Ice Control is hands down the worst

Currently playing an ice/earth and I gotta go on the record and say that ice control is officially THE worst control set available to dominators.

There's the ST hold and the AoE hold. Ok, good.

Then, there's ice slick, which, imo is marginally useful. I say marginally because most immobs negate its knockdown, knockback throws mobs off of it, and fliers are unaffected. There are also a surprising number of mobs unaffected by slows such as Slags and Wolves. Because of slick though, the AoE immob is useless and the ST immob is so-so, not that either was all that great to begin with.

Next, you have AA. AA is a strong power but requires melee range and heavy slotting AFTER stamina just to make the thing an every fight power. I still take it, but having it negates the need for Shiver.

After that you have the AoE sleep. I like it for an alpha, but the damage component means you can't stack sleeps and ice slicks knockdown wakes them up. Ooookay.

Lastly, you have Jack. He's really the only saving grace of the set. I'd rank him up there near the top in pets, although he does have a glass jaw. Not nearly as bad as Audrey, but close.

So really, you could easily take 4-5 powers (ST hold, AoE hold, Slick, AA and Jack) and you'd essentially be stupid to take any of the others. I can't think of another control set that is so self-defeating.

IDK, maybe too much reliance on Ice Slick is the problem. I suppose if you skipped that, the immobs, sleep and shiver could combine for a useful ranged build.

Anyway, people can say what they want about Gravity control or Fire control being weak, but I'd take either to 50 over another Ice.

Heh. because ice slick must be used with the immobilize.

Uh... sure. Why are you throwing the AOE immob on your ice slick again? You could, frankly, say the same thing for Earth (Cages+Earthquake) and Fire (Cages+Bonfire) as well.

AOE sleeps are, in general, the most skippable powers (everywhere but Mind, it seems. I seem to use it most there.) OTOH, if you have the power choice, a slot for acc and the slot for a chance for heal proc - you have a somewhat unreliable self heal. Still, yeah - skippable, in general.

NEVER skip the ST Immob. Really. Ever. Ever. It's far too useful, stacks nicely with itself even with default recharge - hell, I tend to slot mine for damage and/or secondary effects.

Frankly, I think I roll Ice and Earth the most. Love the sets. That said - and even with the comments above - I *do* tend to skip the AOE immobs on Dominators, or at least put them off. Mostly because of having an offensive secondary as opposed to a buff/debuff, and I'm not relying on Containment for damage. (And Shiver does come in handy there, too - they may not be immobed, but they're not *going* anywhere. I wouldn't say AA negates Shiver, quite honestly. Toss a confuse set in AA. Even more fun when it's the purple set.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Ice Control is one of the better Dom primaries.

Something tells me you're doing it horribly horribly wrong. In terms of skippable powers almost every control primary as a dominator you only need about 5-6 powers from your primary. As mentioned by others most intelligent Dom players don't take their AoE immobs as it's an aggro magnet and doesn't offer that much in terms of mitigation. For ice especially don't take it as the knockdown from iceslick combined with the fear effect from AA negates about 80% of melee damage. AA does not render Shiver useless..Use them together and then see how you like the primary >_> And in terms of rather taking Gravity up to 50 over gravity by Level 18 you already have an AoE knockdown patch, a cone slow, and an AoE confuse, fear, slow for mitigation...Gravity an AoE hold on a Long Recharge timer..Ice seems to be quite horrible in control :P

In terms of not eating an alpha, you do realize you can use Iceslick the exact same way Earth/ Doms can avoid eating the alpha?

What? By using their AoE Stun power and then laying down their AoE Knockdown? Cool! Now which Ice Control power does AoE Stun ... wait a sec.

Yes, I know what you really meant, but corners aren't always as convenient as you would like and an AoE Sleep won't eliminate an alpha.

Useful AoE immobs:
fire with hot feet
plant with seeds
grav because you can still knockdown/back

ST immob isn't a must have. There's a whole secondary for damage attacks. ST immobs have use later vs AVs. Much later. Only old set I'd say needed the ST immob was /psi because dart and MB used to suck. Not anymore. Now I'd say /earth could use the extra ranged ST attack, but then again if you're taking /earth, you're going for melee.

Ice Slick is overrated. Although I will nod to Hack for pointing out last night that it is really good out of the box and with minimal slotting. But I find it's usefulness is lacking in too many situations and grows less useful as time goes by.

The AoE sleep is okay, but far from needed. The AoE hold and ST hold are common fodder.

That leaves Shiver and AA. You only need one imo. AA is an end hog, though, and needs 5-6 to be an every fight power. Even then I wouldn't say it's an awesome 'control' power. I was arguing this with Hack that HF is as good... you get the slow, you get the fear. Then it's confuse vs damage. The confuse is more defensive, while the damage is offensive and defensive as mobs die faster.

Shiver can be skipped. Unless you're playing ranged. Even then I don't like it because it's this huge cone that always overshoots its targets to aggro the ones behind it.

As Min said, the mitigation is all soft control. Not very reliable. You find that out fast with the mobs that can fly or that are immune to slows. Of which, there are a surprisingly large number.

I'm not trying to bash the set. I've played it 3x now, I have one 50 (ice/psi) and 2 30s (ice/ice and ice/earth). It's good enough to get the job done, but seriously, I would take ANY other primary before I rolled another one.

I'd love to be able to go back in time and change most of the dom control sets to include things doms would actually use. Imagine if ice had an ice armor, fire a fire armor, etc. Would be glorious.

I like Ice control because I don't have to take a lot of the powers for a decent amount of control which allows for a lot of build flexibility.

I disliked Ice control on the blueside because controllers toss out aoe immobs left and right negating slicks but on redside there really isn't much concern about immobed spawns.

Personally I love my Ice dom. Jump in with a power boosted AoE hold, a ST hold on the toughest enemy, let arctic air do it's thing the whole while and get the confuse going. When it's almost down, drop an ice slick, and by the time that's gone between confuse, knockdown and you picking off enemies, you should be good to go

@.MIDAS

BIG BROTHER MIDAS, Ice/Ice Dominator, 1314 Badges
* Any toon you see with Midas in the name is probably me *

I agree with the OP for the most part. I was quite underwhelmed by my Ice/ Dom. One of the things that seemed the most ridiculous to me was that I couldn't use the Ice Slick to keep a boss busy while I stacked hold mag on him, since even the hold confers -KB. The immob sure, but even the hold in a set that has a KD power as its every fight power?

I knew going in that it offered less total mitigation, generally slowing down incoming damage rather than eliminating it. That's why I paired mine with /Psi for Drain Psyche. I'm glad I made that call but the set still didn't seem to do much of anything better than other primaries I've tried.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roofles I disliked Ice control on the blueside because controllers toss out aoe immobs left and right negating slicks but on redside there really isn't much concern about immobed spawns.

While true generally I did have other Doms spamming AoE immobs over my Ice Slicks now and then while leveling up my Ice/ Dom.

Gravity is worse than Ice.

I thought everyone knew that.