Soooo /Ice ...

I've had a look through the first 20 or so pages of this forum and you can count the mentions of /Ice on one hand. Even more rare is /Ice paired with anything but Ice/.

I've been having a go at a Mind/Eng but have stalled out at 12 (not a good sign). I've realised that although I enjoy the primary there's nothing I'm really looking forward to from the secondary and I'm already a bit irritated chasing my own knockback around. Also although this was primarily supposed to be a soloist I'd like to be able to team when the mood takes me so swapping secondary to something with more aoe and less knockback seems sensible.

So /Ice then? Really that bad that no-one plays it? /Fire seem to be the goto set for superior damage numbers but it doesn't feel right for this toon - besides I'm also thinking of rolling a Plant/Fire or Earth/Fire for total aoe carnage.

Any thoughts?

I have a Mind/Ice Dom at 43. I paired them together because of stacking -recharge but they don't really synergise very well.

Ice is a melee focussed set with three melee attacks and a slow aura. It's damage is good but it will eat your Endurance for breakfast. You do get Power Boost though which is comes back up quickly and does lovely things to your Primary.


Oh and just to let you know, I have an Earth/Fire and he completely outshines the Mind/Ice in terms of control and damage.

Hmm ... Thanks for the info.

Yeah I've written off chilling embrace as not doing anything particularly worthwhile. I think I'm going to give this a go and if it doesn't work out reroll again as Mind/Psi! I'm a recent convert to the world of dominators and am just trying things out really.

I have a mind/psi/fire that I rerolled as a mind/ice/fire. I really like it. Mind paired with ice gives you lots of layered hard and soft controls. Mind/Ice/Fire gives you 3 exotic AoE/cone damage types, Fire, Ice, and Psi.

I've played /Fire, /Thorn, /Psi, /Earth, and /Ice and Ice is still my favorite. Fast animation times, several good melee attack options, power boost, and an early, powerful AoE are what really sell the set for me. I do have to agree about Chilling Embrace though; the -recharge is nice and all (especially stacked with the other attacks), but I wish it had the -damage aspect that the Ice Armor version has. I'd spec back into it in a heartbeat if it did, even though I have Arctic Air already.

/Ice does more to compliment a primary than /Fire does, IMO. Thing is, /Fire really brings the damage, especially since its boost power is moar damage!!1!eleven. I'd say Ice is a jack of all trades, master of none. It does a little bit of everything and does it well, but the area it stands out in (added survivability with -recharge and a smidgen of -tohit) isn't as highly valued as the more direct, immediate benefits of some other secondaries.

If you're looking for something thematic, you can always switch earth assault to the crystal option and recolour it to look ice-ish. I've got an ice/earth dom that I'm actually quite fond of. Ice assault is neat, but it needs some work. Until then, I'm happy with my GIANT HAMMER OF SMASH!

I remember my Grav/Ice being quite a bit of fun, but he doesn't get out much since I found Elec/Elec...

I have a lvl 43 Grav/Icy that I enjoy. I really like the ice swords. They look cool. (I really want to try Ice Melee but I hate tankers...oh well)

But in terms of damage, /Icy isn't that good. It is a fast set for sure.


I think it is possible to make a good Ice Melee with Ice/Icy/Icy epic. You get that Ice Armor.

/Ice isn't bad persay. Heck, if you drag just the attacks out of all the assault sets, they'd probably end up being pretty even. I'd just say that the set sacrifices a damage power for its -recharge aura, and that is pretty low-profile in the mitigation it provides. It's just not that noticeable. Add in the fact that it's a close-up aura that will still let foes left to their machinations hurt you at full power, it's hard to note/relish the delay.

The rest of the set is dandy.

Fire/Ice and Earth/Ice are both nice combos you don't see people use much.

Never tried it. But it seems Electric/Ice would have lots of crowd control possibilities. Slows, Holds, Endurance drains. All seem like they would very annoying to your enemies.


Hmmm..I may dust off my old Fire/Ice now that I think about it.

Elec/Ice is amazing as River just stated.. There's so much going on and think to Elec you don't have to worry about End. Ice is pretty awesome but with most Primaries I would skip the aura unless you have Elec or Earth Primary.

With my Elec/Ice/Ice Nothing survives either they are slowed, out of end, sleep, falling down b/c of sleet, dieng due to Ice Storm, confused, or held. It's a combo during the End game that chews through mobs. Reminds me of my Plant/Fire.

This isn't helping my altitis! Just looking at mids Elec/Ice/Ice looks a really nice build for up close and personal. Ok so that's a different toon re-rolled ...

Still not sure what to do about my Mind/Eng though - might give in and go Mind/Fire.

So many toons, so little time ...

Now I'm tempted to try Elec/Ice. And just when I thought I had my altitis under control...

...And now I want to try an Elec/Ice Dom. >_<

I was already planning on making one! Sounds like a super team in the making.

Got my Elec/Ice to lv 22. After getting SOs he's much more able to successfully kill enemies.

The ability to sap with Power Boost is tremendous, but his hitting power is a bit low compared to other doms. Knockback is a severe problem on teams, which I learned while running missions with a Bots/Dark MM and a DP/Storm Corr.

I made a fairly "modern aristocratic" character for this combo, and the sets fit the concept. No big overhand blows, explosions, or crashing hammers. Just a sword and ice projectiles flashing through enemies while you stroll around in massive electrical surges unharmed, feeding off of the energy fields of your convulsing victims until they're put out of their misery.

Muahaha!

I have a Plant/Ice at 38. I actually thought damage on it was surprisingly good. Good AoE, good, flexible single target damage, good secondary effect. I'm sure there are more damaging combinations, but it was a vastly easier trip than my climb up the Dom ladder on my Mind/Psi was.

Thought it was about time I chipped in - my elec/ice is now at 22 and I've not had this much fun on a toon in a long time. I'm a sucker for unusual mechanics and elec/ has that in spades. I have to say that I've mostly teamed and been with some good folks so that's helped.

The negatives:

I have died quite a bit. In a team setting enemies are constantly getting woken up and I can't resist spamming jolting chain, chain fences and attacks (mmm ice sword circle). I'm also by default standing right in the middle of the action and so when the licks come they come hard. Also I can see what people mean about the /ice secondary and damage. It does fine but the hard hitters come at the end so it can take that one extra attack to get the opponent down.

The positives:

Always available, layered soft control that firms up as the fight goes on. Between the sleep, end drain and knocking people up in the air the enemies opportunities for retaliation are limited. It's a different mindset to most controlling sets where the aim is to create a battlefield full of statues. The benefit is that these controls are always available and i think they tend to be less resisted than hard controls.

I'm planning on taking the mass hold as an oh crap power but am more looking forward to chilling embrace and the chain confuse. I much prefer every fight powers and both of these should be useful for adding extra layers of protection into the mix.

A counter point to the damage of /ice is just how fast the attacks are. You never find yourself in the situation where you wish you hadn't clicked on a power because you know you aren't going to live to see the end of the animation. Also elec/ gives you all the end you could ever want so it really doesn't matter that you need to use extra attacks. It also looks great

I agree with what was said above about knockback. I have been killed more than once by some idiot using gale to throw everyone out of the sleep and end drain fields. As chain fences has no -kb component there really isn't much you can do about this apart from making ascerbic comments while examining the floor...

Ok I'll stop rambling now

I really like my elec/ice/soul. I chose the combo a) for the aura synergy and b) because I wanted to fin a build I could like /ice on... and this was definitely it! I tried mind/ice first, through the 20s, but it just didn't click for me. /soul has good synergy (for soloing primarily) because the pet is so great and rarely gets killed *and* provides psi dmg.

My Elec/Ice is almost level 30 now, and I've found that the only time I ever get myself killed is when I end up making a mistake, try to solo an EB, or run on teams.

I've found that with powers like Jolting Chain or the Confuse (whose name escapes me at the moment) that start with a single "Root" target and then branch from enemy to enemy, that Lieutenants are the best targets. People will run into the middle of a group and slam AoEs around so that the minions are all deceased, and then get wiped out by bosses. If you start with Lts, then at least you'll be able to chain a few more targets and stop enemies from a coordinated effort to smear you all over the walls. The Sleep is up faster than you'd think it would be, and I make full use of that to stop enemies dead in their tracks when they try and run for the squishies while the brutes stomp around in the big pile of baddies and ignore what's going on behind them.

Solo, I have no problems taking care of storylines and missions. The only time I've been incapable of finishing a mission was against Protean at level 22.

The sleep is awesome in SOOOO many ways. It's a patch much like Earthquake which alone is awesome it sleeps the mobs every few seconds, it drains the end AND it gives the end back to you. *sheds tear* it's...it's just so beautiful. I feel so horrible b/c when the set first hit I complained endlessly about it lol.