Glacier Sorcerer Guide
Last Updated:October 5, 2024|Changelog
This unstoppable Sorcerer fills the battlefield with huge Cold explosions while building tons of Ward. The cascade of blasts unleashed by Glacier destroy everything in their path, while the shards from Ice Barrage seek distant foes.
This build utilizes Lost Knowledge as a core defensive tool and stacks as much Mana as possible to synergize it with Glacier's Critical Rejuvenation Node. Use Frost Wall for its amazing bufs and to proc Flame Ward, an incredible Defensive Skill with tons of Damage Reduction that can protect against the most dangerous attacks. Toggle Arcane Ascendance whenever you need extra firepower and use unspecced Teleport for mobility. Use specialized Focus if you if you struggle with Mana early on.
This setup doesn't require any Unique to function. However, Items like Wrongwarp, Throne of Ambition, Unstable Core, Peak of the Mountain, Transient Rest, Scales of Eterra, Strands of Souls, Red Ring of Atlaria 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, even in Hardcore. If you are looking for a tanky caster with huge explosions, this build is perfect for you!
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
- Great Single Target DPS
- Amazing Ward Generation
- Insane Speed With Gear and Uniques
- Unique Heavy Build
- Low DPS Without Gear
- High Mana Needed To Sustain
- Glacier Explosions Require Timing
Skills
Glacier
Glacier is your main Damage Skill. It has insane Damage Multiplier Nodes like Greater Destruction, Morditas' Bane, Greater Chilling and Endless Frost. This setup focuses on enhancing its third massive explosion as much as possible. With enought Mana, Critical Rejuvenation and Cold Victory allow it to self sustain.
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.
- Take all the Cast Speed, Intelligence and Critical Strike Multiplier Nodes.
- Grab valuable Mana related Nodes.
- Calculated Destruction is crucial to raise your Spell Critical Strike Chance.
- Get Lost Knowledge for insane Ward generation.
- Mana Well and Archmage are incredible for the build.
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
- If you have Wrongwarp, buff yourself by casting unspecced Teleport.
- Cast Ice Barrage for its buff.
- Walk through Frost Wall to proc Flame Ward for additional defense.
- Spam Glacier.
- Toggle Arcane Ascendance whenever you need extra firepower.
- Use specialized Focus instead of Frost Wall if you struggle with Mana sustain early on.
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 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 stack as many other defensive layers 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 Less Damage Taken From Crits
- 40%+ Armour
- 5000 - 10000+ Ward
- 1000 - 2000+ Mana
- 100 -150%+ Movement Speed
- 400% - 800%+ Increased Damage
- 300%+ Spell Critical Strike Multiplier
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with four valuable T5 Affixes. The Defensive rolls on T5 Suffixes are very important at this stage as they can easily cap all your Resistances when combined with Item Implicits, Idols, Blessings or Passives. Get a Weapon with double T5 offensive Prefixes as soon as possible.
Milestone 2
Make sure your Critical Strike Avoidance or Less Damage Taken From Crits is capped. Remember that Woven Flesh is always an option early on. It can be farmed by killing the Abomination in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline.
Milestone 3
Reach 300 Mana to double the effect of Archmage. Use specialized Focus if you struggle with Mana.
Milestone 4
Reach 100% Critical Strike Chance with Glacier as soon as possible. With 600 Mana, your sustain is good enough for spamming Glacier.
Milestone 5
Farm Peak of the Mountain, Unstable Core and Transient Rest. This build can be very Unique heavy, so it's good to include the ones that shine even without Legendary Potential as soon as possible.
Milestone 6
While you look for this basic set of gear, start farming your Empowered Blessings and look for any Idols that can help you cap all your Resistances momentarily or increase your Damage output. Keep an eye for Grand Glass Idol with with Mana and Mana And Armor.
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.
Milestone 2
When all of your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Chance To Shred Armour on Hit, Critical Strike Multiplier, Intelligence and Cast Speed are very important to scale the DPS of the build.
Milestone 3
Keep stacking as much Mana on your gear as possible. Reach 1000 Mana to triple the effect of Archmage and further increase your DPS and Mana sustain.
Milestone 4
Get Wrongwarp, Strands of Souls, Peak of the Mountain, Unstable Core and Transient Rest with Legendary Potential. Remember, the Nemesis encounters in Echoes can give your regular Uniques Legendary Potential.
Milestone 5
Make sure you already farmed 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. Finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances and Less Damage Taken From Crits.
Milestone 1
Upgrade you setup with T7 Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner, keep prioritizing the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits. Make sure to Seal highly efficient low tier Affixes.
Milestone 2
Keep farming Wrongwarp, Strands of Souls, Peak of the Mountain, Unstable Core and Transient Rest with the maximum Legendary Potential you can find.
Milestone 3
Finish up your Idol setup with high rolled Grand Glass Idol with Mana and Mana And Armor; keep stacking as much Mana as possible to reach close to 2000.
Milestone 4
If you find an Orian's Eye you can completly ignore Void Resistance. This Item is very rare but has amazing synergy for the build, as it provides and insane ammount of Mana and allows you to fit in the rest of the Uniques easier.
Milestone 5
If you manage to get two Red Rings of Atlaria you must prioratize itemizing Intelligence to reach the 180 Attribute requirement. This amazing Item provides an amazing layer of tankiness for the build, crucial for pushing Corruption.
Milestone 6
Get a Legendary Scales of Eterra with Fire and Lightning Infusions. That way you can benefit from the amazing stats on this Unique without any downside to your Cold DPS. If you get it, don't convert Frost Wall to Lightning with Crackling Barrier.
Milestone 7
Keep looking for Nemesis encounters in Echoes to add Legendary Potential or Affixes to your rarest and hardest to get Uniques with the Egg of the Forgotten.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items with high tier Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and on the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes and Legendary Potential are technically possible.
Milestone 2
Get as close to perfect rolls for all of your Empowered Blessings and find all of your desired Idols with the best in slot Prefixes and Suffixes.
Milestone 3
Keep looking for Wrongwarp, Strands of Souls, Peak of the Mountain, Unstable Core, Red Rings of Atlaria, Orian's Eye, Scales of Eterra and Transient Rest with the maximum Legendary Potential possible. Remember, some of these Items are extremely hard to get with high Legendary Potential.
Milestone 4
Feel free to experiment with any crazy Unique, Legendary or Experimental Items that you might craft, trade or find! The possibilities are endless, so be open to explore new options. 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!
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
- Light of the Moon
- Survival of Might
- Resolve of Humanity
- Protection of Heorot
- Resolve of Grael
- Heart of the Caldera
- Rage of Winter
Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.
Reaching Empowered Monolith unlocks all the level 100 Timelines and the ability to farm Empowered Blessings. Unlike Normal Blessings, these need to be farmed until you get the desired ones for your build. It is extremely important to get this set up as fast as possible to free up affix slots on your gear. Remember, the more value you get from your Blessings, the easier it is to craft efficient gear!
These are the core Combat Empowered Blessings for this build:
- Get Grand Resolve of Humanity for the Resistances it provides.
- Grab Grand Light of the Moon for the Mana.
- Once your core Defenses are sorted, grab Grand Rage of Winter for a huge DPS boost.
- Farm Grand Body of Obsidian for a huge survivability boost.
- Finally, get Grand Emptiness of Ash for even more Damage.
These Empowered Blessings are flexible and depend on your current needs and goals.
These are valuable Empowered Drop Rate Blessings for this build:
- Grand Pride of Rebellion is very valuable to help you find Grand Glass Idol with Mana and Mana And Armor; keep stacking as much Mana as possible. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Grand Cruelty of Formosus helps you find more Exalted Wands.
- Lastly take Grand Vision of the Aurora to increase your chances for finding an Orian's Eye.
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.
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.
- 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: It's easy to cap with a good Implicit on your Crystal Skull plus your Intelligence and Peak of the Mountain.
- 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%.
- Flame Ward: The Damage Reduction is insane. While this Skill is active you are almost immortal!
- Ward: Invest into Lost Knowledge in the Passive Tree and build Mana for insane Ward generation.
- Red Rings of Atlaria: Reach the 180 Attribute requirement for an amazing layer of tankiness for the build, crucial for pushing Corruption.
- Orian's Eye: Grants tons of Mana and converts all Void Damage taken to Fire. This Item greatly synergizes with all the Elemental Damage Reduction sources this build has.
- Armour Mitigation: This build can get decent Armour. Just with the implicit Armour from your gear, Grand Body of Obsidian Blessing and %Armour from your Grand Glass Idol you reach 40%+ Mitigation. Thanks to Throne of Ambition this Mitigation increases to 60%+ while Bossing. This is huge on top of all the other defensive layers the build has.
- Chill and Slow: Are Ailments that greatly reduce the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. They are must haves on most builds, especially once you reach hard content with insane speed modifiers.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds. Stacks 3 times.
- Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use: Cleanse all Ailments on Potion use.
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.
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. Click on the Generate Loot Filter button down below then use the Paste Clipboard Contents button in-game to import it!
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.
- While they are not mandatory, Wrongwarp, Strands of Souls, Peak of the Mountain, Unstable Core, Red Rings of Atlaria, Orian's Eye and Transient Rest are great Uniques that you want to scale the build to its full potential.
- 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.
Credits
Written by Lizard_IRL.
Reviewed by McFluffin