Yes, if you're using Arctic Air with some slotting for confuse duration. Enemies will attempt to run out of AA (slowly), and Frostbite can keep them under control for more slowing and confusion. What I have seen happen is that immobilized enemies will turn in place as they either attempt to flee Arctic Air (and fail because of Frostbite) or as they change facing to attempt to attack another nearby baddie because of the confuse effect.
Hope this helps.
Yup, sure does help. I didn't consider its effects with Arctic Air, since I'm skipping that power personally. Ice Control now looks more like an "A or B" kind of powerset instead of a set with a wonky power.
What's your assault set? To me, that'll determine what powers to take from ice control. As you mentioned, it's an A or B control set (which imo makes it the weakest of the bunch).
So if you're going with a melee secondary, I'd definitely take AA, Ice Slick and Glacier. If you're going with a range secondary, I'd take Shiver, Frostbite and Flash Freeze instead.
And teaming is definitely a factor. The former group of powers would have more team benefit, whereas the latter is probably better for solo. But again, it'll depend more on your secondary.
Please buff Ice Control.
Quote:
I'm building something just to screw around and enjoy playing the game with character concept, and I've always been a fan of the ice, so Icy Assault is my secondary. I'm skipping Jack Frost for preference reasons, and I'll be taking Ice Slick, Glacier and Flash Freeze. Like I mentioned, Frostbite will only be taken to slot Immobilize IOs for a Cold Resist bonus.|
Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
But again, it'll depend more on your secondary.
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The character's only 22 so far, so I don't have a good sampling of what all the powersets are capable of, and Ice Sword Circle and Ice Slick have yet to be grabbed. I expect melee range will become much more useful after those two powers come into play.
I have a level 50 Ice/Ice Dom myself. I can't tell you how many times I've respec'ed the character looking for just the right "all-around" build, but what I finally ended up with in the Ice primary is I took everything except Frostbite and Flash Freeze. In the secondary I took all of the ranged attacks, Power Boost, and Ice Sword Circle. I went with Ghost Widow as the patron, and took Dark Consumption (Ice/Ice can be end. heavy), Soul Drain (for that extra damage and +to hit boost), and the Fortunata pet (for extra damage and mitigation).
My strategy is basically throw out Ice Slick, run in and hit them with Soul Drain, Ice Sword Circle, and pick off stragglers with the ranged attacks. When Soul Drain is down, I'll hit Power Boost and run in and use Glacier, Ice Sword Circle, then lay Ice Slick for when Glacier wears off, and pick off stragglers with ranged attacks. By the time I'm done, Soul Drain is recharged and I repeat from the beginning, alternating Soul Drain and Glacier for every other mob.
The key component to my survival is I have AA running, which I cannot stress enough mitigates HEAVILY on incoming damage. The slows and the -recharge alone of this power would make it worth taking, but throw in the confuse and fear effects and you've got a really awesome power working for you. The 25' radius of effect also means you can have a little breathing room in case melee range gets hairy.
There's also the age-old argument about whether to take Shiver or AA, because many feel it would be redundant to take both. My humble opinion is that having both can only be beneficial if your build can fit it. I use Shiver on teams when taking down AV's or other difficult enemies. It keeps my squishy toon at a safe distance from all of their AoE attacks, and I can still affect them with the slows and -recharge.
Needless to say, this build is helped out immensely by global recharge bonuses. I managed to make my Ice/Ice perma relatively cheap (70% recharge + hasten). About 50 mil inf. all around, and then 1 LotG +7.5% proc (which can be bought via 200 reward merits). It was also pretty easy to fit in several recovery bonuses, which will make the build seem like a breath of fresh air. Overall, Ice/Ice is a great build if you give it time.
EDIT: Also, putting procs into AA from Confusion IO sets can be extremely beneficial. I have mine slotted with Coercive Persuasion: Contagious Confusion, Malaise: Chance for Psionic Damage, and Cacophony: Chance for Energy Damage. I also put in the Confuse Duration/End. Redux. enhancement from each of those sets, and the set bonuses gave me an overal 8% boost in recovery (4% + 2.5% + 1.5%).
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Arctic Air + Shiver + Frostbite (double stacked which can be accomplished by a single Rech SO in Frostbite) will keep even +4s at the -Movement (95%) and -Recharge (75%) caps. (Without Frostbite you're still good to +2 mobs)
All you have to do to survive with this primary is mitigate the Alpha which you can do by opening with Ice Slick.
All you need is those 4 powers.
Edit - Also forgot to add that the Gravitational anchor proc in Frostbite is sweet. The power is worth having for that alone.
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back in the day when i used to farm nems with my ice/psi, i would hit flashfreeze, shiver if there was a boss, run in with arctic air, drain psyche, and wake the up with psw.
after that, stacking frostbite in meant they would not get off more than a single attack chain.
it would also keep them from running when they didn't have any attacks up from the -recharge.
it was almost as efficient as my fire/psi.
Quote:
This is really a question about this, I hear it is just a mag 2 hold that lasts 8 secs, what is so good about it? |
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Edit - Also forgot to add that the Gravitational anchor proc in Frostbite is sweet. The power is worth having for that alone. |
Does it benefit from domination?
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-Knight_Chill
"It's amazing how well you can put up with endurance issues if you hide them under a large enough pile of bodies."
-Spiritchaser speaking on Dom Revamp
Da_Captain:
I've never used the Gravitational Anchor proc, but in general, procs work well in powers you can spam. Frostbite has a quick recharge and hits multiple targets, so there are more chances for the proc to activate. By itself, it will only hold minions, but the proc hold can stack with others.
I don't think Gravitational Anchor or any other procs are affected by Domination, Critical Hit or other inherents.
I won't be taking Frostbite in my build for a number of reasons, but I'm trying to imagine a scenario where the power would be preferred. Is there something I'm overlooking or is the power contradictory to other powers in the Ice Control set?
- Initially, I thought it'd be a good idea because Flash Freeze would be upset by Ice Slick. I have an Ice Melee Tanker and every time I use Frozen Aura, things fall down on the Ice Patch and wake up anyway. On the other hand, Frozen Aura has the same damage as Foot Stomp (and is Cold instead of Smashing), so I keep the power handy. But Flash Freeze doesn't do much damage worth writing home about...
- Then I realized that Ice Slick doesn't recharge as quickly as Ice Patch, and would require some considerable recharge buff to be perma'd. I won't be able to keep things tripping around on the Dominator like I could with the Tanker. When I use Ice Slick, it will have to have some tactical application as I can't just keep putting it down whenever it suits my fancy. This makes the prospect of Flash Freeze a bit more desirable.
- Someone pointed out that Frostbite has -Knockback, which would render Ice Slick ineffective and canceling out one control power with another isn't something I'm too fond of.
- Lastly, Frostbite has a 0.9X accuracy attribute for some gosh-condemned reason. In practice before slotting more yellows than should have been necessary, the hit-to-miss ratio with the power was almost a negative number...
Now, I have a friend who did take Frostbite instead of Flash Freeze, because he frequently played on teams. His typical teammates did so much AoE damage that Flash Freeze would have been nearly worthless, so he went with Frostbite, as it's at least more helpful in a team situation.I play mostly solo, and even on a team a temporarily-incapacitated enemy isn't a bad thing, so I like the idea of Flash Freeze. As long as I don't disturb my targets, it's like an AoE hold without the blasted 4-minute recharge. And besides, with Glacier, I get a real AoE hold anyway. I'm sold on the power, and will spec out of Frostbite from a combat perspective.
I will be taking Frostbite at a later level, but only to three-slot it with Debilitative Action for +2.5% resistance to Cold... but that's more for character concept than anything practical.
Other than the "my teammates will wake up Flash Frozen enemies" argument, is there any particular advantage to using Frostbite in any situation?