How to Play the Snow Queen (Updated for 1.0)

A how-to guide for playing the Snow Queen, including ability explanations, gameplay tips, and talent and item recommendations.

Introduction

Hey there! I enjoy playing the Snow Queen, and there's currently a lack of guides for specific characters, so I thought I'd write one for her. Please keep in mind that my advice in this guide is based on my experience and preferred style of playing the Snow Queen; with patience and skill, it's possible to play her well in any circumstance and with any build.

So what does the Snow Queen do, anyways?

The Snow Queen's specialties are area-of-effect damage and kiting. All of her skills can hit multiple targets, and her ability to continuously slow enemies makes it very easy to stay out of their reach.

While her damage against multiple targets is substantial, her single-target damage is somewhat lacking, and she has very few sources of party utility or sustain. She will typically under-perform slightly against bosses, and she has few opportunities to recover if she takes a lot of damage.

In solo play, you'll typically want to cycle between periods of bursting with your abilities and periods of kiting and poking as your abilities come off cooldown. The aim of the suggestions in this guide is to reduce your cooldown period as much as possible and amplify the damage you deal during your burst phases.

In group play, you can be a bit more flexible with your build. The Snow Queen is not a support, but her ability to slow enemies and a few of her talents can provide a limited form of party utility. The Snow Queen pairs well with heroes who can draw enemy attention and gather enemies up (Beowulf, Sun Wukong), as well as with more supportive heroes who can cover for her squishiness (Melusine, Aladdin).

Abilities

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Trait: Ice Crown

The Snow Queen's trait has two components, one passive and one active. The passive component (which I'm going to call chilled) slows enemies hit by some of her abilities, while the active component (which I'll refer to as Shatter) removes the chilled effect from enemies within range to deal a large amount of damage.

Activating Shatter makes you intangible during the animation, allowing you to avoid attacks that would otherwise hit you. As such, this ability also has a defensive component; this is particularly useful against bosses like the Faceless Master Nightmare, which love to litter the arena with explosions and rotating beams.

This trait is the Snow Queen's bread and butter, and a large component of both her damage and her utility. The chilled effect, which lasts a considerable five seconds, not only slows enemy movement speed, but also enemy animation speed (except bosses), causing all of their attacks to come out slower. With a base damage of 60, Shatter is the Snow Queen's second hardest-hitting ability next to Ice Shards, and has a greater effective range. Shatter also has a disproportionately high effect on enemy knockdown gauges, making it an excellent tool for stunning armored opponents like crabs and spiders.

One of the core components of the Snow Queen's playstyle is knowing when to use Shatter. In the best-case scenario, you will arrange the situation so that enemies become chilled again immediately after you use Shatter. If this isn't possible for whatever reason, aim to use Shatter shortly before enemy chilled effects will expire, allowing yourself the maximum possible time to squeeze in kiting and boosted damage.

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Attack: Ice Lances

The Snow Queen's attack fires a projectile in a long line that will hit every enemy in its path. It's wider than it looks, so you can hit enemies who are side-by-side if you aim between them.

Her attacks come out rather slowly compared to those of other heroes, and while they benefit from chilled, their damage-per-second just isn't very good. About the only benefit they have over her other abilities (aside from their lack of cooldown) is that their range is fairly generous. You'll typically fall back on spamming long-range Ice Lances to fill time while you wait for your cooldowns to come back up, but you should aim to have to use this ability as little as possible.

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Power: Frost Blast

Frost Blast immediately deals 50 damage in a circle directly in front of the Snow Queen and chills all enemies hit. The range is quite limited, meaning you'll need to get fairly close to enemies to use this to its full effect. The damage is decent, but the real draw is the chill effect, this being one of the Snow Queen's two abilities that apply chilled before talents get involved.

This ability's cooldown is the longest out of the Snow Queen's basic abilities, and as such it's the one that benefits the most from cooldown reduction and additional charges. The limited range necessitates careful positioning and you should typically be ready to dash after using it in case enemies begin queuing up attacks on you during the casting animation.

By default, Frost Blast sits in the middle of the pack in terms of the Snow Queen's ability damage, but certain talents can make it dramatically stronger, so you may see it evolve into one of your primary damage sources partway through a run.

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Special: Ice Shards

Ice Shards batters enemies with ice shards in a cone in front of the Snow Queen, dealing 65 damage, boosted by 50% against chilled enemies. The casting animation takes around one second to deal the full damage. By default, it's the Snow Queen's most damaging basic ability.

As with Frost Blast, this skill's cast time and limited range means you'll need to put yourself in harm's way to use it effectively. Due to the similar sizes of their AoEs, Ice Shards complements Frost Blast nicely as a follow-up to take advantage of the chilled effect on multiple enemies, and certain talents further encourage this. That said, Ice Shards has a markedly shorter cooldown than Frost Blast, and to get the most out of your damage you'll want to find opportunities to use it out of sync with Frost Blast.

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Defense: Ice Skating

Ice Skating dramatically increases the Snow Queen's movement speed and causes her to run forward continuously without input. For the duration, passing through enemies will deal 30 damage to them and chill them. You're also briefly intangible just as you activate the ability, making it possible to avoid damage with good timing. By default, this is the Snow Queen's second method of applying chilled to enemies. You can cancel the ability early by reactivating it, refunding some of the cooldown.

The movement speed boost makes Ice Skating valuable in several contexts. It can be a useful way to get around the map faster. In combat, the additional movement speed makes it very easy to position, strafe enemies, and avoid attacks. The damage is not hugely impressive by itself, and in the early game, this ability should be relied on more as a tool for positioning and applying chilled than as a source of damage. Given that you can't stop moving while this ability is active, care should be taken when many projectiles are flying; ensure that you don't accidentally run into one.

Ultimates

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Ultimate #1: Frost Ray

Frost Ray creates a long-range circle of frost which you can direct freely for the duration. The circle deals 160 (base) damage per second and chills enemies hit. This ability has an unskippable start-up animation roughly one second long. You can cancel it early to refund some of the cooldown. Given the relatively short 60-second cooldown, you should aim to use this ultimate often.

This ultimate deals damage, plain and simple. It hits like a truck, is large enough to hit many enemies at once, and has tremendous range to boot. About the only downside is that the Snow Queen is unable to act while using it, potentially leaving her open to retaliation. As such, it's best to create some distance (and some frost to slow enemies down) before using it.

Frost Ray talents

Royal Ray causes the Snow Queen's trait to trigger when her ultimate is cast, increasing the damage the ray will deal for each enemy shattered in this manner. This further encourages you to chill enemies before using Frost Ray to boost the damage to even more ridiculous heights.

Ice Beam (available at level 9) converts your ultimate from a directed circle on the ground to a linear beam that extends from the Snow Queen in the direction you indicate, stopping at the first enemy hit. Ice Beam deals significantly more damage than Frost Ray (up to 100% more with upgrades), but the fact that it can only hit one enemy at a time compromises its usefulness and its range. I wouldn't take this unless you're in a party with plenty of area-of-effect damage already.

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Ultimate #2: Snow Storm (Unlocked at Rank 6)

Snow Storm creates a huge, stationary circle of frost centered on the Snow Queen that deals 5 (base) damage per second to enemies inside and continuously chills them, lasting for 10 seconds. As with Frost Ray, Snow Storm has an unskippable one-second start-up animation, so make sure you're safe before you use it. With a 60-second cooldown, Snow Storm is also just as available as Frost Ray.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of this ultimate. The damage is extremely insubstantial, and while it gives you multiple opportunities to use Shatter, Shatter's cooldown means you will only be able to get so much mileage out of it. Simply put, by rank 6, you'll have better options for keeping large numbers of enemies chilled, and Frost Ray's absurd damage output is often too good to pass up. I can't currently think of any situation where I would take this ultimate over Frost Ray.

Snow Storm talents

Rending Storm deals 20 damage to all enemies inside the storm each time the Snow Queen uses her trait, power, or special within it. This adds some much-needed damage to Snow Storm, but unfortunately, it comes far too late to be useful most of the time. Even with all of the extra damage added by Rending Storm, Snow Storm's damage still falls behind Frost Ray's in almost every context.

Shattering Storm (available at level 9) automatically shatters all enemies inside the storm when it ends, dealing a base of 72 damage to them in addition to the normal shatter damage. While more shatter effects are always nice, it is very difficult for this talent's damage potential to outshine the potential of Rending Storm. If you happen to be taking Snow Storm instead of Frost Ray, I would probably take Rending Storm over this talent in just about every scenario.

Starter Talents

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Good: Ice Clone

Ice Clone is a solid starter talent for solo runs before you've ranked up the Snow Queen. The clone can help take some of the heat off you, and when it explodes, it provides you with another valuable source of chill. However, the distraction effect is spotty at best, so you can't always rely on it, and you have very little control over when the clone will burst or whether enemies will be near it when it does, limiting its effectiveness.

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Good: Rupture

Rupture is a good choice in a group setting, especially with three or four players total. The ability to routinely apply vulnerable to enemies substantially improves the whole party's damage, and the free +10 attack from completing the quest is nice too. However, completing the quest will often—especially in group settings—require you to make suboptimal use of Shatter early on to ensure more than one enemy is consistently hit, as enemies may die too quickly for you to use Shatter otherwise. Prioritize chilling tanky enemies to limit this problem.

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My Recommendation: Frost Queen (Unlocked at Rank 2)

I consider Frost Queen to be the best overall choice in most cases, though there's a case to be made for taking Rupture in a large group. Frost Queen's lingering ice allows you to repeatedly apply chill with a single spell cast, which enables you to use Shatter much more liberally and reduces wasted time spent attacking enemies that aren't chilled. The empowered slow is also amazing, making it that much easier to avoid enemy attacks.

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Underwhelming: Dual Lances (Unlocked at Rank 5)

This talent is really not great. One of your attack's few saving graces is that it has a long range, but this talent sacrifices that to boost the meager damage and AoE potential. You shouldn't be relying on Ice Lances to deal damage, so take a starter talent that improves the rest of your kit instead.

1.0 Update: This talent got nerfed, reducing the damage of your attacks and changing the scaling factor to slowly bring the damage back up to normal while leaving the range at -45%. This talent is just plain bad now. Don't take it.

Talents

In this section, I'll cover the Snow Queen's available talents. I'll be listing them in categories from best to worst.

The Absolute Best Talent

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Radiant Crown (Unlocked at Rank 2)

This is the only way to get a second charge of your trait, and it adds a ton of damage to it besides. Since Shatter also gives you on-demand intangibility, you're getting offense, defense, and utility all in one talent.

This is bar-none the best talent you can get on the Snow Queen. Take it regardless of how you're building.

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Good Talents

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Freezing Stars (Unlocked at Rank 5)

This one takes some practice to get the hang of, but once you wrap your head around managing the stars, they become an excellent source of AoE damage and chill. Get into the habit of scattering these around a densely-packed arena and watch the fireworks go off when you activate Shatter.

These are particularly good if you get some seven-league boots from a quest, mini-boss, or wishing well, since you'll be able to dash around constantly.

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Frostbite (Unlocked at Rank 8)

This is one of the final talents you can unlock for the Snow Queen, and it's a really good one. It's pretty much just a flat upgrade to a lot of your best damage sources.

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Hailstorm

This is essentially just a straightforward damage upgrade for Frost Blast. As a bonus, the hail applies chill, so if for whatever reason you're not using Frost Queen as your starter talent, you can use Frost Blast, immediately pop Shatter, and have the hail instantly reapply chill.

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Ice Cores (Unlocked at Rank 7)

This further strengthens the already-strong synergy between Frost Blast and Ice Shards. Because you'll typically use this combo point-blank, the attacks fired by the cores are pretty much guaranteed to hit, and they'll benefit from the chill effect on enemies, too.

Note: If you also have the Ice Spray talent, the attacks fired by Ice Cores will launch both in front of and behind you.

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Ice Spray (Unlocked at Rank 3)

Using this to full effect can be a bit tricky, since you'll need to put enemies both in front of and behind you, but it can be very effective once you get used to it. The damage bonus is nice, too.

Note: If you also have the Ice Cores talent, the attacks fired by Ice Cores will launch both in front of and behind you.

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Pirouette (Unlocked at Rank 8)

Your defense, which applies chill, now also exploits chill to do more damage! The AoE is sizable and does plenty of damage, adding a lot of power to an ability that starts out a little lackluster.

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Shattering Blast (Unlocked at Rank 4)

One problem the Snow Queen is sometimes presented with is thus: Frost Blast is up, but the enemies are already chilled. Sure, you could shatter them, but maybe Shatter's on cooldown (as it should be, if you're making good use of it). This is the solution to your problem. Not only does it allow you to use Frost Blast on chilled enemies without wasting resources, it even ups the damage of the resulting Shatter effect. Beautiful!

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Strafe (Unlocked at Rank 3)

More much-needed power for Ice Skating, Strafe lets you automatically pelt enemies with attacks while you're speeding around the arena. These attacks come out far faster than the Snow Queen's attacks normally do, and they still benefit from the chill you'll be applying along the way, so this is pretty much a win-win.

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Okay Talents

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Cold Heart

This talent isn't terrible, but the Snow Queen just isn't very good at fishing for critical hits. With proper planning and execution you can use this to great effect, but it's easier to get a lot out of some of the other talents available to her.

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Frost Surge

The long charge time makes it harder to use in the middle of a crowded fight without getting hit. The extra radius on the AoE can be valuable for ensuring larger numbers of enemies are affected, but don't get into the habit of fully charging this every time.

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Flurry of Shards

This talent has excellent damage potential, but it's clunky to use. You won't get the extra damage this talent promises unless you hold the button for long enough. Worse, if you have multiple charges of your special and you end up holding the button for too long, you'll end up using two charges in a row. Don't shy away from this talent if you want the damage, but be prepared to encounter some frustration in using it.

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Slide

Does decent damage and can be used to chill enemies, but the range is short and it forces you to use your dash in ways that can easily put you in danger.

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Snowball

This functionally extends the chill effect from Frost Blast into a long line beyond the initial circle. The damage, however, is negligible at best, and the snowball is very slow-moving and awkward to aim.

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Windy Lances

Makes it so you don't have to aim your lances. The usefulness of this talent scales with how many of your other talents give you extra attacks, such as Ice Cores and Strafe. If you have many talents that add attacks to your abilities, this can be useful, but otherwise its value is limited.

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Weak/Situational Talents

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Ice Shield (Unlocked at Rank 4)

The Snow Queen is not a support, and you shouldn't be wasting your defense running through allies instead of enemies. You could make it work, but why not just play Melusine if you want to shield people?

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Lance Burst

Awkward to aim and deals very little damage even if it hits something.

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Protective Crown (Unlocked at Rank 7)

Less cumbersome to use than Ice Shield, but the Snow Queen is still not the hero you should be taking support talents on.

Sample Builds

Now that we've got a rundown of the Snow Queen's abilities and talents, we can look at actually playing her!

The talents you pick up will play a significant role in determining what she'll be good at. As such, if you can, I'd recommend trying to focus your talent selections on empowering a specific playstyle. Here are some examples:

Ice Lance Build

Important talents: Windy Lances, Strafe, Ice Cores, Lance Burst (only if you have Windy Lances)
Important items: Ace of Spades, Adder Stone

This build focuses on pelting enemies with a constant barrage of ice lances. Strafe, Ice Cores, and Lance Burst all allow you to fire a large number of attacks in a short time frame, and all of these attacks can pass through multiple enemies. If you also manage to nab Windy Lances, they'll actively seek out enemies for you. This build arguably has some of the best raw damage the Snow Queen can put out, and the long range of the lances means it's quite safe, too.

Shatter Build

Important talents: Radiant Crown, Freezing Stars, Shattering Blast, Slide
Important items: Flaming Pearl, Raven Effigy, Charmstone, Seven-League Boots

With the shatter build, your goal is to set up by chilling a large number of enemies, then chain many instances of shatter together for a large amount of damage and stagger. This build is particularly excellent at knocking enemies down due to shatter's powerful impact on knockdown gauges. Shattering Blast allows Frost Blast to contribute additional shatter damage without putting Shatter itself on cooldown, so extra charges help here. Additional dashes and the dash reset from Seven-League Boots make it easy to fill the arena with a huge number of Freezing Stars, dramatically increasing the effective damage you deal when you use Shatter.

If you decide to go for the Shatter build, you might consider taking Snowstorm as your ultimate ability instead of Frost Ray, since this will allow you to shatter enemies even more and offers great setup for this playstyle. That said, be careful; not having Frost Ray will seriously hamper your ability to deal large amounts of damage at great range.

Frost Blast/Ice Shards Build

Important talents: Shattering Blast, Frost Surge, Hailstorm, Ice Cores, Ice Spray, Flurry of Shards
Important items: Flaming Pearl, Thunderstone, Raven Effigy, Jack of Diamonds Card, King of Clubs Card

This is a sort of "default" build that relies on the combo of Frost Blast into Ice Shards to deal lots of area-of-effect damage all at once. The main upside of this build is that your damage comes out very fast; if you can group enemies up into a nice big pack, you can delete a huge number of them at once. However, both of these abilities have a limited range, and some enemy types (mages, healers, witches) don't like to group up no matter what you do. Make sure to have a plan for dealing with stragglers, and don't get cornered while setting up your combo.

Items and Stats

There are tons of items and stat upgrades to choose from, so rather than listing everything, I'll just stick to highlighting a few high-value items from each category.

Grimoires

Here's the priority I use for grimoires:

Damage > Vitality (If you have Ogre Blood) > Stars of Fate > Dream Shards > Vitality (if you don't have Ogre Blood) > Your choice of armor, crit, or crit damage.

Magical Objects

Common: Mermaid's Tears are valuable for the extra sustain they give. Ogre Blood is free damage that's easy to accumulate. Since being buffed, Voodoo Doll is a good choice to boost your damage against bosses.

Rare: Jack of Diamonds, King of Clubs, Ace of Spades, and Golden Egg are all great. Vajra synergizes well with the Slide talent, but don't get it otherwise. The survival options (Queen of Hearts, Fairy Dust, Unicorn Horn) are all situational, so only take them if you're struggling to survive.

Epic: Anything that reduces cooldowns or adds another charge to one of your abilities is fantastic. Prioritize getting second charges over cooldown reduction, but once an ability has a second charge, get cooldown reduction instead.

Legendary: Nibelungen Ring is phenomenal. Excalibur, Seven-League Boots, and Raven Effigy are all very good. Tamatebako and Father Time's Hourglass can be powerful if used well.

Cursed: Hungry Grass, Fast-Walker Boots, Mad Hat, Hope Diamond, Baba Yaga's Mortar.

[Last_Wish]

I can't believe you placed ice shield into bad/situational talents. Imo, it is her best talent. The main value of it is not shielding your allies, but yourself. Snow queen's animations are relatively slow and having easy shield generation allows you to play so much more aggressive thus improving your damage output as well. Ice shield coupled with grail and a couple of defence cooldown reductions makes her practically unkillable.

[scootsmahloo]

great write-up, thank you! Windy Lances have been fun to use so far.

[Lord_Abaddon]

Yeah Dual lances is the best starter talent by far. with strafe you gain insane single target damage combined with the already massive aoe of her kit it turns snowqueen into a 1 woman army who kills everything without stopping.

[Mandragore]

Hard disagree on the Twin Lances starter. It hits like a truck from level 1 and onwards for an Attack, and in a Strafe build, you will rarely use the actual Attack after some point anyway.

Tag everything with Strafe for Chill, drive-by like you're in GTA spraying with an SMG. It MELTS.

Lance Burst + Windy Lances are amazing in this build, it's massive burst potential for a hero who doesn't have much in the first place. Add in Black Lotus and you're set for a win, you rarely get hit because you're ice skating harder than the Disney princess, and when you do you get the HP back very quickly.

[=TheBoss=]

Good guide, ill try to use this shatter playstyle, it's an ability that i never really used much because i didn't think it would be that good, but seeing the points you marked it makes me wanna give ice queen another chance