Path of Exile 2 Frost Sorceress guide: The easiest starter build in Early Access
The Frost Sorceress is one of the easiest beginner-friendly builds to get you through the early game of Path of Exile 2. Thanks to the innate crowd-control provided by the Chill and Freeze Ailments, the Frost spells in this game essentially act like a secondary layer of protection. Building around them, you'll mostly be able to breeze through the grueling early hours like no other build.
If you're a Path of Exile 2 beginner frustrated with the curveballs the game throws at you with mechanical and build-crafting challenges, this is the perfect build to follow. With this build, you can steamroll through the maps, leaving a path of sheer glacial devastation in your wake.
How does the Frost Sorceress build work in Path of Exile 2?
Frost, as mentioned earlier, is arguably the best Ailment effect to deal with mobs in Path of Exile 2. To sweeten the deal further, they are also damaging enough to easily stay on par with Spark or Fusillade builds throughout the early game, although not as burst-heavy as Mana Tempest builds past Act 2.
The main combo of this build is Frost Bomb and/or Frost Bolt to Freeze enemies, and then Cold Snap to consume the Freeze and deal ample damage. There is, of course, a combination of other Skills you would want to use early on—but the freeze into Cold Snap combo is the bread-and-butter here.
Upon nearing the close of Act 2, we get Frost Wall, and later, as we get more Spirit, we can switch over to Cast on Freeze with Comet.
The skills won't be set up like this from the get-go, so we have provided a detailed leveling guide to take you through what to use from the beginning of Act 1 till the end of Act 2.
Moreover, once we find further ways to optimize it, the guide will be updated to cover Act 3 and the Cruel rotation, where we completely switch over to the Metagem-Comet interaction as our main source of damage.
Best Frost Sorceress leveling build in Path of Exile 2: Lvl 1 - 13 (Act 1)
After starting a new campaign in Path of Exile 2 with the Sorceress class, the first order of business for you is to replace your Ashen Staff with a Gelid Staff when you get to town. With this, you get the Freezing Shards basic skill—add the Chain and Glaciation Support to it. The Freezing Shards are not your damage tool, but rather a cheap and easy way for you to Freeze enemies to set them up for a Frost Bomb. This won't be needed later on but is crucial for those early bosses of Path of Exile 2 if you want to kill them with Cold.
Skill Gem Progression
Starting with the Sorceress class, you'll get Spark as your first spell. When you pick up an Uncut Gem next, you want to pick up Ice Nova, and then put the Unleash support on it once you get a Support Gem. This will allow you to use it twice in a row in a single cast, which is great for Freezing enemies early on.
Next, you'll want to get Frost Bomb. This deals an absurdly high amount of burst damage for a tier-1 Skill Gem, so you'll also want to use it tactically to target stronger enemies. Frost Bomb also takes upgrade priority as it has great scaling with levels. Add the Magnified Effect Support Gem to it to make the AoE a bit more liberal to work with.
A non-Frost spell you do want to use alongside these is Flame Wall, with the Spell Cascade Support. This is a great way to get some extra DoT on crowds, making some encounters much easier to deal with.
Once you get your first Lvl 3 Uncut Gem, you want to get Frostbolt. This is not that strong at lvl 3 (base lvl) on its own, but its true potential will unlock with later interactions. For now, you can use it as a source of spammable damage skill by slotting Arcane Tempo and Controlled Destruction on it. At this point, you also want to slot your Glaciation into Ice Nova.
When you get to Hunting Grounds, make sure to take on the Ominous Altar quest. Once you beat the King in the Mists, he will drop the Gembloom Skull and your first Uncut Spirit Gem in Path of Exile 2. With this, your first Buff Gem unlock should be Arctic Armor.
Pre-Cold Snap Gem-link setup
Near the end of Act 1 (Ogham Farmlands), this is the Skill Gem link setup you're looking at:
- Freezing Shards (Gelid Staff) - Chain
- Ice Nova - Unleash, Glaciation
- Frostbolt - Arcane Tempo, Controlled Destruction
- Frost Bomb - Magnified Effect, Optionally also Concentrated Effect against bosses
- Sparks
- Flame Wall - Spell Cascade
Mobbing Rotation
Open with Freezing Shards and Ice Nova to freeze mobs, and then set them up for explosion with Frost Bomb. Use Flame Wall when this doesn't cut it. After you get Frost Bolt, you can open with it and use Ice Bomb when it's flying on top of enemy clusters.
Bossing Rotation
Before Frost Bolt, use Flame Wall and Sparks to deal damage to bosses you can let loose against, and use Frost Bomb off cooldown for some extra burst. After Frost Bolt, simply spam Forst Bolt, Ice Nova, and Frost Bomb.
Best Frost Sorceress leveling build in Path of Exile 2: Lvl 13 - 35 (Post-Executioner Act 1 and Act 2)
Once you kill the Executioner boss in Act 1, you get your first Lvl 5 Uncut Gem in Path of Exile 2. This is a game-changer for our Frost Sorceress build since you can now engrave Cold Snap, the main crutch of our setup.
At this point, you can ditch Freezing Shards altogether. Your combo will now be Frost Bolt and Frost Bomb till they Freeze, and casting Cold Snap on Frozen enemies. You can also freeze bosses, meaning Cold Snap is also your main burst damage source on bosses.
Throughout Act 2, you won't unlock much - other than Hypothermia on your first Lvl 7 Uncut Gem. Use this spell on monsters and bosses with Cold Resistance (their Health bar will have a white frost icon to the bottom right).
Once you unlock Trial of the Sekhemas, Ascend to take up Stormweaver. You want to take the extreme right wing: Elemental Damage and Scouring Winds.
At this point, reconfigure your Skill Gem Support link setup like so:
- Cold Snap - Concentrated Effect, Unleash
- Frost Bomb - Magnified Effect, Spell Cascade
- Frost Bolt - Scattershot, Glaciation
- Ice Nova - I personally use Arcane Tempo, but you'll seldom need to use Ice Nova, so it's up to you.
- Hypothermia - Inspiration, Persistence (you'll need at least 10 STR)
At this point, your rotation also changes slightly, but it's the same for mobs and bosses. You want to open with Frost Bomb, which should now cover enough area to affect full monster packs on the screen. Then, cast Frost Bolts to slow them till they're frozen, and cast Cold Snap afterward.
With this, you also don't need to wait for enemies (especially bosses) to be frozen before you use Cold Snap. Instead, you can use it to shatter two of the Frost Bolts (when Unleash is up), dealing a good amount of damage.
Post-Frost Wall damage rotation for Frost Sorceress in Path of Exile 2 (mobbing and bossing)
You'll likely get a few Lvl 9 Uncut Gems by the end of Act 2, so you should unlock Frost Wall with those, and use it in place of Ice Nova. This also is a big damage ramp-up right at the end of Act 2, and it helps with the final Jamanra fight. Place Frost Wall on mobs (and bosses) and hit it with Frost Bomb and Frost Bolt as usual, and it will explode, freezing enemies, especially bosses, much quicker. This is also the point where you'll want to have the Overexposure, Glaciation, Inescapable Cold, and Endless Blizzard skill nodes to maximize damage.
Frost Wall's crystals will have more important skill interactions that won't materialize until quite a while into Act 3. Stay tuned for an updated version of this build guide, where we'll discuss rotation past Act 3.
Path of Exile 2 - Frost Sorceress Itemization
In terms of itemization, this build not demanding otherwise. Still, you'll want to have at least one of the following affixes on your Gelid Staff:
- Spell Damage
- Cold Damage
- +Level of Cold Spells
Since we are not going to take Elemental damage skill nodes early on, getting one of these affixes is important. If you can roll a magic item with one of these affixes at a high value, it will likely be a keeper throughout Act 1. The strongest one is +Level of Cold Spells, followed by Cold Damage and then Spell Damage.
If you're having a hard time with in-game crafting and drop RNG, it's worthwhile to get one through trading in Path of Exile 2. You want to try and get a Rare item with the end of Act 2 base (Gelid Staff with lvl 6+ Freezing Shards, for example) so the tier of affixes is at least T4+.
Passive Skill tree nodes to take with Frost Sorceress in Path of Exile 2
Start with the right-hand path, taking Energy Shield nodes including Pure Energy. Afterward, move to the left to take Raw Power (either route works). After this, you want to go to the node cluster above it through Path of Winter, and beeline to the Exploit the Elements node through attribute nodes.
Afterward, you have a choice about how you want to proceed. I personally went for closer nodes that will have an immediate payoff. For this, you want to move back to the right through two more attribute nodes towards Potent Incantation, and then get to the cluster with Shattering towards the right, which gives you a lot more Freeze build-up. However, note that these are interim solutions that you'll eventually have to respec out of the build since your Skill Points are needed elsewhere.
The critical path is to beeline for the Endless Blizzard node up top. Regardless of where you end up, you will eventually have to get here, as the +1 lvl to Cold Gems is too big of a boost to pass up. This cluster also has a lot of more Cold-oriented nodes, so feel free to take them all. By the end of Act 2, this route provides a higher DPS ceiling for the final boss.
With your Act 3 and Cruel Act 1 levels, you'll need to aim for the following nodes:
- Overexposure
- Shattered Crystal
- Invocated Efficacy (as well as the Energy nodes around it)
- Arcane Intensity
- Ether Flow
Once you unlock your Ascendancy, you want to take Stormweaver and go for the Scouring Winds node first, and then the Arcane Surge with your second set of passives in Act 3.
Once you have enough Mana regeneration, it's possible to spec into Eldritch Battery and then Mind over Matter to cover your defensive needs. However, this is a hypothesis we haven't tested out yet, and a very late-game scenario due to how far apart these two Keystones are.
Also Read: Path of Exile 2 Passive Skill Tree guide
Act 3 Onwards: How does the Frost Sorceress fare in Path of Exile 2 late game content?
Despite some scaling options with the Stormweaver Ascendancy, Frost Sorceress is not the best build when it comes to post-campaign scaling. While her specialty is steamrolling through the campaign Acts, the endgame prowess still hasn't been tested extensively in mapping. For what it's worth, though, the build is still viable throughout Atlas—but other builds likely get larger power spikes by the point you reach Cruel Act 1 (NG+).
Check out our other guides on the game:
- Path of Exile 2 Beginner tips
- Path of Exile 2 Crafting guide
- Path of Exile 2 class tier list for beginners
- Path of Exile 2 Keystone passives