Winter's Bite

Throw an axe to chill the area around your foe. Your pet's next attack inflicts weakness. — In-game description

Winter's Bite

Profession

Ranger (skill list)

Weapon

Main hand axe

Game link

API

12490

“

0.5½  10  

Winter's Bite

Throw an axe to chill the area around your foe. Your pet's next attack inflicts weakness.

 Damage: 660 (1.8)^?

 Damage: 367 (1.0)^?

₃ Bleeding (12s): 792 Damage

 Chilled (4s): -66% Skill Recharge Rate, -66% Movement Speed

 Weakness (10s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, +50% Fumble (Unrestricted)

 Weakness (4s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, +50% Fumble (Unrestricted)

 Range: 900

 Blast Radius: 240

 Number of Targets: 5

— In-game description

Related traits

Marksmanship

• Farsighted — Ranger weapon skills deal increased strike damage. Damage is further increased for foes above the range threshold.
• Predator's Onslaught — You and your pet deal increased strike damage to disabled, defiant, or movement-impaired foes. Affected conditions are stun, taunt, daze, cripple, fear, immobilize, and chilled.

Skirmishing

• Hidden Barbs — Bleeding you inflict is more dangerous.
• Quick Draw — When swapping weapons, the next ranger weapon skill you use will recharge faster.

Beastmastery

• Honed Axes — You and your pet gain ferocity. Axe skills gain reduced recharge, and you gain additional ferocity while wielding an axe.

Soulbeast

• Oppressive Superiority — Deal increased damage to foes at a lower health percentage than you. Conditions you apply to foes at a lower health percentage than you last longer.

Notes

• When you use this skill your pet is buffed with Enfeebling Strike for 15 seconds.
• The pet effect is applied when you throw the axe, you don't need to hit a target.
• While in beastmode, the player's next attack applies weakness.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
June 30, 2022	Damage multiplier increased from 1.25 to 1.8 in PvE only.
February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.0. Increased bleeding stacks from 2 to 3. This skill is now always an area-of-effect skill even when not traited with Honed Axes. Increased bleeding stacks in PvE from 2 to 3, and increased bleeding duration in PvE from 8 seconds to 12 seconds to match the competitive mode version.
January 22, 2019	The weakness effect applied to the pet's next attack will now be removed if an attack fails to hit.
December 11, 2018	The duration of weakness that this skill grants has been split between game modes. It now inflicts 4 seconds of weakness in PvP and WvW while keeping a 10-second duration in PvE.
March 27, 2018	Increased damage by 20% in PvP and WvW. Increased the bleeding duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP and WvW.
December 12, 2017	Bleeding stacks have been adjusted from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 8 seconds.
August 08, 2017	Path of Fire pre-patch: Unsplit this skill from PvP. The higher 150% damage will now be used in all game types.
June 20, 2017	The damage of this skill has been increased by 150%. (PvP only)
April 19, 2016	The chill duration of this skill has been increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds and now also applies 3 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds. The aftercast delay has been reduced by 0.32 seconds.
July 01, 2014	Fixed the description and icon of the pet buff to better match its skill functionality.
December 10, 2013	Added a weakness skill fact.
June 25, 2013	Fixed an issue so that it now chills for 3 seconds (as listed in the tooltip) instead of 2 seconds.
May 14, 2013	Fixed a bug that caused the projectile speed of the following axe skills to be 75% of their intended speed: Ricochet, Splitblade, Winter's Bite, Path of Scars.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Winter's Bite has been added to the game.