During the Malnok Stronghold quest in Diablo 4, you will come across a ruthless boss named Frosthorn Ice Clan Champion. His weapon can land insane damage if you are short of healing potions and he will unveil icy pools that will freeze you in place. After multiple attempts of trying to beat him through all classes, here are some tips, tricks, and strategies to defeat Frosthorn Ice Clan Champion in Diablo 4 to complete the stronghold.
How to Beat Frosthorn Ice Clan Champion in Diablo 4
Depending on your class and the abilities you have spent ability points on, your build will differ, of course. So there’s no fixed build that will help you kill this particular enemy. You also might have to respec especially for this boss. Here are a few common things to keep in mind (across classes) to defeat the Frosthorn Ice Clan Champion:
- Choose a boss-focused build instead of crowd control. Since I was playing with a Rogue build, I switched from Barrage to Penetrating shot, and it made all the difference.
- Make sure you have shoes that let you dodge and evade twice. If you don’t have them, trade an item with another player. All you have to do is bring up the interaction wheel (Up D-pad on your controller and E for PC players) and select the option to Trade with a player. Choose the items to trade and confirm the exchange.
- Add abilities that give you evade options or some type of movement speed and slows down enemies, because you will need it. For example, I used the Dash ability for Rogue.
- Choose ranged attacks because they are easier to drain the boss’ health while not using healing potions as often. Playing as a Barbarian requires perfect dodge timing and may need multiple attempts.
- Remember to Repair your gear after you die. You can do this at the nearest town – talk to the Blacksmith to make it happen.
- If you are playing as a Necromancer, make sure your build is not melee focused. Focus on Decompose in your Basic skills and add Enhanced Decompose > Initiates’ Decompose. This slows the enemy by 30%. In Decompose, you will get a corpse every 2.5 seconds. So when the boss smashes the ground, you can easily revive and keep the boss distracted.
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- The big highlight of this build should be your Golem which you can unlock at level 25. Due to this, the boss will focus on Golem while you deal damage from a distance. Trust me, he will be of great help!
- Dodge the ice winds/frost pools that appear around him because they will freeze you up, giving a window for the Frosthorn Ice Clan Champion to approach you and land a big strike on you, effectively killing you and reducing your weapon’s durability.
- Keep a note of your attack distance because some abilities can be ineffective till a certain range. Test out the range beforehand on some enemies nearby.
- Level up your healing potions to 5 before you get into the fight. You can do so by increasing your renown and claiming your rewards from the menu. Remember to keep checking your heals because once you are low, get frozen and get hit by this boss’ weapon, it will be all over.
Best Build Suggestion to Defeat Frosthorn Ice Clan Champion
A defensive build that’s focused on a boss (vs mobs/crowd control), slowing down & poisoning the boss, and evade/dodge movement speed add-ons are what will work out to defeat the Frosthorn Ice Clan Champion in Diablo 4’s Malnok Stronghold section.
If this helped you out, do check out our Diablo IV guides on Gamer Tweak for more boss fight tips, location guides and best builds.