Ice Melee

I hardly ever see much in the way of Ice Melee discussion.


Is it just a very low damage set for tankers, making it really hard to solo with? Or does it just get a bad rap?

It used to be extremely low damage, focused more on mitigation, and for that it acquired a bad reputation.

Now, Ice Melee still isn't top of the heap for damage, but Frozen Aura does damage equal to Footstomp, and I think the range of Frost was extended to make it easier to hit more enemies. Frost and Freezing Touch are both DoT attacks as well, which can make the damage seem less.

Ice Patch, however, makes soloing easier, IMO. Bad guys can't attack you if they're falling down, and you can take as long as you want to beat them up.

Hope this helps.

dave_p wrote a very nice guide to Ice melee here (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=186523)

I personally love Ice patch leveling up, but on the sturdier tanks found it rather useless post 40, as anything i needed help with (AVs) just ignored the knockdown. It's got a great ST power in Freezing Touch, two good AoE powers is Frost and Frozen Aura, and then, honestly a bunch of skipable stuff outside of ice patch.

I'd say its about middle of the pack, though the almost exclusive cold damage is nice, since almost nothing resists it at all.

Yeah, from reading over all the numbers it seems like it is a really good set for mitigating damage so maybe it would go best with the most offensive primary like fire/ or something to complement it.

Honestly though, the tankers I have played seemed to be just fine in the mitigation department so more offense is really what I could see shooting for.

It's... all right. It feels like forever getting to 38, and after that it's not too bad, really. It can make any primary feel more sturdy. I've been interested in seeing what a Shield/Ice tank could do.

Enamel:
My current tanker project is SD/Ice, and so far I've been really pleased. Shield Charge made a big difference for offense, of course, and one tactic I've found helpful is to stand in Ice Patch, wait for the baddies to start flopping and then aim SC at my character's feet - stee-rike! Takes a little guesswork out of aiming with the reticle.

I'm really looking forward to Frozen Aura.

Good luck!

Bit of a tangent, but I always see ppl SC'ing into a crowd, which seems like a huge waste of AAO. I mean, it's a cool effect to go "bowling" into a crowd and all, but man, you'd think ppl would want the AAO damage buffs on their (possibly) best AoE attack... And yeah, I always let them gather around me first, then SC at my feet.

BTW, use the TP bind for SC (and any location based power, like Ice Storm).

/bind lshift+lbutton "powexec_name Teleport"

Sub Shield Charge for Teleport and voila, you'll charge right at where your cursor is. For multiple powers, also use mbutton & rbutton.

Good point about letting AAO saturate before using SC. My bind for SC is /bind mousechord "powexec_name shield charge"

What's "mousechord?" It's clicking both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time That way, I don't have to mess around with keyboard and mouse.