Ice/Cold Advice requested.

I wanted an Ice/Ice dom originally, but that combo felt anemic at best. I've asked around, and I now know the must-take powers. However, I do have a few I'm on the fence about. Would love for some insight, and possible slotting advice.

Frost Breath: Some people have told me to skip it and remain ST, some have told me to take it and combine it with Ice Storm.

Freeze Ray/Bitter Freeze Ray: Everyone says you can't take one without taking the other, and I can imagine why. If I choose to take them, should I slot BFR with damage and FR with hold, or both with hold?

Frostwork: Again, 50% of people say to take it, 50% say don't. Great for teams; too situational.

Any thoughts or advice? Feel free to tell me about your own Ice/Cold experience if you have one, and pointers on how to run it; I'm new to ranged ice characters entirely. Not once in my 5 years have I played a ranged ice-based toon past 10.

I'd go for damage on BFR; with the IO recharge available today, you're likely to benefit more from an extra pseudo-attack at endgame than a little more hold stacking. My Ice characters usually slotted BFR for a bit of both before IOs, but that was a while ago, so that may have changed.

I love Frost Breath, but after about five AR characters I find cones comfy and friendly, rather than awkward.

Frostwork is an eh power to me. It requires some slotting to be effective in my experience, but its nature as a single-or-few target defensive buff means it will rarely be a power that saves the team, while still being useless solo. I'd sooner spend the power slot on the Leadership or Jumping pools.

DEFINITELY slot BFR for damage, not hold time. The 9 second hold from BFR will be enough to get an instant 2-shot mag 6, which is what you want the combo for. From then on, you can rely on the regular freeze ray to keep bosses frozen, since the enhanced duration should be approximately 2-3 times its recharge rate. In the meantime, you can insert Bitter Freeze Ray into your regular damage rotation, get respectable damage out of it, as well as the mitigation of holding the target.

I'll also come out with an endorsement of cone powers. They break even in terms of Damage per activation and damage per endurance at between 2 and 3 targets, making them really a solid pick even when soloing, and they're fantastic when you're in bigger teams, where you're almost certain to hit the target cap with good positioning. Plus, it's a great place to put Positron's Blast.

I also think Frostwork is a great power. 5 slot it with Doctored Wounds for the global recharge, and you can easily give 4 members of your party an extra 1000 hit points. Let's put it this way: The health it gives a target is 5 times as good as casting Warmth, is cast pre-emptively (keeps you doing more useful things during combat), and also boosts their regeneration rate (for yet more healing). Is it really necessary when you're steamrolling easy content? Of course not. But it's worth its weight in gold when you're struggling.

I will mention that I plan to use sets with global recharge bonuses. Ice feels a little slow right now, and I'm sure enhancements will fix that. I love +recharge, and I've even taken two stealth powers to add LotG +7.5% IO's. That said I do have a lot of end reduction slotted in Mid's.

With Inherent Fitness, take Frost Breath. Added AoE, isn't that bad.

Take Freeze Ray, skip BFR. Its slow, you can just hit whatever with a second Freeze Ray since it recharges so fast and lasts long anyway. BFR is slow, eats more endurance and has twice the recharge.

Frostworks is a good power. Subtle, but very good. Great ally buff. Take it, chuck it on people taking a lot of damage or people with high HP caps like Brutes. Suddenly they're invincible.

I dont have BFR on my ice/cold and never thought otherwise about it. I can see some use for it, but with the debuff/slows in the combined set and my hatred for that animation, I skipped it.

Frostbreath is good, not great. Mine has a 5 slotted Posi set in it, and a Range IO that seems to work well for me.

Frostwork I do have, but i usually use it on squishies as the hit point bonus is of you, not the target. Got three slots in it, frankenslotting with heal/recharge