Defensive Suggestions for Non-Melee Builds

CWDT Frostwall is one of my favorites

I've tried Blasphemy - Temporal Chains+Enfeeble for the first time, with 30% curse effectiveness from the tree. It's ridiculously strong.

Some great feedback, everyone. Thanks much!

I haven't played searing bond but from what I've seen you're more in the thick of it than a lot of casters can be. Not only that but you have to keep moving a lot to really position well with it.

For that reason I'd forget about arctic armour and look at the following (roughly in order of how important):

-5-7 endurance charges. use warlords mark if you can get it into your setup, enduring cry if not.
-chaos golemn. probably attach blind. i personally would put it on a CwDT so you dont forget.
-either MoM (better this patch with more mana) OR blasphemy temp chains/enfeeble. you cant reserve much mana if using MoM (so dont use blasphemy) but its a pretty huge form of mitigation. on top of endurance charges/golemn youll definitely feel tanky if you can keep a half decent portion of unreserved mana.

from here you have a host of other options but the above best suit searing bond in my opinion. id probably also want to add a high level CwDT-molten shell-enfeeble/temp chains.

i think you're on the right track going dual or more curse...your 3 totems can outlay plenty of DPS if done right so use curses and other tools to do the mitigation/defensive side of things. my current dual curse character uses ball light-proj weakness(for spark)-warlords mark(ECs/leech) and then has a high level CwDT-enfeeble which triggers on big hits and will overwrite proj weakness, meaning tougher encounters ill have both enfeeble and leech. if you wont be able to leech thru totems you could swap WM out for temp chains.

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SponTen wrote:

Here's a copy-pasta of the skill combos I've written down (let me know if you need acronyms explained):

LS/WB - FA - Fort

Golem/Totem - Blind

Spell Totem - Summon Skeletons - Blind - FC/Minion Life

CwDT (1) - Spell (1) - CoH (max) - Curse (max)

CwDT/CwS (max) - Molten Shell - Tempest Shield - ID

CwDT (1) - BL - Blind (max) - DD/Firestorm/GC

CwDT (x) - GMP - AB

CwS - CS - EP - AoE/Pen/ACD/IB

Blind - Golem - FT - Vengeance

AB - CoH - Enf - TC

AB - CoH - Curse - ID
Hypo on main skill

V/R/R - CoH - Curse

V/R/R - LGoH - Blind

Spectre - Blind - Increased Duration/Minion Life/Speed (Undying Evangelists from A3 - immunity bubble)

I'm about to make a build that has a lot of the same problems you're coming up against. Basically I need more defenses and even though I have plenty of points on the passive tree around where I'll be already, those points will only generate part of a defensive strategy. Any points that would complete my defenses for this build are way too far away and would take much more investment to get anything of real significance. I have to use a shadow for the trickster ascendancy and I will be using a build that utilizes traps and mines for my main source of damage, so no leeching. Energy shield seems the way to go with some evasion as well but how do I get decent regeneration of my effective life pool without running away and waiting after every mod that's able to deal damage to me? All I have been focusing on is mitigating monsters abilities to actually deal the damage, AKA keep them as far away from me as possible.

best advice for keeping one's distance.
1: obviously have a movement ability
2: I find frost wall + spell totem + increased aoe/increased duration + chance to blind/chance to flee to be very effective at keeping mobs off of me, especially if I have a fast enough movement ability that can either travel through or over my frost walls, there is nothing funnier then watching a slow hard hitting mob take 3-5 seconds to get around all of the frost walls constructed only for me to then teleport to the exact location they were just in.