Here’s one powerful build that was not affected by the latest Wolcen v1.0.5.0 patch. Bleeding Edge got nerfed in the new update, making the overpowered ailments build a lot less effective than before. This guide will take you through one build that is still probably the strongest Mage build in the game, the Winter’s Grasp build.
Wolcen Winter’s Grasp Build
This guide is focused around spamming the Winter’s Grasp skill with no cooldown. As you can imagine, it deals massive damage in a quick amount of time and freezes enemies so they can’t attack you. You can easily clear 187 tier expeditions with this build equipped with just rare items.
Winter’s Grasp Skills
Winter’s Grasp is the obvious choice for our first skill since that’s what the whole build is centered around. At level 62 you will unlock the ability to have an instant cast Winter’s Grasp. Here’s the skill modifiers we’ll use:
- Biting Cold
- Ice Pawn
- Rime World
- Soul in Emanation
- Knightly Vanity
- Warlike Confidence
- PermaFrost
- Fancies of Warmth
Anomaly is the second skill choice for this build. We use this skill primarily to get everyone into one area and stack some ailments.
- Dislocating Threads
- Event Horizon
- Echo Wave Pattern
- Temporal Dilation
- Aether’s Fracture
- Rending of Matter
Bulwark of Dawn
- Everlasting Aurora
- Burning Balm
- Sacred Grounds
- Boundless Cornucopia
- Divine Omnipresence
- Aegis of Hope
Aether Jump is one of the best mobility skills in the game and it’s a spell, so we’ll definitely be using this one. Activate it as much as possible to gain some extra willpower and easily dodge and get through the map faster. Here are the modifiers we’ll use:
- Quantum Mind
- Escape Artist
- Feeding the Aether
- COntinuum Expertise
- Breath of Time
- Time Paradox
- Interstitial Boost
- Auspex’s Arrogance
Wolcen Winter’s Grasp Build Gear
Hang on to all your good rares you find while leveling up because you can later turn them into legendaries. By heading to the Dark Market, you can increase Item Rarity and turn it into a legendary just like that. This will keep the good base stats and add two more affixes onto the item.
Shoulders – Stack health for a big health pool with toughness or ferocity as a secondary stat. The most important stat here is Rage and Willpower Cost Reduction. Resistances are also a good stat to have on shoulders as well as any other piece.
Gauntlets – The main stat you want here is again Rage and Willpower Cost Reduction. After that, go for toughness, critical hit, and resistances.
Legs – It’s important to get Transfer Time Reduction between Willpower and Rage as a primary stat here. You can then go for critical hit, cooldown reduction, and all resistances for the legs.
Helm – Get high resistances here as well as Transfer Time Reduction again. Look for health, ferocity or toughness, and maximum resistances.
Chest – Try and shoot for a 1,000+ resistances chest-piece, as well as toughness, health, and three sockets for +3000 health.
Boots – Go for 30-40%+ movement speed boots, with critical hit chance, toughness or ferocity, and any other good stat you can find.
Catalyst – You want double added damage to Spells, increased spell damage, increased spell critical hit damage, and increased critical hit damage. Try and get one that also have low negative Transfer Time Reduction between Willpower and Rage as well as an increased Status Ailment Chance Score.
Accessories – the most important stat on all accessories (rings, amulets, belts) will be double or triple flat damage added to spells. After that, look for percent damage increases, maximum health, critical damage, and Ailment Chance Score increase.
One-Handed Weapon – Stats to look for on your one-handed weapon are increased damage to Frozen Targets, Critical Hit, and any stats that will add damage. Socket with three Frost Damage or Aether Damage gems for maximum damage.
Wolcen Winter’s Grasp Gate of Fates
There are a few good nodes you should pick up for this build. They are as follows:
- Wild Card
- Which Time Cannot Heal
- Branded Burst
- Duty to Exterminate
- Insidious Decay
- Power of the First Men
- Immortal Offering
- Grievous Afflictions
- Salvatory Anchor
- Elementary Destabilization
- Dawn’s Pious Striker
- Clandestine Execution
- Merciless Lethality
Wolcen Winter’s Grasp Build Stat Allocation
This is the least exciting part of the build. You will simply put all your points into Ferocity, like with most other builds. It’s the stat that scales the best and makes this build do the most damage. Enemies will be frozen all the time and we stack a lot of health on items so we really don’t need any toughness.
