Ice Controllers Without Arctic Air

Thanks for your comments. Here's a rambling reply.

The synergy between Empathy and AA is that both have the same end goal, which is making sure no one gets splattered. Since your character has to stand somewhere, you might as well make it somewhere useful. Empathy may not have a powerful argument to stand near enemies, but Ice Control surely does.

The synergy between Ice and Force Field is that you can build off of Dispersion Bubble to make yourself an invincible, mezzing snow globe. Yes, you can still be slept. Yes, some of the FF powers kind of suck. They kind of suck for FF Defenders too. What doesn't suck is the huge personal and team survivability boost FF buys you with minimal slotting. If someone's going to jump into a pack of enemies it might as well be someone with Tanker level resistance to the big 3 mezzes and the option to IO herself to untouchable levels.

One thing that for sure should go into any upcoming guides to Ice Control is to remind people that just because AA is a toggle it does not mean that:
1) You have to leave it on ALL the time
2) That you have to be able to use it in every single situation or else it is useless
3) That you can't still be mobile, and pull back if things get too rough or (especially) need to back out for a second to fire Shiver back into the crowd

You raise a good point, and really all I'm doing right now is throwing out ideas when they first come to my mind for the purposes of debate (without taking the time to myself carefully consider their merit). And perhaps synergy is overrated, anyways - there's something to be said for being okay at two tasks instead of great at one.

You're right in saying that Empathy doesn't synergize well with -any- Controller set. As a matter of fact, I would even argue that a Controller choosing Empathy is looking for his Controller set to synergize with Empathy and not the other way around. This may be why we see so many Illusion/Empathy Controllers, as Empathy is an extremely active defense set and Illusion is very fire-and-forget.

But that's not what this thread is about. This thread is about Arctic Air, and I am once again guilty of getting off on a tangent.

I've long wondered about the actual effect -Recharge has on enemies. I decided to run some numbers in Excel. It's possible I've made some math errors, so please don't take any of this as gospel. If anyone notices any errors please feel free to point them out!

There are a few key things to make clear before we begin.
1) The maximum -Recharge effect that can be applied to an enemy is -75%.
2) Because of the Purple Patch, enemies that are a higher level than you resist a portion of the base effect listed in the power description.

Here's the effect table for the Purple Patch, showing the decreasing effectiveness of powers as enemies become higher level than the player.

Lvl Effectiveness
+0 100%
+1 90%
+2 80%
+3 65%
+4 48%

In other words, an enemy that is the same level as you receives 100% of a debuff. An enemy 4 levels higher than you receives 48% of a debuff.

The table below shows the results of applying the -Recharge debuff to enemies that are +0, +1, +2, +3, and +4 to the player. The first number shown is the Recharge penalty as a percentage. The number in parentheses represents the actual end effect: how much longer it takes for a power to recharge versus the normal time (e.g. if the number listed is x4, it takes 4 times as long to recharge as normal, so a power that normally takes 5 seconds to recharge now takes 5 x 4 = 20 seconds). I ran the numbers for each power that has a Recharge debuff, and also for some possible combinations of powers.



What's immediately noticeable to me on the table is the huge lead Shiver has on Arctic Air when enemies are close to the same level as a player. However, when enemies are higher level than the player, the lead shrinks considerably, with neither power coming close to the maximum debuff value. When the two powers are *combined*, however, the values skyrocket back to the maximum values. A combo of AA + Shiver would experience about 40% fewer attacks than Shiver or AA alone (based only on recharge debuffs and ignoring any mezz effects in AA). I didn't run the numbers for Shiver + AA + Frostbite, but they should be even better.

The main thing I am taking from this experiment is that Recharge debuffs cascade. The difference between 70% debuffed and 75% debuffed is huge. It's worth debuffing critters to the maximum negative value possible, because the last few points of -Recharge go much further than the first few points. However, when you are fighting enemies close to you in level, you can assume that Shiver will take care of the Recharge side entirely, if it hits and again ignoring the extra perks of the other powers in the set.

For me having or not having AA on my Ice troller comes down to what I'm using the alt for and what powers add to that goal. I'm mostly single target/team buff/AV debuff right now. AA was great while I was leveling up, but now being in melee is isn't so much challenging as it is frustrating. Sooner or later I'll get more IOs for a second build and that'll have AA for sure.

I can agree to disagree. This all boils down to how effective you think AA is. To me, it's the centerpiece in a power set that lacks significant damage and has only one other good AoE control that is up every fight. The "synergy" is that it is a good control power. We are Controllers. It does not need to be more complicated than that.

I do, however, think it's ironic that we are talking so much about synergy in a powerset that inherently has very little with *itself*. Frostbite conflicts with Ice Slick and both conflict with Flash Freeze. Shiver's cone conflicts with AAs and Glacier's PBAoE. Additionally, Ice Slick's conflict with what Fire and Plant Controllers bring is well noted, and has reduced more than one Ice Controller to a wallflower. We regularly see people advised to not play Ice Controllers at all, and to roll an /Ice Blaster, who can nearly match Ice's -Recharge and single target hold game while bringing tons more damage with no conflicts within itself or with other player's sets.

As far as me being an AA snob, I'll cop to it. But then I think every player in this game has certain powers they feel are critical to a powerset. Look at Force Field. If you had a choice between a Mind/FF with Deflective Shield and one without (he "didn't have a pet, so there was no synergy") who would you pick? What about a FF/Ice who skipped Dispersion Bubble because she would rather hover above the battle and that doesn't synergize with her strategy, and none of her other powers require her to melee (que AA)? What about a Kinetic who skips Fulcrum Shift, or a Plant Controller without Seeds of Confusion, or a Storm without Freezing Rain? Your threshold may vary, but I doubt we'll find many people to argue that they are totally relativistic about power selections.

The argument that is being made, however, is not whether an Ice Controller not weilding AA is less effective, which I believe that Memphis Bill would concede. The argument being made is really -how- less effective. I can't speak for Bill, of course, but I think he would agree with you on a vast majority of your decisions. A Kinetics user without Fulcrum Shift or a Plant Controller that skips Seeds would likely not be invited, or at least not be invited -back-, to a team. I think that 95% of the boards would agree with that.

The argument Bill is making is not that an Ice Controller is less effective without Arctic Air, but rather that the effect of Arctic Air on certain builds is far less significant than the effect of Fulcrum Shift on Kinetics. You and I disagree, Tex, but I can see his point.

It really boils down to how comfortable one feels in melee. I would argue that an Ice Controller is among the safest melee toons, secondary provided. The little damage that I take can be made up for with Kinetics. Bill, however, is arguing that, as an Empath, the risk of dying in melee (which would cause a wipe) is far greater than the net benefit provided by Arctic Air. Simple math will show his argument.

Let us assume that Ice Slick mitigates 75% of incoming damage and that Arctic Air air mitigates an additional 75% (rough figures). In this case, if Ice Slick is used first, then Arctic Air can only mitigate 75% of the remaining 25%, or, in this case, 18.75%. The rest is overlap. If Shiver by itself can mitigate half as effectively as Arctic Air and we assume AA/Shiver are mutually exclusive (which they tend to be, given that they function in different mediums), then AA only stands to mitigate about 9% of incoming damage. This is not gamebreaking. If mitigation is your only concern, are you really going to risk melee death for what can, in normal situations, easily be mitigated via healing from range?

This, of course, is only a functional equation if mitigation is one's only concern. Tex and I believe it is not, but damage is not so important for a Controller in a proper team of 8. To be honest, in a proper team, the damage provided by AA will be at best minor, as enemies will tend to be so debuffed or so dead that their damage barely contributes. At range, Bill can not only mitigate damage but also keep the team rolling via the psychological comfort created in having everyone at full health (try it sometime. Watch and see if your PUG Tank will jump into a spawn at half health the same way he would at half, regardless of his actual safety). If Bill is in the thick of things, perhaps he'll become distracted and miss something or, worse yet, die and cause meltdown for his team.

I see his argument. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it.

I'm just hoping these PUGs with the Empath dying enducing wipes come with a warning sign..................

I have followed this thread with a good deal of interest, since I have played Ice Controllers at range as Bill has and in the middle of things running AA as Tex has.

To me, part of the fascination and challenge of the game is evaluating the powers in the group involved and coming up with a strategy that allows the group to defeat the foes at hand. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the preferred tools may not be available. Personally, when I encounter the Multi-Platform Room of Death, my personal preference is my Grav/Storm Controller, with Wormhole slotted up for accuracy and range. Dump the stunned baddies in the hallway into a corner, stack Thunderclap on the stun, immob them with Crushing Field and maybe turn on the Hurricane to mash them into the corner further and debuff them. But if that solution is not available, which one is? Maybe there is a tank who can handle the aggro and incoming. If not? Who can pull? Is someone available to lay an Ice Slick or Earthquake or Freezing Rain in the doorway if too many come? What is the right moment for the Blaster to nuke?

You also have to figure the abilities of the foes. When it is Nems on those multiple platforms, pretty much every single one of them is going to shoot at you once you go up the first platform. How do you deal with that?

So on my initial Ice Controller, I was hanging back but I was also making all the team members invisible with Grant Invisibility. So it comes down to, in that case, whether you would prefer AA or Invisibility. Fair enough. For me, it is interesting to solve the problem both ways.

I do not worry about "gimped builds" as much as "idiotic behavior." It sounds like either Bill or Tex would be an asset to the team. We might get the job done a bit differently in each case, but it would get done, and a good time would be had by all because they would play the powers that they have effectively. An Uber Build played by an idiot, however, simply gets the team wiped. A good player will be an asset with any build.

I have a question about confusion..

I'm pretty sure I read sometime that players do not receive XP for damage done by confused mobs. Is this still true? If that's the case, isn't it almost counter-productive for a pre-50 ice troller to count on damage done by confused mobs?

I'm playing around with an ice controller recently, and my buddy's on a plant controller. Just for kicks, we're duoing most of the time. Pretty hard pre-pet. Currently level 25. I didn't take AA because I figured that if we just let all the mobs defeat each other, we'll never get any XP. Is my reasoning wrong?

Yes, if you *just* let all the enemies defeat each other, you won't get XP. You'll also be bored out of your skull.

However, used as part of an overall attack chain - you'll be going through mobs quite quickly and safely. (F'rinstance, my Plant/Thorn levelled for a bit just attacking the Ghost of Scrapyard's followers. Nice big mobs to confuse, immobilize, and AOE upon.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

In general, in my experience, the confusion in Arctic Air does not significantly increase your kill rate. Your results will vary depending on how many controls you lay on top of it and how much damage you/your team is throwing at the enemy.

I have played Plant, Mind, and Illusion, and their Confuse powers are much more reliable as damage sources. My Mind Controller, for example, can reliably go invisible and run to the end of "defeat boss" radio missions, and then confuse the crowd into defeating the end guy for me without them ever knowing I'm there. It's a parlor trick (except on some Task Forces), but it works.

That would probably never work with Ice. That said, there is a very good reason an Ice Controller would want a Confusion power. That reason is -Recharge.

The way -Recharge works is to multiply how long it takes for a power to to be useable again. If you've ever been hit by it, you know what a pain it is to deal with. Enemies probably feel the same way.

However, there's a hitch to -Recharge that seems obvious but is often overlooked. It only means something on a power that is recharging. If something is recharging, that means it got used. If an enemy is Confused at the moment it uses a power, it wastes the shot, and can't take another one until the power (slowly) recharges.

Now, what's interesting here is that Confusion on an Ice Controller is a gamble. In a best case scenario, 60-ish percent of the mob is confused. That means the other 40% of them are free to shoot at you. This encourages you to maximize their -Recharge, so they get fewer chances to shoot in your direction--but also lowers the damage they output on each other. In other words, typically Ice Controllers will be using Confusion as a release valve for -Recharge, instead of as extra damage. (Heavily IOed Ice Controllers with massive defenses may be an exception, since they can withstand the hail of gunfire).

Compare this with a Mind/Cold Controller. Like an Ice Controller, the /Cold can heavily impede an enemy's recharge rate. However, because the Confusion in Mind is reliable and long lasting, she is less likely to want to hinder the foes' recharge rate after the Confuse lands.

To get back to the Plant Control/Ice Control duo. I think that AA is a power you will not regret. Plant is heavy on -Knockdown powers that will cancel your Ice Slicks. That sucks. But Plant also has a mag 3 AoE Confusion power that stacks with Arctic Air to confuse even bosses in the area. By the time you are both level 50 there shouldn't be an enemy within a mile who isn't Confused. And you won't need to be concerned about losing XP, because the damage from Plant will be substantial, and the -Recharge you provide will greatly hinder enemy's ability to shoot both you and each other.