Ice/ice tricks?

[Thraxen]

Any cool or unique slotting tips tricks to this combo?  Think of trying caltrops based on another post. 

[Thrax]

Unsure on best spot for ATO proc.  Here is first build.  Seems pretty durable with Icy Bastion up a lot of the time.  

 

Ice Thrax - Scrapper (Ice Melee - Ice Armor).mbd

[Yomo Kimyata]

Two top 5 sets in my books, but I don't find they synergize very well in my experience.

 

I usually take 6 powers from Ice Melee (T1 or T2, Frost, Build Up, Ice Patch, Freezing Touch, Frozen Aura).  The problem with slotting the crit strikes proc is that you'd like it to be active for Freezing Touch in ST and/or Frozen Aura for AoE, so slotting it in either of those gives great trigger chances but reduces your crit damage.  Frost is a good place if you take the time to line up 3 or more in the cone.  I like to match Ice Melee with more offensive secondaries like Bio or Radiation Armor, and I'll slot the Crit strikes proc in DNa Siphon or Radiation Therapy.  Freezing Touch takes holds and Frozen Aura takes sleep; I generally frankenslot the former with Hecatomb and Unconstrained and for Frozen Aura will 5-slot superior avalanche and the heal from Call of the Sandman.  I'll also slot my other single target attack with 5 sup Blistering Cold including the hold proc -- you'll stack holds on bosses even without a Lockdown proc in Freezing Touch.

 

Ice Melee is a control set, and I find that works better with resistance based secondaries.  I always overbuild Ice Armor since I mostly pay attention to positional defenses.  I'll take everything except Icicles unless I really want Icicles.  I don't remember if the Energy Manipulator stun proc automatically works on minions or if the lack of accuracy hurts, but it's a decent way to neuter minions while you work on the bosses.  Icy Bastion is a fantastic power, and you should end up with maxxed out resistances on all but psi when it's active.  I wish I could 8 slot that power.

[Thraxen]

Call of sandman only ever proc once or can you get multiple procs?

[Yomo Kimyata]

11 minutes ago, Thraxen said:

Call of sandman only ever proc once or can you get multiple procs?

 

Once per activation.  But that's plenty.

 

[Thrax]

I'm gonna try in greater ice sword.  Seems like that's where I had it in ice/bio when I had it.  Ended up deleting it though.  

[Sancerre]

not intending to steer you in a massively different direction but ice/ice (both primary and secondary) are IMO much better for stalker.

 

the big decision to me for scrapper vs stalker is how well controlled the scrapper crit strikes proc can function and whether or not you get a taunt aura.  ice armor does _not_ have taunt aura (to my knowledge) and the crit strikes proc just does not have a great home in ice melee (best served in freezing touch but also sucks to put it there -- greater ice sword recharges too fast to be reliable proc but is otherwise your next best option).

 

stalker trades greater ice sword for assassins strike (big win) and icicles for hide, which helps buffer out more +defense.

 

ice melee is top tier regardless anyways (stalker and scrapper).  ice armor is a bit of an oddball though because it doesnt end up specializing hard enough into particularly anything defensively (except the T9 when it is available)... i personally feel like it needs _SUBSTANTIAL_ investment into the expensive winter sets to get a lot of fire/cold defense added in that is mysteriously missing from the power set otherwise.  there are other ways to get fire/cold defense set bonuses but winter sets are like the fast lane i guess.  anyways... it can feel like a bit of a problem for surviving solo without making creative use of your ice melee holds/ice patch against toxic/psionic/fire damage types before you make the big IO set investments.

[Yomo Kimyata]

47 minutes ago, Thrax said:

I'm gonna try in greater ice sword.  Seems like that's where I had it in ice/bio when I had it.  Ended up deleting it though.  

 

I'm not a fan of elemental swords, and everyone seemed to hate GIS on a DPS/A basis so I generally take frozen fists and skip the two ice swords.  Not optimal, but Ice Patch, Freezing Touch, and Frozen Aura carry the set.

[Without_Pause]

5 hours ago, Thrax said:

I'm gonna try in greater ice sword.  Seems like that's where I had it in ice/bio when I had it.  Ended up deleting it though.  

It is a good one to skip and if you need another attack, you can grab one from an Epic pool. 

[Thraxen]

Ended up scrapping this and rerolling as ice/sr. Frozen aura much better when you don’t have a damage aura waking them up. I’m just a sucker for SR anyway mostly. 

[Thrax]

Well, after some playing to lowly vet lvl 4, think I've found best place for ATO proc anyway.  I have it in Freezing Touch.  ST you can use Ice Sword and Greater Ice Sword afterward.  AOE you can use Frozen Aura and Frost.  Did end up going /SR so recharge is high and perma hasten isn't a problem.  Have Freezing Touch proc'd out too so the ATO first most of the time.  Seems ideal.  

[hejtmane]

I have taken ice/shield and  Ice/ea tweaked out builds and another one I tried and retired ice/bio armor stripped of IO's in my graveyard  for now all to 50

 

I played a lot of Ice melee i would advise skipping ice/ice that just me Ice/shield or Ice/ea are better option IMO

 

Now on Greater Ice Sword

It is better DPA in the attack chain but you don't lose a lot for FF

Now if you use GIS  put your scrapper IO Crit in that power I find it works best in the build.

The best way to explain GIS it feels clunky  in the attack chain I wish they shave just a little animation time of GIS maybe down to 2.17 or even 2.00 that boost the dpa and smooth out the attack chain but one could dream.

 

On Freezing touch it is one of the few attacks that can get double up on 4.5ppm purple damage procs so purple it with 5 heathcombs with  the damage proc as one and Unbreakable damage proc as the other.

 

Yes dropping caltrops and ice patch is great. Ice patch will also allow you to beat some mobs at lower levels when under geared. Leverage Ice patch when leveling it will make things easier so take it as soon as it is available and leverage the dam thing

[WindDemon21]

On 11/4/2023 at 12:24 PM, Thraxen said:

Any cool or unique slotting tips tricks to this combo?  Think of trying caltrops based on another post. 

Definitley put the entomb proc in freezing touch. Put the crit proc there as well so you can use it before your aoes to help boost those, and it'll help boost the single target too. While having it in GiS (which still needs it's animation fixed as does frozen fists) would be a slight bit more ST damage, it's way too slow to use before your aoes after build up/gaussians proc.

 

Oh yeah, obviously put gaussians proc in build up.

 

If they ever fix ice patch/slick/nitrogen to properly take slow/kb ios and sets there would be some options in that power decently, but can't right now, just one slot it with the recharge or end reduction.

 

Frozen aura put the call of the sandman heal proc in it. I would put 3 eradications for 3.13% energy/negative defense. Damage, quad, and proc, the cots heal proc, and boost two purples acc/dam/rech and damage proc.

 

Greater ice sword, as mentioned they still need to revert it to the faster ice slash 1.83s animation, but on scraps at least it works with the crit proc. It doens't have much special about it besides having higher base accuracy, but that helps enough to make that the spot where you put 4 kinetic combat, which are atrociously bad on accuracy, (set really needs acc/dam/end 6th piece, and dam/rech should be dam/end grr), but put in the 4 stat IOs of KC, and then put in the other 2 slots the purple damage proc, and another damage proc if you want.

 

But since they nerfed both EA to not really stack anymore, and the global typed defense nerf since you have almost zero fire/cold defense now, It would be good to put a full winter set in it for smash/lethal/fire/cold defense.

 

Likewise, frost is a good place for a full winter set too for 7.5% more fire/cold defense.

 

Split scrappers strike between ice sword and icicles, so 3 of each, and then in the other 3 slots in those two powers put 3 eradications in icicles for 3.13% more e/n defense, and in ice sword put in 3 pulverizing fisticuffs for another 1.25% e/n defense. Make sure you max the recharge on ice sword. It's very important to keep your ST chain more fluid, and you're not putting procs in it, it's basically taking the place of the tier 1, but since frozen fists is so god awful, this is what you do.

 

You can put the power transfer heal proc into energy absorption too for a little more heal.

 

The heal proc in frozen aura, EA, and absorb in freezing touch basicaly equates to about 300% regen so they're very useful with ice armor.

 

Make sure to max the heal/resist stats on icy bastion.

 

You could put a couple of damage procs in chilling embrace if you want but any build i've done i've found that not worth it for the proc rate in toggles.

[WindDemon21]

On 1/14/2024 at 4:51 AM, hejtmane said:

Now on Greater Ice Sword

It is better DPA in the attack chain but you don't lose a lot for FF

Now if you use GIS  put your scrapper IO Crit in that power I find it works best in the build.

The best way to explain GIS it feels clunky  in the attack chain I wish they shave just a little animation time of GIS maybe down to 2.17 or even 2.00 that boost the dpa and smooth out the attack chain but one could dream.

GiS actually already had the 1.83 second Ice slash animation that domintars currenlty have. The old devs nerfed it to be this dumb slow version, nudevs need to fix it back to that. Frozen fists is also god awful, they need to just make it the .83s brawl animation that charged brawl and energy punch have and just call it frost punch. These two changes would make ice melee about perfect.

[WindDemon21]

On 11/22/2023 at 7:28 PM, Thraxen said:

Ended up scrapping this and rerolling as ice/sr. Frozen aura much better when you don’t have a damage aura waking them up. I’m just a sucker for SR anyway mostly. 

If going that type of route I would heavily suggest ice/shield. The heal proc in FA goes further with shield since it won't negate SR's scaling resists and is a REALLY big boost for shield. Shield also gives you shield charge which is really nice with ice melee to help on the alpha strike. It also boosts your damage with a big mob around you with against all odds to help offset the weaker single target damage if you get a few hits off on the hard targets while some enemies are still around you it helps that out a lot.

 

There is also a bonus which made me want to do the combo in the first place even without these synergies in that there is an actual "ice shield" option that looks glorious with the ice swords together.

 

For either, ranged defense is always the toughest thing to get on a melee typed build (they need to fix/add some sets to get more ranged defense on melee/pbaoe attacks, and smash/lethal defense for ranged/ranged aoe attacks grrr), so I would change frosts slotting to a full artillery set for 4.07% more ranged defense, plus as a bonus the set offers 25.6% more range to frost which is REALLY noticable for it, taking it's cone from 10feet to 12.5 feet really lets you hit a bigger mob. It doesn't sound like much but it is the difference between a whole other layer of mob distance (think 5ft per enemy, means you can hit about 50% more targets up to the target cap)

[hejtmane]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:02 PM, WindDemon21 said:

GiS actually already had the 1.83 second Ice slash animation that domintars currenlty have. The old devs nerfed it to be this dumb slow version, nudevs need to fix it back to that. Frozen fists is also god awful, they need to just make it the .83s brawl animation that charged brawl and energy punch have and just call it frost punch. These two changes would make ice melee about perfect.

I would love 1.83 on GIS  and yes FF change to ,83 would also be a good change