Ice character... best AT?

Hey All,

Been gone a while and just recently returned. I have a great concept and name for an ice character, but I'm stuck on which AT to try it out on. I'm used to Scrappers and Brutes, so I wanted to try something more ranged with a different kind of play style. Therefore I've narrowed it down to the following...

Blaster
Corrupter
Dominator

Now I'm planning on taking Ice for primary, secondary and APP if possible.
I'm also leaning towards Dominator, because it's the one AT I never really got into at all before and I heard they are actually quite good now with the recent changes.

Oh, and I should mention that this will be more of a fun occasional alt character, so it's out of the running if it takes huge investment to really pay off.

Opinions?

For a theme character I'd definitely go with the Blaster or Dominator, simply because they have an ice epic pool and Corruptors / Defenders don't. Deciding between the two is mainly a matter of whether you prefer maximum control plus decent damage (Dominator) or maximum damage plus decent control (Blaster).

I have played an Ice/Ice/Ice Blaster and an Ice/Storm controller to 50. (And an Ice/Energy Tank to the mid 40's -- Tanks can be Ice/Ice, too.) By the way, Controllers also have an Ice APP set, so you could do an Ice/Cold/Ice Controller.

The Ice/Ice/Ice Blaster is my favorite blaster. It has so many control powers that it is virtually a Dominator with more damage. Personally, I skipped all the melee attacks and stay at range, mostly floating out of melee. Shiver is a huge part of the control of this set -- Add in Snow Storm from the APP and you can slow everything to a crawl -- which is amazingly useful on the ITF since those guys often ignore other types of Control.

My Ice/Storm/Ice was made long before Cold became available for Controllers, but an Ice/Cold/Ice will have a couple of the same powers (Snow Storm, Sleet=Freezing Rain). He is also an amazing Slow Machine on the ITF, but the damage is is low. It will be worse for an Ice/Cold, since Storm has Tornado and Lightning Storm to add some damage in the later levels. I just did an ITF with him the other day to get his Incarnate Shards. Tons of fun, but better plan to team rather than solo.

Ice/Cold/Levianthan Corr!

Hibernate, and the sharks can easily be said to be ice constructs untill they introduce a Ice Epic for Corrs.

You could also make an Ice/Mental Manipulation blaster and color the /MM effects white for a "waves of cold" look. /MM even has -recharge.

Dominators are spectacular. However be warned that the Cold primary lacks a solid alpha mitigation tool so you have to be more careful than other dominators who have a good hold, stun confuse or both to open with.

Recolorable powers in the Earth sets easily stand in for Ice, so that may be an additional option. Ice Control/Earth Assault would basically end up looking like sledgehammers made of ice and giant snowdrifts, and should pair well once endurance is under control.

I also have a Dominator character who is supposedly made of icicles, so his powersets are Ice Control/Thorns. Unfortunately the thorns still leave a green trail of poison behind them, but what can you do?

Sonic Attack is another set that recolors fairly easily, though the sound effects may not totally jive. You didn't mention Defenders, but Ice/Cold/Leviathan is a very good set up there too.

So far I have done

Avalanche- Ice/Stone tank
Heatsink- Cold/Ice Defender
Coldsnap- Ice/Cold Controller
Stormbringer- Ice/Storm Controller

out of all of these I like the Ice/Cold Defender the best. However if I were making him today he would be a Ice/Cold corruptor.

I have also seen Ice/Nrg Blasters, Ice/Ice Blasters, and Ice/Kin corruptors being very popular as well as the proverbial Ice/Ice tank.

I have also seen a few Ice/Rad corruptors and now with the color changes you should be able to make it look very cool.

Ive never done an Ice Dom... Never saw a combination I liked but I want to try one.

If my name wasn't obvious enough, Cold-based powersets are my favorite in the game. And I HAVE to recommend the Blaster over the Dominator.

In terms of control an Ice/Ice/Cold blaster gets:

• 1 ranged ST immobilize
• 2 ranged ST holds
• 1 melee ST hold
• 1 melee PBAoE sleep
• 1 ranged Targeted AoE sleep
• Shiver, Chilling Embrace, and Snow Storm
• Slow secondary effects on nearly every one of your powers

It depends on what role you want to perform. Do you want to just focus on damage and nothing more? go Blaster. Do you want to be a valuable addition to your team, contributing a nice mix of buffs, debuffs and damage? go Corruptor. Do you want to lock down large spawns and do a bit of damage? go Dominator

Winterminal- you have just convinced me to roll an ice/ice/cold blaster. It sounds like an amazing experience.

I would reccomend an Ice/Rad/Ice controller with the /rad powers recolored to look "cold"

Lots and lots of control, not a lot of damage though. Still the combination of Arctic Air and Choking Cloud is a potent one. Even more so if you use the lock down set in your various holds and the Grav anchor proc in Frostbite.

Quite a satisfying combination.

I'd also reccomend a Sonic/Ice/?? Blaster. They have just as much control (a bit more AoE control actually) than an Ice/Ice and they have a bit more AoE damage. The resistance debuffs from the sonic attacks are also a very nice addition.

I am in love with my Ice/Cold Corruptor. I play primarily Tankers and Scrappers, so it was quite a departure for me... but she is now second only to my main Tank in my favourites list.

Thank you, Champion.

Ice/Cold corr or Cold/Ice defender.

Some slightly different Domi suggestions:

Ice/Thorns/Ice with the Thorns rejigged to look like icicles. Ice Assault isn't the greatest with Ice Control, simply because Power Boost is a bit wasted. Plus Chilling Embrace is sorta unneeded. Thorns gives you heavier hitting attacks and is a bit more melee orientated (eventually) and Aim works well on Domis now.

Another alternative might be a Ice/Earth/Ice domi with the Earth Assault attacks set to the Crystal look.

*Edit : ie exactly what Oedipus_Tex said 2 and a half days ago. Damn it!!

With a cheap 400mil build my Ice/Ice/Ice blaster runs real smooth.

Thanks for all the responses everyone! I learned a lot more than I thought I would.
Still haven't decided on an AT, as I'm currently busy respeccing and outfitting my main (SS/INV Brute) for i19, but it has certainly given me something to think about.

I'm curious though, which Ice builds would work the best in the end game? In large teams on the hardest TFs, which would bring more value to the group?

I'll still vote for the Ice/Rad/Ice.

You can literally nullify 2 or 3 entire spawns while the rest of your team takes them out.

All the mobs are either, confused, held, flopping and/or at capped -run and -rech, not to mention having their accuracy, defense, resistance, total damage output, and regeneration debuffed.

TBH, I played an Ice/Ice/Cold blaster as my first toon, I loved it, but there's something in the /ice secondary that leaves me unsatisfied, basically the lack of +recovery/+end powers.
/Fire has it, /Electric has it, /Energy has it. /Device is a completely different secondary so it isn't comparable. You have a toggle (chilling embrace), and no +end/+recovery powers, while /elec has a toggle (static field) and power sink, /fire has hot feet and consume and /energy has NO toggle and conserve power (and boost range, and power boost which would marry well with freeze ray and bitter freeze ray).
Other sub-par powers:
* Ice patch: very nice kdown power but with the range of an hula hoop (easily perma, though) and only pbaoe, good but means you should play tricky (place it round corners).
* Frozen Aura: PbAoE sleep, Good for soloing, bad for grouping (sleep breaks on first damage, there aren't group that don't do some aoe, be either the immobilize from trollers or the small damage from sleet or freezing rain).
* In the /Cold epic then you'll get Snow Storm (another toggle quite end hungry and with /Ice secondary you still have no +End/+Recovery powers) but unlike the same powers from Cold Domination and Storm Summoning, you won't get the -fly component.
So basically, fun to playm, but you must then slot for End reduction your powers and put sets that give you tons of +end/+recovery.
Unless you pair with a kin ...

Buffing/Debuffing? Cold domination FTW, rolled a Cold/Psi defender, it's a fantastic support toon, can deal decent damage even if /psi doesn't have aim or build up as psi resistance and defense is generally rare and Cold has some of the most powerful debuffs around (together with sonic).

And if you like control, Ice/Ice dominator is wonderful.