Ice/Ice in i24

It's probably underrated because of secondaries that require you to be in melee range to do your best damage. Which is why movement slow and afraid don't seem that much better to me.

But we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't see one as significantly better than the other.

To be one hundred percent honest, I personally see Dark Blast as having the best overall potential mitigation on a fully-IO'd build due to it having Tenebrous Tentacles, which can easily be fitted with the Gravitic Anchor Chance to Hold Proc. Add to that its -ToHit and then toss in an overwhelming Force Proc, and you have a character who can immobilize, has a decent chance to hold, can consistently knock enemies back (especially with a high recharge build), and can work quite well on conjunction with Energy Manipulation's Power Boost to heal itself and stack -ToHit. With enough recharge, a build could be thrown together to make the knockdown from Nightfall into a steady form of mitigation all on its own.

That's just playing with Procs, however.

In terms of playstyle, comparing Ice and Psychic Blast is sort of like comparing apples and oranges. They're both fruits, and they're both round, but from there the similarities end. They both WORK, but I would say that the biggest difference between the two is a matter of ranges, animation times, and damage type rather than pure mitigation.

Even if we agree to disagree on movement debuff, its hard to make the argument that the two guaranteed mag 3 holds in Ice are not generally superior to the guaranteed stun and the 80% sleep. Psi's superiority lies with its recharge debuffs, but that runs into cap problems: the recharge debuff floor is -75%. Both Ice and Psi can hit that cap, which means Psi's advantage exists primarily in reaching it one attack quicker.


On the subject of melee attacks: most melee secondary attacks are single target. As someone who played a blapper for years, movement debuffs are very valuable to someone using melee secondary attacks, because while you're attacking one thing with melee attacks, its normally extremely valuable to be able to keep other things from crowding around. Only sets like /Fire might not care, but being a PBAoE blapper is sufficiently difficult to make it very rare.

And the 60% KB, and the 50% AoE KU, and the 100% MAG3 Stun. Yeah, doesn't seem that superior from where I'm sitting. Ice's holds are wonderful. It's ability to scare enemies away is wonderful. But Psi also is wonderful. In Issue 24, it's going to have even more reliable controls when Wail becomes usable without a crash.

Like I said, we're going to have to agree to disagree because I don't see Ice as having more mitigation than what Psi has. And certainly not Dark.

Here's where I actually find the rains to be more helpful. Scaring enemies away handles that much better I've found. As Ice's primary AoE most times it's protected more from the afraid than the slow, IMO. I've played a blapper for years and the best protection for a blapper is bone smashing the enemy to high heaven before they stomp you, but that's not really what we're discussing.

Wail is going to be good in I24, but its going to be a different animal in i24 than say Blizzard or even Nova. I'm finding Nova to be an excellent alpha bomb because its KB is guaranteed and affects (most) bosses. That buys me several seconds to either take out a boss or clean up lesser ranked critters. Wail is going to need to stack stuns to affect bosses and its unfortunate that Scramble Thoughts has such a long cast time. Ironic, because Wail has such good cast time (for a PBAoE).

If you solo with bosses off, Wail is going to be really good. With bosses on or in teams, its mag 3 mez may significantly reduce its mitigation (and recharge is a good backloaded mitigator but not a good start of combat mitigator for obvious reasons). I was afraid Nova's KB would not be as good as some of the slottable mez out there, but I'm finding that at least at higher difficulty levels, being able to affect bosses directly relates to the utility of the nuke as an alpha strike, particularly because the nukes are going to kill or reduce to near death most other things it hits. I believe mitigating bosses should be weighted higher than average on nukes for that reason.

I agree about Nova. I'm going to annoy plenty a team come I24!

I've not found Blizzard to be particularly helpful against bosses. Maybe I should stop doing the RWZ challenge and do some normal spawns, but it's main effect has been against lower ranks. Playing on even cons is better, but still not as reliable as I would like.

That's odd, because bosses are not intrinsically resistant to KB. Blizzard should affect all critters that lack KB protection equally well regardless of rank, and fail to affect things with any KB protection regardless of rank, comparable to how Nova does.

I know right?!

But Chief Mesmerists (for example) still tend to get enough high damage potshots off to not make Blizzard as safe as I'd like. Normal spawns it is a very nice control.

Well, bosses with strong ranged attacks will hit harder than minions, even if they are affected by the same amount of mitigation. They'll always be more dangerous. It may also have something to do with the average amount of time it takes before you're likely to get the first knockdown, compared to an "instant" effect like Nova. Also, the physics engine being what it is now, knockback has significantly higher mitigation potential than knockdown in many circumstances due to psychotic ragdoll. I'll have to do more extensive testing in that area.

I would put Sonic in second in this category due to Siren's Song alone.

It's THAT good of a power. my Sonic/Devices routinely spends large amounts of time not even being attacked, let alone defeated.

It might slide into 1st with an Overwhelming Force proc in Shockwave, but I'm not sure on that.

Even without a snipe, Sonic is still a VERY good set. All it needs, IMO, is to have the cast time on Shout reduced.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.