So i'm trying to get opinions on which would be the best route to go, life or CI. All the CoC cospris ice nova/frost bolt builds seem to be life. If I have an 800 es chest and other decent es gear, would it be viable to go CI? Or is life just better with this build because of the ascendancy/tree choice?

I played hc cospris ice nova this league @ 91, with the assassin ascendancy.

Around 7k hp and decent dps.

Then I switched to CI and got stuck at 5k so I stopped playing the character but I wanna regear him as life again.

If you want to play CI, play occultist, it's viable but gear is alot more expensive and crit is harder to manage. Would for instance need socketed gems have #% increased critical chance in chest, power charge on crit (you lose a dps gem in your 6l setup unless you have, assassins mark wont work so well vs bosses as you wont have power charges then).

All in all both are very viable it's up to you. Assassin is less investment. CI is probably better if you like to min max.

PCOC gives you more damage multiplier per charge. It's not a DPS lost if you're stacking high charges lol