Ice Strike Invoker Build Guide
Early Access
This beginner friendly build is easy and cheap to get going while offering plenty of opportunity to scale into pinnacle content. Dash between enemies, freezing everything you touch while having enough defenses to tank the occasional hit. Read on to learn more about how to build the Ice Strike Invoker.
Ice Strike converts 80% of your Physical Damage to Cold, which means you can use a Quarterstaff with high Physical DPS to easily freeze monsters. Lead me through Grace… from your ascendancy gives you a lot of Spirit without needing to invest into it on gear, which allows you to run a bunch of permanent buffs to do even more damage.
Midgame
Endgame
Note: You do not need resistances on any specific 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!
Early Access
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 Strike Invoker
- Ice Strike is your main damaging ability. Because it converts Physical Damage to Cold Damage it easily builds up freezes.
- Hand of Chayula is your mobility skill. Use this to move between packs of monsters and then blow them up with Ice Strike.
- Tempest Bell should mainly be used against high Health targets. It can also be used when being swarmed by enemies to deal large AoE damage.
- Frost Bomb is a good opener on high Health targets. It debuffs their Cold Resistance making your other skills hit harder. Once you pick up Sunder my Enemies… or Heavy Frost this skill can be dropped entirely.
- Charged Staff is a big single target damage increase due to its ability to shock bosses when used together with Tempest Bell. This skill is not needed while clearing packs of monsters.
- All permanent buffs: to run everything you need to get a total of 235 Spirit, 135 of which comes from your Body Armour(This means you need a Body Armour with 1060 Evasion and 386 Energy Shield or more) through the Lead me through Grace… Ascendancy node. This is not easy. You can however easily drop Vitality.
- Worst case you drop Precision as well and get more Accuracy on gear.
Use the <Prev and Next> arrows to navigate.
- Herald of Ice in combination with Polcirkeln is a huge clear enhancer. If you can't get a Polcirkeln just running Herald of Ice by itself is still great, but you want to link Elemental Focus to it in that case since you don't need to chill with it anymore. If you use Polcirkeln make sure you don't have Elemental Focus in your links anymore!
- Cast on Shock is used when killing the Pinnacle bosses(not needed for Map bosses).
- Sniper's Mark is a big damage boost and Eye of Winter applies Critical Weakness which increases our Crit Chance.
- This setup procs off your Tempest Bell when your Charged Staff is active, so get those buffs up as soon as possible.
Skill Rotation
Single Target
Clear
- Use Hand of Chayula to dash between packs of monsters, this curses the monster you target with Sniper's Mark, and the added mobility is nice.
- Be confident in your use of Ice Strike, once you get used to how easily it freezes enemies you can jump into packs of monsters without fear of dying.
- Use Tempest Bell against high health targets such as Rares and Bosses as well as anytime you are getting swarmed by enemies.
- Use Unbound Avatar when it's available on Bosses and Rares to freeze them even more quickly and deal more damage. Keep up the debuff of Frost Bomb on Bosses since this gives you a lot of damage as well before you pick up Sunder my Enemies…or Heavy Frost.
Skill Leveling Priority
Passives
Ice Strike Invoker
Click the arrows to open the full tree in a new tab.
There are 2 trees here:
- Pick the Midgame tree before you have 50% or higher Critical Strike Chance. on Ice Strike.
- Pick the 50+% crit tree if you have 50% or higher Critical Strike Chance. on Ice Strike. This means you no longer use Frost Bomb, but ignore enemy resistances instead. Ignore that skill in any skill rotation mentioned.
The only real choice you have to make besides which tree to take based on your critical chance is whether or not to pick up Conservative Casting. If you have Mana problems: pick it up, if not: opt for more damage instead.
Ascendancy
Ice Strike Invoker
How to Ascend
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- I am the Blizzard… adds more Cold Damage to all your skills, and leaves Chilled Ground upon freezing an enemy for a bit of extra defense.
- …and I Shall Rage grants you Unbound Avatar, a huge buff to damage and freeze potential. Use this on high health enemies to quickly burst them down. Once you have enough Critical Strike Chance you can drop this though.
- Lead me through Grace… causes you to gain Spirit per Energy Shield and Evasion on your Body Armour. This should be one of the first gear pieces you craft or purchase to reach enough Spirit to use all of your Passive Skills.
- …and Protect me from Harm isn't optimal in the endgame when your evasion reaches high values such as 18.000+, but you can test whether you can take it instead of …and I Shall Rage if you're looking for a bit more tankyness.
- Sunder my Enemies… is a huge damage node once you have enough Critical Strike Chance. It allows you to remove all your Cold Penetration nodes on the tree and means you don't have to use Frost Bomb on bosses anymore. Pick this up when you go above 50% Critical Strike Chance.
Gearing
Ice Strike Invoker
Offensive Scaling
- Ice Strike's damage is scaled by Physical DPS on your Quarterstaff, Critical Strike Chance, and Critical Strike Damage.
- Melee Skill Levels increase your damage but substantially increase your Mana Costs, which is already your main problem to solve.
- # to # Cold Damage is not very efficient, but it is nice to have where you can get it.
- Sources of #% increased damage: #% Cold Damage and #% Attack Damage.
- Attack/skill speed.
- #% increased Critical Damage Bonus.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance to cap your Resistances
- +# to Maximum Life.
- Evasion makes you evade damage from non-area of effect hits in maps, which is a very significant part of the damage you take in maps.
- Energy shield is almost like having an extra life pool. You get this from helmet, body armour, boots and gloves.
- If you are still struggling check out our Survival Guide for additional useful information!
Here's how you should gear your Ice Strike Invoker. Sorted mostly in order of importance
- % increased Physical Damage
- Adds # to # Physical Damage
- % increased Attack Speed (very important to make the build feel smooth)
- +% to Critical Hit Chance
- +% to Critical Damage Bonus, this gets multiplied by all % increased Critical Damage Bonus on the Skill Tree, so is a multiplier that should not be underestimated
- Adds # to # Cold Damage, not that great a multiplier to your damage, but if you happen to get it it's still nice to have
- This has to be an Evasion/Energy Shield base, very important for Lead me through Grace…!
- % increased Evasion and Energy Shield
- # to Maximum Energy Shield/# to Evasion Rating
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- It's worth ignoring Life rolls on this piece to get more Evasion/Energy Shield
- Ideally, you want enough Evasion/Energy Shield to get 135 Spirit through the Lead me through Grace… Ascendancy node. This means a Body Armour with 1060 Evasion and 386 Energy Shield or more. Check out the skills section for what to drop if you don't have enough Spirit.
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- % increased Evasion and Energy Shield. # to Maximum Energy Shield/# to Evasion Rating
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- % increased Attack Speed
- % increased Evasion and Energy Shield. # to Maximum Energy Shield/# to Evasion Rating
- +# to Maximum Mana (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- #% increased Critical Damage Bonus (Luxury stat, very expensive)
- +#% to Movement Speed
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- % increased Evasion and Energy Shield. # to Maximum Energy Shield/# to Evasion Rating
- +# to Maximum Mana (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- Adds # to # Cold Damage to Attacks
- +# to Maximum Mana (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- % increased Mana Regeneration Rate (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- For min-max Breach Rings with Life or Resistance Quality are very strong
- Polcirkeln is a huge enhancement for clear, but is pretty useless for bossing, so swap it out when doing pinnacle bosses. If you use Polcirkeln make sure you don't have Elemental Focus linked to your Herald of Ice anymore, as you want Herald of Ice to chill.
- Use an Azure Amulet for Mana Regeneration
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Maximum Mana (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- % increased Mana Regeneration Rate (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- Instill Vulgar Methods, or Blur as a cheaper alternative.
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# Charm Slots
- +# to Maximum Mana (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- % increased Mana Regeneration Rate (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
Jewels are a great way to get % increased damage on this build, since there's only a limited amount of that on the tree. You also want at least 1 jewel to generate Rage for you, as this is a very nice damage boost. And as a bonus jewels can give % increased Maximum Energy Shield.
Example jewel: Apocalypse Joy.
This build allocates 4 Jewel sockets which provide an excellent way to further customize your build. Specifically, look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
- Gain 1 Rage on Melee Hit(you need at least one of these)
- % increased Critical Chance
- % increased Attack Damage
- % increased Melee Damage
- % increased Damage with Quarterstaves
- % increased Cold Damage
- % increased Elemental Damage
- % increased Attack Speed (with Quarterstaves)
- % increased Critical Damage Bonus
- % increased Maximum Energy Shield
- % increased Freeze Buildup (with Quarterstaves)
- +#% to Maximum Fire, Cold and Lightning Resistances
- Recover #% of Life on Kill (getting enough of this could allow you to drop Cannibalism)
- Recover #% of Mana on Kill (this would allow you to get by without a Mana regeneration amulet for clearing at least)
- % increased Accuracy Rating (getting enough of this could allow you to drop Precision)
Click the arrows to open the full tree in a new tab.
- The atlas tree focuses on Waystone sustain and generic loot buffs in the Waystones you run. Feel free to experiment with other trees though, anything works for this build.
- This build won't struggle with any of the Endgame Activities. One thing to be careful of though is to not pick up the "100% Chance to Avoid Being Frozen" Remnant when doing Expedition, as this completely negates a huge defensive layer.
- The only Waystone mod you want to avoid for sure is Monsters have % increased Ailment Threshold. This makes it much harder to freeze all the monsters in a map, including the boss.
Endgame Activities
Learn about the endgame activities available to you in Path of Exile 2 with our guide!
FAQ
Ice Strike Invoker
You'll need a lot of Dexterity and 109 Intelligence. You can get almost all of this from the Passive Tree, if you need any extra try to get some on your gear. Rings are probably the place where this is the cheapest to do.
Combat Frenzy combined with Resonance gives you plenty of Power Charges while mapping. For Pinnacle bosses you can get a few extra when you use the Cast on Shock + Sniper's Mark setup.
- Prioritize Support Gems without a mana cost multiplier.
- Crescendo gives one free attack every 3 hits BUT feels bad until very high attack speeds (at least 6.5 attacks per second).
- Inspiration as a 6th link is an option before you have good mana sustain.
- Use or remove Conservative Casting from the tree as necessary.
- The easiest way is to get % increased Critical Strike Chance on jewels.
- The more expensive, but also more powerful way is to get +% to Critical Hit Chance on your Quarterstaff. This gives you more Base Critical Strike Chance which is multiplier by all your sources of % increased Critical Strike Chance.
- Relic: 15% increased Mana Recovery from Flasks
- Venom Drought: 30% increased Elemental Ailment Threshold
- Cruel Relic: 15% increased Life Recovery from Flasks
- Cruel Venom Drought: +10% to Chaos Resistance
NOTE: These bonuses are minor, if you picked something different for the Venom Draught, don't worry too much!
Video
Ice Strike Invoker
Summary
Ice Strike Invoker
- Ice Strike is a melee ability that freezes everything it touches and is the main ability you use.
- Place Tempest Bell whenever available on bosses for a massive damage boost.
- Evasion and Energy Shield allow you to utilize Ghost Dance as well as granting you Spirit from your Body Armour to enable all of your Passive Skills.