The Ice Sickles are one of Grounded 2’s many hidden treasures. Learn where to find this unique weapon and the best ways to use it.
Table of contents
What are the Ice Sickles
The Ice Sickles are a unique Weapon type, being the only Dual Swords in the game currently. This means that despite playing similarly to Daggers, they benefit from the Blademaster perk rather than the Assassin Perk.
As far as Dual-wield Weapons go, the Ice Sickles are easily top of their class for consistent damage. Their unique Perk not only adds Fresh Damage to Attacks but also allows them to freeze enemies. This makes them incredibly strong, both offensively and defensively.
Preparations
Before heading out, we’ll need to make sure we have everything we need to reach the Ice Sickles. Out of all hidden items in Grounded 2, these easily have the most requirements for a smooth journey. This is because we’ll want to have the following:
- Tier 2 Omni-Hammer
- Tier 2 Omni-Shovel
- Level 3 Of the Spicy Safety Perk
- Everchar Flares
- Sticky Blazin’ Brews
- Scorpidotes
- Gear to quickly defeat multiple Scorpions
Seems like a lot, but let’s go over why we want to have all of this. If not already implied by the list of stuff we need, we’ll be headed to the Ice Cream Cart. It’s both very cold and very full of Scorpions.
Spicy Safety, Everchar Flares, and Blazin’ Brews all help to manage our Chill buildup. The Flares in particular are great for combat, as combined with the other two items will entirely prevent us from being frozen. This prevents us from having to chug Blazin’ Brews in combat, letting Scorpidotes be our main healing item as needed.
This also lets us go without the Fuzzy Armor Set, which, despite allowing us to mitigate Chill buildup, prevents us from utilizing any Archetype Perk. This severely set back our damage potential, which is crucial.
Given we’ll be fighting off many Scorpions, it’ll be good to come prepared with plenty of Scorpidotes, as well as gear to help defeat them quickly. Not only do we have to worry about our own safety, but we’ll need to defend the Ice Sickles as well.
The Tier 2 Omni-Hammer is required to reach the Ice Sickles. There’s an obstacle that this upgrade will allow us to remove. This also happens to allow us to collect Chocolate Chunks here as well. We’ll need the Tier 2 Omni-Shovel to access to Frostbitten Chest.
How to get the Ice Sickles
To start our journey, we’ll want to make our way to the Ice Cream Cart.
We’ll be taking the more direct entrance we can, being the spilled ice cream in front of the cart itself. The waffle cone in the image below will take us inside.
From here we’ll need to turn and enter the cave directly to our left.
Before we head directly over to the Ice Sickles themselves, we’ll want to make a small detour toward the right side of this cave.
Over here on the right side, between these two popsicles, is a hill for us to climb. Just beyond here are some very useful goodies.
By following the path directly ahead of us, we’ll come across a dead Ominent Employee. While he has some useful resources, like basic flares on him, what we’re after here is the Ice Cream Cart Optical Disk and, more importantly, the Frostbitten Key.
After grabbing these, we can head to the right through the waffle cone to make our way back to where we started.
Just past here, we can follow another waffle cone that will take us toward where we came from.
Optical Disk and Frostbitten Key in hand, we’ll want to head to the left side of the initial cave. Over here is an assorted pile of ice cream treats that will be our way forward.
As we make our way up this pile of ice cream, off to the right, we’ll see a long metal pipe. That’s where we’re headed next.
This will lead us to a small room with a fan in the middle of it. It’s been frozen over by Ice Splinters, which will require the Tier 2 Omni-Hammer to remove.
Once all the Ice Splinters have been removed, the fan will rotate counterclockwise, before becoming stuck in the snow surrounding it. This does, however, open a small cave on the opposite side for us to descend through.
Make sure not to miss the Mega Milk Molar tucked in the middle of the ramp taking us deeper into this new area.
Continue following the path down, and we’ll finally reach the Ice Sickles, in the middle of this open room.
Interact with them to start a MIX.R-like event where we’ll need to fend off waves of Scorpions. We’ll need to keep the health from reaching zero until the event completes.
This Event will start easily enough, sending only a couple of Scorplings and a Jr Scorpion. Every 25% progress or so, the difficulty of the incoming enemy waves will increase, consisting of multiple Jr Scorpions and an adult, and eventually sending multiple adult Scorpions at once.
Once the Event is complete, we’ll be awarded with the Ice Sickles and their crafting blueprint. These will go straight to our Inventory. But we need to take care of the Frostbitten Key before we leave, which we’ll need to head to the banana peel just behind the event we completed, shown by a sparkle.
Here we can dig up the Frostbitten Chest. This lets us get the only Mint Globs available currently. These are useful if we want an extra pair of Ice Sickles, either for a friend or in case we lose them.
Once claimed, we’ll want to head back up to the fan room to make a quick exit. We can climb up the middle section of the fan here to start heading out.
Then we can make our way up the leaves to the top of the Ice Cream Cart. We’re finally free of the Chilling effect up here.
Before we decided to leave this frozen wasteland, there is one more goodie to collect here. To grab it, we’ll want to head over to this branch that takes us on top of the Ice Cream Cart Wheel.
Once up here, we’ll immediately spot another Mega Milk Molar sitting atop the wheel’s axle. Climb the spokes of the wheel to claim it. For some extra resources, we can even drop into the section of the axle below to find another Ominent Employee body here.
Feel free to grab the Raw Science as well as the Crow Feathers up here, assuming we have the Tier 2 Omni-Axe. Then we can make our way over to the pipe that sticks out, or any side of the cart really, and we can safely glide completely outside of the Ice Cream Cart and the Chilling area as a whole.
Using the Ice Sickles
The Ice Sickles are particularly powerful weapons, and it’s highly recommended to get them before taking on the Network Center. The Combination of Slashing and Fresh Damage handles most enemies with ease. This combination of damage types in particular demolishes Praying Mantis Nymphs, taking them from challenging foes to a pushover in most cases.
Due to them being Dual Swords, this gives them better synergy with the Rogue Archetype rather than the Fighter Archetype. The inability to use a Shield keeps them from being consistently useful to a Fighter, as both attacking and defending will eat away at their durability. However, since Rogues already have to rely more on dodging, this makes them just as effective as Daggers without any change in playstyle.
The Stamina-reliant Rogues will want to pair this with the Cardio Fan and Parry Master Perks, which, in combination with the Sword Master Perk, allow for a near limitless amount of Stamina. When fighting O.R.C. Bugs specifically, including the Volatile Capacitor Trinket can help to quickly shred them with its quick attacks.
