Rocking the Glacier? (Ice Ice Advice. Nice!)
By
Muon_Neutrino,
Posted on: 2010-12-07 13:23 in Dominators
Guess no one has any pointers. I'm almost done with a very basic build; common IO's abound. I've been hearing that Arctic Air and Chilling Embrace are useless together but great on their own. Can I get any light on these powersets?
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
From the perspective of a mostly frankenslotted level 50 ice/ice:
Absolutely critical primary powers:
Block of ice, ice slick, arctic air, jack frost
Absolutely critical secondary powers:
All 3 blasts, ice sword
Useful to have:
Glacier, power boost, ice sword circle, frost breath, ice slash, chilblain, shiver
Not especially useful:
frostbite, flash freeze, chilling embrace
Most of these are self-explanatory. The reason you don't want both arctic air and chilling embrace is that chilling embrace is redundant. Arctic air by itself forces avoid behavior, so enemies are going to be (very slowly) trying to run out of range. This is good - it's a big part of the power's mitigation - but it means that they're not going to pack up tightly around you to actually get into chilling embrace's very small radius. Add that to the fact that arctic air by itself already does mondo gobs of slow, and that you'll be adding more slow onto things with your attacks, you don't really need chilling embrace. Plus it's another toggle to burden your already strained blue bar and turn back on if you get mezzed. I just never found it useful.
Shiver, on the other hand, is quite useful. While some call it redundant with arctic air, the fact that it's a click instead of a toggle allows it a nicely complementary role. You can toss it on a group you don't want to jump into melee with, you can use it to delay pursuit while you run if things go south, and you can use it to debuff a second group of foes from the ones you're currently engaging (or you can just use it to further debuff the group you're fighting, since its area is nice and big). It also can get away with less slots than AA (perhaps 1-2 acc, 1-2 rech instead of 5-6 slotting for end and confuse).
Power boost isn't useful for most of your powers - it doesn't help ice slick or recharge slows, and your movement slows are already fine. What power boost does is combine with glacier to give you a very solid backup *hard* control. This is more important for ice/ than some other primaries, since ice/ relies so heavily on *soft* control normally. This is why I think glacier and power boost are important powers for ice/ice. Glacier should get heavy slotting, but PB only needs 1 rech since you don't need to use it too often.
Frostbite is totally unimportant, as I'm sure you can tell, since so much of your mitigation comes from avoid behavior and KD. Chilblain, on the other hand, is pure gold for immobilizing pesky EBs and AVs. You won't use it often, but when you need it you'll be very glad you have it. Slot it with an acc and a couple of damages so that using it doesn't cut into your dps too much.
I don't have too much perspective on the ice ancillary since I only respecced into it an issue ago and I haven't really played my dom since then, but it looks *really* solid. Sleet will be the gem here - max the recharge on that bad boy. Ice storm should also be very good.
Gotta run, but I've posted on this topic previously on the dom forum a number of times. Try a search and see if any of those posts are still around.
EDIT: some threads where I've posted my thoughts about ice/ice doms, if they turn out to be of any use to you:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=1143708
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=1164314
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=1236989
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2102411
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2485708
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2564683
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
I just rolled up an Ice/Ice dominator, planning on going Ice Mastery. Any tips?
From what I've heard:
Arctic Air, Ice Slick, Power Boost, Shiver.
From what I've speculated:
Arctic Air + Shiver + Chilling Embrace= Recharge Slow Cap on any enemy save for an AV.
Just looking for some advice, I'll post a build later.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."