Freeze Ray or Bitter freeze ray?

[Elia87]

As per topic, i have an ice blaster which i'm not sure which power to pick between the two mention above. Freeze ray has high dmg and is fast to cast..BFR has superior dmg but is slow as hell..what do you guys think? Any suggestions are more than welcome 

[Parabola]

Freeze ray every day of the week and twice on Sundays. The important metric is dpa (damage per activation) and freeze ray is streets ahead of bitter freeze ray.

[Elia87]

2 hours ago, Parabola said:

Freeze ray every day of the week and twice on Sundays. The important metric is dpa (damage per activation) and freeze ray is streets ahead of bitter freeze ray.

Just a curiosity l, should i slot it with as many procs as possible or standard 6slot a set?

[Chelsea Rorec]

I'm in the other camp.

Bitter Freeze ray has great range and can 1 shot an NPC, it is the sniper power of ice blast (not offically).

I wanted 2 holds in my ice/ice and i went for BFR and Freezing Touch and i slotted both for damage.

 

[Parabola]

25 minutes ago, Elia87 said:

Just a curiosity l, should i slot it with as many procs as possible or standard 6slot a set?

On a blaster it does a lot of base damage and blasters tend to need to slot sets for the bonuses. Ideally you would eventually want to put the unbreakable constraint proc in it so 5 of something else and that proc is what I usually end up with. 5 apocalypse including the proc + the unbreakable constraint one would work very nicely.

[Elia87]

I am so noob, sorry for the questions guys i am trying to understand the mechanics of the game..bear with me please. Your insight in much much appreciated!!

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, Elia87 said:

I am so noob, sorry for the questions guys i am trying to understand the mechanics of the game..bear with me please. Your insight in much much appreciated!!

Don't worry we all had to start somewhere! This game manages to be both simple and complicated at the same time with a lot of that complexity hidden from plain sight (like how best to use procs).

 

Bear in mind that there is no 'one right way' to either build or play characters. Experimentation is always the best way to learn what works for you. It is generally accepted that freeze ray is the superior power to it's bitter cousin but you can happily take both and try them out for yourself. Until I read the reply by @Chelsea Rorec above I'd never noticed freeze ray has less range. It isn't going to be enough to get me to change any of my builds (the dpa gap is huge) but it's interesting to know.

[Snarky]

I run both.  THe Hold is important and useful in certain fights.  The animation is slightly too long on a fast rolling team unless you NEED the hold.  Like Ice Patch, it is a power I took but only use when I need that exact thing. (I stay at range so Ice Patch is an indication things went south)

[Elia87]

Question: do procs work in rain powers?

[Carnifax]

58 minutes ago, Elia87 said:

Question: do procs work in rain powers?

Not well. Rains act a bit like toggles for Rains so get forced into the "recharge is set to 10 seconds and they only check every 10 seconds" thing. Couple that with their big AoEs and their % to trigger ends up quite low.

 

Keep procs for your direct attacks. 

[Carnifax]

Actually of all your primary attacks Bitter Freeze Ray isn't a bad choice for procs. Lob 3 non recharge bits of Thunderstrike in, stick in one random IO in the 4th slot to get damage to ~100% then you have two spots for procs, and you can slot Hold ones. 

 

The cone can be done similarly. 3 Artillery for the Def bonus (the ones with Range enhancements are good), take the Posi with range in it too and top off with a Posi and Bombardment proc.

[Chelsea Rorec]

On 7/13/2021 at 5:25 PM, Carnifax said:

Not well. Rains act a bit like toggles for Rains so get forced into the "recharge is set to 10 seconds and they only check every 10 seconds" thing. Couple that with their big AoEs and their % to trigger ends up quite low.

 

Keep procs for your direct attacks. 

Procs in freezing rain have a chance to fire when the rain is cast and then 10 seconds after.

Seen it on my storm controller but as she's not got many damaging powers it is like a mini nuke.

You won't need it on a blaster tho.

[brasilgringo]

2 hours ago, Chelsea Rorec said:

Procs in freezing rain have a chance to fire when the rain is cast and then 10 seconds after.

Seen it on my storm controller but as she's not got many damaging powers it is like a mini nuke.

You won't need it on a blaster tho.

the immobilize proc and -res procs ain't too bad on blasters if you can spare the slots, for your Rain

[GhostDawg]

On 7/11/2021 at 10:13 PM, Elia87 said:

As per topic, i have an ice blaster which i'm not sure which power to pick between the two mention above. Freeze ray has high dmg and is fast to cast..BFR has superior dmg but is slow as hell..what do you guys think? Any suggestions are more than welcome 

Both.

Great anti-boss strategy. Bosses are hold resistant. They can normally shrug off a single hold unless It came from a controller or domination boosted dominator. Open with BFR then light em up with Freeze Ray. By the time they break that hold they'll be practically iced. (see what I did there?)

 

 

Edited July 15, 2021 by GhostDawg

[Snarky]

13 hours ago, GhostDawg said:

Both.

Great anti-boss strategy. Bosses are hold resistant. They can normally shrug off a single hold unless It came from a controller or domination boosted dominator. Open with BFR then light em up with Freeze Ray. By the time they break that hold they'll be practically iced. (see what I did there?)

 

 

Was doing a Sara Moore last night on my Dark Dark.  He also uses two holds.  I could fast snipe a fake nemesis (not triggerring bubble but softening them up) then apply two holds. Now the thing is powerless.  Then I burned it the rest of the way down.  A teammate saw me do this and was like WTF?  You can do that?  O, yeah, you can do that.

 

I use this same tactic for Paragon Protectors.  Works like a charm.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Snarky

[arcane]

On 7/12/2021 at 3:58 AM, Elia87 said:

Just a curiosity l, should i slot it with as many procs as possible or standard 6slot a set?

Either, but if you don’t need sets the best thing is to follow the PPM formulas and see where a proc starts to contribute more than damage enhancement. For instance an Apocalypse: Damage IO boosted by +5 is often better than a proc, so the sweet spot can often be 4-5 procs.

 

But yeah, always get Freeze Ray. That and Bitter Ice Blast are non-negotiable. Bitter Freeze Ray is optional as a big attack with a good proc rate if you can stand the animation time.

 

I’m happy to answer any proc questions as I’ve been making proc monsters forever 🙂 though it should be noted Blasters benefit less from procs on average than many other AT’s.

Edited July 16, 2021 by arcane

[Elia87]

14 minutes ago, arcane said:

Either, but if you don’t need sets the best thing is to follow the PPM formulas and see where a proc starts to contribute more than damage enhancement. For instance an Apocalypse: Damage IO boosted by +5 is often better than a proc, so the sweet spot can often be 4-5 procs.

 

But yeah, always get Freeze Ray. That and Bitter Ice Blast are non-negotiable. Bitter Freeze Ray is optional as a big attack with a good proc rate if you can stand the animation time.

 

I’m happy to answer any proc questions as I’ve been making proc monsters forever 🙂 though it should be noted Blasters benefit less from procs on average than many other AT’s.

Ohhh proc master! Enlighten me! I am sooo interested into using many procs on a AT! Blaster would be better as i love them, but any is fine! I love all those orange numbers popping up on the baddies!

[arcane]

12 minutes ago, Elia87 said:

Ohhh proc master! Enlighten me! I am sooo interested into using many procs on a AT! Blaster would be better as i love them, but any is fine! I love all those orange numbers popping up on the baddies!

Basically procs do the same damage across all AT’s, so they will get more beneficial relative to damage enhancement on lower damage AT’s. You can still have Blasters with a lot of procs - I certainly do - it just isn’t as extraordinary compared to damage enhancement as it is on a Tanker, Defender, Controller, Sentinel, etc.

 

Vigor Alpha is something I strongly recommend if looking into this because it covers both accuracy and endurance. If you can get to a 95% hit chance without actually using accuracy enhancements, that’s when you can really go all in and start putting 6 procs in some powers. 
 

Also note -res procs are important to not overlook. They don’t give you a shiny extra orange number but they are quite efficient at making all the other numbers bigger.

 

My most proc-heavy builds typically wind up with ~25 damage procs and 2-4 -res procs, to say nothing of other procs like LotG, Panacea, Shield Wall, etc (ofc I get all those too!). It doesn’t leave you with much room for set bonuses so you then want to prioritize getting to 95% hit rate and some recharge bonuses (won’t be able to get as many as other builds but at least shoot for +50%). 
 

Anyway Mids is probably your friend but I don’t have Mids because Mac, so I calculate everything manually referencing PPM formulas, ED formulas etc on hcwiki and raw data on uberguy’s update of city of data.

Edited July 16, 2021 by arcane

[Snarky]

Since i do not use mine for DPS as much i mule it for ranged defense and enjoy the hold.  I have a decent ST chain and AoE work mostly