S-TIER | BUILD CHASSERESSE ICE-TIPPED TWISTERS AMAZON (@Lolcohol) | SAISON 5

Build Video

Build Overview

The Ice-Tipped Twister Amazon is a leveling setup designed for season 5 (Return of the Ancients) that pushes the Huntress in a very satisfying direction: a combination of stacked icy Twister on top of Barrage, all triggered by Ice-Tipped Arrows. The build is designed by ThatsRealNeato and stream-tested by Lolcohol, who describes it as an S-Tier setup capable of reaching insane damage as early as act 2.

The build’s identity rests on a simple yet massive mechanic: Ice-Tipped Arrows converts physical damage to cold damage and rains ice fragments on every hit. Since the Twister hit enemies continuously, each Tornado triggers a hail of small explosions that ends up annihilating Bosses and clearing packs in seconds. Combined with Herald of Ice, the result feels more like an endgame build than a leveling setup.

Act 1 uses a slightly denser rotation (Parry, disengage, Explosive Spear under Whirling Slash) that takes a few minutes to get used to. But from act 2 onward, the rotation simplifies drastically and the build takes off — to the point that the Spirit Walker ascendancy (with the Owl Wisp adding projectiles and projectile speed) pushes it even further for larger arenas. It’s an excellent entry point for players who want to try out the new Huntress ascendancy at league start, with very low gear requirements.

Strengths / Weaknesses

Gem Setup per Stage

This build offers 5 progression stages from leveling to the final build. Select a stage to see the corresponding gem setup.

Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Act 4 Interludes

Act 1

6 skills • 12 gemmes

Taillade tourbillonnanteWhirling Slash

TrombeTwister

Lance explosiveExplosive Spear

DésengagementDisengage

Bondissement

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Act 2

7 skills • 19 gemmes

Taillade tourbillonnanteWhirling Slash

TrombeTwister

Flèches à pointe de glaceIce-Tipped Arrows

Tir de barrageBarrage

Bondissement

Rugissement féroceFerocious Roar

Malice

Act 3

10 skills • 30 gemmes

Taillade tourbillonnanteWhirling Slash

TrombeTwister

Flèches à pointe de glaceIce-Tipped Arrows

Tir de barrageBarrage

Bondissement

Rugissement féroceFerocious Roar

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Frénésie du combatCombat Frenzy

Archer mirageMirage Archer

Malice

Act 4

10 skills • 34 gemmes

Taillade tourbillonnanteWhirling Slash

TrombeTwister

Flèches à pointe de glaceIce-Tipped Arrows

Tir de barrageBarrage

Bondissement

Rugissement féroceFerocious Roar

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Frénésie du combatCombat Frenzy

Archer mirageMirage Archer

Malice

Interludes

10 skills • 33 gemmes

Taillade tourbillonnanteWhirling Slash

TrombeTwister

Flèches à pointe de glaceIce-Tipped Arrows

Tir de barrageBarrage

Bondissement

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Frénésie du combatCombat Frenzy

Archer mirageMirage Archer

Rage éternelleEternal Rage

Malice

Recommended Gear

This build is intentionally light on requirements: no unique is mandatory for leveling. The key is to regularly upgrade your spear and aim for flat damage stats on gloves and rings.

• Spear (right hand): THE critical piece. From level 10-11, pick up the new spear base and craft a few solid mods (physical damage, attack speed). A level 16 spear with decent mods is enough to clear the act 3 Boss.
• Malice Sceptre (left hand): applies Critical Weakness to nearby enemies and provides a large spirit reservation to run Herald of Ice + Combat Frenzy.
• Iron Rings ×2: add flat physical damage to attacks, a massive damage spike for the cost.
• Gloves with flat damage (physical, lightning, cold): multiply the hits from Barrage and Twister.
• Level 10+ flasks: upgrade them before taking on King in the Mists and then Geonor (massive survivability gain).
• Armour / helmet / boots: aim for maximum life + resistances to hit the caps by act 2/3, no particular constraints.

Gameplay Tips

• Act 2/3 rotation (to memorize) : Ferocious Roar (rage) → Pounce (Freezing Mark) → Ice-Tipped Arrows → Barrage → Whirling Slash → release the Twister. The entire fight relies on this loop.
• Whirling Slash stays at level 1 : we don’t use it for damage. It only serves to empower the Twister and to generate rage via the Rage link.
• Hold Frenzy Charges before a boss : parry trash beforehand, charges stacked by the time you burst. Ice-Tipped Arrows consumes charges to bypass its cooldown, which is insane for single target.
• Geonor poetry phase : stay at the edge of the mist to get more reaction time on the jump. Use that time to parry and stack Frenzy Charges.
• Combat Frenzy in act 3 : add the spirit gem as soon as you have enough spirit (Malice Sceptre helps with that). It generates 1 charge every ~7s on Freeze, which loops perfectly with Barrage.
• Large arenas = projectile speed : if the Twister travel too slowly, prioritize projectile speed nodes or wait for the Spirit Walker ascendancy (Owl Wisp).
• Don’t forget to upgrade the spear every 3-4 levels : it is by far the primary damage source of the build.

Act 1 Setup — Parry / Disengage / Explosive Spear Combo

Act 1 is the most demanding part of the leveling experience. The rotation has nothing in common with act 2 and takes a few minutes to get into your fingers. The idea is to generate a Frenzy Charge with the parry then the disengage, then place an explosive spear that drops burning ground, and finally follow up with a Whirling Slash that picks up that burning ground and attaches it to the Twister.

The result is a fairly dense combo that can feel janky during the first few hours, but becomes fluid after a couple of packs. The parry alone deals a lot of damage, and the explosive spear that detonates immediately gives a real sense of power from the very first levels. This is also when you start upgrading your spear and pick up Pounce as a Mobility (dedicated level 3 gem).

Toward the end of act 1, you pick up Barrage, which repeats the next charged attack. Boss Geonor goes down without trouble with this rotation, especially by staying at the edge of the mist during the poetry phase to stack Frenzy Charges on trash.

Act 2 Setup — Transition to Ice-Tipped Arrow

Act 2 is the complete turning point of the build. We drop the entire explosive spear / parry / disengage combo and adopt a much simpler rotation centered around Ice-Tipped Arrows. The gem reads as follows: prepare the active bow or spear, empower the next Barrage attack by converting physical damage to cold damage and creating ice fragments on every hit. The cooldown can be bypassed by spending Frenzy Charges.

In practice, the new rotation becomes: Ice-Tipped Arrows → Barrage → Twister. Each time a Twister hits an enemy, it drops a small ice fragment on the ground that explodes a second later. Combined with Herald of Ice which triggers a cold AoE on every kill, the clear becomes explosive in the most literal sense of the word.

This transition makes the build far more accessible and far more powerful: we go from a 4-button combo to a 2-button combo while increasing damage. The first mini-Boss Jamanra in act 2 drops almost instantly, and the following Bosses (Tor Gul, the full Jamanra) confirm the S-Tier leveling setup status.

Spirit Walker Ascendancy — Owl Wisp and Twister Synergies

The new Spirit Walker ascendancy (announced for 0.5) is literally made for this build. The most interesting node is the Owl Wisp, which adds an increased number of projectiles and projectile speed. And that is exactly what Twister need to operate at full capacity.

More projectiles means Bosses take more hits per Twister cycle — and therefore more ice fragments on the ground. More projectile speed means Twister bounce more quickly around the arena (instead of slowly bouncing from wall to wall), which solves the only real weakness of the build in large arenas.

The Spirit Walker ascendancy also allows you to plug in other wisps to complete the build, but the Owl Wisp remains the absolute pillar. Without this ascendancy, the build is still excellent; with it, it becomes one of the fastest leveling setups imaginable for season 5.

Act 3 Setup — Combat Frenzy and Frenzy Charges Loop

Act 3 adds a new source of Frenzy Charges via the spirit gem Combat Frenzy. The mechanic is simple: every time an enemy is Freeze (and with the build’s cold conversion, that happens constantly), Combat Frenzy generates one Frenzy Charge every ~7 seconds.

That charge is immediately consumed by Barrage, which recovers them to fire more projectiles for the Twister. The loop is self-sufficient in mapping as well as bossing, which completely eliminates the dependency on the parry / dodge from act 1.

The Malice Sceptre in the left hand truly comes into its own here: it provides the spirit needed to plug in Combat Frenzy + Herald of Ice + Critical Weakness on nearby enemies. Bosses Ketzuli, Viper Napuatzi and Doryani then fall without any trouble, despite a character that is often under-leveled at the time of the video recording. This is the moment when Lolcohol describes the build as « absolutely primo » — and it is very hard to argue with that.

Skill Tree