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, even in Hardcore. If you are looking for a tanky caster with huge explosions, this build is perfect for you!
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 and 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.
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, Spell Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Multiplier Nodes.
- Chill to the Bone provides a bit of Leech and is crucial for sustain early on.
- Grab valuable Mana related Nodes.
- Investing points into Elemental Affinity and Elemental Ascendance helps cap Elemental Resistances.
- Calculated Destruction is crucial to raise your Spell Critical Strike Chance.
- Recollection and Archmage are a must have for most Sorcerers.
- WARD VARIANT: Get Lost Knowledge for insane Ward generation.
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
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with two 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 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 200 Mana to triple the effect of Archmage and fit as much Health into your gear as possible. Hybrid Health and Health are extremely valuable, but can be hard to find early on. Use regular flat Health until you find them.
Milestone 4
Aim for T5 Level of Glacier on your Body Armour to invest extra Points on it. T1 Flame Ward Charge and Added Ward and Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health are also great upgrades.
Milestone 5
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
Rush Grand Hunger of the Void for the sustain it provides. This is very important to smoothly play the build. If you have it, you can use Prism Wraps for the Spell Leech until you get it.
Milestone 2
Get Chance to Apply Frailty on Hit to decrease the Damage enemies deal to you. This Ailment is really important and should always be kept in mind. Start stacking as much Mana on your gear as possible.
Milestone 3
When all your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Get Chance To Shred Armour on Hit on your Crusader Gauntlets and your Amulet. Critical Strike Multiplier, Spell Damage, Cold Damage and Cast Speed are also important to scale the Damage of the build.
Milestone 4
As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances and Critical Strike Avoidance. Your goal is to have items with 4 valuable T5 Affixes, also known as T20.
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 an Arcane Visage 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.
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!
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items with Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and in the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes are technically possible.
Milestone 2
Get as close to perfect rolls for all your Empowered Blessings and find all your desired Idols with the best in slot Prefixes and Suffixes.
Milestone 3
Ignore Fractured Crown and gear towards Ward generation instead. Invest into Lost Knowledge in the Passive Tree You can also farm a Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros for additional Ward generation, but it's not necessary. This Unique Relic drops from Emperor of Corpses in the Reign of Dragons Monolith Timeline.
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
- 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.
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:
- Start with Grand Hunger of the Void for the sustain it provides.
- Continue with Grand Survival of Might. Combine this Empowered Blessing with a single high rolled T5 Critical Strike Avoidance to cap it.
- Once your core Defenses are sorted, grab Grand Rage of Winter for a huge DPS boost.
- Grab Grand Light of the Moon for the Mana.
- Finish up by farming the best rolled Grand Body of Obsidian you can get. It grants an insane amount of Flat Armour that helps increase the survivability of the build and synergises greatly with Throne of Ambition. Grand Embers of Immortality is also good but not as efficient.
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.
- Farm Grand Arrogance of Argentus to find Gilded Crowns for the Fractured Crown recipe.
- 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: 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%.
- Stun: Thanks to its Damage output and the Shock Ailment the build is able to Stun most enemies.
- Flame Ward: The Damage Reduction is insane. While this Skill is active you are almost immortal! Get all the charges you can (3 max) and lower its CD as much as possible.
- Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health: With this Prefix a percentage of the Damage you take is dealt to your Mana instead of your Health. Each point of Mana shields 5 Health. Considering this build has more than 1000 Mana with decent gear, the power of this defensive layer is insane. Fractured Crown can push this defensive mechanic to the extreme, but all Ward is removed.
- Ward Variant: Ignore Fractured Crown and gear towards Ward instead. Invest into Lost Knowledge in the Passive Tree and farm a Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros for insane Ward generation.
- 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.
- Stun Immunity: Provided by the Rock Phase Node from Teleport. The buff is sustainable thanks to Tunnel Finder and Time Dilation.
- Armour Mitigation: This build can get decent Armour. Just with the implicit Armour from your gear, Grand Body of Obsidian Blessing, Flat Armour from Teleport 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.
- Health: This build can stack a decent Health pool for a ranged build. It's very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers the Sorcerer has access to.
- Endurance: A defensive mechanic that allows you to take up to 60% less Damage while below a certain Health threshold. Your Endurance Threshold is 20% of your total Health by default.
- Spell Leech: Chill to the Bone and Grand Hunger of the Void provide insane Leech for the build.
- 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. 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