Which tree looks stronger?

For a lightning warp trap witch

life based:


Ci based:


To me the CI tree looks stronger because I can join the shadow area and the templar area through the middle nicely but the life based tree has more crit and slightly more damage

Another question is will my traps proc EE or will I be able to use dual curse on hit ice nova to set the mobs up for my traps?

Thanks

Since totems proc EE, I guess traps will do so as well. For that reason: Drop it. LW can hit several times and EE is going to harm your damage.

I can't tell for sure about the life vs CI trees but one thing to note: LW traps cost a lot of mana and you cannot leech. So you will probably need to get more mana and mana regen for that build to work. Maybe think of life+EB rather than what you currently have.

I tried it out and sometimes it clears entire packs + boss in one go other times it doesn't, only using a 5 link w/o conc effect or light pen at lvl 81

The survivabilty of the CI build sucks ass, im not sure how to improve that. I had a cwdt frost wall end cry setup and the ice nova would freeze the packs every now and then but hes slow and needs his own lightning warp

The feeling I get is using 2 types of trap would be better and keep the EE. Cycling between ice nova and the traps went well but the highest map i did was a 72

If you go for life, you can try running it with Bronn's Lithe.

Or you could of course try to get your hands on a +2/3 lightning staff. But otherwise you can use Divinarius.

Oh, and Sunblast might be helpful

Also, a long time ago I read that ele prolif would be a good thing since the first bursts can shock the mobs for the later bursts.

The thing with CI, if you want to stick with it, is of course that you cannot leech, so you have to either go and recharge (and probably take recharge passives) or use Zealot's Oath and obtain some regen.