Edited: thanks for all the suggestions! Okay so finally got a Shako and tried this with max cdr and the Ice Blades enchantment, and the Enchantment master Legendary Node on the paragon board.
While the many Ice Blades are hitting a vulnerable enemy consistently, I can now recast Ice Armor 0.5 seconds before it expires. Yay!
However… I found out that technically since recasting Ice Armor resets it back to base value, even if I achieve 100% uptime and I am able to recast Ice Armor before it expires, it needs to be paired with Flame Shield, and the cast of the shields timed so that before Ice armor is about to fall off Fire shield is ready to cast, and before Fire Shield expire you have Ice Armor up again.
Ideally I wanted to achieve a 1-2 seconds window in which Fire Shield overlaps with Ice Armor refreshing(it helped spending skill points into Flame Shield to increase the duration and into that 15% extra barrier duration passive it applies to ice shield despite not showing in the tooltip I’m 100% sure from testing) Tbh it is extremely frustrating to achieve and time like this… but once you do… your Ice Armor is up 100% and always maxed out in between fire shields 
This is the closest I could get to the feeling of Temerity I miss so much, since swapping it out for Tibault.
To note… it should be easier to get a longer uptime/overlap with these barriers…
Ice Blades could be more powerful and shave more cooldown or more consistently.
There could be more sources of cooldown reduction.
There could be more sources of barrier duration.
Overflowing Energy could also apply to non-shock skills? With the Ice blades setup above and Unstable Currents+Overflowing energy I can get UC cooldown down to 7 seconds or so, 100% uptime on UC would help greatly!
Maybe when the affixes change later on or Set Pieces come along there’ll be something else to add to this, I also hope a future Unique will be dedicated to these barriers/cooldown shaving mechanics, because running around with very short cooldowns and quickly refreshing barriers is amazing eheh I miss this feeling in this Diablo.
Let’s say it works even against moving objects and not just against stationary dummies, the damage loss would probably offset, or even worst, the 100% uptime you get from Ice Armor with this setup.
I tried running an almost 100% Temerity uptime in S2 but the damage I lost from not having Tibault plus the lost of mana source as well is in fact making my survivability even worst. Though on paper Temerity should help you survive better, but killing enemies faster seems to be a better survival strategy with Tibaults.
Why dont you play with the defensive cooldown resetting on crits? You can do it once every 10 seconds. That can add to your uptime.
What about the aspect to reset a defensive cooldown for 6% chance of any damage you take? Reset ice armor while taking damage?
What about basic attack vamp power giving you cooldown on any of your cooldowns?
Theres different ways then just stacking cdr.
I use ice armor and always reset it with the passive. Its always up. Feels goodman.
Maybe deep freeze and flickerstep to reset cool downs.
I think perma-barrier + investment in Flame Shield duration might be an alternative route
Thanks for the list, I tried all of these in time!
But a very little chance to proc a cooldown reset when hit, or when critting but with a 10 seconds cooldown doesn’t work for me. Particularly when I only have 1 defensive aspect slot and that’s filled with disobedience.
I’d put points into the passive for the crit cooldowns reset but it’s 3 points for 15% lucky hit chance on a crit… it can take a full minute to proc sometimes, I got rid of it. Also, I run multiple defensives(teleport, fire shield and ice armor) there’s no guarantee ice armor will be refreshed when either of these proc. It’d work only if I built for crit and lucky hit specifically, and only used ice armor.
Arc lash requires hitting a stunned enemy to trigger, it won’t work on a boss, and anyway I am running no basic skill and in eternal.
I wanted something’s consistent, and nothing compares to stacking cooldown reduction, and buffing Ice Blades(no conditions or small chances to proc other than… hitting a vuln enemy)
Just put 1 point into the passive. Its BiS to have 1 point for any build. You just gotta get used to not using teleport to open. Then either of your shields will get the reset if it happens.
If you’re using three or four defensives, why not use Protection passive to keep your barrier up? I don’t even use Ice Armor and I have a barrier probably 75% of the time just from that.
Already have the barrier passive but that’s like… 4k? temerity+andariel and ice armor instead can get to 100% hp, not sure how they interact with eachother but the feeling I miss is having a barrier as big as my HP.
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Do you already have a unique chest piece? Also you play eternal server, correct?
Chestpiece is ancestral and has disobedience on, eternal yes
I use an incinerate build with chance to reset defensive cooldown, sometimes my skills are always up… but often I am spamming them with this aspect… it appears to work really well and is reliable enough. It’s best with 2 to 3 defensive skills however. Makes it easier to alternate skills.
Bis? That kind of mechanics aren’t worth a single point for my tastes. I’m not saying it’s not a strong passive, don’t get me wrong… but I dislike lackluster chances, and inconsistent results.
The 6% chance to reset a defensive is a good aspect and I’d use it if I had the space for it(leveling up I had it on the amulet to make it become a 9% chance to reset a cooldown) but it’s not better than disobedience for defensive purposes and I only have one defensive aspcet slot on the chest to use
also the requirement to get hit… ugh
How high does your armor go with full disobedience stacks?
If its not over like 11-12 k, consider trying out soulbrand + temerity. Youll want 13-14k life, reinforced glyph, warmth passive and some other damage reduction that fits your build nicely (from burning, warding glyph, ect). I placed the conceited aspect on necklace to make up some of the dps loss from the lack of tibults but you’ll need to look over what offensive aspects are essential to your spec of course.
I use a ice shards/conjure spec with flame shield as only shield skill slotted; its getting through nm 100s atm at what i deem to be a decent pace, eternal server. Dmg isnt flashy but with lucky hit at 100%+ and fire bolt enchant, xfals goes hard enough for me to pretend like hydra matters. Still tweaking though; id be better off if i dropped hydra for blizzard, but i like hydra.
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I can’t swap out Tibault, that’s my conundrum
using two unique rings with cdr(x’fal and tal rasha) leaves nothing for mana regen outside of Tibault and handful of affixes which are not even close to enough to sustain blizzard casting, barely firewall, at 2.4 or 2.1 attack speed, Tibault it’s a must if i want to go fast, and I want to. Remember the feeling of the perma archon in d3?
I have a good Soulbrand but I rather Disobedience get to the 85% armor cap it’s the only way to not be one-shot in melee by the occasional heavy physical attack I don’t see or have no time to avoid while teleport/evade is on cd.
And anyway Souldbrand takes away your potions and turns them into a 3-4k barrier… I mean… nothing to call home about. I can;t tell if the damage reduction is better than armor but I don’t think so. Thanks for trying to help tho!
I used to have hydra also in my bar… but i replaced it with fire wall, even at 2.4 attack speed it becomes kind of spammable when low on mana and it gives 35% mana regen if I can keep 7 of them up before switching to blizzard or BL, and it is better than a basic skill.
Furthermore, it’s an area of effect that makes enemies burning(for the dmg reduction vs burning and dmg vs burning) I don’t run fire bolt enchantment(I wish I had a third slot for it, it works wonders with x’fal indeed) I have teleport(because barrier with passive uptime and zap zap zap around
since Oculus is random crap…) and frozen orb enchantment(for vuln debuff).
Its a burst heal followed by a few seconds of hot; try it out with temerity for a few min like a helltide if you get bored one day; The combo is smoother than i expected. As a side note, I have less than 5k armor, if that helps orient relative performance a bit
The bit about firewall being so sustainable is interesting, i might need to mess with that
Yas, also perma ac crusaders hnng
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uhmm, I tried soulbrand a bit, I right away felt I was taking more dmg not having disobedience, it is smooth tho I agree, a barrier on command consuming a potion is nice! But I don’t see the burst heal you talk about, only the 3.3k barrier, what you see might be an odd interaction with Temerity’s aspect?
But if I take out Tibault I have no other way to refill my mana bar outside of BL and crackling energy, so that’s a no. I loved Temerity and I can’t wait to be able to equip it again without feeling I’m back to level 10 and oom all the time… but it will have to wait until a new item that refills my mana pops up, maybe a new unique or smt.
Do try Firewall, stack mana cost reduction(my firewall cost 20 mana normally, 15 while fire shield is up) and mana regen everywhere you can so that you notice the 35% increase, I get mana regen to 31 with 7 of them up, 48 during Ice armor if I have it instead of ice blades, and it’d be even more if I had an harlequin crest) which is not much, but it becomes noticeable. If you don’t run 2 unique rings like I do, concentration for another 50% makes it even easier to sustain it, even tho prodigy is even better if your bar’s filled with cooldowns, and blue rose could reduce the cost further down to 12, almost free if that floats your boat
it seems to work for me at anywhere between 1.5 to 2.4 attack speed, let me know how it goes 
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For this, another option is the passive that restores mana with condition of cold dmg vs vuln enemies; thats how im sustaining ice shards at least. Your spec is more mana heavy than mine, however, so it might not be enough to get after efficiently
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