Never mind found it. Thanks for guide Iooks fun.
Why Iskandra’s balance instead of Necrosis?
uh… necrosis gives no stats this build uses?
https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/2952-Necrosis
vit damage cast speed?
only the health, phys, and small OA.
Iskandra
https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/6061-Iskandra’s-Balance
gives % chance of massive elem damage. gives fire and cold damage.
-skill energy cost. (eh)
gives 1+ all arcanist skills(highly used)
and another +fire/cold damage pump.
yeah, this is nearly my build I have been using since… act 2 was the end of the game…
I don’t recommend hardcore, but it is fine to level with softcore.
Gear does seem to be an issue. its very spotty. I had a hell of a time, with elite log. ended up having to graveyard zerg him. did ok in ult for a while.
recently, with the changes to nemesis rep, I went back and started farming elite arkovian undecity. and have had a major power increase with it.
Importance of stats and skillpoints is key.
OP has pretty good point placement.
Frozen core. Frostburn is terrible.
I have +1175cold damage, +117% cold in frozen core for skyshards. (I could even remove more points from frozen core to improve my build atm.)
you might be tempted to max out all 3 passives for your “primary skill” skyshards. but really, that 117% cold on top of the 1175 is minor. 10%. it IS better off in global buffs, like elemental balance. (specifically the crit. as again,burns are terrible.)
Mirror should be maintained at EXACTLY 12 points at all times. if you get +skills, remove the extra.
at rank 12, mirror has an 18s cooldown. more then 12, and all it does is get more retaliation.
83.5% CDR would give 100% uptime for a rank 12 mirror. making you completely immune to all damage, all the time. (I think mid 70’s is max possible… not sure.)
OFF should be maxed. larger aoe. the damage now ticks every second of duration, making its dps pretty decent. but, only if the target is frozen. bosses, dont take the damage, since they dont freeze. Absolute zero has little value.
the -fire resist on OFF, indirectly buffs Devastation.
1 point in mental acuity. not sure why op has more.
MAX innerfocus. not sure why op doesnt.
my nightblade is similar, though a bit more sparse.
veil/nights chill. not maxed. but as much as I can afford, in equal measure… veil gives +aoe size… nights chill is the real effect though. so you need both.
nights chill gives -cold resist. AND deals aoe damage every second. this aoe damage can proc all your on hit effects, passively. you just STAND there, and all your on attack procs go off.
PB is good. I did not invest so heavily. but, you can if you want.
I dont bother with blade barrier, (immobalize. eww.) shadowstrike, or ring of steel.
Some of op’s gear selection, I’m not sure on.
trozens is obvously build for this… clairvoyant is very good as well.
stat priority.
CDR. everything we use is cooldown locked. skyshards, devastation, OFF, mirror, pneumatic burst, nullification(offense and defense). And again, there is no cap. CDR will be increasing your dps via skyshards, and devastation at as higher % then any other stat, AND increasing your defense by increasing mirror uptime, as well as burst, recharge to for that 2nd heal, and nullification dot cleanse.
+skills next. spell based, raising the base value of core skills is very powerful. As well as +all skills. since, it buffs so much globally.
OA next of course.
health. and crit equally valued. Crit is required to scale damage into ultimate. +damage at this point falls beyond, because you have so much of it stacked up. +1292cold, skyshards cold damage for me atm… and +107%crit.
resists.
+damage cold. then +damage elem, then aether.
Attack based procs of various kinds have good value as well.
Equilibrium sash for example. very good.
https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/7692-Equilibrium-Sash
This is better then the 2nd belt, op suggested. by a large amount…
Phantom-thread is just a bit above it, I’d suppose… that proc is very nice…
Nocturnis is not good for this build really. I am not sure why op suggests it. Many options better. atm, I have empowered crushing will.
https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/8265-Empowered-Crushing-Will
rings… many great rings
op’s hand of mercy is ok… I have and empowered enternal band atm.
https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/7845-Empowered-Eternal-Band
My gameplay is basically. run into everything. Off on approach. Devastation, and facetank with mirror active. skyshards two times. Back out. OFF again, skyshards, again. skyshards. mirror/devastation CD is the same, so go back in, and repeat. PB heal as emergency heal as needed. regular potion gets dibs.
trash all dies instantly, or is perma frozen. only bosses have any tactical, or danger.
Face tanking with mirror, and defense keeps npcs under the devastation.
Many npcs have heavy cold resists. Nights veil only seems to do a small amount to counter this, as well as reduced resistance procs. devastation of course does the heavy lifting in these cases.
No, Necrosis gives -33 aether and cold resistance, in aoe with no cooldown, which is infinitely better than the cold damage bonus from Iskandra’s. They don’t even come close. Additionally, Necrosis can be created with 4% extra OA or DA, both being at least as good as +1 Arcanist skills (since you probably have Sky shard maxed already).
remember we have -resists elsewhere as well.
you seem to be greatly undervaluing +1 arcanist.
using OP’s build.
+1 arcanist is:
6 energy leach,2 elemental damage, 2% phsy damage converted to elem. 5% energy regen
6% elem damage, bit more burn/elect/frostburn proc on weapon,
1% crit, 8%burn all damage
1s cd on mirror
1% more damage absorb,(1% less damage) 5% energy absorb, 3%stun, freeze, petrify duration reduction, 3% slow resist.
+1 to devastation and skyshards, and oFF base
6% cold to off. slow, phsy resist, and burn who cares…
8% cold to Skyshards. 2% crit to skyshards, 8% lit damage to skyshards, and buff to lit damage proc.
Starpact is maxed in op’s build.
1% spirit, (can get 1%OA with innerfocus every other level)
10% damage on arcane will proc, 1energy rgen
3s cdr, .3 radius, 2% target elem damage reduc on nullifacation.
1% faster cast, 1% energycost reduc.
8%aether/chaos damage, 4% energy leech.
@Cassandra so I don’t quote your entire wall 
I just wanted to respond to some of your comments, as I completely agree with most of them and it did not appear that you were not critiquing my build but rather giving your opinion on how you built in addition to mine.
-I completely agree about Frozen Core for TSS. It’s a one point wonder for the 2s of freeze, do not put any more into it than that. Ever.
-Keeping mirror at 12/12 definitely works and the difference between 23 seconds and 18 seconds is noticeable. However, with blade barrier and ring of steel and health regen and OFF and TSS with Frozen Core there is so much CC that I felt those points could be better spent elsewhere. But really this is just a personal preference thing. Also on the matter of 100% uptime, After the nerfs to CDR it has become much more difficult to achieve upwards of 70% CDR without sacrificing other useful stats.
-I find that maxing OFF, while useful, is really only useful on enemies that freeze like you said. Enemies that freeze die so quickly that the tick damage from OFF does not have very long to do its work. Enemies that don’t freeze from it don’t take the damage anyways. I have enough in there to freeze the entire screen and I didn’t feel the need for any more than that. The slow on absolute zero can help though and it is worth one point with + to skills. No more than one point though!
-I found that having a decent amount of -% energy cost of spells helps a lot for this build. Even with lots of regen and a large spirit pool this build eats through it like no other except maybe a maxed ARR. And the casting speed is nice too. I don’t max inner focus because + skills puts me at 12/12. Any more than that and the benefits are diminishing.
-a maxed veil does give some useful bonuses and the difference is noticeable as you put points in. The difference from 5/10 to 10/10 is a noticeable difference in -% total speed to enemies and -OA to enemies. Both of those things help so much in not dying. Also maxing PB increases our total speed and the amount healed, which again is a huge benefit in so many areas.
-With the defensive devotion that I have taken Blade barrier is actually really damn useful. I either have it or Mirror up and if I happen to be on low health I can pop blade barrier and be back to full health in .5 secs with just regen. Shadowstrike is simply a mobility skill for travel and positioning. It is not used for damage at all. For that purpose, it is awesome.
-I agree that CDR is king for this build, it is just so much harder to get now. I am not at home right now but I think I have 45% CDR and the proc from Aldanar’s. I rarely feel like I am waiting for spells to recharge and I always have something to cast or do.
-I agree with the progression of priority that you have listed and I tried to follow basically the same ideas when gearing and building.
-I run with many item based procs as well and you are correct, running around watching night’s chill proc falling stars and you are just running is pretty awesome.
-I am somewhat confused about your equilibruium sash however. You say that you don’t like blade barrier because it immobilizes you, which I totally get. But then you like a belt that places a static sigil on the ground on a 5 second recharge? While the proc might be more situationally useful than the second belt that I listed it is not even close to phantom thread.
-empowered crushing will is quite good but you can’t discount nocturnis as a great off-hand. They both provide CDR and buffs to different damage types that we use. The proc on nocturnis can actually be useful for some defense, however, after taking a closer look I think I agree that emp crushing is a better second.
-I actually want to pick your brain on the rings topic. I do like my open hand of mercy and it is nice defensively but… have you had the chance to try an albrecht’s duality in this build? Having two sources of flat chance to reduce cooldown could work very well. I know that the majority of those other bonuses kind of suck though… I also want to try a screams of the aether but I have not found one of those either. You had the chance to try either of those rings and have any opinions?
-On relics, I agree that necrosis would not be a great choice. The reduced res is nice but we have many other sources of that. The only other relic I would consider is nemesis for the + to NB but really the majority of this build’s work is done in arcanist and the nemesis pet, while nice to have, is kind of a pushover in ultimate.
Let me know your thoughts, also I have not had a chance to get in after 1.0.0.2 due to damn real life and The Division. I am hoping to get in and test all my current builds here soon.
@Primeval Could you try to test out your build in 1.0.0.2 soon? Your build looks really cool and fun but it looks hard to level. Cold based casters really appeals to me.
This build performs as well, if not better, in 1.0.0.2.
Thank you! Will try it out soon!
Nice looking build. What devotions would you recommend going with for it?
If you look at the first page the devotion setup is listed with the grimcalc.
I just wanted to say that I’ve been leveling following Shakes’ method and this is absolutely ridiculous. I often feel like I have broken the game because OFF obliterates practically all trash on-screen (and sometimes off). The only mobs I have trouble with are Cold-types (and of course, some certain bosses if they are proficient in an element I do not have much resist in). TSS is currently maxed and does a ton of damage too. It’s nice to drop a boss in two instances of TSS, and I still sometimes giggle whenever OFF clears the screen for me.
One curious question though: Since TSS drops three Shards, does each Shard do the amount of damage specified on the tooltip, or is that all three Shards together?
From the testing that I havedone each shard is calculated independently and receives the full skill damage. I’ve seen 20k+ tss crits on each shard fairly consistently witall buffs and debuffs going. And with as much CDR as I have I can throw tss very often
Could you share with us your celestial powers binding?
Giants Blood - Maiven’s
Arcane Bomb - TSS?
Tip the Scales - ???
Cleansing waters - Devastation
Healing Rain - ???
Thanks very much for posting this, it really is well thought out. I was thinking how to best play TSS, and some of the items may say “go druid!” it really isn’t the best choice (to me). Then I started thinking well how do you get -resists, and you got that covered with Night’s Chill & Arcane Bomb. Solid build through and through.
I’d put Arcane Bomb on Amber’s ability which you would have on your left click (pretty sure you can bind AB to that). The cooldown for that AB is pretty low, so it’s good to have it on something you can spam. Healing rain can go on Star Pact I believe (pretty sure it goes on any aura).
Arcane bomb (widow) - bound to TSS. I can cast TSS pretty often with all my CDR and I would totally bind it to Emp lightning nova if it had a larger radius but it doesn’t. I would LOVE to bind it to OFF (wink Crate).
Giant’s blood (behemoth) - bound to veil of shadow but all chance when hit procs can be bound to any aura it doesn’t matter.
Tip the scales (scales of ulcama) - bound to IEE
Cleansing waters (Ulo the keeper) - bound to devastation. I figured you want this on a long cooldown ability since it has one too.
Healing rain (tree of life) - bound to star pact. again any chance on hit can be bound to any aura.
Hope this helps!
Maybe I’m missing something, but why on OFF with such a long cooldown? AB has only a 2 second cooldown, I’d figure you want it out as much as possible. Can it apply more than 1 bomb at once?
Having it on TSS makes sense when you have a lot of cooldown, however.
I’m still newer to this game (only since release), so I might be missing some important game mechanic
Nothing is bound to OFF because Crate doesn’t want us too 
Arcane bomb is bound to TSS which works great
Thanks Primeval!