Confusion about build w/ legendaries

[Novae 0]

I want to make sure I understand.  I now have both the eye of twisting nether ring and the proto-scale girdle.  Should I be running icefury or ascendance?  Ascendance I find it hard to maintain the buffs from all stats on the ring, but I worry that icefury is going to waste the benefit from the girdle. Help me understand.  I've read the guide here as well as a storm earth and lava, but I am still confused. 

[Tarazet 144]

This is what our guide says:

  Pristine Proto-Scale Girdle is the best legendary for the  Ascendance build. If this is one of your 2 legendaries you should talent  Ascendance, unless the second legendary is  Eye of the Twisting Nether. Second best overall for either build. 

If you have only the Girdle, you should use Ascendance. If you also have Eye, then you should use Icefury unless the encounter really calls for Ascendance (e.g. Skorpyron). It's not a perfect solution, but the extra damage from the Eye outscales the dot from Lava Burst, primarily because it "only" stacks 5 times.

[Novae 0]

Thank you for clearing that up!

[Novae 0]

OK let me add on to this. I now have my two piece tier set.  Does this change the answer?

[Tarazet 144]

The T19 set is very slightly better for Ascendance vs. Icefury. The 2 piece bonus is a minor boost; it improves your uptime on Elemental Focus slightly. You use Lightning Bolt more often with an Ascendance build, so you get slightly more value, but it does not make a large difference. In general, it is a DPS boost to use your shorter cooldowns (Icefury, Stormkeeper) with 2 stacks of Elemental Focus. But in practice, it is fairly straightforward to line them up after a Lava Burst, which will always critically strike as long as you have Flame Shock up, and therefore always triggers Elemental Focus. Then also watch the timers to make sure you refresh Flame Shock with an EF buff. Since you will have EF up more often with the T19 2-piece, it is something you can simply enjoy the benefits of without having to manage it too closely, since it makes your life easier.

That said, in Nighthold there are so many AoE fights that Lightning Rod is usually the right answer!

Edited January 24, 2017 by Tarazet

[Novae 0]

Ok thank you again.  I've not been in a position of not having crappy luck with gear drops so this is all new territory. Doing 2 million on adds in nighthold did not suck.