This is not a build guide but sharing of an idea that made my Elementalist somewhat viable.
I got frustrated kiting with my Cyclone set Elementalist, despite the great RR synergy of Wind Devil and Thermite Mine they only worked 1/10 of the times I want them to. The winds move slow, the Thermite Mine has a casting delay, its aoe small and dot short. Trying to get enemies to stand on them while running for life made me wish I was playing Vindicator instead.
So the idea is not to kite but tank as long as possible, to make the winds and mines work together efficiently, it’s better to simply maintain a zone where enemies would step into and stay, and I need a more defensive build to do that.
Then I found the huge health regeneration boost to Vindictive Flame from the Conduit amulet, it’s potentially a synergy with Savagery’s regen buff. The devotion setup could easily be modified in favor of regen nodes, and I changed the gear and skills accordingly to squeeze out more regen.
Gears
Weapon, chest, glove: Barrelsmiths, Dawnshard, Cindertouch. Together with good rolls they achieved 100% fire to lightning conversion. This is carried over from the caster build, I’m not actually confident about the benefits of this conversion, but anyway.
Head, shoulder, medal, off-hand: Cyclone set.
Amulet: Conduit with Vindictive Flame mod.
Rings, belt: Judicator set and Ulzuin’s, for more regen and OA/DA.
Boots, pants: Stormtitan, green pants with Stonehide. Just to fix resists, no doubt there’s better choice with greens, I’m not familiar enough with rares to make BiS decision here.
Skills
I took out most offensive points and only kept the core of this build maxed, the RR nodes from Wind Devil and Thermite Mine.
Grenado has one point in each nodes, with the bonus from Barrelsmiths pistol it’s both an adequate AoE attack and good proc for Elemental Storm which eliminates the need to put points into BWC.
Wendigo Totem is additional heal source and important proc for Hand of Ultos, because I didn’t take Viper it is the only %RR source.
Vindictive Flame is obviously maxed for regen, in comparison Mogdrogen’s Pact gives very little flat regen per point it’s not worth putting points into.
If you take a closer look you’ll found most damage from attack skills are converted into lightning, i think it goes well with Stormcaller’s Pact and Savagery buff, but the most important damage wise is the RR stacking from well positioned winds and mines.
I left rest of the points unallocated, plenty of room for to customize from here, for defensive put points in Wendigo totem or Blast Shield, add Flashbang for DA debuff, for flat damage go Maelstrom and Hellfire. Stormcaller’s Pact can be dropped for Primal Bonds’s damage absorption.
Conclusion
Total health regeneration now is 1.9k, 2.4k with Savagery. When Giant’s Blood procs it reaches 3.6k and 4.6k. The play style is much more comfortable with the regen, tanking most mobs without problem, you just place the mines and let them move into this sweet spot of winds and mines, while keeping Savagery and Wendigo totem up.
There’s certainly a lot to be improved, OA is weak and there’s no proper CC resist, life leech with Savagery feels underwhelming. But right now I’m just happy to have found a way to make Thermite Mines work, like, 2/3 of the times.