Ice Gauntlet Weapon Guide and Builds in New World

With Patch 1.1 of New World having been released on the 19th of November, we have prepared patch notes with commentary for the Ice Gauntlet weapon. Please follow the link below for more information.

The Ice Gauntlet is a magical weapon that scales with Intelligence and deals Ice Damage. This weapon excels at dealing decent damage at mid-range and keeping its foes just out of arms' reach with area-of-effect crowd control spell like Ice Storm and Ice Shower. If these tools fail and you become overwhelmed, then you can buy time with Entombed. This weapon can deal decent damage at mid-range, or can be used as a supporting secondary weapon to help provide some crowd control.

The Ice Gauntlet, together with the Fire Staff, forms the basis of the popular Mage build, for which we have a dedicated guide.

This Weapon scales solely with Intelligence, so we highly recommended that you focus on obtaining as much Intelligence as possible on both gear and with your Attribute selection. Constitution is a decent secondary Attribute, but only Intelligence will increase the damage you do.

If you are using the Ice Gauntlet solely for its strong crowd control, then you can focus on your other weapon's primary Attribute. It is somewhat important to get some Constitution, especially if you plan to PvP, because you will eventually take damage and we recommend looking out for gear that provides a mix of Intelligence and Constitution. Faction Armor in particular does a good job of providing a balance of Intelligence and Constitution.

The Ice Gauntlet is a magical weapon and uses mana to attack and use its Abilities. Light Attacks cost 2 mana and Heavy Attacks cost 5 mana. mana does not regenerate while you are attacking, but you can use mana potions to recover them quickly. Gathering Storm can help you recover mana if you can consistently land light attacks; this Mastery even works if you are hitting different foes. Entombed is also a great Ability to not only protect you from damage, but to also help you recover mana.

In both PvP and PvE your role is to pelt foes with damage while also controlling the battlefield with your area-of-effect Abilities. We recommend using Ice Storm, Ice Shower, and Entombed for Abilities, to give you area denial, damage, and recovery. The build remains the same between both PvE and PvP, because these options give you the maximum amount power in both content types. If you feel like you can play without Entombed, you can switch it for Wind Chill for more area-of-effect damage.

We recommend taking the following Mastery Points:

• Cold Reach
• Gathering Storm
• Quick Frost
• Weakening Gust
• Storm Summoner
• Punishing Storm
• Critical Frost
• Critical Rejuvenation
• Heavy Freeze
• Energized Critical
• Ultimate Chill
• Enduring Shower
• Quick Shower
• Frigid Showers
• Defiant Freeze
• Strengthened Tomb

The Ice Gauntlet, like all other weapons, has six abilities; however, you can only use three abilities at any give time on your action bars. While you can spend Mastery Points on more than 3, it is a waste of points since respeccing is rather cheap to do.

Wind Chill — A player-aimable attack that blasts a column of freezing winds that push back enemies 5 meters while dealing 16% weapon damage each hit. Wind Chill has a total range of 7 meters, with the farthest 2 meters increasing damage by 20% without pushing enemies. The player is able to move during the attack. This Ability feels like you are blasting out a cold beam from your hand that pushes foes around. This is semi-decent for AoE damage, but is limited due to its nearly melee damage range.

Ice Spikes — Creates a trail of spikes that start from the player and go out in a straight line for 8 meters, dealing 56% weapon damage. The path ends with a Mighty Spike that will deal 157% weapon damage and apply pushback. Pressing LMB before reaching the end of the path will spawn the Mighty Spike early. This Ability is somewhat of a mixed bag; it can do great AoE damage, but you have to be able to time the Mighty Spike perfectly, which can be difficult.

Ice Storm — A ranged attack that deals 17% weapon damage every 0.25 seconds and slows enemies within a 5-meter radius frosted area. 25% slow, 20-meter range, and 5-second duration. This Ability is nearly the signature of the Ice Gauntlet. Use it to help slow down foes and combo with Heavy Freeze to lock them down repeatedly.

Ice Shower — Summon a shower of ice that creates a frosted area approximately 1 meter by 5 meters. Enemies that enter the Ice Shower will be stricken with a powerful Frostbite. Frostbite roots for 1 second, blocks sprinting and dodging, slows speed by 50%, and will remain on the target for 3 second after they exit the Ice Shower. Ice Shower has a lifetime of 4 seconds.

Ice Pylon — A placed Ice Pylon that fires ice projectiles dealing 50% weapon damage at enemies within a 20-meter range for 15 seconds or until killed. Ice Pylon creates a 1-meter radius frost area that enables frost powers.

Entombed — Player can entomb themselves in ice to become invulnerable and greatly increase mana regen. The Ice Tomb has a lifetime of 10 seconds and can be destroyed. Players have two options to cancel Entomb, exit by pressing RMB or break out of the Ice Tomb by pressing LMB, causing a damaging knockback for 20 mana.

Like all other weapons, the Ice Gauntlet has two Mastery Trees. You can spend Mastery Points in either Tree but must have a Mastery from the preceding row to select deeper Masteries. Likewise, if a Mastery has a vertical line connecting it to a Mastery above it then you must first select the higher Mastery in order to unlock the lower ones. These-linked together Masteries typically support Abilities which are denoted by a square-shaped icon.

While you can unlock all six Abilities at once, you will only be able to place three Abilities on your action bar at a time. It is unwise to invest in more than three Abilities, because it is easy to respec when needed.

This Tree focuses on critical strikes and increasing damage to those who are in your frosted zones. Gathering Storm can help you recover mana from Light Attacks, and Critical Rejuvenation gives you mana on any critical strikes.

Heavy Freeze helps you lock down foes with a Root-like freeze. Critical Frost is a massive critical strike chance-booster while foes are within your frosted areas or chilled. Its Ultimate Mastery, Ultimate Chill, drastically increases damage done to targets affected by your Abilities in the last 3 seconds.

The Builder Tree focuses on defenses and the Ice Pylon Ability. Its Ultimate Mastery, Ultimate Frost, amplifies the Quick Frost and Empowered Frost Masteries. Defiant Freeze is a nice Mastery that provides a 20%-damage reduction after casting an Ability.

Every Weapon Ability in New World has a corresponding Perk that can be found on armor and weapons. Most perks scale in power with the Gear Score of the item they are on. You can only benefit from one instance of a Weapon Ability Perk at a time. These can be rare to find on gear and are mostly just a bonus.

• Unbroken Winds — Gain 10% mana after a full Wind Chill burst. This perk is great for recovering some mana if you are using Wind Chill.
• Iced Refresh — A killing blow with Ice Spikes' Major Spike will reduce all Ice cooldowns by 75%. This Perk is incredible for farming multiple foes at a time. If you intend to farm large packs of monsters either solo or in a group, then this Perk is nearly mandatory. The one downside is that it requires you to be precise with not only your Major Spike placement but its timing as well.
• Unending Thaw — Frost effects remain on enemies for 2 seconds after they exit Ice Storm. This Perk does not scale with Gear Score and is extremely great for extending your Frost effect durations on foes. We highly recommend this perk; there is never really a time you would want to skip over it.
• Deadly Frost — The Frigid Showers ability will cause damage to enemies with Frostbite. This perk makes the Deadly Frost do damage; however, it is not clear how much damage will be dealt at this time, and we will update the guide once we have more information.
• Pylon Burst — Add a 1-meter radius damage AoE when Ice Pylon casts. It is not clear how this perk acts yet, and we will update the guide once we have more information.
• Healing Tomb — Gain 10% Health after exiting Entomb with full mana.

Leveling Ice Gauntlet at low level can be somewhat of a hassle until you reach certain Masteries like Gathering Stormto help you manage mana a bit better. We recommend pairing the Ice Gauntlet with a melee weapon like Rapier while leveling at first so that you can attack once you run out of mana. Ice Storm allows you to lay down an area that does great area-of-effect damage and pairs well with a lot of your Masteries. Ice Shower can save you if you are in trouble by creating a wall that stops all foes that pass through it and give you a speed boost when you go through it. Lastly Entombed gives you sustain and an area-of-effect damage option. Start off by taking Cold Reach followed by Ice Storm. Next take Quick Frost followed by Ice Shower and Entombed to fill out your action bar. After that take Gathering Storm and then max out Ice Storm with Weakening Gust, Storm Summoner, and Punishing Storm. This should make Ice Storm a reliable cooldown for dealing with multiple foes. Next up Critical Frost, Critical Rejuvenation, Energized Critical, and Heavy Freeze so that you can unlock Ultimate Chill. After that we go back to the Builder Tree to max out Ice Shower with Enduring Shower, Quick Shower, and Frigid Showers. The Rend that Frigid Showers causes is really great for increasing overall damage. Lastly Finish off with Defiant Freeze and Strengthened Tomb.

• Rapier — This combination provides crazy mobility and crowd control. You can lock down foes with your Ice Gauntlet and burst damage them with the Rapier. One downside of this combo is that you lose a small amount of damage with the Rapier, since you are scaling Intelligence.
• Fire Staff — This combination provides massive firepower because the Ice Gauntlet sets up foes to be hit by the Fire Staff's Abilities. The Fire Staff offers a few ways to recover mana that will allow you to use a lot of mana. If you are looking to play a fire and ice style build with massive hits, then this might be the combo for you. The downsides would be that you do not have a melee option and are going to be bound to your mana bar for damage.
• Life Staff — In this combination you would want an Amber gem in your Ice Gauntlet to scale partially with Focus.

Yes, however that means you are likely only using the Ice Gauntlet for crowd control, so do not expect it to do much if any damage.

You can get your first Ice Gauntlet either from killing enemies or from chests. If you do not find one then you can craft it for yourself at the Forge. To craft one of your own you will need Water Motes which can be Harvested from Rivercress, Springstones and Floating Spinefish. For more information about crafting, check out our Crafting guide.