Ice Gauntlet is a versatile Intelligence-based weapon that makes this build viable for all types of content. It offers some of the best Crowd Control skills in the game and has access to a powerful defensive Cooldown. Moreover, it can be built in a way that will make you almost never run out of resources. It can be set up in a few different ways, depending on your preference and aim. Our aim was to maximize its crowd control potential, making us as annoying to deal with in PvP as possible, and to make kiting and eliminating groups of monsters in PvE as easy as it can be. 

Active Skills:

1. Ice Shower (Builder): An AoE skill that makes you summon a shower of ice in a 1 by 5 meters area. Enemies that enter it will be rooted in place for 1 second and receive a Frostbite. The Frostbite effect blocks sprinting and dodging, and slows movement speed by 50% for as long as an affected enemy remains under the Ice Shower and for 3 seconds after he exits its AoE. Unupgraded Ice Shower lasts for 4 seconds, however, you should upgrade it with all three corresponding passives. Doing so will make it last for 7 seconds, apply a 10% Rend to affected enemies, and buff allies with a 2-second 25% speed boost when entering it. 
2. Entombed (builder): A powerful defensive Cooldown that will let you reset encounters at pretty much at will and regenerate your mana in the process - use it when needed. When used, it entombs you in a block of ice making you immune to damage (the ice tomb can be destroyed, however). It lasts for 10 seconds or until canceled. While you are entombed, your mana regen is greatly increased. If you break the ice yourself, by pressing RMB, you will cause it to explode, dealing damage and knockback to all surrounding enemies. You should take both of the related passives to make the skill cleanse you out of debuffs and apply a defense buff on you when it breaks. 
3. Ice Storm (Ice Tempest): An AoE DoT ability which we take for its immense versatility. It slows and damages enemies in a 5 meters radius at the same time. When upgraded with all three of its corresponding passives, it becomes even more versatile - Weakening Gust makes it deal more damage to wounded enemies, Storm Summoner makes it cost 20% of its base mana cost if you use it at full mana, and Punishing Storm makes its damage scale up with each affected enemy. Yes, you should take all three of these passives. 

Core Passives:

1. Critical Rejuvenation (Ice Tempest): After you trigger a critical hit on a target, you recover 15 mana. 15 mana is a lot and you will have a high critical chance, so taking this one is a no-brainer. 
2. Critical Frost (Ice Tempest): Increases your Critical Strike Chance against enemies affected by a Frostbite or in a frosted area by 20%. Take advantage of this, by kiting enemies around your AoEs. 
3. Heavy Freeze (Ice Tempest): With this, your successful Heavy Attacks will also freeze a target for 1 second if hit in Ice Storm or with a Frostbite effect active. 
4. Ultimate Chill (Ice Tempest): Makes your Ice Abilities chill targets, increasing ice damage by 35% for 3 seconds. This passive offers a solid burst of damage to your ice abilities. 

For this build, we go for the Grace Skill Tree and take just one passive from Blood. As for passives, we go all-in on cooldown reduction. Because of this, our Rapier turns from a vicious bloodletter into a gentleman's weapon that allows us to dodge or avoid attacks and dance around the battlefield with increased speed while harassing enemies with quick yet powerful stabs. All in all, Rapier's Grace tree is all about controlling the encounter, applying debuffs, and dealing steady damage, thus it works great in the combination with the Ice Gauntlet. 

Active Skills:

1. Riposte (Grace): A defensive skill that makes you assume a defensive stance for 1 second. If you're hit while Riposte is active, you will counter the attacker, stunning them for 1.5 seconds. Upon successful Riposte, you also get a brief period of invulnerability. All three of Riposte's passives are very strong - you should invest in them (they will make your attacks more reliable, add some nice CD reduction, and increase Riposte's stun duration). Stuns are extremely powerful in all types of content - use your Riposte well (in a combination with your Ice Gauntlet skills, for example). 
2. Evade (Grace): An amazing defensive skill that allows you to perform an instant sidestep, providing a brief period of invulnerability (using Evade will also cancel any current activity). Your Light Attacks made during Evade will receive a speed boost (they'll be much quicker than usual). Evade has four passives corresponding with it, take all of them for Stamina regen, extra movement speed, damage buff, and high cooldown reduction. 
3. Fleche (Grace): A powerful attack that allows you to lunge forward for 10 meters. If you hit an enemy, you'll deal 145% weapon damage. this is a universal skill that deals high damage and offers amazing mobility. You should take all three of the related passives. Quick Lunge for a potential 80% CD reduction, Backside for increased crit damage, and Interruption for an additional attack possibility during a Fleche. 

Core Passives:

1. Refreshing Strikes (Blood): With this passive, all your cooldowns will be reduced by 1% each time you make a hit. This works with all types of Rapier attacks, so light, heavy, and skills. 
2. Red Curtains (Grace): With this, your cooldowns will be reduced by 5% each time you deal a Critical Strike. With Rapier's high crit chance, this is simply amazing. 
3. Swiftness (Grace): After striking a hit, you get +3% Haste for 4 seconds; this effect stacks up to 5 times for the max of +15% Haste for 4 seconds. Great mobility passive - try to maximize its uptime if possible. 
4. Momentum (Grace): A powerful passive that buffs you with 25% increased damage after you use an ability. The effect lasts for 3 seconds or until you successfully hit an enemy again. Use this to your advantage by sequencing your abilities and attacks. 

First and foremost, you should try to get at least 250 total Intelligence points. As mentioned in the stats section, having ~50 Constitution is also very beneficial if you want the build to be as versatile as possible. So, focus on full int gear and add 50 points into Constitution if you so desire. As for Armor Weight, you should only use Light Armor to benefit from the 20% increased damage. 

We are obviously going to update this section when the full game is released, and we have more time to get familiar with all the Perks, Gems, and specific attributes of higher rarity equipment. Any changes to this guide will be described on top of the page in Build notes. 

END NOTE

This is the initial version of our New World Ice Gauntlet/Rapier DPS build. We tried to include all the important information on how to set up a character to run it, while also trying to keep the guide as compact as possible. If we've missed something of importance, please let us know! 

If you have any Build requests, please post them in the Comments section below. We will be happy to cover your most requested builds in the future! Also, we hope that you have found this guide useful and informative. Also, we will be happy to receive constructive criticism that will help us improve our future work, so don't hesitate to give us your feedback.