Ice Shot Amazon Build Guide
This Ice Shot Amazon Build Guide on the Huntress Class provides massive freezes and chunky cold damage to shatter her enemies. Unleash a devastating volley of cold damage with Freezing Salvo to make quick work of difficult monsters.
Using Cast on Critical and Frost Wall allows an automated offensive and defensive boost. Blocking off and exploding enemies with ice crystals helps keep you safe while boosting the damage you deal.
A hybrid Energy Shield and Evasion playstyle allows for the tanking of large hits while also providing protecting from burst damage with Ghost Dance. On top of these defensive layers, freezing enemies is the best defense in the game! Frozen enemies cannot move, attack or cast spells, leaving you safe to reposition or pump out damage. On top of that, when your Frost Walls are out, enemies target them, giving you even more time to deliver the killing blow.
This build doesn't require any Unique items to function. However, the build does benefit from a common Unique called The Black Insignia. This item gives movement speed, Evasion and damage all in one place!
You do not need specific resistances or attributes on any item, just get the required total resistances amongst all gear combined. You need to cap your Resistances at 75% unless otherwise specified in the guide!
Path of Exile 2 is currently in early access, this means rapid development including frequent changes to builds as there are balance fixes and we learn more. Pin this page to be notified of any updates.
Skills
- Ice Shot fires a projectile which, upon striking an enemy or object, unleashes 9 shard projectiles that can all hit the same enemy. Make sure to keep a Tornado Shot or Frost Wall between you and difficult enemies to increase your damage.
- Make sure to add 20% quality to Ice Shot as soon as possible for 20% more damage!
- Once you are using Volt support, be sure to try to move as much as possible between attacking in order to stack up its chains! This is also when you should add in the second Ice Shot setup.
- The second Ice Shot uses Salvo to add a significant number of projectiles fired in random directions. Use this when surrounded to clear the screen. However, you can also use this as a way to not use your main Ice Shot, allowing Volt to build up more chain charges.
- Use Freezing Salvo for a huge burst of damage whenever it comes off of cooldown.
- Rather than manually casting Frost Wall, you use Cast on Critical to automate the placement. This allows you to stay moving and attacking.
- Herald of Ice helps create icy explosions that further your already strong clear.
- Wind Dancer gives you more Evasion Rating. With some help from support Gems, it also knocks back enemies when hit by melee enemies.
- Ghost Dance recovers Energy Shield based on your Evasion Rating. This helps mitigate lots of small attacks.
- Precision is a support for one of your Auras. Do note that it takes 10 additional Spirit to use. If you don't have that much, just cut it from your setup.
- Precision provides a boost to accuracy. This gives both Attack Speed and Critical Hit Chance.
- Place Tornadoes with Tornado Shot and target them to split your projectiles to new targets. This enhances your single target and clear by creating more of Ice Shot's secondary projectiles.
- Escape Shot is a great tool to get out of sticky situations, freezing the enemies you hit and applying a shock with Shocking Leap. Use this on stationary bosses for a huge damage boost!
- Cut Explosive Spear as your first uncut gem. This combined with Overabundance and Expedite greatly helps your early game damage. Early on the playstyle is simple: Explosive Spear and run, while using Spear Stab on single target.
- Disengage is the next gem. Disengage allows you to quickly dodge attacks or move around quickly by facing backwards and using it as a movement ability. This also causes a shockwave attack in a cone, which does surprising amounts of damage.
- Rake comes into play soon after. This is your main ability until level 31. Combined with Stomping Ground, this has great clear and also single target. Make sure you link it to Stomping Ground and Lacerate as soon as possible! Strength scales Stomping Ground, so it is very important to get as MUCH as possible, there are a few early unique items that can help with this such as Horns of Bynden and Meginord's Girdle.
- Once you hit Level 14 you can drop Explosive Spear and replace it with Spearfield. This has the Melee Tag, but it's surprisingly ranged. Spearfield is EXTREMELY versatile, this ability does quite a bit of damage on it's own, but it can also generate Rage fast thanks to how large it's AoE is and how many times it can hit.
- Trail of Caltrops is a great early Spirit gem that damages enemies that chase you. After a few hits, they often kill pursuing mobs and all you have to do is keep rolling forwards! This should be your second Spirit gem from the level 36 zone. This is sort of a bridge Spirit gem, so use this until you can access Cast on Freeze.
- You can swap to Ice Shot at level 31, but there is no harm in waiting a few levels if Rake feels good and you don't have a Bow or any Tier 2 Support Gems.
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Gem Engraving Priority
Skill Rotation
- Tornado Shot right before the boss becomes active.
- Escape Shot to apply Freeze build up and Shocked Ground as soon as the boss is targetable.
- Use Freezing Salvo for a huge burst of damage.
- Use your main damaging Ice Shot to strike Tornados and Frost Walls generated by critically striking.
- When the Tornados disappear or the boss moves, use Tornado Shot again.
- Try to always use Freezing Salvo when it is off cooldown.
- Rotate the use of both Ice Shot skills, allowing Volt charges to build up as you move as well as Salvo charges to build up over 6 seconds.
- Use Freezing Salvo on Rares.
Ascendancy
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- Critical Strike greatly increases your Critical Hit Chance from the Accuracy on your weapon and gear. Stand near the enemy to not waste any of your Accuracy, as it falls off at a distance.
- Predatory Instinct adds generic damage to the build. When you hit an enemy and their life bars are in the bright red sections, you receive a massive damage boost.
- Penetrate allows you to gain massive Added Physical Damage from your weapon. This is a boost in damage but also makes it easier to find a high-dps weapon. When taking this node, be sure to find a new weapon with a big Accuracy rating roll.
- Stalking Panther drastically increases your Evasion Rating. Make sure to use an Energy Shield body armor to gain more defenses while avoiding this node's downside.
Passives
Click the arrows to open the full tree in a new tab.
- For the attribute nodes take enough Intelligence and Dexterity to meet gear, skill gem and support gem requirements, then use the rest on Strength for more life.
- You can use your Gold at the Hooded one or Doryani to respec and change your Attributes if a new skill or gear upgrade leaves you unable to use your skills/items.
- Campaign Tree - During the campaign, you start with Rake and Explosive Spear, so nodes like Stalk and Leap can provide good damage. Respec out of them when you change to Ice Shot.
- If you are having mana issues, use a Sapphire with 2% mana gained on Kill to fix your Mana while clearing completely!
- After entering Maps, your main priority is to get enough Spirit to use both Wind Dancer and Ghost Dance alongside Cast on Critical. To do this, you need +80 Spirit from combining your Amulet and Body Armour. If you can get +90 spirit, you can also run Precision. Early on, it can be easier to run Cast on Freeze instead because that saves you 30 spirit. In the endgame it is far inferior to Cast on Critical, so be sure to swap when you can!
- Make sure that your Body Armour has significant Energy Shield, while your Boots and Gloves have large amounts of Evasion for Stalking Panther. It is okay to forgo life on these pieces to build defenses.
Stat Priorities
Offensive Scaling
- Increased Attack/Elemental Damage with Attacks.
- Increased Accuracy Rating
- Increased Attack Speed
- Increased Critical Hit Chance & Increased Critical Damage Bonus
- + to Projectile Levels but only once you're in late endgame, since it adds a large mana multiplier to your skills. Counter this with more Mana recovery.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold and Lightning Resistance to cap your Resistances.
- + to maximum Life
- Maximum Energy Shield
- Evasion Rating
- Ghost Dance and Wind Dancer
If you're struggling to survive, or want to learn more about damage and defenses in Path of Exile 2 check out these additional resources:
Gearing
- During the campaign, try to get life and Resistances on most of your Items. While using Rake, upgrade your Spear constantly by either gambling or crafting and keep the Spears with the highest DPS, prioritizing Physical damage.
- Remember to get as much strength as you can early on. This greatly boosts your Stomping Ground damage. Once you switch to Ice Shot, this Strength is no longer needed.
- Since you respec to Bows around Level 31, make sure you already have a Weapon ready to go once you make the swap. Upgrade constantly from there. It is normal to have a new weapon every 8-10 levels. Prioritize Bows with Physical Damage and Cold Damage, while making sure to have a weapon with a large Accuracy roll before allocating Penetrate.
- Use Runes to solve Attribute problems as they arise.
- As you enter the endgame and begin mapping, your first goal is to cap your resistances and meet Attribute requirements. You want your Helmet, Gloves & Boots to have as much Evasion as possible to combo with Stalking Panther. Make sure you have as much Movement Speed as possible on your Boots though, at the cost of everything else. It's the most vital stat on all your gear pieces.
- Use a Sapphire with 2% mana gained on Kill to fix your Mana while clearing completely!
- Your Quiver is a huge source of damage, particularly once you invest in the % Quiver effect nodes on the tree and on jewels. Be sure to get as many offensive stats there as possible.
- The Black Insignia is a fantastic item for endgame, granting you extra Movement Speed, Skill Speed and Evasion through Tailwind. Make sure you have enough Evasion to not get hit though, otherwise you lose your stacks too quickly!
- A high Accuracy/Physical DPS bow in the endgame can provide the largest DPS boost to your build. Additional Arrows can be helpful for better clear. When in doubt, upgrade your bow!
- The Headhunter belt provides a massive boost to offense and defense for mapping. This is particularly strong when you are farming Rare monsters in content like Breaches!
- Leopold's Applause is a massive boost in damage, provided you can source enough Cold Penetration to make it worth it. Cold Penetration can be found on Jewels and on the Passive Tree. Keep in mind this greatly lowers your survivability.
FAQ
You automate Frost Wall with Cast on Critical so you can spend more time spamming Ice Shot. In the early endgame, use Cast on Freeze instead due to its lower spirit cost. Later you swap to Cast on Critical because it provides more triggers, especially on bosses.
Frost Wall plays two roles in the build, both offensive and defensive. Defensively, it blocks enemies off, explodes, chilling or freezing nearby enemies, and can aggro enemies to attack it. This means monsters spend less time swarming you and more time fighting the ice. Offensively, the Frost Wall acts as a first target for Ice Shot, allowing the secondary projectiles to be created and "shotgun" the enemy behind it.
Weapon Prefixes dictate how much dps your weapon has. You can get a total of 3 prefixes which increase the base Physical/Cold/Fire/Lightning Damage on your Weapon.
However, with Amazon, it gets a little more intricate, because of Penetrate. If you take Penetrate, the base Accuracy you get on your Weapon gets added as global physical damage. However, it also occupies a slot of the listed modifiers on top, so in order to be worth it, make sure you get around 500+ Accuracy.
Example: 500 Accuracy + 2xGreater Vision Rune = 700 Accuracy total on Weapon with 1.6 Attack Speed.
--> Penetrate damage = 700x0.25 = 175 Global Physical Damage
--> 175x 1.6 = 280 = DPS the Accuracy adds to the Weapon.
Don't dismiss suffixes though, as + to Critical Damage Bonus is a multiplier to all the other %increased critical strike bonus you get on the passive tree. Attack Speed is also decent, do note though that it doesn't help your damage per hit. This build feels much more comfortable with less attack speed and bigger, chunkier hits.
Make sure you finished all the side-quests that reward Spirit during the Campaign, which gives you 100 Spirit total. After that, your setup for a while is going to be: Cast on Freeze + Herald of Ice + Precision.
Once you enter higher tier Maps, defenses become relevant. This is where you need to get Wind Dancer & Ghost Dance into the build. To achieve this, you need 180+ Spirit between your Amulet prefix, implicit, and Body Armour Prefix. 190+ allows you to run Precision as well.
Check out our side-quest guide that will show you all the places to get Spirit in the Campaign!
You don have to level your skill gems at every stage, especially the ones requiring high Intelligence and Dexterity. Hybrid Dex/Int Gems are always fine to always upgrade. You need some Intelligence or Dexterity on gear in order to switch to the Cast on Freeze/Critical setup. When you get this gear, move the Attributes around on your tree to meet your needs.
Use Item mods to get most of your Attributes, factor them in when buying/crafting new gear. You can temporarily fix your Attributes with Runes, but that should never be a permanent solution.
The strongest node by far to anoint is Stormcharged, which provides significant damage. Very early in a league, distilled Emotions can be expensive. You should anoint Critical Exploit for a small amount of early damage.
NOTE: These bonuses are minor, if you picked something different for the Venom Draught, don't worry too much!
Video
Summary
- Ice Shot is a skill that creates lots of cold projectiles that can freeze enemies.
- Use Freezing Salvo to burst down difficult enemies.
- Scale Critical Strikes for huge freezing hits, even on endgame bosses.
- Scale Energy Shield and Evasion using Stalking Panther.
- Evasion allows you to utilize Ghost Dance to quickly regain Energy Shield in dangerous situations.
Credits
Written by: aer0
Content Reviewed by: Crouching Tuna
Language Reviewed by: Tenkiei