Talk:Cold as Ice

Any Prof/N
Using a Monk here is the Build I used: OwQDU8x9QyBxilB2kJN7i2NgEA

Aura of the Lich, Summon Ruby Djnn, Barbs, YMLaD, Fetid Ground, EVAS, Restful Breeze, Healing Breeze Didn't use any of the healing spells as the Griffin just died from Minions, Fire, Crippled and Poison.

It was beautiful.
 * Bit of a high requirement for that build though. Asura/Deldrimor/Ebon Vanguard/N. -Ezekiel  [Talk]  03:17, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I did it with bone horrors at 8 death magic and curses at 10 lol. had roj, vanguard sin, ymlad and fh tho on my monk. he kind of got bodyblocked and didnt cast anything so...--Relyk 02:06, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Ranger v.3
so spirits are cast fast now and theres no use for interupts. i did use this degeneration build i made: OgAUY1rixMSBPHG2kXipGsSFH+GA Markmanship 8+3, wilderness survival 8+3, Expertise 10+1, Beast Mastery 10 summon Lacerate spirit on safe place and just pull that griffon with longbow(with +poison/bleed duration 33%) and use Hunter's Shot to degenerate and criple with YMLaD so he dosen't get too close, if spirits too close attacking you use stances to guard yourself and run away from them (and griffon if YMLaD is recharging). regen with Troll Unguent also plus degen with that Poison Tip Signet for faster degen. This maybe little slow, but for sure it's done.

Single class builds that still work
Apparently this quest is now a lot harder than it used to be, both because of the near instantaneous spirit casts and the health regen that the griffon gets. As such, it would be useful to have single class builds that still work, as opposed to the "buy lots of secondary profession skills and grind ranks in PVE only skills" approach, or builds that used to work but don't work anymore. I'll add stuff as I get to them in my cycle, at least if I can figure out an approach that works. Quizzical 04:35, September 29, 2009 (UTC)


 * I should probably add that I'm borrowing heavily from ideas already posted, and this is largely confirmation that they still work for some of them. Quizzical 00:06, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

Ranger
Max marksmanship and wilderness survival, and use a longbow or flatbow. Stay far away from the griffon most of the time. Periodically use read the wind and poison tip signet while out of range, then approach, use hunter's shot, and run away. Wait a bit, rinse, and repeat. Poisoned and bleeding together are able to slowly degen the griffon to death and overcome its natural +3 health regeneration. Quizzical 04:35, September 29, 2009 (UTC)
 * I Just wanted to say, this build worked for me as a Warrior, its much easier to pull off than the actual Warrior build listed.
 * Used poison tip signet, then read the wind, and hit him once wit a Hunter's Shot. If you use a poisonous flatbow/longbow (like the Poisonous nevermore flatbow that comes with the Bonus pack that lengthens poison duration, you get around 18 seconds of -7 health degen (poison+bleeding).
 * During that 18 seconds, run away, and lose aggro from him (hopefully he doesn't spawn new spirits closer to you).
 * Also, lastly I used the ground as a big advantage. The slope directly facing the furnace is perfect to hit and then run to its other side to lose aggro.
 * This is the easiest way I found to get him with a Warrior, since this method doesn't need much energy (poison tip signet=0energy, and you can get two shots off of one casting of Read the Wind sometimes). Hopefully this helps any Warrs! --00:54, December 1, 2009 (UTC)ZenonSeth
 * This build made it SO EASY! I added the run skills to the bar because it really helped to break agro (with one of them you can back up quickly enough to break agro). Sprint also served as a good timer to know when to start the chaing again... Poison Tip Signet (lasts longest) -> Read the Wind -> Hunter's Shot -> Sprint... Then you just back up the hillside and wait. When you see the run skill start blinking it is time to start the chain again. Only took like 5-6 rounds of the chain to take it down. :) Nova-exarch 01:04, September 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * This build made it SO EASY! I added the run skills to the bar because it really helped to break agro (with one of them you can back up quickly enough to break agro). Sprint also served as a good timer to know when to start the chaing again... Poison Tip Signet (lasts longest) -> Read the Wind -> Hunter's Shot -> Sprint... Then you just back up the hillside and wait. When you see the run skill start blinking it is time to start the chain again. Only took like 5-6 rounds of the chain to take it down. :) Nova-exarch 01:04, September 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't edit someone else's comments. If you want to suggest some additional skills for the optional spots, that's fine.  I'm trying not to overload it with unnecessary skills, so that people don't believe that they need to go buy more skills than necessary to do the quest.  Quizzical 02:27, September 23, 2010 (UTC)

Necromancer
Max curses and death magic. Use aura of the lich as soon as the griffon shows up, and then barbs as soon as it turns hostile. Keep barbs on it throughout the fight. I'm not sure if enfeeble or insidious parasite made a difference, as it only summoned one spirit before standing there and waiting to die, but I used them, so I'll list them. Quizzical 00:06, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

Mesmer
Counting runes, I had 14 illusion, 11 inspiration, 9 fast casting. Start out far away from the griffon. Use mantra of persistence, run in, use conjure nightmare, use conjure phantasm, and run away. Wait for dissonance to die, rinse and repeat. This gets the griffon to -10 health regeneration for 21 seconds at a time, which is a good chunk of damage for each cycle. A mesmer secondary could probably pull this off, too, and there's notably no elite to go capture. Quizzical 19:54, October 1, 2009 (UTC)


 * Used to use a variant of this, worked for every profession with 4 E-regen, but I'm not sure it'd work with the spirit boost.--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 20:30, October 1, 2009 (UTC)


 * I just used that plus added Images of remorse, You move like a dwarf, finish him, blessed light, and signet of devotion. took a while but i got him. I should add, I am a primary monk, and used mesmer secondary. 12 illusion, 12 inspiration, and the rest in divine favor.  Varuuth 02:49, December 4, 2009 (UTC)


 * I used this on a Warrior primary with Illusion of Pain and Auspicious Incantation. It wasn't too difficult, even with the limited energy pips. 67.175.217.41 10:47, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

Assassin
Including runes, I had 12 dagger mastery, 12 shadow arts, 8 critical strikes, 4 deadly arts. Start each cycle out of aggro range. Use deadly paradox, wait a few seconds, use shadow form, and then run in to attack the griffon while invulnerable. Use jagged strike, then lotus strike, the critical strike. Wait a bit if appropriate or move to the side you want to run away in, then use jagged strike again, the viper's defense, then dash and run away. Dash breaks aggro pretty quickly, but you'd better be out of there before shadow form wears off. Wait until shadow form is nearly recharged, and then repeat the cycle. I used barbed daggers, but poisonous would have been a lot better, and neither is necessary. This does most of the damage by a combination of bleeding and poison (net -4 health degeneration after natural regeneration), which also prevents the griffon from regenerating faster while you're out of combat and regenerating yourself. Quizzical 04:31, October 2, 2009 (UTC)

Ritualist
With runes, I used 13 channeling, 11 communing, 11 spawning power. Keep boon of creation on yourself and painful bond on the griffon. Start casting spirits before the griffon turns hostile, and recast spirits as needed. You can also use gaze of fury to instantly kill one of the griffon's spirits, in addition to creating your own. Quizzical 06:14, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

Warrior
This one is hard, but can be made to work. Including runes, I had 12 swordsmanship, 12 tactics, and 11 strength. Deadly riposte and riposte are your main sources of damage. Bonetti's defense is your energy management. Use rage of the ntouka to charge riposte and Bonetti's defense as needed. Keep some blocking stance up while fighting as much of the time as you can. Note that defensive stance and bonetti's defense end when you use a skill, so you'll have to use shield stance or frenzied defense to use healing signet in combat. Once the griffon sets spirits up, don't fight it near the spirits, but try to pull it away. You can take a good chunk of its life off if you can pull the griffon away from spirits right after it sets them up, but not far away to set up another set, at least until old spirits die and recharge and it can set up new ones. Other than that, you have to mostly just try to do what damage you can to prevent too much recharge while waiting for another chance to get it away from spirits. Use the whole area, but try not to pull the griffon far enough away from the initial bloodsong and pain spirits to allow it to set up an additional copy of them. Immediately after breaking aggro, use healing signet as needed before heading back in before the griffon has too much of a chance to recharge. Quizzical 22:35, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

After a few unsuccessful tries using different builds, I remembered good ol' Gladiator's Defense. And to my surprise, it worked incredibly well and might be the easiest way for a Warrior to beat that annoying Glacial Griffon. As far as attributes and equipment goes, just max out Tactics and Strength (I personally had 16 Tactics and 13 Strength) and for equipment as long as you have a Sword and Shield, you should do fine. Likewise I don't think armor is all that important either (I just used all Survivor insignias). Usage is pretty straightforward as well: when you enter cast Signet of Stamina; as the Griffon spawns, lure him away from his spirits (make sure you're out of their attack range) and use Dolyak Signet along with skills 1-3; use Riposte as it charges up; when Gladiator's Defense runs out just use Dolyak Signet along with Healing Signet and spam Ripostes (be mindful of your energy though); and most importantly: as the Griffon spawns more spirits, once again move out of their range. The Griffon will tend to break aggro, but just be patient and you'll kill him eventually. If you use the build correctly, the whole thing shouldn't take more than 5 minutes. Kufooru 21:40, January 2, 2010

I as warrior just wanted too make this build easier, be sec assa and take shadow's refuge(no attribute points needed) just if you need to run away and are about to die. [Shadowhunter Leroy]

The above build works excellently. I tried it tonight on my warrior (13 Strength/13 Tactics, sword/shield as specified) and took down the glacial griffin in less than 5 minutes. It was pretty close - I was about 130 health when the griffon rolled over and died. I drew the griffon back into aggro when he moved away by using my longbow. 69.255.156.186 00:53, August 11, 2010 (UTC)

Attack the Griffon, walk away from Shadowsong. --Vipermagi 12:35, September 3, 2010 (UTC)

Elementalist
This one is also hard to use, but it can work. Max water magic and energy storage. Keep water attunement and aura of restoration up essentially all of the time. Keep mist form up as much as you can, but scramble around to avoid the griffon when mist form isn't up. Note that bloodsong will steal life through mist form and dissonance will interrupt through it, so it doesn't make you invincible. Step away from dissonance when the griffon uses it; standing there to trade hits is fine in range of other spirits so long as mist form is up. Vapor blade and energy blast are your big powerful spells, and useful for blasting the griffon as it runs away, as you only have to start the cast from within spell range. Spam ice spear to trade hits at point blank range while vapor blade and energy blast are recharging. Use the glyphs as needed for extra energy and health, respectively. Quizzical 19:14, October 4, 2009 (UTC)

Monk
Attributes with runes were 12 smiting, 12 protection, and 11 divine favor. Cast retribution and Balthazar's spirit before the battle, and leave them up for the duration. Use blessed signet whenever you get a chance as the alternative to just standing there. Try to pull the griffon away from its spirits, and use protective spirit and shield of judgment before trading hits with it, and spam reversal of damage and reversal of fortune while trading hits. Use castigation signet as energy management, and try to time it for while the griffon is attacking. The combination of retribution, reversal of damage, and shield of judgment can take chunks of the griffon's lifeline off in a hurry, so you don't necessarily need to immediately pull it again if it runs away. Quizzical 04:31, October 5, 2009 (UTC)

Dervish
This build requires the use of an ebon scythe. With runes, I used attributes of 12 mysticism, 12 scythe mastery, and 11 earth prayers. Cast faithful intervention and watchful intervention before the battle, and renew them as needed. Cast conviction if you're going to have to run around near spirits; it's unneeded when you've got the griffon by itself. Try to pull the griffon away from spirits and use ebon dust aura to blind it. Alternate between aura slicer and zealous sweep for attack skills when fighting the griffon in melee, waiting about 6 seconds between uses of an attack skill (which you can time by watching the recharge of the other one) in order to conserve energy but keep it blinded. When the griffon uses a spirit after attacking you in melee for a while, give it a quick whack with banishing strike and then run away. Use mystic regeneration as needed to heal, but if you need this very frequently, you're doing something wrong. Quizzical 05:04, October 5, 2009 (UTC)

Paragon
I give up. I really have no clue how to come up with something viable here at all. Paragons can't self-heal very well, can't apply enough degeneration to overpower even the griffon's natural regeneration, can't attack from particularly long distances, and don't have any other special solo abilities that look easy to exploit. The quirky movement AI that makes crippling M. Bison work so well doesn't work on the griffon, as it will continue setting up spirits while crippled and then refuse to move away from them. So instead, have a build that doesn't use any class skills.

Worked pretty well at rank 6 Ebon Vanguard. Quizzical 00:38, October 10, 2009 (UTC)

Paragon Alternative
It's not a single class build but it works exceedingly well. Definitely more of a build than the suggestion above.

Spear Mastery 14, Command 13, 9 in Sunspear Title. Squeeze the rest into Channeling. Drop Vampirism before fight. Wait for energy to come back up and then start throwing those spears. Use Gaze of Fury on Shadowsong. Keeping up Vampirism is important. "Never Surrender!" to heal. Remember to only use Cruel Spear when the bird isn't moving. Kiting is win. -Fiennis SteeleB 11:18, March 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Or you could just say, use a secondary profession, and leave it at that. The ranger and mesmer builds should be pretty easy to cobble together for most professions.  Quizzical 17:37, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

Ele Bar
The Elementalist bar seems needlessly complex. I have two bars to suggest, one which is about the same complexity, but uses only Core/EotN skills, and one which is very easy to use, but requires Prophecies:

Air Magic 12++, Earth Magic 8+, Energy Storage 10+. As in the above posted build, trades blows with the Griffon. Use the health recovery skills and weakness to mitigate damage taken. Please be smart about using Obsidian Flame.

Air Magic 12++, Energy Storage 12+. Use the glyph to power Lightning Orb (cracked armor) --> Glimmering Mark, then run away with Windborne Speed. Glimmering Mark works in a similar fashion to the other degen builds on this page, and the cracked armor simply makes it work faster - this build in theory could work with the elite skill alone. If something goes wrong and the Griffon chases too far, use Enervating Charge as a backup option. Use whatever you like in the empty slot. 127.0.0.1 15:24, October 8, 2009 (UTC)


 * Have you tried either of those builds--and after the griffon got quick casting spirits and natural regeneration? The glimmering mark build can't work in a fashion analogous to the other degen builds, as it simply doesn't last long enough.  The basic principle behind the mesmer and assassin builds is that you can overwhelm the griffon's natural regeneration for about 20 seconds at a time, during which it gets no regeneration at all.  Glimmering mark only lasts ten seconds, meaning that if you wait to get some regeneration yourself, the griffon will heal by more than you just damaged it.  If you don't wait so long, you have to get casts off while dodging dissonance, as you don't leave enough time for dissonance to despawn.  I'd be skeptical of your chances of survival without much in the way of healing, too.  The ranger build is predicated on having a long enough range to ignore the spirits and shoot the griffon without aggroing the spirits.
 * The first build strikes me as more plausible, but constantly having to move away from spirits that the griffon sets up wherever you go is still a pain. The mist form build allows you to neutralize not only the griffon's damage, but three of the spirits as well, so you really only have to rush out of the way of the interrupts from dissonance, and perhaps scramble around while waiting for mist form to recharge.  Quizzical 00:38, October 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * I tested both builds before submission, and I decided to test them again a few times after reading your comment. They worked pretty much as well as they did a few days ago, although I reassigned some attribute points on the first build. The Glyph provides a good deal of healing in the first build, and the Aura provides enough for the second. 127.0.0.1 04:34, October 17, 2009 (UTC)

Archived
There were enough builds that the page wasn't showing the icons for all of them. I've archived everything that predates the big spirit buff of June 18, 2009, as they're likely no longer relevant. More recent comments have been left in place. Quizzical 05:17, October 5, 2009 (UTC)

Ritual Lord Update
As the update to Ritual Lord now makes him sacrifice 2% of his health per cast, you simply need to counteract his regen and he'll kill himself after a while. This build will work for Assassin or Mesmer primaries. Just keep moving and keep his bar purple. ~  Jujipoo  [talk] 08:18, May 23, 2010 (UTC)

Separating long list of advice from article/talk
I had trouble making sense of the advice in the walkthrough (it jumps around between prof-specific and generic advice, for example) and trying to find viable info here on the talk page (to which the walkthrough points me). As an alternative, I created Guide to beating the Glacial Griffon, which more/less copies the most tractable advice that I could find/parse in both the article and the talk page. I also figure its talk page is also a better place to discuss the nuances of this build or that.

I was inspired by talking with several people in the last month who had decided to try out some builds that required a skill or three that require completing this quest...and they were unable to use the advice here to succeed. I thought that was a shame, since the general guidelines and builds are solid and repeatable.

Most of the best advice / builds are based on User:Quizzical's posts/edits; any misunderstandings and errors are mine.

Arguably, the Guide belongs in this article or in the Griffon's article, but, until we clean things up, the new guide is as good a place as any. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 04:39, September 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see you already brought up [ my concern] here. Yes, I think it needs to be merged back into this article (at some point).  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 13:36, September 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's worth noting that the ranger, necromancer, mesmer, assassin, and ritualist builds and strategies work very well. The others are much harder to make to work properly.  For the other classes, I wanted to beat it with a single class build for the sake of the challenge.  Most people don't share that approach to the game, and may not want to try a single class build for other classes.  It's pretty easy to make the ranger or mesmer builds work with a secondary profession, or the PVE-only skills build that I put in the paragon section.  Quizzical 23:04, September 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a good point. And since, as you noted, very few people besides Quiz care all that much about "single-profession challenges" or avoiding "PvE cheats," I say we only list the easy builds on the article.  That further reduces the need for a separate guide article.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 00:06, September 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think we should offer the single-profession builds because, in my experience, there's a healthy fraction of players who prefer "staying in character" and this wiki's walkthroughs tend to focus on advice that doesn't require hunting for specific skills (outside a toon's natural progress). In fact, I think it's more likely that more people would take up the challenge if there were more places where they could get help in doing so &mdash; min-maxers already have PvX and GWW to emphasize efficiency; I think it's great that GWiki offers equally helpful ideas to purists.


 * I've updated the current article to include the 3 class-independent tactics above. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 00:21, September 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * There are some important differences between this and some other places where I've posted single class builds. First, it's hard to win this quest with a single class build as some classes.  In Augury Rock, the class difficulty ranges from trivial to not that hard.  For M. Bison, the range is from pretty easy to doable.  Here, it spans from easy to very tricky to outright impossible.  If every class could easily win with a single class build, I'd advocate that a lot more strongly here, too.
 * Second, using a secondary profession means obtaining a lot fewer skills here than in the M. Bison tournament. The Ranger build takes three skills, two of which are core skills and also available "free" via quest rewards.  One of them is available as early as pre-searing, so my guess is that you get it for free by taking a ranger secondary.  The third skill is in GWEN, so it's easily bought by anyone who gets here.  The mesmer build likewise involves only three skills, two of which are core skills, and one of which is available as early as pre-searing.  A second is available as a quest reward, albeit not a purely class quest that the player is guaranteed not to have done as some other class.  The third skill does take Factions, but is bought in Kaineng Center, not far into the campaign.  That's a whole lot easier than telling people you have to go buy eight particular skills for a secondary profession, which require access to particular campaigns and may be far into a campaign or require capturing elites.
 * What I'd say is this: put the ranger and mesmer builds at the top, and say, they're easy with a primary, and also easy with a secondary.  Perhaps mention that you might want to add in a running skill that you happen to have (likely of your primary profession), or for a warrior or paragon using the mesmer build, an energy management skill.  Put the PVE-only build next and say, if you want to go that route, here's an easy way to do it.  Next, put the necromancer, assassin, and ritualist builds, as that's probably the best way to do the quest for people of those primary classes who happen to have the skills.  After that, list the other single-class builds with a warning that, while they can be made to work, they're tricky.  Quizzical 18:09, September 24, 2010 (UTC)