As the title says, this is yet another ranged Primal Strike character. It does have a bit of a unique twist, which we will get into shortly.
First part, reasons for going a ranged PS build vs a melee one.
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Target Piercing ranged weapon synergy is just stupid overpowered. That is all. You can easily do more DPS with ranged PS than melee PS with the exact same build, with the Melee PS even getting the full ulto set bonus with Ultos’s Stormseeker instead of the ranged PS weapon of choice, Vortex of Souls. This is because every target hit by ranged PS applies the AoE to EVERYTHING in range of the target hit. You can hit a single target multiple times, and it’s just so powerful. I also believe Torrent gets applied multiple times IF you have the bullet hit a target after the first Torrent finishes, but it’s really hard to tell. The build will work just fine without Piercing weapons, but the synergy is too valuable to pass up if you have access to it, even over using what should be the best ranged weapon, with +2 Shaman, the Raka’Jax.
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Ranged is just innately safer than melee. Fact. Melees have to build tankier to survive the threats of being melee, while ranged can afford to grab a bit more damage instead. Melees also have to deal with how they want to gapclose, which either means you have to give up your one weapon slot for Riftstone for Chaos strike, or you have to pick Soldier for Blitz or Nightblade for Shadow Strike. A melee build CAN work without a gap closer, but it hurts it a lot in viability, requiring you to bulk up even further to negate the loss of it, or stack even more speed.
Part 2. So, we know we want to go Ranged Primal Strike. What in the world should my second class be?
Ranged Primal Strike has 3 potential class combos, all of which work to some degree, with some faint variance in the exact focus of each combo, although IMO Demo grants the best synergy of all 3, and I’ll be providing the skill line as if you picked it. I’ll go into my reasons for all 3 classes though, and let you decide for yourself. Regardless of which you choose, the most important part is the Shaman skill line, because Ranged Primal Strike is a fairly cheap build, and regardless you should have enough points to do what you want.
Arcanist. Arcanist brings the energy cost of Primal Strike to virtually nothing. It also grants a ton of durability, and has the highest OA and crit damage potential of all 3 classes. Maiven’s Sphere of Protection is a very good safety net for a player with low access to a ton of resistances, and helps cover a bit of weaknesses early on, at the cost of a fair chunk of DPS. Probably the best class to pick if you have absolutely no gear to start with for a ranged Primal Strike character, but if this is your second character+, I really do recommend Demo instead. A lot of Arcanist gear can work as a backup for the ideal gear as well, which is again another plus for 1st characters.
Occultist. Occultist has the benefit of the easist, most reliable, access to resist shred, in Curse of Frailty and Vulnerability. It also provides you access to some innate AS. Occultist has low gear synergy with PS shaman though, and as such is just not a great combo other than the fact that CoF is just so good as to carry the entire Occultist mastery on it’s back. It also provides the lowest OA of all 3 combos, another weakness. About the only thing that holds Occultist up is some innate access to very high values of poison resistances, some physical resistance, and some Vitality resistance. Weakest of the 3 combos IMO, but does work because Primal Strike is just powerful enough to carry itself.
Demo. Demo provides the best benefits of all 3 combos for ranged Primal Strike. Flame Touched is just an insanely powerful OA and Lightning damage amplifier, Blast Shield is the #1 defensive skill in the game right now, with high levels of it providing 4 seconds of 1000+ damage absorption and 5%+ All resist amp, on top of 65%+ ranged dodge chance. Also gives you a metric ton of Fire, Pierce, and Lightning resist during the proc. Vindictive Flame grants you a fair chunk of total speed, giving you both AS and MS, both very nice stats, for a low point investment. Flash Bang is still an overpowered skill, even after it’s nerfs, with 12/12 giving you 50% confusion chance and 210+ DA shred, on a large area. The second modifier, a bit less important, also gives it fumble and an ok slow. Last skill is Thermite Mines. These little babies give you a 40% (at 9 points) resist shred of lightning resistance. They are also the strongest CC in the game. Path derpout, because enemies suck at moving around them, and I’ve literally trapped bosses behind them for entire fights, leaving them unable to do anything… Only significant weakness of Demo is you will have bad lategame energy cost unless you invest a fair chunk of effort into solving it.