Does Arctic Air do anything besides eat endurance?

[Diantane]

I’ve tried a couple confuse SO’s, but no critter fights their own kind. Have tried two slow SO’s with no difference. So is this just a power that should be spec’ed out?

[Mr. Vee]

I liked the power a lot on my dom but it had a second slow aura and I only started liking arctic air once I figured out that it doesn't work so well with aoe immobilize. It's great mitigation if they're either confused or slowly trying to run away rather than attacking; not so great mitigation if they're just standing there occasionally confused. Problem on a controller would then be how are you setting up containment in the downtime of ice slick if not with the immobilize. 

[Seed22]

4 hours ago, Diantane said:

I’ve tried a couple confuse SO’s, but no critter fights their own kind. Have tried two slow SO’s with no difference. So is this just a power that should be spec’ed out?

On IOs it's amazing, but if you're doing an SO only build? Maybe hold off on it till later I guess?

[Diantane]

My character is new. Just created him last night. He was Ice/storm, but didn’t care for the blinding trait of hurricane. So I re-rolled him to keep the name, “Freezermax.” He turned 22 and I went to sleep. Started  using SO’s at level 7. I’ll start using IO’s in another ten levels. Then see what happens with it.

[Arcadio]

The real game changer for arctic air is the purple confuse proc which can only be slotted at lvl 50. With that, when someone gets confused, there's a chance for several enemies around them to get confused as well. My ice dom keeps most enemies around confused for a good amount of time. 

 

While leveling AA is still somewhat useful, but more so on a team or against small groups. The confuse and slow are not quite effective enough to keep you alive by themselves unless you have some good defenses by yourself. 

[Uun]

Slotting confuse (and endred) is your best bet. Unenhanced, the confuse effect has a 30% chance to occur every time the power pulses (every 2 seconds) and has a 3.7 second duration at lvl 50 (the duration is shorter at lower levels). Fully enhanced, the duration is almost double, increasing the chances that foes in the AoE stay confused. Slotting for slow isn't worth it, as it comes close to flooring movement speed out of the box. Most efficient slotting (ignoring set bonuses) would be 3 confuse/endred IOs from 3 different confuse sets. 

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=controller_control.ice_control.artic_air&at=controller

[Riverdusk]

Are you trying to fight +4's or something?  That would severely cut down on the duration of the confuse effect.   You also won't notice it of course if the rest of your team is wiping things out in a few seconds.  That's unfortunately one of the drawbacks is that it takes a few seconds to "get started".

 

My own experience is I definitely regularly notice confused enemies from it, even at a low level.  Heck, I was on a DFB not too long ago that had an ice controller on it while I was on my plant controller.  Some people credited me for all the confused mobs while we were doing it assuming I was using seeds.  I had to tell them I didn't even have access to that power on the beginning of a DFB, it was all the ice controller's doing.

[Corythia]

I agree with Uun, try slotting Arctic Air with 3x end/confuse and a end/slow and it will work really well for mitigation.  Also go back to Ice/Storm someday.  Hurricane is one of the most difficult powers to use because it's situational, usually it isn't all that helpful, so I keep it just to pin things in a corner or debuff an AV, but mostly it isn't on.  Other /Storm powers are great though, Freezing Rain may be my favourite power in the whole game, and combined with Ice Slick, anything that actually gets to stand up for a second is likely confused, or doesn't have the recharge to do anything to you. 

 

If you really don't want to do /Storm though, you might try Ice/Rad, or Ice/Nature.  Arctic Air + the hold aura from either of those is really effective in shutting things down in a pretty good area.  I would probably go with Ice/Rad, but both should work.  Honestly with anything Ice control, you are looking at mid 30s before it begins to show its true power.  Before that you may have some difficulty.

[siran]

My very favourite dominator is my  ice/savage. AA is absolutely top notch. I 6 slotted it with the AT set by about level 10 and never looked back. Maybe 2/3 of every non boss opponent was confused. It's not 'perfect' but it does really take the bite out of the bad guys as mentioned above. At about level 41+ (I might have the level wrong) I had world of confusion which stacks with it, and nothing less than an elite boss is unconfused.

 

The very best part about it is that 'there is nothing to do'. You get top notch control just by leaping into the middle of foes. At levels before defence soft cap if soloing I would open with a sleep, but as soon as your defences are good you don't need to. I only use ice patch for laughs before AA is that good

 

As mentioned the purple contagion proc makes it even better, but it's not needed: it's good with just 'confuse + end reduction'

 

I've just started an ice/storm and it's great. As mentioned freezing rain is one of the best powers. All the powers are good (I'm in the 'O2 boost is the best heal in the game' camp rather than the 'O2 is skippable' - but then I team a lot) except maybe hurricane which is situational. I do herd using it, but I make embarressing mistakes.... Against AVs it's great.... but all in all it's the least impressive power for my play style.

 

[Panache]

19 hours ago, siran said:

My very favourite dominator is my  ice/savage. 

 

+1 to all this, and there’s also the side benefit of Savage’s End Discount more than paying for AA’s End cost.

[roleki]

Arctic Air is autohit, so you really only need to address Endurance and effects.  Seconding @Corythia's suggestion to top it off with an End/Slow/Rech, as that extra bump in -Speed seems to make a huge difference in the effectiveness of AA. 

 

@Diantane, if you ever find it in you to give Ice/Storm another chance, try it with Hurricane as a situational toggle instead of a key component of the build... Ice/Storm is one of my favorite controllers because it leverages an abundance of soft controls like Fear, Slow, Knockdown and Confusion to the point where anything short of an EB is a trivial obstacle.  I *have* Hurricane, but I rarely pop it because whatever nerds I've seized upon are too busy bugging tf out to fire back at me.