Glacier Sorcerer Guide

Last Updated: October 5th 2023

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This unstoppable Sorcerer fills the battlefield with huge Cold explosions while absorbing the Damage its enemies try to inflict on him. The cascade of blasts unleashed by Glacier destroy everything in their path, while the shards from Ice Barrage seek distant foes.

This build utilizes Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health as a core defensive mechanic and stacks as much Mana as possible to synergize it with Glacier's Critical Rejuvenation Node. Flame Ward is an incredible Defensive Skill with tons of Damage Reduction that can save him even from the most dangerous attacks. Teleport also has great defensive buffs.

This setup doesn't require any Unique to function. However Fractured Crown, Throne of Ambition and Orian's Eye turn it into an absolute juggernaut. Mana stacking also requires investment but the build works fine without it thanks to Glacier's base power.

Overall the Glacier Sorcerer is an amazing build capable of defeating all the content in the game. It's also great to compete in the Endless Arena once you get good gear, even in Hardcore. If you are looking for a tanky caster with huge explosions, this build is perfect for you!

End Game Gear Planner

Flame Ward

Ice Barrage

Teleport

Focus

Glacier

This article assumes you have a Level 70 Character. Reach Level 70 with our Sorcerer Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!

Big AoE Spells
Uses Mana Defensively

Great Defensive Support Skills
Good Scaling
With Gear & Uniques

Uses 2 Damage Skills
Slow Spell Animations
Defensive Skills Require Timing
Glacier Explosions Require Timing

Skills

Glacier

Glacier is your main Damage Skill. It has insane Damage Multiplier Nodes like Greater Destruction, Morditas' Bane and Endless Frost. This setup focuses on enhancing its third massive explosion as much as possible. Critical Rejuvenation has great synergy with Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health.

Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression

Alternative Skills & Tips

Passives

Passives provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives on the first half of all Masteries regardless of the one you chose.

  1. Take all the Cast Speed, Spell Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Multiplier Nodes.
  2. Chill to the Bone provides a bit of Leech and is crucial for sustain early on.
  3. Grab valuable Mana related Nodes.
  4. Investing points into Elemental Affinity and Elemental Ascendance helps cap Elemental Resistances.
  5. Calculated Destruction is crucial to raise your Spell Critical Strike Chance.
  6. Recollection and Archmage are a must have for most Sorcerers.
  7. WARD VARIANT: Get Lost Knowledge for insane Ward generation.
End Game Gear Planner

Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.

Gameplay

This Sorcerer wants to group up enemy packs before blasting them up with Glacier's giant explosions. Make sure you are familiar with enemy mechanics to know when to use your Support Skills to stay alive. Pay attention to the telegraphed attacks of your enemies and stay out of their range.

Skill Usage/Rotation

  • Buff yourself by casting Teleport.
  • Cast Ice Barrage for the Ice Shield buff.
  • Spam Glacier at your enemies.
  • Use Flame Ward defensively before you take Damage.
  • Refresh your Teleport defensive buffs by casting it before they expire.
  • Use Focus to generate Mana.

Mapping

  • Aim to maximize Glacier's third explosion.
  • Group trash mobs to gain an insane amount of Mana instantly thanks to Critical Rejuvenation.
  • The Ice Barrage setup has 100% pierce chance. Line up enemy packs!
  • Use Focus efficiently to gain Haste for the maximum duration possible.
  • Get the Comet Rush Node for Teleport while mapping for the Cooldown it provides for it.
  • Use Teleport to leave dangerous enemies behind and to traverse terrain gaps.

Bossing

  • All of Glacier's explosions can hit the same target, aim accordingly!
  • Take advantage of all your defensive buffs and keep them active.
  • Flame Ward can save you from incoming Damage. Time it against dangerous telegraphed Boss attacks.

Advanced Skill Tips

Learn more about how to maximize your gameplay in the Build Scaling section of this guide.

Gear

Gearing in Last Epoch revolves around finding Items and then using the powerful Crafting System to enhance them. As long as an Item has Forging Potential left, players can upgrade or modify their Affixes up to Tier 5. However, the powerful Exalted Tier Affixes are drop only and can't be modified by players.

Using the correct Item Bases allows you to make use of their amazing Implicits, this is fundamental for gearing efficiently. Combine Implicits, Passives, Idols and Blessings to cap your Resistances and other defensive layers, while fitting as much Health related Affixes or Endurance Threshold into your gear as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final Blessings of your build while gearing. Finish up by farming Uniques with Legendary Potential and Sealing Affixes into Exalted Items to unleash all of your build's power!

Here are the Stat Goals for this build:

  • Capped Resistances
  • Capped Critical Strike Avoidance
  • Capped Endurance
  • 2000 - 3300 Health
  • 40%+ Armour
  • 1000+ Mana
  • 50%+ Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health
  • 400% - 800%+ Increased Damage
  • 300%+ Spell Critical Strike Multiplier
  • 40% - 70%+ Movement Speed

Gear Progression

Starting Gear
Advanced Gear
End Game Gear
WARD Gear

Milestone 1
Upgrade your T20 set up with Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner, but prioritize the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits. Make sure to Seal highly efficient low tier Affixes. Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use is a must have for Belts.

Milestone 2
Farm Fractured Crown. The only way to obtain this Unique is by using a Rune of Ascendance on a Celestial Helm that has Mana and Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health Prefixes with a total Affix value of 21+ Tiers. It can have Legendary Potential.

Milestone 3
Farm Throne of Ambition in The Stolen Lance Empowered Monolith Timeline. It's a rare drop from God Hunter Argentus so it might take a few tries to drop. Get your Grand Glass Idol with Mana and Mana And Armor; keep stacking as much Mana as possible.

End Game Gear Planner

Milestone 4
If you manage to get an Orian's Eye you can switch your Crusader Gauntlets with Engraved Gauntlets for their Endurance Implicit. Make sure you have Necrotic Resistances on your Catalyst to transition to this extremely rare Unique from a Bone Amulet. Orian's Eye it's not necessary and can be replaced by an Exalted Amulet.

Ward Variant (OP for Patch 0.9)
Continue farming Orian's Eye and Fractured Crown with the maximum Legendary Potential you can find. Remember that these Unique Items are extremely hard to get with multiple Legendary Potential. Good luck with the chase!

Learn the basics for crafting gear with our Beginner Crafting Guide.
Check our Unique Item & Set Farming Guide and learn how to get them!
Want to know more about Legendary Items? Check our Legendary Guide!

Blessings

Completing a Timeline in the Monolith of Fate lets you choose one of several randomized Blessings from its unique pool. Their benefits are permanent and persist even outside of the Monolith of Fate.

Empowered Blessings are a fundamental part of all builds, so getting the correct ones for each is key.

The sooner you reach Empowered Monolith, the faster you can start farming your desired Blessings!

End Game Blessings
Normal Blessings
Empowered Combat Blessings
Empowered Drop Rate Blessings

Normal Blessings are not important as they are eventually replaced by Empowered Blessings. However they can still be a great source of Resistances, Critical Strike Avoidance or Life Leech for your build early on.

Pick up these Normal Blessings on your way to Empowered:

  • Echo of Solarum
  • Hunger of the Void
  • Survival of Might
  • Persistance of Will
  • Protection of Heorot
  • Resolve of Grael
  • Rage of Winter
  • Heart of the Caldera
  • Embers of Immortality

Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.

Learn how to farm Blessings fast with our Advanced Monolith Strategies.

Idols

Idols grant your character bonuses when equipped in the dedicated Idol Container. Unlock all the slots of your Idol Container by completing the Campaign and some of its Side Quests. Remember that some Idols are Class specific and you won't be able to equip them with other non-compatible Classes.

These are the Idols recommended for this build:

  • Find 4 Grand Glass Idol with Mana and Mana And Armor to help you stack as much Mana as possible. Aim to surpass 1000 Mana.
  • Get a Throne of Ambition. You can farm it in The Stolen Lance Empowered Monolith Timeline. It's a rare drop from God Hunter Argentus.
  • Use the rest of your Idols slots to cap the rest of your Resistances. They are especially important to complement your Empowered Blessings.
  • If you don't need more Resistances, get 1 Adorned Arcane Idol with Chance To Gain Lightning Aegis When Hit. This buff provides 25% Damage Reduction while its active.
End Game Idols

Other useful Idol Affixes


Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Idol Slots.
Learn how to be efficient with Idols with our Advanced Idols Setups Guide.

Build Scaling

This Sorcerer uses Glacier and Ice Barrage for Damage. Both abilities are Cold Spells that scale with the same stats to deal big Crits to your enemies. This build focuses on enhancing Glacier's third massive explosion as much as possible and has great survivability thanks to its multiple defensive layers and the Unique Items it can take advantage of.

Damage
Defense
  • Adaptive Spell Damage: With Glacier's 350% Added Damage Effectiveness and the amount of Damage Multipliers this build has access to, you want to stack as much Flat Damage as possible. Nodes like Spell Slinger and Archmage grant raw Adaptive Spell Damage and are extremely valuable for DPS.
  • Cast Speed: The faster you attack the more Spells you cast and Ailments you apply.
  • Increased Damage: Spell Damage and Cold Damage are necessary for increasing your DPS.
  • Intelligence: Glacier and Ice Barrage gain 4% Damage per point or Intelligence. It also provides %Spell Critical Chance thanks to Calculated Destruction.
  • Spell Critical Strike Chance: Spell Critical Strike Chance: It's easy to cap with a good Implicit on your Crystal Skull plus some Intelligence and %Spell Critical Strike Chance on your gear.
  • Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. Arcane Obliteration 50% on its own. Build as much as you can on your gear.
  • Throne of Ambition: Provides an extra Damage Multiplier for the build.
  • Grand Rage of Winter: Since the build attacks so fast and has so many hits, it is extremely easy to apply 10 stacks of Cold Resistance Shred to your targets. 10 stacks increase the Cold Damage enemies take by 50%. This Blessing plays a big part on your Damage output, so make sure you roll it nicely (45%+) and as early as possible.
  • Chance To Shred Armour on Hit: Each stack of this Ailment reduces enemy Armour by 100 for 4 seconds and stacks infinitely. Enemies have 0 Armour by default and it can go into the negatives. At -1000 Armour a target takes 16.5% increased Cold Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 40%.

Our Damage Explained Article covers all you need to know to scale Damage.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.

Last Epoch has multiple end game activities with completely different roles and rewards. All the builds in Maxroll.gg have been tested and are designed to complete all available content. However, not all builds excel at doing the same activities. Make sure you are familiar with the end game strengths and weaknesses of your character.

Monolith
Dungeons
Endless Arena

The Monolith of Fate is the main end game system. Most of your character gear upgrades are found here. Once you get all of your desired Empowered Blessings, you can start pushing Corruption to increase your chances at finding incredible Exalted Items. The Monolith of Fate rewards speedy builds that are able to target farm Echo Reward Nodes or stack Timeline Stability as fast as possible.

This Sorcerer is a great Monolith of Fate farmer. It's very safe and has great AoE. While it's not the fastest build for rushing objectives, it's an amazing setup for farming difficult content in high Corruption.

Monolith Goals

Monolith Timelines

Your goals in the Monolith of Fate will differ greatly depending on what build you play and what stage your character progression is at. Here are the objectives you should aim at when playing this build:

  1. Reach Empowered Monolith as fast as possible.
  2. Farm your Combat Empowered Blessings. Prioritize gaining Timeline Stability and fight the Timeline Bosses as often as possible. Once you are done with one Timeline, move to the next one. Reach 200 Corruption to farm your desired Blessings faster, as it unlocks a 5th option to choose from after you defeat a Timeline Boss. Defeat the Shade of Orobyss to gain and transfer Corruption between Timelines.
  3. Farm your first Drop Rate Empowered Blessing in The Stolen Lance Empowered Monolith Timeline. Here you should also farm Throne of Ambition until you get it.
  4. Finish up the rest of your Drop Rate Empowered Blessings.
  5. Farm for key Uniques.
  6. As you farm for Uniques, stack Corruption as high as your gear can handle. The higher Corruption you do, the more Items you find. Get your character ready for the other end game activities.

Monolith Modifiers

Every time you choose an Echo a Modifier comes attached with it, adding difficulty and changing how enemies behave. These Modifiers stay active for a maximum of 6 Echoes and stack with each other. Some Modifiers can handicap your build immensely while others can almost be ignored. Monolith Modifiers scale with Corruption and increase the Item Rarity of Echoes. Ideally you want to do the hardest content possible, without delaying your clear times. Keep up Item Rarity as high as you can without it slowing you down.

Easy Modifiers

  • Enemy Critical Strike Chance (Once you have 100% Critical Strike Avoidance).
  • Enemies heal if they have not been damaged recently.
  • Rare enemies have high speed and crit chance until approached.
  • Rare enemies regenerate health.

Avoid these Modifiers

  • Enemy chance to receive a Glancing Blow.
  • Enemy Critical Strike Avoidance.
  • Enemy chance to Dodge.
  • High health enemies take less damage.
  • High health enemies deal increased damage.
  • Increased enemy Movement Speed.
  • While bossing: enemies Enrage at half health and enemies gain Frenzy and Haste when hit.

Learn more about the Monolith of Fate with our Empowered Monolith Guide.

Loot Filter

Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Making sure you highlight all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to ensure your character's progression. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.

Here is the Endgame Loot Filter for this build:

Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.

Video Guide

Summary

This setup focuses on enhancing Glacier's third massive explosion. Overall this Sorcerer is an amazing build capable of completing all the content in the game. It has insane AoE, deals big Crits and has great survivability thanks to its multiple defensive layers and powerful Unique Items.

  • Group up enemy packs before blasting them with Glacier's giant explosions.
  • Cast Ice Barrage for the Ice Shield buff.
  • The build utilizes Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health as a core defensive mechanic and stacks as much Mana as possible to synergize it with Glacier's Critical Rejuvenation Node.
  • While they are not mandatory, Fractured Crown, Orian's Eye and Throne of Ambition are great Uniques that you want to get to scale the build to its full potential.
  • Teleport is a great Movement Skill that grants great defensive buffs on use.
  • Flame Ward is an incredible Defensive Skill with tons of Damage Reduction that can save you from incoming Damage. Time it against dangerous telegraphed Boss attacks.
  • Use Focus to generate Mana.

Credits

Written by Lizard_IRL.
Reviewed by McFluffin, Facefoot

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