The Staff of Ice is one of four buildable elemental staffs in the Apocalypse DLC map Origins.
The Staff of Ice shoots blasts of ice when fired, and similarly to the Winter's Howl, will slow down zombies, eventually freezing them and cracking them apart.
Once upgraded to the Ull's Arrow, it functions the same as its previous version, however its blast of ice has more range and a wider area of effect. The player can also hold down the firing button in order to charge it up, at the cost of more ammo per charged shot. When charged and released, it fires an initial blast of ice, then expands in a circle, creating a blizzard attracting nearby zombies towards it and instantly freezing and killing them.
If a player shoots three burning wagons located around the map with the ice staff, a Zombie Blood will appear at the top of the excavation site. This can be done once every round. The three wagons are located:
- Just outside the excavation site, by the MP-40 wall-buy.
- By the footprint with the stone chest outside of Generator 5 and Stamin-Up.
- Just outside of the trenches behind the excavation site, (the Church), more towards Generator 4.
Note that if the player does not fire at the wagons in a time frame, the wagons will start on fire again, but if they get all three and miss the Zombie Blood power up, they will not start again. Also, if it is heavily raining, the wagons will not be on fire.
The blast of ice doesn't instantly kill zombies, so before freezing and shattering the zombie may have a chance to hit you, before it shatters.
Furthermore, the Ull's Arrow has a melee attack that involves swiping with the spikes on the head of the staff. This attack is a one hit kill until round 16. If the One Inch Punch is equipped, its melee attack overrides the staff melee attack.
After upgrading, it gains a secondary "attachment" called Sekhmet's Vigor which when activated by pressing left on the D-Pad, will cause the player to flip the staff and use the bottom end. This can be used to revive a downed player by "shooting" them directly. The "vigor" is a fastmoving ball, which will travel in a straight line. It is recommended to make your shots count, because it is very easy to miss with this weapon.
How to obtain
To obtain the Staff of Ice, the player must gather three parts of the staff and the elemental crystal, as well as the gramophone and the correct records to access the Crazy Place and the lower levels of the Excavation Site.
The staff parts can be found in the ground and can be dug up from digspots on a round when it is snowing. Typically it is snowing on rounds 2-4, round 10 and randomly from there on. One part can be found in the starting area (from spawn to workshop, on either side), one in the middle area of the map and one near church. It is possible to not get all of them at once if the player is unlucky or lacking in digspots available.
The blue record can be found near Generator 2, inside the tank station on one of the shelves. The gramophone always spawns on the floor inside the Excavation Site, and the record to access the lower levels can be found outside around the Excavation Site.
The elemental gem can be found inside the Crazy Place, and to access it the player needs the blue record as well as the gramophone. The entrance to the Ice tunnel is near the church. Once in the Crazy Place, there will be a pedestal that will open up with a blue glow, with the elemental gem arising from within. Note that the gem may only be picked up if the Crazy Place was accessed from the tunnel matching the element of the gem.
Once all parts have been collected, the staff may be built in the lowest level of the Excavation Site, in the blue pedestal. After it is built, it can be picked up by any player, and if the staff is switched to another weapon later on or the player holding it bleeds out (or disconnects), the staff will return to its pedestal.
Gallery
The Staff of Ice in Origins
One of the ice staff parts
How to upgrade to Ull's Arrow
After obtaining the Staff of Ice, it can be upgraded to Ull's Arrow. First, the player must solve the riddle located in the Crazy Place, located in the Ice part of it. Above the portal, there are six panels of stone and ice floating, with symbols of base-4 representations of numbers. On the wall, there is a blue panel with dots in various patterns which are base-3 representations of numbers. The player must use the pattern shown on the ice panel, in order to determine which stone panel to shoot with the Staff of Ice, which when done correctly will cause the stone to flip around. To complete the riddle, all six stone panels must be flipped. There are twelve different patterns which can appear on the ice panel, but only six will appear, one for each stone tablet. The image below can be used as reference without needing to decipher the symbols.
Figuring the riddle
Once the riddle in the Crazy Place has been solved, there will be another in the original realm. There are three gravestones with water flowing out of them, which have to be shot with the Staff of Ice to freeze them, then a bullet weapon to destroy them. The three locations of the gravestones are:
- To the right of the MP-40 near Generator 4
- Between the Excavation Site and a giant footprint, close to Generator 4
- On top of the small hill when going right from the back exit of the bunker next to Generator 2, next to the downed mech's hand
Next, the player will have to order the floating rings inside the lower levels of the Excavation Site so that the lights on the four rings are blue. The rings can be rotated by pulling the levers located around lower levels, two on the normal walkway and two on the wooden scaffoldings. Once all rings' lights are blue, the blue orb inside of them must be shot with the staff. It should glow blue and shoot up in the air.
Finally, the player must place the staff inside the blue pedestal in the Crazy Place, and kill approximately 20 zombies in the Crazy Place to collect their souls into the staffs. Once it is done, Samantha may talk to the player about the "power of ice being available", and the staff icon on the HUD now has a red outline. The Ull's Arrow can now be picked up from the pedestal. As with the regular Staff of Ice, if the staff is lost by any means, it will be returned to its pedestal in the Excavation Site, and it does not have to be upgraded again.
First tombstone
Second tombstone
Third tombstone
Trivia
- The Staff of Ice is named after Ullr, a Norse God commonly associated with winter.
- The Staff of Ice is Nikolai's favorite staff, as stated through a few of his quotes.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||