Ice/? or stone/?

[Bubbles232]

I need help I am looking to make an ice or stone controller, not sure which secondary's I am leaning towards ice as you dont see it much but im open to anything please help

[Uun]

Earth is a much better set than ice. While several of the powers are comparable, earth has more useful secondary effects (-def vs. -rch). 

Quicksand > Shiver

Stalagmites > Arctic Air (100% mag 3 stun vs. 30% mag 3 confuse)

Earthquake > Ice Slick (-def & -tohit vs. -spd)

Volcanic Gasses > Glacier

Animate Stone > Jack Frost

 

[Bubbles232]

ice doesnt give any effect bonuses?  other than slow obviously.  I know neither are super for dmg but I want a great team utility person.

[Coyote]

Ice gives -Recharge, which is useful but not great.

But losing an AoE opener that mezzes the entire spawn besides bosses (Stalagmites) is a big loss. Arctic Air is a good power, but I'd rather shut mobs down at the start of a fight.

 

Quicksand vs Shiver isn't a big deal, as I don't see either as that great.

Jack vs Stoney is close... Stoney is a bit better, but Jack does do more damage.

Volcanic Gases is a lot better than Glacier, but with the long recharge it doesn't have a great effect.

 

The main difference is in Stalagmites vs Arctic Air.

 

If you do go Ice, I suggest a secondary with a -ToHit debuff, then you run a character who nerfs enemy attacks rather than prevents them. See this post for why:
Ice/Rad design and why it works

Options are Rad, Dark, Time, Plant. Not Poison, because it takes too long to get Noxious Gas.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

Quicksand vs Shiver isn't a big deal, as I don't see either as that great.

Quicksand isn't great as a slow, but it has a huge autohit defense debuff - just the thing for Nemesis w/ Vengeance. It also has -fly.

[Doomguide2005]

While Quicksand isn't fantastic at higher levels/endgame it is very solid in the early levels.  It has three things going for it.  The defense debuff helps hitting, it's a patch you can use from behind cover (don't need los) and last don't under rate the slow.  It can buy you time as powers recharge allowing you to stack mez while foes try to get to you/the team or just plain get away if you got more than you bargained for coming your way.   I've never heard anyone say Earth Thorn Casters and their QS was anything pleasant, iirc they got nerfed precisely because of stacking QS 🤔.

[Bubbles232]

Would traps really be good? I want a traps guy but never sure who to put it on... Seen a grav/traps seems fun but really solo, if I do ice or stone I want to have tons of team play one reason I kinda want to ice is there isn't many and it's funny to watch people slip around lol

[Doomguide2005]

Traps is very potent set.  But its also rather difficult to play on a fast moving team ... lots of laying your trap(s), looking up to see the team moving to the next mob having obliterated 'your' mob.  Steep curve (or tolerance) to learning how to use traps on such teams.  On the other hand you'll be an enormous boon when fighting AV's, Monsters, GMs etc.  Your debuffs are potent.

[TygerDarkstorm]

She's still a baby, but if you decide to go Earth Control, I run mine with /kin to bring a little more oomph to the low damage Earth/ powers. Others like to pair it with /storm for that oomph. I've never placed Ice/ so I can't comment to that, though @5099y_74c05's post inspired me to try an Ice/Time controller.

[Doomguide2005]

My concerns with both Earth and Ice would be damage, which is why Storm is so often used as stated above.  Not very familiar with Time and I know the set can take procs for adding oomph but not sure if it's enough or not.  Then again for teaming it should bring plenty of control and debuff to hold its own 

[Bubbles232]

Thanks all! I'm going to try ice traps, sounds pretty, interesting? Haha

[oedipus_tex]

I really like Electric Affinity paired with Ice Control. There's a lot of ways Electric Affinity makes up for weaknesses in Ice. Mainly, in giving you mezz protection to run Arctic Air on a set that still gets healing and endurance recovery.

 

Jack Frost is normally a so-so pet. Paired with Electric Affinity I suspect he's nearly unkillable. Electric even gives him knockback protection.

 

You'll still be a low damage character, but a sustainable one.

 

For APPs I really like the Leviathan set for Water Spout, which does decent damage and adds some much needed control to supplement Ice's so-so soft controls.

[Nemu]

If you want to be super manly then you should make an ice/poison controller.

 

1 - Two super end heavy toggles that gets shut down when you are mezzed and contribute to ~60-80% of your survival - check

2 - You need to be in melee range among all the scary things trying to kill you for the above two toggles to work, so getting mezzed really adds to the excitement - check

3 - You won't have much end recovery to spam other powers with those two toggle running (until cardiac) - check

 

4 - You don't have to do much to neuter mobs, all you need to do is stand next to them

5 - You can have a late game build with softcapped range/aoe defenses, debuff melee mobs so you can effectively have softcapped melee defense too, have mez protection and softcapped psi defense just a tad shy of perma, and hard capped S/L resist.

6 - You can celebrate your manliness by dancing in the middle of a mob trying to kill you, cuz you are a manly man and you don't give AF.

[Coyote]

58 minutes ago, Nemu said:

If you want to be super manly then you should make an ice/poison controller.

 

1 - Two super end heavy toggles that gets shut down when you are mezzed and contribute to ~60-80% of your survival - check

2 - You need to be in melee range among all the scary things trying to kill you for the above two toggles to work, so getting mezzed really adds to the excitement - check

3 - You won't have much end recovery to spam other powers with those two toggle running (until cardiac) - check

 

4 - You don't have to do much to neuter mobs, all you need to do is stand next to them

5 - You can have a late game build with softcapped range/aoe defenses, debuff melee mobs so you can effectively have softcapped melee defense too, have mez protection and softcapped psi defense just a tad shy of perma, and hard capped S/L resist.

6 - You can celebrate your manliness by dancing in the middle of a mob trying to kill you, cuz you are a manly man and you don't give AF.

 

Are you allowed to slot attacks other than Brawl, or would that be unmanly? 😄

[Nemu]

They are pacifists and pacify mobs through non-violence. That's the mark of a real MAN.

 

Plus there is no endurance to use even brawl....

[Doomguide2005]

Thinking of an utter lack of end leading to an inability to defeat anything so makes me want to try my Ice/Sonic troller again ... oh boy was that painfully masochistic to solo.

[roleki]

On 10/7/2020 at 7:35 PM, 5099y_74c05 said:

Ice/Traps?  I've not seen many in game nor do I have one myself. I think it has some synergy that is overlooked. /Traps has a few powers that give extra control to complement weaknesses in Ice/, notably Web Grenade, Caltrops(Stacks -Speed with Ice/), Poison Trap(PBAoE), Seeker Drones(Alpha breaker). FFG is a great +DEF shield allowing you to play at melee range. Acid Mortar is also good at drawing fires away from friendlies. Its an odd pairing but has a few things going for it IMO.

Ice/Traps is sneaky good for soloing; /Traps shores up Ice's damage deficiency, and Ice has several ways to buy you time to set up trip mines. If you go /Stone mastery and dress up Seismic Smash, you're basically a stalker with nukes.

[Without_Pause]

Earth/storm just utterly and completely wrecks things. You can be on a team which goes after multiple mobs. You can be the star on a Prevent 30 Fir Blog from escaping or whatever they are called mission.

[krj12]

If you're going ice, make sure you pick a secondary with damage.  I have an Ice/Cold, which is ok in groups... but solo is not fun at all, way too slow in the dps department.

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by krj12

[Corythia]

As someone mentioned earlier, Ice doesn't have a great opener.  Ice Slick is OK, but not great.  You can fix this by pairing it with a good accuracy Debuff (RAD, Dark, Nature).  Once that toggle is set,  you can run in with Arctic Air and other pbaoe(choking cloud for Rad, entangling vines for Nature, or even the pbaoe Accuracy debuff/+regen +recovery debuff/buff in dark.)  So Ice can work well with the right secondary and be very powerful.  I have an Ice/Rad controller that pretty much just stops EVERYTHING once the toggle is set and she jumps in to the middle of a mob.

 

Earth anything will be strong control wise.  I have an Earth/TA and an Earth/Storm that are both amazing in groups. 

 

Both Earth and Ice will be slow to solo, but great on teams.

[BurningDezire]

Ice/Cold is fun. Though it depends on what you're aiming for. For me, I don't care to do dmg. If I want to solo or do DPS I'll go play a Blaster or Scrapper. Slowing things down and debuffing the F out of them is so fun with Ice/Cold. The animations and sounds are great too. Heat Loss is awesome!