Ok so I love Ice's AM but it is really power hungry. Ice uses the most power per skill of any power that I play and has the weakest of the power return mechanic only at about a 75% return and you have to recase cold snap every 8 secs to keep the power return going that you dont get power back from. So what I am purposing is one of to things: 1. Increase the amount of power returned for the individual skills while cold snap is active, not unreasonable the power return for gadgets and quantum can be 100% without sacrificing to much damage. OR 2. Change cold snap to work like battle awareness where you dont have to recast is every 8 sec if you are in battle and actively using powers the power return stay up.
List your load out and describe your "rotation". I'm trying to determine if you think that an AM constitutes a power back mechanic. That does not define an AM for all power sets. As a "tank/dps" your AM is not like a controller's and is not about a power back mechanic. Ice's AM is a mobile focused attack ability. If you're trying to go weaponless and just rotate powers... /endthread.
Ice already has a power back mechanic however it is just weak and needs increasing. It has the weakest power back of all the AM's (that do have one) and at the same time requires the most power per skill to use. Cold snap, wintery tempest, ice bash, artic gust, avalance, Bizzard cold snap into WM-WT cliped with ice bash, WM into avalance twice, then start over The problem that I am seeing is you go though one rotation fine but when you start the second you dont have enough power to case WT and with no ice field the AM is useless.
Why WM? Just spam Artic Gust or Avalanche. I can get 4 AG or AV in per rotation. I have no problem with power. I only use WT when there is a controller. FYI, Fire is the worst with power refund.
If you only spam Avalanche and no ice field then you are not using the AM. It does 4-5 times more damage if the target is in the field. If you can't use the ice field then the AM is pointless to use you would do more damage using WM into frost snipe. And WM is just to slow the use of power and trying to extend the time before i run out completely.
The AM activates when an enemy is in an Icy Field OR when a player has 4 or more chill effects. You don't need an Icy field to get the same damage out of Arctic Gust and Avalanche.
You don't need icey fields. You're wasting power using WT without a controller because 4 or more chill effects increase the damage of AG/AV already. You're losing damage by using WM also. Cold Snap, Ice Bash, spam AG or AV. During these first rotation of Cold Snap, AG/AV will do less damage. Second rotation when you have 4 chill effects, damage will increase greatly. No icey fields needed, less power used.
That is true about the 4 chill effects but it takes 10+sec to build 4 chill effects. So you dont do very good damage for the first 10 sec of every group. This is the reason why the power return mechanic should be increased. To allow you to use the ice field in the first rotation then build your chill effects in the 2nd (or 3rd depending on loadout) so you have 100% up time with your AM. If you are running a duo with other dps almost every add group dies within 10 sec so untill a boss fight your not getting to use the AM at all.
When you allocate your sp, try to include the critical power chance innate, its not a big deal but can help a lot with the power back mechanics, and for duos try to not burn all your power on the first group of ads if you know they will die very fast, is all about power management to avoid getting dry
For a no risk power return mechanic, Ice is just fine with how much it gets now. If you have cold snap in your loadout and you are running with a troll power should definitely not be an issue at all, if it is you are doing something wrong. If you have trouble with power in solos/duos just use a soder, extreme soders are much better now.
That's why you Cold Snap+Ice Bash BEFORE the fight starts while everyone is standing around or the narrating is going on so when the fight actually begins, you already have 4 chills effects.
