Ice Mastery APP thoughts?

[biostem]

Has anyone tried out the newer APP, "Ice Mastery"?  If so, what are your thoughts?  Does the pet share a similar "4 mins up, 15 mins recharge" as PPP pets?  What about the other powers?  I appreciate your input.  Thanks!

[Glacier Peak]

3 minutes ago, biostem said:

Has anyone tried out the newer APP, "Ice Mastery"?  If so, what are your thoughts?  Does the pet share a similar "4 mins up, 15 mins recharge" as PPP pets?  What about the other powers?  I appreciate your input.  Thanks!

Corruptor thoughts, with Defender values being slightly higher for comparison:

 

[Doomguide2005]

Totally missed this addition.  Definitely got my interest though reading about it.  I'll have to take a look in game.  I run a Cold/Ice Defender and he's already quite strong.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Totally missed this addition.  Definitely got my interest though reading about it.  I'll have to take a look in game.  I run a Cold/Ice Defender and he's already quite strong.

The Build Up is terribly fun and the Ice Elemental can become quite tanky which is useful when soloing against AVs. The shield can slot both res or def set IOs and Hoarfrost will get you a pocket self heal. 

[MoonSheep]

looks not too bad, will check it out - thanks for the analysis @Glacier Peak

 

i haven’t been playing much over the last months but started a poison/ice def before waning out. ice mastery could be a nice addition rather than psi mastery for Dominate with 5 procs in it

 

on an alt like poison with lots of -res, dominate is near enough a delete button for enemies

 

 

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, MoonSheep said:

looks not too bad, will check it out - thanks for the analysis @Glacier Peak

 

i haven’t been playing much over the last months but started a poison/ice def before waning out. ice mastery could be a nice addition rather than psi mastery for Dominate with 5 procs in it

 

on an alt like poison with lots of -res, dominate is near enough a delete button for enemies

For all that Ice Mastery is, it's certainly a unique ancillary powerset. No holds persay, aside from the AoE Sleep that you can squeeze some Fortunata purples out of if you are chasing set bonuses. The real stars IMO are the shield and the heal, especially for the 1606 HP crowd like Defenders and Corruptors.

[drgantz]

It appears to be good and is for for people who want an Ice theme, but I'm upset that it doesn't have Hibernate.

[Shin Magmus]

     It has some uses on other ATs but we're on the Defender forum: the CD on Build Up is way too long.  The powers were not balanced around available options in other Epics/Patrons, which is unfortunate because that's the comparison all players at all skill levels make when choosing their ONE Epic Pool.  Nobody is going to give that Build Up a look compared to Spirit Drain, which both lasts longer and has a lower CD, or Soul Drain, which has a similarly very long CD but at least it grants a buff for 30s giving it some situational use cases.  You'll sometimes see people on these forums defending objectively outclassed powers, but nobody serious is taking Ice for any reason other than aesthetics/theme.  It's outclassed but workable if you're doing like Snow aura + Frost trail aura + MinFX Ice Armor to try and look a certain way... but even those thematic reasons are harder to justify when you could just buy the aesthetic armor effect you want for 250 Prismatic Aethers.