An Offensive Guide to Tanker Ice Melee.

These are each attack powers, base damage at lvl 50, their activation times, recharge, end usage, and then two calculations. Damage Per Endurance (DPE) is simply an indication of how “end efficient” a given power is and is the damage divided by the end cost. The higher the number, the less endurance you need to expend for each point of damage dealt. Simple. This number will go up as you both increase the base damage, and decrease the base end usage through slotting, and in fact, if your recovery is high enough, the DPE is largely meaningless, though it might take a long time (and influence) to get to this happy point.

Damage Per Activation (DPA, the last A is also sometimes used as Animation) is how much damage your attack does during the time it takes to activate… and a little more. You’ll notice that it’s not a straight up division of damage/act time because of something called Arcana-time. That is a topic for another guide (not surprisingly written by Arcanaville)—if you’re curious, please by all means research the topic, but rest assured all the numbers in that table are accurate insofar as City of Data is accurate. DPA is the best measure of how effective an attack is at doing damage. A lot of people also calculate Damage Per Second (DPS) on an individual attack, but I feel this is largely meaningless, since if you have no gaps in your attack chain, all short recharge times do for you is allow you to bring your highest DPA attacks up more frequently. It is with this measure that I will make various recommendations below for what attacks to favor and how to slot them.

The three secondary powers not included above are Taunt, Build Up and Ice Patch, because they deal no damage and have no meaningful DPE/DPA data, but I will take about them in the individual power section.

3. The powers.

Frozen Fists
Melee, Minor DMG(Cold/Smash), Foe -Recharge, -SPD

You get this at level 1. In fact, you’re forced to take it at level 1. I used to wish it weren’t so, because it’s a weak power. How weak? Both Boxing and Air Superiority have higher DPA values, and believe me, they’re not that high. It recharges fast so it’s always up as a filler, and it has a slow component like all of Ice Melee’s attacks.

As of I18, like all other tanker Tier-1 attacks, FF also has a Bruising component which debuffs the attacked critter's damage resistance by 20% for 10 sec, but this debuff does not stack with other Bruising effects other than that 10 sec duration will keep extending. So it's not at all a bad idea to lead with FF then move on to a heavy hitter like Freezing Touch (see below), though I haven't done any hard math into what constitutes an ideal mix. I'm thinking just once every 10 sec, or at least before you pop Freezing Touch is fine.

Slotting: Early on, you’ll likely need this attack as a filler. It’s unfortunate, but also unavoidable. As you gain more attacks, you should try to use this power as little as possible, i.e. every 10 sec or so. You don't need any recharge, because it's already coming up every 3 sec before any slotting or buffs. Accuracy is at a premium since you want to make sure it hits for the debuff. Optionally, slot for IO bonuses if you so desire; I have it 4-slotted with Kinetic Combat for the defense bonuses. 2 or 3 Acc/Dam IOs via Frankenslotting seems to be your best bet. SOs, do 2 Acc, 2 or 3 Dam and call it a day.

I18 Tactics: If you're the only tank, lead and use every 10 sec. If there are other tanks using their Tier-1 powers, you may just skip it altogether, though it's hard to coordinate such tactics.

Ice Sword
Melee, Moderate DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe -Recharge, -SPD

Available at level 2, it’s no great shakes for DPA either, but you need something in your ST attack chain and this is your bread and butter attack. Take it, slot it, deal with it. Sorry, that’s about as much good as I can say for this power. It’s just not that good, but you don’t have any choice.

Slotting: Standard melee attack slotting: 5 or 6 slot with an IO set of your choice, or 2 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 End redux or Recharge for SO slotting. I have it w/4 Kin Combats and 1 Crushing Impact A/D/R.

Tactics: This should be your filler attack while your heavier hitters are recharging.

Frost
Close (Cone), Moderate DoT(Cold), Foe -Recharge, -SPD

Available at level 4, this is maybe the least understood and most widely skipped power of the set. It’s also your best attack. Read that again. It’s Your Best Attack. Ever. Better than Frozen Aura (FA). Maybe. See the table above—it has a higher DPA per enemy hit and far higher DPE. So if you’re catching the same amount of critters in Frost than FA, Frost wins. You’ll likely catch more in your radius with FA though, so in practice, Frost is not quite as good, but then if you look at their recharge numbers, you’ll also see that Frost is up about twice as much as FA, so for overall contribution to your damage output, Frost is number 1. Don’t believe me? Run Herostats and track each powers’ damage output over the course of several missions. While playstyles will vary output somewhat, you’ll find that Frost has if not the absolute top, very close to the highest output.

So why is Frost so misunderstood? Two reasons come to mind. First, it’s a Damage over Time (DoT). People hate DoTs. They want immediate impact. They also don’t’ want damage “wasted”, as in hitting an enemy with a DoT and seeing someone else (say a blaster or scrapper) finish your opponent while your own DoT is ticking away. Second, it’s a melee cone, and people generally like their AoEs big. Frost is a short cone. It used to be really short, but nowadays, it has a 10’ range, which is extendable to around 15’. It also has a 90 deg arc, which isn’t horribly wide, but not too narrow either. What this means is that with proper slotting and a little practice, it’s trivial to hit 5 or more enemies in 2 to 3 rows in front of you. It take far less skill and practice to hit twice the number of enemies with Frost than say with Shadow Maul or the ubiquitous Sands of Mu. Do by all means increase that range, since it will allow you to hit more critters with your cone. This is very easy without sacrificing damage or accuracy and the like (too much) with IOs.

Take it at 4 when it becomes available. Slot it as a priority. Use it as often as you have 2 or more foes around you, which really should be all the time. Hell, even against a single foe, it’s not a bad option since it’ll outdamage Frozen Fists at least. Even the DPE isn’t all that bad for 1 critter, and of course it leaps in bounds for end efficiency as you add more foes in the area of effect. See Tactics for how to accomplish this.

SO Slotting: SO slotting really should be avoided, but if you must, 2 Acc, 3 Dam, 1 Rech.
Recommended Slotting: Frankenslotting is very good option for Frost as it allows you to increase your Range with many cheap Damage/Range IOs from various sets while getting adequate Acc, Rech and End redux values. At 47, one of the best possible slotting would be 2 Acc/Rech IOs from the Taunt sets (Mocking Beratement and Perfect Zinger) and 1 Rech from the Mocking Beratement set for additional end bonus. Finish off with 3 Dam/Range Centriole Hami-Os (HO) and you’ll find yourself with 53% Acc and (nearly) ED capped Damage, Range and Recharge. Prior to lvl 47, the Dam/Range IO recipes are also very cheap, though less effective than HOs.
My IO Slotting: 5 Posi’s (all but the Dam/End) and 1 Range IO, mostly for the set bonus.

Tactics: If there are just two enemies in range, use Frost in favor of any other attack save Freezing Touch or FA. If there are three, it’s just FA. Learn to group two or more critters in range with your tanking skills, and kill them en masse. Attacking and “arresting” one enemy at a time is maybe the most painful way to play Ice Melee Also, if you have a nice thick group around you, it’s easy to hit 5-10 foes with frost (try just jumping straight up while aiming down, hitting Frost at the apex of your leap), but if you aren’t quite that crowded, you’ll need to maneuver a bit to maximize your cone. It’s well worth the effort to get some practice at this, and as mentioned above it’s really not hard at all. This is especially important early on when endurance is at a premium and your attack chain won’t be complete and you’ll have gaps in which to maneuver around, circle your enemies and lead them to tight chokepoints. Learn to maximize the use of Frost for its damage and end efficiency and the relatively painful early levels of Ice Melee will go a lot more smoothly.

Taunt
Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Taunt

Taunt is like every other tanker taunt. Entirely up to you if you want to take/slot it or not. I’m not going to devote any time in this guide to it, other than to say that an an AoE-oriented tank, you may find Taunt less necessary than with a more ST-oriented set like Energy Melee, at least while leveling. Once you get into end game content, you may find Taunt more valuable for the more tricky AV fights and the like.

Build Up
Self +DMG, +To-hit

As in with Taunt, Build Up (BU) is the same as with other tanker BU powers. Take it or not at your leisure. I will say BU + Frost + Frozen Aura is a beautiful thing.

Ice Patch
Location (PBAoE), Foe Knockdown

Ah, glorious Ice Patch. The reason people played Ice Melee for years and years despite having really low damage. This power, available at level 20, is so damn good, I took it before taking Stamina (fortunately, you no longer face this dilemma starting with I19 since you'll already have Stamina as an inherent). Ice Patch (IP) by itself is better than most of your early shields. In fact, when I’d run low on endurance on my Ice Melee tank, I’d just turn my shields off, cast IP and swing away in relative safety.

What’s it do? It Knocks Down (KD) up to 5 foes in its relatively small, 10’ radius. It’s more than enough though if you’ve properly gathered your foes around you. And even though it only technically knocks down 5 critters at a time, with its fast pulsing and the fact that while one critter is getting to its feet, it may well knock down another, you can actually “control” more than 5 at one time. Best of all, it needs almost no slotting since with just one recharge, it’ll come back in time to keep it more or less perma.

Slotting: 1 Recharge SO or generic IO.
Tactics: Use and use often. Use on choke points, around corners, near objects to protect, etc. Good for team surivival away from you too; if your foes are scattered to the four winds, you can gather to one spot some enemies, “hold” them there with an IP and move to another group to aggro. Beware, the KD will turn into Knock Back (KB) on certain enemies and those who Con low to you. Similarly, stacking IP may also KB even cons and above.

Freezing Touch
Melee, High DoT(Cold), Foe Hold

Another somewhat misunderstood power. This is not a hold that does damage. This is your Best Single Target (ST) Attack… that happens to hold. See the table again. It’s not only IM’s best ST attack, it’s one of the best ST attacks among all tanker attacks. Only Energy Transfer, Seismic Smash and KO Blow have higher DPA values. Freezing Touch (FT) has higher DPA than Incinerate or Greater Fire Sword!

So what’s the problem? Well, FT is another DoT power so it doesn’t seem all that damaging on first glance. Also, let’s face it, its animation (along with that of Frost) aren’t all that impressive, especially compared to something like KO Blow. And I should point out, there are benefits to “Burst” damage where a given power (or short chain of powers) do a whole lot of damage at once regardless of the activation time. If Ice Melee had a 2nd high DPA attack to chain with FT, I’d say its burst potential would be fantastic, but alas, we don’t, and FT by itself won’t quite pack the same punch as some of the aforementioned big hitters, even though it animates quicker and you can be well on your way into another attack in the same timeframe.

Also, it’s a hold. People get distracted by that or are tempted to slot to maximize its mitigation potential. To that I say… Frankenslot! The same 2 Acc/Rech Taunt IOs from Frost, a Mako’s Acc/End/Rech and 3 Peroxes gives FT 74% Acc and Rech, 21% End redux and (near) ED capped Damage and Hold values. Even at lower levels, there's no reason to eschew damage in favor of holds since you can do both if you're willing to delve into IOs and frankenslotting.

I should also mention that because it also holds, its DPE is a bit lower than normal, so you should also keep that in mind when slotting. Depending on your recovery, you might want to consider extra End redux in the mix than what’s above.

SO Slotting: If you absolutely must, I'd go 2 Acc, 3 Dam and 1 End redux, with a Hold SO in favor of one of the 6 slots at your preference. Remeber, this is one of your best attacks.
My Slotting: 4 Kin Combat, 1 Perox HO, 1 Unbreakable Constraint (Purple) Acc/Hold/Rech, again for the IO bonus more than anything.

Tactics: This is your heavy hitter. Use it as you would any other big attack, which is to say early and often. If you have an epic hold (Char, Block of Ice), stack to hold bosses. Use on Sappers and other potentially dangerous foes. Remember that it’s a DoT so if you tag an opponent with only a little life left after the 1st tick, just let it go and the following ticks will finish it. Some practice and you’ll be able to gauge when this applies.

Greater Ice Sword
Melee, High DMG(Cold/Lethal), Foe -Recharge, -SPD

The “heavy hitter” of the set that’s really not. Again, see the table above. Its DPA is laughably low, especially for a late, heavy power. It’s lower than Ice Sword, for goodness sakes. By way of comparison, Greater Fire Sword does almost twice the damage in the same activation period and Seismic Smash does even more damage and faster to boot! To emphasize how much GIS sucks, let's compare it to other tanker heavy hitters (including FT):

That is absolutely hideous. GIS is a totally skippable power, and in fact, I heartily encourage you to do so. Both Ice Blast and Fire Blast in the epic pools have higher DPA values and recharge faster (Fire Blast has a higher DPE too). There is zero reason to use GIS over either of those two powers since you only need to wait a few extra levels to pick up your Epic blast.

Frozen Aura
PBAoE, Moderate DMG(Cold), Foe Sleep

Ah, finally, our very own Foot Stomp (FS). Yes folks, FA now does Foot Stomp damage, albeit without Rage to back it up, but hey, we get Build Up. Oh, it’s a sleep. I don’t care about sleeps. I know there are those of you that like the sleep aspect of this power, and can leverage it to good ends. You don’t need me to tell you how to do that. Just make sure that if you do want to use the sleep aspect of this power, not to pick a primary with a damage aura (Fire, Ice (optional, I guess), Dark, Stone), because they’ll just get woken up a 1/2 second after being slept. Also, don’t use on top of Ice Patch which will also wake stuff up.

Anyway, it’s a great PBAoE (Player Based AoE) that does impressive cold damage in a 10’ radius around you (if you’re used to FS, it’s a smaller radius than FS’s 15’). Use in conjunction with Frost and maybe Build Up, it’ll quickly kill most minions around you and put a serious hurt on Lts. 5/6 slot it fast and use it and love it. Straightforward, really.

My Slotting: Old: 6 Obliterations. New: 3 Eradications, 3 Cleaving Blows for the E/N defense. You can also Frankenslot to your liking. I highly advise against slotting for sleep, even if you’re tempted to slot the (relatively) cheap purple Sleep set. FA does far too much damage to waste its potential as an attack.

Tactics: Er, use, and use a lot.

4. Tactics, builds and other thoughts.

So as I’ve repeatedly stated, Ice Melee is terrible at ST damage, but great at AoE. So how do you leverage this? Well, for one thing, don’t fight single foes. Choose something like -1/x8, No Bosses, for your mission settings to increase spawn size. The x8 may be too much early in your career, so build towards that. If the -1 is too easy, well, crank it up to what you're comfortable, but the key is the x8 modifier.

When you do fight bosses and other hard targets, your ST attacks should be saved for the bosses so that as you whittle down the minions and Lts with your AoEs, your ST attacks also take down the boss at around the same rate. This is fairly basic fighting tactics for any ST & AoE mixed damage dealing, but IM really needs to pay attention and not waste a FT attack on a mere minion, unless it’s to hold something dangerous.

As for attack chains and builds and such, they really depend so much on your primary and epic selections, global recharge and other factors so I hesitate to say too much in this guide other than to generalize. So… some generalizations:

Attack chains should lead with FT (for FF for Bruising), incorporate an Epic Blast and Ice Sword as your ST fillers, but more to the point, try always to hit 2 or more foes with Frost (see the Frost section again). Really, avoid using Frozen Fists other than for Bruising and you shouldn’t even have GIS to rely on.

Good primary combos are Ice (slow and more slows), Fire (BU + FE + Burn + FA + Ice Patch = So Much Win) and Stone (biased, since that’s what I run, but this really is the ultimate in toughness). Really though, any primary combo can work well. Invul, WP & Shields all have playstyles that cater to gathering many foes around you, which is where Ice Melee is most effective. Dark can also mix Cloak of Fear and Ice Patch for some serious PBAoE mitigation.

As for epic pools, I really like Pyre & Arctic Mastery, not only for their very effective AoEs, but for their ST holds that you can select at 41 that you can stack with FT. Earth gives you a hold, but not til later, and it and Energy offer very little in the way of added damage, esp the ST variety which IM needs. Ice Blast, Fire Blast and Ring of Fire all offer better ST DPA values than all but Freezing Touch in IM’s arsenal, sad as that sounds (Char and Chilblain don’t fall too far behind either). I’m particularly fond of Arctic since it matches the theme nicely, and combined with Frost & Ice Patch, you can make sure most things stay within the radius of Ice Storm for its duration, which does more damage than Fireball, though it recharges slower. Having said that, sometimes it’s very good to have mixed damage types; for example if you’re faced with foes with heavy cold resistance or damage. As rare as they might be, they exist and you might want a nice Fireball to throw in their direction.

Since I haven't played villains much, I can't comment on the Patron Power Pools.

5. Conclusion.

I hope that this guide both encourages new tankers to try out Ice Melee, and with a more offensive mindset than before. I also hope that maybe some old school Ice Melee tanks who’ve shelved their tanks as low damage failures will give them a new chance. And if you’re going to play Ice Melee, please for Positron’s sake, give Frost a try. Happy (offensive) gaming.

Don't feel bad I thought the same as well...in fact MANY ppl told me how horrid Ice melee was...but that was b/c they were basing the fact on the old stuff.

You know, I never thought to check back to this post to see if there were feedback or questions. Ah well, only 2 months late...

DPA is calculated as (total damage)/(time it takes from when you activate this power til when you start activating the next power). The bottom bit is a bit tricky to figure out and through much toil by Arcanaville, she more or less came up with a fairly accurate formula that goes something like:

DPA = DAM/(0.132*(ROUNDUP(ACT/0.132)+1))

Basically, you're calculating how many server clock cycles (0.132 sec) it takes the attack to complete, and add one extra cycle. For a more detailed information, try searching on Arcanatime--there's quite the treatise on the subject.

So for Greater Ice Sword, the DAM=87.2, ACT = 2.33 sec, or 2.508 in "Arcanatime", so DPA = 87.2/2.508 = 34.77. Which is terrible. Just as a comparison, I'll list all the other tanker heavy hitters below:

Seismic Smash: 92.3
Clobber: 89.47
Energy Transfer: 69.86 (this used to be a gaudy 170.77 before the nerf!)
KO Blow: 66.66
Incinerate: 60.17
Greater Fire Sword: 57.48
Midnight Grasp: 54.71
Sweeping Strike (a cone at that!): 52.09
Swoop: 51.23
Total Focus: 46.15 (so really, not all that great either despite the very big # it generates)
GIS: 34.77***

Okay, those are just the heavy hitters, but even if you look at the "weaker" attacks, there are only like 6 tanker ST attacks *total* that have worse DPA values than GIS. It's really, really pathetic, is what I'm getting at. Even if you don't care about DPA or activation times, the "big number" for GIS isn't all that high compared to what you get with like Seismic Smash or KO Blow, both of which do almost 2x the actual damage, and in less time to boot.

As for procs in FF or any attack, the rule of thumb is that procs are best in quick animating attacks, though even that's been devalued somewhat after the discovery of Arcanatime. Since FF has a rather long activation for a T1 attack, I personally wouldn't bother with it.

(Elec doesn't have any real heavy ST attacks either, but CI has a higher DPA, though I don't know the official values yet so don't want to list the #s.)

I ran a Fire/Ice Tank on GR Test... with the changes to FE and Burn, the combination of Ice Patch + FE + Burn + FA is just... ridiculous. If you can get over some of Fire's holes (which admittedly Shield has a lot less of), it also makes for an impressive damage tank.

Sort of besides the point, but the big draw of Fire/Ice was that you used IP to keep things in your Burn patch. Now, you don't need to any more... which doesn't keep IP from being awesome or anything.

I'd imagine fully soaked AAO + SC + FA is pretty spectacular too. Both SD/Ice & Fire/Ice are going to kick all sorts of ***; I just wished I didn't have a no repeat rule or I'd totally roll both combos.

Speaking as a Shield Defense / Ice Melee tanker in your SG I feel overlooked now. :P

Fantastic Foe is exactly right about how to handle AoE with that particular combo. I'd like to add that Ice Storm on top of that will make sure that whatever does survive the Freezing Aura / Shield Charge combo doesn't stay up long unless it's a Boss or tougher.

I sort of want to defend Greater Ice Sword on the basis of your comments regarding burst damage under Freezing Touch, but I've come off it in a big way in the process of fooling with the aforementioned Tanker in preparation for i19. I'll probably drop it altogether.

Yeah, I just don't know enough about red-side to comment on PPPs. I know Gloom was included in a lot of optimized ST DPS calcs, but I have no experience w/any PPP powers (all my Brutes come blue side) so didn't wanna comment. Prolly a good move if you're willing to go at least part way evil.

I have a shield/ice tank too! she's my second fav toon. Fun playstyle :P