Frostbitten Heart Gemma Leveling Guide

Last Updated: September 19th 2023

SS2 - The City of Aeterna

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Welcome to the Frostbitten Heart Gemma Leveling Guide. Gemma's Frostbitten Heart Trait specializes in Cold Skills, Frostbite, and Freeze enemies. This is an incredibly powerful Hero Trait that gains access to a Cheat Death via Frostbite Casket and explosions to help you clear through Icebound Blade. She also has innate passive recovery with Frost Restoration.

The leveling guide is intended to take your character to Level 80.
This is the last level with unlimited free respec points.
Be sure to check the final section of the guide for recommendations on how to transition into the Endgame!
Leveling Gear Preview
Level 80 Hero Overview

Smooth progression
Very safe playstyle with freeze ✔
Safe & Easy Beginner Playstyle

❌ Limited Endgame Builds
❌ Difficult to Scale into endgame
❌ Low Single Target Damage

Check out the Complete Story Walkthrough for tips on how to complete the Campaign.

Leveling Tips and Tricks

  • Your first active skill slot (top left in the Skills menu) is your "Main Skill," this matters because many items and Hero Traits have effects that only apply to the Main Skill.
  • If you're ever in doubt of where to go, click the campaign quest on the left of your screen and a golden path shows you the way.
  • Stay on level with the Zone as much as possible! You receive reduced experience for being too under or over leveled so ensure you kill enough monsters to remain as close to the zone level as possible.
  • When allocating Pact Points, prioritize Resistances first, then select Damage nodes until you fill the section. If you have leftover points, put them into Drop nodes as you begin farming the Netherrealm.
  • Complete all 10 Levels of the Hero Forge to unlock all of your Hero Trait abilities and gain 6 additional Talent Points.
  • All support gems become available from the Skill Shop at level 55. At this stage cross reference with the embeds to make sure you're set up for the Netherrealm.
  • In Chapter 4 gear you find comes with varying amounts of Energy, this can make it difficult to determine whether or not an item is an upgrade. In general if you don't get enough Energy to add a Support slot pick upgrades based on their stats. After changing your gear, be sure to go to the Energy Menu under Skills to reassign missing Energy.

Equipment & Stat Priorities

Main stats to be looking for while progressing the campaign

Look for these Offensive stats on weapons:

  • Fire/Lightning/Cold Damage to Spells
  • Cast Speed
  • % Spell/Elemental Damage
  • Spell Critical Strike Chance
  • Critical Damage

Look for these Defensive stats on armor:

  • Max Life
  • Life %
  • Erosion Resistances
  • Elemental Resistances
  • -x% additional physical damage taken

Core Skill

  • Ring of Ice unleashes a Cold AoE Nova around you, freezing and obliterating nearby enemies. Whenever you kill an enemy with this skill, you have a chance to trigger another Ring of Ice, making this a great pack clearing tool!
  • Mana Boil grants a large additional spell damage multiplier whilst draining your current mana. Magical Source completely mitigates the downside and allows you to have 100% uptime on the buff.
  • Blink is the best movement skill option due to having the lowest Cooldown, support it with skills that increase your cooldown recovery speed and grant additional charges of the skill.
  • Compound Source is our main way to quickly regenerate Life and mana whenever needed.
  • Fixate is used to Mark enemies and grants you a large chance to deal double damage.

Leveling Progression

Skill Progression
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Passive Skill Progression
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Level 1: Support Ice Lances with Multiple Projectiles
Level 2: Equip; Frigid Transmission. Use Spiral Strike as an alternative if you have Dagger equipped.
Level 4: Purchase and equip; Frost Terra
Level 7: Purchase and equip; Freeze Chance (10 Energy)
Level 11: Purchase and equip; Fixate
Level 12: Purchase and equip; Flame Imbue
Level 13: Complete the first Hero Trial and allocate; Frost Bloodline
Level 15: Replace Ice Lances and Multiple Projectiles with Ring of Ice and Spell Concentration.
Level 18: Replace Spell Concentration with Added Cold Damage.
Level 20: Purchase and equip; Summon Thunder Spirit
Level 26: Replace Blizzard with Biting Cold and support it with Terrain of Malice.
Level 32: Complete the second Hero Trial and allocate; Frost Tides.
Level 38: Purchase and equip; Elemental Amplification and Magical Source. Do not level Magical Source above level 8.
Level 50: Complete the 3rd Hero Trial and allocate; Bone-piercing Frost
Level 55: At this point you have access to every skill in the game, continue to follow the embed shown as you gain more energy.

To learn more check out the Skills and Passives Guide.

Talents

Leveling Talent Tree
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Goddess of Knowledge

Reaching level 10 grants Beacon which allows your to generate Spell Burst. This will be the core of the build as it cause your Ring of Ice to cast multiple times. Swap Insight for Burning Touch if you're encountering any mana issues.

Magister

This tree grants an additional Spell Burst as well as strong Focus Blessing synergies.

Warlock

Is the best tree for quality of life, granting huge amounts of cooldown, empower skill effect and an additional charge of cooldown skills. As you progress the build further, Off The Beaten Track combined with Precise: Seal Conversion allows you to run a lot more auras. This should only be done once you have a good amount of energy shield so you can seal more of your life.


There are tons of different Talent Trees to explore, if you want to learn more about this robust system check out our Talent Tree Guide.

Traits, Relics and Memories

Hero Traits

Hero Traits, Relics & Memories

Level 32: Frost Bloodline grants a stacking 1% additional damage per 5 Frostbite Rating on the enemy. As well as double the rate at which you can trigger Cold Pulse.
Level 62: Bone-piercing Frost further scales your Frostbite synergy by reducing the enemy resistance per 12 points.
Level 80: Icebound Blade is a significant increase to your clear speed as it gives you a chance to cause an explosion when dealing damage to a target. There is 100% chance to cause an explosion when defeating a Frozen enemy.

Relics and Memories

Look for any combination of the following stats on your Hero Relics and Memories;

Hero RelicHero Memories
+ Max Frostbite Duration when Cold Pulse hits and enemyEnemies receive Cold Damage for every Cold Pulse hit they took recently
Max Energy ShieldMaximum Life
Cold PenetrationCold Damage / Penetration
Cold Pulse Cooldown Recovery Speed
Movement Speed

To learn more, check out our Hero Relic and Hero Memory Guide.

Pacts

To learn more, check out our Pacts and Pets Guide.

The Netherrealm

Racing through your Netherrealm quests as quickly as possible results in you becoming under leveled for the required zones to progress further, stay within 3 levels of the zones you're completing to avoid a harsh experience penalty. Check out our How to Progress the Netherrealm if you're unsure of anything.

Here's a list of things to do while progressing the early stages of the Netherrealm;

  • Level 60, The Trade House is unlocked. Be sure to read and understand our Trade House for Beginners Guide before making any big purchases.
  • Higher item levels of gear come with higher quantities of Energy. Look to improve your current gear with items that have increased energy so that you can use more Support Skills.
  • Utilize Prototype Crafting and Enchanting to greatly increase the power of non-legendary gear you come across. It costs very low amounts of Flame Dust and Flame Sand to lock 1 good affix in place and reroll up to 4 new modifiers.

Transitioning to Endgame

Weapon

Focus on acquiring either 2 Wands or a Staff with the "Additional damage for Skills cast by Spell Burst " mod;

  • Search Beacons or the Trade House for items with any of the following modifier on a Staff or Wands.
    • Additional Levels to Cold or Spell Skills
    • Additional damage for Skills cast by Spell Burst.
    • Cold Damage
    • Critical Strike Damage
    • Gear Critical Strike Rating
    • Elemental Penetration
    • Cast Speed
  • Craft the items using prototype crafting until you have Spell Burst modifier as well as multiple modifiers listed above.
  • Enchant the item with a 5th modifier.

Energy Shield

Start exchanging your Life gear with Energy Shield gear as you progress further into the Netherrealm and have Flame Fuel available to. Focus on crafting or purchasing your Helmet, Chest and Boots with the following affixes;

  • % Gear Energy Shield
  • + Gear Energy Shield
  • Elemental Resistances
  • Erosion Resistance

Once you reach a total of 2500 Energy Shield you can seal additional Auras with Seal Conversion as you now have a buffer to protect your low life.

It is extremely important once converting to Energy Shield to use Forced Start. Replace your Compound Potion with this skill.

Legendary Items

Leveling

  • Elemental Whisper Belt grants a large amount of Flat Damage to your spells.
  • Chain of Resistance grants additional damage against Single Targets and Area of Effect whilst clearing groups of monsters.
  • Grace Boots offer easy access to Movement Speed on builds which stack Focus Blessings.
  • Spring Resurrection is great for damage while giving you much needed recovery. You'll often find these while leveling but if you don't have one by level 60 be sure to pick it up at the Trade House.

Endgame

  • Sage's Insight is a great item once you start converting your character to Energy Shield.
  • Sky Devourer - Insight Armor increases your Ring of Ice Area of Effect and Damage whilst also proving valuable defensive modifiers.
  • Ralph's Engraving grants a source of Fervor.

Continue the Journey

Congratulations on completing the leveling guide! To continue your Endgame journey check the Hero Rankings to see what other Hunters are playing.

Other Resources

Credits

Written by: Milkybk_
Reviewed by: Xtra37

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