Fellowship Rime Hero Guide

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 managed correctly, she deals strong single-target and delivers explosive area of effect damage.

This guide will teach you the basics of playing Rime in Fellowship, 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 while we disagree on something points, we are generally in agreement on the following information.

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Table of Contents

• Rime’s Abilities
• Anima & Winter Orbs
• Rime Talents and Builds
• Rime Opener and Rotation
  • Single Target Rotation Priority
  • AoE Rotation Priority
• Gearing and Stat Priority
• Rime Legendaries

Rime’s Abilities

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 304% Intellect damage. Generates 1 Winter Orb
	Freezing Torrent	2s Channel 15.0s	↔ 30yd	Flay your target with a beam of frost energy, dealing 142% 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 990% 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.

Anima and Winter Orbs Mechanic

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.

Orbs and Anima are shown on the HUD just under the character.

Rime Talents and Build

Rime has a couple of viable choices for talent builds. We are suggesting the Soulfrost Torrent build, also known as “Beam Build”, to give stronger consistent damage and stronger burst windows with Winter’s Embrace. There can be some interchangeability here, but we believe these are the best talents to take for Rime.

Talent Point Total	Talent Tree (Row + Column)
2 Points	1b
3 Points	1b + 2a
4 Points	1b + 2a + 2b
5 Points	1b + 2a + 3c
6 Points	1b + 2a + 3c + 4b
7 Points (Contender)	1b + 2a + 3b + 3c
8 Points	1b + 2a + 3b + 3c + 4b
9 Points (Adept)	1b + 2a + 3b + 4b + 5b
10 Points	2a + 2b + 3c + 5a + 5c
11 Points (Champion)	2a + 2b + 3c + 4b + 5a + 5c
12 Points	1b + 2a + 2b + 3c + 5a + 5c
13 Points (Paragon)	1b + 2a + 2b + 3c + 4b + 5a + 5c

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. Even without haste, you’ll easily be able to fit three of your strongest abilities available in here 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.

Supreme Torrent (2B) increases the duration of your Freezing Torrent by 0.8 seconds, which means additional ticks for Coalescing Frost.

Avalanche (3B) causes your Ice Comets to have a chance to double and triple cast for free. Ice Comet is a large portion of your damage early on and this will improve your damage significantly. You’ll want to use Ice Comet when fighting 2 or more enemies with Avalanche.

Coalescing Frost (3C) adds an extra burst of AoE damage to Freezing Torrent, additionally aiding in burning trash mobs down. This can be lined up with Winter’s Embrace.

Greater Glacial Blast (4B) is taken when you have 6 points available and will be taken every time you have a free point to use. It will naturally increase your single target damage and more significantly during your Wraith of Winter when Glacial Blast is instant cast.

Cascading Blitz (5A) causes a Frost Swallow to attack your enemy for every Anima you generate. Additionally, Cascading Blitz increases the duration of your Ice Blitz for every Frost Swallow that deals damage. This means additional duration on your 20% damage increase from Ice Blitz.

Soulfrost Torrent (5C) gives you a chance when using your abilities to cause your next Freezing Torrent to have a 40% increased tick rate and a 100% increased critical strike chance. This also benefits from a feature called Grievous Critical Strikes which we explain below.

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

Rime Openers and Rotations

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. This will change slightly in single-target situations versus multiple enemy pulls.

Winter’s Embrace Burst Windows

Above is an example of your Winter’s Embrace damage window. You’ll precede these with Wrath of Winter if you’re planning on using your Spirit Ability. Through Ice Blitz, Soulfrost Torrent and the Winter’s Embrace talent you’ll get far more value out of your Winter Orb attacks instead of using them right away. You’re able to store up to 5 Winter Orbs and 8 Anima before overcapping, which still gives you room to keep Bursting Ice and Freezing Torrent on cool-down.

Winter’s Embrace lasts 3 seconds which allows for a full channel of Freezing Torrent, or several casts of Ice Comet and Cold Snap. You’ll want to go into each window with the enough Winter Orb’s to cast your spenders without overcapping from the Freezing Torrent and Bursting Ice generation.

Single Target Priority

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

1. Ice Blitz
2. Winter’s Blessing
3. Flight of the Navir
4. Bursting Ice
5. Freezing Torrent/Soulfrost Torrent
6. Cold Snap
7. Glacial Blast
8. Frost Bolt

AoE Priority

Keep everything on cool-down, ensuring you do not overcap with Cold Snap by casting Ice Comet as necessary.

1. Ice Blitz
2. Winter’s Blessing
3. Flight of the Navir
4. Freezing Torrent/Soulfrost Torrent
5. Bursting Ice
6. Cold Snap
7. Ice Comet
8. Frost Bolt

Gearing and Stat Priority

Gear

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.

• Weapons
  • Voidbringer’s Touch
    • Apply Voidbringer’s Touch to target enemy for 15 seconds, causing 20% 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 8500% 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
    • Create an arcane anomaly while channeling up to 3 seconds, causing you to pulse 641% 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.
• Sets
  • Drakheim’s Absolution
    • Your Spirit Ability grants you Drakheim’s Absolution, increasing your Primary Stat by 20% for 20 seconds.
• Legendaries
  • Drakesblood Tapestry – 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.

Though not quite on the same level as Voidbringer’s Touch, the Chronoshift weapon effect is still powerful in it’s own right. The ability to recover your cooldowns should not be taken for granted and with the right weapon traits could make for a solid weapon until you get Voidbringer’s Touch.

We recommend Drakesblood Tapestry due to the synergy with Freezing Torrent/Soulfrost Torrent. You’ll be using both incredibly frequent thus increasing your uptime of the legendary.

Why is Voidbringer’s Touch so strong on Rime?

The reason for Voidbringer’s Touch, is due to the several damage amplification effects Rime has in her arsenal. Wrath of Winter, Ice Blitz, and Winter’s Embrace creates a total of 60% damage increase to the effect of the weapon. Since the expiration effect scales with Intellect, we can further increase this scaling withe the Drakheim’s Absolution set.

The weapons accumulation is 8500% Primary Stat on cast, meaning any intellect modifiers you use prior to pressing the ability will increase the amount you can accumulate. Once you deal enough damage to reach this amount, it explodes for that damage plus any damage modifiers. These modifiers include the mentioned abilities above as well as Heroic Brand, a major Weapon Trait.

• 1,000 Intellect
• 1,200 Intellect = 1,000 Intellect + Drakheim’s Absolution (20% Primary Stat)
• 102,000 accumulated damage = 1,200 * 8500%
• 183,600 damage explosion = 102,000 * 80% Heroic Brand
• 293,760 damage explosion = 183,600 * 60% Rime Modifiers
• 587,520 Critical Hit = 293,760 * 2
• 616,896 Critical Hit = 293,760 * 2.1 Biting Cold

_{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.}

Stat Priority

Substats have the following effect for Rime:

• Critical Strike – Chance for damage effects to critically strike, doubling their effect. Many of Rime’s talents have interaction with Critical Strike as well, such as Biting Cold 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. This means if you had 10% 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, speeds up the tick rate of damage and healing effects, and shortens the global cooldown.
• Spirit – Increases the rate you charge your spirit ability. 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%)

Item level is king and will have the greatest effect on your damage.

Gearing Priority

1. Weapon
2. Legendary Item
3. Item Level
4. Completed Set Bonus
5. Substat Priority

Substat Priority

1. Haste (to breakpoint)
2. Crit
3. Expertise
4. Haste
5. Spirit

Rime Legendaries

• Drakesblood Tapestry (Back)
  • Frostwyrm’s Spite: 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.
• Eldrin Amulet of Undulating Spirits (Neck)
  • Undulating Spirits: Your abilities have a 10% chance to make your next spender ability trigger a Spirit Refund.
• Skandi’s Sabatons of Endless Winter (Feet)
  • Skandi’s Decree: Your Bursting Ice lasts 2 seconds longer.