Ice/Ice in i24

I'm not sure what to do with the other snipe-less blast sets, but I would love a change that would make bitter freeze ray more useful. That's what it gets in giving up a snipe. BFR could amimate faster and *maybe* give slightly better damage (Currently 82; raise to 100ish - not snipe-level of 266, the set was never designed that way). Quickly stack 2 mag 3 holds on a blaster, one of which giving a pretty good hit? Yes, plz.

That angle of attack just makes me wonder which set should be last if not ice, EG. But anyway, we've been down that road before.

It might be relevant to consider that even after the not-so-recent-now-that-I-think-about-it adjustments, ice melee is still one of the worst melee sets by pretty much any measurement of damage. Maybe a producer was once accosted by an ice cube and has had it in for the substance ever since?

You know what I would love to add to Ice Blast? Repel in Ice Breath

I see Ice Manipulation the same way that I see Devices: It's an advanced set for people who can think tactically.

There are two "primary" ways to play it, the way I think with my faulty brain. One is as a "trapper", using Ice Patch along with Shiver and Ice Storm to set a trap for enemies, then pull them over into your freshly made nearly inescapable kill zone while you throw frozen murder at them. The other is "Melee Control" where you use Chilling Embrace, Ice Patch, Freezing Touch, Ice Storm, and your full range of damaging attacks for all ranges (Melee, AoE, and Ranged) to chew enemies apart. For both methods of play, you could do much worse than Frozen Aura as a power to fall back on when things get hairy. It won't work well when Ice Storm or another AoE attack is in play, but you can use it to break enemies one by one.

And then there is Cold Manipulation, which is one of the best APPs in the game. Frozen Armor for much-needed defense, Snowstorm to add to your litany of powers that keep enemies full of -Rech and -Speed, and the lovely Flash Freeze. Adding in Flash Freeze FOLLOWED BY Frozen Aura will enable you to even put bosses to sleep (but not the other way around. Flash Freeze deal damage with its sleep, which would nullify Frozen Aura's mez. Thankfully, Frozen Aura deals no damage, enabling you to stack it on top of Flash Freeze). Then there is Hibernate, which is beautiful, and Hoarfrost, which I don't have a whole lot of use for due to its extremely long recharge time and negligible benefit.

So an Ice/Ice/Cold Blaster is QUITE viable, especially for solo play if you want to explore their full range of control. On teams, you'll focus more on dealing damage than debuffing, with maybe throwing down Shiver, Freeze Ray, and Snowstorm and hopping into melee just long enough to fire off an Ice Patch near the tank and stack Freezong Touch on top of Freeze Ray to hold a Boss.

I apologize in advance because I'm horrid with numbers so my two cents isn't going to involve any math or anything.

Relativity doesn't matter up to a point. I mean, the argument that the damage was passable before i24 doesn't hold much weight IMHO. Not because there isn't some merit to it, but isn't one of the reasons blasters are getting a buff across the board because their numbers were relatively low for their intended role? Sure, they still dealt damage before and were perfectly fine on teams, but in relative terms they weren't living up to the intended potential. I'm not saying that it was the only reason for the changes, but relativity was a factor. It only stands to reason that it continues to be one.

With that said, I didn't really hear people going around suggesting that ice was over-powered pre-i24. It ranked higher on the single target side, lower on the AoE side, but in general seemed to be a fairly balanced set. When a set is balanced today and then nearly all the sets around it get a boost, an imbalance will almost certainly occur.

Now, there is merit in the suggestion that by turning blizzard crashless, it may make up for the difference. It may, and I'd leave that up to people with math skills to determine. My gut tells me it wouldn't, though. While it gains some in mitigation, the other sets gain some in AoE damage so I would suspect that the two balance each other out quite nicely. That would still leave the issue of what to do for the sets without snipe.

I know to be perma'd on the snipe changes you need to maintain a certain standard for tohit. An argument could be made that the build that pull it off are somewhat niche and/or min-max, but that is exactly why the issue is important. Those niche builders and min-maxers are the exact same people who will care about relative performance levels.

If the devs say the sets will be watched closely and assessed, I trust them. My OP was simply to see if something was going to be done at release.