New World: Best Ice Gauntlet Builds

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I have loved video games before I even knew what they were. I also love writing (am working on becoming a successful fantasy author), anime, tablet... Read more

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

The ice gauntlet is one of the more unique weapons in New World. It might seem a little confusing when you first pick it up, but never fear — this guide breaks down how the ice gauntlet plays and covers the best builds for the weapon.

Bit of a spoiler — the best builds are fairly similar, but dependent on whether you primarily play single player or with a group.

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What is the Ice Gauntlet?

The ice gauntlet is one of the four magic weapons, and focuses on ranged damage and crowd control. Its damage scales off of Intelligence, so that’s the attribute you’ll want to prioritize when you level.

How Does the Ice Gauntlet Play?

The ice gauntlet primarily wants you to do two things: attack from a distance and control your enemy’s movement (or, ideally, lack thereof). To that end, we want to look at the different skills that will help you do that.

New World: Ice Gauntlet Builds

Here’s the skills for the Ice Gauntlet that you can utilize.

Ice Pylon

Ice Pylon is the first active skill from the Builder skill tree, and perhaps the single best skill the ice gauntlet has to offer. As the name suggest you summon a pylon made of ice in front of you. The pylon acts as a sort of turret gun, and if you play it right, will be where the majority of your damage comes from.

The Specs

Ice Pylon lasts for fifteen seconds or until destroyed. It deals 50% weapon damage to targets it hits and has a range of 20m. It costs 15 mana to activate and has a cooldown time of 9.8 seconds before you can summon a new one.

The Good

What can I say? It’s a free source of damage. And if you spend the four points to fully upgrade your pylon (minus the capstone ability) you get Pylon Refresh, which turns your already good pylon into a ridiculously good pylon. Remember how your pylon only lasts fifteen seconds? Well, it now sticks around for an additional one second per successful hit on an enemy up to forty-five seconds. This means that for every 9.8 seconds of combat without a pylon, you get forty-five with a pylon.

The Bad

Remember that bit about the pylon being destroyed? Well, it can be, rather easily. Its hit points are low, and if you are fighting multiple enemies, odds are high at least one of them will target it. Also, sometimes your pylon will just out DPS you and draw the enemy’s aggro.

The Verdict

Ice Pylon is your strongest ability, well worth the investment of six skill ranks.

Ice Shower

Ice Shower is the second active skill in the Builder tree, and frankly, I found it a bit underwhelming.

The Specs

Ice showers creates a 1x5m frosted area (that is an important keyword) that lasts for four seconds. Any enemy who steps into the area is rooted to the ground for one second, and then suffers frostbite (another important keyword), thus having their movement speed reduced by 50% for three seconds. The skill costs 25 mana and has a whopping 29.5 second cooldown.

The Good

Ice Shower slows enemies and enables two important keywords — frosted area and frostbite. Many of the ice gauntlet’s passive skills proc off of those two keywords, making Ice Shower a decent enabler.

The Bad

Ice shower’s dimensions are a bit too narrow for my liking, making for an awkward AOE. And while it does slow movement, there are better abilities for keeping enemies at a distance.

The Verdict

I was underwhelmed by the ability in solo play, but I do think it could be a lot stronger with a party (a tank keeping the enemies attention makes it much more likely to hit, and the slow would perhaps matter more).

Entombed

Entombed is my second favorite active skill in the ice gauntlet arsenal, but one I think is largely optional.

The Specs

Entombed costs no mana and lasts for ten seconds. While entombed, you are invincible and your mana regen is greatly increased, but you cannot move or attack. By pressing block while entombed, you end the effect early. By pressing light attack, you end the effect early and spend ten mana for a knockback attack. And this is another whopping 29.5 second cooldown.

The Good

If you find yourself in a tight spot with no mana, then Entombed is your get out of jail free card. Plus, while it doesn’t heal you, if you get both its upgrades, Entombed will clear all your status conditions and grant you a 25% armor increase for three seconds once free, thus greatly increasing your survivability.

The Bad

Entombed is situational, and that situation is you with your back to the wall. That’s not a great place for a skill to be in.

The Verdict

Entombed is quite strong, but only in a very specific situation. If you use the strategy of keeping your distance and controlling enemies correctly, you shouldn’t need it.

Ice Spikes

My least favorite active skill for an ice gauntlet build, it is the first active skill of the Ice Tempest tree. It creates a linear blast of ice spikes in front of you that can push enemies back.

The Specs

The line of Ice Spikes is 8m and it deals 56% weapon damage. At the end is a mighty spike that deals 157% weapon damage and can knock back enemies. It costs 15 mana and has a 9.8 second cooldown.

The Good

Ice Spike can do solid damage. It can knock back enemies and even stagger them if you upgrade the skill.

The Bad

Ice Spikes’ big thing is the mighty spike at the end. Frankly, it’s difficult to time the skill such that the mighty spike connects, and without it, the whole thing is rather lackluster. Plus there is better knockback/control options in the skill trees.

The Verdict

Ice Spikes can be quite strong if you practice with it and get good enough to time it right. Otherwise, not so much. And while the final upgrade, Spikey Reach, makes the mighty spike easier to hit with, I do not think it’s enough to justify spending four of your twenty skill points to get that.

Wind Chill

Another active skill I like. Wind chill is good for dealing some damage and keeping your distance.

The Specs

Wind Chill has a range of 7m and does 20% weapon damage, pushing enemies back 5m. The last 2m of the attack deal an additional 20% damage but do not push back enemies. It costs twenty mana and has a 14.7 cooldown.

The Good

You get some decent damage while keeping enemies from closing the distance with you. Also, you can move while using the skill, allowing you to back up even further from your enemy.

The Bad

Wind Chill’s two upgrades are a bit meh, to be honest. Another 25% damage increase on the last 2m from Chilling Blast is nice, but the damage on Wind Chill is more of a side benefit than the main focus of the ability.

The Verdict

Solid ability. Very good at what it does. Not sure if it is worth investing two extra points for the upgrades though.

Ice Storm

Ice Storm is your big AOE skill. Have fun dropping a large circle of ice.

The Specs

It is a 5m radius storm that does 17% weapon damage to all enemies in it every .33 seconds and it lasts for five seconds. Ice Storm also creates a frosted area that drops enemy move speed by 25%. It costs twenty-five mana and has a 19.6 second cooldown.

The Good

It is a solid AOE that hampers enemies. The upgrades are nice as well, especially the second upgrade Storm Summoner, which reduces the mana cost by 80% if you are at full stamina when you cast it.

The Bad

The AOE can be a bit tricky to place when an enemy is charging you, and it can be hard to keep enemies in the AOE’s radius while trying to keep your distance from them.

The Verdict

Ice Storm is strong, but primarily good in group play where you can cast it from a distance centered on your tank for maximum effect. In solo play it is harder to make good use of.

The Builds

I would classify the two primary builds for ice gauntlet as being single player and multiplayer.

Single Player

Ice Pylon is your best friend, so upgrade the bejesus out of it. Plonk a pylon down, then keep your distance and pelt your enemies with light and heavy attacks. Use Wind Chill when enemies close the gap. But don’t just move away in a straight line. If you do, you’ll get too far away from your pylon, and you might trigger the enemy’s reset, then they’ll heal and return to their spawn point. For this build, Entombed is a fun but optional choice.

Single Player Passive Skills

All the pylon abilities, all of them. You want Refreshing Pylon. The ability to get an addition thirty seconds of free DPS is a beautiful, beautiful thing. The other passive skills are less helpful for the build, though Defiant Freeze, which grants you 20% fortify for two seconds ever time you cast an ice gauntlet skill, is nice.

Capstone Skill

I know my mantra is “Upgrade pylon, upgrade pylon,” but I personally find Ultimate Frost’s bonuses underwhelming and would prefer Ultimate Chill’s damage boost.

Multiplayer

Ice Storm and Ice Shower get much better in the multiplayer build. Since you’ll likely stay in the back and throw out long range skills, you don’t need to prioritize your survivability as much, so while still fun, Entombed is probably not very relevant in this build. Wind Chill becomes less useful in this context but could still be worth taking. Ice Pylon will still be great, because Ice Pylon is always great (we must construct additional pylons).

Passive Skills

The upgrades to Ice Storm and Ice Shower become a lot stronger when playing with a group, as each ability is better the more enemies it hits, so centering them on the party tank is great. The other passive skills that shine in this context are the abilities that proc off of a frosted area or an enemy with frostbite such as Heavy Freeze (which can root enemies), because Ice Storm and Ice Shower will create those conditions frequently.

Capstone Skill

Again, I would have to say that Ultimate Chill is better here. It makes your ice gauntlet abilities cause enemies to take 25% more damage for three seconds. Great by yourself, even better with allies to profit off of it.

Other Equipment

The final piece of the puzzle is what sort of gear you should wear besides the ice gauntlet build itself.

First and foremost, you want intelligence boosting gear as that is the attribute your ice gauntlet scales with. The second attribute you want will depend on your secondary weapon.

As far as armor goes, for both single-player and multiplayer versions of the build, I recommend trying to keep your equipment load in the light category as this will give you the best dodge, which helps especially in the single-player build’s run and gun strategy. However, if you want the greater protection of heavier armor, that is also reasonable, and could be more applicable to the multiplayer build.

Join the High Ground

That’s a basic rundown of the ice gauntlet. If you want to slow down your enemies and always stay out of reach while you and your pylon pelt them to death, then this is the weapon for you. If you liked what you read in our New World: Ice Gauntlet Build Guide and found it helpful, leave us a comment below! And join our newsletter list for the latest New World articles right to your inbox.

Happy gaming!