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I think FF is slowing be whittled away by Cold. With the same numbers on the ally shields, more buffs, and some nice debuffs it outshines FF in most cases. I dare say that the only reason Cold has low numbers is because it came out for controllers* in I16. In a few issues it may be the ally buff du jour. As for unused secondaries, I can only reiterated what others have said: FF, TA, and sonic. FF is largely defined by the ally shields and Dispersion Bubble. The other powers in the set are often consider situational or even annoying (for example, Detention Field). Sonic suffers the same problem with a buff generally seen as less useful and some redundancy in Sonic Dispersion and Clarity. Finally, TA... aside from redraw there's... well, I'll leave it to this thread.

Having said all that, I must admit I do have two FF'ers: a fire/ff and a plant/ff both at 50. If you asked me a year ago if I would take a FF'er to 50 I would have probably said no, but I gave it a try and found that I like using Forcefields though my playstyle is a bit unusual with them. I do have a back up build just in case the team demands shields. Forcefields, maneuvers, and powerboost will let you cap most of the teams defenses, usually a crowd pleaser.

Let us not forget Ice Controllers who would no longer rely on Frostbite for containment, which effectively negates one of their best controls.

I'll tell you what's broken!

Dimension Shift is broken! Hear me Castle! Hear the bitter gnashing of my teeth!

Anyway, as to how it is broken...

Dimension Shift will apply the Phased status to anything that it hits, be it minion, AV, or GM. There appears to be no protection against it. That in itself is broken, but it gets worse.

The visual effect of Dimension Shift and the removal of hit detection boxes still relies on the old intangibility mechanic. So when Dim. Shift hits a boss with 3 points of protection versus Intangiblity and Immobilization the boss appears to be unaffected. However, it is in fact phased. Also, the Intangiblity and Immobilization are affected by level scaling. If you were to hit a +6 minion with Dim. Shift, it would be phased but retain its hit box and mobility, and appear unaffected by Dim. Shift.

The OP did mention he was doing the Maria Jenkin's arc, which IIRC has Anti-matter's kb resistant robots. That could explain the decrease in performance he's seeing.

Anyway, as others said Ice Slick is one of the lynchpins of Ice Control. Also, just to clarify a little something for the OP. Well slotted, your single target hold and AoE hold will stack through the majority of the PToD down time. After the PToD goes back up any holds be ineffective unless you're over the 50 points of protection offered by the PToD. Powerboost can help hold an AV through PToD if you have a build that can stack holds quickly, but under normal circumstances a single hold and an AoE hold will suffice to hold an AV during their suseptible period without Powerboost.

On Shiver I take the Acc/End from Pacing of the Turtle, Impede Swiftness, and Tempered Readiness. That puts you at about 74% accuracy and end. reduction. Heck, you could even throw Curtailed Speed in and take it up to 92%.

IMO, 25% defense falls into the just noticeable range. If you have another /cold or a bubbler on the team it will put you in a comfortable place. Note that you cold drop the slot from fly and place it in you epic armor where you can use Steadfast Protection: resistance/+3%def. It's slightly less defense, but to all positions and types as opposed to gaining only a ranged defense bonus.

One of the things that I feel many builds lack when people start dabbling in IO's is a lack of focus. People tend to grab up a variety of bonuses without considering how they will stack or how they apply to your playstyle. I think you've got a little of that going on in your build.

Before activating toggles, I see your build has a mixture of positional defenses without reaching stellar levels with any of the 3. For example, you have 4 sets directed at gaining ranged and AoE defense and 3 for melee. First, ask yourself where you will be when playing and what kind of defense you would benefit from the most. Then ask yourself if it's worth sacrificing some power effeciency to reach those bonuses. Considering Artic Air often puts you in melee and you have an epic shield with smashing/lethal defense I would work toward that. With a few simple set changes, I was able to reach 40.6% smashing/lethal with you power picks.

Ultimately, though you may find building for defense not as effective as focusing on individual power or different set bonuses. Recharge, for example, is generally a good bonus for controllers.

Now some random notes:

Celerity: Stealth in Superspeed is a waste of a slot. Artic Fog and Superspeed makes you effectively invisible for most of the PvE game. If you stick with the IO, put it in sprint and run it in conjunction with SS.

Aegis: Psionic/Status Resistance is pretty meh. Most mezzes are either too short to bother with or so long that waking up 3-4 seconds early won't save you (grrrr, Malta). More importantly mez them before they mez you. Some will get through, but as a controller that is your primary defense against mezzes.

Your endurance usage is pretty high in comparison to your recovery.

Just some general advice from me.

Throw out your Slow enhancements. Why? They only affect run speed, fly speed, etc. The portion of the power that really matters, -recharge, is unenhanceable. Between Snow Storm and Shiver you'll have most enemies bottomed out so they're not going anywhere. Snow Storm will suffice with two end. while I would maximize the recharge, acc, and end. reduction of Shiver. I find frankenslotting with 3 acc/end and 2 recharge IO's to be pretty good. You can also drop the two slow enhancements from Snow Storm.

You may want to skip Primal Forces as your Epic. It does little for Ice Control due to the fact that -recharge can't be boosted and it's lackluster on /cold. Both of your ally shields and Artic Fog will ignore Powerboost due to their resistance component. It also boost the endurance drain of heat loss, but not the recovery that it grants. You may want to lean towards an epic that offers some more damage such as fire, though ice can fit the bill if you want to stick to your concept. (If you consider this route, pick up Frostbite so you have a reliable source of containment.) Stone also has the appeal of a self-heal since you don't have one in your secondary.

Finally, it seems as if you are shooting for some defense via sets. That in itself isn't a bad idea, but there are some questionable power selections made in reaching that. For example, you have both Superspeed and Fly for what appears to be an extra set of BotZ. However, you could have just as easily slotted a second set in Recall Friend. Even with that you've only reached a mid-to-low level of defense. Overall, you lose out on more efficient power slotting for subpar bonuses. I recommend either focusing on individual power efficiancy or rebuilding with a stronger focus on your bonuses.

I have tried it with some mixed results. The first thing to bear in mind is that Fire Cages will only offer knockback protection for 12 seconds no matter how long the immobilize it offers. Spamming it to prevent mobs from being knocked out of the Bonfire gets to be pretty endurance intensive. The second Fire Cages that it caps at 16 targets. If there are more than that in bonfire's radius than someone is going to be bounced, also consider misses and bosses that will require two applications of Fire Cages. Finally, it's damage is spread out over its duration of 45 seconds. So it may not do quite the damage you would anticipate just looking at the numbers.

I liked it when solo. It did add a nice bit of damage for my fire/ff, but I was generally slower than what you would expect from a fire/kin or fire/storm I would imagine. On teams, the mobs generally fell before it could make a contribution. Also, some people will give you flack for using it even if you prevent the majority of knockback. Facing AV's it did have a chance to offer some nice damage and it's handy at the computer console in the ITF. Praetorian robots also have enough -kb to turn it into knockdown so it's all gravy.

Overall, it's highly situational. If you plan to run solo a lot, then give it a go. Just be wary of using it on teams.

In fairness, the Best Secondary for Earth thread offers many more suggestions for storm and rad than TA and pretty much runs the gamut of all the secondaries. To my recollection, Gravity seems to be the primary most offered up with TA, but that could very well be because Gravity is seen to lack a great deal of control of its own.

I've never played Mind/ff to siginificant levels (only around the mid-20's) so I can't say how Force Bubble plays with it. I like it on my Plant/ff, but with an immobilize I imagine it's a bit more managable. Between Mind lacking an immobilize and Force Bubble waking up sleeping foes I just may put it in the pass column.

So, when it comes down to Force Bubble v. Repulsion Bomb, it's a toss up depending on what my primary may be.

There are a few things I'd like to mention.

First, let's start with Terrify. While the ingame info says that there is a -tohit component it is incorrect. Slotting it for such is a waste. My personal preference is either the Posi set (if building for recharge) or Detonation set (if softcapping ranged/AoE) with a recharge IO in the 6th slot. The fear already lasts a good duration and will stack on itself with a moderate amount of recharge.

Second, Dispersion Bubble does provide immobilize protection. Though tossing more defense from hover or combat jumping is a good idea.

Finally, Repulsion Bomb. The damage is the same as Terrify, but all smashing. It's very useful when you run into psi-resistant mobs. However, a word of caution, the animation time is a bear, a smidge over three seconds. Also, it does not benefit from containment so Terrify will generally outdamage it. I found that once I had access to epics it quickly fell to disuse.

Kimi ni Todoke was a lot of fun. Sawako is about as cute as a button.

In other news, Strike Witches is getting a sub by Funimation. Link here for the trailer. Check it out if you're interesting in underage girls zooming around the air in their pantsu. Otherwise avoid it.

Dark_One, if you would please: Strike Witches -1.

The first step is to get the Lockdown: +2 mag proc. It's 8 second duration is longer than choking cloud's base duration. You'll see a notable improvement with it. To increase, CC's accuracy you can use set IO's, for example the end/acc from Ghost Widow's.

You can get some nice values with 2 end/hold, 2 acc/hold, an acc/end, and the proc. That's just using Ghost Widow's, Lockdown, and Essence of Curare. All of these should be easily attainable.