Ice flenser help

[Cheesegut]

I am having issues with Ice flenser's polar rays at mid levels at the moment. I barely scraped through invaders and the first archon quest, but am now having trouble with demon assault. They do so much damage, and as a mele I basically can't avoid them. I can solo reaper fine on literally every other quest up to this level (with a hire for heals), but will wipe several times in almost every quest with mid to large demon packs with two or more Ice flensers. Like I said, I can handle literally every other enemy just fine, including reapers to an extent and other demons, but Ice flensers are brutal. Does anyone have any suggestions to avoid their polar ray? Preferably without spell absorption, as it is a pain to farm and doesn't last long enough to kill them reliably. I'm not sure cold absorption will help much either against a 230+ damage ray in terms of how many hits I can take.

[Drecas]

I assume you have some UMD. Carry scrolls of Fire Shield. The fire version halves cold damage, ice halves fire damage (good for swimming in lava ).

[Qhualor]

in a quest like Demon assault I prefer to play tactically. what I do is either

a) stand in between the entryways before each portal with hire standing behind me. he keeps you healed and helps a little with the searing light and it blocks the mobs from surrounding you.

b) if a doesn't work well than I run back around the corner that draws the mobs. not all mobs are running at the same speed. some fall behind and with the way the AI works, sometimes they try shooting/casting at you through the walls. I fight off what follows the best I can than run back to where I was before bottlenecking the mobs. rinse and repeat as needed. in between the running back and forth I always try targeting the most dangerous mobs first. they don't heal so eventually the will die.

CC does wonders for a melee build. I use trip regularly and stunning blow/shield depending on build. trip falls behind after awhile through the levels with little to no investment, but does pretty good against weaker mobs like casters. resists, absorption, protection and fire shield helps a lot too. pretty cheap to craft or at least buy the +20 pots from the Twelve.

forgot about the end fight. that part is just plain mean. if using at least what was said above, you pretty much just have to target the ice flensers first and quickly beat them down than focus on the boss as long as the other mobs aren't too much of a problem. it can get pretty nasty in there on elite. so I go for ice flensers, than boss as quickly as possible. ice flensers if they respawn before boss is dead and usually have to clear some trash because DA gets bad at that point.

[Powerhungry]

Demon Assault (and the other two Savarath quests there) are scaled way above anything else in that level range (as are the two flagging quests for epic shroud)

[Cheesegut]

Thank you all so much for the help. I DO have UMD, but didn’t think of fire shield for some reason. The tactics strategy I recently figured out, and it works wonders, so thank you very much for the help as well. You are correct about the other mobs being fairly easy-fire reaver scorching rays are a joke compared to the solar rays.

[Enoach]

There are other aspects that people tend to forget about when dealing with situations like Ice Flencers.

1. Polar Ray is a Line of sight attack - Break line of sight and it misses you
2. Fireshield. Scrolls are common thought, but there is also a ML 13 necklace great for the less UMD inclined as well as potions (rarer but still useful)
3. Energy Protection potions - sure 70 to 120 HP doesn't seem like a lot, but that is still 70 to 120 less actual damage - Quaffing those potions is still cheaper then healing yourself
4. Spell Absorption - we have so many sources of 1 charge per spell and 1 charge per spell level tools that having at least one of these options can expand upon your survival.