Sooo talk to me about ice control

OK there are quite a few things to respond to here:

The the guy wondering about Ice/Cold Controller I think it would work very well. You are going to be stacking slows on mobs and will also have some great debuffs available, two early on and several more later. You are going to have to learn how to cast Ice Slick from around corners/behind cover if you want to open with it (and you absolutely want to open with it against anything but Nemesis robots) because any other opener is going to get you more agro than you will be able to survive easily. That said, Ice Slick is one of the better controller openers in the game practice with it and it will work in most situations. Once you open, you let the rest of the team (shielded of course) run in and start grabbing agro before you start stacking more slows.

To the guy not taking Ice Slick. Ummm. Really if you ever have to play without a tank, you will be pretty much nerfed if you don't have this one available. Ice Slick >> Frostbite if you actually NEED mitigation. Also, I will sometimes Ice Slick, let the mobs start flopping, then Frostbite. If they are properly slowed, they will all get at most one shot off before they start flopping again. Spamming Frostbite isn't something you do in that situation, because one application is all you will need to keep them from scattering off the Slick where they will be stuck flopping till it expires, after the initial 10 second -kb effect wears off. Or if you have a tank, or someone else opened, you can Frostbite, followed a few seconds later by the Slick and get the same basic effect but a longer useful life on the Ice Slick. Regardless, really, do not skip it. It's too handy in a broad range of instances to not have in your tool kit.

To the guy who thinks it's ok to skip Earthquake. Ummm. Read Ice slick above. I know you are going to have Stalagmites and VG. So what? Earth Quake gets a substantial defense debuff and an ACCURACY DEBUFF. And for grins it knocks thing down. All three. In one power. That needs Minimal slotting. It also will accept two damage procs and several other procs, so if you ever solo, it does virtually EVERYTHING in one little completely awesome power. You got a purple boss or three mad at you? Earthquake gives you the time you need to take care of that agro in one key press. Unless you plan on never playing without a Fire/Kin on your team you will very much want it. It saves tanks who get in over their heads. It saves team wipes when you get ambushes or unexpected agro. It lets you control a Third full Spawn, which is something very few power sets can do for you, and all that with a power that needs minimal slotting or can be fully slotted for greater efficacy. Dear God, you don't need it, but you DESERVE it! Take Earth Quake, slot it, love it, it will never let you down; even when it's caged over it's still helping you out.

OK I had coffee this morning, what can I say? I get passionate when I have coffee.

Keep in mind sweet, there is a difference between saying you "can skip" something and you "should skip it"

@Mental I agree, the end of the third paragraph pretty much sums that up if you can get through the rant in front of it

I'll have Sleet for a ranged knock down that has debuffs and an Achilles proc in it. I've played Ice control before and found Ice Slick to be lacking in the late game with all powers on a team that can negate it like knock back and other controls.

I dont think Ice Slick does -recharge. (although it should, imo)

Do you guys think putting a chance for Knockdown Ragnarok in Sleet would make it as effective for control as Ice Slick ? Anyone tried this ?

Ice/Rad/Fire or "The Mother May I" combo.

You've got loads -Rch -Spd. Sure everyone gets thier attacks off once. Then gets to sit there for a few days while they recycle. Lead with Ice Slick, drop Rad powers while the flopping happens (mean while jack mosey's in), Toss in a shiver befor ejumping with Arctic Air running. Maybe a Frostbite and another fireball. Rinse.. repeat. Flash Freeze is another nice opener to get ice slick and the rad toggles going. And Proc Frostbite and Arctic Air... you can get some surprisingly strong damage from them.

Talking about Ice/Rad/Fire, how about Ice/Rad/Mental. You could run Arctic Air + Choking Cloud + World of Confusion all proced out. One ice slick and stand there waiting for the mobs to die.

"I kill stuff without lifting a finger".

I pretty much agree with what everyone's said, but one thing you should keep in mind is that ice is actually a really good dominator primary, so you'll see it a bit more if you're a villain.

You don't have to really focus as much on control so you have more time to damage, you don't need the AoE immobilize for containment so you don't really lose much by not using it, and pretty much every set has melee attacks, so you're going to get a lot out of arctic air.

Interesting...! Time to try out some /rads in the coming double-xp weekend, now that I can actually get rid of rad's grotesque puke-coloured hues.

One power that just never seems to get enough respect is Arctic Air. IMO, it is one of the single most powerful abilities in the game.

What hangs people up about Arctic Air is the toggle aspect. Let me ask this. If you had a power that...
- had a 20 foot radius
- rarely drew aggro
- could accept damage procs
- could slow
- could lower recharge rate
- could confuse
- had a chance to proc Contagious Confusion every 10 seconds of every battle
- could cause afraid effect
- was up multiple times per fight
- was mobile, so that you could move it as the battlefield evolves
- was available at level EIGHT

...would you think this was a good power? The major negative for Arctic Air is that the user has to take some extra risks to get into melee. Alpha strikes can be annoying, and getting mezzed really sucks (which is why Ice/Force Field or /Sonic can ge great), but Ice Slick around a corner can do the trick.

[QUOTE=Oedipus_Tex;2327251]
- rarely drew aggro
[QUOTE]

Arctic Air draws a lot of aggro, at least in my experience...

It's worth noting that procs firing in AA will add to the aggro that you draw. It's particularly noticable when multiple procs hit multiple targets who then turn to you with their angry faces on.

Another common stated advantage of earth over ice for vets is that earth's -def overcomes the vet attacks poor accuracy. Makes up a lot for the low damage of earth having three hard hitting free attacks starting at level 1. I find it a lot easier to solo an earth over an ice now a days.

What I mean when I say AA rarely pulls aggro is that compared to most other controls it has a pretty low aggro ratio. This is anecdotal, but I've always felt like like the real threats to me as ice troller were the enemies standing outside AAs radius. This is maybe because anything inside AA has already blown its attack on the tanker.

Ice is my favorite controller set. I use it to slow enemies to almost nothing. I reserve Ice Slick to fire off if bad guys break out. When paired with an Earth, I usually drop Ice Slick right behind quicksand, and it makes it almost impossible for mobs to close. Ice/Kinetics is pretty sick, because their attack rate drops to almost nothing.

Here's a quick summary for anyone choosing between Ice and Earth:

Earth is a better ranged AoE controller. It has three ranged AoE controls and huge amounts of Defense Debuff to make it easy to hit difficult foes. Because of the Defense Debuff and because it has slightly more damage, it solo's slightly better than Ice since the veteran powers can hit more reliably.

Ice is a better melee controller, mostly because of Arctic Air, but it can be played at range too. It has one (well, two if you count the sleep, Flash Freeze) ranged AoE control, but has a toggle melee control power and a PB AoE hold. Ice provides a huge amount of Slow and Recharge debuff which reduces the movement speed and number of attacks.

Both sets are effective team controllers. They can be played differently even though they have several similar powers. Both sets are low damage and slow to solo.

I built my 1+ billion Ice/Rad Troller as the ultimate team controller. I dont worry about damage because thats easy to come by these days.

I would say that no other set can match the soft and hard control I have, and my ability to keep teams safe by myself as the solo Troller on an 8 man Task Force.

Arctic Air (Conf Proc) + Choking Cloud (+2Mag Hold Proc) + World of Confusion (Purp Fire DMG Proc), along with Enervating Field Toggled on a boss, along with Ice Slick, Glacier, or EM Pulse for hard or soft controls, is just...well, sick. The Mobs melt with ease and in rapid fashion- all while your team is completely safe.

Everyone on this thread is talking about Dmg, when Ice/ is not about being a damage dealer. Its about being the Control and Dmg mitigation on your team, and my build performs that role better than most other Controller builds in its sleep.

Hell, not many controllers can entirely mitigate groups of enemy damage just by running in with 3 toggles and standing there. Thats before I even cast anything. Level 54's? No problem. I can sit as long as I need to with 3 toggles, Enervating Field, and Rad Infection and still have at least a 2.0 Endurance recovery to usage differential.

Thats not counting that I can spam team heal when needed just under every two seconds, and keep everyone constantly buffed with perma-Acccelerate Metabolism. If you are focusing on playing a group/task force/challenging content role, an Ice/Rad is hard to beat in terms of all the things it can offer a team.

Yeah. Ice controllers, in the proper hands, built with the proper secondary- completely rock!

Sure, if you somehow can't find Damage dealers in a game filled with Blasters, Scrappers, AOE tankers and Dmg Trollers, then sure, it might not be the best choice. But I group and farm with a Purped out Archery/MM blaster, and him and I can clear mobs faster than an 8 man team can most of the time. All it takes is one AOE Dmg king on the team and you'll be just fine.

Fire Controllers are great at Dmg. But when you're looking for high end control in chaotic situations, Arctic Air > Hot Feet any day of the week. Thats why I chose Ice- in the end it was about control for me, and not damage. Theres already plenty of that to go around. Plus it just looks cooler.