Ok I started deleveling light before getting any reply and trust me... WHY AND HOW could I overlook such a small thing like Guard of Ice? I know ONLY nukers USUSALLY use the Cold Force tree (it's kinda mandatory at that point). Anyhow, the difference went from being killed in 1 hit to forcing people to waste more MP than they have on hand. That makes people usually give up after the first 900 attempts to kill me, which is funny. PVE is even better, a mob that used to hit me for 300+ is reduced to taking away 32-109 HP per hit. I'm going WITH Guard of ICE and SNOW SHIELD. The MP drain isn't too terribly bad since I did put 5 STR & 5 INT on my Garments. Also note that I have 400MP Blues on my Hat. So far it looks like a stable build. IF and WHEN I max out. I'll post the screenshots and a few videos of PURE WIZNOOB Pwning. I know all you pure STR freaks out there absolutely DESPISE the wizards ability to 1 shot you before you even get the button press off to do your first attack. The only build you need to be especially precautious of is ANYTHING WITH WARLOCK! They will debuff you and proceed to stomping a mudhole in the side of your skull... while laughing hysterically and yelling 'naab' in your face. However, I have yet to encounter many warlocks on my server, so I'm pretty safe for now.
As far as lightning. I didn't see it's usefulness anymore. Grass walk is ok, and phantom is ok, but either way, you can't dodge attacks entirely. And the magic damage increase wasn't at all noticeable. So I got a wild hair in my behind to try Cold since I've only used cold on a nuker. Then again I was also contemplating using Force for division and all those other debuffs that the Force Mastery packs in there.
As far as using KD on higher levels, KD will always have a place somewhere in PVP / PVE. People aren't totally immune to it. Same applies with BLEED, STUN, and IMPOTENT. Which is the most awsome set of negative effects I've seen the CHN characters get. Especially if you get even 2 out of the 3 on the first hit! Then it goes from a minor chuckle to a psychotic laughter... then stick em with a KD and watch as the QQ starts.