Everyone says the Ice Manipulation melee attacks are terrible because they are, haha. Frozen Fists and Ice Sword both do lower-than-desirable damage. Freezing Touch is a good hold, but the damage is sub-par, and with 2 ranged holds in your primary, and a possible 3rd depending on which Ancillary Power Pool you take, you really do not need it. Frozen Aura (which I assume is the "AoE shields" to which you are referring?) is a decent sleep, but sleeps are usually only worthwhile when solo and considering you can get a ranged version from Cold Mastery, it becomes obsolete. And all of this is combined with the fact that all of your powers have a Slow effect to them (or hold/immobilize your enemies), so your enemies rarely get to you before they are dead. You would probably have to make the effort to run in and use your melee attacks, as opposed to just firing away and then punching the couple of enemies that manage to get to melee distance (as is the case with other power set combos).
As for "the aoe" you keep referring to: If it is Chilling Embrace, I couldn't agree more, don't use it. If it is Shiver, however, definitely use it. That power, when slotted for Slow, can put minions (and some lieutenants) near the Slow cap on its own. Just beware of its wide cone and it will be good to you.
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I read in one of the ice guides that the aoe slow helps other aoes like mobs running away as soon as you cast ice storm. Or was it blizzard?
Anyways thanks for all the advice.
Both. Shiver before either Rain, if possible, will keep most enemies within the AoE for the duration. While Ice Storm and Blizzard have slows in them, they cannot compare to that of Shiver.
As for the melee attacks, they aren't 'terrible' but they aren't that great either. TBH, the only time I could imagine taking them, for me, is to slot for some +Def IO Set Bonuses.
Chilblain is the bomb. Take it, use it, slot it, love it.
Ice Patch is great, and only really needs the 1 slot for Recharge.
Shiver is awesome and can stack with itself, just try to not slot Range in it. 
Chilling Embrace can be useful on a team with a Brute or Tank, since it lowers the damage output of affected enemies by 14%. As long as the enemies you are facing are not AoE heavy, you can step behind them and just blast away in melee range. And no, even here, your ranged attacks are better than your melee attacks, in general.
While I am one of the few people that actually like Frozen Aura, I will admit that it is a highly situational power and does not mesh well with certain Primary builds that are AoE heavy (though it meshes perfectly with Sonic). Is it a comperable Tier 9? Probably not. Also, the purple IO Set for Sleeps are fairly cheap and has some very sexy bonuses. 
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I love my ice/ice. Never really worried about melee though. With all the slows and holds, you don't need more than 1 melee attack. One shot from Ice Sword usually drops the only bad guy that ever gets too close (arch villains and elite bosses aside, of course).
My Ice/Ice/Ice was my second character I ever made, and it is still my favorite Blaster. Because I'm so fond of controllers, I tend to play my Blaster as kind of a reverse Dominator with all the control powers. The slow from Shiver is amazing (especially on the ITF). Add in Snow Storm for the EBs and everything is slowed to a crawl.
I never took any of the melee attacks. This has always been a "blast from range, prefereably floating overhead" character. But with I-19 giving me 3 extra powers, I decided to add Super Speed + Stealth Proc (took the one out of Fly) for full invisibility, and also decided to try Frozen Aura . . .
And it is a heck of a lot of fun to run into a group invisible, hit Frozen Aura to put them to sleep, then back off to pick them off one by one. It also works as a "panic button" power when getting surrounded. Definitely situational, but not useless.
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AoE slow is kinda the main point of Ice-Ice. You WANT shiver, it's the only really good power in the ice secondary. -65% slow is nice... but the main point is the -65% recharge on it. add in -25% recharge from other powers, and the mobs will be capped at -90% recharge. They will use their attacks (usually they only have 2 or so), then they will be sitting ducks looking helplessly at you while everything they have is on cooldown. On mobs with a larger number of attacks, -recharge becomes less brilliant. Also on teams where the mobs are being steamrolled really fast, -recharge becomes superfluous (but so do a lot of other powers). But if the mobs are hard enough to last a little while, -recharge really cripples them as the battle progresses. |
Originally Posted by Angelofvalor
I noticed you get aoe shields which seem to look very cool, but in almost every guide I read, is that ice manipulation melee attacks are terrible, I cannot quite see myself using the aoe to slow the mobs so they do not run away while you blizzard and not use a melee attack, anyways I need some opinions on this and perhaps a more current ice/ice build idea since issue9?
Thanks allot everyone. |
Also, the movement slowing effects will help yourself (and your team) to keep the mobs all grouped up nice for aoe slaughter.
Ice blasting is basically a DPS/debuff AT, and your debuffs are -recharge/knockup&hold/slow (in order of importance). It works best on large spawns, with at least one tank/brute/scrapper who can take some punishment, to soak up all the alpha damage while you debuff the mobs. Then unleash all your dps, and watch the mobs start running around (really slowly) trying to figure out what to do since their powers are all on cooldown while you kill them.
The melee attacks are 'meh', but that's true on all the blaster secondaries. I think if you use chilling embrace to 'quick & easy' put the mobs at the -90% recharge cap (shiver then just jump into the middle of the spawn with chilling embrace toggled on), then the melee attacks can at least be 'usable' in terms of your position in the battle. If you opt to use Shiver and then either snow storm (from the epic pool), or frost breath & ice storm to build up that -90% recharge (more common) then the melee attacks are pointless. The melee attacks don't hit as hard as your ice blast & bitter ice blast, and freeze ray is ranged while freezing touch does pretty minor damage and forces you up close. Frozen aura is a very weak sleep taking 2.1s to cast, having no range, and a 10ft radius, I mean even flash freeze, sleep grenade, or oppressive gloom from the epic pools are WAY better.
Ice patch is small compared to the controller version. But it's fairly useful. Stick it in the middle of a reasonably grouped together mob group, and a good percentage of them will be falling over themselves. It works much better with corner/doorway pulls, as you can place it where the mobs are going to bottleneck and stack up, and likely get away with ice patching the whole spawn.
In other words, all you 'definitely' want from the ice manipulation secondary is: shiver, build up, and ice patch. Chilling embrace can also be used to good effect depending on how you like to position yourself in combat. I prefer to stay at range for the frost breath cone, and to avoid melee dmg (while building IO buffs and pool powers towards a high ranged defense). The rest of the set, is honestly not that great, and you're stuck with chilblain. That's 4 powers (frozen fists, ice sword, freezing touch, frozen aura) that you should only really be looking at in terms of what IO set bonuses you might be able to get out of them, and even then only after you've picked everything you want from the pool powers.
In the primary, you'll definitely want: ice blast, frost breath, aim, Freeze ray, ice storm, bitter ice blast, bitter freeze ray, and blizzard (or 'everything but ice bolt').
With I19 taking away the need to get fitness, and ice manipulation really only having 3-4 'must have' powers in it. You have a lot of options for pool powers & epic pool powers. Personally I try to build up my defense with things like kick/tough/weave, maneuvers, & hover or combat jumping. Since defense (especially stacking team defense buffs) is kinda overpowered since the advent or IO set bonuses (they really need better resistance bonuses in the IOs). If you get your own ranged def. up to around 30%, and then get on a team with another team defense buffer, or a dark blast character, then mobs will rarely hit you. But you could take it in other directions, like heals, or invisibility, or acrobatics, whatever you want to do with it, you'll have plenty of power picks and slots available to really get deep into your pool powers. Just don't get so many toggles that you eat up all your endurance
Don't use blizzard unless you have a blue inspiration to take right after, that way you can start re-toggling your toggles (and move quickly) while your endurance debuff is timing out.
Oh, and it's worth mentioning, that slotting "slow" into your powers will increase the movement debuff, but has no effect on the more important -recharge debuff. Also, Shiver's effects 'stack' so spamming it is a plus. Personally I 4slot shiver with: 1acc, 2recharge, 1 slow. If you need slots elsewhere, I would at least 2 slot it with an acc and a recharge though.
Also, your "Oh Sh*t" button with this set (for when you find yourself really in over your head) is basically to just back away from the mobs. If you've chilled them out, they won't be able to follow you very well.
Just my $0.02
Virtue Heroes of note:
Katerinae, Luci Ferre, Shinigami's Kiss, Dark Invokation, Cerulean Twilight, Side effect, Cheshire Noir
Virtue Villains of note:
- Black Dragon, Raven Sterling, Domina Procella, Inertia K., Vivian Revenio, Charlotte Arachne, Doll Parts, Fierce Orchid, Theta Charge
I noticed you get aoe shields which seem to look very cool, but in almost every guide I read, is that ice manipulation melee attacks are terrible, I cannot quite see myself using the aoe to slow the mobs so they do not run away while you blizzard and not use a melee attack, anyways I need some opinions on this and perhaps a more current ice/ice build idea since issue9?
Thanks allot everyone.