Fellowship Rime Season 2 Hero Guide

This guide will teach you the basics of playing Rime in Fellowship. Rime is an Intellect-based DPS hero who excels at ranged frost magic. She builds Anima through her abilities, creating Winter Orbs, and converts both into devastating burst spells. Positioning and resource flow are key when optimizing Rime during mechanical challenges. When managed correctly, she deals strong single-target and delivers explosive area of effect damage.

This guide will teach you how to use her abilities, and which talents to choose for the best build. A special shout out to Toonic over on the Fellowship Discord. We’ve had several conversations with him regarding Rime, and we are generally in agreement on the following information.

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Table of Contents

• Season 2 Changes
• Rime’s Abilities Guide
• Rime Anima & Winter Orb Guide
• Rime Talent and Build Guide
  • Talent Explanation
• Rime Opener and Rotation Guide
• Rime Gearing Guide
  • Best in Slot Weapons
  • Best in Slot Gems
  • Best in Slot Sets
  • Best in Slot Legendaries
• Rime Weapon Breakdown and Traits
  • Voidbringers Touch Traits
  • Chronoshift Traits
• Rime Legendaries List

Season 2 Changes

Fellowship released two new characters, and given that they focused on other heroes for the release of this season, Rime was left with minimal changes. Rime’s spirit stat change is subtle yet extremely impactful.

• Each time you trigger the “Spirit Refund” you gain 2 Spirit Points toward your Spirit Ability charge.

This change increases the rate Rime generates her ultimate significantly. Even with 0% spirit, you gain tons of value while your Winter’s Blessing buff is up.

Rime also saw a significant mechanical shift to her Navir’s Keeper talent this season. Previously, Navir’s Keeper generated two Cold Snap charges when using Flight of the Navir. Now it provides two stacks of a Navir’s Keeper buff, allowing your next Cold Snap to be cast without requiring or consuming charges. While the end result feels similar, this solves an awkward gameplay issue where you had to dump your Cold Snap charges prior to using Flight of the Navir. You effectively have access to four charges at once, making the rotation much more fluid.

Since the patch release, Fellowship has added some additional changes to her gameplay:

• Ice Comet now scales down at a 12 targets instead of 8, increasing her damage on larger pulls significantly.
• Glacial Assault talent now provides an additional area-of-effect explosion when the Glacial Blast hits it’s target.
• Eldrin Amulet of Undulating Spirits has two additional effects:
  • All your Spirit Refunds now grant 4 Spirit Points.
  • Rime now starts with 100 Spirit Points at the start of every dungeon

These post-release changes are all positive for Rime, and her damage has skyrocketed since. The legendary boosts her spender gameplay, and the Ice Comet change goes hand-in-hand with that. We expect to see some nerfs to one of these items in the coming weeks though.

Rime’s Abilities Guide

Ability/Icon	Name	Cast / Recast	Range / Radius	Effect
	Frost Bolt	1.5s	↔ 30yd	Hurl a bolt of frost magic at target enemy, dealing 234% Intellect damage. Generates 1 Anima
	Cold Snap	GCD 12.0s (2)	↔ 30yd	Assault the target with extreme cold, dealing 364.8% Intellect damage. Generates 1 Winter Orb
	Freezing Torrent	2s Channel 15.0s	↔ 30yd	Flay your target with a beam of frost energy, dealing 156.2% Intellect damage every 0.4 seconds for 2 seconds while channeling. Generates 1 Anima per tick
	Bursting Ice	2s 10.0s	↔ 30yd ↻ 5yd	Conjures an icy crystal inside a target that pulses frost damage, dealing 55% Intellect damage every 0.5 seconds for 3 seconds to the target and nearby enemies. Generates 1 Anima each time it pulses
	Frost Ward	Instant 30.0s	Self	You take 40% reduced damage for 4 seconds.
	Ice Dash	Instant 25.0s (2)	↔ 10yd	Quickly travel forward a short distance. Can be used during Global Cooldown.
	Brain Freeze	Instant 20.0s	↔ 30yd	Interrupt the target’s spellcasting and prevent it from casting for 4 seconds. Can be used during Global Cooldown.
	Glacial Blast	2.0s	↔ 30yd	Costs 2 Winter Orbs Hurl a mass of ice at target enemy, dealing 1188% Intellect damage.
	Ice Comet	GCD	↔ 30yd	Costs 2 Winter Orbs Unleash a large Ice Comet from above target enemy to crash down on them, dealing 451% Intellect damage to all enemies caught in the impact radius.
	Ice Blitz	Instant 120.0s	Self	You enter a state of focused casting for 20 seconds, causing you to deal 20% more damage for the duration. Can be used during Global Cooldown and while casting.
	Flight of the Navir	GCD 60.0s	↔ 30yd	Summon 5 Frost Swallows to circle above target enemy for 20 seconds. Your Cold Snap and Freezing Torrent command the frost swallows to swoop down on enemies, each dealing 68% Intellect damage to their target.
	Frigid Winds	Instant 60.0s	↔ 10yd	Blast enemies in front of you with arctic winds, Knocking Back enemies and Slowing them by 50% for 12 sec. Interrupts spells and abilities.
	Winter’s Blessing	Instant 60.0s	Self	Your Spirit is increased by 20% for 20 seconds and 30% of all damage you deal is replicated as healing divided equally between all allies.
	Wrath of Winter	1.0s SPIRIT ABILITY	Self	Invoke the spirits of the frozen tundra for 20 seconds, granting you 1 Winter Orb every 4 seconds. You deal +20% increased damage and your Glacial Blast ability is instant cast while Wrath of Winter is active. Spirit Ability When you activate your Spirit ability you gain Spirit of Heroism, granting +30% haste for 20 seconds.

Rime Anima and Winter Orbs Mechanic Guide

Rime generates Anima which converts into a Winter Orb at 9 stacks. Winter Orbs are then spent to cast powerful burst spells, Glacial Blast for single target and Ice Comet for Area of Effect (AoE). Winter Orbs cap at 5, so actively manage orb generation and spending to keep your damage up, save for bursts, but also not waste any through over-capping. Generating a Winter Orb will cause a Frost Swallow to attack your target.

The default location of Rime’s Orbs and Anima are shown on the HUD just under the character.

Rime BIS Talents and Build

Rime has several viable choices for talent builds. We are suggesting a Spender build, which focuses on generating and spending as many Winter Orbs as possible while extending Cascading Blitz, propped up by the strong burst windows with Winter’s Embrace. There can be some interchangeability here, but we believe these are the best talents to take for Rime.

Rime Talent Explanation

Winter’s Embrace (1B) gives a 3 second burst window where all of your damage is increased by 20% for 3 seconds upon casting Bursting Ice, or 5 seconds with Skandi’s Sabatons of Endless Winter. Given that, you’ll easily be able to fit two to three of your strongest abilities in each window.

Burstbolter (2A) gives 3x as much Anima on every Frost Bolt cast, and also causes it to do extra area of effect damage through a single pulse of Bursting Ice. Extremely strong talent, and stronger than some multi-point talents for the cost of one.

Navir’s Keeper (2C) applies two stacks of a buff to you that makes your next Cold Snap free and consume no charges. This effectively gives both 4 charges of Cold Snap per use, and synergizes well with Icy Flow to get more value from your Ice Comet and Glacial Blast spenders.

Icy Flow (3A) causes your Cold Snap to grant you Icy Flow for 8 seconds, which both reduces the cast time of Glacial Blast by 0.5 seconds and the impact delay of your next Ice Comet. Both Glacial Blast and Ice Comet gain +25% increased critical strike chance when consuming this buff.

Avalanche (3B) causes your Ice Comet to have a chance to double and triple cast for free. Ice Comet is a large portion of your damage, especially paired with Winter’s Embrace and Frostweaver’s Wrath. You’ll want to use Ice Comet when fighting 2 or more enemies with Avalanche. Sometimes it’s smarter play to use Glacial Blast instead if one target needs to die faster than the other.

Tundra Guard (4A) is an incredibly potent defensive boost to Rime’s Frost Ward. This talent allows you to both heal for 35% of all damage you do, and extends the duration of Frost Ward. None of the defensive options are in any build at the moment as they’re not as needed this season, but if you feel you need it then they are great options.

Greater Glacial Blast (4B) is a strong damage boost to your single-target spender and will significantly increase your single target damage during your Wraith of Winter when Glacial Blast is instant cast.

Frostweaver’s Wrath (5B) gives you a 17% chance to gain Frostweaver’s Wrath for 12 seconds when you generate a Winter Orb, which increases the critical strike chance of your next Ice Comet or Glacial Blast by 100%. Since you’ll be generating and spending quite fast with this build, you’ll be getting a lot of value from this.

Biting Cold (6A) increases your critical strike damage by 10%. Though we don’t recommend it in any of the above builds, if you like bigger numbers you can swap this and Greater Glacial Blast or Wisdom of the North.

Wisdom of the North (6C) reduces the cooldowns of your Ice Blitz, Flight of the Navir, and Winter’s Blessing by 0.3 seconds for every Winter Orb you spend.

Remember to not take talent trees as is and adjust for any legendary or weapon trees you get, or content you are doing.

Alternative Talent Builds

Rime Rotation Guide

When playing Rime, you want to ensure you’re taking advantage of your damage windows when you have Winter’s Embrace talented, additionally be sure you’re not overcapping Winter Orbs.

Winter’s Embrace Burst Windows

With the spender build Winter’s Embrace damage windows become much simpler, as you want to ensure you’re dumping as many Glacial Blasts and Ice Comets within the window, while simultaneously not wasting Bursting Ice casts.

Winter’s Embrace lasts 3 seconds, with an additional 2 while you have Skandi’s Sabatons of Endless Winter equipped. Specifically, you’ll want to go into each window with enough Winter Orb‘s to cast your spenders without overcapping from the Freezing Torrent and Bursting Ice generation.

Ability Priority

Keep everything on cooldown, while ensuring you do not overcap with Cold Snap by casting Glacial Blast and Ice Comet as necessary. When using Wrath of Winter, you can fit several Glacial Blasts and Ice Comets in a single Winter’s Embrace.

1. Wrath of Winter
2. Ice Blitz
3. Winter’s Blessing
4. Bursting Ice
5. Ice Comet (3+ targets, 2+ with Avalanche)
6. Glacial Blast
7. Flight of the Navir
8. Freezing Torrent
9. Cold Snap
10. Frost Bolt

Rime Gearing Guide

You’ll want to focus on maximizing your ability to do damage in your burst windows, while also increasing your ability to scale. Currently there are several weapons and sets that are viable for pushing but these just edge out due to their scaling.

Rime Weapons Guide

• Voidbringer’s Touch
  • Apply Voidbringer’s Touch to target enemy for 15 seconds, causing 10% of all damage you deal to any enemy to be replicated and stored in the effect.
    Once Voidbringer’s Touch expires, or a total of 4250% Primary Stat has been accumulated, the effect erupts in a shadowy explosion, instantly dealing the accumulated damage to the target.
    Voidbringer’s Touch always triggers if the damage it holds is greater than the remaining health of the enemy it is applied to.

• Chronoshift (Recommended)
  • Create an arcane anomaly while channeling up to 3 seconds, causing you to pulse 576% Primary Stat damage every 1.5 seconds to all enemies in a large radius around you.
    While channeling Chronoshift you gain 800% increased cooldown recovery and are protected by a temporal barrier, causing you to take 50% reduced damage.

Rime Gems Guide

• We’re still experimenting, but as of now we recommend at least Sapphire 10.
  • With how strong Rime’s spirit is this season, Sapphire gems boost that strength further by giving you more power during Wrath of Winter and increasing the amount of uses you’ll get.
• This leaves room open for sets and other gem combinations. We’ll update this as we figure out more.

Rime Sets Guide

You should start seeing a theme in our choices, and sets are no different. We want to boost our damage with ultimate as much as we can and these sets help us get that.

• Drakheims’ Absolution
  • Your Wrath of Winter grants you Drakheim’s Absolution, increases your Intellect by 20% for 20 seconds.
• Death’s Grasp
  • +3% Spirit
  • +15% damage to low health enemies

Rime Legendary Guide

We have two options that work well with our recommended spender build, however the Neck is curently more powerful than the other option. If you like to have smaller damage windows more often, then go with Boots, otherwise the Neck will be your default choice.

• Eldrin Amulet of Undulating Spirits – Neck
  • Your abilities have a 10% chance to make your next spender ability trigger a Spirit Refund.
  • You begin every dungeon with 100 Spirit Points
• Skandi’s Sabatons of Endless Winter – Boots
  • Your Bursting Ice lasts 2 seconds longer.

Rime Weapons Breakdown and Traits

Why Voidbringer’s Touch?

A powerful damage profile many players overlook is priority target damage. Without Voidbringer’s Touch, Rime generally does all single target or all area of effect damage. You can opt to use Glacial Blasts in place of Ice Comets as priority damage, but then you lose out on anywhere from 40-60% of your potential damage. Voidbringer gives Rime the capability to do priority damage without sacrificing her area of effect damage. On the contrary, heroes get to use their area of effect damage to quickly trigger the Voidbringer effect.

Why Chronoshift?

While this weapon doesn’t bring the priority damage Voidbringer’s Touch does, it shortens your cooldowns and does a hefty amount of area of effect damage. Additionally, when paired with Visions of Grandeur and Inspired Allegiance you’ll be getting several additional uses of Wrath of Winter per run and much more uptime on your Ice Blitz. One of the minor benefits of this build, is having more freedom on when to use Wrath of Winter due to having increased spirit generation. With perfect usage, this can be the highest throughput build for Rime.

_{We recommend you not worry about specific pieces of gear until you’re pushing Eternal content. Even a random assortment of stats, gems, and sets will get you through most content.}

Gearing Priority

1. Weapon
2. Legendary Item
3. Item Level
4. Substat Priority

Rime Stat Priority Guide

Substats have the following effect for Rime:

• Critical Strike – Chance for damage effects to critically strike, doubling their damage. Many of Rime’s talents have interaction with Critical Strike as well, such as Icy Flow and Frostweaver’s Wrath.
  • Grievous Critical Strike – Causes any critical strike chance you have above 100% to contribute to the base damage of a critical strike, which helps Critical Strike from being useless when you have the before mentioned talents.
  • Explanation: If you have 110% Critical Strike chance and your ability does 1000 damage, the Grievous Critical Strike would deal 2100 damage. (1000 * 0.10) + (1000 * 2).
• Expertise – Increases all damage, healing and absorption effects triggered by Rime.
• Haste – Decreases cooldown of charge abilities, increases casting speed, increases the tick rate of damage and healing effects, and shortens the global cooldown.
• Spirit – Increases the rate you charge your spirit ability, and every 1% of Spirit gives an increasing chance to refund any Winter Orbs spent when using abilities that cost Winter Orbs.
  • Formula: Spirit% / (1 + Spirit%)

Substat Priority

Critical Strike and Expertise are generally close in value, but as you gain more Critical Strike the value lowers due to the talents we’ve recommended. With the amount of free Critical Strike in this build, Critical Strike loses value here.

Spirit to ~20% > Expertise > Critical Strike > Haste >> Spirit

Rime Legendaries

These legendaries are sorted from best to least best based on the build we’ve recommended. Remember some legendaries might work better with other builds so if you don’t get Skandi’s Sabatons, try out one of our alternative builds above.

• Eldrin Amulet of Undulating Spirits (Neck)
  • Your abilities have a 10% chance to make your next spender ability trigger a Spirit Refund.
• Skandi’s Sabatons of Endless Winter (Feet)
  • Your Bursting Ice lasts 2 seconds longer.
• Frostwyrm’s Spite (Back)
  • Each tick of your Freezing Torrent grants you 1 stack of Frostwyrm’s Spite for 15 seconds, up to 10 stacks. Your Cold Snap consumes all stacks of Frostwyrm’s Spite, increasing its damage by 6% per stack. Additionally, your Cold Snap hits 1 additional enemy near your target for each stack it consumes.