My Ice/Storm is slowly becoming my favorite controller...

I've level-shifted my Fire/Rad, Ill/Kin & Ice/Storm so far (Earth/TA coming soon), and of them all, I'm really enjoying playing my Ice/Storm the most, esp on all the high level TFs that I'm running non-stop.

For the longest time, I considered my Fire/Rad/Psi my favorite, and most powerful toon (and he still prolly is). He's the guy I soloed AVs, GMs, pylons, etc with. He was my go to guy for the toughest tasks in the game, from Hami to STFs. Completely self sufficient, but awesome on teams. Could kill almost as fast as a Fire/Kin, but much, much safer. Then my Ill/Kin is... well, perma-PA + SB/FS/Transference for the team makes you kinda popular. Earth/TA? Master of controls, bar none. Meanwhile, my Ice/Storm was, while very effective, only effective in short bursts cuz of constant end issues.

Since I got the Cardiac boost on my Ice/Storm/Ice though, he's just nasty. Non-stop AoE attacks scattering (or not, at my discretion) mobs all around me. Softcapped ranged def, almost softcapped S/L def and high 30s AoE and E/N/F/C typed def, all before any debuffs by Hurricane, makes him damn near untouchable, plus Hibernate for the few times I get in trouble. Speaking of Hibernate, he can just summon all sorts of pets & pseudopets (LS. 'nado, FR, Jack, Ice Storm), and then take a nap in his igloo while everything melts (freezes?) around me. All the Storm powers are damn near perfect for the final stages of, say the STF (repairmen? yeah, eat some Hurricane trying to reach the towers). MSRs? Those Rikti Magi flop very nicely. ITFs? Slows still work on the mez-resistant Romans.

Sure, my other controllers all have their tricks for those situations too, but damn, it just feels more fun summoning multiple clouds of Lighting Storm, Tornadoes, multiple rains, and either letting things fly around like no tomorrow as the ultimate master of chaos, or just locking things down first so your teammates don't get too ticked off. I actually imagine Fire/Storm would even be better, since most of my fun comes from the Storm side (but I wouldn't wanna play a Storm/* defender, since I'd sorely miss the AoE immob w/the -KB). AA is nice & all, and Ice Slick is a nice backup control to have (that's how I use IS now), but Bonfire & HF would add even more chaos, plus just straight up more damage.

Anyone else having fun on their Ice/Storm? Share the love.

Hmm, when playing my Fire/Rad, I always use Bonfire on the Towers to knock away the Repairmen . . . and I have never had a problem of that Repairman going to repair one of the other towers. I've never seen it, either. The only time I saw Repairmen rebuild a tower was on a tank-less STF where LR had kicked our butts and by the time we got back from the hosp, the Repair guys had rebuilt the Blue Tower.

Hurricane has lots of good uses in the STF . . . a great way to handle ambushes.

Dave, you have reminded me to pull out my Ice/Storm tonight. On these TFs, my Ill/Rad always gets first play, and for old time's sake, I have pulled out the original Local Man, a Dark/Elec Defender. Then comes one of my tanks or my Fire/Rad. Then my old Ice/Ice Blaster.

But the Ice/Storm is a heck of a lot of fun to play. I really need to re-think his build to go for higher defense, but he is just a lot of fun. Ice/Storm is wonderful on the ITF due to the slows and it pretty good everywhere else, too.

Yeah, I never had that happen to me on my controllers, and they all play knockaway/down (Hurricane, Bonfire, Phant, EQ, etc) w/the repairmen. The *only* time I've ever seen this happen--and that's once in god knows how many times--is when I was playing my Fire tank, and I honestly don't remember if anyone had KB powers active, but the stupid red tower came back *twice*!

In any case, Storm has enough random AoE powers that no repairmen are going to survive multiple LSs, FR & 'Nado that will be grinding away at the towers.

Edit: come to think of it, Force Bubble might've been the culprit on my run w/the Fire tank.

My first 50 was Ice/Storm. She's sitting parked, slotted with a weird mix of HOs and badly-thought-out IOs (she was 50 before IOs were around, and I was just running Hami raids and shoving HOs anywhere they would fit...later I added IOs to places I didn't happen to have HOs). So she'll need massive reworking.

But she was fun....

I ran my Ice/Storm through a Kahn TF last night. He has the Cardiac (first level) Boost, which made a HUGE difference. However, there were still a couple of times when he started getting low on endurance, and I still have a way to go before he is fully slotted.

It really is a fun combo. The slip-n-fall of Ice Slick and Freezing Rain is just plain funny. The slow and confuse of Arctic Air, plus the additional slow and -Recharge from Shiver and Snow Storm means that I can slow the entire room to a crawl. Then throw in the chaos from Lightning Storm and Tornado.

Sadly, Jack is mostly worthless in a busy TF like that. The bugged pet AI has him run in to commit pet suicide constantly, and he doesn't last very long.

I posted this recently in another forum, but of the Control sets I think Ice Control has benefited the most from alpha slotting. I've always had a soft spot for it despite it getting screwed from every which direction; there is something perverse about a set that needs to melee a lot to mezz things but has no hard controls and expends too much endurance to actually take the armors that make survival possible. The set could still probably use a look--it feels far too dependent on the Psi APP to prevent mezz detoggling. But it has gotten a lot better.

I've tried Ice/Storm several times - to fit in with a concept - but I have never got her past level 25. I've always found her slow, cumbersome and, yes, a nightmare from an end point of view (mainly because I almost exclusively solo and Ice is NOT the most solo friendly sets)

I must admit these attempts were before inherent fitness but by the time that came out I had just lost interest.

Reading this post however is inspiring me to try her again! Maybe I may get her to level 50 this time!

Hrrum. My Controller, Shaman' (regretting the name now that I've actually been playing a lot more), is Ice/Storm and I'm having a great time with him. He's also my first Controller, and the simple ability to overwhelm entire mobs in an instant with immobilization, slow, -recharge, and still do a little damage is just awesome. Come level 43 or whatnot, I'm gonna go for Fire Mastery, and take all the fire powers I can, so I can be some kind of elemental hero of awesomeness, freezing enemies in ice flows, conducting and frying them with lightning bolts, and then setting them on fire! It'll be awesome I'm sure. But I do enjoy the general feel of it a little bit. I'm a Brute by heart, so my happiest moments are shoving aside all the frail-bodied controllers, defenders and blasters to get up close and personal, but I'm finally starting to see the light...!

Well, a light filtered through a blood red haze of Rage's +200% Damage increase or what not.

My Controller bloke is only level 26 right now, but as I always say, level 30 is where the game really begins; you have a good range of powers, and you still have a goal of leveling to achieve. So I'm looking forward to reaching level 30 and getting started on adding Invention Origin Enhancements. But I do like Storm as well. Wish I could have Storm as primary, and ice secondary, but wanting Fire Mastery, Defender wasn't a choice. Ah well.

Still darned fun.

I have a partly done Ice/Storm build. Even with Cardiacs, it sucks down endurance faster than I'd like. But, just because you have a toggle doesn't mean you should run it 24/7. I like having armor toggles on my Ice characters for when its useful (teaming, mainly) and to be able to turn some them off solo. The resistance based toggles are usually the first ones I turn off.

This build is expensive and trades a lot of proc damage for survivability, but I'd consider it more a "team build." I did this quickly, so there are probably a lot of optimizations that could still be done. Anyway, it has just about capped Ranged defense, perma Hasten, and a 5 second gap on Indom Will (closeable if the recharge proc in Psi Tornado fires enough).

P.S. I know the Arctic Air slotting is unorthodox. But I've recently converted my opinion. The extra defense is worth the cost of the endurance, because anything that lets you mix it up with enemies more readily increases your inspiration drops. YMMV.


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.92
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
ice storm: Level 50 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Ice Control
Secondary Power Set: Storm Summoning
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Psionic Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Block of Ice -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold:30(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg:30(21), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold:30(46), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold:30(50)
Level 1: Gale -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 2: Chilblain -- Decim-Acc/Dmg:40(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx:40(5), Decim-Dmg/Rchg:40(5), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:40(17), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(43)
Level 4: Frostbite -- GravAnch-Immob/EndRdx:50(A), GravAnch-Hold%:50(19), GravAnch-Acc/Rchg:50(19), GravAnch-Immob:50(40), GravAnch-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(43)
Level 6: Arctic Air -- CoPers-Conf%:50(A), CoPers-Conf:50(7), CoPers-Conf/Rchg:50(7), CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg:50(15), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx:50(21), CoPers-Acc/Rchg:50(43)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(9), RechRdx-I:50(9)
Level 10: Steamy Mist -- RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(11), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(11), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(13), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(13), RedFtn-Def:50(15)
Level 12: Ice Slick -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Zephyr-ResKB:50(A)
Level 16: Freezing Rain -- RechRdx-I:50(A), LdyGrey-DefDeb/EndRdx:50(17)
Level 18: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A)
Level 20: Boxing -- Acc-I:50(A)
Level 22: Hurricane -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb:50(A), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx:50(23), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx:50(23), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx:50(25)
Level 24: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(A), GA-3defTpProc:50(25)
Level 26: Glacier -- UbrkCons-Hold/Rchg:50(A), UbrkCons-Acc/Hold/Rchg:50(27), UbrkCons-Acc/Rchg:50(27), UbrkCons-EndRdx/Hold:50(29), UbrkCons-Hold:50(29)
Level 28: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(36)
Level 30: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A), RedFtn-Def:50(31), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(31), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(31), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(34), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(36)
Level 32: Jack Frost -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg:50(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg:50(33), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx:50(33), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(33), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg:50(34), ExRmnt-+Res(Pets):50(34)
Level 35: Tornado -- ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx:50(A), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg:50(36), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(37), ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg:50(37)
Level 38: Lightning Storm -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(39), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(39), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(40), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(40)
Level 41: Indomitable Will -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(42), RechRdx-I:50(42), RechRdx-I:50(42)
Level 44: Mental Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(45), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(45), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(46), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(46)
Level 47: Psionic Tornado -- Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg:50(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx:50(48), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(48), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg:50(48), Ragnrk-Dmg:50(50), FrcFbk-Rechg%:50(50)
Level 49: Mind Over Body -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx:50(A)
Level 50: Cardiac Core Boost
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+:40(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+:50(37)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), P'Shift-End%:50(3), P'Shift-EndMod:50(3)

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Big fan of the Ice/Storm. Was my second toon back in 2004 and was surprisingly sturdy even without the IO sets. Thematically it worked great and the Freezing Rain/Ice Slick combo is sweet. I never did do Artic Air b/c of the endurance issue though.

Since you brought it up Dave, Fire/Storm is a monster. The biggest problem with it was the endurance with Hot Feet running plus other toggles but now....wow. I'll also add that it's a NASTY combo in PvP....or it was. I dont set foot in PvP anymore. Slap a snow storm on someone and they will hate you. I remember when scrappers/tanks used to try to get to me in base raids...LMAO. SNow storm em....let them try to fight through Hurricane .....all the while Imps, Hotfeet, Freezing Rain, LStorm, Tornado would just eat them up.

Hmm. I've been considering tweaking out my Ice/Storm some, but I was thinking about going for high recharge and taking every power (even the sleep) for maximum utility, now that inherent Fitness gives me more wiggle room.

Would that be a mistake of an approach do you think? Those range-capped builds are neat and all, but they skip lots of powers I want to have, and I cant afford a dual spec.

So is recharge and max power selection a bad option for Ice/Storm?

Lewis

One thing that make Ice/Storm interesting is the ability to debuff ToHit to a huge degree with Hurricane. Obviously, Hurricane and Arctic Air conflict . . . just like the AoE Immob and Ice Slick conflict, just like the knockback and Ice Slick conflict . . . etc, etc.

Hurricane means that you have a way to get out of tough situations if you need to. I don't use it very often, but it is nice to have and use every now and then . . . especially trapping foes in a corner or cul-de-sac. You don't really need Defense if the ToHit is debuffed.

I think a good choice is to go with the Smash/Lethal Defense shield from Ice or Earth, add a little bit more Smash/Lethal defense with sets, and then rely upon Hurricane and your other controls to fill the gap.

My attitude about Sleeps has changes a little bit lately, ever since I got one on my Ice/Ice/Cold Blaster. Flashfreeze will still be mostly useless on fast moving teams, but there are a few times when you can use it to stop an ambush or control a group over "there" while you deal with the group "here." It can also be used to weed out bosses from the other riff-raff, since the rest will be slept while the bosses will be aggroed. As a targetted AoE, Flashfreeze is certainly better than Earth's Salt Crystals which is PB AoE.

Interesting. I'll think about it. I actually love the sleep power and the mag 1 stun. I use them all the time (situationally).

I've decided to delay my decision. I was closer to perma-hasten on my earth/storm so I worked on her and finally got her all finished over the weekend. She also has 8 AOE damage procs and 3 AOE "other" procs. Anyway, I'll revisit the Ice/Storm later, perhaps, since I'm feeling indecisive.

Thanks to all!

Lewis

Love /Storm also... to be honest though Earth/Storm has a little more synergy... I solo +4 x8 player stuff with mine all the time

I dont use tornado mostly because it tends to wander off and cause aggro a bit to often , scattering said aggro in the process...

The key to a good stormie is that they DONT knock crap everywhere just for the sake of it , being a good stormie is knowing when*not* to use a power and the key to effectivness as a solo /storm is having an immobilise that is strong enough to counter the knockbacks.

That said /storm is amazing for AV takedowns , slot hurricane with -recharge procs and +100% recharg proc and use snowstorm and freezing rain... with good enhancement slotting you can be running 3 Thunder Storms at once which is enough to "tip" most AV's hitpoints solo , hurricane doesnt knockback AV's so its perfect in this scenario.. the other 7 players just make it even more brutal.

But yeah , if you think ice is good with storm, try earth, you wont look back.
Be warned however , its more of a "F1 car that will kill you if you dont know how to drive" type of build.. so not for beginers

Yeah, I do have an Ice/FF and an Earth/FF, both level 50, neither slotted for much recharge but both slotted for soft capped ranged, AOE, energy, smashing and lethal, and so I do like the soft-capping action. I also have one other non-FF controller with some good soft-capping too. So I know the benefits. I just really actually like the powers of Flash Freeze and Thunder Clap. I can live without Flash Freeze but there is no way I'd drop Thunder Clap. I like it too much.

Anyway, I was thinking of tricking out my Ice/Storm in prep for Incarnates but since everyone is saying its smarter to soft cap Ice/Storm, but I'm just not feeling it, I'm just going to leave her shelved at 50 with whatever random stuff she has.

I'm going to stick to my Earth/Storm (who is also level 50) for Incarnates. Heck, I dunno, maybe I should have slotted my Earth/Storm for soft cap also. But I just enjoy recharge. So my Earth/Storm is all finished and has Perma Hasten, 8 damage procs, and I'm good to go.

I will re-visit the Ice/Storm later. Maybe at some point I'll throw a bunch of cash at her (assuming I can earn any) and have a dual build: one I enjoy, and one that is good. But I'll probably keep Arctic Moon on Ice.

Thanks,

Lewis

Yeah, I might try to get a taste of both. I just don't normally try to blend both recharge and defense on my controllers, so I kinda need to re-visit mids at some point. Hence the shelving etc. I'll have to spend a little time before I can really get something I like.

Lewis