Few questions about classes and builds

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

So i started this game yesterday and i have been trying to decide on my classes and build. I wanna make caster first and after looking through topics in these forums, i think making build that uses trozans sky shard and devastation looks to be the most fun. What i wanna ask though, is that which would support build based on those better, Shaman or Spellbreaker?

Also, i will probably move onto hardcore in the future so i want to already ask keeping that in mind. I will most likely use Arcanist as the main class because ive taken a liking to it but which second class would provide most HC viability in this case if you want to clear all difficulties and all enemies?

Also, are Battlemages really as bad as people seem to be saying?

Thank you for any answers.

2

There is a “all set and ready to go” item set at high level specifically design for Trozan’s sky shards. It expects you to be a druid (arcanist + shaman).
However, a spellbreaker is a fine choice too.

Battlemages are very strong. I am not sure where or why you heard they are bad. They are among the characters with the most survivability and have at least 3 viable playstyles (at first glance. There is probably more).