Welcome to the Frostbitten Heart Gemma Leveling Guide. Gemma's Frostbitten Heart Trait specializes in Cold Skills, Frostbite, and Freezing enemies.
| The leveling guide is intended to take your character to Level 90. 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! |
- Beginner Friendly
- Smooth progression
- Very safe playstyle with freeze
- Must do Cold Damage
- Hard to Cap Resistances
- Respec Around Level 70
Check out the Complete Story Walkthrough for tips on how to complete the Campaign.
Treasure Troves
Treasure Troves are a way to super-charge your leveling experience. They give vastly more experience than regular zones and yield exclusive Legendary items. You need to complete each of them once for a Talent Point. For an easier leveling experience, you repeat the Treasure Trove until you're 7-8 levels above the zone, then rush through the next few areas. Follow your side quest to find the Treasure Trove locations.
Keep an eye out for the following Legendary items as you clear Treasure Troves.
- New Ear Hills (L7): Look out for Elemental Whisper Belt, Omniscient Prototype and Lonesome
- Nectar Valley (L16): Look out for Grace Boots and Photophobia
- Dawn Avenue (L27): Look out for Omniscient Prototype and anything missing from earlier Treasure Troves
- Sanctuary of Solitude (L35): Look out for Sage's Foresight.
- Silver Sands' End (L44): Look out for Chain of Resistance and Corrupted Marrow.
- Hall of Grandiosity (L54): Look out for Corrupted Marrow and anything you still don't have from prior Treasure Troves.
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.
- This guide assumes you get most of your levels through Treasure Troves and rush to the objectives in other zones for maximum efficiency.
- When allocating Pact Points, prioritize Resistance 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 3 gear you find comes with varying amounts of Energy, after changing your gear, be sure to go to the Energy Menu under Skills to reassign missing Energy.
Equipment & Stat Priorities
Look for these Offensive stats on weapons:
- Level to Cold Spells
- Fire/Lightning/Cold Damage to Spells
- % Spell/Elemental Damage
- Affliction Effect
- Damage to Frozen Enemies
- Reap percentage of DoT
Look for these Defensive stats on armor:
- Max Life
- Life %
- Erosion Resistance
- Elemental Resistance
To learn how to easily find items with these stats, check out the Loot Filter Guide.
Core Skills
- Ice Lances is a projectile skill that gets a large damage bonus from Frost Terra and Freezes enemies from a distance. Whenever you are fighting tougher enemies, be sure to drop a Frost Terra under them to maximize your damage.
- Frost Terra is the skill you transition into fully around level 70. For the early parts of leveling, it works in the background supporting the damage from Ice Lances.
- Blink has the lowest cooldown of all movement skills so it is recommended. While Frigid Transmission does reset on Freeze, you frequently clear screens ahead of yourself which makes this movement skill much worse.
- Compound Source is your main way to quickly Restore Life and Mana whenever needed.
- Blurry Steps is great to clear distances quickly once you have cleared enemies ahead of you with the long range on Ice Lances.
Leveling Progression
WARNING: The following levels are a guideline, you might complete the quest/unlock the Skill a few levels early, or a few levels later!
Move to slider at the bottom to interact with the Tool
Move to slider at the bottom to interact with the Tool
Use the Embed to the left to follow along with Support Skill progression!
Level 2: Support your Ice Lances with Multiple Projectiles
Equip the following as you obtain them:
- Level 3: Equip Blink.
- Level 5: Support Compound Potion with Limber Stretch
- Level 10: Support Ice Lances with Freeze Chance
- Level 12: Equip Frost Terra
- Level 19: Equip Blurry Steps
- Level 24: Support Ice Lances with Wind Projectiles
- Level 27: Support Blink with Quick Mobility
- Level 34: Equip Summon Frost Spirit
- Level 42: Support Blurry Steps with Mania and Frost Terra with Freeze Chance
- Level 50: Equip Elemental Amplification and swap the Beacon Talent in Goddess of Knowledge for Winter
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.
You can use Concentrated with 2 Auras because Frigid Domain does not affect you, it affects enemies!
Once you obtain Medium Talent in Psychic and Goddess of Knowledge, you can add significantly more Support Skills to your Auras. This is a large damage boost and comes towards the end of your leveling journey.
To learn more check out the Skills and Passives Guide.
Talents
Move to slider at the bottom to interact with the Tool
Goddess of Knowledge
Reaching level 12 grants Beacon. This is your first major talent, granting a huge multiplier through Spell Burst. Insight provides another huge damage boost at 24 points.
Arcanist
This tree grants Frostbitten which is one of the strongest Major Talents in the game. This causes you to automatically Freeze all enemies upon hitting them once. With all of the bonuses you get to freeze duration, you are freezing everything for over 3 seconds. Extreme Coldness has the benefit of scaling with Freeze Effect, which Frostbitten Gemma gains with Glacial Night
Psychic
This tree is mainly for the build after the swap to Frost Terra as it focuses on Damage Over Time. When you have the skill points to complete this tree and still have 16 points for Frostbitten, you can consider swapping your build to the pure damage over time version utilizing Reap Purification and Affliction
As you progress the build further and have multiple sources of Reaping and Affliction effect for Reap Purification, you are better off swapping fully onto Frost Terra. Do not rush into this earlier than level 70 before you have found the required gear pieces for it.
Utilize a customized Loot Filter to acquire the Affliction effect gear and Reaping gear as quickly as possible. Check out the Loot Filter Guide to build your own.
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
Level 45: Snowy Embrace increases your maximum Cold Energy and restores Cold Energy when you deal damage (up to 5/second).
Level 75: Frost Tides reduces the interval of Cold Pulse and cause it to inflict 100 points of Frostbite. This allows you to repeatedly freeze enemies extremely easily. For more single target damage, switch to Frigid Infusion on bosses.
Level 90: At this point, you should have transitioned to an endgame build. Blooming Frost Flower is key for clearing zones in the Endgame as it casts Frost Pulse at the enemies location when you hit them with a cold spell every 0.1s. For endgame bosses switch to Bone-piercing Frost if you don't already have your Heart of the Snow - Prototype
Relics and Memories
Look for any combination of the following stats on your Hero Relics and Memories;
| Hero Relic | Hero Memories |
| -Cold Pulse Interval | Freeze Duration |
| Cold Damage | Cold Pulse Inflicts Frostbite |
| Cold Penetration | Frostbites Inflicted |
To learn more, check out our Hero Relic and Hero Memory Guide.
Divinity Slates
When leveling Frostbitten Gemma, look for any Divinity Slates containing these talents;
| Legendary | Medium & Minor |
| +1 All Skills' Level / Persistent / Cold / Spell | Affliction Effect |
| Reaps 0.1s of DoT Damage | Frostbite Inflicted |
| 8% Cooldown Recovery +1 Max Charges | Reaping Cooldown Recovery Speed |
| Gains Blur for every 100 Mana Consumed | Intelligence |
| Energy Shield Charge cannot be interrupted for 1s | Freeze Duration |
To learn more, check out our Divinity Slate 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 gear you come across. It costs very low amounts of Flame Sand to lock 1 good affix in place and reroll up to 4 new modifiers. Legendary Gear with Legendary Aptitude allows you to roll mods and craft on those items well.
Transitioning to Endgame
Weapon
Look for the following stats on your Wands. Affliction effect is your most important stat and you MUST have it on every piece of gear possible.
- Prefixes:
- + to Spell Skill Level and Cold Skill Level
- Cold Damage, Elemental Damage or Spell Damage
- Intelligence
- Suffixes:
- Affliction Effect
- Damage to Frozen Enemies
- Reap 0.1s of DoT Damage
- Aura Effect
- Craft your weapon using prototype crafting until you hit any useful modifier along with affliction effect.
- Use Targeted Processing to add more modifiers from the above list until the item has 5 modifiers.
- Enchant your item with a 6th modifier.
Remaining Gear
Focus on crafting the remainder of your Armor and Jewelry with the following goals in mind;
- Get Affliction effect on all gear possible (Rings, Belt, Amulet, Weapons)
- Cap all of your Resistances at the 60% maximum.
- Have a healthy Life pool.
- Scale Energy Shield for additional defenses.
- Reap 0.1s of DoT Damage on at least a few pieces of gear (Belt, Amulet, Weapons, Gloves)
- Increase your Cold or Spell levels (Boots and Gloves)
Legendary Items
Leveling
Keep an eye out for the following common items during your leveling journey:
- Elemental Whisper Belt is another common Legendary, and a good way to get damage early on.
- Grace Boots offer easy access to Movement Speed on builds which stack Focus Blessings.
- Chain of Resistance a great early game item offering much needed single target damage early on.
- Photophobia provides you with Beacon allowing you to grab Winter earlier than you would normally.
- Spring Resurrection offers nice extra survivability and damage.
Set Items
As you complete the Netherrealm be sure to farm the following Voyager's Commemorative Set items.
- Voyager's Commemorative Cape
- Voyager's Commemorative Strap
- Voyager's Commemorative Boots
- Voyager's Commemorative Cufflinks
- Voyager's Commemorative Pinky Ring x2
Endgame
The following items are frequently very affordable and offer powerful effects;
- Corrupted Marrow is the first piece of gear towards your Frost Terra build and one that you can use forever. This allows you to summon an additional Frost Terra which doubles your damage.
- Kingly Armor negates the downside of reduced Terra Charge speed from Corrupted Marrow. Using these together is extremely powerful.
- Strange Snow provides a large amount of Affliction effect scaling at a low cost and allows you to quickly get maximum Affliction on enemies.
- King's Boon is your last highly recommended Legendary as it provides a ton of additional damage.
Continue the Journey
Congratulations on completing the Frostbitten Heart Gemma Leveling guide! To continue your Endgame journey check our Build Database!
Video Guide
To see more Frostbitten Gemma in action, check out this video.
Credits
Written by: CoffeeBns
Reviewed by: Tenkiei