The problem with the melee attacks in Ice Manipulation (and some other blaster sets) is they're pointless. Ice Blast deals 102 damage on an 8 second recharge. Frozen Fists deals 91 damage on an 8 second recharge. It isnt needed to fill an attack chain, so why are you in melee to deal less damage? Energy Melee gets this mostly right. Bone Smasher has a 14 second recharge, but deals 144 damage.
Blaps need to have a longer recharge and hit harder to make the risk of entering melee worthwhile. Particularly given the changes to snipes, the blaps need to be re-examined to make them useful. Dealing the equivalent of a tier 2 blast in melee range is poor design.
At minimum, the following powers need changes to recharge and damage to give them a niche.
Ice - Frozen Fists, Ice Sword
Martial Assault - Storm Kick
Mental - Mind Probe
Ninja Training -Sting of the Wasp, Golden Dragonfly
Others might need tweaks, but these are so redundant and low damage as to be waste of power choices.
I agree, I think all the Manipulation sets need a rework to replace the melee powers with ranged (attacks/debuffs) or buff abilities. Ice sword etc are not really suitable for a ranged dps Archetype. There is plenty of inspiration in comics to come up with non-melee powers.
2nd level could be replaced with a Ranged Minor DOT -SPD -Fly ; snaring runners or attackers is useful and makes sense for ice
4th level could be a weaker Block of Ice; maybe change damage value and raise recharge time
10th level, move Shiver to here; Not sure why it is so late in the Ice Manipulation set, it is a cone slow
28th level, give them Arctic Air (I think this is better than Chilling Embrace but if people prefer that maybe improve it and put it here)
35th level, Glacier with a much longer cooldown than the Ice Control version or maybe an AOE Immobilize -Recharge if people think an AOE hold is too good.
Note I dont play /Ice Blaster but I did play several blaster in live and playing a Beam/Devices one now and I would think the manipulation powers should have similar utility