Ice ice baby

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by xxHELLSTROKExx, Oct 6, 2021.

  1. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    I can't take rage anymore. Melee in end game is terrible. 10yrs ago, I really wanted to make an ice toon. So I finally did it and switched my primary alt. Tank role, I seem to be all set and thanks to AV's comments about ice tanking, will max health 1st then dom and splash a few sp into resto. Manacles/mystic/circes. All 160 till next double nth. Done-zo.

    Dps: I want range which was rages downfall for me. So with that in mind... 344cr, 520sp, maxed augs. 2 armories for this so ST and AoE help needed. 140 artis: La mort, tetra, scrap. He's an old toon and generally only dps's in solos, duos, and sometimes alerts. Tanks 90% of the raids I'm in so dps doesn't need to be stellar and changing artifacts is out of the equation till the tank ones are at 200. So about a year away I'd think.

    Right now, I'm averaging 50k on 10sec parsers on ST. Not great but not terrible, matches my water toon and she's a pug life scoreboard topper 90% of the time. But considering I threw this loadout together in 5mins, I imagine there are better options. Onto the ST LO:
    Freeze breath (generally 2 tick cancelled but getting used to it, and no grim pi application so need something that applies it)
    Finisher (have to since la mort)
    Avalanche (it's not st so I'm thinking there may be better choice?)
    Frost snipe (the animation seems weird to me, it's a fast cooldown but the toon pauses. I want to 2x tap but due to the hesitation, I can go left right timing wise)
    Robot side kick (should I be using snow devils? Seems like rsk is stronger)
    Super, I'm using the giant guy because I've always wanted to lol. Love him.
    So while transformed I'm using:
    Snow devils
    Frost blast (kamehaha wave, super long animation but crits 250k...)
    Snipe
    Avalanche
    Freezing breath
    Finisher

    Was thinking maybe ditch snipe and put in NVB? Not sure I can generate enough super to always use it but if I did, what head mod should I be using? Right now, it's still freeze ray because I was thinking about using it but until the supercharge balance happens, it seems mediocre. Tips any one has??

    And now for aoe:

    Freeze breath
    Ice boulder strike
    Avalanche
    Snowball x2
    Rsk
    Blizzard. I don't super much in add situations but if I'm with certain players, green spams are out non stop so may as well. But if there's something to use instead, lmk. Kinda thinking frost blast would be great except all the adds will probably be dead by the time I stop doing my weird techno dancing moves.

    Ok, drop some knowledge on me my fellow ice cubes
  2. Hunted2468 Well-Known Player

    Kinda new to ice myself but i do know that Freeze Breath needs to go. Its slow, doesn't hit hard and although it applies the Ice PI, theres much better options in Ice's powers. Freeze Breath only applies PI in a cone in front of you too.

    Regarding Ice Tanking though, Ice is a Shield swap power. In other words you should be rotating 4 shields continuously with Regenerative Shielding mod. The advice about Health SP seems pretty bad tbh. I'm about 520 SP myself too so my allocation is 295 in Dom, 100 in Resto and 50-60 in Health. Shields work off Dom & Resto so maxing Health is useless. Use Ice's 2 main Shields (Winter Ward and forget the seconds name) and then grab HL Shield and Amazon Deflection from iconics. 2x Shields are 12-18 sec cooldown and the 2x Iconics are 30 sec cooldown, so place them in a "Ice -> Iconic -> Ice -> Iconic" formation.
    • Like x 1
  3. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    I had assumed it was a dom then 100 health then rest into resto setup till I saw this post:

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...estion-on-ice-tank-stats.316661/#post-4446936

    AV knows his stuff. Like crazy levels of knowledge so I'll give it a try. Respeck is easy enough to do. Unless I'm misunderstanding what they're talking about and it's all dom then all health. Just seems like he means go max health then rest dom and ignore resto.

    Good to know about freeze breath, I know it's slow which is why I tap cancel but didn't know of any other options for pi
  4. Hunted2468 Well-Known Player


    Its really up to preference and each persons experience tbh. Technically he's correct, maxing Health gives you close to 50k extra Health. This means very little in Elite content however. Bosses or groups of adds can melt 50k in seconds, especially if you're stunned or mind controlled or encased or knocked back. The extra Dom gives you the same few seconds of shielding. Its not a 1:1 comparison like he tried to make it out to be in that thread. Shield calculation is based on 150% of your Dom, not 100%. Resto is less important than Dom but depending on playstyle, can be equally important as Health. Shield calculation is also 112.5% of your Resto.

    So ultimately you can have your shields crack faster and hope your Health holds out while waiting for another shield cooldown to end, or the shield lasts longer meaning you dont worry about Health at all because it lasts now until a shield comes out of cooldown. Try em both anyway.
    • Like x 1
  5. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    Yeah, tried it out last night in a few situations. Doomsday is still easy as can be, no healer. Tried aquaman in the elite fp alert and that went well. The only issue I really ran into was Mr Freeze in the elite alert. He straight wrecked me with a 1 shot. Twice. Right thru WW and then right thru HLS. So guess I'm missing a tell of his lol. Didn't seem like more health or more dom would have helped either way. The healer was not using page, that may have been the only way I'd have survived. But I'll try maxed dom then all in health tonight then maxed health and rest in dom vs my set up of max dom/100 health/ 100 resto that I have now.

    I feel like resto is a giant waste tho personally. I know it helps shields but maxed dom should have them already strong as possible for a powerset that doesn't self heal at all.
  6. Kimone Luthor Genetech Clone

    if you're gonna use FB< let it hit twice, JC out for best effect, not really working on my Ice DPS game at the moment because I like her too much as a tank though.
    • Like x 1
  7. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    Not even sure I realized I could jump cancel vs weapon tap. I've only ever used FB on one toon to try it out but didn't like the timing in her loadout
  8. Hunted2468 Well-Known Player


    Yeah the bosses in Gotham in FR have a 1-shot. Sometimes its unavoidable. They tend to stand still doing nothing right before it. I think Amazon Deflection should work better for that but i haven't tested it yet. Plus if you use Amazon Deflection remember to pull for aggro before using it. As long as Amazon Deflection is up and you don't jump out of it, you're stuck on one knee unable to move.

    Resto has its place but just not for Tanking Raids. It helps you out in solo's and duos with Regenerative Shielding mod. Usually i'll have different LO's set up on multiple Armouries. 1 for Elite/Raid, 1 for Solo/Duo, 1 Battle Tank and 1 for testing.
    • Like x 1
  9. DeitySupreme Steadfast Player

    Ice is one of my personal favorites. You said that you don’t think you will be switching artifacts any time soon so you wanted to stick with the ones you had. So I’ll see if I can modify a loadout based on that.

    For ST, it’s pretty straight forward:

    Heat vision, ice Boulder strike/frost snipe, finisher, wintery tempest/reflection, robot sidekick, blizzard

    Boulder VS frost snipe depends on if the boss summons adds and if the boss is mobile.

    Wintery tempest vs reflection depends on boss that jumps around and if you need the added defense from ice armor plus the shield. Ice is a unique power because it’s tanking passive is also active in dps. If you use a shield regardless of you being in tank role or not, you gain ice armor which increases your defense by 35%. If you wanted to, for whatever reason, gain even more survivability you could also add fortified assault over escalating might and have 45% defense boost lol. I also like reflect now more then ever because it gives me something to clip my ally with to get back into the rotation quicker.

    And I like blizzard as a supercharge because the head mod give 10% supercharge back instead of 5% like other head mods. Add that with your chest mod means you will always get 15% back every time you use it. If you have a green spammer than you can even use it off cooldown.


    For AoE:
    Impelling ice (supercharge generator), ice Boulder strike, avalanche, freezing breath, robot sidekick, blizzard.

    Ices SC generator doesn’t split but is mid range. So between freeze breath and impelling ice you will need to find a sweet spot for your abilities to hit max amount of targets. Impelling ice and freezing breath are both 6 sec cooldown abilities so they will be polar opposites in your rotation with ice Boulder being the bridge with avalanche.


    If I were you I’d check out AVs videos on ice since my top toons haven’t been ice for a while so he might be able to help out more. Also, since you mainly tank with ice and dps left over stuff, you may prefer a pet build for dps using grim, quislet, and source shard. Or tetra/trans, quislet, and source shard.


    And finally, for tanking. You are better of using max health over max dom. The thing is that your shields will normally be enough for bosses. Bosses are where ice shines. The issue with ice however are content with a lot of adds. Even if you max out dom your shield will still be shredded by adds. Bosses attacks, while strong, have an attack pattern with slight pauses in between. Adds don’t have this issue since their numbers give little space between. The constant damage is what breaks the shields. This is why having a higher health is beneficial. You have a higher EHP for the healers to work with.
    • Like x 1
  10. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    Ok, was curious about blizzard. It's a good super to use on a st boss? Saw it was an aoe so figured one of the st supers or even a buff was a better choice. The shape shift, as much as I love it, is not great so already swapped to freeze ray to try that out. Which so far, meh. Was planning to try NVB tonight even knowing I don't love it. I'll slot blizzard in for sure. Aside from running reflection, those are pretty much the loadouts I ended up with. Not a giant fan of the supercharge generator being a mid range since I love long range builds so that's been snowball for aoe. Should probably give mid range a try tho.

    Tank side, I ran ise last night for the 1st time ever as a tank. Didn't cheese the 1st boss and made it thru. Was hectic for sure. Right now, sp is set max dom and 150 into health. Had some big oh poop moments but the troll was great and water healer was strong. That boss, I was using 5 shields and the group pull. So amazonian, ww, reflection, HLS, and the group break out one. Plus emitters and dampening fields. I realllllly missed the ground slam that rage has in there.

    2nd boss, yeesh. Had to change things up. Put in the ground slam in amazonians spot. Helped a ton and made the fight a lot easier. Emitters constantly. Again, troll was probably the reason I made it thru. Still a solo healer and he said that on our 2nd attempt, I barely took damage except for 1 big hit.

    Last boss is just too easy to notice anything on. Overall, we had some random downs in hallways. There's just so many adds behind pillars and boxes that the dps would hit before I could get them in. Ices one aoe pull just seems to get ignored alot. To the point were I overdo it and they become immune. I'm used to rage bringer into ground slam.

    Elite alert went a lot easier last night too. Can stand in the orange aoe with any shield and survive vs while I was rage, I had to run away in 1 sec or I was dead. Going to try that long range "pull" that isn't a pull tonight to see if it's better than the ground slam that also isn't a pull. As is right now, I think that's where I'm suffering the most issues. I admittedly do not tank elites often but it's going better with ice than it did with rage. Regular was always easy but things like solo tanking dme were impossible for me while being well above cr. Maybe lack of any op or elite gear?

    Will try full health spec and 150 into dom tonight. Unless you think I should do max health/100 dom/50 resto? Aside from that, I'm just going to need to practice being in my utility belt much more often and get used to wet noodle pulls lol
  11. DeitySupreme Steadfast Player

    Regarding blizzard. Neo venom is definitely better for ST since bosses these days tend to move around a lot. You could take a bunch of head mod boxes in your inventory to switch during cutscenes or have 2 different head pieces saved to the different loadouts with the respective head mods in them.

    Yes, it’s a bit annoying that impelling ice is mid range. But it not splitting is what makes it almost as good as earths generator. However earths close range. For my ice I am toying with getting him quislet eventually since at 200 it gets even more SC. Which will allow me to get blizzard even faster. There are a few powers who I use the SC gen in regular loadouts. But they must meet specific requirements to be worth a slot. If you have moments where hallways adds are spread out and in low number groups than replacing impelling ice for something else might be better since it’s base damage is low. It relies on not splitting to be any good.

    And for tanking I personally max health, 60/60 split in dom/resto and rest in dom. I do 60/60 since that’s where they get the percentage milestones. 1-20 get an extra percent every 5 points. Then 21-60 an extra percent every 10 points. And finally 61-100 every 20 points. If you have too, if take away to 10 points from health to get to the milestone for these.
    • Like x 1