Ice/Time Advice

I just rolled an Ice/Time Controller today and she seems to work pretty well so far. However I'm not as familiar with Controllers as I am with other sets so I wanted to ask the more experienced what I should plan for.

Is massive Slow really worth it?
Where should I focus for doing damage?
Time looks like it brings a lot to the team table but is there anything I can skip?

I'm not looking for an uber-expensive build...just something fun.

Thanks in advance.

I am enjoying the hell out of my Ice/Time troller. Its a painful combo to solo, but it can make a full team into demigods. Slow is an okay method of mitigation- I find the Confuse in Artic Air much more helpful, and I can't wait to get a contagious confusion proc in there.

You do max out the Slow pretty easily, but that just leaves you room to focus on other aspects of you powers, like more recharge or more -tohit debuffs in Times Juncture..

I took all of the Time powers so far just to try them out. I'm pretty happy with most of them, but I may respec out of Distortion Field, unless a Chance for Hold proc really makes it shine.

What I would skip:
Chillbain (I always skip the ST immob)
Shiver (they really should add some damage to this to beef up the set)
Flashfreeze (can be handy in a pinch, and can mule a cheap purple set, but otherwise its non-critical)

Ice Slick is one of the cornerstones of the set, but be prepared Fire, Earth, Plant and Ice controllers to ruin your fun when they start spamming their AoE immobs.

First things first--for your first 35 levels or so you will be mostly a support character. Damage will come later but you will only be okay at it. However you will still do enough to solo comfortably later on.

I would skip Shiver. Shiver is IMO very inferior to Distortion Field.

With Ice Control on Controllers I have traditionally aimed for the Psi APP. This brings you to Indomitable Will, a power that protects you from mezzes and grants very good Psi defense. Psinado doesn't have as good of damage as it could have, but if you think of a confused enemy making an attack as direct damage, you will generally do a LOT more damage with Ice Control if you are slotted to be able to wade into enemies with Arctic Air, which is what Indomitable Will promotes. The only issue with the Psi APP is it offers no real break on endurance cost. This can be settled largely with incarnate powers.

In my experience, there is a night and day difference between an Ice Control character with mezz protection and without. You can also grab mezz protection with Destiny powers, but for Ice Control specifically I prefer being able to take Barrier, because Ice's big issue is not having a very reliable alpha breaker. With Destiny Barrier you can tank the alpha straight off once every two minutes, and if you switch off with Glacier it can be fairly effective.

I would also aim for at least around 32% Ranged defense base from IOs if you IO the character. Take Combat Jumping to help you quickly escape combat in case you get overwhelmed--the art of the Combat Jump escape + self heal is IMO something all Ice Controllers with a good heal should master. It has saved my life many times when forced back by War Walkers.

FWIW I sometimes hear that Ice Control has "redundant" slows (in other threads, not this one). IMO, especially in incarnate content, its less about what you can kick out total and more about how much area you can cover, and how many seconds it took you to do it. So when you get something like Ice/Time/Psi, while its true stacking all of that slow and -recharge on a single group is pretty pointless, it also means that you don't have to make any special efforts to floor them, you do it by just doing your thing. A lot of the incarnate content trials also feature segments where you need to be able to pick up and run. The portability of AA works wonders for this, since with a decent build it recharges very quickly, can be cast before enemies are aware, and in some ways can be thought of as on-demand Volcanic Gasses (even if different from that power in some ways). I would never skip Arctic Air on an Ice Control character.

If this character makes it to the incarnate levels, you may want to consider the Cognitive proc. It can stack with Arctic Air's confusion and helps cover gaps in coverage.

Ice/Time happens to be my latest 50 and I'm 99% done, just need one each of a hold and confuse purple.

To the OP's questions:

Thanks for the input everyone.

So if you want earlier damage it's quite possible. Ice is very maligned on Damage, but most people don't slot for procs which it does very respectable at. Ice/Time has some monster procing options.

First, you need the ST powers slotted like damage powers.
Level 1: Chilblain
Level 4: Block of Ice
--> Slot both of them with Decimation while leveling. Later you can play around with purps and so on if you still feel the need to slot better. However, from 1-49 this is the way to go. These powers you will use on bosses or trouble enemies to knock them down while your procs and AOEs are creaming them.

Level 2: Frostbite
(A) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy)
(3) Trap of the Hunter - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
(3) Impeded Swiftness - Chance of Damage(Smashing)
(5) Trap of the Hunter - Accuracy/Recharge
(5) Trap of the Hunter - Accuracy/Immobilize/Recharge
(7) Trap of the Hunter - Accuracy/Endurance
--> Three procs has about a 50% chance of proccing on any foe you hit. So you want to be engaging lots of even or -1 enemies. This power will chew them up. Additionally it keeps them in the area for your PBAoEs

Level 6: Arctic Air
(A) Perplex - Endurance/Confused
(7) Cacophony - Endurance/Confused
(9) Malaise's Illusions - Endurance/Confused
(9) Impeded Swiftness - Chance of Damage(Smashing)
(11) Cacophony - Chance of Damage(Energy)
(11) Malaise's Illusions - Chance of Damage(Psionic)
--> This is what you use to stand in the middle of them along with the Temporal PBAoE and be relatively safe. Every 10 seconds each for will have these three procs checking for a 50% chance every foe will be hit (It's about 50% see math below. Some will be hit 2x or even 3x). Additionally you will have one proc in the time PBAoE for another check as well.

Level 8: Time's Juncture
(A) Impeded Swiftness - Chance of Damage(Smashing)
(25) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Endurance
(27) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff/Recharge/Endurance
(27) Dark Watcher's Despair - Recharge/Endurance
(29) Dark Watcher's Despair - To Hit Debuff
--> Some recharge, a healthy to hit debuff as well as another proc for damage checking. Yes, running two PBAoE toggles is painful, but you can really hunt for recovery bonuses and some other END friendly IOs like perf shifter.

Level 16: Distortion Field
(A) Impeded Swiftness - Chance of Damage(Smashing)
(17) Neuronic Shutdown - Chance of Damage(Psionic)
(17) Ghost Widow's Embrace - Chance of Damage(Psionic)
(19) Recharge Reduction IO
(19) Recharge Reduction IO
(21) Recharge Reduction IO
--> Love this power, I've also put the Lockdown proc here as well depending how much recharge you have. You can have it up every mob with just two Recharge IOs if you have a lot of global recharge.

Okay so here is how things go:
Assuming you drop a Distortion field on the group, you have the following chances to get a proc on an enemy.

Seven Procs checking every 10 seconds:
Chance for 0 procs ~21%
Chance for 1 procs ~36.7%
Chance for 2 procs ~27.5%
Chance for 3 procs ~11.5%
Chance for 4 procs ~2.8%
Chance for 5 procs ~0.4%
Chance for 6 procs ~0.03%
Chance for 7 procs ~0.001%

Chance for at least one proc ~79%.

Note: That's also a ~40% chance of getting 2 or more procs on any enemy.

Three Procs:
Chance for 0 procs ~51.2%
Chance for 1 procs ~38.3%
Chance for 2 procs ~9.6%
Chance for 3 procs ~.7%

Chance for at least one proc ~48.8%

That means that every 10 seconds you have odds on hitting each enemy with at least one or more procs 80% of the time, plus your AOE immob with a 50% chance to proc on any given enemy each time you can cast it (every 3-5 seconds depending on your recharge). You would be surprised how fast that adds up. The actual damage in the AOE immob is tiny, but it adds.

With both PBAoEs running, you should be able to be pretty safe. However, this build does not rely on Ice Slick much since you have an AOE immob running. I take Ice Slick when it's available, respec out of it from 20-40 and get it again when I have a space, usually at 50. With time, you have enough safety that it won't matter much, although getting some kind of stealth power to get into a group for max chaos is important.

So you can get damage, you just have to work at slotting right to get it.

Here's my planned build (as of today anyway) for my Ice/Time.

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