So, at 8/12 ranks of masterworking, would you rather have 2 crits on cooldown reduction or 1 crit on CDR and 1 crit on conjuration mastery?
Ideally I’d have 2 on CDR and 1 on CM, but try as I might that doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me.
I’ve wasted an inordinate amt of hours farming mats for trying to crit on CDR and CM at 4/12 and 8/12… and I’ve actually pulled it off twice! … however both times I freaking crit’d on CM again at 12/12, which as you know is useless, it doesn’t add any more ranks to CM. One needs to get either 1 crit to go up 1 rank, or 3 crits to go up 2 ranks.
Anyways, I’ve now double crit’d on CDR + non-phys damage.
Trying to decide if i stay on that or keep farming to keep pushing for 1 crit on CDR and 1 crit on CM.
What do we think? 
Every conjuration mastery rank (assuming you have GA on it) matters.
This is more important than the CDR.
If you do miss the conjuration mastery on the final masterwork, CDR is an okay consolation price.
Each rank is roughly a further 10%x DPS. 10-15% depending on how many stacks your attack speed permits.
Personally, I would just get to 12/12, accept whatever random outcome it is to get stronger to make farming faster as you accumlate mats. Then find a better winterglass and upgrade that one exactly as you want it.
The way I approach this is resetting 4/12 and 8/12, then living with the results on 12/12. 
I was lucky enough to score a crit on 12/12, and even with just +4 Conjuration Mastery, it makes a huge difference (mana, damage, move speed).
Having the double crit on CDR was nice it got me pass the 50% mark. However the information you shared about the DPS increase per CM rank is exactly what I figured i might not be factoring in and should be. I don’t have a GA on CM, but going from +2 to +3 with at least 1 crit was still very nice. (I dont hold illusions abt my chances to crit on it all 3 times to get it to +4)
Thanks for the suggestion on masterworking a 2nd FW ammy, that’s a good play. Appreciate it! GG
@Kell
Yep, generally I -always- just live with whatever 12/12 is too. However in this case, it sucked when 12/12 hit on CM for a 2nd time, which meant it was a wasted 25% crit since it wouldn’t go up another rank unless hit all 3 times. I wanted that 25% increase to something, whether it was CDR, non-phys, or vuln damage.
Congrats on the +4 CM ranks. I have noticed a difference with mana regen currently having only +2 vs +3 like before. :-/
Think im going to do what you and Adventurer suggested, keep pushing to crit CDR and CM at 4/12 and 8/12 and then just live with whatever 12/12 is (so long as its not CM again fml lol) - but i’ll do this with a 2nd ammy, i think i might even have one in my stash, hope i didnt break it down
Everything about Sorc class and the FO builds that are relying on Flameshield for defense is a big jigsaw puzzle.
For example, if you already have high rolls for Flameshield duration on Chest and Pants + GA Cooldown Reduction on Focus, then hitting the Cooldown reduction on the amulet isn’t as important.
For extra DPS, where else can you find it? Maybe critical strike chance on the focus. The only place you can increase the ceiling is ultimately going to be ranks of Conjuration Mastery.
Masterwork math for the ranks upgrade can be a bit annoying and opaque. They require exceeding breakpoints on the ranks instead of being able to round up. Which means a 25% jump mathematically against 1 vs 2 vs 3 as the starting point is a huge differential value. So in essence here, focus on masterworking the conjuration mastery only if you have a GA on the conjuration mastery. If you only have a regular 2/2 it’s not worth the masterwork in my opinion.
There’s another way, which is to just make sure you have more active conjurations.
A few tips:
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Manually cast IBs from the skill bar while you cast Frozen Orb. It’s spammy but works wonders and you get to 7/8 in no time.
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Invest in attack speed. More speed, faster Ice Blades, more cooldown. You can use Esu Ferocity, but also Vyr’s and get Rings and Gloves with GA attack speed (plus Int and Crit or VDamage %, so it trumps Starless and Tal Rasha)
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Use the Conjurer Glyph, it gives +20% duration. So, IBs go from 6s to 7.2s and Hydras from 10s to 12s, and thus accumulate more. I got mine on a 9th board.
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On high pits, enemies take a bit to die, so I s are always attacking. The Ice Blades enchant is really pointless here. It takes about 5s to spawn an IB, and in that time you spawned 20. Use something else as Enchant: firebolt, chain lightning