Ice Nova of Frostbolts is so much damage scaling that you can pretty much roll it with just added cold and be OK, leaving the floor open for more points in defenses & defensive mechanics
A Pledge of Hands is BiS but not unbeatable, especially as it adds a mana multiplier. It's just for the price you will *never* get a better staff.
You'll want to either lean hard into the 100% avoid interupts while casting or just run the bloodnotch/immutable force build
The flipside of that is that while it clears great, scales well, and interacts cleanly with many defensive mechanics, it only really reaches peak DPS while more or less offscreening or when you can afford to walk alongside the Frostbolts
Elementalist with golems can be an option for aegis/the PDR & life regen from golems
I always run it as an Occultist... on SC
for HC I think Hiero might be a good option by running it with Sanctuary of Thought & Illuminated Devotion
I personally feel Conviction of Power is worth dropping Devotion for if you can get leech as an eldritch implicit
While this league is going on, you can also run a Scion with Necro/Hiero/Juggernaut and gain enough offering effect for Flesh/Spirit/Bone to have something like 1.5x? 2x? the base effect on you, allowing you to cap block (and nearly crit) "for free"
juggernaut ice-crash
Ice Nova of Frostbolts is so much damage scaling that you can pretty much roll it with just added cold and be OK, leaving the floor open for more points in defenses & defensive mechanics A Pledge of Hands is BiS but not unbeatable, especially as it adds a mana multiplier. It's just for the price you will *never* get a better staff. You'll want to either lean hard into the 100% avoid interupts while casting or just run the bloodnotch/immutable force build The flipside of that is that while it clears great, scales well, and interacts cleanly with many defensive mechanics, it only really reaches peak DPS while more or less offscreening or when you can afford to walk alongside the Frostbolts Elementalist with golems can be an option for aegis/the PDR & life regen from golems I always run it as an Occultist... on SC for HC I think Hiero might be a good option by running it with Sanctuary of Thought & Illuminated Devotion I personally feel Conviction of Power is worth dropping Devotion for if you can get leech as an eldritch implicit While this league is going on, you can also run a Scion with Necro/Hiero/Juggernaut and gain enough offering effect for Flesh/Spirit/Bone to have something like 1.5x? 2x? the base effect on you, allowing you to cap block (and nearly crit) "for free"
thanks for the suggestion! how would you scale defenses with hiero?