I’m planning on starting fresh on Xbox and I been thinking about trying Ice Elemental. It’s a 21 second buff, 5000 supercharge cost. From what I remember, no one uses it because of the delay when you activate it. Though I do know they gave changes to it just never tried it out for myself. I hate that it doesn’t give you a defense boost in dps role. If it gives you a damage buff increase, is it in line with Neo-Venom? The battle-tank in me might just find a way to make it work. Either way I’m excited to touch Ice again in so many years.
I been testing out ice since I made a fresh toon and once I reached the level to use Ice Elemental I noticed a few things, some that I didn’t like nor understand the logic. In DPS role when you use a shield you get 35% defense increase, 65 in tank role. When you are in DPS role and activate Ice Elemental and then activate a shield, you do not get the 35% increase defense. You could activate a shield first then pop Ice Elemental but c’mon now lol out of memory Ice Elemental grants 60% damage increase for 21 seconds, you get a new loadout slot, you can’t use certain abilities like Cold Snap for some reason, you can’t use iconic abilities like Freezing Breath. Haven’t tried movement mode abilities but wouldn’t be surprised either. While in Ice Elemental form you also get control resistance. Both in DPS role and Tank role you still get the control resistance and the precision buff. You might as well consider the possibility you can exploit it by going precision instead of might and cycling through shields in tank role. I tried Neo-Venom Boost. It’s a 15 buff supercharge with the same cost as Ice Elemental. However, it has 40 or 45% damage increase and a 90% defense increase. It’s not practical and I don’t know how well you’ll be able to achieve popping two 5000 supercharges frequently but you can activate Neo-Venom Boost first then Ice Elemental to reek both buffs. It works in either role as well. If you are in DPS role you can get the buff from Ice Elemental 60% damage increase and 10% weapon damage increase (I think precision to), pop Ice Bash for the 33% precision increase. You can add Neo-Venom boost to get that buff such as 40% damage increase on top of your 60 from Ice Elemental and since Neo also gives you defense increase. The downside is that you have to have 100% supercharged build I don’t know if even with a generator and arts would it be efficient. In tank role we get a damage penalty. Neo-Venom Boost overrides that since it grants us 40% damage increase. In tank stance we get 65% defense increase plus ice armor. Add in Neo and it becomes stupid high all while having damage increase. Having 100% supercharged build would let you activate neo first then ice elemental enabling you to get 125% defense increase+90% defense increase from Neo and if I’m not done yet add another 35 from using a shield granting ice armor. As a battle-tank I find ice going the precision route and im okay with that. In closing I just want to point out and ask, why can’t you use iconic abilities when you’re in ice elemental form? Why can’t you use some of your ice powers in ice elemental form such as cold snap? Why doesn’t your defense increase in dps role when you’re in ice elemental form using shield?
Theory in how to achieve 100% supercharge quick in order to get both buffs from Ice Elemental and Neo Quislet, Scrap and Eye of Gemini. Quislet grants 1% supercharge, Scrap common knowledge (I hope by now), Eye grants supercharge while in tank or healer role and using the chest mod and generator ability (not sure if chest mod and generator ability would work together but regardless either one is fine or both).
If you're precision, Ice Elemental->neo Venom -> return to normal might be good. If you're might, Ice Elemental -> Blizzard is probably the way to go in terms of dumping all your super. If you can swap in Soul Cloak, it's even better to dump 150% of your supercharge all at once starting with IE. Does Ice Elemental still buff your Defense in DPS stance? It's been forever since I tested it. A bunch of form changes were updated a while back to include movement abilities. I'm pretty sure Ice elemental allows them. Frost Breath and Heat Vision are still not allowed, though.
I had no clue they updated Ice elemental to include movement abilities. That’s awesome if so, might have to switch my tank back over to ice!
You can’t use Neo Venom when you’re transformed into Ice Elemental. You also don’t get defense increase in Ice Elemental if you’re in DPS role but you do if you’re not in Ice Elemental form. Not sure why that is. Not sure why Cold Snap is included in not being able to be used in Ice Elemental form. I’ll have to get on later and try and see if movement abilities can be used. Unlike might route Ice Elemental gets precision increase in either role thus making it more viable in my opinion. I just want to know why certain things are like this and would like some clarity. I’m planning on trying out transformation supercharged that buff you such as Wolf, Gorilla form and Ice Elemental. I know Mental has a transformation supercharge. Would have to try that power last. For Battle-Tank I think precision is king for Ice. I’m really disappointed I can’t use Freezing Breath in an Ice powerset…. Before the changes to Ice Elemental you would get a defense buff to it. Now you don’t, however ice armor works in dps role but you only get 35% increase. It doesn’t however work in Ice Elemental form. Ice is also unique in that it’s the only tank powerset that gives you a defense buff while in dps role.
Yeah they updated it a bunch of times. Some of the changes got backed out. I *think* you can use movement abilities and you keep your movement mode as the elemental. I *thought* that they included iconics as well but I guess those were among the changes that got backed out.
I just switched and tested it and unfortunately you cannot use movement mode as elemental. You can’t use dash attack either. That’s a bummer. If they updated ice elemental to allow you to use movement mode it would be a game changer for sure.
That’s such a bummer. So many limitations on that transformation despite changes being done to it. Ice Elemental Pros: 1. 21 second buff 2. Control resistances 3. 60% damage increase or 125% defense increase in Tank Role 4. Weapon and Precision increase Cons: 1. Can’t use Iconic powers 2. Can’t use Movement Mode and their powers 3. Certain ice powers can’t be used while transformed such as Cold Snap 4. You do not get Ice Armor despite being in DPS role (you get ice armor even in DPS role though it’s only a 35% increase)
Turns out you can use super speed movement powers while in Ice Elemental. I still don’t know why we can’t use Freezing Breath in a Ice powerset. I also don’t know why certain powers can’t be used while in Ice Elemental. On top of that you do not gain ice armor when you activate a shield.
I gave up on it. Obsidian had a good vid with it. Personally, just found it too clunky. It’s great that you can transform right back into it since no cooldown and I realllllly want to use it but blizzard/ head aug/ scrap/ EoG/ supercharge chest aug has been working much better for me. One, you lose out on being able to use rsk. It’s already annoying enough to switch armories and lose it but losing it every transformation is brutal. The. If you hit a power with a longer animation and go back to normal, you lose that attack and then have to turn back and start it again. 7secs of 0 damage at a minimum is rough. It would be an awesome power if you could transform and stay in that form until you run out of your full super bar vs going back and forth. Stacking NVB is great but again, pretty clunky and wasting buffed time. Tank role, never tried it.
I never use RSK on any of my toons. I’m not a fan of having my power regeneration weaken because of it nor do I want to have to rank up Grim to 200 just to get rid of that annoyance. I need to test Nature transformations because Gorilla Form increases your damage done. Currently in my OP, IE has a bigger and longer buff than CB. IE needs some tweaking. Would be nice if a dev can chime in and explain why IE works in this way. But I have to agree that Blizzard would be more beneficial by using the head mod. A battle tank can make it work better if they use EOG.
Tbh I've had alot of success with IE. If you have a good loadout for it, it can be pretty devastating. I usually use it right after I use my buff trinket. It's pretty decent
Do you still keep the buff when you convert back for precision dps? It might be viable with a PS5 now but I do remember it being super laggy.
