Emma Frost is one of those characters that feels incongruous while leveling due to stange level gating of powers- you're handed her minion skills instantly but don't get her melee single target attack until the 40s. I was motivated to try Emma because I wanted to play around with minions as they relate to pet mechanics in general. The first thing I noticed was that these minions retain their collision detection properties. Secondly they appear to retain their attack speeds and certain aspects of their AI, which could lead to some interesting exploitation of programming. But ultimately minions can't really be a build unto themselves as there's a significant cooldown on detonation and their true utility is as a group haste buff.
So in the 40s I finally got to try her hybrid build. The idea seems clear- apply DoTs then wail on bleeding foes in diamond form. But diamond form seems to provide virtually no protection to make squishy Emma capable of melee, and the lack of movement options doesn't help. Though perhaps there's some key unique I never acquired. I then switched to a pure mental build and the results were instantly much better. Her DoTs become quite potent and her single target channel, drain psyche, restores so much health that it's essentially tankier than diamond form. I definitely enjoyed mental Emma, and she's got some interesting mechanics, but I'm not sure why I would pick her up again. If I want to play a stationary telepath, I'll just hold off until Professor X rolls up.
Next I completed Silver Surfer, who I'd been waiting on to mix up my hero experiences. I tried a balanced build at first. I quite like the concept and execution of the shared cooldowns of deconstruct and reconstruct; it introduces some subtle strategies. But the nature of the powers themselves- DoT and HoT- do not feel impactful enough to cycle so frequently. The other major component of a balanced build, EMF, is of course a shadow of its original self- not fun to use alone and doesn't seem to synergize with deconstruct/reconstruct.
So I switched to a full movement build and found where the fun was hiding. I love the board swipe. I love laying down the vulnerability field for it's "rip a hole in the earth" visual before doing the movement power that flies through the planet. And board dash- holy hell, this makes playing Juggernaut look sophisticated. I can easily complete terminals by only using board dash (and LMB to enter the boss door and/or pick up your cube shard if necessary). I love the way it sends off microbeams to vaporize trash in a way that let's them know they're trash.
Silver Surfer's also interesting from a design perspective in that he's got just one basic and one passive (or three depending on your feelings on his toggles), as well as an irresistible stun on a fairly short cooldown. I'm not sure if he's ready to take over for my Juggernaut or if I'd even prefer that. But terminal-running Surfer is as great as I'd imagined.
