So /Ice is pretty bad?

[seresibyl3]

Aside from being super unpopular (aesthetically), it also seems to have some power-reducing bugs with Frigid Shield...

 

So anyways,

I know you can (sorta) easily get capped S/L/E/N - but it leaves your Fire/Cold defense kind of weak (though you passively have 75% cold resist just by existing). IB gives you maxed pretty much all resists except Psi - 

 

but it seems with Frigid shield being so weak, you won't get much out of the set? 

[oldskool]

IO bonuses can cover F/C.  

I've run Ice/Ice two ways.  First was to softcap the types other than Psi, and this certainly possible.  Its a tight build though if you're not wanting to use Agility Core to close some gaps, and I didn't want to do that.  The second way to go is to just say F it and try to shoot for 32.5% defenses and lean on purple inspires.  One should be able to easily overshoot that goal.  I wasn't even trying that hard and got to 35% defenses.  

Here are some other issues: 

 

- End management of Ice is pretty terrible compared with most other Sentinel Sets.  It's end management is linked to a drain power that also boosts defenses and its not great.  At times it feels like Consume in Fiery Aura is better, and that's saying a lot since Consume is pretty crappy too among Sentinel end management solutions.  

- Icy Bastion will cover your endurance really well, and layers with Ageless to help mitigate the point above.  Now you're highly reliant on post 38+ powers to cover end.  That's not uncommon, but it isn't fun if you exemplar a lot.  

- Hoarfrost can cap your hit points along with Accolades making the level 35 power nearly worthless.  The slow resistance is about it for that power and you can try to pick that up with a travel set of IOs.  

- You've already touched on Frigid Shield which I wish worked like its Blaster counterpart which is light years better.  

 

Now, when I ran with 35% defenses I could still attack from mostly range and survive just fine on x2/+8.  Once you get the level shift x3 may feel OK, but I think it just takes too long.  Softcapping all the things makes even x4/+8 feel OK as long as you're not getting hammered on -defense.  The time to kill issue was a bit worse though because the 35% defense take ran damage procs in the single target powers.  

TL;DR: Take Energy Aura and color it like your primary.  You'll still have typed defense set that is superior in every way besides slow resistance.  Who cares about how much ice resistance you have?  Anyway, this is what I ultimately did (switched to Ice/EA).  Ice Armor for Sentinels needs some work to make it friendlier to the leveling process and fix its current problems within its loadout.