Are there viable caster options for top tier pvp?

what setup can actually do good in a future tournament based on casting?

Feel free to theorycraft or come with hard evidence ;)

I'd say EK is the best build for a caster

EK is booring, im thinking moore like fireball, nova, ice spear, you know, REAL caster :)

Nobody?

Ethereal knifes is just better as it is really over powered (at least for pvp) gaining the awesome stuff from being physical: almost no damage reduction as armour sucks for large hits (compared to the 75% elemental resists the other spells has to deal with). And it totally ignores the downside of having to stack accuracy or picking resolute technique and losing crit as all other phys damage skills has.

That said you can still play fireball and freezing pulse because they are fun (I do) and you can still win most duels you are not fighting against max block (and even then you still have a small chance with gimmicky cheesy stuff like remote mine and trap stacks).
I would not recommend ice spear as anything other than a totem still though as you with self cast would have some problems with keeping the distance so that you can get the extra crit chance.
Would also only use arc and spark with totems as well as they are not strong enough to justify self cast for different reasons (sparks takes way to many casts before it starts dealing decent damage(it is more of and aoe skill in reality) and arc is low damage but decent with totem for chock stacking CI players).
Ice nova, shock nova should be avoided totally unless you really think they are fun losing against everyone with.


That is at least my view on it. I personally love fireball and think the long range is great fun. And I hope that GGG will look into pvp balance before the tournaments start so hopefully I can play the way I am now and wont have to respec and jump on the ek block tempest shield train (would probably quit before doing that)