Ice epic for blasters?

Okay! So i've been inspired by one of my global buddies to start a new blaster project (I'd rather not splurge on the exact details just to make it a surprise .
For This project I need some suggestions, but i'm aiming for:

• High survivability in melee range (Defense based)
• A secondary & Primary power that synergizes well in melee combat
• Ice mastery

If you're going defense based, then Cold Mastery is really your only choice blue-side. But don't paint Hoarfrost to be all that. You gotta remember, 40% of Blaster health numbers is not a whole lot of hit-points.

If you want to be a hard-core Blapper, then I would NOT take Ice Manipulation. You will not hit nearly as hard. No, I actually think Darkness Manipulation would be a good choice in this respect. The set is primarily based in close-range, and the -To Hit effect of the attacks will combo nicely with a defense-based build. From there, you have your pick of a load of effective primaries for close range combat. My top 3 picks would be:

• Dark Blast: the -To Hit will stack nicely with Darkness Manipulation, and comes with a nice variety of utility tools including a self-heal and an immobilize cone to keep your enemies from running.
• Ice Blast: The set hits very hard, the slow effects will keep your enemies close, and the 2 holds should provide some nice mitigation for you in the early game.
• Fire Blast: Pure, uninhibited damage. The one pitfall of this set is that you'll end up using it more than you use your melee attacks.

Primary: Radiation and Dual Pistols would be my top choices. Radiation being the easy first place in personal preference. I don't like DP, but you can't argue with the buff from DP's nuke. Secondary, in order of personal preference... Cold (tons of slows, sleeps, etc), Dark (I love Soul Drain, that's all), Mental (Just for Drain Psyche, really). For your Epic Pool, that would depend on the other sets... If you picked Dark for your secondary, no question, I would pick Soul Mastery to stack Oppressive Gloom with Dark Pit. If you take Cold for your secondary, I'd say Cold Mastery would be a great choice (stacking slows, sleeps, etc).

One thing to keep in mind is that Blasters have a relatively low HP cap. It only takes about +33% HP to cap you and if you get the accolades then you'll have +20% just from those, which means Hoarfrost is only giving you 13% and you usually get a few percent +HP from IOs even if you don't specifically build for it so really you'll lose out on 5-7% or so at worst by not going Cold. I far prefer Mace Mastery... sure you have to go villain temporarily but Scorpion Shield has S/L defense and Energy defense. Since one of the largest sources of non-S/L ranged damage is energy (lightning, plasma blasts, etc...) that's a big help. You do lose out on Hibernate and you can't take any other Mace powers without having to draw the mace (which can be a concept breaker) but the only Blaster epics I actually would take a lot of powers from don't offer defense anyway so that's not so big a deal. Besides, unless I'm actually playing an Ice Blaster I'd far rather have a soft purple glow than look like a walking ice cube.

As far as your secondary goes, you have several good options. If by "melee combat" you mean actual melee attacks then /Energy and /Electric are both good. /Energy gives you more control (almost everything can stun) while /Electric gives a damage aura and the best (single target) melee DPS (and some mitigation too). /Fire is also good but is more AoE focused and has no mitigation at all... you'll do massive damage but probably faceplant more often. If by "melee combat" you just mean melee range then /Mental is also a good choice since it has a nice PBAoE and Drain Psyche for regen, but its actual melee attacks are a bit lackluster. /Dark also looks good for melee, but I haven't actually tried it much yet.

For a primary there's always Fire... Fireball works well at any range and Blaze is the best DPA Blaster attack so it's a natural to add to a melee chain. Rad is also nice since it gives you a PBAoE, though it does take a while to do its damage since it's a DoT. For a pure single target Blapper you really can't beat Sonic though... you get a huge cone sleep to disable spawns with so you can fight them one at a time. If you prefer using a damage aura or PBAoEs then Fire or Rad are going to be better though, and if you want some control and decent single target punch then Ice can be handy. Overall I'd go with either Fire, Ice, Rad, or Sonic paired with /Fire, /Energy, /Electric, or /Dark and grab Scorpion Shield. The exact combination would depend on my concept... AoE vs massive single target damage, control vs raw damage, etc...

Try fire/mental/mace. Fire works well at range or melee and is the top or close to the top for both single-target and aoe damage; it is the most versatile Blaster primary.

/mental gives you limitless endurance and huge health regen to back up your defense. It also has a second cone, a PBAoE and a different damage type than your primary.

While /fire has a lot of PBAoE attacks, a lot of them are just not very good (Combustion) or are bugged (Burn, Blazing aura). The only real synergy with Fire/ is hot feet's slow helping to keep enemies in rain of fire.

Hoarfrost doesn't actually do much since blasters start off very close to the HP cap. An accoladed blaster will usually be within 100 hitpoints of the HP cap. Mace is a better option since it also provides energy defense, and energy is very common in the high-level game.

Don't underestimate the of Frozen armor. Not only does it help cap S/L (~15 fully slotted) but it also accepts Resistance IOs, meaning you can slot Steadfast +3% defense (and the PvP +3% defense if you are hardcore enough to get it) without taking Boxing/Tough/Weave.

This allows you to work on capping S/L with only Combat Jumping and Manuevers, giving you Tactics for cheap S/L slots and allowing you to take both Hasten and Aid Self.

I hate the blocky graphic though and always go for Scorpion Shield even though it's annoying as heck to slog over villain side to procure it. But if it fits your concept it's a very good power.

Death Shroud does not have the -To Hit secondary effect attached to its damage, unlike Smite and Shadow Maul, so it really will not give you any mitigation. In fact, the constant DoT will probably draw more attention to yourself than you actually want. It is definitely a power you should get a little later in your career, when you will be able to handle the attention.

Speaking of attention/aggro, just a heads up in case you've rarely gone in close with a blaster: blappers have very short lifespans before level 30 or so, because you are removing the one type of inherent mitigation that blasters get (the ability to deal high damage at a distance). You will most likely feel quite weak until level 40, which is about the time you'll have all your main melee attacks taken and slotted up. Persevere through the first 2/3 of your journey to 50 by knowing that you will, eventually, be a beast.

I like Hot feet on my Fire/Fire, simply because I didn't take the cone and instead use a pure PBAoE chain. Though small-radius auras like Blazing Aura I still skip, and sadly Death Shroud is one of those. I figure anything standing right next to a Blapper is toast anyway unless it's an AV or GM (in which case it's usually the Blapper who is toast ) but a 20 foot aura like Hot Feet can help out against mobs you aren't currently punching.

Frozen Armor actually has pretty good Cold resistance (21% base) and minor (7%) Fire resist, so it can be slotted for resistance. Unfortunately the fire resist is a bit too low to fool with and cold damage really isn't common enough to bother slotting resist for, but at least you can pop a Steadfast 3% defense IO in it and actually get more cold resistance too since that IO does have some resistance enhancement.

Unfortunately, Power Boost doesn't affect defense powers that also offer enhanceable resistance so the downside is that if you are /Energy then you can't get extra defense from Power Boost. If you aren't going /Energy then that doesn't matter though.