That’s the reason, yes.
Health regen as a means of sustain works infinitely better if you have a large pool of health, because it is not mitigating the damage. So you need to be able to take those hits without dying at first and then let the regen bring you back.
Edited the Grimtool link in the OP as I tweaked the build a bit:
Gains:
A bit more DA
more crit bonus
2500 more health (Over 31k now)
600 more health regen per second (around 4800 now)
Slightly less armor but 100% absorb instead of 92% (So a net gain)
Much better resists overcaps
improved CC resists
Damage has improved
Losses:
Lost about 150 OA
Totem heal not as strong without the gloves bonus.
lost a bit of physical resist.
Less reliable damage reduction from attuned lodestone instead of gloves)
Overall, build is now better and sturdier. 
And also, you don’t need to go farm Dark one’s gloves anymore. (The Gollus rings are still a pain though)
Tweaked the build again and re-edited the grimtool link in the OP
Gains:
More total damage
More crit bonus
More health (33k now)
More health regen (around 4900 now)
More OA
Losses:
Totem is now just a “nice to have”
Nice build. Recommendations on leveling as a new player looking to try this eventually? Thank you.
I’d start out as Shaman and spec into devouring swarm and then grasping vine as I’m leveling up. It’s one of the most consistent skill in the game, and plays a bit similar.
You should also have a look at Nery’s beginner guide for conjurers
With respec, you can level this basically however you want. (I think I leveled this character around storm totem if I remember correctly)
I will look into it. So, just follow Nery’s Devo route then? Also, how do you allocate your passives? Again, thank you for the info and reply.
I have not really tried to come up with a devotion route for this build… only the end-game setup. So I have no idea how viable it would be to try to make this work as you’re leveling up.
But Nery’s guide is made for that.
So I would follow it as-is for now (Devotions, stats and skills), and respec to this once you have the gear and level for it.
[Just my 2 cents on leveling this kind of build…]
I started making this character a short while ago and went 16/16 Devouring Swarm as soon as possible and focused on getting up my Energy Regen. DS just murders everything without problem and you can grab Twin Fangs from the Bat Devotion to attach it to so you can leech back more Health.
Bloody Pox can really benefit from some items you can grab around level 35 (or earlier). There is the Boneblade to get in the Mountain Deeps before Homestead around level 20 and Bloodfeast’s Mark from Bloodfeast shortly afterwards in Tyrant’s Hold around level 35. Those two items should give BP some power and match nicely with DS.
Devotion path-wise I would probably grab Bat quick for the healing, then complete Huntress to get Rend for more Bleeding Damage and -RR%. After that, I would probably grab Heath Regen stuff. I wanted to make sure I was either using Bloody Pox (or at least Curse of Frailty) by the time I got Rend.
So roughly speaking, I would go:
That should be a very solid basis to build and move around from there (in my opinion).
Good luck! 
Thanks for the details on how to start this. Beats the outdated one that won’t get an update that i was looking at. Appreciate your time to reply! Now off to start!
Leveling with no cd primal strike is perfect for every shaman build imo. If its not your first character and you have all portals opened you can get medal for full conversion to vitality to primal strike and you will get 94 very quickly.