Champions Online Glacier Guide

Champions Online Glacier Guide
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Ice, Ice Baby

Part of the handful of playable archetypes in Champions Online includes the icy-cold touch of the frosty class known as The Glacier. This snowy manipulator has the ability to freeze opponents and create blizzards out of thin air or cast opponents in ice cages just for the heck of it. Gamers who plan on playing as the archetype that commands the element of cold can learn everything they need to know before creating a hero with this Champions Online Glacier guide.

The Role Of The Glacier

Icy warrior fighting

Unlike the Soldier or the Behemoth, the Glacier has several different roles that they can play in Champions Online. Cryptic did a fair job of allowing players to develop the icy warrior into multiple types of roles.

The most prominent role the Glacier will play in the game is being able to work as a support DPS; dealing massive ice damage to single or multiple targets with ease. This is an easy build to work with and quick to level.

Developing the Glacier as a crowd controller is another alternative, which is completely useful for team-raids and high-level instances. Using the Glacier as a CC isn’t very difficult given many of the archetype’s AOE debuffs and movement inhibiting abilities.

The final role of the Glacier is that of a tank. Yes, believe it or not the Glacier class can work as a tank, absorbing damage and mitigating incoming attacks with various shields and elemental buffs.

Strategic Battle Plans Of An Archetype

Staying cool

When fighting as the Glacier, there are multiple ways of approaching opponents in both PvP and PvE. The Glacier is one of the more versatile, projectile and close-range archetypes on the game given their diverse skill sets and various class diversifications. For players who plan on being a long-range DPS ice manipulator, flying transportation or teleportation would work best. For players who plan on getting up close and inside the battles, agility or speed-running would be an ideal travel skill.

The two main skill attributes of the Glacier are Endurance and Constitution…tank attributes. However, the Glacier’s attributes can be varied to the task you have planned for them. So if you want to increase elemental damage or focus on fast energy recharge simply use the proper equipment to boost the stats.

Glacier Skill Set:

Level 1 – Ice Shards: This is a basic energy generating attack. As opposed to the Inferno’s fire attacks that add Clinging Flames to a target, Ice Shards has a chance to apply Chill to a target that slows down their movement speed. An optional advantage is Ice Impaler, which adds additional critical hit chances.

High-tech ice wielders

Level 1 – Ice Blast: A standard projectile attack on single targets. In addition to ranking up this skill for added damage, there is Crippling Challenge to add extra threat generation as well as Hard Frost, which deals out extra damage on Chilled targets.

Level 6 – Ice Cage: Just as the name infers, it’s an ice cage that deals cold damage over time. Opponents can break the cage but when the cage expires it deals massive damage to the target and nearby enemies. Additional ranks increases DOTs for this attack and Sub-Zero Cellblock cancels out a target’s attacks while Ice Cage is being applied.

Level 8 – Invulnerability: This enables players to receive less damage as it’s ranked up, additionally this passive skill is directly attached to Super Stats, so if you want to build an ice tank be sure to amp up constitution and endurance.

Level 11 – Snow Storm: An AOE multi-target maintain that deals out massive damage every second to targets within the area. In addition to the rank ups, an additional skill called Eye of the Storm enables Snow Storm to deal extra damage to targets who attack while under the effects of Storm.

Level 11 – Frost Breath: An alternative to Snow Storm…Frost Breath deals directional AOE damage to anyone within the direct range of Frost Breath. A very advantageous skill to rank up within Frost Breath is Frost Bite, which automatically enables every Frost Breath attack to add or re-apply Chill to all targets within range.

Level 14 – Ice Shield: Absorbs up to 300% of damage when applied. This is an active defensive skill that is ideal for tank-builds. For standard tanks simply rank up this skill. For DPS players it would be imperative to add Frigid Air as an advantage, which causes melee attackers to become inflicted with Chill.

Level 17 – Ice Sheath: A very useful skill that that lasts for 12 seconds but can be ranked up to last much longer. This skill increases all ice elemental attack and defensive skills. Also adds a chance to increase the application of Chill. An advantage of Ice Sheath is Super Cooled, which automatically adds the Chill effect to any melee attackers.

Level 22 – Shatter: A cone-AOE that shoots spiked icicles at targets within the area. This skill does extra damage under the Cold Snap effect and deals out even more damage to opponents under the Chill effect. Those who are attacked with Shatter while Chilled will return energy to player.

Level 27 – Unbreakable: A 15 second shield that is imperative for tank builds. At the highest rank this skill can absorb up to 3.3k points worth of damage with 1.6k worth of damage restored when attacked. An advantage skill, called Better You Than Me allows all incoming attacks to refresh the Enraged buff for extra damage.

Using an icy AOE

Level 32 – Ice Barrier: A rooted skill that prevents you from moving for a while but adds ice barriers that absorb damage for up to 30 seconds. Higher ranks increases the amount of barriers created, meaning more damage is absorbed at higher ranks. An additional advantage is Frigid Freedom that disables the root effect that binds players when using the skill.

Level 32 – Ice Burst: If you’re a tank build you’ll want to rank up Ice Barrier. For DPS players Ice Burst is the better choice, enabling players to attack targets at up to 50 feet with an AOE knockback attack that lifts targets in the air and then violently explodes. An added advantage is a paralyzing effect that can be added to the Ice Burst skill.

Level 40 – Avalanche: An AOE raining damage attack that has a chance to Chill opponents and knock them down. Deals out massive damage every 0.5 seconds with an optional Serrated Shards skill that increases the critical severity of the attack.

You can check out more class and archetype guides with the Ultimate Champions Online Guide right here at Bright Hub.

This post is part of the series: Champions Online Free-For-All Archetype Guides

A guided tour of the Archetypes in the new Free-for-All version of Champions Online.

  1. Champions Online The Inferno Guide For Beginners
  2. Champions Online Beginner’s Guide For Soldiers
  3. Champions Online: Free For All Behemoth Beginner’s Guide
  4. Champions Online Beginner Guide For The Glacier
  5. Champions Online Free-For-All Beginner’s Guide For Grimoire