ice/em blapper

i've finally decided to roll a blapper!

i've gone with ice/ for the nice control, frosty breath and the awesome ice storm

for the secondary it was either elec or energy, but i like energys animations more.

can anyone supply a build for me? i've no idea how to build a blapper, especially with wether or not to go melee or ranged defence (or both!) or recharge and that

Blapper can mean a few things:

1) One who eschews the usage of ranged attacks. This person prioritizes melee attacks in slotting, preference, and pick order. They are moving directly into melee, always, and any usage of the primary is for mitigation. AOE attacks are commonly used more for mitigation than damage, and the Blaster as a whole plays extremely ST oriented. An Elec/Elec blapper is commonly of this type (Traditionally, the most commonly associated with the term Blapper, but has seriously fallen out of favor since the new Defiance and the introduction of IO sets).

2) One who takes and utilizes melee attacks, but not to the exclusion of ranged attacks. Many blasters fit this bill. They take, slot, and use melee attacks, but not at the hindrance to ranged attacks and only use melee attacks when the enemy comes towards them. This type of blaster would use Ranged/AOE/melee pretty equally, but would not eschew melee attacks the way a Ranged Blaster would (Most common blaster, least associated with the term Blapper).

3) Just like point #2, but this blaster prefers melee over ranged and actively seeks melee. Unlike #1, however, he will use ranged attacks when situations warrant it (particularly AOE attacks), and moves towards the mobs, rather than waiting for them to come to them. This Blaster would prioritize AOE and melee attacks, and rarely use the Ranged ST attacks.

Animations aside, I would make this blapper combo as /Elec rather than /Energy for a few reasons. First, /Elec is faster animating as a set, thereby getting more damage out per animation time. You can easily skip Thunderstrike on /Elec (and is recommended) whereas Total Focus makes up a much bigger chunk of /Energy's damage. Secondly, Shocking Grasp works well with the holds in Ice, should you choose to take those as mitigation. Finally, for a pure Blapper type role, /Elec has a few neat tools that work strictly in melee such as Lightning Field, Lightning Clap, and Powersink.

For slotting, it will depend on which version of a 'blapper' you are playing and what epic you choose. Ice is popular for the defensive shield, as is Force for PFF and Force of Nature. Common melee defense sets are Oblits, Touch of death/Kinetic Combat, Extreme Measures, Gauzzians, and Razzle Dazzle.

While /Elec is really, really good, I suggest /EM for the combo of great damage, Boost Range, and Power Boost.

Power boost alone is enough to make Ice/ incredibly powerful. The holds are made MUCH more significant, Stun (if you take it) is improved and Ice Storm's (and all the other ice powers, really) slow effect is increased, helping to keep stuff within it. Also, Blizzard's -tohit is greatly increased, allowing you to drop Blizzard with little fear of any retribution.

Shocking Grasp is awesome, but you can get a third hold only a few levels later in your APP. /Elec probably does more overall damage, but the hard and soft controls that really define Ice/ just seem like a perfect fit with Power Boost.

Regarding how to IO out an Ice/EM: I would suggest a combo of melee and ranged defense. I haven't tried to IO my Ice/EM so I don't know if its possible to cap both. If not, you'll have to decide which is more important for you, melee or ranged. That will ultimately be determined by your playstyle, I figure. Though you may want to listen to build advice from someone with more experience with IO builds for those powersets.

A few comments on Energy vs Elec:

Depending on how you play a 'blapper', boost range could be almost totally useless. Great power, but maybe not a great choice in this application.

Shocking Grasp is a far superior hold than any ST epic hold (or ice hold) in that it does a great deal of damage as well. Neither of the popular defensive options have an ST hold (Ice Epic and Force Epic). That leaves Char (Fire) that does about 2/3 of Shocking Grasp, Cryo Freeze Ray (Munitions) which does almost none, and Shocking Bolt (Electric) which does about 1/3 of Shocking Grasp.

Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Shocking Grasp is a full melee attack chain that just happens to have a hold effect in there (and all three animated fast). With an epic hold, that's another action you have to take to achieve the hold.

Powerboost, slows and the like:

Powerboost is a nice power, in that it affects so many things, but hold duration is not something I generally struggle with on a Blaster, simply because the amount of time one needs to hold something is proportional to how fast you can kill it.....and melee attacks take care of things plenty fast for base hold duration.

As someone that plays a lot of Stormies, Darks and the like......slow is either a really great effect or a pretty paltry one, depending on circumstances. When an enemy is floored, it is great, but it doesn't scale up with enemy level that well and a little doesn't help a ton (For this reason, toons that rely on the effect I tend to grossly overenhance because I rarely play even cons). Enemies are not effected by -recharge nearly to the same level that players are.

I would not try to combo melee and Ranged defense simply for the fact I'm not sure you could get appreciable amounts of both (32%+) without seriously gimping your aspects, and the way defense works you'd rather be softcapped to one positional defense than just have a little of both. If you went with the Ice Epic, S/L isn't too tough to cap with a lot of melee attacks, so that could be another option.

I'm going to say neither /elec nor /energy. Try /fire instead. Slot your primary for mitigation (ie: take both holds, slot some slow movement, take the rain power, and build for ranged and melee defense or go with the ice epic and slot for lethal/smashing defense) then slot your /Fire powers for massive AoE damage.

Throw 2 back to back holds on the annoying lieuts in the spawn or double stack on a boss, drop your rain power, and then slide into close range with Hot Feet running and use Frost Breath. Then use your melee AoEs to wipe out the minions and lieuts quickly, switch to single target damage (Fire Sword, Bib, Bolt and Blast), and wipe out the boss.