need help with ICE loadout DPS

I have been tweaking with ice for about a week now.

My loadout is

1. snowball
2. Arctic Gust or Avalanche
3. Impaling ice
4. WT
5. IBS or FB
6. blizzard

I have been fooling around and trying to find out the best possible loadout.
I just can't seem to find it.

I don't really like using frost blast, I know its a hard hitting spell.. But most of the time I find myself casting it and getting knocked down etc and wasting that 5 seconds.

I've tried frost snipe I get mixed results. What should I do?
Ditch this loadout?

im cr 205 with 280sp

Ok, your loadout is decent so far. But Frost Snipe is probably not the best option, unless you want single target damage.

Frost Blast IS the hardest hitting power in Ice, and is actually useful if youre comfortable using it. It yields amazing damage, but as an Ice player, you have to know when its the right time to use it.

Wintry Tempest or Cold Snap is a must, as it is your DoT.

Avalanche seems the right way to go as it does more damage than Arctic Gust, and its ranged

Snowball is a no branier. I would recommend ditching that

Ice Boulder Strike is one of your hardest hitting AoE powers. It is deff recommended

Blizzard or Ice Elemental are both great, it just depends on what your like more. A- high damage over time or B- buffed damage for 30 seconds or so

Impaling Ice is also useful as it is your Supercharge generator. But its also not needed if youre experienced.

This is in no way a loadout that you absolutely have to have to be top damage. Ice is versatile. This is my opinion and I chose what works for me. People say that Ice is mid tier, but if used in the right hands, you can be a God. The ONLY power I have not been able to beat is a Raged Melee dps that knows what hes doing. The powers for Rage and the availability to use those powers are just stupid fast and can yield amazing damage. Im still trying tho lol

The above post by ballistic ice is full of really good advice. Should consider linking to it in the guide thread.

Other thoughts:
You can put Blizzard or Freeze Ray inside your Ice Elemental load out-- Essentially turning them into 100% supercharges.

Adding a shield to your load out gives you a defense buff just like tanks get. That makes Ice more melee friendly than most powers.

Freeze Breath is a pretty strong channel and inflicfs frostbite. Well worth a skill point.

Other ice users in my league use supers, but for me the animation takes too long (ice elemental) or just doesn't hit hard (blizzard). Also I would have to take out an ability that I want to keep. Some raids I beat them, some they beat me, but it's usually real close. We are all around 230ish cr.

I use robot sidekick. Free damage and it ranges. I also use reflect so I can get near the ads, but also help with pick ups.

My rotation for ads:

WT clipped with reflect, then IBS to start. Then either Avalanche and Arctic Gust, end with IBS, then start WT clip all over again if it's up again. If not a quick avalanche.

IBS hits hard on groups of ads.

I like Avalanche because it hits hard for range and I can hit ads from a distance while on the move.

Frost blast is such a hit and miss for me that I don't use it on ads. It is worth experimenting with. I do use it on my single target loadout as it's ranged.

Impaling Ice used to hit really hard, but now it's just okay. It's good for building supers if you go that route.

Also drink a nitro, pop trinket whenever it's ready and use orbitals and henchmen.

Again this loadout work for me. I can melee with reflect and I can range with everything except AG.

I've been messing around with a full-range Ice loadout for certain content and so far it seems alright.
I've been playing with:
1) Wintry Tempest.
2) Reflection.
3) Ice Boulder Strike.
4) Blizzard.
5) Avalanche.
6) Freezing Breath.

Rotation is:
1+2, 5, 3, 6, 3, repeat.

I was really hoping to incorporate Glacier Flash, hoping it was on par with Rages Channel Hate, however it felt kinda meh at best. I will hit the dummies a bit and see if I can come up with something better for range.

Overall it's a little power hungry but kinda fun

Precision lol

Snowball is only good in the very beginning when you don't have anything else.
Avalanche deals more damage and has longer range than Arctic Gust, but can't be spammed like AG.
Frost Snipe is spammer too and has good damage, but for single target only.
Ice Boulder Strike is good AoE, it's worth putting into loadout.
Frost Blast is the heaviest hitter Ice has, but it's vulnerable to interrupts and has long casting time.

WT is essential since it's your PI applicator and AoE-DoT.
Impaling Ice also applies PI and helps build sc, but its damage is poor.
Resonating Gale is another PI-applicator, but its damage is worse than Snowball's and serves better as frontal pull for tanks.

Blizzard is strong DoT-based SC, but sadly it's stationary: sometimes target can move out of its range.
Deep Freeze is decent and deals good damage if it crits.
Freeze Ray yields high damage, but it's channeled and can be interrupted.
I never really used Ice Elemental, but folks say it's good. Well, each to his own.


As for examples...
This is what I've been using for months now:

Loadout:
Wintry Tempest - Reflection - Avalanche - Frost Blast - Arctic Gust or Ice Boulder Strike - Blizzard
Rotation:
Wintry Tempest clipped with Reflection - Frost Blast - Avalanche - Frost Blast - Avalanche - repeat

It's fully ranged and pretty powerful, but vulnerable to interrupts. Arctic Gust serves as filler, for low-health adds or in case you got interrupted and have to wait for cooldowns, but it's close-ranged.
It might not work for everyone, but I'm happy with it.

If you don't like FB, it can be replaced with Ice Boulder Strike or Cold Snap or even Robot Sidekick.


More simple loadout that I often see other people are using:
Wintry Tempest - Cold Snap - Arctic Gust - Avalanche - Reflection or Impaling Ice - SC of your choice.

Clip WT with Reflection, hit CS and spam AG and AV while WT's on cooldown. Reflection can be replaced with something else, but having shield for more survivalibity is always good.

Some people use DoT-based loadout:
Wintry Tempest - Cold Snap - Bitter Winds - Robot Sidekick or Snow Devil - Arctic Gust - SC.

Which I personally don't like since single cast of Avalanche or Frost Blast hits harder than any DoT.

In most cases, WT+Reflection and AG spam seems to be the way.
Can't say anything about Weapons Expert or Hybrid playstyle, as I play strictly from the tray.
I don't claim to be an expert, but I've had my share of maining ice for several years.

Ice is versatile. Play around, experiment and find something that works for you.

-_-

Agree 100%. I for one use both Wintery Tempest and Cold Snap. Who can beat two DoTs? Lol

When revamp first launched, the two main moves to have were ice boulder and frost blast. They are still quite good. In raids where you have a tank, you shouldn't get interrupted so FB should still be viable.

Boss wise; Earth-3 Jonny quick and T9'd starro conqueror are very mobile. They move fast and teleports. That's why you see more mentioning of moves like avalanche and freeze ray (SC). Those moves 'track' the target as it darts across the screen. Avalanche does less dmg than Frost Blast on tradional slow moving targets, but on fast moving bosses; at least your hits are still landing. Remember, the other DPS powerset in the raid are having the same situation.

For DoTS, when parsing I personally found it with a loss of DPS (ex: WT clipped with shield). Idea wise be nice to fit one in.

If elite; don't be shy on shields; (in DPS), sometimes I put two; winter Ward and one other. Survivability and two beneficial powers to clip the non channeling power(s) with.

Ice is lacking in single target dmg. The single target burst moves are below avg compare to other powers, ice has dots (three moves) but they're supplements, iconic equalizer heat vision was nerfed; not too many good options left.

Please stop posting false information. Ice can do really good single target damage. I top the boards regularly on boss damage. If you want top single target damage you guys need to stop using blizzard as a supercharge, use ice elemental. With how I am specced I can use ice elemental four times on a boss fight. While in form I can crit with frost blast for 120k and I usually get three casts of frost blast off. So, right there you are doing massive single target damage. So to say ice lacks single potential is false. I run content all of the time and see many ice players use blizzard. If you want too increase your overall dps please use ice elemental. In my testing and experience ice elemental is superior.

While Ice elemental is certainly a strong move, none of the information Erin posted was false. And none of what you describe is actually single target. Frost Blast may do reasonably well in some lone boss fights-- that does not make it single target.

Pretty much all of Ice's Supercharges are very strong-- I'd say you probably won't go wrong with any of them. Ice Elemental is what I use though.

Yeah but to say it struggles in the single target is also misleading. Some people will read that and say man I will struggle against boss damage and I’m saying that ice can a boss killer. Ice elemental, frost blast, and ice boulder strike do really good damage on single targets. Avalanche isn’t too shabby either. People should play how they want, it’s your money and time. But if you want to top damage cards ice elemental is still better than blizzard

WOW!!! great discussion panel, Very informative with detailed reasoning. just trying ice now. I have much to look forward to. wish more panel discussions were like this, like a good debate without

emotional baggage. I can tell you are all passionate about your ice powered individual

Supercharge or buff trinket aside, what are you using for stationary single target (boss).

I try to save my my supercharges for the boss (ice elemental). My loadout is the following:
1. Tempest
2. Reflect/snow devil
3. Frost Blast
4. Ice boulder strike
5. Avalanche
6. Ice Elemental

Rotation: WT-R-FB-IBS-A-FB-IBS repeat. Add me in-game and I can walk you through it (Fatal Flurry). I’m always willing to help

Ok almost identical to what I have; alternate between FB and IBS. Squeezing Ava until FB off cool down.

Yeah it’s a pretty good burst dps loadout. However, here is my tip on popping ice elemental. I cast tempest, clip reflect, then clip ice elemental. Once I’m in form I go straight into frost blast rotation. This allows me to get three casts of frost blast in ice elemental which is huge

The stars of the rotation are FB and IBS. Ava has around the same cool down as FB; theoretically an ice player can just alternate between FB and Ava; while that parses well on sparring targets; doesn't do as well in live content. Because of the crits and pure burst of IBS, IBS gets the clear 2nd spot. Players are saving SC for bosses because of big health (and some for scoreboard); but this loadout is a multi-targets as well.

Ice's single target moves: frost snipe, 35% finisher, are really meh and could get some love.