Good single-target secondary for Ice blaster

[MirAdj]

Feel free to send me to a different archetype if necessary;

 

I am trying to build an excellent single-target toon under the following caveats and would like some help;

1. Not a melee toon.  I will deal with a Blaster's secondary being melee but that is as far as I will go.  No scrapper, stalker, etc.  I would prefer Troller, Fender, or Corruptor, but my understanding is that they do not measure up to Blaster's damage.
2. No equipment.  No rifle, devices, arrows
3. Stats based on Level 50 with full incarnates.  I do not care if it is good at low levels if it is not the top at end game.
4. Preferably not fire.  I dislike fire.  I admit that I cannot justify my stance, so don't bother asking.

 

Any suggestions with explanations?  I heard that Ice is second only to fire, so that is as far as I could manage on my own.

Edited August 13 by MirAdj

[Force Redux]

Ice/ice blaster. Mine is essentially a controller lite with excellent damage. Very safe.

[Maelwys]

/Ice is certainly safe; but I'm not sure it's all that ranged-friendly.
Ice Patch, Frozen Aura and Freezing Touch are genrally regarded as the set's best powers and they're Melee or PBAoE. Shiver might help a bit for mitigation I guess.

IMO /Tactical Arrow is the best Ranged secondary, but if that's off the table:
+ /Energy (Boost Range, and also for setting Power Thrust on Autofire to punt away anything that gets too close)
+ /Martial Combat (Reach for the Limit and Inner Will; plus Ki Push for sticking on Autofire. And maybe Throw Sand and Burst of Speed too)
+ /Mental (It has a few ranged cones; even if their animation time is a bit long. Its Ranged Immobilise and TK Thrust can help keep stuff away)
+ /Plant (Vines and Entangle are decent. Strangler and Spore Cloud are OK-ish)
+ /Atomic (Electron Shackles and Positron Cell are Ranged. Metabolic Acceleration increases your recharge rate)
+ /Temporal (Time Wall, Time Stop, Time Shift are all ranged. Time Lord increases your recharge rate)

If it was me I'd likely go /Temporal, /Martial or /Atomic. /Martial will be safest but /Temporal and /Atomic's +recharge buff will help your Ice Blast attack chain more since it wants a lot of global recharge. Atomic would also provide a filler attack or two that can take the Achilles' Heel -res proc (e.g. if you're not using Weaken Resolve).
 

  

6 hours ago, MirAdj said:

I would prefer Troller, Fender, or Corruptor, but my understanding is that they do not measure up to Blaster's damage.

 

Specific Corruptor combos are very powerful (and you'd not be working against your own Secondary by avoiding the highest DPA melee abilities!)
Ice/Cold Corr is the obvious standout that's good for everything.

If it didn't have the "Ice Blast + no weaponry" caveats I'd be recommending a few Sentinel builds (Elec Blast and Beam Rifle are both very decent).
 

Edited August 13 by Maelwys

[professoronblow]

I would recommend plant. You can lean into the control aspect so nicely with entangle and strangler. Plus all the holds in ice, and some debuffs- about as close to a controller as you can get playing a blaster. 
 

the epic pools can add additional holds, too. You can skip the melee powers and take 4-5 out of ice, leaving room for some flavorful picks in other pools. 
 

Maybe color the plants blue and make it look like icicles. 
 

just an idea- let us know what you pick!

[Force Redux]

I do like plant... And it does for some concepts (water/plant, recolored it as sea weed), and it has holds for extra control, vines is great at range with the Lockdown hold proc.

 

Plus the sustain offers a nice vine graphic that's pretty unique for nature concepts

Edited August 17 by Force Redux

[JediDave]

/energy is great for going full range. The sustain is  target independent, boost range helps thematically, and the T1 melee attack is just giant knockback to get melee enemies out of your face. 

 

That being said, if you just want big ST damage at range, corruptor and sentinel are also viable choices with a bit more flexibility, and even a dominator could do what you're looking for. If you're looking for ST damage for AV/GM purposes, corruptors' scourge will help out a ton, and they have a lot of debuff options that will pump up your damage and the rest of the team's damage on that big target. If you just want to delete standard bosses, blaster is still probably your best bet, though sentinel isn't too far behind and can survive a lot better if your team isn't the best. 

 

Following your caveats, I'd say Ice/Energy blaster, Ice/Cold corruptor, and Elec/Bio Sentinel are your best bet. Bio I would say minimal visuals and the damage adaptation.

[Nemu]

On 8/12/2025 at 11:44 PM, MirAdj said:

I will deal with a Blaster's secondary being melee but that is as far as I will go

I don't know what you really mean by this, are you ok with using melee attacks in a blaster's arsenal or no? Your statement doesn't make your intent super clear.

 

If you are open to punching stuff in the face with a blaster I'd highly endorse electrical manipulation. It has multiple tools to keep you alive in melee range and it adds another hold to your arsenal. There are not many secondaries that comes close to /Elec in terms of consistent, reliable melee range mitigation AND ST damage output.

[Thraxen]

Do ninja and just skip the sword powers. Adds chance to crit to your ice attacks. Probably not the best with blizzard vs other t9s, perhaps?  My ar/nin is super fun but I took two of the sword attacks. But he mostly ranged. 

[MirAdj]

On 8/18/2025 at 10:30 AM, Nemu said:

I don't know what you really mean by this, are you ok with using melee attacks in a blaster's arsenal or no? Your statement doesn't make your intent super clear.

 

(Not a melee toon.  I will deal with a Blaster's secondary being melee but that is as far as I will go. )

I might have been misremembering things, since I so rarely played Blaster.  My (incorrect) memory was that Primary was ranged attacks and Secondary was melee attacks.  But in viewing all the secondaries now, they appear more support/control than melee damage.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

[MirAdj]

Thank you all for the feedback.  I'm currently trying Ice/Time, but will probably do some others as well.

[Force Redux]

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/Ice is certainly safe; but I'm not sure it's all that ranged-friendly.
Ice Patch, Frozen Aura and Freezing Touch are genrally regarded as the set's best powers and they're Melee or PBAoE. Shiver might help a bit for mitigation I guess.

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I would actually argue that ice passion Frozen or are actually very good for ranged characters, because they keep things trying to melee with you away from you. There are many maps where you can't just hover or get distance, and so having alternate means to deal with meleers is helpful.

 

Narrow corridor or cave? Ice patch.

 

Mobs get to close? Tag then with frozen aura, makes it easier to kite. 

 

🙂🥶❄️🧊

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Force Redux said:

I would actually argue that ice passion Frozen or are actually very good for ranged characters, because they keep things trying to melee with you away from you. 

 

Ice Patch is PBAoE Knockdown. It's useful, but it's not going to increase your ranged damage output at all.

 

Frozen Aura is a high damage PBAoE attack masquerading as a CC. Sleeps have gotten a little better recently but a Mag3 non-deep one is at best going to momentarily mez LTs until your Blizzard or Ice Storm ticks wake them up.

 

Shiver is decent and can consistently make a spawn hit the -movement speed cap from a good distance away... but if you're after a melee keepaway ability, IMO you'd be considerably better off just taking Bonfire and not slotting it for KB>KD.

[Force Redux]

6 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

Ice Patch is PBAoE Knockdown. It's useful, but it's not going to increase your ranged damage output at all.

 

Frozen Aura is a high damage PBAoE attack masquerading as a CC. Sleeps have gotten a little better recently but a Mag3 non-deep one is at best going to momentarily mez LTs until your Blizzard or Ice Storm ticks wake them up.

 

Shiver is decent and can consistently make a spawn hit the -movement speed cap from a good distance away... but if you're after a melee keepaway ability, IMO you'd be considerably better off just taking Bonfire and not slotting it for KB>KD.

 

 

Bah, sorry @Maelwys I was thinjking of the -slow on the sustain toggle, I should know better lol. U are right of course.

Iced Patch is very useful. It's very range friendly. Not dying is always good for dps. I love it in my blaster, and stalker. 

Nice thing about CoX, there's more than one way to do anything, so the more ideas the merrier. 

[Mr_Enigma]

Energy Manipulation is pretty melee-heavy, but its really great for just having access to power boost:  it extends the length of your two holds (and stuns from EM attacks, if you end up using them), and lesser-known, it increases the -tohit in Blizzard and Bitter Ice Blast (shoring up any lacking defenses).  Oh, it also greatly enhances the slows from ice attacks.

 

I would suggest keeping an open mind on melee attacks.  Energy  Manipulation is very hard-hitting, and oh-so-satisfyingly "Bam! Pow! Crunch!". And with good defenses, Ice/EM blasters can be the quintessential blaptroller - blaster, scrapper, and controller.  I LOVE the combo.  Here's my build:

 

Baron Arcanum - Blaster (Ice Blast).mxd

 

EDIT to add:  Power Boost also boosts your defense powers for 15 seconds (but not your defense bonuses from IOs, keep in mind).  It can really help deflect alpha strikes if you have meaningful defense powers.

Edited 19 hours ago by Mr_Enigma