New World ICE GAUNTLET Guide and Best Builds

Want to learn how to freeze your foes in New World? This guide is an in-depth dive into all things Ice Gauntlet in Amazon’s MMO!

This guide dives deep into the Skills, Passives, and the best Builds for the Ice Gauntlet in New World. This guide can be considered a more advanced version of our New World Guide to Weapons for Beginners. By the end of this guide, you should have a thorough understanding of the Ice Gauntlet and with practice be able to fully master it.

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.9.2

At the end of the guide you will find a section that lists all changes to this weapon that AGS has implemented as they maintain and support the game in the long term.

Ice Gauntlet Overview

The Ice Gauntlet is a very versatile weapon, with plenty of burst and a ton of skills with high total damage dealt over a short window. It also has options to be built more durable with a bit less of a focus on damage.

The primary use of this weapon is placed solidly in its role as a DPS. While this skill may not pack a lot of the single hit bursts that some weapons do, it has plenty of skills that when used correctly can deal very high damage in a very short window.

The Secondary role for this weapon is Utility Tank. This weapon has very strong capabilities as a tank, but will often require a very high tier of Carnelian Gem to properly hold aggro, as it does lack a taunt. It does however have plenty of tools that allow it to excel in such a role. Combined with strong slows and high blocking potential, and it’s a very sturdy weapon Intelligence-based weapon.

Ice Gauntlet Skills, Passives, and Perks

First we’ll lead off with the skills and passives. We’ll talk a bit about each, their uses and how effective they are. There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ll break it down per tree to keep things organized.

Alongside the general information, They’ll be given a Rating from C up to S tier for both PvE and PvP. C tier is exclusively for the passives that are not that great, either being forced by another upgrade or generally useless. A and B Tiers are middling tiers, putting them between the worst passives and the best, leaning one way or the other. S tier are the good passives, the ones you’re almost always going for if you pick up a skill or want to because it’s useful in many scenarios.

Ice Tempest Tree

Ice Tempest is the Ice Gauntlet’s Tree for raw damage output. With three of it’s strongest damage spells, but less utility, most builds will use one or more skills from this tree. The Ice Tempest Active Skills are Ice Spikes, Ice Storm, and Wind Chill.

Ice Spikes

Ice Spikes creates a trail of spikes that extends out up to 8 meters from casting location, ending with a Mighty Spike. The spike trail deals 56% Weapon Damage, while the Mighty Spike deals 157% Weapon Damage. Pressing the key to perform a Light Attack will end the trail early and release a Mighty Spike where it is ended.

This is spell is one of the Ice Gauntlet’s most reliable options for burst damage. The option to cancel early allows it to be quickly cast as point-blank range, making it a very flexible skill when mastered.

With a cooldown of 10 seconds, Ice Spikes is one of the Ice Gauntlet’s shortest Cooldowns. At a Mana cost of 15, Ice Spikes is one of the ice Gauntlet’s cheapest spells.

Ice Spikes Rating: S – PvE, A – PvP

Ice Spikes offer enough AoE and burst to be a very reliable skill for PvE once you get used to canceling the skill early. It also happens to carry one of the strongest perks our of all the Ice Gauntlet perks, which can make it even stronger when use properly. It even has a sweet spot where you can deal both the trail damage and Mighty Spike range.

In PvP it can be a good damage option for close-mid range. However, the Ice Gauntlet has more reliable and flexible skills for PvP.

Refreshing Spikes

Refreshing Spikes reduces the cooldown of Ice Spikes by 10% when you hit an enemy with the Mighty Spike.

With the majority of the damage coming from the Mighty Spike you’ll be looking to do this as often as possible. The extra bit of cooldown reduction isn’t much, but it does help get more frequent usage.

Refreshing Spikes Rating: S – PvE and PvP

It’s pretty easy and consistent to land the Mighty Spike with a bit of practice. This just becomes free cooldown reduction. While tricky in both PvE and PvP, hitting multiple enemies can reduce the cooldown further.

Empowered Spikes

Empowered Spikes increases the damage of the Mighty Spike by 20% against enemies under 30% Health.

This is one of the better perks for Ice Spikes, as it boosts the main part of its damage and gives a bit more of a punch against low health targets.

Empowered Spikes Rating: A – PvE and PvP (S with Iced Refresh)

This is a nice damage perk overall, despite the low threshold which holds it back a bit. If you manage to pick up the Iced Refresh perk, this will be an absolutely necessary damage bonus for ensuring you land those takedowns.

Deadly Path

Deadly Path increases the trail damage by 10% and allows it to Stagger. This does not increase Mighty Spike Damage.

This would be better as an overall damage bonus if it also applied to the Mighty Spike. However the Stagger can allow you to stagger an opponent backwards just before landing the Mighty Spike, making them take the damage from the trail and Mighty Spike more often.

Deadly Path Rating: C – PvE and PvP

The only benefit this really has is to add the stagger effect. The stagger is a little unreliable, as it’s not always a stagger in the direction of the trail. It varies pretty wildly with where the smaller spikes hit your target.

Spiky Reach

Spiky Reach adds an extra AoE at the end of Mighty Spike, sending off shards that deal damage in a 6 meter radius of each side of the Mighty Spike. Each of these shards deals 118% Weapon Damage.

This would be a nice damage bonus if they were allowed to hit the initial target of Mighty Spike. However they still serve as a less precise way to get decent damage out of Ice Spikes.

Spiky Reach Rating: A – PvE and PvE

Given the way this functions, it can make Ice Spike really reliable damage without the need for the precision hit of the Mighty Spike. This overall boosts the power of the skill, having it require less accuracy overall, but still rewarding you if you are accurate with it.

Ice Storm

Ice Storm creates a 5 meter-wide frosted area that slow enemies by 25% and deals 17% Weapon Damage every 0.33 seconds for 5 seconds. This skill ends up dealing a total of 255% damage over those 5 seconds.

This is the most used and most iconic skill of the Ice Gauntlet. It’s incredibly strong if you have some means of locking your foe into Ice Storm and preventing them from leaving, which the Ice Gauntlet has many options for.

With a cooldown of 20 seconds, Ice Storm is one of the Ice Gauntlet’s longer cooldowns. At a Mana cost of 25, Ice Storm is one of the Ice Gauntlet’s most expensive spells.

Ice Storm Rating: S – PvE and PvP

This skill is iconic and a favorite for a reason. Despite sounding weak up front, it has one of the highest potential damage of any skill in the game. Its passives only serve to make this even stronger as you obtain them. The mass slow with heavy damage makes it incredibly strong at mobbing in PvE and great for Wars or large Skirmishes in PvP.

Despite the heavy nerf in the 1.1 “into the Void” Update, it remains a strong skill. It’s still a go to skill, but the loss of damage here and across passives does bring it down a bit. It’s still very easily a must-use skill.

Weakening Gust

Weakening Gust increases the damage dealt by Ice Storm by 10% against targets below 50% health.

This passive was changed to only increase Ice Storm damage by 10%, but nonetheless remains a great pickup. It’s still a solid damage boost for one of your best skills.

Weakening Gust Rating: A – PvE and PvP

While not as impactful as it used to be, depending on how exactly this applies, it’s either a decent damage increase or a fantastic one.

Storm Summoner

Storm Summoner reduces the mana cost of Ice Storm by 80% when cast at full mana.

Since you’ll lead most engagements with this ability, that makes Ice Storm cost only 5 Mana. This is a huge cost reduction for such a powerful skill.

Storm Summoner Rating: S+ – PvE and PvP

Given there’s a number of way to boost mana regen and generally restore mana, this should trigger for most casts of Ice Storm. It cannot be understated how strong Ice Storm is, and getting it for the cost of only 5 mana can really change how a fight plays out, as the first cast of this will be practically free.

Punishing Storm

Punishing Storm increases the damage dealt by 10% for each enemy in the Storm. This stacks up to 5 times, increasing damage by up to 50%.

This is an insanely strong damage boost in most PvE content as well as in large skirmishes and Wars. It’s a free 10% damage at minimum, and can easily be a 50% or higher bonus in some situations.

Punishing Storm Rating: S+ – PvE and PvP

Similarly to Weakening Gust, more damage on one of your best abilities is going to always be great. This one has fewer conditions applied, making it stronger overall.

Wind Chill

Wind Chill channels a gust of wind, damaging enemies in a 7 meter range in front of you. This deals 20% Weapon Damage every 0.2 seconds for 2 seconds, for a total of 200% Weapon Damage over 2 seconds. You’re able to move while casting this ability. Slotting a Carnelian Gem allows this skill to taunt targets hit by the skill for 3 seconds.

Enemies within the first 5 meters are pushed back until they are 5 meters away. Enemies that are 5-7 Meters away take 20% more damage, or 24% Weapon Damage per tick, for a total of 240% Weapon Damage over 2 seconds.

Wind Chill is another skill that seems generally unimpressive, but much like Ice Storm, it’s a very strong skill when used correctly and gets strong with its passives.

With a cooldown of 15 seconds, Wind Chill is one of the Ice Gauntlet’s shorter cooldowns. At a Mana cost of 20, Wind Chill is one of the Ice Gauntlet’s more expensive spells.

Wind Chill Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE this skill can be a huge source of damage if you can position correctly and keep enemies in that sweet spot for extra damage. If you get too close you could end up pushing enemies out of position which doesn’t help in a lot of cases.

While this skill does high damage, outside of PvE it’s pretty unreliable for high damage. It can prevent a lot of weapons from easily reaching you for a brief moment, but any weapon that has any form of mobility.

Enduring Chill

Enduring Chill extends Wind Chill’s duration by 1 second.

This is adding another 5 ticks of damage to Wind Chill, or increasing it’s damage by 50% overall. It increases its maximum potential damage to 360% Weapon Damage over 3 second if in the sweet spot.

Enduring Chill Rating: S – PvE, C – PvP

This is just free damage for PvE as being locked into this skill for an extra second will not set you back a whole lot and may even improve your rotations a bit.

In PvP it’ll be harder to reliable keep enemies in that sweet spot for 3 seconds to get the most damage out of this skill. It can still be used, but won’t be a huge help overall.

Chilling Blast

Chilling Blast increase the damage in that 2 meter sweet spot by 25%.

This is a really nice damage boost, which boost the damage per tick up to 29% Weapon damage while in that sweet spot. This still gives the skill a damage potential of 435% weapon damage over 3 seconds with the sweet spot.

Chilling Blast Rating: S+ – PvE, B – PvP

This passive significantly boosts the Wind Chill’s PvE power, being both a solid AoE skill with high damage, which is almost on par with Ice Storm. It’s a lot of damage in a short span of time.

In PvP it’s still a nice power boost if you wanted to give this a try for PvP. The fact you have to keep your aim on your target and track them for 3 seconds for the full damage is a bit tough to do reliably though.

Ice Tempest Tree Passives

Cold Reach

Cold Reach increases the damage of your basic Light and Heavy Attacks by 15% for targets within 15-meter range.

This passive was changed to be “within 15m” during the Update 1.9 Changes. This makes the passive much more practical and viable option, if not, a must-have.

Cold Reach Rating: A – PvE and PvP

This is free damage that fits perfectly into the ranges that the Ice Gauntlet will typically play. There’s little reason to go without it now and it offer a solid damage boost. However, it’s only for basic attacks, so that can limit the value you end up getting out of it.

Energized Critical

Energized Critical increases the Critical Hit Damage of Ice Spells by 10% while at full Stamina.

This can be really strong when you’re playing around it. the Ice Gauntlet has plenty of strong spells, with many dealing several ticks of damage per second.

Energized Critical Rating: A – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE this often becomes free damage with a bit of support, which isn’t too hard to come by in general. Between Passives and the skill tree, Critical Hits can be decently reliable.

It’s not super great in PvP where your Stamina is less likely to full due to dodging enemy attacks. It does still provide some value, but less frequently.

Heavy Freeze

Heavy Freeze freezes a target for 1 second if they’re hit by a Heavy Attack inside Ice Storm or while affected by the Frostbite effect of Ice Shower. This effect has a 5 second cooldown.

This is effectively a 1 second root for landing a Heavy Attack. In 1v1 situations, if you land a Heavy Attack with this passive after catching an enemy in your Ice Storm, they’ll take a ton of damage before they can escape.

Heavy Freeze Rating: A – PvE, S – PvP

While a bit weaker in PvE, it still does well when taking on an Elite or other powerful enemy that you want to fight 1v1. It’ll hold them in place long enough to get more damage out of skills like Ice Storm and Wind Chill.

In PvP, this can lead to easy takedowns on opponents. This one second where they can’t move is more than enough for you to pile damage on to them with a spell like Ice Spikes or Wind Chill.

Critical Rejuvenation

Critical Rejuvenation restores 15 mana after landing a Critical Hit.

This can be really good used alongside gear that boosts your Critical Hit Chance, letting it more than Refund your basic attacks and some spells. With several spells that can trigger multiple critical hits, this can restore quite a bit when geared up.

Critical Rejuvenation Rating: S – PvE and PvP

The Ice Gauntlet can have issues keeping up with mana costs without this passive. While critical hits themselves aren’t reliable, that doesn’t take away from the value it provides to Critical Hits. Keeping your Mana topped off is always a good thing. This can also trigger with abilities, and the Mighty Spike of Ice Spike tends to crit more often than most spells.

Gathering Storm

Gathering Storm restores 15 mana after three consecutive Light Attacks.

Much like Critical Rejuvenation, this passive will help extensively with mana recovery. It’s much more reliable than Critical Rejuvenation in PvE, which can help if you want to refill your mana after a round of spells.

Gathering Storm Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE, you can default to tossing out Light Attacks and never worry about mana problems. Three Light Attacks costs only 6 mana, so provided you land them all, you’re gaining 9 mana over what you spent.

In PvP this can be a little unreliable, as they have to be consecutive Light Attacks, which means a missed projectile or a Heavy Attack will start the count again.

Critical Frost

Critical Frost increases your Critical Chance when hitting an enemy in a frosted area or afflicted with Frostite by 15%.

In a lot of cases, this mean more utility for Ice Storm and Ice Shower. Ice Storm is already where a large part of your damage is, and this just pushes that a bit further and encourages you to keep them in that zone as often as possible.

Critical Frost Rating: S – PvE and PvP

You have plenty of tools to keep enemies in Ice Storm’s frost area or Ice Shower’s Frostbite affliction. This gives you plenty of options for applying this passive and benefiting from it.

Ultimate Chill (Ice Tempest Ultimate)

Ultimate Chill inflicts enemies hit by Ice Gauntlet abilities with Chill for 3 seconds, increasing incoming Ice Damage by 25%.

This is the best Ultimate Passive for Ice Gauntlet, pretend the other one doesn’t even exist. It provides a ton of damage to skills that can already deal a plenty of damage to start with.

Ultimate Chill Rating: S+ – PvE and PvP

With many abilities that rapidly deal damage, they’ll frequently apply and re-apply this effect over their duration boosting their own damage as well as the damage of other skills. Compared to the other Ultimate Passive, this one is much more impactful overall in nearly every situation.

Builder Tree

The Builder Tree is all about stationary and defensive skills. While it doesn’t deal a ton of damage with these skill, the Builder Skills will all provide solid utility for a variety of situations. The Active Skills for the Builder Tree consist of Ice Pylon, Ice Shower and Entombed.

Ice Pylon

Ice Pylon creates and plants an ice shard in the ground that becomes a stationary Pylon. This Pylon deals 75% Weapon damage every 2 seconds and lasts 15 seconds. The Ice Pylon also has a small 1 meter radius frosted area around it. This Ability can be canceled early by holding the skill input for 1 second.

This means the Pylon will deal roughly 525% Weapon Damage over its base duration. It has a maximum duration of 45 seconds, which can be reached via upgrades.

The only thing keeping this from being an interesting skill is the abysmal health it has as a stationary target. Most players will take it out quickly in PvP, and monsters can take it out it in PvE decently well if they aggro on it.

With a Cooldown of 10 seconds, Ice Pylon is the Ice Gauntlet’s shortest cooldown. This cooldown will only trigger when the Ice Pylon dissipates. At a Mana cost of 15, Ice Pylon is one of the Ice Gauntlet’s least expensive spells.

Ice Pylon Rating: A – PvE, C – PvP

Ice Pylon is like having a fragile little pet. it helps with damage to a decent extent, but you also need to protect it to keep it alive for it to do that damage. This is easier in PvE where it’s often easily protected by you.

In PvP however, its fragility leads to it being nearly useless. It gets taken down far too fast to be of much use. If ignored though, it ends up being a constant stream of damage on your opponent.

Greater Pylon

Greater Pylon increases Ice Pylon’s Damage by 10% against slowed enemies.

This increases the pylon total damage over its duration to 577.5% Weapon Damage. This is a pretty big damage increase, but requires the Pylon to live its full duration.

Greater Pylon Rating: A – PvE, C – PvP

The extra damage is nice for PvE where the skill does decently well. While it’s not a huge jump, it does add 52.5% damage overall which is good enough of a boost to spend a point on.

This doesn’t help with it’s fragility in PvP, but can still boost its damage all the same.

Pylon Regen

Pylon Regen restores the Pylon’s Health to full if it hasn’t been damaged in the last 5 seconds.

Between rarely being focused in PvE and being deleted in PvP very easily, this perk just doesn’t act quick enough to spare it or prolong its life.

Pylon Regen Rating: C – PvE and PvP

There’s very rare occasions this perk is actually used or ever really desired. It should only be considered a necessary cost to get to its better passives.

Pylon Dodge

Pylon Dodge doubles the attack rate of the Pylon for 3 seconds after a dodge.

If you’re able to freely keep this going, this is a good damage increase. When combined with Pylon Refresh, it can prolong the Ice Pylon to deal quite a bit of damage.

Pylon Dodge Rating: A – PvE (S with Pylon Refresh), B – PvP

This is a pretty big boost in power for PvE if you can maintain keeping this bonus active. Since it’s doubling the attack rate, even with the base duration, you’re getting 1050% Weapon Damage total instead of just 525%.

It doesn’t help much in PvP though, as it’s still very fragile and can be dealt with before it even gets to do much. If ignored however, it will be a nice bit of damage going out to make it more impactful.

Pylon Refresh

Pylon Refresh extends Ice Pylon lifetime by 1 second each time it successfully hits an enemy. Can only extended Ice Pylon to its maximum of 45 second duration.

Without making use of Pylon dodge, this extend the ability duration to roughly 22 seconds, extending the ability by 7 seconds and allowing 4 extra hits. This increases the baseline damage from 525% up to 825% over its duration.

Pylon Refresh Rating: A – PvE (S with Pylon Dodge), B – PvP

This by itself is a nice damage boost, passively adding an extra 4 hits if it’s able to hit a target every 2 seconds. Paired with Pylon Dodge’s effect though, it’s able to last significantly longer and continuously rack up damage for long periods of time.

This paired with the Pylon Dodge will actually make the Pylon a bigger distraction in PvP. This actually forces your opponent to focus it down or be likely to continually deal with the pylon chipping away at them. While it’s not insanely high damage, it can result in really consistent damage when not being focused.

Ultimate Frost (Builder Ultimate)

Ultimate Frost is the Ultimate for the Builder Tree as well as Ice Pylon’s final upgrade. Ultimate Frost double Ice Pylon’s Health and expands it’s frost radius to 5 meters to match Ice Storm. This area around the Pylon doubles the effect of the Quick Frost passive to 20% speed and Empowered Frost to 6 mana for each Spell cast in a frosted area.

This is a very odd Ultimate, which sounds promising but doesn’t offer much unless you specifically play around the Pylon and keep it alive as a priority. Which means playing Pylon Defense. It can however result in very unique build, that can be fun at times.

Ultimate Frost Rating: A – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE this can be a fairly interesting style to try out. It’ll still lack damage compared to using Ultimate Chill, but can be fun when solo. Sadly, if you’re even with a duo, it’ll be pretty much a waste of effort to try to play the way it’d demand.

In PvP it’s even worse, because any range weapon would be able to counter what you’d want to do. Keeping the Pylon alive while also playing near it is no simple task and is only remotely possible against melee fighters.

Ice Shower

Ice Shower effectively creates a 1 meter thick and 5 meter wide frosted area that can keep both players and monsters at bay for 4 seconds. Any enemy that touches it will be afflicted with Frostbite. Frostbite Roots for 1 second, prevents sprinting and dodging, AND slows by 50%. Frostbite remains for 3 seconds after exiting Ice Shower and its root can only be applied to the same target every 6 seconds.

This skill is comically overloaded. Frostbite is an effect that you should never underestimate, ever. On top of what it does by itself, it also enables Heavy Freeze, where you can be Frozen in place for an additional second. However, unless you catch someone directly in this skill’s path, it can just be walked around or in the case of Light Armor, dodged through while taking Frostbite.

With a cooldown of 30 seconds and a cost of 25 mana, Ice Shower is both one of the Ice Gauntlet’s longest and most expensive cooldowns.

Ice Shower Rating: A – PvE and PvP

In PvE, enemies will consistently be brought to a halt by this ability, unless you’re close enough and they decide to use a Grit attack that has any kind of dash or leap tied to it. Bosses are also immune to this effect.

In PvP, while it’s easy to avoid, it still keeps people from running straight at you. The Root can prevent quite a few movement abilities from getting though it, or at the very least slowing them. The fact that if they touch it, they can’t dodge or sprint and are also heavily Slowed make them easy targets for follow up damage or crowd control.

Enduring Shower

Enduring Shower increases Ice Shower’s Duration to 7 seconds.

This is only adding 3 seconds to the duration of Ice Shower, but can effectively extend the duration of Frostbite up to 10 seconds, assuming you catch someone with the effect.

Enduring Shower Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Given that it extends both the time it keeps enemies away from you and potentially the duration of Frostbite as well, this is a really nice bonus. With the upcoming Frigid Shower upgrade, this will become even more valuable.

Quick Shower

Quick Shower increases your and your allies movements speed by 25% for 2 seconds when entering Ice Shower.

This would be a nice bonus to playing around the Ice Shower and dancing around it. However, it only applies once, which makes it much less useful for doing so.

Quick Shower Rating: B – PvE and PvP

While it’s a nice speed boost that can be used to get away from someone, the fact they made it only apply once really diminishes its potential. It’d be a more interesting pick up if it allowed you to play around the Ice Shower a bit more.

Frigid Showers

Frigid Showers adds a 10% Rend to the Frostbite effect when applied by Ice Shower.

A Rend is very nice, but it’s very hard to catch opposing players with Ice Shower. This does however become a nice effect in PvE when paired with the Deadly Frost Weapon Perk.

Frigid Showers Rating: A – PvE (S with Deadly Frost), B – PvP

Rend is a pretty good effect in general, especially when you’re consistently getting a 10-second Rend as you would in PvE. Pair this with Deadly Frost which makes this an Offensive ability, and it becomes a very strong option.

Still an unreliable skill in PvP for much other than zoning. However the addition of a Rend is nice, considering the Ice Gauntlet doesn’t deal a ton of raw burst damage.

Entombed

Entombed allows you to entomb yourself in a block of ice with that has 75% of your Max health while granting yourself enhanced mana regeneration. This Tomb lasts 10 seconds, or can be ended early by Attacking, Blocking, Dodging, or from incoming damage. Ending early with an Attack command costs 10 mana to deal 70% Weapon Damage in an area around the ice tomb.

Entombed is your premiere defensive skill. Once you’re Entombed, unless your target can break the Ice Tomb, this is 10 seconds where you’re able to recover mana, and if you use healing over time effects from items, these will not be able to be interrupted either.

With a cooldown of 30 seconds and mana cost of 0 to cast, Entombed is a free to use skill but will take a while to recover.

Entombed Rating: B – PvE, S – PvP

This is really only useful for recovering mana or dropping aggro in PvE. While this can be useful in some rare cases, or when paired with a skill like Ice Storm to DPS while you recover, I’ve personally found it to be a bit less effective over other options.

In PvP however, this can really help in cases where a melee opponent gets on top of you. It’s fantastic in 1v1s, but doesn’t handle situations where you’re focused down. In large skirmishes or Wars where there’s a lot of chaotic things happening, it can give you a much needed breather and give your allies a chance to cover you; assuming you don’t get focused.

Strengthened Tomb

Strengthened Tomb grants a 25% Fortify for 3 seconds after breaking out of Entombed.

This specifically requires you to press your block key to break out of the Ice Tomb, but doesn’t require a hit. Given this is a purely defensive ability, this a great bonus that lets you get damage out of it, with less risk involved by reducing incoming damage for a short bit.

Strengthened Tomb Rating: B – PvE, S – PvP

Chances are, if you’re going into Ice Tomb, you’re under attack. In PvE enemies tend to shift their focus away from you very quickly, and go for what they can actually damage instead, so breaking out often result in a waste of mana unless done very quickly while surrounded.

In PvP someone is very likely to try and break your Tomb, and they’re also very likely to be a melee user. Assuming they don’t have Grit, this lets you break out, and briefly stagger them while reducing damage of any retaliation immediately after.

Cleansing Tomb

Cleansing Tomb removes all debuffs when you activate Entombed.

For a skill that can be used often enough and is already a strong defensive skill, being able to be a full debuff cleanse makes it insanely good.

Cleansing Tomb Rating: A – PvE, S – PvP

You’re more likely to come across several debuff frequently in PvE, with Disease being a pretty common one. While Entombed itself isn’t super useful in PvE outside of the mana regen, this can also let you heal your way out of a tough situation.

In PvP where debuffs are super common and range from Frostbite to Weaken, there’s a good number of statuses you can clear just by going into Entombed briefly.

Builder Tree Passives

The Builder Tree Passives are more more defensively oriented which can lead to the Ice Gauntlet being much more durable than expected.

Blocking Stamina

Blocking Stamina uses your Mana to restore missing Stamina when blocking. It uses a conversion rate of 3 Mana to 15 Stamina.

This is undeniably one of the best defensive passives the Ice Gauntlet has. Despite the Ice Gauntlet’s inability to block ranged attacks, there’s very few ranged attacks to deal with in the game. This effectively gives you up to an additional 165 Stamina to block with, while still being able to dodge with your standard 100 Stamina. Though fully depleting your mana will still result in a stun, just like it was Stamina.

Blocking Stamina Rating: S – PvE and PvP

This will let you block and easily shrug off most hits. There’s very few weapons that can actually break your block in PvP and only a series of incredibly hard hits will be able to break your block in PvE. I think this passive tends to be very underrated, as Blocking isn’t the way you’d typically want to escape danger, but can be a strong way to mitigate a hard hit in PvE or PvP.

Frozen Touch

Frozen Touch slows enemies by 25% for 2 seconds if they hit you while you have full health.

This one is pretty niche, but can help you get away from some melee attackers. The downside to it is that it requires you to be a full health, which is a condition that’s less likely to occur more than once in most situations.

Frozen Touch Rating: C – PvE and PvP

The health threshold makes this very unreliable in PvE and PvP alike. While there are certainly cases where it can be helpful, it’s very limited. If a Ranged opponent hits you, that slow isn’t going to do much to deter them. If a Melee opponent hits you, it might let you kite them a little bit, but most melees have a relatively easy time just sticking on you with attacks.

Defiant Freeze

Defiant Freeze grants you a 20% Fortify for 2 second when casting Ice Abilties.

This can be very nice for most builds, as casting a skill is a pretty easy requirement to make use of. However, it’s a very short duration, where it’s not likely to even have a reasonable uptime on this.

Defiant Freeze Rating: C – PvE, B – PvP

This is pretty useless in PvE, even when solo. Most of your skills have a Slow or Stagger to them that makes them much more effective at preventing damage than this passive. Most even last for a decent enough duration where this will have worn off.

This is slightly more useful in PvP, where slows and Staggers are less likely to keep enemies off you. Most opponents can close the gap very easily, and this will help you endure a bit longer than usual.

Quick Frost

Quick Frost grants you a 10% haste while in a Frosted Area.

Frosted Areas are created by Ice Storm, Ice Shower and Ice Pylon. With the exception of Ice Storm or Ice Pylon with Ultimate Frost, these are all very small areas that you’re forcing yourself to play around for a small haste.

Quick Frost Rating: C – PvE and PvP (B with Ultimate Frost)

This small of a haste just isn’t enough of a bonus to justify taking this passive. Add to this the fact that Ice Storm is the only skill that gives you a large enough area to work with without heavy investment and it’s just a waste of a passive point. If you do invest into Ice Pylon though and all the way to Ultimate Frost, it’s a much better bonus and you’ll have two skills with decent area to use it, with one having doubled effect.

Empowered Frost

Empowered Frost recovers 3 Mana for each spell cast while in a Frosted Area.

Much like with Quick Frost, three mana is not enough of a bonus to really be worth playing in such a small zone. If the trigger wasn’t on Spell cast, it’d be a better bonus. In the best case it’s a 15% mana refund for most skills.

Empowered Frost Rating: B – PvE and PvP (A with Ultimate Frost)

The saving grace for this passive is that the mana costs of most skills is already pretty low. Since it’s a 15% refund for most skills, it’s decent enough, since you’ll be able to cast at least one skill in a frosted area and benefit from it.

If you Pick up Ultimate Frost, it does double to 6 mana per cast. This can really have an impact if you build around getting frequent casts off, as it’ll reduce the absolute need for Critical Rejuvenation or Gathering Storm.

Refreshing Frost

Refreshing Frost reduces all of your ability cooldowns by 20% while casting in a Frosted Area.

If only this were affected by Ultimate Frost, it might actually be worth building around Ultimate Frost. Sadly, as the strongest passive related to frosted areas, this isn’t affected.

Refreshing Frost Rating: A – PvE and PvP (S in PvE with Ice Spikes and Iced Refresh)

Now, 20% cooldown reduction on cast is a very noticeable and effective bonus that can make playing around Frosted Areas very worthwhile. With one ability to setup a frosted area, and two more to use after, you reduce the cooldown of just about any other skill by 40%. The only downside, most of the skills that have frosted areas don’t start their cooldowns until after they dissipate.

However if you pair this with Ice Spikes and its respective perk it can create a strong build that can deal a constant barrage of damage, if you can maintain the mana to support it. We’ll be covering that a bit later in this guide.

Ice Gauntlet Skill Perks

Below are a list of the Skill perks available to the Ice Gauntlet. The range for the effect value is determined by gear Score. The Minimum value is at Gear Score 200, while he Maximum is at Gear Score 600.

Iced Refresh

Iced Refresh reduces your skill cooldowns when defeating an enemy with the Mighty Spike or Spiky Reach upgrade portions of Ice Spikes. On Weapons this reduce all of your cooldowns by 42-75% on a defeat. On Armor, this reduces all your cooldowns by 10-43% instead.

This is an insane amount of cooldown reduction for a single perk. While it has a very strict requirement, this is one of very few burst options you have and is very capable of doing so reliably once you know your damage ranges.

Iced Refresh Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE this can be pretty reliable with practice. It makes Ice Spike an incredibly strong damage option for PvE with a lot of reset potential.

In PvP however, the defeat requirement makes it nearly impossible to use effectively. Sure you can dump damage into someone and them try to burst them with Mighty Spike, but unless it’s a large skirmish or even a War, the reset potential goes to waste.

Healing Tomb

Healing Tomb restores a percentage your Max Health when Entomb ends. On Weapons, this heals for 17-30% Max Health, on Armor, this heals for 5-18% Max Health.

Even more utility for a strong defensive ability. It was even changed to be more reliable and consistent, while still allowing for both methods of exiting Entomb to be usable.

Healing Tomb Rating: A – PvE and PvP

Giving the Ice Gauntlet a consistent healing every so often is pretty good. It’s nothing to write home about compared to a Support healing you, but will scale with Constitution and Level, which makes it decently valuable.

Unbroken Winds

Unbroken Winds restores 10% of your mana if Wind Chill completes its full duration. Additionally, it grants Wind Chill Grit and increases its damage. On Weapons, this increases Windchill’s damage by 25-40%. On Armors, this increases Wind Chill’s dmaage by 10-25%

This effectively refunds 66% of Wind Chill’s mana cost, which can make a pretty big difference. The addition increase in damage makes Wind Chill a damage powerhouse, just like it’s bigger brother Ice Storm. A 40% increase easily pushes the skill to high damage, dealing up to 120% Weapon damage every tick, for a total of 1200% Weapon Damage.

Unbroken Winds Rating: S – PvE and PvP

It’s very hard to have this skill be interrupted in PvE against most enemies. There’s a fair number that will easily interrupt you while solo, but otherwise should be focused on another player.

In PvP, most weapons will need to burn an ability to reach you. While you won’t be guaranteed to still get the mana, you’ve forced a cooldown which can put you in an advantageous position. Additionally the damage makes it very likely they’ll get to do a ton of damage before they’ll need to back off.

Unending Thaw

Unending Thaw makes Frostbite last for an additional 2 seconds after exiting Ice Storm while additional giving a small damage boost to Ice Storm. On Weapon, this boost Ice Storm’s damage by 5.5-10%. On Armor, this increases Ice Storm’s Damage by 1-5.8%.

A Lingering slow from Ice Storm isn’t that great, but it does mean you can still trigger Heavy Freeze as they leave the Ice Storm. The Damage boost is also really minor and doesn’t do a whole lot for the ability.

Unending Thaw Rating: C – PvE and PvP

There’s very few situation where you’d want this over another perk. Even when using Ice Storm, it doesn’t feel particularly good. You’d think it’d be helpful in PvP, but it’s not really going to help much.

Pylon Burst

Pylon Burst increases the damage of Ice Pylon, while dealing additional Damage to targets within 3 meters of the Ice Pylon every 2 seconds. On Weapons, this increases Ice Pylon’s damage by 5.7-10%. On Armor, this increases Ice Pylon’s damage by 1.5-5.9%.

Being a general damage boost, while also providing another damage effect can really increase the output of this skill. Between its attacks and this Burst, it cna defend itself fairly well, but still struggles in PvP.

Pylon Burst Rating: A – PvE, B – PvP

Given this was changed to be a general damage increase as well be a constant pulse effect, makes this a worthwhile perk if you’re building around the Pylon. It can defend itself from most weak foes fairly well.

This is slightly weaker in PvP, but allows the Pylon to protect itself against a melee attacker a bit easier. Between this constant damage it outputs, and this additional pulse, it can rack up damage quite quickly.

Deadly Frost

Deadly Frost makes the Frigid Showers upgrade for Ice Shower deal Damage to enemies affected with Frostbite, while additionally reducing Ice Shower’s Cooldown. The DoT deals 8% Weapon Damage every 0.25 seconds for the duration of the ability, totaling 224% over the full duration. On Weapon this will reduce Ice Shower’s Cooldown by 9.6-14%. On Armor, this reduces Ice Shower’s cooldown by 5-9.8%.

This turns Ice Shower into a skill that’s almost on par with Ice Storm, without any downsides. The Fact this also reduces one of your longest defensive cooldowns is pretty great as well.

Deadly Frost Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Turning an otherwise damage-less ability into one that can compete with some of the Ice Gauntlet’s stronger skills makes it highly desirable and worth playing and building around.

Ice Gauntlet Builds

There’s not a ton of variations with Ice Gauntlet Builds, but we’ll show case the more general options for it, including two PvE builds, one of which is going to be niche, but serve a different purpose with it’s damage.

AoE DPS Build

This is the fairly standard DPS build that you’ll often come across. This one focuses primarily on your AoE skills, which is where a lot of the Ice Gauntlet’s power really lies. For this build we’ll be using Ice Spikes, Ice Storm and Wind Chill.

This build should level fairly smoothly, as it’s intended for PvE play, both solo and in groups. It’ll also handle decently well in most PvP situations, but lacks defensive options outside of Ice Storm.

While leveling, we pick up our three skills immediately, while also grabbing Gathering Storm. Gathering Storm reduces much of the Ice Gauntlet’s mana usage and makes it much easier to manage as long as you’re playing around Light Attacks.

With all of our skills collected, we prioritize upgrading them. It’s personal preference which skill you upgrade first out of Ice Storm and Ice Spikes, as both are good. I found Ice Spike to be the better skill to level first, as leveling the Ice Gauntlet alongside your character makes it harder to AoE enemies down fast enough. If it’s a weapon you’re leveling after your weapons of choice, the AoE is strong enough to makes it a quick leveler.

With those two upgraded, we pick up Critical Frost. This will further boost the damage of skills used against enemies caught in Ice Storm by increasing Critical Hit Chance. This then gives us access to Ultimate Chill, which massively boost our damage.

With Ultimate Chill taken, we grab Energized Critical to round out our damage and fully upgrade Wind Chill before moving to the Builder Tree to grab a few more passives.

Here we’re grabbing Blocking Stamina, Empowered Frost, Frozen Touch, Refreshing Frost and Defiant Freeze. Empowered Frost and Frozen Touch are just passives that are used to gain access to Refreshing Frost. Blocking Stamina is nice to have when solo as it will let you soak up quite a bit of extra damage if you need to buy time for a cooldown. Refreshing Frost and Empowered Frost make it so our cooldowns and mana costs are reduced when we cast inside Ice Storm. Defiant Freeze is a nice buffer against stray AoE hits.

Something else you could do, if you really dislike Frozen Touch, is use Entombed as a pass through. While you can’t swap abilities while they’re on cooldown, having Entombed can make it safer if you choose to PvP often. In most cases it’d likely be swapped for Wind Chill.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Ice Storm will generally be your opening skill, as it’s much cheaper when used at full mana. The large AoE can catch multiple enemies with ease, and will benefit from Ultimate Chill for most of its duration. It’s also a heavy slow and pseudo Rend, which makes it a strong opening skill.

Wind Chill will usually follow this, as we can push enemies back and keep them from leaving Ice Storm while also grouping them closer together for Ice Spikes. You’ll also want to be on the very edge of Ice Storm, to keep from pushing enemies out of it accidentally and benefiting from Refreshing Frost.

Ice Spikes is our strong finishing blow. Most enemies should be low from these first two skills, leaving them open to Ice Spikes damage boosts. This will also allow us to trigger Iced Refresh and reduce a huge portion of our cooldowns. This may not always get to benefit from Refreshing Frost, but it’s more important that it’s set up to land one or several killing blows.

For Weapon Perks we’ll want to get Keen, Vicious, and Refreshing Move as they are the best options we have. Keen and Vicious help us land Critical hits more often and make them hurt more. Refreshing Move helps to make the downtime for out skills even less while we also recover mana from Gathering Storm. Unbroken Winds is a skill perk that should be heavily considered on your weapon at the high end, due to it giving Wind Chill insane damage potential.

For your weapon Gem slot, Malachites are typically the more consistent and reliable option as we have plenty of access to Slows and Roots. Emeralds are an okay substitute, but their effect doesn’t kick in until the target is below 30% health.

When considering Runeglass Gems, you’ll want to get an Elemental, Sighted, or Siphoning Runeglass for your Weapon. Elemental will allow you to stack even more DoT effects on your Weapon and provide decent damage. Sighted is a small, but consistent damage increase. Siphoning can help alleviate the Ice Gauntlet’s poor mana recovery. For Armor you’ll want Sighted if your secondary weapon is also ranged, or Frozen if it’s build around Ice Damage.

For Armor Perks, we’ll absolutely want Iced Refresh and Unbroken Winds for our skills alongside the general purpose pickups of Refreshing, Luck, and the more defensive perks. Iced Refresh is absolutely core to pushing this build’s damage output higher, allowing higher uptime for out skills. Unbroken Winds helps reduce Wind Chill’s mana cost when we get to cast it for the full duration. Refreshing is helpful for reducing our cool downs a bit to make it easier for Iced Refresh to reset them.

For our Amulet, the only perks we’re really going to care about are Health and Refreshing. The bonus bit of health that comes with the Health perk is pretty nice for an otherwise fragile caster. The last slot can be Strike Protection or Thrust protection, depending on which enemy damage type you’d rather reduce.

On our Earring Focused is the big one we really care about. The bonus Mana Regen rate from Focused helps keep a decent mana pool while casting. We can fill the last couple slots with any combination of Refreshing, Regenerating, Luck, or Beloved. Regenerating gives us a bit of passive health recovery, while Beloved reduced the chance we pull aggro from groups of enemies, if your tank can’t quite get to them.

Finally for our Ring we want Ice Damage, Keen Awareness, and Brilliant. Ice Damage will boost out overall damage. Keen Awareness boost our Critical Hit Chance, making Crits more reliable. Brilliant boosts our maximum mana so we can cast a bit more freely without concerns.

Skill Rotation

This is a very basic rotation, though there is a bit of weaving to get used to.

1. Ice Storm
2. Light Attack
3. Wind Chill
4. Light Attack
5. Ice Spikes
6. Light Attack
7. Repeat

We open with Ice Storm at full Mana so we can have it reduced to a very minimal cost. We follow this with a Light Attack to fill the massive delay that Ice Gauntlet has between spells. then we immediately go into Wind Chill, which results in heavy damage over the course of just a few second. Then we do another Light Attack to fill that delay space and soften an enemy a bit further for Ice Spikes. After this we Light Attack until our cooldowns come back up, ideally once everything is back up which is where recover a lot of our mana and make heavy use of Refreshing Move.

Single Target DPS Build

This build is going to look a bit odd but similar. With one skill change, we’re taking the focus away from AoE and putting it on Single Target damage. For this build we’ll be using Ice Spikes, Wind Chill and Ice Pylon.

This build can be leveled with, but will be slower as we don’t pick up our Ultimate until later in the weapon leveling process. Compared to the builds, not only are we picking it up late, it’s also the weaker of the two.

We’re starting off by grabbing Ice Spikes, Ice Spikes Upgrades, Gathering Storm, and Wind Chill like before. Gathering Storm is still important to get early for mana sustain.

After grabbing these two skills, we’re headed over to the builder Tree to immediately max out Ice Pylon. It’ll need all of these upgrades to be effective and mana efficient. Specifically we need both Pylon Dodge and Pylon Refresh to both boost its DPS and uptime as we’ll be using it as a semi-permanent Frosted Area to cast from.

To reach Ultimate Frost, we’ll be picking up most of the Builder Passives. Empowered Frost will be a key part of making this build work properly and have less mana issues overall. Refreshing Frost will help reduce our cooldowns, while also increasing the uptime for Defiant Freeze which helps mitigate AoE Damage.

After grabbing Ultimate Frost, it’s back to the Ice Tempest Tree to upgrade Wind Chill and pick up Critical Frost. Critical Frost is gotten here, as we only have a tiny Frosted Area to work with until we grab Ultimate Frost. Trust me when I say we’ll need this bigger area to work with.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Ice Pylon will always lead our rotations, as we need it placed near the target we want to focus on. We need to have it in a safe place, but also have the enemy within its Frosted Area to benefit from Critical Frost. With this play style, it should be up often when used correctly, but may be harder to keep alive while solo.

Wind Chill will be next, as it’s important to have it on cooldown when we try to take down enemies with Ice Spikes so we recover as much of our cooldowns as possible. This is also our primary AoE tool, though we’re really only focused on having it hit one target at a time mostly.

Finally Ice Spikes will serve as our burst damage and finishing blow. The goal is to trigger Iced Refresh so we can frequently keep recasting Wind Chill and Ice Spike while Ice Pylon continues to hammer away at a target.

For Weapon perks we want Keen, Vicious, and Refreshing Move. Since there’s only two skills we’ll be casting frequently, we’ll need a lot of extra support from Refreshing Move and other passives to make sure we’re reducing those cooldowns as much as we can. Keen and Vicious increase both our damage as well as that of our Pylon, making both land more frequent critical hits, and boost the damage of those crits. Unbroken Winds should also be a consideration for your weapons at the high end, just due to the sheer damage output of the skill with it.

For your weapon Gem slot, Malachites are typically the more consistent and reliable option due to Ultimate Frost expanding the Frosted area. Emeralds are an okay substitute, but their effect doesn’t kick in until the target is below 30% health. Diamonds can also be a great option in group play.

When considering Runeglass Gems, you’ll want to get an Elemental, Sighted, or Siphoning Runeglass for your Weapon. Elemental will allow you to stack even more DoT effects on your Weapon and provide decent damage. Sighted is a small, but consistent damage increase. Siphoning can help alleviate the Ice Gauntlet’s poor mana recovery. For Armor you’ll want Sighted if your secondary weapon is also ranged, or Frozen if it’s build around Ice Damage.

For Armor perks we’ll want to grab Iced Refresh and Unbroken Winds while stacking as many copies of both Refreshing and Refreshing Evasion as we can. Iced Refresh will help keep our cooldowns low when we can trigger it. Unbroken Winds combined with the boosted Empowered Frost makes Wind Chill completely free. Refreshing and Refreshing Evasion are both needed to heavily reduce our cooldowns.

For our Amulet we really only care about Refreshing and Refreshing Evasion. Cooldowns being as low as possible for this build are very important. The remaining slot can go to Health if you want bonus Health, or a more defensive perk like Fortified Recovery if you want some extra protection.

For our Earring we want Refreshing, Refreshing Evasion, and Nimble. We want to grab Nimble as we’ll be dodging often to maintain the Pylon Dodge buff which helps boost the duration of our Ice Pylon.

For our Ring we want to grab Ice Damage, Keen Awareness, and Refreshing Evasion. Ice Damage is an overall damage boost, while Keen Awareness boost our Critical Hit consistency. A lot of our damage will be coming from our ability to crit often, as well as helping our Ice Pylon also more consistently landing critical hits.

Skill Rotation

This is going to look weird for a mage rotation, just keep in mind that we need to keep Pylon Dodge’s buff active for maximum DPS.

1. Ice Pylon
2. Side dodge
3. Wind Chill
4. Side Dodge
5. Heavy Attack
6. Ice Spikes
7. Heavy Attack
8. Side Dodge
9. Light Attack x3
10. Repeat

First we need to get Ice Pylon near an enemy. We’ll be pretty reliant on having a tank and proper placement to keep it alive. After placing it we’re immediately going to dodge to trigger Pylon Dodge. All of our dodges need to stay within Ice Pylon’s Frosted Area to trigger Refreshing Frost.

This is followed Immediately by Wind Chill, as it lasts for 3 seconds. So as soon as it ends, we’re dodging again to maintain that buff. This is then followed by a Heavy Attack then Ice Spikes then another Heavy attack to fill those three seconds.

After this it’ll be a loop of a dodge followed by 3 Light Attacks to reduce cooldowns, recover mana and help us time our next dodge. Since the Ice Gauntlet is right around 1 attack per second for light attacks, or slightly faster it helps with consistent timing and resource generation all while getting more damage in.

The PvP Build

The build is made to give you the most options possible in PvP, while providing both solid damage and defensive capabilities. To do this, we’ll be using Ice Spikes, Ice Storm and Entombed.

This build can do well while leveling too, as it uses two very solid and reliable damage abilities in Ice Spikes and Ice Storm and comes with the extra safety of Entombed.

Since this build is done with PvP in mind, we want to get all of our abilities as soon as possible. So we start by grabbing Ice Spikes, Ice Storm and Gathering Storm from the Ice Tempest Tree. Then we hop over to the Builder Tree to grab Blocking Stamina, Empowered Frost and Entombed.

Gathering Storm is still incredibly effective at helping with mana sustain, though a bit less reliable in PvP. Blocking Stamina is a huge help in PvP, letting you block harder hits with relative ease with your mana pool. Empowered Frost is helpful as we’ll always be playing around Ice Storm mostly.

After grabbing all of our abilities, it’s back to the Ice Tempest Tree to get our important upgrades and passives, starting with Ice Storm. While Punishing Storm will cancel Ice Storm if we weapon swap, it’s very important to have for the extra damage, which becomes a huge damage boost in large skirmishes and Wars.

Then we’re going to upgrade Ice Spikes, grabbing all but the last passive. This choice is optional, as it’s really only ever going to be useful in Wars. If you do decide to take it, grab it now and we’ll just not have Defiant Freeze later. If you don’t fully upgrade, grab Critical Frost then Ultimate Chill. We definitely want Deadly Path for the extra crowd control and potential bonus damage caused by staggering from a spike into the Mighty Spike.

Regardless of the path you chose to get Ultimate Chill, we’ll be taking Energized Critical right after Ultimate Frost. After this, we head over to the Builder Tree again, where we’ll grab Refreshing Frost followed by upgrading Entombed. If you didn’t take Spiky Reach earlier, you’ll want to take it or Defiant Freeze as your final point.

Heavy Freeze is also a potential option, which can help in 1v1s. I don’t take it here, as it has an internal cooldown, which prevents it from being triggered multiple times. It’s great for the 1v1s, but this build is a bit less focused on those and more on being generally applicable for any PvP application.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Ice Storm is our bread and butter spell once again. If you catch several enemies or even just a few enemies in it, it’s gonna hit pretty hard. On top of this, it has the Pseudo-Rend effect for enemies under 50% which also helps a bit with damage.

Ice Spike is our close-mid range burst option. It hits incredibly hard as most people won’t be optimized to resist Ice Damage, as they’ll be more focused on physical reduction for larger battles. With Iced Refresh, it also has the chance of resetting Ice Storm for more DPS.

Entombed is our “panic button”. If an enemy get on top of us, we want to use this to buy time for our cooldowns and recover some mana. We’ll also have the option to cancel it as soon as we hit max mana for a quick heal thanks to Healing Tomb, or Break out for a quick stagger and some burst damage to anyone near us. This skill is also helpful for allowing us to contest capture points as the opposing team will have to break it or you’ll be able to stay there for awhile.

For our Weapon we’ll be going for the standard Keen, Vicious, and Refreshing Move combo. Keen and Vicious help with Critical Hit consistency and damage, making even our basic attacks hurt a bit. Refreshing Move helps us get more casts of Ice Storm and Ice Spikes off, while occasionally helping get Entombed back quicker.

For your weapon Gem slot, Malachites and Japsers are typically the more consistent and reliable option. Emeralds are an okay substitute, but their effect doesn’t kick in until the target is below 30% health.

When considering Runeglass Gems, you’ll want to get an Elemental, Sighted, or Siphoning Runeglass for your Weapon. Elemental will allow you to stack even more DoT effects on your Weapon and provide decent damage. Sighted is a small, but consistent damage increase. Siphoning can help alleviate the Ice Gauntlet’s poor mana recovery. For Armor you’ll want Sighted if your secondary weapon is also ranged, or Frozen if it’s build around Ice Damage.

For our Armor, we’ll mainly want a mix of Refreshing, Resilient and Freedom. Refreshing helps with our cooldowns and keeping them low. Resilient helps mitigate any incoming crit damage, and with Great Axe being a popular PvP weapon it’s a worthwhile pick up. Freedom will help us get out of Stuns and Slows faster, which helps counter any War Hammers that may try to get on top of us.

As mentioned in the skill sections above, we’ll also be looking to pick up Healing Tomb and Iced Refresh when we can. Healing Tomb adds more purposes to Entombed making it a pretty flexible and useful skill. Iced Refresh may not go off too often, but when it does, it’ll help immensely with resetting Ice Storm and Ice Spikes.

For our Amulet we’re going purely defensive by taking Health, Slash Protection and Strike Protection. Health boosts our health and can give us enough health to survive another hit or two, depending on what’s hitting us. Slash and Strike Protection will help us a ton, as it’ll typically be melee players focusing on us and this covers most of the damage we’ll be taking.

On our Earring, we’ll want to grab Focused, Nimble and Refreshing. Focused and Nimble make our Stamina and Mana management much easier. Refreshing helps push out cooldowns lower.

On our Ring, we’ll want to take Ice Damage, Keen Awareness, and Refreshing. Ice Damage will boost all of our damage, which helps us take opponents down faster. Keen Awareness helps to further boost out Critical Hit consistency. Refreshing will help further reduce cooldowns.

Skill Rotation

As a PvP build, this build doesn’t have a set rotation. Refer to the above section for the intended purpose to each skill.

Ice Gauntlet Weapon Pairings

Being a magic weapon that scales purely off Intelligence, this can limit this weapon’s effective pairings. It does however pair really well with some weapons that use Intelligence as a secondary stat.

This makes our top recommended weapon Pairings for the Ice Gauntlet the Fire Staff, Void Gauntlet, Rapier, and Blunderbuss.

Fire Staff

The Fire Staff also scales purely with intelligence, making for a strong Mage build. In this build, the Fire Staff handles the Mid-Long ranges, while the Ice Gauntlet handles the Close-Mid ranges. This can be a very potent combo, as both will be able to have high damage thanks to the focus on a singular stat.

To learn more about the Fire Staff, you can check out our Fire Staff Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Void Gauntlet

The Void Gauntlet also scales primarily with Intelligence, leading to a Mana Bruiser style of play that inflicts heavy damage while debuffing foes. In the build the Ice Gauntlet is used for its catch potential thanks to its crowd control to enable the Void Gauntlet’s Void Blade to be even harder to punish. This makes the Void Gauntlet close to a melee weapon, without any necessary stat splitting.

To learn more about the Void Gauntlet, you can check out our Void Gauntlet Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Rapier

The Rapier is a really aggressive melee option, that will work similarly to the Void Gauntlet. Though with Intelligence being a secondary scaling stat here, you’ll want to use a gem or split your stats to keep it’s damage relevant. The Ice Gauntlet’s persisting AoE Slows pair really well with a duelist weapon like the Rapier.

To learn more about the Rapier, you can check out our Rapier Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Blunderbuss

The Blunderbuss is the oddest one on this list, but provides the same Close-Mid range power as the Ice Gauntlet. This becomes a fairly threatening weapon but providing some ranged options mixed with additional mobility and escape options. It’s a great mix of offensive power with everything the Ice Gauntlet lacks.

To learn more about the Blunderbuss, you can check out our Blunderbuss Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

This is the end to this very in-depth guide to the Ice Gauntlet weapon in New World. We hope you have learned everything you need to know about this weapon, its usage, skills, perks, builds, combos and ability rotations. The icons used in this guide are pulled from newworldfans.com‘s database.

Patch Notes Changes

This segment will help you keep track of what has changed for this weapon with the patches as AGS maintains the game in the long-term.

Update 1.1 “Into the Void”

• Heavy Attack – Increased heavy attack start up and recovery time to make it consistent with other magic weapons heavy attack timing.
• Fixed an issue where Ice Gauntlet movement while attacking was faster than other magic weapons.
• Fixed an issue where basic attacks on the Ice Gauntlet could sometimes shoot through an enemy without dealing damage if they were too close.
• Ice Storm
  • Increased time between damage ticks from 0.25s to 0.33s
  • Fixed an issue where Ice Storm did no damage if the player had the Unending Thaw item perk.
  • Fixed an issue where Ice Storm didn’t do damage to enemies immune to slow.
  • Fixed an issue where Ice Storm stopped if the caster swapped to their other active weapon.
• Ice Spike
  • Fixed an issue where Ice Spike displayed a cast timer despite being cast instantly.
• Wind Chill
  • Increased damage scaling per tick from 16% to 20%.
• Ice Shower
  • Increased cooldown from 20s to 30s.
• Entombed
  • Entombed players can no longer be healed.
  • Reduced health of the Tomb to 50% of players max health.
  • Reduced damage of breakout burst attack from 168% to 70%.
  • Fixed an issue where invulnerability on Entomb could be removed while the Tomb was still active.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed players to move while Entombed after dying.
• Ice Pylon
  • Increased Pylon health by 20%.
  • Added a max lifetime of 45 seconds to the Ice Pylon.
  • Fixed an issue where Ice Pylon could consume mana but wouldn’t activate on slopes, terrain, or off a ledge.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed players to place multiple Ice Pylons at a time by dying and being revived.
  • Fixed an issue with the Ice Pylon targeting neutral players or AI enemies during a 1v1 Duel.
• Passives
  • Ultimate Chill
    • Reduced Ultimate Chill’s bonus damage from 35% to 25%.
    • Fixed an issue where Ultimate Chill’s ability would not apply to enemies in some cases.
    • Updated Ultimate Chill tooltip wording to better clarify its functionality.
  • Critical Frost: Reduced critical change bonus from 20% to 15%.
  • Energized Critical: Reduced critical damage bonus from 15% to 10%.
  • Heavy Freeze
    • Added a 5 second cooldown to the freeze effect.
    • Fixed an issue that allowed enemies with this passive to root players standing in their own Ice Storm.
  • Fixed an issue where the Iced Refresh item perk could activate on both downing and killing a player. Now it triggers only on downing.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.1 “Into the Void” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival”

• Ice Pylon:
  • Pylon Dodge: Updated tooltip to better describe the functionality.
• Ultimate Chill
  • Updated Ultimate Chill’s status bar debuff tooltip to be consistent with the Weapon Mastery tooltip.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Ultimate Chill status effect icon to appear to stack.
• Blocking Stamina: Fixed an issue that allowed this passive ability to give stamina when the player was out of mana.
• Heavy Freeze: Updated the description to more accurately describe the cooldown.
• Ice Tomb: Increased Ice Tomb health from 50% to 75% of casters health.
• Entombed Burst: Reduced mana cost from 20 mana to 10 mana.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.3 “Expedition Mutators”

No Significant changes.

Update 1.4 ” Heart of Madness”

• Heavy Attack: Fixed an issue where heavy attack could be charged with insufficient mana and a light attack would be performed at the end of the charge. The functionality has been changed so that attempting to charge without sufficient mana will instead trigger a light attack immediately.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from interrupting repeated light attacks with a block.
• Entombed
  • Healing Tomb (Item Perk): Fixed an issue that prevented this perk from functioning properly if the player exited the Entombed state by dodging.
• Heavy Freeze: Fixed a typo in the description.
• Ice Spikes: Fixed an issue where the Mighty Spike visuals would not appear in some circumstances.
• Wind Chill: Fixed an issue where this ability could trigger the Defiant Freeze passive even when canceled.
• Entombed: Fixed an issue that prevented the Ice Tomb from taking damage from chain element perk effects.

Update 1.5 “Arenas”

• Ice Storm: Fixed an issue that caused this ability to go on cooldown when the spell was interrupted while in aim mode.
• Ice Pylon: Damage increased from 50% to 75% weapon damage.
• Ice Pylon: Health increased from 12% to 20% of player health.
• Ice Pylon: Fixed an issue that caused Ice Pylon to damage all targets within range when spawned.
• Ice Shower: Updated the tooltip for this ability to include the cooldown on the re-application of the root effect.
• Fixed an issue where Cleansing Elixir was not properly removing certain status effects applied by Ice Gauntlet and Fire Staff abilities.

Update 1.6 “Summer Medlyfaire”

• Added a 1s cooldown to Pylon Dodge upgrade.
• Players can now sprint when afflicted with Frostbite.
• Fixed an issue that caused Ultimate Chill to not trigger when a target was hit with the Wind Chill or Ice Shower ability.
• Fixed an issue that caused Haste bonuses to cancel Wind Chill early.
• Fixed an issue that caused Pylon to consume mana if it didn’t spawn on cast.
• Fixed an issue that caused some Damage over Time effects to trigger the Frozen Touch passive.
• Fixed a typo in the description of Ice Shower.
• Fixed an issue that momentarily prevented players from moving when they exited Entomb early.
• Added four new Ice Gauntlets to the game: Crystal Floe, Frosted Tips, Borealis, and Black Ice.

• Unbroken Winds: Now has grit and increases damage:
  • On armor: 10% to 25% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 10% to 40% based on Gear Score.
• Unending Thaw: Now increases ice storm damage:
  • On armor: 1% to 5.9% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 1% to 10% based on Gear Score.
• Pylon Burst: Now increases Pylon’s damage:
  • On armor: 1.5% to 5.8% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 1.5% to 10% based on Gear Score.
• Healing Tomb: Now heals for the following percentages of base health when Entomb ends.
  • On armor: 5% to 18% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 5% to 30% based on Gear Score.
• Deadly Frost: Now recharges Ice Shower:
  • On armor: 5% to 9.8% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 5% to 14% based on Gear Score.
• Iced Refresh: Increased cooldown while on an Ice Gauntlet:
  • On armor: 20% to 77% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 20% to 100% based on Gear Score.

Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands”

• Fixed an issue that caused Maelstrom to sometimes stop ally Ice Showers.
• Added additional damage information to Windchill’s tooltip.
• Fixed an issue that caused Ice damage perks to make the Ice Gauntlet Heavy Freeze passive not function.
• Frozen Touch: Updated description to clarify that the player needs to be at full health rather than 99% health for this passive to activate.
• Ultimate Chill no longer weakens targets, now only increases damage for the player that owns the upgrade vs chilled targets.
• Weakening Gust no longer weakens targets, now Ice Storm damage is increased by 10% to targets under 50% health.
• Pylon Burst: Burst damage to enemies within 3m now occurs every 2s instead of every time the Ice Pylon fires.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Shirking Elemental Damage perk to inconsistently trigger off of Ice Gauntlet Pylon attacks.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022”

• Delayed ability input from exiting Entomb after activating the ability to match behavior prior to release 1.7.0.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire”

Reviewed all weapons to make more clear differentiations between attacks that are intended to be for Crowd Control and Damage. Removed Stagger from damage-focused abilities, and reduced damage for stagger-focused abilities.

• Ice Spikes Mighty Spike no longer staggers.

Added in Taunt Gem compatibility to several weapons and abilities to create additional choices when tanking:

• Windchill (3s on hit taunt)

• Removed Mana cost on all magic weapon light attacks.
• Ability Updates
  • Ice Pylon
    • Added ability to despawn Ice Pylon by holding ability input for 1 second while Ice Pylon is active.
    • Added Ice Pylon health details to description.
  • Entomb
    • Updated description to include dodge as a way to exit Entomb.
    • Added Entomb health details to description.
  • Wind Chill
    • Added ability input delay of 0.6s after ability starts to avoid accidental cancelations.
• Passive Updates
  • Updated distance of Cold Reach from target from being further than 15m to within 15m of a target.
  • Increase Mana gain of Empowered Frost while performing an attack while inside a frosted area from 3 to 6“.
• Replaced melee-only Perks on the following Ice Gauntlets:
  • Frozen Hope
  • Psychopomp’s Ma’at
  • Dead Claws
  • Gravekeeper’s Glove
  • Conservation of Heat
  • Cold Stone
• Notable Fixes
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Ice Shower’s Punishing Storm upgrade to not properly function when using the Keenly Jagged perk.
  • Fixed an issue where the Ice Gauntlet Entomb ability would bypass the Mana Stop Mutation effect.
  • Fixed an issue where Ice Pylon prevented Gathering Storm from triggering after 3 consecutive light attacks.
  • Fixed an issue where melee attacks homed towards friendly Ice Pylons.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire” in our New World Patches archives.

Here at VULKK.com we have a ton of useful New World Guides and more and more are being published regularly. We also have all of the news and updates covered to keep you up-to-date with all things New World!