Ice - Focus & Talent Selection

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What should an Ice character be selecting as their focus and talent?

I'm guessing that the most important stats are dexterity and endurance, but I could be wrong.

I was thinking of taking the +16 dexterity and the one that granted +5 each of dexterity and endurance.

[Archived Post]

Dexterity and Endurance will be important if you take the Ice Form power, as the damage and resistance buffs it gives are based off of those stats.

Oddly enough, the Innate Characteristic for the Ice framework, "Absolute Zero", is Dexterity and Recovery.

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I went Con/End. Why Con? Nothing like upping health and damage at the same time. At level 16 I mow through things without a worry.

~Sun

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That's a unique strategy.

I should have thought of it.

I went DEX/END.

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I went con/end on my ice hero too, she can gather 7-8 mobs no problem and shatter em down.

The extra health helped alot in this.

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I went con/end on my ice hero too, she can gather 7-8 mobs no problem and shatter em down.

The extra health helped alot in this.

Did you take a defensive passive?
Or are you just relying on Killing them faster than they kill you?

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Did you take a defensive passive?
Or are you just relying on Killing them faster than they kill you?

Went with Iceform. At level 13 with end superstated, it litterally doubled my damage at rank 1.

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I hate the look of ice form.

Is there any way to play an effective Ice character without it?

Is there any way to turn off the "become a block of ice" aspect of it?

I'm currently level 12 and getting my butt handed to me by a level 11 supervillain in a mission (the electric eel super soldier in fishing mission in the Canada area). I had been attempting to avoid taking ice form, but I can't beat him and I think that would help.

But I don't want to.

Why would Cryptic let me design my character and appearance in such a detailed way and then create a power that hides all that; a power that you absoluetely have to use!?

Edit: Here is my current build at level 12:

Powers:
Ice Shards (no upgrade)
Ice Blast (no upgrade)
Wall of Ice (Level 2)
Shatter (Level 2)
Flight

Superstats:
Dexterity

Talents:
+8 Dex
+5 Con + 5 Dex
+5 Con +5 End

I have 1 power unspent. The plan is to take Endurance as my second superstat.

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Take regeneration or PFF, they have no graphic I think.

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Invulnerability has no graphic. Plus the unbreakable self buff is nice too (click, take almost no damage for 15 seconds or until you attack).

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Thanks!

So this isn't as hopeless as I thought.

It looks like personal force field might be the best for my style, but I'm split between it and invulnerability.

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I hate the look of ice form.

Edit: Here is my current build at level 12:

Powers:
Ice Shards (no upgrade)
Ice Blast (no upgrade)
Wall of Ice (Level 2)
Shatter (Level 2)
Flight

Superstats:
Dexterity

Talents:
+8 Con
+5 Con + 5 Dex
+5 Con +5 End

I have 1 power unspent. The plan is to take Endurance as my second superstat.

You do not have a Defensive Passive, that is why you are dying against the super villain.
Take a defensive passive and try the same fight and see if you really need ice form.

To make PFF really effective you may need the surge ability which Regenerates the shield when you click it. Otherwise when the shield runs down..you are back to being paper.

[Archived Post]

Isn't Ice Form a defensive passive?

[Archived Post]

Isn't Ice Form a defensive passive?

Ice Form is an OFFENSIVE passive. To use it you need to be in Offensive or Balanced Mode.

in Offensive Mode you lose a bunch of health in exchange for doing 20% more damage.

You cannot use an Offensive Passive, and a Defensive Pasive together...as you only have ONe Slot.

When playing Solo, going into Offensive Mode is usually suicide, regardless of the 20% buff.

[Archived Post]

Ice Form is an OFFENSIVE passive. To use it you need to be in Offensive or Balanced Mode.

in Offensive Mode you lose a bunch of health in exchange for doing 20% more damage.

You cannot use an Offensive Passive, and a Defensive Pasive together...as you only have ONe Slot.

When playing Solo, going into Offensive Mode is usually suicide, regardless of the 20% buff.

Oh!

So, then I actually shouldn't take Ice Form. I'm glad I used the boards.

So now its just deciding which defensive to take.

[Archived Post]

Oh!

So, then I actually shouldn't take Ice Form. I'm glad I used the boards.

So now its just deciding which defensive to take.

No no no..I didn't say you shouldn't take Ice Form...

There are those players that swear by it!

They say it is the best thing since sliced bread and bacon.

They say they cut through everything like butter.

IT sounds , though, like they destroy content like a river destroys a mountain.
My experience is you have much better game flow with a Defensive Passive when playing Solo. If you have someone to soak the damage and generate threat against enemies...then you can be free to run a Offensive Passive and really destroy .

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No no no..I didn't say you shouldn't take Ice Form...

There are those players that swear by it!

They say it is the best thing since sliced bread and bacon.

They say they cut through everything like butter.

IT sounds , though, like they destroy content like a river destroys a mountain.
My experience is you have much better game flow with a Defensive Passive when playing Solo. If you have someone to soak the damage and generate threat against enemies...then you can be free to run a Offensive Passive and really destroy .

Right, I understood you.

I meant take Ice Form to overcome my current problem, which seems more based on lack of a defensive passive.

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i got iceform early and maxed it out with advantages. it's great. it will ice-up your targets and set you up for shatter. you can then use icewall and shatter again! shatter is bread and butter... provided your targets are iced-up first. btw, i don't notice myself looking like a block of ice, do u? i just get white and fuzzy.

i noticed something about iceform. it says it buffs "elemental" damage. contrary to logic, what this means is it buffs damage to 1. Ice, 2. Fire, 3. Toxic. that's it. so for a 2nd set of powers, one might think to go for some fire or toxic powers to expand your options. i'm planning to go toxic, add the dragon toggle and devour essence from the supernatural set.

As for talents, I focus on Dex, Ego, and Recovery. Dex= greater Crit chance. Ego= greater crit damage, and Recovery keeps my energy up. i'm just looking for damage. at around lvl 17, my stats are about: Dex:80, Ego: 70, Recovery: 50.
Everything else is pretty low. But i'm mostly soloing content. If I were lvl40 and doing serious stuff, I'd be more interested in Pressence to keep my agro low. but for now, Dex, Ego, Rec is it for me.


I also took the ice-shield to help protect me a bit since i'm not really getting any Constitution. took me a while to learn how to use block effectively. but once you do... it's a life-saver.

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did you Solo the Fight Club mission, or poe=pwned with that build?

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me? i did not solo either of those missions.

i tried fight club solo and got as far as the last boss. i just couldn't get him down because his health regen outpaced my ability to do fast damage AND stay alive.

on my best attempt, i could get him down to 1/3 health before i had to regroup and heal myself... maybe with a health consumable i could have gotten him, but i wasn't very prepared.

POE: i also have not been able to solo...yet. i put that mission on hold for another lvl or two. ;)

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me? i did not solo either of those missions.

i tried fight club solo and got as far as the last boss. i just couldn't get him down because his health regen outpaced my ability to do fast damage AND stay alive.

POE: i also have not been able to solo...yet. i put that mission on hold for another lvl or two. ;)

So...

your entire build is based around dealing huge amounts of damage...
But you cannot solo content because you are not putting out enough damage.

Now on the other hand, I can play on Balanced Spec with a defensive passive and with varying degrees of difficulty respawning once or twice or so, get through the content.

So...I have to say that in my view going Offensive when playing Solo is simply not a good choice.

Opting for the defensive Passive and running in Balanced mode seems to be the way to go.

The Clicky Energy Forms can be used for a burst of damage.

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Would you guys say shatter is worth taking if the only ice powers I have are ice blast and wall of ice? Wall of ice is my best ice cage make and it works most of the time in doing so, but outside of the combo where shatter is used to break the cages, how is it outside of that?

[Archived Post]

So...

your entire build is based around dealing huge amounts of damage...
But you cannot solo content because you are not putting out enough damage.

Now on the other hand, I can play on Balanced Spec with a defensive passive and with varying degrees of difficulty respawning once or twice or so, get through the content.

So...I have to say that in my view going Offensive when playing Solo is simply not a good choice.

Opting for the defensive Passive and running in Balanced mode seems to be the way to go.

The Clicky Energy Forms can be used for a burst of damage.

one second. it's not the case that i can't solo content. there have been two missions i can't solo. and i have, what, two days experience playing this game? with health consumables and some more practice, i expect it will be a non-issue. i can solo roughly 95% of my missions asw it is, and i'd say that's pretty good. i'm not saying that one MUST do it my way. i'm just saying it works for me more or less. i run in ballanced stance btw.

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one second. it's not the case that i can't solo content. there have been two missions i can't solo. and i have, what, two days experience playing this game? with health consumables and some more practice, i expect it will be a non-issue. i can solo roughly 95% of my missions asw it is, and i'd say that's pretty good. i'm not saying that one MUST do it my way. i'm just saying it works for me more or less. i run in ballanced stance btw.

Granted..but I think if you were to try the defensive passive you would be even more effective, and be able to push the boundaries of your character even further.

In my view, if one builds and specs for damage...PLUS run with an Offensive Form then you should do runaway damage to everything. But that doesn't seem to be the case with CO.

The only time I've been able to use Offensive w/ Energy Forms reliably is when running with at least one other person, and that person tries to hold threat.

[Archived Post]

Would you guys say shatter is worth taking if the only ice powers I have are ice blast and wall of ice? Wall of ice is my best ice cage make and it works most of the time in doing so, but outside of the combo where shatter is used to break the cages, how is it outside of that?

Shatter damage is merely "ok" without ice-cages on targets. the nice thing about the power is that the recharge isn't too high. However, with ice-cages on targets, it's simply awesome. if you're not caging your targets one way or another, i'd skip shatter entirely.

also keep in mind that the more targets you have caged, (and the closer they are to each other), the more redundant damage is done. one's cage explodes next to another cage that explodes and hits everyone else... it's like a chain reaction of damage. also, and i could be wrong here, it seems like objects will get caged and explode as well... so even more explosions all around. :)

i'm sure they'll nerf it in time. :(

[Archived Post]

Granted..but I think if you were to try the defensive passive you would be even more effective, and be able to push the boundaries of your character even further.

In my view, if one builds and specs for damage...PLUS run with an Offensive Form then you should do runaway damage to everything. But that doesn't seem to be the case with CO.

The only time I've been able to use Offensive w/ Energy Forms reliably is when running with at least one other person, and that person tries to hold threat.

i'm not sure what you mean by "runaway" damage. i've only tried some of the other stances briefly, but felt ballanced roll was best... at least for soloing. in a defensive stance, it took me twice as long to kill targets... and i wasn't liking that. i'm not having trouble being too squishy either, (so long as i'm on top of my blocking).

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I find I'm a bit too made of glass and die too often, especially against supervillains.

The Personal Force Field has helped. Only that stupid Electronic Eel Super Soldier has been a problem.

I still think I'm playing fundamentally wrong, but I can't figure out what I'm doing. I'm reasonably mediocre at blocking, I tend to use my charge-up, wall of ice, and shatter almost exclusively, but I still just seem underpowered sometimes.

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if it helps, i aproach battles this way: i'm not just spamming attacks. i go in, hit something once or twice, then use my ice shield to block. and i keep it up for a few seconds to let their retaliations finish, then i follow up with a few more attacks and shield up immediately. if i'm not attacking, my shield is up.

my advice is to get the ice shield power and learn to block.

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I solo'd Fight Club at level 14 with no Defensive Passive. I used Ice Form in Balanced. Granted I did die 5 times but those were three times clearing the rooms and only twice to the bosses. Still, for solo and that low a level I thought it went well. I'm level 20 now and I plan on taking no Defensive Passives. I do well in Ice Form and Balanced. I crush enemies in no time flat.

~Sun

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i'm not sure what you mean by "runaway" damage. i've only tried some of the other stances briefly, but felt ballanced roll was best... at least for soloing. in a defensive stance, it took me twice as long to kill targets... and i wasn't liking that. i'm not having trouble being too squishy either, (so long as i'm on top of my blocking).

Each target that is caged when hit with shatter generates their own ice explosion that hits everyone else. So if three enemies are caged and clustered (fairly easy with Ice Wall) they all take Shatter damage once from itself, their own Ice Explosion damage, and the damage from two other Ice Explosions from their nearby comrades.

With even 3 henchmen, this is enough overlapping damage to kill the entire mob entirely; just Wall of Ice -> Shatter, dead. With 4 or 5 enemies close together, it will even kill Villains. Good stuff! I would recommend getting it even with just Wall of Ice, or at least trying it out.

[Archived Post]

I'm having trouble making the next wave of power choices after Personal Force Field.

I have two power level-ups and a rank increase saved at Level 17. Here is my build at 17:

Powers:
Ice Shard (no upgrade)
Ice Blast (no upgrade)
Wall of Ice (level 2)
Shatter (level 2)
Flight (no upgrade)
Personal Force Field (no upgrade)

Superstats
Dexterity
Endurance

Talents:
Dexterity +8
Constitution +8
Constituion +5, Endurance +5
Constitution +5, Dexterity +5

Ice shield was recomended as an improved block. I wasn't impressed with it in the power house. In fact, it seemed to block the same as the regular block, but it added an icy coating to my character, which must have meant something (besides looking bad).

Frost breath and snowstorm were underwhelming in the beta, as was the one that creates the pillar of ice and has a recharge time of near 30 seconds.

What do people recomend?