Ice control

[Ukase]

On retail, there I was in Croatoa, I think. I was on a blaster, my friend was on a scrapper. I found an ice controller to help us out. This was way back, maybe 2004? 03? I remember seeing ice slick. It saved my from my ineptitude back then fairly often. 

So, in the Abyss, after getting a ribosome and a teammate getting a golgi, I joked that I was going to make a character using nothing but HO/d-syncs for enhancements. 

At the time, I thought "Ice/Dark".  Two pets, should be fine. Now, I know I'm going to PL this character, and then play it. I probably won't even worry about accolades. 

Just for fun. So, I open up mids. 

Seriously? How does a controller play this game and get levels? This thing has almost no attacks. A lot of mitigation, but even with procs - which I'm not going to use for the reason mentioned above, well, I guess that explains why I don't see ice controllers around that often. 

Something should be done, though. This just doesn't seem equitable compared to the offensive juggernaut of illusion and other sets. 

And yes, I know on a team, the buff/debuffs are pretty nice, but I don't feel like this character is going to be a great teammate with the lack of offensive power. 

[Psyonico]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

Something should be done, though. This just doesn't seem equitable compared to the offensive juggernaut of illusion and other sets

Ice is fairly comparable to Earth Control in terms of attacks, but both are far better at actually controlling groups than their more offensive counterparts.

 

Ice got a make over a few pages back, but it is still very much a "team controller" set.

[MonteCarla]

Yep.

Ice, Earth and Electric Control are all very low damage.

All have the two single target powers (Hold and Immobilise) doing basic damage, and an AoE immobilise doing very light damage. 

 

You can add damage procs - like Cold Snap takes 3 of them.

You can take Arcane Bolt or other power pools attacks, or wait for your Pet and Epic Pool damage powers.

 

I've played Ice Control once with the express intention of making a low damage Controller who'd need a team to get anything done.

And I feel that's just how it should be - some powersets should lend themselves to team-centric builds.

[evetsleep]

1 hour ago, MonteCarla said:

Yep.

Ice, Earth and Electric Control are all very low damage.

All have the two single target powers (Hold and Immobilise) doing basic damage, and an AoE immobilise doing very light damage. 

 

 

Everything you said here was accurate however with the most recent page the changes to controller pets combined with the gremlins getting more attacks has resulted in a noticeable improvement on damage output.  I was soloing when it first landed with my electric/sonic troller and the kill speed was dramatically improved with the change to gremlins (at least to me) and since I can control the it's a much more fun set, even solo.

[evetsleep]

11 hours ago, Psyonico said:

Ice got a make over a few pages back, but it is still very much a "team controller" set.

 

I'm still annoyed that you can't put the ice minstral set in Jack to utilize that cold damage proc.  I was really hoping they'd fix that.

[Ukase]

Well, the task I've set for myself is pretty silly. Even the name is silly, and potentially offensive. "Bad HOs", an ice/dark controller. 

It's really strange slotting, because I've never played Ice control before. I keep having to go into enhancement management to see what they'll take, so I can determine the appropriate number of slots. 

I've a feeling, using HOs only, this may be the first character where I feel I have too many slots to fill. Maybe I should have made it a HEAT. 

[Ukase]

For the curious and bored - here's the build. Even using trash HOs, this is going to be expensive, requiring a lot of micros and some HO that's never dropped in any hami raid I've been a part of. I can only assume they're Lady Grey specific. Not many of them on the AH, either. Stereocilla is the name of them. 
 

Bad HOs - Controller (Ice Control - Darkness Affinity).mbd

[Uun]

I had an Ice/TA controller back on live. Even with OSA, it was painfully slow to defeat anything. If I was to build an Ice controller today, I'd be inclined to pair it with Marine or Storm which provide a good amount of additional damage. Alternatively, try Ice on a dominator. 

[tjknight]

My suggestins are below. These are things I've used on a low level Controller. At high levels 40 to 50 I don't find I need them. 

 

Power Pool Attacks (Sorcery) 

Get Arcane Bolt 

Put Enflame on Pet 

 

Temporary Powers
- Hand Grenades

- Stun Grenade 

- Revolver 

- Backup Radio

 

Veteran Prestige Powers

- Sands of Mu

- Ghost Slaying Axe

- Nemesis Staff 

- Black Wand

[SableShrike]

Don’t sleep on Sleep or Fear powers now.  They both have been changed to now trigger Containment.

 

With this patch it just got a lot easier for Ice and Mind to get Containment.  And your Jack Frost will sometimes be doing Containment damage too.

[Riverdusk]

7 hours ago, evetsleep said:

 

Everything you said here was accurate however with the most recent page the changes to controller pets combined with the gremlins getting more attacks has resulted in a noticeable improvement on damage output.  I was soloing when it first landed with my electric/sonic troller and the kill speed was dramatically improved with the change to gremlins (at least to me) and since I can control the it's a much more fun set, even solo.

 

Yes, electric is actually decent damage now.  Actually came out near the top in the recent testing @BRADICAL did and posted.   It does rely on pets and procs though, and a good secondary.   

 

Relying on just HO's is going to limit things for sure.

 

I do think the early game (especially pre-pet) is what can really be painful, for most controllers.  Myself I do rely on temp/prestige powers a lot during those levels as @tjknightsuggested.  Although they didn't list my absolutely favorite one, plasmatic taser.  I can't imagine leveling a lower level controller without it now and the quick aoe damage it gives (it is basically an energy torrent clone).   Most controllers have the advantage of being able to control the knockback it does, so you can even use it in groups.

 

 

 

[JayboH]

10 hours ago, MonteCarla said:

Ice, Earth and Electric Control are all very low damage.

Didn't they just get done buffing damage in Electric Control?

[Ukase]

Well, while I think my idea is super silly, the market just isn't ready for it yet. There simply aren't enough of a certain HO available on the market to build this character as planned. So, my choices are to bid and wait..or to scrap the project. 

Hopefully, just my posting will encourage our dev team to at least take a look at the drop rates of certain HO/D-syncs. 

[JayboH]

10 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Well, while I think my idea is super silly, the market just isn't ready for it yet. There simply aren't enough of a certain HO available on the market to build this character as planned. So, my choices are to bid and wait..or to scrap the project. 

Hopefully, just my posting will encourage our dev team to at least take a look at the drop rates of certain HO/D-syncs. 

...wish Winter set pieces weren't so insufferably difficult to get also for that matter

[Ukase]

55 minutes ago, JayboH said:

...wish Winter set pieces weren't so insufferably difficult to get also for that matter

So, they are expensive for the average player. But, it's not impossible to get them. 100 RMs each? 

Consider an hour in the abyss. 5 runs, if you grab the merits each time, that's 240 reward merits. And..well, if you do it every other day, you could leave the reward unclaimed and get 280 merits for 5 runs. 

What I've done is create characters specifically to buff the league, and they rotate duties. If there's low attendance, sometimes I can swap and snag an extra 40. 
I suppose it depends on your definition of insufferable. As for me, my characters can snag those out of email because I've been around since before they put those winter packs on sale for 10M and bought a bunch. Still have some I haven't opened.