The Beast in Ice used to be one of the most annoying bosses to farm in Diablo 4, mainly due to his boss mat, Distilled Fear, being such a pain to acquire. If you wanted to fight this boss previously, you used to have to grind Nightmare Dungeons and pretty much hope that you'd get some, since it wasn't a guaranteed drop back then. When you need nine for a single boss summon, that's quite a few NMD runs.
Thankfully, there are now many different ways you can get Distilled Fear to summon the boss. If you want to know what the Beast in the Ice drops, take a look at our Diablo 4 boss loot tables. Otherwise, here are all of the different ways to get Distilled Fear and how you actually go about calling up the Beast in Ice.
How to get Distilled Fear
In the past there was only one way to get Distilled Fear; by completing Nightmare Dungeons on Torment world tier. The good news is that it's a hell of a lot easier to find now and there are a number of different ways that you can get it:
- Complete Nightmare Dungeons, with increased drops based on difficulty
- Complete Legion Events and World Bosses
- Open Tortured Gifts during Helltides or defeat the Blood Maiden
- Defeat elites in Nightmare Dungeons for a drop chance
- Open Whisper caches from the Tree of Whispers
- Defeat Treasure Goblins
- Purchase boss mat caches from The Den
- Use boss material tributes in The Undercity
You need nine Distilled Fear overall to summon The Beast in the Ice, or 27 Distilled Fear and one Stygian Stone if you want to call up the much harder Tormented version.
How to summon The Beast in the Ice boss
Before you can access The Beast in the Ice boss lair, you need to use that Distilled Fear to craft a special Nightmare Dungeon Sigil at the Occultist. If you open the Ancestral section, this is the first option available to craft: Glacial Fissure Nightmare Sigil.
"Why does this sigil have affixes?" you may ask. Well, the bad news is that fighting The Beast in the Ice is treated like a Nightmare Dungeon, meaning you only have three revives overall to beat it. I don't recommend attempting The Beast in the Ice until you're at least level 85. Considering the grind even a few attempts require, it's not worth trying until you have a decent chance of success.
Once you arrive at the Glacial Fissure lair dungeon near Kyovoshad, you'll have to fight through hordes of enemies to get to the boss arena entrance. Unlike the other bosses, The Beast in the Ice will drop into the middle of the arena straight away. In general, look out for his ice breath attack which creates little projectiles, and when he jumps into the air to try and squash you.
If you manage to reduce his health, he'll summon a storm which traps you in the centre of the arena with some enemies—look out for the strafing AoEs he also summons here. Make sure to slot Sapphires onto your jewellery for that extra cold resistance.
Path of Exile 2's genius theorycrafters have already put together some wild builds, so we've plucked out a few of our favorites that you need to try
The voice of Shadowheart, Jennifer English, would love to return to the role after Baldur's Gate 3—as long as Hasbro doesn't mess it up and 'make her into a cartoon'
