have any AoEs like Footstomp/Fault/etc.?
Nearly all the Willpower Tanks I've teamed with lately have been Energy Melee. Fairly light on AoEs, but still having Taunt and RTTC. "Taunted" enemies seem to be fine, but the ones around the Tank (in RTTC's taunt aura but not necessarily being hit by Taunt/Gauntlet) appear to be very easy for my Blaster to pull away.
I know that AR/ has considerable AoE potential too, but Fire/ gets "Aim" to go with "Build Up"... and so far for every WP Tank I've encountered, [Build Up + Aim + Fireball + Fire Breath] has never failed to pull aggro...
(its on test server btw)
I have a WP/fire and a WP/stone, where stone i dont have any AoE yet (went for support first), fire has that combustion.
I ran around with a fire/fire blaster, he only once took 1 mob off me wich i think was outside my taunt aura (aprox 10ft).
And with def2.0, AR Snipe->BU->FT->FA does a really huge dmg, never tested raw numbers though.
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Thanks for all the input, guys.
As I have three blasters (Inercia lvl 50 En/En, Tesla Legacy lvl 15 Elec/Elec and Fyrefrost lvl 39, Fire/Ice) and two of them have the Snipe attack, I think I will keep my Ice Sword with Fyrefrost.
Certainly I would rather have Blazing Bolt than Flares, but then, the new Defiance allows me to fire Flares when I am mezzed, and that makes that power a must (at least for me).
Now that blasters can use their Tier 1 and Tier 2 primary attacks while mezzed, I think this will affect (slightly) a lot of builds.
I have a Fire/Ice blaster and I was thinking in doing a little respec to get the maximum benefit from the new defiance:
I have all the powers from Fire/* except the snipe (Blazing Bolt) and some from the secondary: Chillblain, Ice Sword, Build Up, Ice Patch, Shiver and Freezing Touch. I use hover and fly.
I was thinking in getting rid of Ice Sword to get Blazing Bolt, so getting a nearly pure ranged blaster (except for the hold, that works great if some baddie gets close enough). I have read the snipes provide a great bonus with Defiance 2.0 making them good openers.
Please, advice!