CoC build with advancing fortress unique

I want to make a build centered around the new 'advancing fortress' unique, a claw that simulates the effect of dual wielding shields.
The simple way of doing that is to take any pure spell caster build and replace the wand or dagger with advancing fortress. You will loose the increased spell damage and inc crit from the wand/ dagger and gain the 15% block from advancing fortress. All the other mods on the claw are useless. I'm sure this works but it doesn't look that interesting to me.
When I first thought about making a build with a melee weapon that does lousy damage I was thing cast on critical strike build. So the goal is to combine the tankiness of a block build with the excellent dps of a CoC build. Make the char life based with eva plus a little armor for mitigation and it will actually make use of all the mods on 'advancing fortress'.
For ascendencancy classes, the duelist gladiator seems best for block builds but I don't think there are enough crit nodes around. Shadow assassin would be best for CoC but not for block. Hence I will use a scion with the scion version of gladiator and assassin for the best of both worlds.
Question: the +1% crit chance for assassin means +1% base crit chance?
Which leaves the question: which attack to use for trigger and which skill to use for damage?
Spec throw is a classic trigger, but requires GMP and hence costs an extra gem slot. Cyclone hits relatively few targets and takes tons of mana. Maybe something like Frost blades or Lighting strike?
Haven't thought much about which spell would work best in this setting.
So do you think this could work? Or would this just be a build that sucks both at blocking and at CoC?

I use Cyclone and so far the clear speed has been excellent. For single targets / bosses, I switch to molten strike + fortify. Was quite squishy until I had my defense sorted out recently.

Found this unique claw and wondering what to build with it too. Was thinking of gladiator with shield to achieve max block including spell block. It's going to be a funny counterattacking and facetanking build with vengeance + riposte + reckoning. But not sure which main attack to use with it for optimal clear speeds. Doubt I can get enough crit chance without dual wield or daggers. It could be a party build to tank everything for everyone.

I would agree with @jeerrinho by using Cyclone as your base attack to proc CoC. Bladefall and EK would both be good choices for either spell or phys damage versions and they both are very powerful when combined together and Cyclone. An optimal choice to counter the mana cost for this as well as (if you choose) Whirling Blades would be Trickster ascendancy.

As far as the block chance goes however dual wield may have to be the route you go, picking up some extra 'chance to block while dual wielding' nodes. Your second weapon may need to be a dagger with the Vagan mod 'Hits cannot be evaded'.

The above mentioned set up is very powerful both single and multiple targets, I have played both Hybrid and life based version of something similar only using the Shadow class and it works very well.

PM me in game later on and we can get really in depth =)

`KurosMalkil